Eduard Rudolf Müller, born in Zurich in 1953, studied art history and German literature at the University of Zurich and the Freie University of Berlin and completed his doctorate at the University of Potsdam on "Art and architecture in the lyrical work of Johannes Bobrowski".

Eduard Rudolf Müller was a monument conservator for the Canton of Uri for three decades, as well as a member of the Federal Swiss Commission for the Preservation of Monuments, the Federal Commission for the Protection of Nature and Cultural Heritage and President of ICOMOS Suisse.

He was a lecturer at the Bern University of Applied Sciences in Burgdorf, where he taught the "practical monument conservation" module in the postgraduate course in monument conservation. Since his retirement, Eduard Rudolf Müller has been researching the lyrical work of Johannes Bobrowski, in particular his poem "Report".

Born in Rheydt, Rhineland, in 1953, Gabriele Schrey-Vasara studied Romance philology, History and Finno-Ugric studies at the University of Göttingen 1972-1978.

She has been living in Helsinki since 1979. She worked as a librarian between 1987 and 2011, from 2011 to 2021 library director of the German Library Helsinki. Co-editor of the Jahrbuch für Finnisch-Deutsche Literaturbeziehungen.

Freelance translator from Finnish and Swedish to German since 1981. Finnish State Prize for Foreign Translators 2008.

Sigrid Damm, born in Gotha, Thuringia, lives as a freelance writer in Berlin and Mecklenburg. In 2010 she became honorary citizen of her home town Gotha, as the first woman.
The author is a member of the German P.E.N. and the Mainz Academy of Sciences and Literature.
She has received numerous awards for her work, including the Feuchtwanger, Mörike and Fontane Prizes. Her literary works focus mainly on the German classic writers of the 18th century; Goethe, Schiller, Herder, Wieland and Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz from Livland, among them Vögel, die verkünden Land of which we have included the first two chapters.
Gotthard Christian August Thieme was born 1780 in Allstedt, Thuringia. His father was a Deacon, and his mother was a descendant of the influential Wahl family. At the time, a member of the Wahl family emigrated to Wiborg, where the Wahls became one of the leading families.

August Thieme studied theology in Halle and Jena until 1802. He then followed his relative to Finland, where he was employed by the von Daehn family as a tutor on the estate of Sippola. In 1803 he accepted teaching post in the German-speaking Katharinenschule in St.Petersburg. Two years later he accepted a request to teach at the newly founded German-speaking grammar school in Wiborg and was also appointed as inspector of two subordinate school districts.

Thieme published poetry, drama and scholarly essays on Finland in the St. Petersburg journals Ruthenia, Wega and Nordisches Taschenbuch. His works include a Finnish grammar, the manuscript of which has been lost, and he discovered some Finnish folk poetry.

When Thieme’s mother became seriously unwell in 1811, the family returned to Allstedt, where Thieme took up the post of vicar after holding several local lower clerical posts. In the 1840s he started to publish poetry again: two volumes of his work were printed in 1848 and 1850, and a second edition was published in 1855.

During the revolution of 1848 he was politically active, presenting a moderate view. Thieme died in 1860 in Allstedt.

Johannes Roeßler / Robert Schweitzer
(Cf. Johannes Roeßler: „August Thieme: ein Stiller im Lande“ in: Robert Schweitzer (Hrsg.): August Thieme: Finnland, Helsinki: ²2019, S. 138-141 (Engl. p. 157-160).)

Ludwig Passarge, the child of a landowner, was born in 1825 in Wolittnick (district of Heiligenbeil) on the Frisches Haff. After studying law in Königsberg and in Heidelberg, he returned to his native East Prussia in 1856 in the course of his appointment as district judge of Heiligenbeil. In 1872 he became a councilor of the court of appeal in Insterburg and in 1879 a councilor of the higher regional court in Königsberg. In addition to his legal activities, he achieved great fame, not least as a writer.

While still a student, he wrote his first book, Aus dem Weichseldelta (From the Vistula Delta), which introduced readers to the unique landscape between Gdansk and Elblag. His own authentic reports of experiences and adventures always played an important role: In 1878, a year before his move from Insterburg to Königsberg, he published Aus baltischen Landen, a remarkable treatise on the Curonian Spit and its inhabitants. Passarge now traveled more and more frequently through other European regions and countries, for example to Sweden, Portugal and Spain, in order to write further reports on his experiences. 

In 1903, one of Passarge's most important cultural-historical works, Ein ostpreußisches Jugendleben, was published. Despite his strong ties to his homeland, Ludwig Passarge always remained a traveler, recording his impressions in books and articles. He once described himself as a "right vagabond" who led "an enviable and delicious life". In addition to East Prussia and Scandinavia, Passarge also traveled to the Balkans in the 1890s to collect materials for the first Baedeker travel guides. Passarge continued his travels into old age. In 1912 he died during a trip to the Odenwald. 

Passarge's part in communicating Scandinavian literature within the German-speaking world should not be forgotten. During his stays in Scandinavia, he became acquainted with the works of Henrik Ibsen and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, whose works he translated into German. Another of Passarge's lasting achievements was the new translation of the complete works of the Prussian-Lithuanian priest Kristijonas Donelaitis, which appeared in Halle in 1894 and contained, in addition to animal fables, the verse poem Metai (Die Jahreszeiten). Johannes Bobrowski based his novel Litauische Claviere (1966) on this translation by Ludwig Passarge.

Michael Braun, born in Hauenstein (Palatinate) in 1964, was a German literary critic. He died in Heidelberg in December 2022 at the age of 64.
Braun studied German literature and philosophy. He worked in radio, was a presenter at the Erlangen Poetenfest from 1994, and edited numerous anthologies of contemporary poetry. With his extensive critical work in almost all public media in the German-speaking world (such as the Neue Zürcher Zeitung or the Tagesspiegel), Michael Braun was considered one of the best connoisseurs of German-language poetry.
His literary criticism, which he pursued continuously for more than forty years, was characterized both by detailed contributions on individual authors and by critical monitoring of literary institutions, festivals, and fundamental global changes in the literary scene. In numerous interviews he opened up innovative approaches to contemporary poetry as well as to the interactions with other arts, such as painting.
In 2018 he received the Alfred-Kerr-prize for literary critic.