Poetry seminar

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In the GDR, poetry seminars were writing seminars organized by the FDJ for young people aged 14 to 26. In addition to poetry seminars in various districts, there was the one-week central poetry seminar of the FDJ, which took place every summer from 1970 to 1989 in Schwerin . The participants - around 120 - were selected through a nationwide, subject and genre-free writing competition.

They were distributed according to literary genre ( poetry , prose , drama , songwriter ) to seminar groups led by experienced authors or literary scholars. The seminar paper focused on writing exercises and discussion of participant texts. There were also readings, films and lectures on literary theory, political or historical topics. The free exchange of experiences among the participants took up a large area.

A workshop newspaper (“Rote Feder”) was published during the seminar. A special edition of the poetry seminar was published annually in the poetry series Poesiealbum by the Neues Leben publishing house (10,000 copies), which was often the first opportunity for young authors to be published.

The poetry seminars were part of the GDR's cultural policy, which included broad support for folk art and the promotion of young talent. Since the work of the writer was understood as a political one, emphasis was placed on political education. However, the focus of the poetry seminars was on literary topics.

Rating

It is controversial whether the poetry seminars served the state to attract poets loyal to the state (and also to keep them under control) or really to promote literature. It can be assumed that the institution of poetry seminars reflected the ambivalence of the GDR state towards its artists. This was shown by the fact that at the poetry seminar on the one hand Gorbachev's reforms, ecological issues and the like could be discussed very openly, on the other hand the event was extremely penetrated by the MfS, especially by unofficial employees (IM).

There is no doubt, however, that informal structures of young writers were formed - regardless of the wishes of the state or the intentions of the Central Council of the FDJ - and they continued to exist beyond the week in Schwerin. For many, publication in the literary magazine Temperamente (published twice a year since 1976, later four times a year) or in the special issues of the Poesiealbum series meant the first official opportunity for publication in the GDR.

Publications about the central poetry seminars of the FDJ

  • Within the legendary GDR series Poesiealbum published by Neues Leben: Poesiealbum. Special issue Poetenseminar : 1971, 1972, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1970–1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989.
  • Within the GDR literary magazine Temperamente : constant between 1979 and 1989
  • Waltraud Böhm (Ed.): On horseback into the castle - 15 years of the FDJ's poet movement . Berlin 1986
  • Siegfried Reiprich : The dialogue that was prevented. My political de-registration; a documentation . Robert Havemann Society, Berlin 1996, p. 76
  • Matthias Biskupek : Posts in the summer meadow . Feature, MDR 1997
  • Axel Reitel : Young poets asked to learn - The central poetry seminars of the FDJ . Feature, DRB 2005 (BR2 2006, MDR 2008)
  • Axel Reitel: Pegasus, ganged up, "high up / low on the knees" . In: Journal of the SED-State Research Association No. 19/2006, pp. 61–70
  • Axel Reitel: The Poet Police. There must be control - the Schwerin FDJ seminars for young poets . In: Journal of the SED State Research Association, No. 22/2007
  • Axel Reitel: The central poetry seminars of the FDJ 1970–1979 . Working papers of the research association SED-Staat of the FU Berlin 42/2008. 100 pages, ISSN  0942-3931 .
  • Axel Reitel: Because writing cannot be forbidden. Young literature in the SED state. The example of Saxony, annex TU-Berlin 2016. 103 pages.
  • Udo Scheer : Vision and Reality. The opposition in Jena in the seventies and eighties . Chr. Links Verlag, Berlin 1999. pp. 44-46

See also

Participants in the poetry seminars of the Central Council of the FDJ (selection)

Seminar leader at the poetry seminars of the Central Council of the FDJ (selection)

Poetry seminars today

Poetry seminars were reissued after the fall of the Wall. Nowadays they are free from state leadership and are organized, for example, by associations.

Poetry seminar in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania

The Literaturhaus Rostock has been organizing a poetry seminar in the book hotel Groß Breesen every year since 2000 , in which young talents from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania are given the opportunity to exchange experiences and to perfect their literary skills under professional guidance.

The initiative for this project came from the literary scholar Wolfgang Gabler, who also acts as a seminar leader. In order to be able to participate in the events, the young authors (18–35 years of age) have to apply with submitted manuscripts. Subsequently, ten authors will be selected from these applications by Wolfgang Gabler and another supervisor who can take part in the seminars.

Web links

literature

  • Poetry album. Poetry seminars 1979–1983; Poems and a. by Kathrin Schmidt, Norbert Weiß, Michael Czollek, Johannes Jansen, Annett Gröschner; Bärbel Wolf; New Life, Berlin; 1984.
  • Poetenseminar Schwerin 1981: Poetry and prose by Alexander Ruika, Kathrin Schmidt, Iris-Gabriela Hirst, André Hiller, Reginald Schober, Gert Steinert, Meinhard Lüddemann, Annett Gröschner, Uwe Lummitsch, Dagmar Wolf, Andreas Kárpáti, Andreas Schmidt, Michael Czollek, Henry -Martin Klemt, Gudula Ziemer, Andreas Kriegenburg, Thomas Jaehn, Uwe Wiesner, Olaf Briese, Tobias Wellemeyer, Annette Cibulka. in: ndl 1/1982. Aufbau-Verlag Berlin 1982.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 'Between Persipan and Accountability Report' by Hanno Harnisch in Neues Deutschland on August 22, 2005, last accessed on May 19, 2019.
  2. ↑ Baldur Haase: Mielke versus Pegasus
  3. ↑ http://agiw.fak1.tu-berlin.de/Encyclopaedica/Pro_Ferch/Mitteilungen/Anlagen/Zum50.RB/a_reitel.pdf
  4. ↑ Founder of the GDR-wide movement of young people writing, seminar leader at the 1st poetry seminar (Schwerin 1970)