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The holdings of the Karl Dedecius Archive

The Karl Dedecius Archive was founded on July 15, 2001. The first part of Karl Dedecius' legacy was handed over by him to the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder) when he was still alive. It is located at the Collegium Polonicum in Słubice and forms the basis for the establishment of an archive of literary translators and cultural mediators. Since the first documents were donated, the archive's collection has grown to include personal archives and the legacies of other translators, and now includes approximately 500 linear meters of files and several hundred volumes of books.

The Karl Dedecius Archive collects the legacy of eminent personalities who have contributed to the spread of Polish literature and culture in Germany and German literature and culture in Poland. A special role is played here primarily by translators, but also by scientists, journalists, politicians and socially engaged collectors and bibliophiles.

 

Our collections (in alphabetical order):

Henryk Bereska (1926-2005) - "a constant mediator in the dialogue between Eastern and Western Europe", "the first Transatlantic passenger" (laudation during the award of the Book Institute Transatlantyk Prize, 2005)

Inventory of the estate of Henryk Bereska

Henryk Bereska was born in Katowice-Szopienice. He grew up in the circle of three cultures: Polish, German and Silesian. He was bilingual at home, with a passion for the Silesian dialect and the multicultural competence necessary for the translating profession. After the war he settled in East Berlin, where he studied Slavonic and German philology at Humboldt University. It was then that he met Tadeusz Borowski, for whom he translated journalistic texts. After graduation he was for a short period of time editor and translator at the Aufbau publishing house. In 1955 he left the publishing house for political reasons and continued to work as a freelance translator.

Bereska translated into German more than 100 books - classics of Polish prose and drama, including: Andrzejewski, Brandys, Czapski, Grochowiak, Iwaszkiewicz, Kochanowski, Lec, Lem, Miłosz, Mrożek, Myśliwski, Nałkowska, Norwid, Nowak, Redliński, Różewicz, Szaniawski, Witkacy, Wyspianski and Zagajewski. He also published anthologies of Polish short stories, fairy tales, aphorisms and lyric poetry. He was most fascinated by humour and the grotesque in Polish literature.

From 1963 he published his own literary works - poems and aphorisms - in magazines and anthologies, which later also appeared as separate books, including: "Lautloser Tag", "Berliner Spätlese", "Auf einem Berg aus Sand". In addition, he wrote journalistic texts about the social and political reality in the GDR, full of reflections on the condition of man entangled in time and history.

For his contribution to the dissemination of Polish literature abroad, he was honoured, among others, with the ZAIKS (1967) and Polish PEN-Club (1994) awards, an honorary doctorate of the University of Wrocław (2004) and the "Transatlantyk" award. (2005).

Henryk Bereska was not only an award-winning translator and original poet, but also a promoter of young Polish authors (Cisło, Ekier, Huelle, Jastrun, Kielar, Podsiadło, Siwczyk, Sommer, Sosnowski, Szlosarek, Tokarczuk) as well as initiator and participant of numerous Polish-German events, e.g. "Ship of Poets" on the Oder River (1995/1996).

Henryk Bereska donated the first part of his estate to the archive in 2004. Currently, the collection comprises approximately 20 linear metres of documents, organised and processed in an electronic inventory. These include typescripts of translations of prose, poetry and plays, reviews of Polish literature written for German publishers, correspondence with authors and publishers and private correspondence, biographical materials, documentation of numerous trips to Poland and of the translator's social and political activities.

Interesting websites:

Erich Dauzenroth (1931-2004) - Existence as "continuous patience"

Inventory of the Erich Dauzenroth estate

German educator, historian, philosopher born in Fulda. Since 1952 he has dealt with the biography and work of Janusz Korczak (1878-1942), which he made the main subject of his interest and scientific research. In 1972 he joined the faculty of pedagogy at the Justus Liebig University in Gießen. He was the author of numerous publications and scientific papers on the history of pedagogical thought, the theory of upbringing and the reception of Janusz Korczak's works, the author of his biography, and the initiator and co-editor of a 16-volume edition of his collected works.

Dauzenroth was co-founder and Chairman (1984-1996) of the German Janusz Korczak Association (1977), in which he cooperated with the German Institute of Polish Culture in Darmstadt, promoting the idea of Polish-German cooperation.

The private collection of the professor, an advocate of the Korczak idea, was handed over to the Karl Dedecius Archive in 2005. They contain 4 meters of current documents and 30 meters of printed materials. Korczak's works and their German translations, materials connected with his person and pedagogical activity constitute a significant part of Erich Dauzenroth's legacy.

Interesting pages:

Karl Dedecius (1921-2016) - "My memory/ you translate/ into your own memory/ my silence/ into your silence" (T. Różewicz "To the translator K.D.")

Inventory of the first part of the estate of Karl Dedecius
 
Inventory of the second part of the estate of Karl Dedecius

Karl Dedecius was born in the multicultural city of Łódź to a German family. Here he attended a Polish humanist secondary school. During World War II, he was conscripted into the Wehrmacht and sent to the Eastern Front. From 1943 to 1949 he was in Soviet captivity. There he learned Russian and produced the first translations of the classics of Russian poetry. After leaving the Soviet Union, he worked occasionally in the former GDR doing various jobs, including as a translator at the Weimar Institute for Theatre Arts. In 1952 he emigrated to West Germany, where he worked for the Allianz insurance company in Frankfurt am Main. However, his literary interests soon became apparent and, in parallel with his professional work, he began translating into German and publishing the works of Polish and Russian authors. He published his first volumes of translations of Polish poetry, Lesson of Silence and Burning Graves, in 1959.

The bibliography of his published volumes of translations, anthologies, collections of essays, monographs of poets includes over 120 items, among others 50 volumes of the Biblioteka Polska (Suhrkamp), or the monumental Panorama of Polish literature of the 20th century (Ammann, 7 volumes). He translated works by Przyboś, Miłosz, Herbert, Szymborska, Lec, etc. Dedecius was also interested in translations from Slavonic languages published in the GDR, thus breaking the borders before they were even opened. For him, translating was both a passion and a creative effort. Apart from that, he combined many other functions related to the promotion of Polish literature and culture - he delivered guest lectures on the history of Polish literature and poetics at universities in Heidelberg and Mainz, among others, as well as at various literary centres, initiated Polish-German forums to strengthen bilateral contacts and published articles on Polish-German relations. In 1979, on his initiative among others, the German Institute of Polish Culture in Darmstadt was established, which he managed until 1997.

Dedecius received numerous awards for his translations, literary and editorial work. In 1965 he received the International Translation Prize of the Polish PEN-Club, in 1990 he was awarded the prestigious Peace Prize of the German Booksellers and in 2010 the German State Prize. He was a member of the German Academy of Language and Literature, Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, PEN-Club, honorary doctorate of universities in Cologne, Toruń, Kraków, Lublin, Wrocław and Frankfurt (Oder).

The first part of the legacy was donated by the donor in 2001 - it also became the nucleus of the Karl Dedecius Archive. In the following years, several further additions were made, and the final part of the legacy was received by the Archive in 2016 after the death of Karl Dedecius. The entire collection comprises approximately 300 linear metres of documents. These include correspondence with Polish and German (Böll, Canetti, Celan, Enzensberger, Grass, Herbert, Iwaszkiewicz, Miłosz, Mrożek, Przyboś, Szymborska) writers, prominent public figures (Bartoszewski, Dönhoff, Süssmuth, Schmidt, Weizsäcker), publishing houses, universities, and numerous cultural institutions. There are also manuscripts of translated works, notes and various versions of translations, personal documents, texts of lectures, speeches, catalogues, posters, photographs, autographed and dedicated books, audio and video cassettes, as well as awards, medals and diplomas. The archive also holds various artefacts donated to the translator - prints, sculptures, exlibrises, paintings, scores and bibliophile editions.

The legacy of Karl Dedecius is owned by the Karl Dedecius Foundation, established in 2013. It carries out extensive cultural and scholarly activities in the spirit of its founder and manages the rights to his works.

The materials from the Karl Dedecius legacy are made available by the Karl Dedecius Archive.  All enquiries regarding the publication of translations and documents from the legacy should be sent to Karl Dedecius Stiftung.

Interesting pages:

Rolf Fieguth - German Slavist, literary scholar, translator from Polish, Russian and French.

Inventory of the personal archive of Rolf Fieguth

Rolf Fieguth was born in Berlin in 1941. He studied Slavonic studies, German studies and East European history in West Berlin and Munich. In 1967 he obtained a doctorate in Slavonic philology on the work of Adam Mickiewicz. From 1967 to 1979 he was a research fellow at the University of Konstanz, where he studied various philosophical and literary schools - from structuralism through Russian formalism to phenomenology and the aesthetics of reception. At the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences, he worked on Classicism and Pre-Romanticism in Polish literature. In 1976 he was awarded a habilitation in Slavic studies in the field of literary studies for his entire scientific work. Between 1980 and 1983 he taught as a professor of Polish and Russian Studies at the Free University of Berlin. Since 1983 he has been full professor of Slavic languages and literatures at the University of Freiburg in Switzerland.

Professor Fieguth is a researcher of the works of Polish writers and poets from the Renaissance to the 20th century avant-garde and the present (Kochanowski, Norwid, Witkiewicz, Schulz, Gombrowicz, Różewicz), Polish and Soviet drama of the 20th century. He has translated into German Gombrowicz's "Trans-Atlantyk" and Norwid's "Vade-mecum", among others, as well as French-speaking Swiss authors such as Bille, Bouvier, Chappaz, Simonet.

For his academic work in the field of comparative and Slavic studies, his translation output and publishing activity (collected works of Witold Gombrowicz), he received the award of the Polish PEN-Club (2001), was awarded the medal of the Adam Mickiewicz University (2009) and received an honorary doctorate of the Poznań university (2017).

Part of Rolf Fieguth's research archive was donated to the Karl Dedecius Archive in 2013 and compiled electronically in 2015. It contains materials of scientific workshops on Russian literature and philosophy, Polish literature from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, French modernism, Central European structuralism, drafts of lectures, seminars, symposia, articles, as well as numerous reviews of scientific papers and correspondence with collaborators, publishers and cultural institutions.

Interesting pages:

Roswitha Matwin-Buschmann - "professionalism and passion", expert on difficult pieces "(from Karl Dedecius' laudation," Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung. Jahrbuch ", Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 1993, p. 67)

Inventory of the estate of Roswitha Matwin-Buschmann

Roswitha Matwin-Buschmann was born in Trier in 1939. After studying Slavonic studies at the Leipzig Institute for Translation and Interpreting (Russian and Polish), she worked as a translator at the GDR Embassy in Warsaw, then as a reader for publishing houses and a specialist in Slavonic literature in East Berlin (Aufbau Verlag, Eulenspiegelverlag, Verlag das Neue Berlin). It was at this time that she began publishing her first major translations of Polish fiction, including The Invincible, one of Stanisław Lem's most famous novels.

From 1970 until the breakthrough she worked as a freelance translator of Polish and Russian literature, as well as a reviewer and reader in East Berlin.

Between 1991 and 2004 she was employed as a translator at the Goethe Institute in Warsaw and continued to work with leading German publishing houses and the Polish Institute in Berlin and Leipzig. After 1990, the rights to her translations were acquired by major West German publishing houses, i.e. DVA, Suhrkamp, Insel, Luchterhand.

Roswitha Matwin-Buschmann's index of translations includes more than 70 works by Polish authors - from poetry, novels, short stories, essays, radio dramas, plays to works for children and young people - from the Baroque to the 20th century avant-garde. She is also co-translator and author of numerous articles for about 40 anthologies.

Rosemarie Tietze at a lecture at the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts described Roswitha Matwin-Buschmann's translation work as "Dancing on a tightrope suspended over time" ("Seiltanz zwischen den Zeiten) . Among the authors she has translated into German are Romantics (Słowacki) as well as 20th century classics (Witkiewicz, Kuncewiczowa, Leśmian, Hłasko, Miłosz, Różewicz, Konwicki, Odojewski, Myśliwski, Lem, Krall), decadents (Przybyszewski), avant-gardists (Iredyński, Zaniecki), postmodernists (Rudnicki, Bieńczyk, Wiedemann, Grzegorzewska, Tulli), chroniclers of Solidarity (Andermann, Michnik), as well as authors of Jewish literature (Korczak, Grynberg, Hen) and literature dealing with the Holocaust (Sierakowiak, Gorodecka). Roswitha Matwin-Buschmann has a special sense for rhythm and phrase melody in works of various styles - from the prophetic-subtle Słowacki, through the exuberant fantasy of Witkiewicz and the ironic distance of Brandys, to the futurological discourse of Lem. In a conversation with Andreas Tretner of 7.06.1999, "Every work is a new dance" ("Jeder Text ein neuer Tanz") she called herself a translator dancing with Brandys, Lem and others for over 30 years.

For her translation of Brandys's "Variationen in Briefen", the German Academy of Language and Literature awarded her the Johann Heinrich Voss Prize in 1993. A year later Roswitha Matwin Buschmann became a full member of the Academy.

The estate of Roswitha Matwin-Buschmann was transferred to the archive, sorted and compiled in 2019. The collection contains approximately 2 linear metres of documents. These include manuscripts of numerous translations with corrections and notes, reviews of literary works for the German Academy of Language and Literature and translation projects as part of the Berlin Literary Colloquium, as well as discussions of Polish literature (1974-1995), articles written for the Goethe Institute, correspondence with Polish authors and business correspondence with more than 30 publishing houses, and a scientifically important collection of materials on literary translation

Interesting websites:

Hubert Schumann (1941-2013) - the works of Hubert Schumann are characterised by "aesthetic sensitivity, the empathy and sense of responsibility towards the original as well as towards the German language". Jürgen Gruner on the occasion of the awarding of the "Volk und Welt" translator's prize in 1979

Hubert Schumann was born in 1941 in Kenzingen im Breisgau and grew up in Hainichen. Between 1961 and 1966, he studied Slavic studies at the University of Leipzig. After graduating, he worked for two years as an editor for Slavic languages at the Reclam publishing house. He then followed his wife Barbara to Warsaw, where she worked in the cultural department of the GDR embassy as an interpreter, among other things. In the same embassy, Hubert Schumann worked in the press department from 1968 to 1973.

After returning from Warsaw, he took over the editorial office at the Aufbau publishing house in Berlin for a short time, but soon decided to become a freelance translator. From 1974, he worked as a literary translator, reviewer and editor with various publishing houses in the GDR, mainly Volk und Welt. Like any translator, he was also a connoisseur of literature and a promoter of literary figures, maintaining close contact with the Polish literary scene, always on the lookout for interesting titles and new talents.

Schumann attached great importance to complete independence from political structures and also refused membership in the GDR writers' association.

With the dissolution of most GDR publishing houses, this turning point brought a profound caesura in the biographies of many translators. Hubert Schumann renounced his artistic independence after 1990, gave up literary translation and worked as head of the stenographic service of the Brandenburg state parliament in Potsdam from 1992 to 1999. He died in 2013.

In his most productive years (1974-1990) he published over 40 books, as well as numerous short stories and smaller forms in anthologies. He translated works by Stanisław Lem ("Fiasco", "Local Date", "The Flop"), Marek Hłasko ("Port of Desire"), Kazimierz Moczarski ("Conversations with the Executioner"), Igor Newerly ("The Hill of Blue Dream"), Hanna Krall ("Preceding the Lord God", "Dance at a Foreign Wedding"), among others. He was also highly regarded as a reviewer, writing over 90 reviews for various publishers.

Source: Worbs, Erika: "Hubert Schumann (1941-2013) und seine Übersetzungen aus dem Polnischen". In: Aleksey Tashinskiy, Julija Boguna, Andreas F. Kelletat (eds.): Übersetzer und Übersetzen in der DDR. Studies in the History of Translation. Berlin 2020.

Interesting pages:

Polish authors in translation by Hubert Schumann in the translation bibliographies of the DPI

Article on Hubert Schumann in Germersheimer Übersetzerlexikon (in preparation)

Publication: Übersetzer und Übersetzen in der DDR: Translationshistorische Studien.
Ed. by Aleksey Tashinskiy, Julija Boguna und Andreas F. Kelletat. Berlin: Frank&Timme, 2020.

Works by Hubert Schumann in DNB

Eugeniusz Wachowiak - "So I protested after a peer from the other side of the Oder with his protest, expressed by me in Polish at home." (E. Wachowiak: ""The assimilability of words (from the consideration of the translator", 1980, p.2).

Inventory of Eugeniusz Wachowiak's personal archive

Poet, translator of German literature, author of poetic, reflective and memoir prose, was born in Leszno in 1929. After studying at the Higher School of Economics in Poznań, he worked as a clerk and then as a director in trade and industry. In addition, he divided his free time between translating poetry, prose and his own work.

In 1958 he published his first book of poems, "Poet's Africa". It was followed by others, including "Before Dreams Unrest" (1962), "It's hard to saturate the Earth" (1969), "Thuringia" (1970), "Word and Gesture" (1976), "Exit from the Darkness" (1987), "Well Medallion" (1998) and the bilingual selection "Obwohl deine Sprache anders klingt / Though speech sounds different word for word" (2015). To this day, he has published 16 collections of poems. They have been translated into German and published in journals and anthologies. 

Since 1960, he has translated works from German - initially for the literary biweekly Nadodrze - mainly poems by his GDR contemporaries, including Hans Cibulka, Bernd Jentzsch, Heinz Kahlau, Rainer Kirsch, Rainer Kunze, Werner Lindemann, Arnim Müller, Rose Nyland, Helmut Preissler. In 1965 his first mini-anthology of GDR poetry, "Dopóki serce bije" ("As long as the heart beats"), was published in the Lubuskie poetry sheets series. In 1969, together with Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, he co-edited a Representative anthology of GDR poetry, Dopowiedzenie świtu (Annotation of the Dawn), and in 1979 an Anthology of Poems by Poets of the German Democratic Republic. To him Volker Braun (1974), Johannes Bobrowski (1976), Else Lasker-Schüler (1992) and Johannes Poethen (1994) owe their reception in Poland.

Wachowiak also translated prose novels, novellas, essays - notes, diaries, reflections and longer stories by Marianne Bruns, Hans Cibulka, Franz Fühmann, Rolf Hochhuth, Heinar Kipphardt, Karl May, Arnim Müller, Erwin Strittmatter, Franz Werfel.

He published his translations of Paul Celan, Sarah Kirsch, Günter Grass, Ernst Toller, often with critical commentaries, as well as his own works in opinion-forming cultural and literary magazines, such as "Odra", "Poezja", "Nurt", "Litery", "Akcent", "Kresy", "Okolica Poetów", "Tygiel Kultury", "Przegląd Polityczny", "Tygodnik Zachodni".

In 1960-1983 he was a member of the Polish Writers' Union, and from 1989 a founding member of the Polish Writers' Association and the Polish PEN Club. At the Poznań branch of the Association of Polish Writers, he established the Roman Brandstaetter Fund and initiated its publishing activities in 1991. Moreover, within the SPP he coordinated cooperation with the "Writer's House" Association in Stuttgart. In the 1980s he published in the underground and was widely involved in opposition activity in Poznań.

Part of Eugeniusz Wachowiak's collection was donated to the archive, sorted and electronically processed in 2015. The collection contains approximately 4 running metres of documents. Among them are translations, literary commentaries, articles, readings, correspondence with authors, notes and reflections from study trips to the GDR

Interesting websites:

Karin Wolff (1939-2018) - "It's not the well-trodden paths that are her thing, but the undiscovered or forgotten." Christa Ebert on Karin Wolff in the justification for the award of the Translator Prize of the NRW Cultural Foundation (unpublished typescript from 24.11.2010).

"I am an individualist and I have always loved freedom. [...] I'm just more of a cat than a dog." Karin Wolff in conversation with Robert Żurek, in: Żurek, Robert (ed.): Polen - mein Weg zur Freiheit: Wie Polen die DDR-Bürgerrechtler inspirierte, Osnabrück, 2015

Inventory of the Karin Wolff estate

Karin Wolff was born and grew up in Frankfurt (Oder). After graduating from high school, she was not admitted to university - because of her middle-class background and Christian worldview - but was sent to "prove herself in the socialist work process" in a furniture factory. Despite being delegated to study Indology in Leipzig, she was refused. In the end she studied Protestant theology at the Berlin Sprachenkonvikt. During a 14-week stay at the clinic, she taught herself Polish independently and later took the language exam at the Polish Culture and Information Centre in East Berlin. At the same time, she began translating Polish literature. Her first publication was a children's book: "Die Abenteuer eines Knetemännleins" (The Adventures of a Knead Man) by Maria Kownacka, published in 1970 by the Groszer publishing house in Old Berlin. For many years Karin Wolff worked as a proofreader, later as an editor at the Evangelische Verlagsanstalt in Berlin and as a freelancer on the editorial staff of the monthly magazine "Polen (West)" in Warsaw. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, she has lived in Frankfurt (Oder) as a freelance translator and author.

Karin Wolff translated over 90 books by Polish authors from different eras and different literary directions, including works by Jerzy Bieńkowski, Roman Brandstaetter, Jerzy Ficowski, Manuela Gretkowska, Maria Kuncewiczowa, Karolina Lanckorońska, Antoni Libera, Helena Mniszkówna, Maria Nurowska, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Andrzej Szczypiorski, Władysław Szpielman and Gabriela Zapolska. She was a tireless ambassador of Polish literature and culture, which she presented to the wide audience of her hometown in various events.

Wolff received several awards for her translations and her commitment, including the Translators' Prize of the Polish PEN Club, the Translators' Prize of the Polish Association of Authors and Composers (ZAiKS), the Medal of Merit of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Officer's Cross of the Republic of Poland and the Gratitude Medal of the European Centre of Solidarność in Gdansk.

Karin Wolff passed away on 29 July 2018 in Frankfurt (Oder).

Interesting websites: