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These lectures were delivered at the Department of Mathematics, University of Coimbra, Portugal, during the First European Intensive Course on ``Complex analysis and its generalizations, with applications to partial differential equations'' (March 1995). The author being a well-known researcher and specialist on these topics aims at implementing the concept of distributional solutions into complex analysis and surveying motivations and results, starting with classical results and exemplarily sketching the steps how to derive modern results. First, some background from calculus is recapitulated, e.g., Green's formula for differential operators of divergence type and its complex versions, fundamental solutions and their use in integral representations for solutions of partial differential equations. Next, the concept of solutions in the distributional sense is introduced, and the proof for Weyl's lemma is outlined for the Laplace equation. The preceding results are rewritten for the complex plane in complex notation, especially for the inhomogeneous complex Cauchy-Riemann equation \(\partial w/\partial\overline z= h\), and lead to the consideration of the integral operators \(T_D\) and \(\Pi_D\) occurring in I. N. Vekua's work on generalized analytic functions. The similarity principle then gives a relation to holomorphic functions and thus yields certain properties of generalized analytic functions, e.g., on their zeroes and singularities, and solutions to the Dirichlet problem. Furthermore, the case of several complex variables is considered: there is shown that special problems of holomorphic functions in several complex variables (e.g., Hartogs's extension theorem, Cousin's smoothing problem) can be reduced to the investigation of inhomogeneous Cauchy-Riemann systems. For the latters, explicit solutions are established in the case of special right-hand sides and in polycylindric domains. In a concluding chapter, two further topics are mentioned: an approach to Clifford analysis via Green's integral formula, and complex methods for higher-order partial differential equations via differential or integral transformations. This is a fascinating booklet. It is impressive by its motivations, and, because of its far-reaching selfcontainedness, the reader needs only few prerequisites. The author has reached his above-mentioned aims and, moreover, should have excited the reader's interest in further information on these topics.