Schlemihl

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Schlemihl in the loneliness of the room , graphic by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

The term Schlemihl ( Yiddish schlemiel = clumsy person, an innocent victim of pranks, origin unclear, perhaps to Hebrew Selem = victim / peace offerings) referred to in the Eastern European Jewish culture the proverbial Unlucky or a fool .

Schlemihl as the protagonist

literature

The figure of Schlemihl found literary expression in the following works:

  1. Bullfinch the fool. (Yidd. Gimpl tam , 1945)
  2. When Schlemihl went to Warsaw. ( When Schlemiel went to Warsaw , 1968)
  3. Schlemiel the first. ( Schlemiel the First , drama, 1974)
  • Thomas Pynchon , V. (1963)
  • Patrick Modiano : Raphaël Schlemilovitch , in: Place de l'Étoile (1968)
  • Thomas Hettche : Pfaueninsel (2014). Peter Schlemihl appears to the main character Maria Dorothea Strakon as an imagination.

The writers Ludwig Thoma and Heinrich Köselitz (alias Peter Gast) used Peter Schlemihl as a pseudonym.

music and dance

The composer Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek wrote a symphonic poem called Schlemihl in 1912 , in which he musically depicts the life story of an unlucky fellow.

Peter Ronnefeld's ballet Peter Schlemihl after Adelbert von Chamisso was premiered in 1956 with a choreography by Paul Böhm in Hildesheim. In 1961 a TV version of the ballet was created with a choreography by the Californian dancer and choreographer Richard Adama (* 1928), which is in the archives of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF).

The band Ougenweide dedicated a title to Schlemihl, which tells how Schlemihl sold his shadow and was then robbed of his soul.

Wilhelm Dieter Siebert composed the "magical operetta" Schlemihl , which premiered in 1987 at the Theater des Westens in Berlin.

In Jacques Offenbach's opera Hoffmanns Erzählungen , whose libretto is based on ETA Hoffmann's novellas, the Giulietta act features Schlemihl, who has lost his shadow. Schlemihl is killed in a duel with Hoffmann.

Puppet theater

In 1992, on the occasion of the 3rd  Munich Biennale for New Music Theater, The Wonderful Story of Peter Schlemihl after Adelbert von Chamisso was performed as puppet theater , libretto Claus-Michael Trapp, composition for string quartet Susanne Erding, staged by Alexander EL Schulin . The commission for the composition came from Hans Werner Henze .

In the German translation, Schlemihl was also the name of the windy merchant Lefty from Sesame Street , who tried to sell (sometimes invisible) letters and numbers or to sell Ernie an empty cardboard box in case it rained raspberry drops.

psychology

Eric Berne gives the name Schlemihl to a psychological game of transaction analysis :

“In 'Schlemihl' whoever is 'on' breaks objects, spills liquids, causes all sorts of messes and then says, 'I'm sorry' every time. This leaves the inexperienced player in a helpless position. However, the skilled player says, “You can break and spill anything you want; but please don't say 'I'm sorry!' ”. This answer usually leads to the Schlemihl collapsing or going up in the air because that undermines his scam and the opponent wins. "

Joke papers, satirical magazine

In 1903 Leo Winz published the Schlemihl magazine. Only one number appeared. Employees were u. a. Max Jungmann, Theodor Zlocisti , Emil Simonsohn and Sammy Gronemann . Julius Moses made a second attempt with roughly the same workforce : the illustrated Jewish joke sheet Schlemiel was published in Berlin from 1903 to 1906.

Some of the employees mentioned were also involved in the Schlemiel. Jüdische Blätter für Humor und Kunst , for which the publisher Menachem Birnbaum was responsible from 1919–1920 . Again the named employees came together alongside others.

Poem by Heinrich Heine

Heinrich Heine gives in his poem Jehuda Ben Halevy an imaginative etymology for the "gender of those von Schlemihl":

[...]
The Bible reads, / When during the desert wandering / Israel was often amused / With the daughters of Canaan, //
Then it happened that the Phinehas / Sahe, like the noble Zimri, / drove with a woman / From the tribe of the Kananites, //
And immediately he angrily took hold of his spear and stabbed Zimri to death on the spot - / So it says in the Bible. //
But it was passed down orally / The popular saying that it was not Zimri / The spear of Phinehas hit //
But that the angry blind man, / instead of the sinner, unexpectedly / met someone completely innocent / Den Schlemihl ben Zuri Schadday . //
This now, Schlemihl I., / is the ancestor of the family / Derer von Schlemihl.
[...]

literature

English:

French:

  • Juliette Vion-Dury, Pierre Brunel : Dictionnaire des mythes du fantastique . Presses Universitaires PU de Limoges et du Limousin, Limoges , 2004, ISBN 2842872762 , pp. 227-231.

Web links

Wiktionary: Schlemihl  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Duden online: Schlemihl
  2. ↑ Here also reference to further artistic use of the motif
  3. ↑ See also the literature in the article Romanzero .
  4. ↑ Frequent Engl. Conditions, noted in HA I want to understand. Ed. Ursula Ludz, Piper 1996, Appendix, p. 262, # 028. - German: HH Schlemihl and dream world ruler. In: HA: Six essays. Schneider, Heidelberg 1948; again in The Hidden Tradition. 8 essays . Suhrkamp 1976, p. 48ff. - For Arendt, Heine is the free “pariah” (as she understood herself). The Schlemihl comes in two forms: as a despised pariah and as a "dream world ruler" who tries to rise at a high price, the parvenu. He worships the "idols of social advantage" (Ger. Barrel, p. 51). - In Ludz's opinion, the first version of the essay was in German, p. 271 # 078.
  5. ↑ Jochen Schimmang: The identities of Raphaël Schlemilovitch . The daily newspaper , taz, July 31st-1. August 2010, literature supplement
  6. ↑ Introduction to Reznicek's works by Schlemihl and Raskolnikoff proclassics.de
  7. ↑ Eric Berne: Transactional Analysis of Intuition. A contribution to ego psychology. 3rd edition, Junfermann, Paderborn 1999, ISBN 3-87387-003-7 , p. 185.
  8. ^ Jehuda Ben Halevy , Heine, Werke, www.zeno.org