Rajzel Zychlinski

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Rajzel Zychlinski (born July 27, 1910 in Gąbin as Rajzla Żychlińska ; † June 13, 2001 in Concord , California , USA ) was a Polish and especially Yiddish-speaking poet.

Life

Rajzel Zychlinski, who comes from a rabbi family, is considered one of the greatest poets in the Yiddish language. She began to write at the age of 12, first in Polish, then in Yiddish. At the age of 17 she wrote her first Yiddish poem and at the age of 18 she had her first publication in the Warsaw Folk Newspaper . She worked in an orphanage in Włocławek , then until 1939 in a Warsaw bank. When the German Wehrmacht invaded Poland, Rajzel Zychlinski fled to Soviet-occupied Lemberg and on to Kolomyja . There she married the psychiatrist Isaac Kanter († 1990). After the German invasion of the Soviet Union , she and her husband fled to the vicinity of Kazan in 1941 , where their son Marek was born in 1943. Her mother and her siblings who had stayed in Poland were murdered by the National Socialists in Kulmhof and Treblinka . This lifelong trauma, and the subsequent tremors of her century, are present in her poems - partly in silence or in symbolic suggestion.

In 1946 Rajzel Zychlinski returned to Poland with her family; however, they no longer found a home there. They lived in Paris from 1948 to 1951, after which they emigrated to the USA. In Brooklyn , Rajzel contributed to their common living as a worker in a tie factory. At the same time, she attended high school and took courses in biology , literature and social science . In 1997 she spent the last years of her life near her son in California.

Honors

  • 1937 Reuben Ludwig Award (presented by the Yiddish-American magazine Inzikh )
  • 1975 Itzik Manger Prize (highest award for Yiddish literature)

example

the clothes

the clothes in which you wear me -
sej wern kejnmol not old,
with ale kolirn fun regnbojgn
blien sej in majn bar.
doss lilac klejd ssojd mitn grin
a grinem grosikn ssod,
doss pink tuljet to gel
un di flowers blien baj sejer sojm.
opgerukt, basunder in a winkl fun majn bar,
di arbl farworfn iber di aksslen -
cholemt fun dir majn bloj klejd.

The clothes

The clothes you saw on me
never get old.
In all the colors of the rainbow
they bloom in my closet.
The purple dress whispers with the green one
a green grassy secret
the pink hugs the yellow
with flowers on the hem.
Pushed away in a cupboard corner
the sleeves over the shoulders,
my blue dress dreams of you

Works

First editions
  • lider ( poems ). Yiddish PEN Club, Warsaw 1936
  • the rain sings ( The rain sings ). Warsaw 1939
  • zu lojtere bregn ( To clear shores ). Łódź 1948
  • schwajgndike tirn ( silent doors ). New York 1962
  • harbsstike sskwern ( autumnal places ). New York 1969
  • di nowember-sun ( The November sun ). Poems and stories. Paris 1977
  • naje lider ( New Poems ). Tel Aviv 1993
German-language editions
  • Bird bread . Translated and edited. by Hubert Witt. Insel-Verlag, Leipzig 1981
  • God's blind eyes . Yiddish and German. Translated and edited. by Karina Kranhold. Oberbaum-Verlag, Berlin 1996 (bilingual)
  • die lider / Die Gedichte 1928–1991 . Yiddish and German. Translated and edited. by Hubert Witt. Two thousand and one, Frankfurt am Main 2002
English language edition
  • God Hid His Face. Selected Poems . Translated by Barnett Zumoff, Aaron Kramer, Marek Kanter [-Zychlinski] u. a. Introduction: Emanuel S. Goldsmith. Santa Rosa (California) 1997

literature

  • Karina von Tippelskirch: So forget the alphabet. The Yiddish poet Rajzel Zychlinski . Tectum Verlag, Marburg 2000. ISBN 978-3-8288-8141-9
Reviews
obituary

Settings

  • Damian Maria Rabe: 1. Cafe in Paris ; 2. nakhtike muzik ; 3. as well ; 4. vos he does do ; 5. men tantst do , 6. rilkes lid ; 7. who calls (translation: Marek Kanter); 8. volt ikh ; 9. khasene ; 10. s'iz shpet ; 11. a mayse ; 12. rain
  • Martin Quetsche & Christine von Bülow ( Schmarowotsnik ): lider (2010) Two voices, oboe / cor anglais , accordion
  • Antoine Beuger : Lieder (2007) for a singing voice and an accompanying voice
  • Wolfgang Schoor : And in us are the forests, not very distant (1985) song cycle for soprano, baritone and piano based on texts by Dagmar Hilarová , Miep Diekmann and Rajzel Zychlinski. WP 1985
  • Harald Winter: Di Lider Suite for voices, harp and guitar
1.  as is me cold 2.  alejn 3.  dajne schich 4.  di oreme 5.  wint 6.  gebojrn hot me wint 7.  in gortn 8.  is gewen 9.  majn feter hersch 10.  majn schochn 11.  mame 12.  ojf a wolkn 13.  ruik schloft majn child 14.  si sings in a schnej 15.  zu woss di zejchnss

Music production

  • Stella & Ma Piroschka : New Yiddish Chansons - Nakhtike Muzik (2011), Skip Records
    Stella Juergensen voc; Andreas Hecht> Ralf Boecker clar, acc, piano; guests: Paul Brody tr, Marc Kovnatsky v, Gregor Kilian p
  • Schmarowotsnik : Rajzel Zychlinski; lider (2010), A. Albrecht

Audio book

  • di lider - poems 1928–1991 . Speaker: Iris Berben . Random House Audio, Munich 2005

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Zychlinski, Rajzel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Żychlińska, Rajzla
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Yiddish poet
DATE OF BIRTH July 27, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Gąbin
DATE OF DEATH June 13, 2001
Place of death Concord , California, USA