Ellen de Boor

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Ellen de Boor , b. Siebs , used von Unwerth (born July 4, 1891 in Greifswald as Ellen Anna Rigberta ; died March 19, 1976 in Lucerne ) was a German author and translator .

Life

The author and translator Ellen De Boor, born Ellen Anna Rigberta, was born in Breslau on July 4, 1891 , as the daughter of the medievalist Theodor Siebs . In Marburg she met Wolf August von Unwerth, who was studying with her father, and married him in 1913. She went with him to the university in Greifswald, where he founded the Nordic Institute, but soon died in 1919 as a result of the Spanish flu.

She then followed her father Theodor Siebs , who had meanwhile received a professorship in German studies in Breslau, and met her later second husband Helmut de Boor , who was also a medievalist. After the marriage in 1920 she went back with him to Greifswald, later to Gothenburg, again Greifswald, Leipzig, and finally in 1929 to Bern in Switzerland, where Helmut de Boor had meanwhile been given a professorship for German language and literature.

Although she had never attended regular school, had only been taught by parents and tutors, she was well trained in Latin and ancient Greek, and gradually began to learn all the Nordic languages ​​in order to then work as a translator with these languages.

After translating a "Romaunt" by Carl Jonas Love Almqvist, the great classic of Swedish romanticism, she turned to the Norwegian language and, thanks to her friendship with the Norwegian author Trygve Emanuel Gulbranssen, finally received permission, whose Björndal trilogy was first published To be able to translate German. The two volumes "Und ewigsingen die Wälder" and "Das Erbe von Björndal" quickly became the most successful books from Norway in Germany with over 3 million copies sold.

Ellen de Boor continued to live and work in the family home in Bern when her husband Helmut de Boor, who had become famous for his translation of the Nibelungenlied, helped found the Free University in Berlin, where he received a professorship in 1949 .

Ellen de Boor died in Lucerne in 1976, her husband in Berlin the same year.

reception

While the translations of the Gulbranssen novels are still printed and read in De Boor's translation, the translation "Queen's Jewelery" is controversial. The translator of the new version, Jürgen Liedtke, writes that the translation from 1927 "is a" smoothing out and shortening of the multilayered composition, whereby the character of a reading drama is lost and the dialogues are partially transformed into prose. Almqvist's book is far more radical, strict and playful at the same time. "

Translations

  • Carl Jonas Love Almqvist : The Queen's Jewelery . Fikentscher, Leipzig 1927
  • Trygve Emanuel Gulbranssen : And the forests sing forever . Langen Müller Verlag , Munich 1935
  • Trygve Emanuel Gulbranssen: Björndal's legacy . Langen Müller, Munich 1936
  • Barbra Ring : The game on Ladeby . Langen Müller, Munich 1940
  • Barbra Ring: Game comes to life . Federmann, Munich 1949
  • Barbra Ring: Young Women . Speer, Zurich 1946
  • Sally Salminen : Lars Laurila . Scherpe, Krefeld 1952
  • Sally Salminen: Prince Efflam . Insel, Wiesbaden 1954
  • Liv Nansen Høyer: My father Frijthof Nansen . Brockhaus, Wiesbaden 1957
  • Villy Sørensen : Tigers in the kitchen and other harmless stories . Insel, Wiesbaden 1959
  • William Heinesen : The good hope. People and Life, Berlin 1967
together with Helmut de Boor
  • Gunnar Gunnarsson :
    • Lone rider
    • Advent in the high mountains . Leipzig 1936
    • Vikivaki or the Golden Ladder . Leipzig 1934
    • Under the sign of Jords . Munich 1935
    • The burning stone
    • The golden present . Munich 1934

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Boor, Ellen de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Siebs, Ellen; Unworthy, Ellen von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German author and translator
DATE OF BIRTH 4th July 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Greifswald
DATE OF DEATH March 19, 1976
Place of death Lucerne