Indo-German Exchanges in Education: Rabindranath Tagore Meets Paul and Edith Geheeb

In 1930, when Rabindranath Tagore met Paul and Edith Geheeb in Germany, they formed a fruitful and long-term association resulting in the exchange of ideas and vision. Tagore's Brahmacharya Ashram, founded in 1901 in Shantiniketan, and the Geheeb's Odenwaldschule, established in Germany in 1910 (thereafter the Ecole d''Humanité in Switzerland, established in 1934 after the couple fled Nazi Germany), emerged from vastly different cultural backgrounds and social exigencies. Yet, they recognized striking similarities between their educational endeavours. The meeting also initiated a close association between India and Germany, with the Geheebs attracting many Indian intellectuals and Indophile Germans to their schools. This book explores the areas where the lives of the Geheebs and Tagore, and their respective circles, overlap. Rather than being a biography, a history, or a comprehensive description, this study is a comparison of Tagore and the Geheebs and their schools. Making use of the repository of unpublished correspondence available at the Ecole's archive, the author studies the Indo- German cultural exchanges in the early twentieth century that were initiated by these three educators and their pedagogical vision.

Martin Kämpchen, Researcher, Viswa Bharati University

Martin Kämpchen is a German religious scholar, author, translator and Journalist, dedicated to the German-Indian cultural exchange. He has a PhD in modern war literature and a second one in the comparative study of Ramakrishna and Francis of Assisi. His primary area of interest is the cultural dialogue between India and Germany in the twentieth century. He has translated conversations of Ramakrishna with his disciples and plays and poetry of Rabindranath Tagore from Bengali to German.