Journal Notes - New Prairie Press

GDR Bulletin
Volume 6
Issue 1 Winter
1980
Journal Notes
various authors
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Article 3
authors: Journal Notes
3 -
JOURNAL NOTES
Putsche Bücher, Bd. DC (1979) Nr.2
'his issue features interviews with two GDR
/riters presently l i v i n g i n the West: Hans
Ister's "Gespräch mit Thomas Brasch", pp. 8 5 )8, and "Gespräch mit Sarah Kirsch", conducted
)y Ester and Dick von Stekelenburg, pp. 100!13.
Zentral to the interview with Brasch, i n
addition to h i s remarks on c u l t u r a l p o l i t i c s i n
Hie GDR, are extended comments on Rotter, i n
<;hich he develops analogies to Georg Büchner's
'Joyzeck.
The interview with Kirsch likewise focuses on
ler relationship to the c u l t u r a l - p o l i t i c a l
scene i n the GDR and her move to the West. Of
particular interest are her comparison of the
3DR to " e i n strenges Elternhaus, das man gern
iiat, aber..." and her enthusiasm f o r Maxie
wander's Guten Morgen, du Schöne: "besser a l s
3as, was i c h einige Jahre früher gemacht habe."
Che interview concludes with some insights useful on her poetic method.
Both interviews include bibliographies of the
authors' published works.
P a t r i c i a Herminghouse
Washington University
St. Louis
^eue
Deutsche L i t e r a t u r , V o l . XXVII, Nr.
7-9.
L'he July 1979 issue of NDL begins with a novel
oy Armin Müller e n t i t l e d Der Magdalenenbaum.
Prose selections by Egon Richter and Kurt David
are followed by the poetry of Manfred Streubel,
J l r i c h Grasnik, Klaus Körner and others.
H inz Entner discusses some of the new works
i n the f i e l d of fantpstic l i t e r a t u r e i n a
section e n t i t l e d "Gut gemeint — gut gemacht?"
Entner i s not impressed with most of the
works, but applauds the attempt to pose unconventional questions.
"Stimmen aus der <5SSR" presents f i v e manus c r i p t s from Czech and Slovakian younger generation prose authors. Reviews of several
works, including Christa Wolf's Kein OrtNirgends, can be found i n the "Neue Werke"
section of the July issue.
Th* August issue of NDL i s e n t i t l e d Poetische
Realität and contains either poetry selections
or essays on poetry. Some of the poets r e Published by New Prairie Press, 1980
presented are Paul Wiens, Volker Braun, Uwe
Berger and Hans Brinkmann. Hanna Cibulka
follows h i s poetry s e l e c t i o n with "Notizen
über das Schreiben" i n which he discusses a
poet's feelings and i n t u i t i o n , and wonders
"...woher die Gedanken kommen, die man nieders c h r e i b t . . . " Helmut P r e i s s l e r contributes
on essay e n t i t l e d "Derlei hörte i c h gern"
about some of Brecht's poetry. Ursula Heukenkamp discusses the change of landscapes i n
GDR poetry i n her essay "Nichts b l e i b t natürl i c h . . . " She concludes that poems about nature
have changed t h e i r character, that nature no
longer represents the self-evident environment
of man or the mirror of man's-hopes, but
nature i t s e l f has become problematic. "Mit
der Erfahrung, daß die Landschaft im sozialen
Leben eine bestimmte, auf wirkliche Bedürfnisse
treffende Funktion hat, sieht s i c h Natur
anders an."
The omy prose s e l e c t i o n i n the August issue
i s a story by Joachim Nowotny c a l l e d "Weiberwirtschaft." Continued from the July issue i s
the section "Stimmen aus der CSSR" which thio
time presents poetry selections by 12 Czech
and Slovak poets.
Concluding the issue i s a lengthy "Neue Werke"
section, a two-page l i s t of new publications,
and a speech by Rainer Kerndl, "Die Verwirklichung menschlicher Ideale", which was del i v e r e d at a conference of authors from 20
countries of Europe and America. The purpose
of the conference was to discuss the responsib i l i t y of the author f o r the freedom and f u ture of the coming generation.
The September issue deals with E r i c h Weinert
and begins with h i s t r a n s l a t i o n and commentary
of Eugene Pottier's poem "Denn die Commune
war schon da." The next several pages are devoted to some of E r i c h Weinerts
:orrespondence
with Arnold Zweig.
A talk with Sergej Tulpanow, who was the d i rector of the d i v i s i o n of information of the
Soviet m i l i t a r y administration i n Germany
a f t e r the war, i s e n t i t l e d "Zeit des Neubeginns." The a r t i c l e i s about h i s duties
(which books to publish, etc.) i n the c u l t u r a l realm. Included are some documents and
photos from the period.
This issue also includes poetry by Walter
Werner, Helmut P r e i s s l e r , Wulf Kirsten, and
Reiner Putzger. Harald D o r a l l writes on the
l i f e and work of Eberhard Panitz.
1
GDR Bulletin,
- 4 Vol.
- 6 [1980], Iss. 1, Art. 3
^rose selections include an excerpt from a
forthcoming novel by Joochen Laabs e n t i t l e d
Der Ausbruch (sequel to h i s 1971 novel Das
Grashaus) about the d i s s o l u t i o n of a marriage,
and Rolf F l o s s ' "Mit Brüderchen Merkel auf
Montage" from a forthcoming book, Tanzstunden
Mines jungen Mannes. Following this selection
i s p conversation with Laabs about his book,
especially the characters, and about l i t e r a t u r e
i n general.
In the "Neue Werke" s e c t i o n , Jürgen Engler r e views several recent works of c r i t i c i s m of
GDR l i t e r a t u r e , and i n the "Umschau" section
G.E. Brjanski discusses GDR l i t e r a t u r e i n
Russian l i t e r a r y journals and magazines.
There are a number of l e t t e r s to E r i k Neutsch
on his work "Zwei leere Stühle" which was published i n the May 1979 issue of NDL.
Two other GDR authors are interviewed i n recenl
West German journals: Karl-Heinz Jakobs, whose
novel Wilhelmsburx was published by Claassen
i n 1979, i n die horen (summer 19?9) and Jürgen
Fuchs, whose c o l l e c t i o n o f poetry TaKesnotizen
appeared i n Rowohlt's series das neue buch,
i n Spuren, a s o c i a l i s t journal published i n
Cologne (October 1979). Spuren devotes much
of t h i s number to the theme "Der gespaltene
Horizont - Kulturzustände i n der DDR" and i n cludes a r t i c l e s on architecture by Gabriele
Schubert, on painting by Sieghard Pohl and
on Christa Wolf by Barbara Hahm.
Taken together the three interviews given by
writers belonging to three different generations provide a fascinating spectrum of
opinion i n the GDR;
Hsrmlin, the oldest of the three, viewing the
Judith H. Cox
country against the background of hie experienc<
Arlington, Texas
as a communist since the T h i r t i e s , concerned
at the lack of democratic t r a d i t i o n and
tolerance i n Germany and c r i t i c a l of those
who seek to avoid the awkward questions of youn
L 7 6 Demokratie und Sozialismus, Köln
people, but nonetheless committed to the GDR:
"Wo sind wir zuhause? Gespräch mit Stephan
"Ich h^be natürlich e i n bestimmtes HeimatgeHermlin", Freibeuter, 1 (1979), Berlin/West.
fühl i n der DDR, einfach deshalb, sie mag nun
s
e i n wie s i e w i l l , weil s i e die erste
Karl-Heinz Jakobs: "Ich kann die Lernfähigkeit
staatliche Verkörperung der deutschen Arbeiterdes Systems heute nicht mehr erkennen",
bewegung i s t . . . " .
r'ie hören, 2(1979), S.133-141.
Jakobs, expelled from the SED and the S c h r i f t "Ich versuche, lebendig zu leben. Gespräch mit
ctellerverband and consequently without a
Jürgen Fuchs", Spuren, 5 (1979), S.19-21.
publisher i n the GDR, s c e p t i c a l of the
relevance of s o c i a l i s t rea]ism, a term he i s
no
longer able to define, and unwilling to
In reviewing recent West German journals two
accept
that the system can be reformed ( the
major developments are to be recorded.
interview i s e n t i t l e d : "Ich kann die LernL 7 6 , i t s c i r c u l a t i o n down to 3200 and deprived
fähigkeit des Systems heute nicht mehr erof a publisher since the Europäische Verlagskennen"), describing h i s " P a r t e i l i c h k e i t " i n
Anstalt was sold o f f by the Deutscher Gewerkterms o f a committment to the people rather
schaftsbund, faces a serious c r i s i s now that
than to the system of the GDR!
Hoffmann und Campe have declined to take i t
And Fuchs, representative o f a 'ounger
c"er. In consequence Number 13, which was
generation, who lack the experience of Hermlin,
scheduled by C a r l Grützmacher on "Die Darmeasuring the system against the writings of
stellung der Frau im DDR-Roman", has not yet
K a r l Marx and Rosa Luxemburg and finding i t
appeared.
wanting, now l i v i n g i n West B e r l i n after his
Nothing daunted by the uncertain fate of L 7 6 ,
release from prison but r e s i s t i n g the term
Klaus Wagenbach launched his Freibeuter, a new
"dissident":" Ich bin Staatsfeind, Interc u l t u r a l and p o l i t i c a l quarterly, i n an e d i t i o n n a t i o n a l i s t - undeutsch, wenn es ums Strammof 21C00 copies i n time f o r the 1979 Frankfurt
stehen geht."
Book F a i r . In l i n e with the p o l i c y of the
Wagenbach Verlag,the journal i s to include conGeoffrey V. Davis
tributions by GDR authors. Represented i n the
University o f Aachen
f i r s t issue are Franz Fühmann, "Der Haufen.
Satire auf der S^tz S o r i t e s " , and Stephan
Hermlin, "Wo sind wir zuhause?", an interview
with Klaus Wagenbach on the occasion of the
publication of Hermlin's Abendlicht.
http://newprairiepress.org/gdr/vol6/iss1/3
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DOI: 10.4148/gdrb.v6i1.485
authors: Journal Notes
-^Weimarer Beiträge, V o l , XXV, Nr. 9 *nd Nr. 10
Recent issues of Weimarer Beiträge include
several a r t i c l e s of i n t e r e s t to scholars i n
the United States. In the August issue three
essays discuss problems of l i t e r a r y reception:
D i e t r i c h Sommer's short piece on the psychology of reading, Hans-Georg Werner's treatment
of reception and l i t e r a r y history and Gotthard
Lerchner's discussion of the relationship to
other c r i t i c a l approaches (including semiotics).
In addition the essay by Isolde D i e t r i c h and
D i e t r i c h Mühlberg on the c u l t u r a l history of
the workers' movement corresponds to a growing interest i n s o c i a l phenomena which are
not reduced to simple r e f l e c t i o n s of either
p o l i t i c a l or economic structures, i . e . not
K u l t u r p o l i t i k but culture as the sum of popular culture and everyday l i f e . This l a t t e r
aspect reappears i n Anneliese N e e f s report
on the social-democrats and the woman's question, a straight-forward pro-Bebel account
spiced up with a polemic against West German
r a d i c a l feminists' emphasizing sex more than
c l a s s . Horst Groschopp's review of the rep r i n t of Otto Rühle's c u l t u r a l history of the
p r o l e t a r i a t also contributes to discussion of
a broad concept of culture and the s o c i a l s i g nificance of s u b j e c t i v i t y . The piece i s i n teresting p a r t i c u l a r l y because of Ruble's
anti-bolshevist communism.
^
The September issue includes an enquete on
l i t e r a t u r e and art i n the GDR with a variety
of reminiscences. Klaus Kandier's review of
the anthology L i t e r a t u r k r i t i k der DDR
19^51975 (cd. Klaus Jarmatz, C h r i s t e l Berger,
Renate Drenkow) i s noteworthy, since he r e appraises the whole development of GDR
l i t e r a t u r e . He rejects monolinear s i m p l i f i cations, emphasizing instead the central h i s t o r i c a l ruptures from the standpoint of the
current antagonism between GDR c r i t i c s and
authors. His reviewing l i t e r a r y c r i t i c i s m permits him to characterize, a l b e i t vaguely, contemporary developments. For example, the r e turn to catharsis i n the so-called subjective
l i t e r a t u r e of the seventies i s related to a
theoretical distancing from Brecht's aesthetics.
Russell A. Berman
Stanford University
Sinn und Form. Beiträge zur L i t e r a t u r ,
published s i x times a year by the Deutsche
Akademie der Künste (Berlin/Ost). Nos. 2-4
(1979)
Heinz Plavius begins his interview with the
Soviet writer, Fjodor Abramow by posing a
question about the relationship between history
and the present. Abramow's somewhat less than
surprising answer that, " ... um die Gegenwart
zu verstehen und s i c h des Seins bewusst zu
werden, i n dem wir leben — muß man die Vergangenheit kennen.(4$5)", could e a s i l y be
taken as the l e i t m o t i f for the entire issue.
It i s certainly a thought which runs through
most of the contributions presented and i s , i n
fact, the idea which t i e s a l l them together
into a cohesive whole.
The issue i s , i n short, a nostalgic r e t r o spective, bringing into focus the role of
s o c i a l i s t authors i n an ever-changing world.
The opening selection sets the tone and gives
d i r e c t i o n to the rest of the issue; i t i s a
congratulatory l e t t e r from F i r s t Party
Secretary, E r i c h Honecker, to the editor of
Sinn und Form, Wilhelm Girnus, on the occasion
of the journal's — and the country's — 30th
anniversary. Honecker's l e t t e r b r i e f l y reviews
the often troubled times i n which both the
republic and the journal grew up.
The letter-form i t s e l f gives the issue an i n formal tone, which i s maintained throughout
by the remaining contributions, many of which
are themselves l e t t e r s .
There i s , for example, an open l e t t e r from Anns
Seghers to Christa Wolf on the occasion of
Wolf's 50th birthday; i n i t , Seghers
expresses her feelings about Wolf's Kindheitsmuster and,in p a r t i c u l a r , the significance
that t h i s novel had for the writers of her
generation. She then goes on to r e c a l l thoughts
she had had on the publication f Wolf's
e a r l i e r works, Der geteilte Hit e l and Nachdenken über Christa T..
Seghers ends her
l e t t e r with an a l l u s i o n to Wolf's most recent
work, Kein Ort,Nirgends, and the s i m i l a r i t y
i t shares with an e a r l i e r work of her own.
There are l e t t e r s from Alfred Kurella to his
wife, written between 1941-19^3, i n which
Kurella's hopes and fears, h i s joys and d i s appointements are evident. They are selections
from a soon-to-be-released edition of h i s war
l e t t e r s and are published the f i r s t time i n
this issue of Sinn und Form,
********
Published by New Prairie Press, 1980
3
GDR Bulletin,
- 6Vol.- 6 [1980], Iss. 1, Art. 3
P a r a l l e l l i n g Kurella's l e t t e r s are those of
Louis Fürnberg to Stephan Hermlin, Johannes R.
Becher, Christa Wolf, and Ludwig Renn among
others; they too are from a future edition of
his
l e t t e r s to be published by the Aufbau Verlag.
Also i n this issue are prose selections by the
Polish author, Henryk Worcell and by the West
B e r l i n writer Edgar Hilsenrath, poems by Jürgen
Rennert, an essay by Robert Weimann, which examines from an h i s t o r i c a l perspective the
relationship between art and i t s public i n a
s o c i a l i s t system, some personal thoughts on
Russian l i t e r a t u r e by Peter B i e l e , and Hartmut
Zenker's "Unterwegs mit G." which picks up the
l e i t m o t i f of the issue i n i t s opening sentence:
"Bin
i c h doch nur e i n Vorfahre von künftigen
anderen, im Leben wie auf der Reise...(308)".
The story w i l l be continued i n forthcoming
i s s u e s of the journal.
F i n a l l y the issue contains a l i t e r a r y t r i p t y c h
of s o r t s , made up of a dramatic dialogue by the
Greek writer Jannis Ritsos, a r e f l e c t i v e prose
p i e c e by Günter Kunert about Ritsos, and some
foilow-up correspondence between Kunert and
the
editors of Sinn und Form regarding t h i s
work, e n t i t l e d ^ntäus.
The t h i r d issue of 1979 opens with two poems by
Persian poets, whose revolutionary message i s
unmistakable. Through the publication of such
verses as, "Dies a l l e s schrieb i c h hier so
grob, so t i e f ergrimmt,/ damit der Schah sich's
doch v i e l l e i c h t zu Herzen nimmt (494)", the
editors have c l e a r l y voiced t h e i r s o l i d a r i t y
with the recent turn-of-events i n that troubled
land.
The most prominent authors included are U l r i c h
P l e n z d o r f , Günter Kunert and Rainer Kirsch.
If P l e n ^ d o r f ' s excerpt from his novel, Legende
vom
^his
Cn May 7 of t h i s year the Academy of Arts
met i n B e r l i n to discuss the topic, "Kunst
im Kampf gegen den Faschismus'.'. The fourth
issue of Sinn und Form presents a number of
selections dealing with this p e r i o d i c a l l y r e curring theme i n GDR l i t e r a t u r e .
Cther s i g n i f i c a n t contributions include an
exchange of l e t t e r s between Günter Kunert and
the
editor, Wilhelm Girnus, debating Kunert's
outspoken concern for environmental dangers
r e s u l t i n g from an unchecked use of science and
technology and from an over-zealous b e l i e f
in "prepress".
The s e r i a l i z a t i o n of Hartmut Zenker's novel,
Unterwegs mut G.. begun i n the second number
of the journal, i s continued here.
There i s an open l e t t e r from leading GDR
s o c i a l s c i e n t i s t Jürgen Kuczynski to Günter
de Bruyn regarding his recently-published _
Märkische Forschungen. In h i s l e t t e r , Kuczynsl
expresses a fondness for the book, mitigated
only by what he considers an ending unfair to
the
hero.
Following this l e t t e r , there i s a more
objective c r i t i q u e of the de Bruyn
work by
Karin Hirdina, who very a r t i c u l a t e l y discusses
what is, without a doubt, the dominant
s t y l i s t i c device i n the story: irony. F i n a l l y ,
F r i e d r i c h Dieckmann reviews one of the most
popular books to appear i n the past two years:
S i l v e s t e r mit Balzac by Wolfgang Kohlhaase.
Thomas Di Kapoli
Louisiana State University
at Baton Rouge
FSMCänB CONFERENCES
Glück ohne Ende, i s ^ny i n d i c a t i o n , then
l a t e s t work of h i s promises to be as
exciting as h i s "Werther". Kunert i s
represented by a lauditory essay about another
of the i s s u e ' s contributors, the 33-yearold
w r i t e r , Hans Löffler, whom Kunert
compares t o Robert Walser, Kafka^und K l e i s t !
It's
a great deal of praise f o r a young author,
whose only publication to date, Gedichte und
Geschichten, has just appeared. Kirsch i s
d i r e c t l y responsible f o r three of the issue's
selections: h i s translation of poems by the
Soviet poet, Sergej Jessenin, a caustic essay
by Eugen Ruge, taking Kirsch to task for what
he c o n s i d e r s loose, even feeble, approximations
of the o r i g i n a l , and Kirsch's unequivocal
response.
http://newprairiepress.org/gdr/vol6/iss1/3
DOI: 10.4148/gdrb.v6i1.485
CALL FOR PAPERS AT THF
IULA
The Midwest MLA i s s o l i c i t i n g papers for i t s
1980 meeting. The theme i s Post-War Literary
Trends i n the German Speech Area. Finished
papers should be mailed by A p r i l 15, 1980 to:
Marian Musgrave
Professor of English and
Director of Black World Studies
121-C Uphan H a l l
Miami University
Oxford, Ohio 4$056
4