Huppert, Hugo

Huppert, Hugo Image 1

Hugo Huppert © private

Hugo Huppert (1902–1982) was an Austrrian poet, translator and writer. Member of the Austrian Communist Party. After his dissertation in political science, he studied sociology in Paris and moved to Moscow in 1928 where he worked as an editor at the Marx-Engels-Institute until 1932. Personal friend and from 1936 onwards German translator of Vladimir Mayakovsky. Imprisoned in 1938, but from 1941 lecturer at the Maxim-Gorki-Institute for World Literature. From summer 1944 onwards Huppert was Ilya Ehrenburg's personal secretary and major in the Red Army. After the War he stayed in Vienna, but was ordered back to the Soviet Union and sent to internal exile in Tbilissi. From 1956 until his death he lived in Vienna.

He translated almost all works by Mayakovsky and even The Knight in the Panther's Skin by Shota Rustaveli. Huppert was honored with the Austrian title of a professor in 1969 and with different literary prizes of the German Democractic Republic.