J.F.W. Grosskopf

Johannes Friedrich Wilhelm (J.F.W.) Grosskopf (1885–1948) was a South African academic, journalist, critic, novelist, stage director and playwright.

Biography

Born Johannes Friedrich Wilhelm Grosskopf in Bloemfontein on 25 November 1885, as a member of a German missonary familywhere he matriculated at Grey College in 1900.

Started his tertiary education in 1902 at the Victoria-College in Stellenbosch, completing a BA in Modern Languages and an MA in 1906. His interest in drama arose from his study of German literature as part of his course, as well as a study he undertook of the English companies that toured Europe since the 1600. After teaching for one year at the Diocesan-College in Rondebosch, he obtained a Queen Victoria bursary to read Literature, Law and Economics at universities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and obtained a Dr. jur. Degree at the University of Leiden.

While in Vienna (during 1909 and 1910) is interest in drama was further stimulated by his exposure to performances at the Keiserliche Burghteater in Vienna and classes on drama offered by professor Alexander von Wellen Weil, who discussed the works of Henrik Ibsen as performance pieces, rather than as literary texts.

After completing his studies in Europe he returned to South Africa in April 1914, soon after to become involved in the Rebellion and was arrested and jailed from December 1914 to August 1915, but eventually fined and released.

On his release (with a fine) he became a journalist for the Afrikaans newspaper Ons Vaderland in Pretoria (and a correspondent for Die Burger) and in 1917 editor of Die Volksblad in Bloemfontein. In these years he also wrote book reviews and articles for Die Huisgenoot, Die Volksblad and Die Volkstem.

In 1920 he was appointed Professor of Political Studies at the University of Stellenbosch, a period when he a member of the influential Unie-debatsvereniging (a debating society, that also put on plays, some of which he directed). In 1935 he became Head of Economics in the Department of Agriculture. He contiued writing plays and occasional short stories, inter alia publishiung the collection of short stories called Ou Leeumelker en ander vertellings ("Old lion milker and other tales") in 1938)

In 1916 he married Franki Neethling of Pretoria, but she passed away during the great flu epidemic of 1918. In 1925 he met and married Cornelia Johanna Wagner, an actress who was a member of the cast of Grosskopf's production of D.F. Malherbe's play Koringboere.

He passed away in Pretoria on 3 July 1948.

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

Grosskopf is considered by many to be the key founder of the realist drama in Afrikaans because of his interest in the complexities of relationships and conflict between people.

Apart from writing some plays in Afrikaans, Grosskopf did a number of translations into Afrikaans from the German, French and Swedish. He also published short stories in Afrikaans and English in various publications, including The South African News, Ons Moedertaal and Die Huisgenoot. He was very interested in graphic art and in 1947 he published a book about the South African landscape artist (and occasional illustrator and set painter) J.H. Pierneef [1].

Translated the play Die Journalisten by German novelist and playwright Gustav Freytag [2] as Die Koerantskrywers ("The Journalists"), for the GUK Toneelvereniging in 1920.

He also directed plays for amateur groups, for example in the 1920s, while a professor at the University of Stellenbosch, he was a member of the Unie-debatsvereniging (debating society), for which he directed several Afrikaans productions, including Koringboere ("Wheat Farmers") by D.F. Malherbe.

In Pretoria he wrote newspaper reviews of the first productions by Ons Teatertjie Toneelgroep / Volksteater