Alexander Nitzberg

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Alexander Nitzberg, 2010

Alexander Nitzberg (born September 29, 1969 in Moscow ) is a German author and translator .

life and work

Coming from a Russian family of artists (mother Ella Opalnaja was a reciter, father Abram Nitsberg a painter and sculptor, the older sister is a New York artist and designer), Nitzberg came to Vienna in 1980 and then to Germany and initially lived in Dortmund , where he was completed the Goethe-Gymnasium. In Dortmund Nitzberg studied piano privately with Matthias Blome, viola, composition and counterpoint with HJMA Derdack. In 1990 he began studying German and philosophy at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf.

From 1990 to 1995 he was married to the Russian violinist Veronika Jefremowa . In 1994 the daughter Xenia was born.

During his stay in Düsseldorf (1990–2010) Nitzberg devoted himself to literary activities: he published poems, essays and poetry translations from Russian and organized public readings and recitation evenings (often together with the poet, actor and magician Peter Sendtko, later also with Wolfgang Reinke and Ferdinand Scholz). Nitzberg and Sendtko signed the so-called Reliktische Manifest and then founded the Théatre akut , which specialized in scenic readings. There were numerous productions, including 1993 Against the beautiful killing (an evening of Russian futurism), 1996 the stage fantasy A dream, fluttered from your detention ... (based on the drama Faust by Nikolaus Lenau ), and 1997 the recitation In the third year before the year two thousand ... (based on poems by Alfred Mombert and Theodor Däubler ). The authors listed by the Théatre akut include Gottfried Benn , Alfred Lichtenstein , Rainer Maria Rilke , Walter Rheiner , Max Herrmann-Neiße , Marie-Madeleine , but also Russian ones such as Daniil Charms , Wladimir Majakowski , Igor Severjanin , Alexander Vertinski and many others.

Nitzberg's theoretical and practical knowledge of the art of performing is family-related: Benjamin Nitzberg, the paternal grandfather, was a director, dramaturge, actor and reciter and was one of the co-founders of the Habima Theater , which was founded in Moscow in 1917. Maria Trist, the maternal grandmother, was a trained spokesperson for the well-known Vasily Seryoshnikov School and appeared on Russian radio. The mother, Ella Opalnaja, is an actress and reciter. Her special focus was on the art of lecturing according to the principles of the very lively Russian school of declamation in the 1920s in the Dmitri Shuravlyov tradition. Her teachers at the Studio of Linguistic Art in Moscow included renowned speech artists such as Boris Morgunow and Tatjana Dewlischewa.

Through his mentor at the time, the American poet John Linthicum , Nitzberg got to know and befriended well-known German-speaking poets such as Peter Maiwald , Niklas Stiller and Heinz Czechowski in the 1990s . At the same time he maintained close contacts with important Russian poets, such as Gennadi Aigi (a childhood friend of Nitzberg's father), Genrich Sapgir , Igor Burichin , Jelena Schwarz and Evgenij Rejn . Characteristic of this phase was the intensive preoccupation with the Russian avant-garde and German expressionism. Nitzberg vigorously defended the aesthetics and spirit of traditional poetry, such as: B. in his public debate with fellow poet Hendrik Rost in the early 1990s or in his polemic against the burgeoning institution of the poetry slam . In essays on the theory and practice of poetry, Nitzberg represents a poetics that is owed to both the European avant-garde and the classical tradition and which requires both manual skills and linguistic artistry from the poet. Together with Saskia Fischer , Hendrik Rost, Arndt Stermann , Peter Sendtko , Wolfgang Reinke, Vera Henkel and Ferdinand Scholz (di Achim Raven), he formed the core of the so-called Düsseldorf School during this time .

In 1997, Peter Rühmkorf drew attention to Alexander Nitzberg in his essay Rühmen und am Pattenzaun der Marktorientieren (October 17, 1997, Die Zeit ), honoring him as a “traditionalist of classical modernism [...] even with the necessary fighting spirit that the contestable position challenges “and defended it against its critics. In 2002, on the recommendation of Rühmkorf, Nitzberg was awarded the Joachim Ringelnatz Prize . Nitzberg's view of recitation as a kind of language or skull magic also brought him closer to the German avant-garde Thomas Kling . Kling and Nitzberg recorded poems by the Russian futurists together in 1999 (CD steam-powered love establishment ).

In 1999 Nitzberg got his second marriage with Natalia Nitzberg (née Paltschastaja).

Nitzberg worked for the Grupello Verlag in Düsseldorf from 1996 to 2000 as a lecturer and editor of the lyric series Chamäleon . His special attention is directed to the lesser-known and forgotten poets of the Silver Age of Russian Modernism. The German-language authors he edited at Grupello include Heinz Czechowski and Franz Josef Czernin .

After John Linthicum withdrew from Düsseldorf's literary life in the late 1990s and returned to the USA, Nitzberg took over the management of the salon in the Schnabelewopski literary café in the Heinrich Heine birthplace for a few years . In his final years in Düsseldorf, he and Wolfgang Reinke conceived the series of poems Elfenbeinturm, which was carried out at various reading locations . Poets read poets and published the book and CD series Edition Schwarzes Quadrat at Onomato Verlag in Düsseldorf ( Andrea Heuser , Heinz Czechowski , Felix P. Ingold , Franz Josef Czernin , Benedikt Ledebur , Ralf Thenior , Ferdinand Scholz, Christian Röse).

From 1999 Nitzberg worked closely with the Düsseldorf-based Austrian poet Francisco Tanzer and was his private secretary until his death in 2003. The opera libretto Die Befreiung , set to music by the Viennese composer Herbert Lauermann , was created in cooperation with Tanzer (first performance: Ulm 2001).

In addition to his publishing and performative activities, Nitzberg also worked for years as a poetry, translation and recitation teacher (including lecturing at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, at the Hildesheim Literature Institute and at the annual summer academy for young literary talents organized by the Unna Literature Office . Later in Vienna at the Institute for Linguistic Art at the University of Applied Arts .) He formulated his pedagogical and aesthetic principles in the textbook Lyrik Baukasten. How to make a poem (Dumont, 2006). The poetic training propagated by him is explicitly understood as a counter-concept to the inflationary and playful-therapeutic approach of creative writing in the German-speaking area . For Nitzberg, art always means a connection to tradition. In his theoretical writings, he therefore increasingly draws on the poetics of the Middle Ages and the Baroque.

Since the 1990s, Nitzberg has also increasingly translated works for the theater (including all of the dramas by Anton Chekhov and Daniil Charms), which have since been performed regularly on German-speaking stages, for example, directed by Hansgünther Heyme , Jan Bosse , Sebastian Hartmann , Andreas Kriegenburg , Alvis Hermanis , Thomas Schulte-Michels , Amélie Niermeyer and many others. In addition to well-known dramas, such as the auditor by Nikolai Gogol , there are also rare, sometimes obscure dramas such as The Ship of the Mother of God (1923) by Anna Radlowa , Phokiphon (1924) by Sergei Neldichen or Die Menschenfeindin (1848) by Evdokija Rostopchina. Thanks to his preoccupation with the art of performing, Nitzberg's dramatic translations live from a certain linguistic plasticity and rely increasingly on sound, rhythm and gestures.

In 2010 Nitzberg moved with his family to Vienna, where he has lived as a freelance writer, translator, publicist, librettist and reciter ever since. In Vienna he participates in the conception of the hour of literary enlightenment series in the literary quarter Alte Schmiede and appears regularly with readings and recitation evenings. In 2019 he was awarded the Austrian State Prize for Literary Translation for his work.

Since 2010 Nitzberg has been editor and co-translator of the German Daniil Charms Edition at Galiani Verlag Berlin. In his afterwords and public appearances, he protects charms from political instrumentalization as well as from museum and academic appropriation and advocates a deeper understanding of the poet: He does not want to see him as a nihilistic absurdist, but rather a mystic and metaphysical linguist (comparable for example with Hugo Ball , who has dealt with the corpus of the Christian Platonist Dionysius Areopagita ). In his essays, Nitzberg leads a persistent polemic with the translator Peter Urban , who has shaped the politically motivated reception of Charms in German-speaking countries for decades (see review: Loaded in pants. Some remarks on the translations by Peter Urban, February / March 2007 , Full text ). Nitzberg underscores his own Charms recitations (like the poet himself once) with magic tricks, whereby the magic should be understood as an invocation and a foretaste of the miracle hidden in the word .

From 2012, Nitzberg increasingly emerged as a translator of Russian art prose, in particular the works of Michail Bulgakow , Boris Savinkow and Fyodor Dostoyevsky . At the latest with the publication of his widely acclaimed translations of Bulgakov's novels Meister und Margarita and Das Hundische Herz , he became known to a broad reading public and repeatedly stimulated the debate about the new translation of classics.

In his understanding of art, Nitzberg repeatedly refers to the acmeist Nikolaj Gumiljow , the philosophy of the pre-Socratics , Plato , the Neoplatonists and the representatives of so-called traditionalism, such as René Guenon , Titus Burckhardt , Martin Lings and Frithjof Schuon .

Awards

Own works

  • Dried ears . Poems. 1996.
  • In the beginning was my word . New poems. 1998.
  • "So what!" said Zarathustra . 2000.
  • Poetry kit. How to make a poem . 2006.
  • Color piano . Poems. 2012.

Translations (selection)

Contributions

Others

Web links

Commons : Alexander Nitzberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographical information on emigration to Germany (in: Report issue 1/2009, p. 47). (PDF) The Arts and Civil Society Program of Erste Group, accessed June 30, 2014 .
  2. ↑ Biographical information on A. Nitzberg's website. Nitzberg.de, accessed on September 18, 2010 .
  3. ↑ Internet presence of the sister who lives in the USA. Julianitsberg.org, accessed September 18, 2010 .
  4. ^ Exhibition Xenia Nitzberg. Vernissage . In: Perinetkeller - IODE . July 27, 2017 ( perinetkeller.at [accessed July 29, 2018]).
  5. ↑ Peter Sendtko. In: grupello.de. Retrieved July 29, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Review: Fiction: Irrfahrt through Sankt Peterswürg . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed July 29, 2018]).
  7. ^ Odeon Theater: Conversation with Yevgeny Reyn. Retrieved July 29, 2018 .
  8. ↑ Alexander Nitzberg | Are poems built like houses? | poet shop. Retrieved July 29, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Tobias Eilers: Robert Gernhardt: Theory and Poetry. Successful comic literature in its social and media context . Waxmann Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-8309-7556-4 ( google.at [accessed on July 29, 2018]).
  10. ↑ Alexander Nitzberg, Thomas Kling: Steam-powered Liebesanstalt: Poems of Russian Futurism . 1999 ( ugent.be [accessed July 29, 2018]).
  11. ^ Willicher Kunstverein, Wolfgang Reinke. Retrieved July 29, 2018 .
  12. ↑ edition black square. Retrieved July 29, 2018 .
  13. ^ State capital Düsseldorf: Francisco Tanzer - State capital Düsseldorf. Retrieved July 29, 2018 .
  14. ↑ Them. Proseminar: B1-4-3 Practice of literary writing. Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, accessed on July 29, 2018 .
  15. ↑ Alexander Nitzberg: Poetry for all: Mnemosyne and Mnemotechnik. A Viennese Poetics: Viennese Ernst Jandl Lectures on Poetics . Haymon Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-7099-7688-3 ( google.at [accessed on July 29, 2018]).
  16. ↑ I'm too old . In: Philipp Bobrowski . May 26, 2009 ( wordpress.com [accessed July 29, 2018]).
  17. ↑ Teachers and staff. In: dieangewandte.at. Retrieved July 29, 2018 .
  18. ↑ Alexander Nitzberg: Poetry for all: Mnemosyne and Mnemotechnik. A Viennese Poetics: Viennese Ernst Jandl Lectures on Poetics . Haymon Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-7099-7688-3 ( google.at [accessed on July 29, 2018]).
  19. ^ Translator AZ - Drei Masken Verlag. Retrieved July 29, 2018 .
  20. ↑ rowohlt-Theaterverlag :: Charms, Daniil. Retrieved July 29, 2018 .
  21. ↑ News - Drei Masken Verlag. Retrieved July 29, 2018 .
  22. ↑ Alexander Nitzberg: Poetry for all: Mnemosyne and Mnemotechnik. A Viennese Poetics: Viennese Ernst Jandl Lectures on Poetics . Haymon Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-7099-7688-3 ( google.at [accessed on July 29, 2018]).
  23. ↑ https://volksgruppen.orf.at/slovenci/mektiven/stories/3025469/
  24. ↑ On the sense and nonsense of the absurd . In: factory newspaper . March 5, 2015 ( fabrikzeitung.ch [accessed July 29, 2018]).
  25. ^ Lutz Herrschaft: The monk with the carnival revolver . In: Der Tagesspiegel Online . February 20, 2011, ISSN  1865-2263 ( tagesspiegel.de [accessed July 29, 2018]).
  26. ↑ Lecture art: A few words on the poetics of Daniil Charms. December 3, 2010, accessed July 29, 2018 .
  27. ↑ Alexander Nitzberg in: Kulturamt Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf
  28. ↑ Literature Prize: Read Russia recognizes German translation
  29. ↑ Alexander Nitzberg and Štefan Vevar receive the Austrian State Prize for Literary Translation 2019. December 10, 2019, accessed on December 10, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Nitzberg, Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German author
DATE OF BIRTH 29th September 1969
PLACE OF BIRTH Moscow