Johannes Bobrowski

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Berlin memorial plaque on the house, Zimmerstrasse 80, in Berlin-Mitte

Johannes Bobrowski (born April 9, 1917 as Johannes Konrad Bernhard Bobrowski in Tilsit , † September 2, 1965 in Berlin ) was a German poet and narrator.

Life

Johannes Bobrowski came from an Evangelical-Baptist, national-conservative-oriented family; his father embarked on a career in the Reichsbahn administration. In 1925 the family moved to Rastenburg , in 1928 to Königsberg , where Johannes Bobrowski attended the humanistic city ​​high school Altstadt-Kneiphof . The annual summer holidays with relatives in the villages on the Memel between Rombinus and Jūra , which were shaped by the old mixed and immigrant culture of Prussian Lithuania , were influential for the later work . After graduating from high school in 1937, he had to do two years of compulsory military service in Königsberg, while his parents and younger sister moved to Berlin, where Bobrowski later wanted to study art history. Like the family, he joined the Confessing Church in 1935 . Bobrowski took part in the entire Second World War as a private in a communications regiment (attack on Poland in 1939, then northern France, invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941: Kaunas , Porchow, Novgorod , Ilmensee ). At the end of 1941 he was able to study art history in Berlin for a semester; He turned down NSDAP membership, which would have enabled him to study for a longer period. The first poems appeared in 1944 in the magazine Das Innere Reich . From 1945 to 1949 Bobrowski was a Soviet prisoner of war, u. a. in the Don region , where he worked in coal mining.

After his release from captivity, he lived in Berlin-Friedrichshagen until his death . He worked as an editor in East Berlin, initially for the old Berlin publishing house Lucie Groszer , a children's book publisher, and from 1959 as an editor for fiction for Union Verlag, which is owned by the East CDU . In 1955, Bobrowski's first poems since 1944 appeared in the magazine Sinn und Form , headed by Peter Huchel . Further publications in mostly West German magazines and anthologies followed, but efforts to publish their own volume of poetry were unsuccessful. It was not until 1961 that Bobrowski's first volume of poems, Sarmatik Zeit , appeared in the Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart , which was also published a little later in the GDR . Bobrowski's later publications - his second volume of poetry, Schattenland Ströme as well as his stories and novels - were published by publishers in the Federal Republic of Germany ( Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt , Verlag Klaus Wagenbach ) and in the GDR (Union Verlag). Bobrowski always saw himself as a German poet who refused to divide East and West German literature: “I am, according to my conviction, a German writer. Just like some of my friends in West Germany, West Berlin or France are German writers. "

From 1960 Bobrowski took part in the meetings of Group 47 , in October 1962 he received their prize, which made him known throughout Germany and internationally. One of the consequences of his increasing fame and the fact that Bobrowski moved unreservedly in both German states and literatures was that he was observed by the State Security in the last years of his life . In 1963 Bobrowski became a member of the German Writers' Association of the GDR, which he had avoided until then.

tomb

Bobrowski died on September 2, 1965 as a result of a ruptured appendix and was buried in the Christophorus cemetery in Berlin-Friedrichshagen . The grave in field E was designed by the artist Wieland Förster . Today it is an honorary grave of the State of Berlin . Bobrowski's literary estate is in the German Literature Archive in Marbach , his legacy library in the historical collections of the Central and State Library in Berlin . Original objects from Bobrowski's Berlin study can be seen in the Bobrowski permanent exhibition in Willkischken (Lithuania).

plant

The acquaintance with the Eastern European landscape, with German, Baltic and Slavic cultures as well as their languages ​​and myths flowed into Bobrowski's works. At various points he referred to the history of German and Eastern European peoples as his “general theme”: “Because I grew up around the Memel, where Poles, Lithuanians, Russians and Germans lived together, including Jewry. A long story of misfortune and indebtedness, since the days of the German Order , which my people account for. "

In his poetry, Johannes Bobrowski also addresses poet colleagues and other artists, whose life situation and work he deals with in the form of a dialogical self-assurance. The volume Schattenland Ströme contains an ode to Thomas Chatterton and the poems Brentano in Aschaffenburg , Hölderlin in Tübingen ("Tower / that it is habitable / like a day, the walls ...") and Gertrud Kolmar , Else Lasker-Schüler , An Nelly Sachs , Hamann or Mickiewicz . In the last volume, Wetterzeichen , compiled by Bobrowski himself, there are poems etc. a. on the poets Klopstock , Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz , Ludwig Hölty , the composers Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the visual artists Ernst Barlach , Alexej von Jawlensky and Alexander Calder .

Bobrowski's poems are characterized by an elementary natural imagery trained by Friedrich Hölderlin and Georg Trakl and a rhythmic-tonal suggestiveness of language derived from Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock's Odendichtung. They are mostly without rhymes and without a fixed meter. Thematically and thematically, the entire work is oriented towards the Central and Eastern European landscape between the Baltic Sea ( East Prussia ) and the Black Sea ( Sarmatia ), from which the personal and historical past is remembered and reassured through the awareness of the German crimes during the Second World War. One speaks from the basic experience of losing one's home, wandering, the stranger, which can only be overcome literarily, for the moment of dialogical speaking. Critical and admonishing remembrance of German guilt is in tension with mourning for the East Prussian childhood landscape lost as a result of the Second World War. Despite their great sensuality, the abstract pictures of the poems support Bobrowski's interest in paradigmatic statements. Authenticating specifics (names, quotations, idioms) do not hide the fact that he is always concerned with the exemplary: Bobrowski's poetics aim at the topicality of the past, at the transferability of social constellations and behavior. Historical-biographical allusions and intertextual references are numerous. Whether and how Bobrowski's claim to an aesthetically effective engagement can be reconciled with the darkness of the style is a much-discussed problem.

Shorter prose works and the two novels Levins Mühle have been produced since the early 1960s . 34 movements about my grandfather and Lithuanian pianos , which take up the themes and spellings of the poems. Traditional narrative methods are specifically combined with modern and experimental stylistic devices (e.g. the first two sentences for a German book , Boehlendorff ). Bobrowski himself locates his narration in an imaginary triangle between Hermann Sudermann , Robert Walser and Isaak Babel . Characteristic are frequent changes of the narrative perspective, flashbacks, the use of the inner monologue and the stream of consciousness as well as the ironic commentary or the breaking of the narrative illusion. These and other stylistic devices had a stimulating effect on later GDR literature .

Awards

Literary reception

Numerous authors refer to the person and work of Bobrowski in their texts, such as Christoph Meckel , Günter Grass ( dog years ), Hubert Fichte ( psyche ), Hans Magnus Enzensberger ( summer poem ), Christa Wolf ( childhood pattern ), Günter Bruno Fuchs ( a visit around 1957 ), Paul Celan ( hut window ), Franz Fühmann ( twenty-two days or half of life ), Kito Lorenc ( epitaph for Johannes Bobrowski ), Ingo Schulze ( My Century Book ), Gunther Tietz ( The Defense of Butterflies ), Judith Kuckart ( Lenas Liebe ), Kathrin Schmidt ( passages ), Durs Grünbein ( On the importance of words ).

Sarah Kirsch dedicated three poems to Bobrowski: Go under beautiful sun (dated September 2, 1965): Yesterday he blew the sea in front of him, swam full of art, whipped the water [...] our coast, encrusted with salt and empty, lost its dolphin . In Me in the sun of the month you died : I do the usual […] Fly hair from my comb, black hair, dead hair just flies between spider threads on me . In the poem A sloe in the mouth I come across the field (dated September 2, 1965): my head a bell rattles and makes a sad mouth mine with a sloe your sand already and pebble I over you under .

Herta Müller said in an interview in 1982: He creates images of language that I have not read anywhere else. It is a language that hurts when reading. I would be very curious how long Bobrowski worked on such a text, because every word with him goes so deep. And how he could live each of these words, because they are lived in everything they can say.

Kito Lorenc wrote in a letter from 1974 published in 2013 under the title Encounter with Johannes Bobrowski about the decisive influence that Bobrowski had on his poet biography: For me, the one personal encounter with JB was probably more of an accelerating catalyst in the complex process of his Work on my poetic development, as an indispensable ferment for this. First of all, the conversation with him confirmed me in general in my self-esteem as a Sorbian poet and in my first tentative efforts to open up the Sorbian legacy of poetry in German.

various

In 1962, Bobrowski jokingly founded a new group of Friedrichshagen poets , together with Manfred Bieler , who, according to the founding document, saw their task as “promoting beautiful literature and beautiful drinking” .

Bobrowski was a passionate music lover, played the clavichord and organ himself and sang in the choir of his congregation. The preoccupation with music and musicians also occupies a central position in many of Bobrowski's poems and texts. His favorite composers included u. a. Johann Sebastian Bach and Dieterich Buxtehude .

Hundreds of people from both the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR attended his funeral. a. also Ingeborg Bachmann and Uwe Johnson , who despite fleeing the GDR received an entry permit. Hans Werner Richter and Stephan Hermlin spoke at the grave .

In Vilnius (Lithuania) there is a plaque dedicated to Bobrowski on Literatų gatvė (literary street). These plaques are dedicated to literary people whose work is related to Lithuania.

In Berlin-Hellersdorf , Greifswald , Rostock and Willkischken (Lithuania) streets are named after Johannes Bobrowski. A public library in the Berlin district of Treptow-Köpenick bears his name.

From 1992 to 1998 the Johannes Bobrowski Medal was awarded with funds from the Prussian Sea Trade Foundation . The Johannes Bobrowski Society , founded in Berlin in 2000, is a recognized association with around 130 members in several countries.

Works

Single issues

  • Sarmatian time . Poems. Stuttgart (west edition), Berlin (east edition) 1961.
  • Shadowland currents . Poems. Stuttgart (west edition) 1962, Berlin (east edition) 1963.
  • Levin's Mill. 34 sentences about my grandfather . Novel. Berlin (east edition) 1964, Frankfurt a. M. (West edition) 1964. (TB ISBN 3-596-20956-0 )
  • Boehlendorff and Mäusefest . Stories. Berlin (east edition, total) 1965.
  • Boehlendorff and others . Stories. Stuttgart (West edition, 1st part) 1965.
  • Mouse festival and other stories . Berlin (West edition, 2nd part) 1965. (NA ISBN 3-8031-3116-2 )
  • Lithuanian pianos . Novel. Berlin (east edition) 1966, Berlin (west edition) 1967. (TB ISBN 3-379-01470-2 )
  • Weather sign . Poems. Berlin (east edition) 1966, Berlin (west edition) 1967. ISBN 3-8031-0019-4
  • The reminder . Stories and other prose from the estate. Berlin (east edition) 1967, Berlin (west edition) 1968.
  • In the wind bushes . Poems from the estate, selected and edited. by Eberhard Haufe . Berlin (east edition) 1970, Berlin (west edition) 1970.
  • Bernd Jentzsch (Ed.): Poetry album 52, poems, with graphics by Gerhard Altenbourg . Berlin (GDR) 1972.
  • Literary climate - completely new xenias, duplicated , with an afterword by Bernd Leistner and illustrations by Klaus Ensikat . Berlin (east edition) 1977, Stuttgart (west edition) 1978. ISBN 3-421-01849-9 .
  • Collected poems . With an afterword by Helmut Böttiger . DVA, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-421-04762-5 .

Work editions

  • Collected works in six volumes , ed. by Eberhard Haufe Union Verlag, Berlin (GDR) 1987 (only the first four volumes published).
  • Collected works in six volumes (new edition of the collected works at DVA Stuttgart with two commentary volumes ):
Vol. 1: The poems , ed. by Eberhard Haufe, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-421-06354-0 .
Vol. 2: Poems from the estate , ed. by Eberhard Haufe, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-421-06355-9 .
Vol. 3: The novels , ed. by Eberhard Haufe, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-421-06356-7 .
Vol. 4: The stories, mixed prose and personal accounts , ed. by Eberhard Haufe, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-421-06357-5 .
Vol. 5: Explanations of the poems and the poems from the estate , ed. by Eberhard Haufe, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-421-05166-6 .
Holger Gehle: Vol. 6: Explanations of the novels and stories, the mixed prose and the personal testimonies . Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-421-05173-9 .

Editions

  • Gustav Schwab : The most beautiful sagas of classical antiquity . Edited by Johannes Bobrowski. Altberliner Verlag, Berlin 1954.
  • Who sees me and Ilse in the grass. German poets of the 18th century on love and women , ed. and with an afterword by Johannes Bobrowski. Berlin 1964.
  • Hans Clauert's wondrous, adventurous and unheard-of stories, entertaining and very funny to read . Selected and retold by Johannes Bobrowski based on the book by Bartholomäus Krüger , Trebbin Town Clerk, with illustrations by Peter-Michael Glöckner. Berlin 1983.

Correspondence

  • Eberhard Haufe (ed.): Johannes Bobrowski - Peter Huchel. Correspondence. Marbach 1993, ISBN 3-933679-10-9 .
  • Peter Röske (Ed.): “As if it were painted for me” Johannes Bobrowski - Albert Ebert. Letters. Galerie der Berliner Graphikpresse, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-9803644-4-5 .
  • Jochen Meyer (Ed.): Johannes Bobrowski - Michael Hamburger : "Every poem is the last". Correspondence, with an afterword by Ingo Schulze . Marbach 2004, ISBN 3-937384-03-0 .
  • Johannes Bobrowski. Letters 1937–1965 . Edited and commented by Jochen Meyer. Mainz series. New series (edited by the Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz), 4 volumes, Wallstein, Göttingen 2017, ISBN 978-3-8353-0577-9 .

Sound carrier

  • Johannes Bobrowski reads poetry and prose , book with two records. Berlin 1966.
  • Johannes Bobrowski, neighborhood. Nine poems - three stories - two records , book with two interviews, biographical dates and bibliography. With speeches by Stephan Hermlin and Hans Werner Richter . Berlin 1967.
  • Johannes Bobrowski reads the stories The Mahner and The Dancer Malige , a book with an essay by Werner Bräunig and two single records. Berlin 1980.
  • Johannes Bobrowski: In the stream. Poems and prose read by the author . CD, Reading Ear series (Wagenbach) Berlin 2001. ISBN 3-8031-4051-X
  • Levins Mühle - 34 sentences about my grandfather , reading with Traugott Buhre , director: Rainer Schwarz , 400 min., Mp3-CD, MDR 2005 / Der Audio Verlag 2015, ISBN 978-3-86231-565-9
  • Bobrowski fragments. From Reiner Niehoff. Radio essay , first broadcast on SWR2, June 19, 2017.

Collection of German poems

  • Eberhard Haufe (Ed.): My favorite poems: a selection of German poetry from Martin Luther to Christoph Meckel; with 10 reproductions from the handwritten collection of Johannes Bobrowski , Berlin: Union-Verlag 1985. (German poems from a folder that Bobrowski had copied and collected, the title is by Haufe. Published on the 20th anniversary of his death)

literature

Complete bibliography (over 1000 entries):

For the introduction:

  • Gerhard Wolf : Description of a room - 15 chapters about Johannes Bobrowski. Berlin 1975, Stuttgart 1972 (several new editions).
  • Johannes Bobrowski. Trace of the voices. Text output with materials. Edited by Maria Behre, Andreas Degen, Christian Fabritz. (Schroedel) Braunschweig 2012, ISBN 978-3-507-47432-1 .

Further literature:

  • Johannes Bobrowski - testimonials and articles about his work . Union Verlag (VOB), Berlin 1967.
  • Gerhard Wolf : Johannes Bobrowski - life and work . Berlin 1967.
  • Curt Grützmacher : The work of Johannes Bobrowski. A bibliography. Fink Verlag, Munich 1974.
  • Gerhard Rostin (Hrsg.): Johannes Bobrowski - testimonials and new contributions about his work . Berlin 1975.
  • Gerhard Rostin (ed.): Ahornallee 26 or epitaph for Johannes Bobrowski . Stuttgart 1978. ISBN 3-421-01831-6
  • Bernd Leistner : Johannes Bobrowski - Studies and Interpretations . Berlin 1981.
  • Christoph Meckel: Memory of Johannes Bobrowski: with 3 vedouts by the author , Munich; Vienna: Hanser 1989, ISBN 978-3-446-13957-2 .
  • Eberhard Haufe: Bobrowski Chronicle. Data on life and work. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1994.
  • Peter Albert: The Germans and the European East - “Dealing with the Past” as a criticism of historicism in Johannes Bobrowski's narrative . Erlangen 1990. ISBN 3-7896-0184-5
  • Johannes Bobrowski or Landscape with People . Exhibition and catalog (Marbach catalogs 46). Reinhard Tgahrt in Zsarb. with Ute Doster. Marbach aN 1993. ISBN 3-928882-99-6
  • Dietmar Albrecht, Andreas Degen u. a. (Ed.): Unverschmerzt. Johannes Bobrowski - Life and Work . Munich 2004. ISBN 978-3-89975-511-4
  • Andreas Degen: Image memory. On the poetic function of sensory perception in Johannes Bobrowski's prose work . Berlin 2004. ISBN 978-3-503-07925-4
  • Hubert Faensen : Bobrowski as editor at Union Verlag . In: Text + criticism Heft 165, München 2005, S. 28–39.
  • Andreas Degen, Thomas Taterka (ed.): Time out of silence. Johannes Bobrowski. Life and work . Munich 2009. ISBN 978-3-89975-119-2
  • Sabine Egger: Dialogue with the stranger. Remembrance of the “European East” in the poetry of Johannes Bobrowski . Würzburg 2009. ISBN 978-3-8260-3952-2
  • Jürgen Joachimsthaler: Text margins. The cultural diversity of Central Europe as a problem of representation of German literature. 3 volumes. Winter, Heidelberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-8253-5919-5 (on Bobrowski Vol. 1, pp. 309-320; Vol. 2, pp. 85-145, 233-240; Vol. 3, pp. 224– 231 etc.).
  • Leonore Krenzlin , Andreas Kölling:  Bobrowski, Johannes . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  • Helmut Baldauf (ed.): Pictures of life Johannes Bobrowski. Texts - photos - memories . Berlin 2011. ISBN 978-3-86163-096-8
  • Kiumars Aresumand-Gilandehi: Johannes Bobrowski and Aḥmad Šāmlū - A comparison of characteristics of poetic engagement. Berlin 2017. ISBN 978-3-89930-115-1
  • Reiner Niehoff: Bobrowski Fragments . SWR2, radio essay , June 2017. ( manuscript )

Movies

Settings

Web links

Commons : Johannes Bobrowski  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Johannes Bobrowski  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johannes Bobrowski: With a clear view of the work. In: Holger Gehle: Explanations of the novels and stories, the mixed prose and the personal testimonies. Stuttgart 1999. p. 239.
  2. ↑ Johannes Bobrowski: From the author's house rights. An interview with the German broadcaster. In: ders .: The stories, mixed prose and personal accounts. Edited by Eberhard Haufe. Stuttgart 1999. p. 474.
  3. ↑ Johannes Bobrowski: Note for Hans Bender's anthology "Gegenpiel - Deutsche Lyrik seit 1945" from 1961 . In: ders .: The stories, mixed prose and personal accounts. Edited by Eberhard Haufe. Stuttgart 1999, p. 335.
  4. ^ Sarah Kirsch: Country residence . Ebenhausen 1969, pp. 54-56.
  5. ↑ Herta Müller: "And is the place where we live". Writing out of dissatisfaction. Conversation with the writer Herta Müller . The Week, Sibiu, No. 747 of April 9, 1982
  6. ↑ Kito Lorenc: In the filter of the poem. Essays, conversations, notes. Bautzen 2013, pp. 19-27.
  7. ↑ Literatų gatvės projektas. In: www.literatugatve.lt. Retrieved April 11, 2016 .
  8. ^ Johannes-Bobrowski-Strasse. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
personal data
SURNAME Bobrowski, Johannes
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bobrowski, Johannes Konrad Bernhard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lyric poet, narrator, rewrite and essayist
DATE OF BIRTH April 9, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Tilsit
DATE OF DEATH September 2, 1965
Place of death Berlin