200th birthday - Austria / II. Republic of Austria 2005 - 55 Euro Cent

The great narrator and poet of the Biedermeier period Albert (later Adalbert) Stifter was born on October 23, 1805 in Oberplan in southern Bohemia. He visited after the early accidental death of his father with the help of his grandfather, the high school of the Benedictine Abbey Kremsmünster and fell ill in 1825 to the smallpox. In 1826 he started law school in Vienna, but was also interested in art history, science and mathematics. He began to paint, but could not live on it, and wrote first poems under a pseudonym. The writings of Jean Paul influenced him. In 1830 he dropped out of law school. In the following years he unsuccessfully tried to find official apprenticeships and got involved as a private tutor, but he could not get his life under control, self-doubts plagued him. After a long, unfulfilled love for Fanny Greipl, he decided in 1836 to marry the milliner Amalie Mohaupt. He fought for a secure existence, but only after publications in magazines and almanacs did he make a big breakthrough in 1842. His work did not remain uncritical afterwards. His marriage was childless and therefore he adopted a niece of his wife, Juliane, as a child. Disappointed with the reality of politics after the revolution of 1848, he moved from Vienna to Upper Austria. In Linz he was editor of the "Linzer Zeitung" and at times the "Vienna Messenger". In 1850 he became provincial school inspector for elementary schools in Upper Austria. He tried to create the opportunity for an improved social future by raising the level of education and cooperated in the reestablishment of a junior high school. In 1855 he was appointed "real school councilor" with 1,800 gulden annual salary, but his "reading book for the promotion of human education" was rejected and the inspection of the secondary school was deprived him in 1856. In 1859, Stifter fell ill with an eye complaint, and his 18-year-old foster daughter left the house. Her body was found four weeks later floating in the Danube, she had put an end to her life. In the following years his health deteriorated despite spa stays more and more. His liver cirrhosis became hopeless. In the night of 25 to 26 January 1868 he injured himself with the razor on the neck. On January 28, 1868, Adalbert Stifter died.