Temperaments

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Temperaments

Area of ​​Expertise literature
language German
publishing company New Life (GDR)
First edition 1976
Frequency of publication every three months

Temperaments , subtitle: Blätter für Junge Literatur , was a GDR literature magazine . It was published by Neues Leben in Berlin . The journal focused on the work of young authors.

history

Hans Bentzien , at that time editor-in-chief of the Neues Leben publishing house, suggested the publication of such a paper in 1975. Because of the paper quotas customary in the GDR, it should not appear as a regular magazine, but as an almanac. Authors in the first issue, which appeared in summer 1976, included Franz Fühmann and Bernd Ulbrich with one of his first science fiction stories. The following issues included early publications by authors such as Bert Papenfuß-Gorek and Stefan Döring .

Shortly after the first issue was published, in November 1976, Wolf Biermann was expatriated. In the period that followed, the GDR leadership's policy towards the country's artists tightened. This led to various conflicts between the editorial team and the authorities. Karl-Heinz Jakobs was removed from the editorial team as a co-signer of the protest resolution against Biermann's expatriation in 1977. The first issues appeared only sporadically, the post of editor-in-chief changed several times. The third issue could not appear at all. The reasons for the non-appearance are a story by Klaus Schlesinger , also one of the signatories of the Biermann resolution, a preprint of the novel Transport-Paule by Paul Gratzik and overly realistic photographs from Prenzlauer Berg .

In the summer of 1978, the entire editorial team was replaced for political reasons. It consisted of the editor-in-chief Rulo Melchert , who had recently come from the newspaper Junge Welt , his deputies Michael Berger and Fritz-Jochen Kopka as well as Joochen Laabs , Frank Hörnigk, Richard Pietraß and Joachim Walther , who had worked for the magazine from the start . Reinhard Weisbach , who died in an accident in the same year, became the new editor-in-chief . He was followed by Arno Hochmuth , initially as "Editor in Chief" and later until 1982 as Editor-in-Chief.

After the magazine appeared sporadically about twice a year in the first few years, it was distributed regularly from 1979 onwards. The originally planned bimonthly delivery was not implemented, the magazine was published quarterly. Only in 1989 did five issues appear.

Texts from the unofficial poetry scene occasionally appeared in the magazine up to 1981, after which they were in fact no longer allowed to appear as a result of a resolution of the secretariat of the SED Central Committee on November 11, 1981.

The editor-in-chief changed several times. After Hinnerk Einhorn was the acting editor-in-chief in 1982, Martin Herzig followed him in 1983. His successor was Marion Titze , who was also dismissed in 1987 for political reasons. Ulrike Bresch later headed the editorial team.

The long lead between the creation of the text and the publication of the magazine proved to be disadvantageous in the times of the fall of the GDR in 1989/1990. Nevertheless, the issue 1/1990 October 1989 - Texts , including texts by Matthias Baader Holst and Johannes Jansen , became popular again; it was later published under the title October 1989 - Against Sleep of Reason by the Neues Leben publishing house in collaboration with Elefanten Press reissued again.

The magazine was discontinued with issue 4/1990; the already prepared issues 5 and 6/1990 no longer appeared.

content

The layout and content of the magazine changed little in the course of its existence. The booklet was usually 160 pages thick and paperback. The title page contained a drawing, mostly in color in later years. The back of the booklet contained only a short poem or quote. The inside of the envelope was mostly left free.

An integral part of the magazine were sections such as “Criticism”, “Feuilleton” or “Stock”, in which older works by well-known authors were presented. The main share was made up of new prose and poetry works, especially by younger, but also by older authors. There were also essays and interviews. There were regular reports from the annual poetry seminar in Schwerin .

In terms of content, great importance was attached to promoting young literary talents. Many authors had their first publications in the paper. Even if the explosiveness of the first issues was hardly reached later, there were also topics later that were addressed in temperament earlier than in most of the other GDR media. In issue 2/1988 there was explicitly homosexual prose by Michael Sollorz and Frank Goyke . In issue 3/1988, the subject of expulsions after the Second World War was addressed, and interviews were published with people who had been expelled from the eastern German territories in 1945.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Interview with Richard Pietraß, in: Gerd Labroisse, Ian Wallace, DDR writers speak in der Zeit , p. 202
  2. ↑ Karl-Heinz Baum in: Frankfurter Rundschau, August 19, 1978, p. 16, digitized (.pdf, English, text pages 31–33; 4.4 MB)
  3. ↑ The time 35/1978, digitized
  4. ↑ temperaments, 5/89, Contacts
  5. ↑ The Poetry of the Unofficial Literature Scene in the GDR (1976-1989 ) Internet source , accessed on July 3, 2009.
  6. ↑ Thomas Horstmann, On the reconstruction and medial communication of flight and expulsion in the collective memory of the Soviet Zone / GDR , internet source , accessed on July 27, 2009