Friedrich Naumowitsch Gorenstein

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Friedrich Gorenstein (1994)

Friedrich Naumowitsch Gorenstein ( Russian Фридрих Наумович Горенштейн ; born March 18, 1932 in Kiev ; † March 2, 2002 in Berlin ) was a Russian writer and screenwriter . Throughout his life he dealt with the topics of Stalinism and anti-Semitism , as well as with the coexistence of Jews and Christians combined with philosophical and religious considerations.

Life

Gorenstein grew up as the son of Jewish intellectuals in an orphanage , later with relatives in the Caucasus and the Ukraine. His father, an economist, was the victim of the Stalinist " purges " by the GPU , the Soviet secret service, which took him to a gulag , where he was shot in 1935 while trying to escape. His mother, a teacher, died of tuberculosis in a hospital in Orenburg in 1943 .

After the Second World War , the son of an “enemy of the state” or “pest of the people” had to get by as a day laborer and unskilled worker before his parents were posthumously rehabilitated with the start of Khrushchev's de-Stalinization . Thereupon Gorenstein began studying at the Mining Institute in Dnepropetrovsk in the 1950s . He also wrote short stories, none of which - with the exception of Das Haus mit dem Türmchen 1964 - were published.

After moving to Moscow in 1962 to complete a scriptwriting course at the State Film School, Gorenstein specialized in scriptwriting - in the hope of being able to earn a living. Most of his adaptations were however subject to censorship; however, he managed to make some film adaptations, such as the 1972 science fiction film Solaris by Andrei Tarkowski . Gorenstein was also involved in the Uzbek film production The Seventh Ball .

In 1977 he published his works in foreign émigré publishers in order to circumvent the existing publication ban. This fact as well as the membership in the banned writers' association " Literary Almanach Metropol " around Vasily Aksjonow meant that he was in the focus of the Soviet authorities. Thanks to a grant from the DAAD , Gorenstein emigrated to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1979, where he worked as a freelance writer in Berlin until his death in 2002. He was married and had a son.

"Gorenstein was an opulent narrator ... a master of episodic storytelling ..."

- Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung : March 5, 2002

Works

  • The atonement. Darmstadt, Neuwied 1979.
  • The road to the beautiful dawn. Berlin, Weimar 1991.
  • Psalm. A contemplative novel about the four punishments of God. Berlin 1992.
  • Farewell to the Volga. , 2 stories, together with Wassilij Rosanow, Berlin 1992
  • Chok-Chok. A philosophical-erotic novel. Berlin 1993.
  • Scriabin. Poem of Ecstasy. Darmstadt, Berlin 1994.
  • Travel companions. Berlin 1995.
  • The seat. Berlin 1995.
  • Paint how the birds sing. Berlin 1996.
  • Champagne with bile. Berlin 1997.

Filmography

  • 1966: The first teacher (Первый учитель)
  • 1972: Нечаянные радости - unfinished
  • 1972: Solaris (Солярис)
  • 1974: The seventh bullet (Седьмая пуля)
  • 1976: slave of love (Раба любви)
  • 1978: Комедия ошибок (TV)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b literaturfestival.com
  2. ↑ a b reller-rezensions.de
  3. ↑ cf. his French Wikipedia biography

Web links


personal data
SURNAME Gorenstein, Friedrich Naumowitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gorenshtein, Fridrikh; Горенштейн, Фридрих Наумович
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian-German writer and screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH March 18, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Kiev
DATE OF DEATH March 2, 2002
Place of death Berlin