Viktor Borissowitsch Schklowski

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Viktor Shklowski

Viktor Shklovsky ( Russian Виктор Борисович Шкловский , scientific. Transliteration Viktor Borisovič Šklovskij ; born 12 jul. / 24. January  1893 greg. In Saint Petersburg , † 5. December 1984 in Leningrad ) was a Russian and Soviet critic , writer and pamphleteer .

Life

Schklowski was the son of an elementary school teacher of Jewish descent, who later continued his education and eventually taught mathematics at the artillery school of the Russian Imperial Army; his maternal grandfather was German. He studied classical philology in his hometown of St. Petersburg.

At the beginning of the First World War he was drafted into one of the first motorized companies. Soon he was transferred to an artillery battery . In the February Revolution of 1917 he and his unit sided with the opponents of the tsar. He got the post of "Assistant to the Commissioner" in the new Provisional Government , and one of his areas of work was a campaign aimed at convincing the troops of the need to continue the war with the Central Powers . It was first used in the fighting in Romania. There he was awarded the St. George's Cross, and General Lawr Kornilov himself attached the Order of Bravery to him. A little later his unit was sent to Iran, from where Russian units were to attack Turkey.

He only returned to his hometown after the October Revolution and joined the Social Revolutionaries (SR). He also took a position as a professor of art history. When the Bolshevik press accused the SR of "counter-revolutionary activities" in early 1922 and the first SR leaders were arrested, Shklowski went into hiding. In March 1922 he fled to Finland via the frozen Baltic Sea, leaving his wife behind. His experiences during the revolutionary and civil war years are the subject of the book Sentimentale Reise (Sentimentalnoje puteschestwije), it ends with his arrival in Berlin.

In Berlin, Schklowski lived from April 1922 to June 1923 on Kaiserallee 207 (today Bundesallee ). There he took part in numerous events of Russian emigrants, published his own books, including the correspondence Zoo or Letters not about love (Zoo ili pisma ne o ljubwi), which appeared in many languages ​​and was his greatest literary success. The volume contains his correspondence in Berlin with Elsa Triolet from Moscow , with whom he had fallen in love but who rejected him. The thirtieth and last letter, however, was addressed to the Central Executive Committee of the USSR in Moscow, in which Shklovsky asked for permission to return.

After Maxim Gorky and Vladimir Mayakovsky stood up for Shklovsky with the Soviet authorities, he returned to Moscow. He became one of the leading literary and film theorists, but had to criticize his commitment to experimental works as a “scientific error” in 1930 in the course of the party's fight against modernist currents in art and literature.

During the Stalin era he was able to publish little. In 1934 he was one of the (mostly anonymous) authors of an anthology edited by Maxim Gorki on the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal built by forced laborers ( Kanal imeni Stalina - The Stalin Canal; the book was banned again in 1937). He took part in this project because his brother Vladimir was imprisoned in one of the forced labor camps. In an interview with Serena Vitale in 1979, Schklowski described the events as follows: “We [my brother and I] hadn't seen each other for a long time, and he knew that the GPU was very interested in me and didn't want to put me in danger. (...) I held back my tears when I saw him. I whispered, 'Do you recognize me?' 'No,' he replied in a firm voice - he was afraid for me. Or before me? ”The GPU boss Genrich Jagoda personally urged Schklowski to take the trip and approved the meeting with his brother. But Schklowski could not achieve any relief for his brother, who did not survive the forced labor.

In 1937 he wrote the text for the volume General Plan of the Reconstruction of the City of Moscow (with illustrations by Alexander Rodschenko ), which documented the reconstruction of the Soviet capital. According to reports from contemporary witnesses, Shlowski lived in constant fear of persecution during this period, and his brother Vladimir was first exiled, then sentenced to forced labor and finally shot in the Stalin Purge in 1937 (other sources say 1939 or later) . Nadeschda Mandelstam , the wife of the persecuted poet Ossip Mandelstam , later reported that Schklowski's apartment was a place of refuge for those ostracized by the regime. At that time, he vowed to tell the world about the terror as an “eyewitness”. However, in the end he did not. Under pressure from the party's cultural functionaries , he even took part in the 1944 attacks on the satirist Mikhail Zoshchenko .

It was not until the thaw after Stalin's death in 1953 that he was recognized again as a literary theorist. But he kept his distance from the writers, who began with cautious criticism of the regime. Nor did he sign any of the internationally sensational appeals for the writers attacked by the party since the late 1950s, from Boris Pasternak and Weniamin Kawerin to Andrei Sinyawski and Juli Daniel to Alexander Solzhenitsyn .

He performed publicly until the end of his life. Abroad, too, he was considered an excellent representative of the humanities in the Soviet Union.

plant

In 1916 he was one of the co-founders of OPOJAS (Общество изучения поэтического языка - Society for the Study of Poetic Language), one of the two groups that developed the critical theories and techniques of Russian formalism with the Moscow Linguistic Circle .

Schklowski coined the term ostranenie (остранение) or alienation in literature, which he u. a. explained in his essay Art as a Process : Everyday speaking is automated, people recognize words again without feeling them; Literature complicates the process of understanding and thereby revitalizes sensation. A comprehensive concept that Schklowski and Juri Tynyanow developed from this model was that of literary evolution .

Shklowski's work pushed Russian formalism to see literary activity as an integral part of social practice, an idea that became significant to the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and the Russian and Prague Schools of Semiotics .

Besides studies on writers such as Laurence Sterne , Maxim Gorki , Leo Tolstoy and Wladimir Majakowski as well as on actors and directors, etc. a. about Charlie Chaplin and Sergej Eisenstein , he also wrote historical novels and short stories, mostly devoted to characters from Russian history, as well as autobiographical sketches. The latter includes Die Hamburger Abrechnung (Gamburgski stschot, 1926). According to Schklowski, the title stands for the real rank and influence of a person in a society, deviating from the official hierarchy. He traces it back to the tradition of the Hamburg circus wrestlers, who always appeared in pre-arranged exhibition fights, but once a year behind closed doors in a real tournament they determined the strongest among themselves. But the name of the winner was never disclosed to the public. However, such wrestling competitions are not documented for Hamburg, it is obviously a fantasy product.

Fonts

  • Sentimental journey. Translated from Russian by Ruth-Elisabeth Riedt with the assistance of Gisela Drohla . Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1964 (about the period 1917–1922).
  • Zoo or letters not about love (= Edition Suhrkamp 130, ISSN  0422-5821 ). Translated from Russian and with an afterword by Alexander Kaempfe. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1965.
  • Writings on the film (= Edition Suhrkamp 174). Selected and translated from Russian by Alexander Kaempfe. Suhrkamp. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1966.
  • Theory of prose. Edited and translated from Russian by Gisela Drohla. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1966 (abridged edition. (= Fischer-Taschenbücher. Wissenschaft 7339). Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1984, ISBN 3-596-27339-0 ).
  • Art as a process. In: Jurij Striedter (Ed.): Russian formalism. Texts on general literary theory and the theory of prose (= Uni-Taschenbücher 40). Fink, Munich 1971, ISBN 3-7705-0626-X , pp. 3-35.
  • Childhood and adolescence (= Library Suhrkamp 218, ZDB -ID 256061-6 ). Translated from the Russian by Alexander Kaempfe. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1968.
  • Fritz Mierau (Ed.): Lenin's language and style (= people and world spectrum. Vol. 19, ZDB ID 33733-x ). Essays by Viktor Schklowski, Boris Eichenbaum, Lew Jakubinski, Juri Tynjanow [u. a.]. Volk und Welt publishing house, Berlin 1970.
  • On the inequality of the similar in art. Edited and translated by Alexander Kaempfe. Hanser, Munich 1972, ISBN 3-446-11729-6 .
  • There was once. Zoo or letters are not about love. Autobiographical narratives. Translated from the Russian by Elena Panzig. With a comment by Nyota Thun . Volk und Welt publishing house, Berlin 1976.
  • Leo Tolstoy. A biography. Translated from Russian by Elena Panzig. Europaverlag, Vienna a. a. 1981, ISBN 3-203-50784-6 .
  • Eisenstein. Novel biography. Translated from the Russian by Oksana Bulgakowa and Dietmar Hochmuth. Verlag Volk und Welt, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-353-00006-2 .
    • West German edition: Ejzenštejn . Translated from the Russian by Manfred Dahlke. Publisher Rowohlt, Hamburg 1977, ISBN 3-499-25055-1 .
  • Third factory (= library Suhrkamp 993). Translated from the Russian by Verena Dohrn and Gabriele Leupold . With an afterword by Verena Dohrn. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-518-01993-7 .

Filmography (selection)

  • 1926: According to the law (Po sakonu)
  • 1927: Bed and sofa / Third Kleinbürgerstrasse (love for three) (Tretja meschtschanskaja (Lyubow wtrojem))
  • 1947: The poet Alischer Nawoi (Alischer Nawoi)
  • 1948: The Distant Bride (Daljokaja newesta)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Борис Яковлевич Фрезинский: Мозаика еврейских судеб. XX век. Книжники, Москва 2008, ISBN 978-5-9953-0009-0 , p. 115.
  2. ↑ on Schklowski's military career: Борис Яковлевич Фрезинский: Мозаика еврейских судеб. XX век. Книжники, Москва 2008, ISBN 978-5-9953-0009-0 , p. 118.
  3. ↑ Enciklopedija Krugosvet
  4. ^ Thomas Urban: Russian writers in Berlin in the twenties. 2003, p. 100.
  5. ↑ Viktor Šklovskij: Zoo or Letters Not About Love. Frankfurt / M. 1980, p. 122.
  6. ↑ Литерату́рная газе́та , January 27, 1930.
  7. ^ Bastiaan Kwast: The White Sea Canal: A Hymn of Praise for Forced Labor. 2003.
  8. ↑ Serena Vitale: Shklovsky. Witness to an Era. 2012, p. 28.
  9. ^ Benedikt Sarnov: Imperium zla. Newydumannye istorii. Moscow 2011, pp. 24-25.
  10. ↑ Karl Schlögel : Terror and Dream. Moscow 1937 (= Fischer 18772). Unabridged edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-596-18772-0 , p. 63 f.
  11. ↑ Serena Vitale: Shklovsky. Witness to an Era. 2012, p. 28
  12. ↑ Борис Яковлевич Фрезинский: Мозаика еврейских судеб. XX век. Книжники, Москва 2008, ISBN 978-5-9953-0009-0 , p. 116.
  13. ↑ Борис Яковлевич Фрезинский: Мозаика еврейских судеб. XX век. Книжники, Москва 2008, ISBN 978-5-9953-0009-0 , pp. 129-130.
  14. ↑ Борис Яковлевич Фрезинский: Мозаика еврейских судеб. XX век. Книжники, Москва 2008, ISBN 978-5-9953-0009-0 , p. 132.

literature

  • Beate Jonscher: Viktor Šklovskij. Life and work up to the beginning of the thirties with special consideration of the concept of alienation and its development. Jenzig Verlag, Gabriele Köhler, Jena 1994, ISBN 3-910141-10-2 ( dissertation University of Jena 1986).
  • Stefan Speck: From Sklovskij to de Man . On the topicality of formalistic literary theory. Fink, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-7705-3199-X ( dissertation University of Stuttgart 1995, 135 pages).
  • Thomas Urban : Russian writers in Berlin in the twenties. Nicolai, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-89479-097-0 , pp. 100-111.
  • Serena Vitale: Viktor Šklovskij, Testimone di un'Epoca (= Interventi. Volume 18, ZDB -ID 764041-9 ). Editori Riuniti, Rome 1979.
    • English edition: Serena Vitale: Shklovsky. Witness to an Era (translated by Jamie Richards). Dalkey Archive Press, Champaign, IL et al. 2012, ISBN 978-1-56478-791-0 .
  • Verena Dohrn : The literary factory: the early autobiographical prose VB Šklovskijs - an attempt to overcome the crisis of the avant-garde . Munich: Sagner, 1987 Zugl .: Bielefeld, Univ., Diss., 1986 ISBN 978-3-87690-384-2

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Commons : Viktor Shklovsky  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Schklowski, Viktor Borissowitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Шкловский, Виктор Борисович (Russian); Šklovskij, Viktor Borisovič; Shklovsky (different spelling)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian and Soviet critic, writer and pamphleteer
DATE OF BIRTH January 24, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Petersburg
DATE OF DEATH 5th December 1984
Place of death Leningrad