Ralf Schröder

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Ralf Schröder (born November 4, 1927 in Berlin ; † April 15, 2001 there ) was a Slavic literary scholar and editor for Soviet literature in the GDR .

Life

In the last years of the war, a flak helper and finally a soldier in the Wehrmacht , Schröder deserted in 1945 at the age of seventeen. After the end of the war he graduated from high school and studied history and Slavic philology at the Humboldt University in Berlin until 1949 . He then attended a one-year "special course for young academics in Slavic Studies" to quickly qualify for academic teaching, set up due to the lack of Slavic teaching staff in the GDR. From 1951 to 1953 Schröder taught at the University of Greifswald , and in the following four years at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig, Russian and Soviet literature. His dissertation from March 1957 dealt with Maxim Gorky's novel Foma Gordejew .

In September 1957 he was arrested, expelled from the SED and sentenced in December 1958 to ten years in prison as a ringleader of a "party and subversive group" for "treason". At a meeting of Slavic literary scholars in Leipzig in March 1959, Ralf Schröder's dissertation was condemned as a “revision of the theory of socialist realism”. In the trial against the so-called “Schröder Lucht Group”, the linguist Harro Lucht , the writer Erich Loest and the Slavist Ronald Lötzsch received prison sentences; a second process was directed u. a. against the Romanist Winfried Schröder , the Slavist's brother, and the translator Charlotte Kossuth, who also had to go to prison. The court proceedings were in connection with a wave of repression by the GDR leadership after the Hungarian uprising and the change in Polish leadership to Gomułka . This wave of repression had already led to similar judgments in March 1957 against the director and chief editor of the Aufbau Verlag , Walter Janka and Wolfgang Harich (“ Gruppe Harich ”). Ralf Schröder served six years in Bautzen II , in 1964 he was released as part of a general amnesty . However, he was denied a return to scientific activity.

At the beginning of 1966 he succeeded in finding a job as a lecturer for Soviet literature at the East Berlin publishing house Volk und Welt . There he acted as the editor of a number of works of Soviet literature, some of which were viewed extremely critically by the GDR cultural policy. He edited a. a. numerous novels by Mikhail Bulgakov and was responsible for a 14-volume edition of works by Ilja Ehrenburg , which also included his memoir Menschen Jahre Leben . These had already appeared in the Federal Republic from 1962 to 1965, but remained unpublished in the GDR until 1978 due to cultural and political concerns. Schröder was also able to push through the German-language publication of politically controversial works of Soviet literature as an editor, for example by Tschingis Aitmatow ( The White Steamer ), Yuri Trifonow and Wladimir Tendryakov . Schröder regularly wrote afterwords to the edited volumes, which attracted a great deal of attention because they - albeit cautiously - questioned the link between literature and socialist realism . At the same time he reported from 1974 to 1989 as " IM Karl" on fellow campaigners in the publishing house to the Ministry for State Security , as it turned out after the fall of the Wall.

Schröder ended his work for Volk & Welt in 1988. But he wrote afterwords for works by Mikhail Bulgakov and Vladimir Tendryakov as a freelance author and editor until 1991, and from 1992 to 1996 he edited a 13-volume complete edition of Bulgakov.

In 2011 his memories that remained fragmented appeared under the title Incessant Beginning. Harbingers of a novel edited by his son Michael Leetz.

Publications

  • The young Gorky. Central Association of the Society for German-Soviet Friendship, Literature Section. Berlin 1954.
  • The novel " Foma Gordeev " - A stage in Gorky's development towards socialist realism. A contribution to the interpretation of the emergence of socialist realism in Gorky's early work. Phil. Diss. Leipzig 1957.
  • Gorky's renewal of the fist tradition. Fist models in the Russian historical-philosophical novel. New contributions to literary studies, Volume 33. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1971.
  • From profit to me to profit from the world. Current discussion of Soviet literature. Reclam, Leipzig 1977.
  • Novel of soul, novel of history. On the aesthetic self-discovery of Tynjanow , Ehrenburg, Bulgakow, Aitmatow , Trifonow , Okudshawa . Reclam, Leipzig 1986.
  • Incessant beginning. Harbingers of a novel. Edited by Michael Leetz. Edition Schwarzdruck , Gransee 2011. ISBN 978-3-935194-37-2 .

Sound document

  • Stalinism's hostility to literature . Ralf Schröder in conversation with the journalist Marion Rausch, recorded in January 1990, Radio DDR (31:38 min, MP3 in the online archive of Ralf Schröder's texts “Unbelievable Beginning”).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ So the Leipzig professor of Slavic Studies Harri Jünger in the Zeitschrift für Slawistik, Berlin 1959, 4, p. 486f. Quoted here from Willi Beitz: The literary beginnings of Ralf Schröder and the GDR University Slavonic Studies . In: Beitz 2003, pp. 9–15, here: p. 13.
  2. ↑ Fritz Mierau: novel of the soul, novel of history? In: Horch und Guck / ed. from the registered, non-profit association Citizens Committee "January 15", 2006, issue 53, pp. 17-21 ( online )
  3. ↑ Something is coming to an end , review by Thomas Kuczynski , in: Friday of November 28, 2011
personal data
SURNAME Schröder, Ralf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Slavist
DATE OF BIRTH November 4, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH April 15, 2001
Place of death Berlin