Elisabeth Kaerrick

Elisabeth Kaerrick (born January 6, 1886 in Pernau , Livonia Gouvernement , Russian Empire , † June 25, 1966 in Munich ) was a translator from Russian. She became known for her translation of Dostoyevsky's works , published since 1906 , using the pseudonym EK Rahsin .

Life

"Less" Kaerrick, as she was known in her circle of friends, studied philosophy and literature in Dorpat . She then traveled for a long time through Europe, settling in Berlin in 1914 , living in Upper Bavaria in 1919 and in Munich from 1922.

At the beginning of the century, she and her sister Lucy (1877–1965) met the cultural historian Arthur Moeller van den Bruck on a trip to Paris , who was there to seek distraction from personal problems. He had discovered for himself the still largely unknown Dostoevsky, whose world of thought seemed to him an alternative to the decadent West. The sisters had already noticed Dostoevsky, as well as the works that were allowed to appear in Germany under the name Dostoevsky. This was possible because Russia had not acceded to the Bern Convention and anyone could market Russian works without having to observe any copyrights. Most popular novels were offered in abbreviated form so that they could be sold cheaply.

Dostoevsky translation

Moeller was able to convince the young publisher Reinhard Piper that it could be worthwhile to equate the author legally and financially with a German author and to publish his works in careful editions. Less Kaerrick was supposed to translate it (with little help from her sister, who became Moeller's second wife in 1908) and he would publish it with additional expert advice from the poet Dmitrij Mereschkowskij . The translations appeared from 1906; By 1919, Dostoyevsky's complete works were available in 22 volumes (plus eight additions from Dostoyevsky's estate, which were published by René Fülöp-Miller and Friedrich Eckstein between 1925 and 1931 and in whose translations Kaerrick was not involved). The translator only appeared under the pseudonym EK Rahsin .

Thanks to Kaerrick's art of language, the company was a great success and laid the foundation for Dostoevsky reception in the German-speaking area. Since Moeller van den Bruck smoothed out Kaerrick's translations, although he did not speak Russian, and since the essays introducing the individual works could no longer be printed after 1945, Kaerrick revised the translations between 1954 and 1963. On the basis of these revised translations, a ten-volume, revised, thin print was created, which was reprinted several times (1977, 1980 and 2004 as well as 2008 in paperback editions). In 1996 , on the occasion of his 100th birthday , the Piper-Verlag published an anniversary reprint of the original versions (without the essays by Moeller van den Bruck, but with the afterwords of individual literary scholars, which have been new since 1992) (this also as a license for two thousand and one). To this day, Kaerrick's translation is widespread and widely read, although more exact editions have now appeared.

Awards

In 1960 the renowned Johann Heinrich Voss Prize for Translation was awarded to Ms. Rahsin , who did not want to be given her real name on this occasion.

The pseudonym was only dissolved by the publisher after her death.

literature

• EK Rahsin: Epilogue to “ The Karamasoff Brothers ”, thin print edition, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft (WBG), Darmstadt 1964, pp. 1277–1286; then your comments on best. Concepts and translation decisions pp. 1287–1298
• Christoph Garstka: Arthur Moeller van den Bruck and the first German complete edition of Dostoyevsky's works by Piper-Verlag 1906-1919. An inventory of all preliminary remarks and introductions by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck and Dmitrij S. Mereschkowskij using unpublished letters from the translator EK Rahsin. With a detailed bibliography. Preface Horst-Jürgen Gerigk (Heidelberg publications on Slavic Studies - Volume 9), Peter Lang, Frankfurt 1998 ( publisher's advertisement)
• Galina Potapova: Dynamic Psychology of History. The culture-typological system by Less Kaerrick, in: Zeitschrift für Ideengeschichte , 3, 2009, pp. 95–112

Web links

• Elisabeth Kaerrick's biography in the Germersheim Translator Lexicon