Bukovina and Its Poets: A Country Where Men and Books Lived

Marc Sagnol

doi:doi:10.11648/j.ss.20221105.14

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Bukovina and Its Poets: A Country Where Men and Books Lived

Marc Sagnol

Published in Social Sciences (Volume 11, Issue 5)

Received: 14 July 2022 Accepted: 8 August 2022 Published: 5 September 2022

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Abstract

Bucovina was snatched from oblivion in the consciousness of the educated world of Europe when it was realized that Paul Celan (Czernowitz 1920 - Paris 1970) had spoken of his homeland, the city of Czernowitz, as a country “where men and books lived”. Since then other poets from Bukovina have received recognition, such as Rose Ausländer (Czernowitz 1901 - Düsseldorf 1988), Immanuel Weissglas (Czernowitz 1920 - Bucharest 1979), Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger (Czernowitz 1924 - Mikhailovka 1942) among others. All the accounts of Czernowitz in the inter-war period speak of the city’s abundance of cultural life, with intense poetic circles and literary activity that was while remote from the major intellectual centers not at all “provincial”, but rather a hotbed that gave birth to some of the greatest names in German-language poetry of the 20th century. Paradoxically, it was Germany that destroyed the foundations of its own high culture in Eastern Europe between 1941 and 1944. This essay presents the main currents of this still little-known poetry, placing it in the context of what was until 1919 the former Austro-Hungarian province of Bucovina, and then between the two wars Romanian province. In this period German-language poetry flowered, with Alfred Margul Sperber (Storozhinets, Bucovina 1898 - Bucharest 1967) and Alfred Kittner (Czernowitz 1906 - Düsseldorf 1991), until the dispersal into exile and subsequent disappearance of this poetry after the war and the Shoah. But before disappearing completely, it experienced a “final blossoming”, like a firework, posthumous and delocalized, dislocated from the land where it was born. Among the texts cited, we shall present some poems by the very young Selma Meerbaum, who died during deportation to Mikhailovka, and an unpublished poem taken from Paul Celan’s Tabarest Notebook, written in 1943 in a compulsory labor camp in Romania during the war.

Published in	Social Sciences (Volume 11, Issue 5)
DOI	10.11648/j.ss.20221105.14
Page(s)	283-290
Creative Commons	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright	Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Poetry, Bukovina, Czernowitz, Austria-Hungary, Celan, Rose Ausländer, Alfred Kittner, Shoah

References

[1]	Celan, P. (1986), Gesammelte Werke [Collected Works], 3 Frankfurt/Main. («Ansprache anlässlich der Entgegennahme des Literaturpreises der Freien Hansestadt Bremen» [Speech on the occasion of the acceptance of the Literature Prize of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen], p. 185).
[2]	Colin, A. and Kittner, A. (ed.) (1994): Versunkene Dichtung der Bukowina. Eine Anthologie deutschsprachiger Lyrik [Sunken Poetry of Bukovina. An Anthology of German-Language Poetry]. Munich.
[3]	Rychlo, P. (2002), Die verlorene Harfe. Eine Anthologie deutschsprachiger Lyrik aus der Bukowina [The Lost Harp. An anthology of German-language poetry from Bukovina]. Cernivci [Czernowitz], 2nd ed. 2008.
[4]	Kobylanska, O. (2013), Valse mélancolique. Ausgewählte Prosa [Valse mélancolique. Selected Prose], ed. Petro Rychlo, Czernowitz (in German).
[5]	Wichner, E. & Wiesner, H. (ed) (1993), In der Sprache der Mörder. Eine Literatur aus Czernowitz, Bukowina [In the Language of the Murderers. A Literature from Czernowitz, Bukovina]. Literaturhaus Berlin.
[6]	Franzos, K-E. (1878): Aus Halb-Asien [From Half Asia], vol. 2, Leipzig.
[7]	Sacher-Masoch, L. von (1989), Der Judenraphael. Geschichten aus Galizien [The Raphael of the Jews. Stories from Galicia], Böhlau, Köln-Graz.
[8]	Ausländer, R. (1984): Gelassen atmet die Zeit [Time breathes serenely], Frankfurt am Main: Fischer.
[9]	Rezzori, G. Von (1979): Memoiren eines Antisemiten. Ein Roman in fünf Erzählungen [Memoirs of an Anti-Semite. A novel in five stories], Munich.
[10]	Margul Sperber, A. (2009), Die Buche. Eine Anthologie deutsch-sprachiger Judendichtung aus der Bukowina [The Beech. An Anthology of German-language Jewish poetry from Bukovina], ed. George Guţu, Peter Motzan, Stefan Sienerth, Munich.
[11]	Kittner, A. (1938), Der Wolkenreiter [The Cloud Rider], Czernowitz, reprinted by Rimbaud Verlag, Aachen 2004.
[12]	Kittner, A. (1956), Hungermarsch und Stacheldraht, Verse von Trotz und Zuversicht [Hunger March and Barbed Wire, Verses of Defiance and Confidence]. Bucharest.
[13]	Ausländer, R. (1939): Der Regenbogen [The Rainbow], Czernowitz: Literaria, reprint by: Die Erde war ein atlasweisses Feld, Gedichte 1927-1956 (Gesammelte Werke, I) [The Earth was a Field white as Atlas, Poems 1927-1956 (Collected Works, I)]. Frankfurt am Main 1985.
[14]	Braun, H. (2021): “Du hast mit deinen Sternen nicht gespart”. Rose Ausländer und Paul Celan ["You have not spared with your stars". Rose Ausländer and Paul Celan]. Rimbaud Verlag, Aachen.
[15]	Alfred Gong (2015) Manifest Alpha [Manifesto Alpha], Czernowitz, ed. Peter Rychlo: afterword: “Alfred Gong, transatlantischer Odysseus des 20. Jahrhunderts” [“Alfred Gong as a transatlantic Ulysses of the 20th century”] (pp. 201-217).
[16]	Weissglas, I. (1994), Aschenzeit. Gesammelte Gedichte [Time of Ashes. Collected Poems], Aachen.
[17]	Weissglas, I. (2020), Gottes Mühlen in Berlin [God‘s Mills in Berlin], ed. Andrei Corbea-Hoisie, Rimbaud Verlag Aachen.
[18]	Sagnol, M. “La Carrière sur le Boug et le Sable des urnes” [The Quarry on the Bug River and the Sand of the Urns], in Études germaniques 76 (2021- 4), pp. 469-505.
[19]	Celan, P. (2000) Das Notizbuch aus Tabarest [The Notebook from Tabarest], in Marbacher Magazin 90/2000, pp. 68-119. French translation: Sagnol, M. (2021) «La steppe et la roseraie. Les poèmes de jeunesse de Paul Celan: le carnet de Tabarest» [The Steppe and the Rose Garden. Paul Celan’s youthful poems: the Tabarest notebook]. Po&sie n° 174.
[20]	Colin, A (ed.) (2010), Paul Celan-Edith Silbermann, Zeugnisse einer Freundschaft [Paul Celan-Edith Silbermann, Testimonies of a Friendship], Munich.
[21]	Meerbaum-Eisinger, S. (2001): Ich bin in Sehnsucht eingehüllt [I am wrapped in longing], Frankfurt am Main: Fischer 2001. Our translation in French: Meerbaum, S. (2018), Nous nous embraserons comme en rêve [We shall blaze as in a dream], transl. Marc Sagnol, Chalifert 2018.
[22]	Tauschwitz, M. (2014), Selma Merbaum, Ich habe keine Zeit gehabt zuende zu schreiben. Biografie und Gedichte [Selma Merbaum, I have not had time to finish writing. Biography and poems], zu Klampen, Springe.
[23]	Keren, E. (1983) Dann ging ich über den Pont des Arts [Then I crossed the Pont des Arts], Ramat Gan, reissue in preparation (based on information from Amy Colin, Pittsburg/ Düsseldorf)

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Marc Sagnol. (2022). Bukovina and Its Poets: A Country Where Men and Books Lived. Social Sciences, 11(5), 283-290. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20221105.14

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Marc Sagnol. Bukovina and Its Poets: A Country Where Men and Books Lived. Soc. Sci. 2022, 11(5), 283-290. doi: 10.11648/j.ss.20221105.14

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Marc Sagnol. Bukovina and Its Poets: A Country Where Men and Books Lived. Soc Sci. 2022;11(5):283-290. doi: 10.11648/j.ss.20221105.14

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@article{10.11648/j.ss.20221105.14,
  author = {Marc Sagnol},
  title = {Bukovina and Its Poets: A Country Where Men and Books Lived},
  journal = {Social Sciences},
  volume = {11},
  number = {5},
  pages = {283-290},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ss.20221105.14},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20221105.14},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ss.20221105.14},
  abstract = {Bucovina was snatched from oblivion in the consciousness of the educated world of Europe when it was realized that Paul Celan (Czernowitz 1920 - Paris 1970) had spoken of his homeland, the city of Czernowitz, as a country “where men and books lived”. Since then other poets from Bukovina have received recognition, such as Rose Ausländer (Czernowitz 1901 - Düsseldorf 1988), Immanuel Weissglas (Czernowitz 1920 - Bucharest 1979), Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger (Czernowitz 1924 - Mikhailovka 1942) among others. All the accounts of Czernowitz in the inter-war period speak of the city’s abundance of cultural life, with intense poetic circles and literary activity that was while remote from the major intellectual centers not at all “provincial”, but rather a hotbed that gave birth to some of the greatest names in German-language poetry of the 20th century. Paradoxically, it was Germany that destroyed the foundations of its own high culture in Eastern Europe between 1941 and 1944. This essay presents the main currents of this still little-known poetry, placing it in the context of what was until 1919 the former Austro-Hungarian province of Bucovina, and then between the two wars Romanian province. In this period German-language poetry flowered, with Alfred Margul Sperber (Storozhinets, Bucovina 1898 - Bucharest 1967) and Alfred Kittner (Czernowitz 1906 - Düsseldorf 1991), until the dispersal into exile and subsequent disappearance of this poetry after the war and the Shoah. But before disappearing completely, it experienced a “final blossoming”, like a firework, posthumous and delocalized, dislocated from the land where it was born. Among the texts cited, we shall present some poems by the very young Selma Meerbaum, who died during deportation to Mikhailovka, and an unpublished poem taken from Paul Celan’s Tabarest Notebook, written in 1943 in a compulsory labor camp in Romania during the war.},
 year = {2022}
}

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TY  - JOUR
T1  - Bukovina and Its Poets: A Country Where Men and Books Lived
AU  - Marc Sagnol
Y1  - 2022/09/05
PY  - 2022
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20221105.14
DO  - 10.11648/j.ss.20221105.14
T2  - Social Sciences
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SP  - 283
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SN  - 2326-988X
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AB  - Bucovina was snatched from oblivion in the consciousness of the educated world of Europe when it was realized that Paul Celan (Czernowitz 1920 - Paris 1970) had spoken of his homeland, the city of Czernowitz, as a country “where men and books lived”. Since then other poets from Bukovina have received recognition, such as Rose Ausländer (Czernowitz 1901 - Düsseldorf 1988), Immanuel Weissglas (Czernowitz 1920 - Bucharest 1979), Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger (Czernowitz 1924 - Mikhailovka 1942) among others. All the accounts of Czernowitz in the inter-war period speak of the city’s abundance of cultural life, with intense poetic circles and literary activity that was while remote from the major intellectual centers not at all “provincial”, but rather a hotbed that gave birth to some of the greatest names in German-language poetry of the 20th century. Paradoxically, it was Germany that destroyed the foundations of its own high culture in Eastern Europe between 1941 and 1944. This essay presents the main currents of this still little-known poetry, placing it in the context of what was until 1919 the former Austro-Hungarian province of Bucovina, and then between the two wars Romanian province. In this period German-language poetry flowered, with Alfred Margul Sperber (Storozhinets, Bucovina 1898 - Bucharest 1967) and Alfred Kittner (Czernowitz 1906 - Düsseldorf 1991), until the dispersal into exile and subsequent disappearance of this poetry after the war and the Shoah. But before disappearing completely, it experienced a “final blossoming”, like a firework, posthumous and delocalized, dislocated from the land where it was born. Among the texts cited, we shall present some poems by the very young Selma Meerbaum, who died during deportation to Mikhailovka, and an unpublished poem taken from Paul Celan’s Tabarest Notebook, written in 1943 in a compulsory labor camp in Romania during the war.
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Marc Sagnol

Independent Scholar, Paris, France

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Marc Sagnol. (2022). Bukovina and Its Poets: A Country Where Men and Books Lived. Social Sciences, 11(5), 283-290. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20221105.14

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Marc Sagnol. Bukovina and Its Poets: A Country Where Men and Books Lived. Soc. Sci. 2022, 11(5), 283-290. doi: 10.11648/j.ss.20221105.14

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Marc Sagnol. Bukovina and Its Poets: A Country Where Men and Books Lived. Soc Sci. 2022;11(5):283-290. doi: 10.11648/j.ss.20221105.14

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@article{10.11648/j.ss.20221105.14,
  author = {Marc Sagnol},
  title = {Bukovina and Its Poets: A Country Where Men and Books Lived},
  journal = {Social Sciences},
  volume = {11},
  number = {5},
  pages = {283-290},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ss.20221105.14},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20221105.14},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ss.20221105.14},
  abstract = {Bucovina was snatched from oblivion in the consciousness of the educated world of Europe when it was realized that Paul Celan (Czernowitz 1920 - Paris 1970) had spoken of his homeland, the city of Czernowitz, as a country “where men and books lived”. Since then other poets from Bukovina have received recognition, such as Rose Ausländer (Czernowitz 1901 - Düsseldorf 1988), Immanuel Weissglas (Czernowitz 1920 - Bucharest 1979), Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger (Czernowitz 1924 - Mikhailovka 1942) among others. All the accounts of Czernowitz in the inter-war period speak of the city’s abundance of cultural life, with intense poetic circles and literary activity that was while remote from the major intellectual centers not at all “provincial”, but rather a hotbed that gave birth to some of the greatest names in German-language poetry of the 20th century. Paradoxically, it was Germany that destroyed the foundations of its own high culture in Eastern Europe between 1941 and 1944. This essay presents the main currents of this still little-known poetry, placing it in the context of what was until 1919 the former Austro-Hungarian province of Bucovina, and then between the two wars Romanian province. In this period German-language poetry flowered, with Alfred Margul Sperber (Storozhinets, Bucovina 1898 - Bucharest 1967) and Alfred Kittner (Czernowitz 1906 - Düsseldorf 1991), until the dispersal into exile and subsequent disappearance of this poetry after the war and the Shoah. But before disappearing completely, it experienced a “final blossoming”, like a firework, posthumous and delocalized, dislocated from the land where it was born. Among the texts cited, we shall present some poems by the very young Selma Meerbaum, who died during deportation to Mikhailovka, and an unpublished poem taken from Paul Celan’s Tabarest Notebook, written in 1943 in a compulsory labor camp in Romania during the war.},
 year = {2022}
}

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TY  - JOUR
T1  - Bukovina and Its Poets: A Country Where Men and Books Lived
AU  - Marc Sagnol
Y1  - 2022/09/05
PY  - 2022
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20221105.14
DO  - 10.11648/j.ss.20221105.14
T2  - Social Sciences
JF  - Social Sciences
JO  - Social Sciences
SP  - 283
EP  - 290
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2326-988X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20221105.14
AB  - Bucovina was snatched from oblivion in the consciousness of the educated world of Europe when it was realized that Paul Celan (Czernowitz 1920 - Paris 1970) had spoken of his homeland, the city of Czernowitz, as a country “where men and books lived”. Since then other poets from Bukovina have received recognition, such as Rose Ausländer (Czernowitz 1901 - Düsseldorf 1988), Immanuel Weissglas (Czernowitz 1920 - Bucharest 1979), Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger (Czernowitz 1924 - Mikhailovka 1942) among others. All the accounts of Czernowitz in the inter-war period speak of the city’s abundance of cultural life, with intense poetic circles and literary activity that was while remote from the major intellectual centers not at all “provincial”, but rather a hotbed that gave birth to some of the greatest names in German-language poetry of the 20th century. Paradoxically, it was Germany that destroyed the foundations of its own high culture in Eastern Europe between 1941 and 1944. This essay presents the main currents of this still little-known poetry, placing it in the context of what was until 1919 the former Austro-Hungarian province of Bucovina, and then between the two wars Romanian province. In this period German-language poetry flowered, with Alfred Margul Sperber (Storozhinets, Bucovina 1898 - Bucharest 1967) and Alfred Kittner (Czernowitz 1906 - Düsseldorf 1991), until the dispersal into exile and subsequent disappearance of this poetry after the war and the Shoah. But before disappearing completely, it experienced a “final blossoming”, like a firework, posthumous and delocalized, dislocated from the land where it was born. Among the texts cited, we shall present some poems by the very young Selma Meerbaum, who died during deportation to Mikhailovka, and an unpublished poem taken from Paul Celan’s Tabarest Notebook, written in 1943 in a compulsory labor camp in Romania during the war.
VL  - 11
IS  - 5
ER  -

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