Friedrich Maximilian Klinger

Friedrich Maximilian Klinger (born in Frankfurt am Main in 1752, died in 1831) was a German dramatist and novelist associated with the Sturm und Drang movement of the late eighteenth century. He wrote in German, and his name is often linked with Goethe and Lenz, though his career took a different course: he ended up as a military officer and senior administrator in the Russian Empire. He matters as a figure who bridges the restless youth literature of his generation and the classicism that followed.

Born into a modest family, he lost his father as a child, and his mother earned a living washing laundry for well-off Frankfurt households. A scholarship took him to the gymnasium, where he tutored other pupils to help at home. With financial support from Goethe he was able to enrol at Giessen, though he barely studied law there.

His early drama reflects the hardships of his own youth, with intense passions and moral conflict. In 1776 he won a competition in Hamburg with the tragedy Die Zwillinge, and the same year he published the play Sturm und Drang, which gave the movement its name. He then spent two years as a writer for a travelling theatre company before joining the Austrian army in 1778.

In 1780 he moved to Saint Petersburg, rose through the Russian army, was ennobled, and took on educational posts, including leading a cadet corps and serving as curator of the University of Dorpat. In his Russian years he wrote mainly philosophical novels, calmer in tone than his youthful work. He died in Dorpat, now Tartu in Estonia.

He is remembered above all for giving the Sturm und Drang its name. His utopian novel Reisen vor der Sündflut is often seen as a forerunner of early German socialist ideas. His life, from modest beginnings to high imperial office, remains an unusual story among the writers of his age.