Re: [Cz-L] The Genesis of Paul Celan's "Todesfuge"

From: iosif vaisman <iosif.vaisman_at_gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 01:22:51 -0500
To: Edgar Hauster <bconcept_at_hotmail.com>
Reply-To: iosif vaisman <iosif.vaisman_at_gmail.com>

Edgar,

Celan's intertextuality is indeed very rich. Besides Simonov, in the
quoted first lines of Todesfuge "Schwarze Milch" comes from Rose
Ausländer and "Milch der Frühe" quite possible is influenced by the
Russian poet Segei Esenin (Celan translated many of his poem into
German). Here are two lines from Esenin's "Pugachev" (1921):

The Orenburg dawn like a red-furry camel
Dropped sunrise milk into my mouth.

[Оренбургская заря красношерстной верблюдицей
Рассветное роняла мне в рот молоко.]

Best,
Iosif

On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 7:56 AM, Edgar Hauster <bconcept_at_hotmail.com> wrote:
> Dear friends,
>
> First of all I'm thrilled by and deeply grateful for the thoughtfulness of your comments/contributions on "The Genesis of Paul Celan's "Todesfuge". Some additional remarks:
>
> Galina...
> The "Red Star"("Krasnaya Zvezda") editions dated August 10, 11, 12 - 1944 represent an amazing resource. Thank you so much. Once again I desperately wish I spoke Russian, but unfortunately I don't. Therefore, please let me ask you in addition: Do these three articles correspond to the Constantin Simonov's leaflet from 1944, which - thanks to Iosif - I could add as fifth version (Russian) to my previous posting?
>
> http://hauster.blogspot.nl/2013/05/the-genesis-of-paul-celans-todesfuge.html
>
> Download at: http://hauster.de/data/simonovru.pdf
>
> Boris...
> Of course, you are perfectly right, "it would be however hard or impossible to prove that Paul Celan actually met Simonov in Chernowitz", but such a meeting was technically possible and a chance of "1 to some 200" as suggested by Berti is not too bad. In addition, Paul Celan effected the translation Russian - Romanian of Constantin Simonov's drama "The Russian Question". A clue?! Thank you so much for joining this discussion and particularly for your pointer to Simonov's report on his travel through Czernowitz!
>
> Iosif...
> Great contribution, as always, thank you! As mentioned, I've updated my posting (see above) by introducing your Russian version of the pamphlet and in addition I'm going to trace the Romanian edition as well. No doubt about, the parallels between "Todesfuge" and "ER" are obvious and most probably a result of a kind of a literary competion and of poetic experiments, which were very much "in vogue" among "our" Czernowitzer poets Celan, Weißglas, Ausländer, Kittner and many more.
>
> On the other hand, for me it's perfectly clear, that Simonov's "all the morning, all day, all the evening, and all the night" finds it's correspondence in Celan's "Black milk of daybreak we drink it at evening - we drink it at midday and morning we drink it at night". What do we learn, dear Iosif, from the Russian version on "bands" or the "radio", which "played" or "blared" via loudspeakers?
>
> Berti...
> Fabulous Yiddish-German translation, thank you so much! I read - in German - Simonov's report on his travel through Czernowtz, as indicated by Boris and I think you are perfectly right concerning Simonov's mixture of facts and fiction. His multi-volume war diaries as well as his eyewitness - in fact rather earwitness - reports are nevertheless valuable rescources for all of us.
>
> Warmest wishes to all of you and - assuming your permission - I'm going to add your comments to the posting as well.
>
>
> Edgar Hauster
> Lent - The Netherlands

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Received on 2014-01-07 07:00:35

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