collection island

The sammlung insel (si) is a book series that was published from 1965 to 1969 in the Frankfurt publishing house of Insel Verlag , which has been part of Suhrkamp Verlag since 1963 , and comprises fifty volumes.

History and conception

Brochure from the island collection 1968/1969 (si 1-46)

The series was based on an initiative by Suhrkamp lecturers Klaus Reichert and Walter Boehlich ; Planning and support were in the hands of Boehlich. The editors and editors of the individual volumes included Theodor W. Adorno , Ernst Bloch , Hans Blumenberg , Hans Magnus Enzensberger , Iring Fetscher , Wolfgang Harich , Walter Jens , Alfred Kelletat , Hans Mayer , Herbert Marcuse , Katharina Mommsen , Jacob Taubes and Hans -Ulrich Wehler .

According to a self-description (series prospectus 1965), the " sammlung insel brought texts from literature and science of the past, selected according to their importance". She “seeks the enlightening, progressive, moving, aims at what is current in history. The si wants to try to get reliable texts. The afterwords convey information and give a new perspective. Where the matter calls for it, the editions are supplemented with supplements, documents, chronological tables and bibliographies. "

The volumes appeared as bound editions, and in individual cases also as paperboard editions. Second editions of several titles were brought out; further reprints appeared later in the series of "Insel pocket books". The limitation to fifty volumes did not correspond to the original plan. Numerous other titles were to be published, including at least ten on theology, church and religious history topics.

meaning

According to the cultural historian Richard Faber , Boehlich succeeded in building on forgotten traditions in the spirit of Walter Benjamin with the insel collection . The series was able (like Benjamin's “German People”) to create an alternative canon of the Enlightenment that was suppressed in German-speaking intellectual life. With the new edition of corresponding texts - including those by Gervinus , Jochmann , Seume and Knigge - the reception of radical democratic German traditions , which was interrupted by National Socialism and the Adenauer restoration period, has become possible again.

title

• si 1 - Galileo Galilei : Sidereus Nuncius. Message of new stars. Edited and introduced by Hans Blumenberg [translated by Malte Hossenfelder , Emil Strauss u. a.] 1965.
• si 2 - Bertolt Brecht : About classics. [Selected by Siegfried Unseld ], 1965.
• si 3 - Georg Büchner and Ludwig Weidig : The Hessian Landbote . Texts, letters, case files. Commented by Hans Magnus Enzensberger, 1965.
• si 4 - Denis Diderot : Addendum to Bougainville's journey or conversation between A. and B. about the bad habit of attaching moral ideas to certain physical actions to which they do not fit. Afterword by Herbert Dieckmann [translated by Theodor Lücke], 1965.
• si 5 - Jonathan Swift : Satires. With an essay by Martin Walser [translated by Felix Paul Greve , Walter Freisburger and Klaus Reichert], 1965.
• si 6 - The Berlin anti-Semitism dispute . Edited by Walter Boehlich, 1965.
• si 7 - Johann Peter Hebel : Calendar Stories. Selection and afterword by Ernst Bloch, 1965.
• si 8 - Georg Weerth : Fragments of a novel. Presented by Siegfried Unseld, 1965.
• si 9 - Karl Marx : The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte . Afterword by Herbert Marcuse, 1965.
• si 10 - Hamlet today. Essays and analyzes. Foreword by Joachim Kaiser , 1965.
• si 11 - German people . A series of letters. Selected and introduced by Walter Benjamin. With an afterword by Theodor W. Adorno, 1965.
  • First edition: German people. A series of letters. Selection and introductions by Detlef Holz [pseudonym Benjamin]. Vita Nova, Lucerne 1936 (116 pages) archive.org
  • Reprint: Suhrkamp paperback. Volume 970, 1992.
• si 12 - Adolph von Knigge : Papers left by the blessed Mr. Etatsrath Samuel Conrad von Schaafskopf. Issued by his heirs. With an afterword by Iring Fetscher, 1965.
• si 13 - Jean Paul : Political fasting sermons during Germany's torture week. Afterword by Hans Mayer, 1966.
• si 14 - John Gay : The Beggar Opera . With a documentary appendix. Translated by Hans Magnus Enzensberger. [Compiled and translated by Klaus Reichert], 1966.
• si 15 - Political Catechisms. Volney . Kleist . Hess . Edited by Karl Markus Michel , 1966.
• si 16 - Aphra Behn : Oroonoko or The Story of the Royal Slave. Afterword by Klaus Reichert [translated from Christine Hoeppener], 1966.
• si 17 - Heinrich Heine : On the history of religion and philosophy in Germany . Edited and introduced by Wolfgang Harich , 1966.
• si 18 - Johann Gottfried Seume : Apocrypha. With an essay by Hermann Schweppenhäuser , 1966.
• si 19 - Franz von Baader : Sentences from erotic philosophy and other writings. Edited by Gerd-Klaus Kaltenbrunner , 1966.
• si 20 - Georg Forster : On the relation of statecraft to the happiness of mankind and other writings. Edited by Wolfgang Rödel , 1966.
• si 21 - Franz Overbeck : Self-confessions. With an introduction by Jacob Taubes , 1966.
• si 22 - Cesare Beccaria : On crime and punishment. Translated from the 1766 edition and edited by Wilhelm Alff , 1966.
• si 23 - Bartolomé de las Casas : Concise Report on the Devastation of the West Indian Countries. Edited by Hans Magnus Enzensberger [German by W. [ilhelm] Andreä], 1966.
• si 24/1 - Georg Gottfried Gervinus : Introduction to the history of the nineteenth century. Edited by Walter Boehlich, 1967.
• si 24/2 - The high treason trial against Gervinus. Edited by Walter Boehlich, 1967.
• si 25 - Large German reviews from Schiller to Fontane . Edited and introduced by Hans Mayer [explanations by Leo Kreutzer], 1967.
• si 26 - Carl Gustav Jochmann: Setbacks in poetry and other writings. Edited by Werner Kraft , 1967.
• si 27 - Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger : reflections and thoughts on various objects of the world and literature (selection). With an essay by Hermann Schweppenhäuser, 1967.
• si 28 - Adam Müller : Twelve speeches about eloquence and its decline in Germany . With an essay and an afterword by Walter Jens, 1967.
• si 29 - The other romance. A documentation. Edited by Helmut Schanze , 1967.
• si 30 - Ferdinand Kürnberger : Features. Selected and introduced by Karl Riha , 1967.
• si 31 - Hermann Hettner : Writings on literature and philosophy. Edited by Dietrich Schaefer. Afterword by Ludwig Uhlig, 1967.
• si 32 - Voltaire : From the philosophical dictionary. Edited and introduced by Karlheinz Stierle [translated by Erich Salewski (dictionary) and Karlheinz Stierle (appendix)], 1967.
• si 33 - Adolph von Knigge : Joseph von Wurmbrand, Imperial Abyssinian ex-minister, present Notraii caesarii publici in the imperial city of Bopfingen, political creed, with regard to the French revolution and its consequences. Edited by Gerhard Steiner , 1968.
• si 34 - Andreas Georg Friedrich Rebmann : Cosmopolitan migrations through part of Germany. Edited and introduced by Hedwig Voegt , 1968.
• si 35 - Gotthold Ephraim Lessing : Ernst and Falk. With the sequels of Johann Gottfried Herder and Friedrich Schlegel . Edited and with an afterword by Ion Contiades, 1968.
• si 36 - Karl Gutzkow : Germany on the eve of its fall or its greatness. Edited by Walter Boehlich, 1969.
• si 37 - Georg Herwegh : Literature and Politics. Edited by Katharina Mommsen , 1969.
• si 38 - Arnold Ruge : Patriotism. Edited by Peter Wende , 1968.
• si 39 - Lev. N. Tolstoy : Speech against the war and other political pamphlets. Edited by Peter Urban , 1968.
• si 40 - Christian Ludwig Liscow : The excellence and necessity of the wretched scribblers and other writings. Edited by Jürgen Manthey , 1968.
• si 41/1 - From the German Republic. 1775-1796. Current provocations. Edited by Jost Hermand , 1968.
• si 41/2 - From the German Republic. 1775-1779. Theoretical foundations. Edited by Jost Hermand, 1968.
• si 42 - Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes : Treatise on Privilege: What is the Third Estate? Edited by Rolf Hellmut Foerster , 1968.
• si 43 - Giordano Bruno : The Ash Wednesday Supper. Translated by Ferdinand Fellmann . Introduced by Hans Blumenberg, 1969.
• si 44 - Bettina von Arnim : Book of the poor. Edited by Werner Vordtriede , 1969.
• si 45 - Ludwig Börne : Menzel the Franzosenfresser and other writings. Edited and introduced by Walter Hinderer , 1969.
• si 46 - Fanny Lewald : Memories from the year 1848. In selection ed. by Dietrich Schaefer, 1969.
• si 47 - Friedrich Kapp : From the radical early socialist of the Vormärz to the liberal party politician of the Bismarck Empire. Letters 1843–1884. Edited and introduced by Hans-Ulrich Wehler , 1969.
• si 48 - Donatien A. de Sade : Writings from the Revolutionary Period (1788–1795). Edited by Georg Rudolf Lind , 1969.
• si 49 - Jan Hus : Writings on the reform of the faith and letters from the years 1414-1415. Edited and introduced by Walter Schamschula , 1969.
• si 50 - Werner Kirchner: The high treason trial against Sinclair . A contribution to the life of Hölderlin . [With an afterword, obtained from Alfred Kelletat], 1969.

literature

• Richard Faber : Walter Boehlich's "island collection" from the 1960s. Resumption of a Walter Benjamin project from the 1930s, in: Walter Boehlich. Critic. Edited by Helmut Peitsch and Helen Thein, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 181–212.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Richard Faber: Walter Boehlichs "sammlung insel" (literature), p. 192.
2. ↑ On this volume see Julius H. Schoeps : "Not racist, but rather national." Walter Boehlich and the Berlin anti-Semitism dispute, in: Walter Boehlich. Critic. Edited by Helmut Peitsch and Helen Thein, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 57–65.