A trip to Klagenfurt

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A trip to Klagenfurt is a short story by Uwe Johnson that was published by Suhrkamp in Frankfurt am Main in 1974. The working title of this lament for the dead is said to have been " Ingeborg Bachmann , Klagenfurt -Rom". Ingeborg Bachmann loved her Rome and was buried in Klagenfurt.

shape

In four chapters, Uwe Johnson sets out in Klagenfurt on the four-day meticulous and sarcastic search for the origin of Ingeborg Bachmann. In a collage, 18 alphabetically arranged Bachmann quotes and 44 numbered statements from third parties (from newspaper articles etc.) as well as letters to Ingeborg Bachmann are incorporated into the text and partially repeated. Repetition emerges as the dominant stylistic element. For example, the names of Klagenfurt dignitaries appear, such as Hans Ausserwinkler from the SPÖ. , again and again and finally express something like appropriation of a woman from Klagenfurt who was little loved during her lifetime. The meaningful function of the interspersed Bachmann quotes in the third chapter clearly jumps into the reader's eye. A sequence of three or even four words is torn out of a quotation already known to the reader and used as an occasion for Johnson's exploration tour through Klagenfurt. Johnson does not write down his Klagenfurt experiences in the first person, but appeals to the reader. Instead of “I have” it says “You have”.

Content and interpretation

Klagenfurt, Monday, October 29, 1973

Four days after the poet's funeral, Johnson arrives in Klagenfurt and goes to Klagenfurt-Annabichl to the municipal cemetery . In field XXV, class I, row 3, he finds the grave under number 16. The first irony in the text is based on a quote from Bachmann that classifies the hometown as a hard-to-bear place that is not worth returning home. And yet the dead poet found her final resting place in Klagenfurt.

Klagenfurt

Johnson mentioned October 30, 1973 once in the chapter and incorporated Bachmann quotes in abundance. Bachmann himself is not mentioned in the chapter. Only in two places is there talk of an anonymous little girl. On closer reading and comparison with the first chapter, however, there are references to Ingeborg Bachmann; for example her old grammar school, which since 1938 has been called “State High School for Girls” in the German Reich . The second chapter is entirely dedicated to the “Anschluss” of Austria and the Carinthians' enthusiasm for Hitler on the occasion of a “Führer visit ”.

Johnson describes the jubilation at the above-mentioned Hitler visit on April 5, 1938, the raging of the SS among the Slovenes , the deportation of 150 Austrians to the Dachau concentration camp , the Allied air raids up to 1945, the accounting of the Yugoslav partisans in May 1945 and the British occupation of Klagenfurt until 1956. The sarcasms are also present in the second chapter.

Rome

First, an anecdote is given about the best. Ingeborg Bachmann wakes Romans from their sleep with the clatter of the typewriter at night. The police summoned are surprised. How can a young woman make such a huge noise because of such "little poems" written in barbarian language! After this little story, Johnson inserts one of his letters to Ingeborg Bachmann - the one dated July 30, 1970. This shows that Johnson and his wife had stayed across from one of the addressee's Roman apartments. Johnson, on the penultimate day of his stay in Klagenfurt, made mental leaps between Rome and Klagenfurt. He mockingly remembers a Klagenfurt baby who emigrated from Austria in 1938, when he grew up: Robert Musil . Johnson perseveres in one plan: everything is ranted and talked about; only not about Ingeborg Bachmann. Nevertheless, the expensive dead woman is present; for example with the escalating topic of burial of prominent heretici outside of Roman Catholic cemeteries. A Weimar refugee Goethe is tried, who is said to have been present when a Protestant was buried extra muros near Rome. The list of heretics buried in Italy or near Rome is expanded to include the Protestant Platen and a favorite quote from Ingeborg Bachmann

Whoever looked at beauty with eyes
Has already given up on death

mentioned. Humboldt's efforts to have the graves of his sons near Rome dignified are discussed. As I said - Bachmann is present in this lament for the dead. In one of the quotations, the reader's mental eye sees the poet standing in the Protestant cemetery in Rome.

Thursday November 1st 1973

On the day of departure - fitting for All Saints' Day - Johnson picks up an article from a Klagenfurt daily newspaper on the subject of cremation , fitting like a fist in the eye . An obituary, like this one, is always indiscreet - according to a quotation from Bachmann at the beginning of the text. Johnson writes bravely throughout the text against this statement that paralyzes the typist. In the rather brief final chapter he deviates in the usual manner on secondary matters; chats about his return flight to Germany.

Self-testimony

Uwe Johnson in the penultimate year of his life: "This book was the only thing I could do about him [the death of Ingeborg Bachmann]."

reception

  • In 1974, Böll suspected a symbolism. Johnson wanted to investigate the question: Was Ingeborg Bachmann expelled from the Carinthian homeland in 1938? Regarding National Socialism from 1938 to 1945 in Klagenfurt, Böll makes it very clear: Instead of the name of this city, the name of some other cities with German-speaking residents could also be used. Like Böll, Grambow affirms the small text; apostrophizes it as "moving" and formed by "intense reflection".
  • According to Michaelis, Johnson depicts Ingeborg Bachmann's life between the two poles of Klagenfurt and Rome. Hanuschek assigns this biography to non-fictional prose.
  • Johnson sees Ingeborg Bachmann as a lonely woman who was unable to heal the emotional wound of her childhood, struck by the Nazis in Klagenfurt, in her beloved Rome.
  • Neumann refers to the meeting of the West Berlin Academy of the Arts on November 4, 1973 mentioned at the beginning of the text and draws attention to a mistake Johnson made in his commemorative speech. Ingeborg Bachmann did not translate Freud into Italian. Neumann illuminates text backgrounds. Johnson and Ingeborg Bachmann became acquainted with each other on October 23, 1959 at a meeting of Group 47 on the Elmau . They only became friends in Rome in the summer of 1962, while Johnson was staying at the Villa Massimo on a scholarship . Johnson weaves four of his letters to Ingeborg Bachmann into the text. Ingeborg Bachmann opened the correspondence on January 1, 1961. "In the Establishment of Butterflies - Twenty-One Portraits from Group 47" (1986), Hans Werner Richter described the two as "society's outsiders". Grambov reproduces this fact less harshly. After that, Richter spoke of two “border crossers”, of “people who lived on the limit of consciousness of their existence”.

literature

Text output

First publication and edition used
  • A trip to Klagenfurt. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1974 (Suhrkamp Taschenbuch 235), ISBN 978-3-518-36735-3
Editions in foreign languages
  • A trip to Klagenfurt: in the footsteps of Ingeborg Bachmann. Translation from the German by Damion Searls . Northwestern University Press, Evanston (Illinois) 2004
  • Une visite à Klagenfurt . Actes Sud , Arles 1990 (1st ed.)

Secondary literature

  • Rolf Michaelis : Lament for the Dead. A picture of life in quotations. Uwe Johnson about Ingeborg Bachmann . Pp. 255–256 (from: “ Die Zeit ” of September 6, 1974) in: Rainer Gerlach (ed.), Matthias Richter (ed.): Uwe Johnson . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1984 (Suhrkamp Taschenbuch 2061), ISBN 3-518-38561-5
  • Heinrich Böll : Forensics. About Uwe Johnson, “A trip to Klagenfurt” . Pp. 257-259 (from: " Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung " of November 23, 1974) in: ibid
  • Sven Hanuschek: Uwe Johnson . Morgenbuch Verlag, Berlin 1994 (1st edition, Heads of the 20th Century, Vol. 124), ISBN 3-371-00391-4
  • Bernd Neumann: Uwe Johnson. European Publishing House, Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-434-50051-0
  • Wolfgang Braune-Steininger: Parameters of the external image in Uwe Johnson's "A journey to Klagenfurt" . P. 333–339 in Carsten Gansel (Ed.), Nicolai Riedel (Ed.): Uwe Johnson between pre-modern and post-modern. de Gruyter, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-11-014671-1
  • Jürgen Grambow : Uwe Johnson . Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1997 (2000 edition), ISBN 3-499-50445-6

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edition used, p. 4, below
  2. ^ Neumann, p. 688, 11. Zvu
  3. ^ Neumann, p. 684, 5. Zvu and edition used, p. 61, 13. Zvo
  4. ↑ see also Michaelis, p. 255, 16. Zvu
  5. ↑ Edition used, pp. 107–109. See also Braune-Steininger, p. 334, middle
  6. ↑ Edition used, pp. 75 and 76, p. 81, 4. Zvo, p. 82, p. 85
  7. ↑ Edition used, p. 15, 9. Zvo
  8. ↑ Edition used, p. 49, 5th Zvu
  9. ↑ Edition used, p. 36, 7th Zvu
  10. ↑ Edition used, p. 57, 6. Zvo
  11. ↑ Edition used, p. 87, 3. Zvo
  12. ↑ for example used edition, p. 48, 12. Zvu
  13. ↑ Edition used, p. 63, 1. Zvo
  14. ↑ Edition used, p. 108, note 26
  15. ↑ Edition used, p. 66, 3. Zvo
  16. ↑ Edition used, p. 83, 9. Zvu
  17. ^ Platen: Tristan
  18. ↑ from an interview, quoted in Grambow, p. 119, 7th Zvu
  19. ↑ Böll, p. 258, 9. Zvo
  20. ↑ Grambow, p. 119, 10. Zvu
  21. ↑ Michaelis, p. 256, 9. Zvu
  22. ↑ Hanuschek, p. 7, 13. Zvu
  23. ↑ Braune-Steininger, p. 338, below
  24. ↑ Neumann, pp 679-695
  25. ↑ Edition used, p. 7, 8. Zvu
  26. ^ Neumann, p. 680, 15. Zvu and p. 681, 7. Zvo
  27. ^ Neumann, p. 684, 12. Zvo and p. 684, 2. Zvu
  28. ^ Neumann, p. 681, below
  29. ↑ Edition used, p. 108, Notes Nos. 24 and 26 to 28.
  30. ^ Neumann, p. 682, 7. Zvo
  31. ^ Hans Werner Richter, quoted in Neumann, p. 684, 18. Zvo
  32. ↑ Hans Werner Richter, quoted in Grambow, p. 119, 5. Zvo