Jiří Weil

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Jiří Weil

Jiří Weil (born August 6, 1900 in Praskolesy near Horovice , † December 13, 1959 in Prague ) was a Czech writer, literary critic, journalist and translator.

Life

After graduating from high school in 1919, he studied Slavic philology and comparative literature at Charles University in Prague. He completed his studies in 1928 with a doctoral thesis on Gogol and the English novel of the 18th century . During his studies he worked as a translator for the press department of the Soviet representation in Prague until 1931.

Weil, a staunch communist, was a member of several avant-garde groups such as Devětsil and lived in the Soviet Union from 1933 to 1935. In 1937 he was closed because of his novel Moscow The Border (1937), which appeared in the same year and in which he was critical of Soviet, Stalinist reality and the like. a. of political terror around 1935, left the party. He went to Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan for half a year. At the end of 1935 he returned to his homeland and devoted himself to journalism. When he was threatened with deportation as a Jew , he went underground from 1942 to 1945.

From 1946 to 1949 he worked as editor of the European Literary Club before he went in 1950 for eight years as a research assistant at the Jewish Museum in Prague . In 1951 he was excluded from the syndicate of Czech writers . In 1956 he was able to rejoin the association. The greater part of his works appeared later.

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Weil published in numerous magazines and newspapers, including Literární noviny and Rudé právo .

His work was groundbreaking for modern prose . He was an important translator of Russian literature , especially of the works of the writers Vladimir Mayakovsky , Nikolai Assejew , Boris Pasternak , Maxim Gorky , Mikhail Soschtschenko and Nadezhda Krupskaya .

In his 1947 documentary novel Memories of Julius Fučík (Vzpomínky na Julia Fučíka), the main character is an unjustly accused communist. He does not take advantage of the opportunity to flee, but instead confesses to acts in the interests of the party that he has not committed and accepts the punishment. This work was one of the harshest criticisms of Stalinism in its time. Non-communists were particularly disturbed by Weil's earlier membership of the communist party . This book was severely criticized by all Czech Stalinists at the time.

Life with the Star ( Život s hvězdou ), published in 1949, is a novel with an autobiographical background, in which several years of the occupation are described from the perspective of the Prague Jew Josef Roubíček. The everyday life of Roubíček, who lives isolated and withdrawn in his empty apartment, is described in a naive, sometimes laconic tone. His constant companion is Růžena, Roubíček's married lover, who had wanted to flee with him, but Roubíček hadn't decided to do so. He doesn't know what has become of her; his conversations with her are monologues. One day a stray cat settles down with him. Roubíček calls him Thomas and takes care of him. While the harassment increases in everyday life and more and more people from Roubíček's environment have to go to the circus or be sent to the fortress city, as the narrator calls the concentration camp and Theresienstadt, the relationship with the hangover is the only thing left in his life besides the conversations with Růžena makes sense. Even the acquaintance of a worker who invites him over and gives him courage is hardly able to release him from his isolation. After Roubíček's name is not read out for inexplicable reasons for the big evacuation, he gets a job as a gardener in a cemetery, just waiting for them , as the Germans are only called, to get him after all. Only after hearing the story of a Jew who was hiding in a village in the cemetery does he think about opposing the Germans himself. The death of the cat Thomas, shot by an occupier, leads to Roubíček, after long doubts about the correctness of this act, deciding to accept the worker's offer to hide him with friends. He burns his last documents intended to erase the name Josef Roubíček. The last words of the novel, like the first, are addressed to his lost beloved:

"'Yes, Růžena', I said," Now you can rely on me. "

- Life with the Star, p. 334

The publication of the book resulted in a seven year publication ban for Weil.

Works (in German)

  • Übers. Bettina Kaibach: Six tigers in Basel. Stories. Selected by Urs Heftrich, Nachw. Bettina Kaibach, commentary by Michael Špirit. Libelle, Lengwil 2008
  • with Alena Wagnerová : The Strasbourg Cathedral : What is a Czech doing in Alsace ? Photos František Zvardoň, Karlheinz Köhler. Nachw. Marie Janů. Gollenstein, Merzig 2000 ISBN 978-3-938823-25-5
  • Übers. Gustav Just : Living with the star. Series: Czech Library . Hanser, Munich 1973 (also Volk und Welt , Berlin); again with Nachw. Urs Heftrich, Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 2000; Wagenbach again, Berlin 2020 (original 1949)
  • Translator Bettina Kaibach: Elegy for 77,297 victims . Hartung-Gorre, Konstanz 1999
  • Mendelssohn on the roof . 1995. A novel about anti-Semitism
  • Moscow, the border . Structure, Weimar 1992
  • Exile in the Soviet Union . European Ideas, Berlin 1976 (Issue 14–15)

See also

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Web links

Individual evidence

  1. this edition also contains elegy for 77,297 victims in the trans. Kaibach