Category Archives: Poetry

Antschel • Documentary by Susanne Ayoub • Paul Celan and Klaus Demus

The premiere of the film in Ukraine took place on November 27th, 2020, on the occasion of the festival “Paul Celan Literature Days 2020” in Czernowitz, organized by the Paul Celan Literature Centre, Meridian Czernowitz and sponsored by the Austrian Cultural Forum Kyiv. The film (45:29 min.) is German with Ukrainian subtitles.

The documentary “Antschel” was shot in 2020 by the Austrian director and poet Susanne Ayoub. The narrator of the film is Paul Celan’s childhood friend Klaus Demus. The two young poets met in Vienna in 1948.

The Dreamed Ones

8.02.ma,pk-cover-e

THE DREAMED ONES
The themes of love and hate are depicted in the movie DIE GETRÄUMTEN (The Dreamed Ones). At center stage are the two poets Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan, who came to know each other in post-war Vienna. Their dramatic postal exchange creates the textual basis of the film. Two young actors meet in a recording studio to read the letters. The tumultuous emotions of proximity and distance, fascination and fear captivate them. However they also enjoy each otherʼs company, arguing, smoking, discussing their tattoos and favourite music. Yesterdays love, todays love and tomorrows: where the lines are blurred lies the heart of the film.

Read more at: http://www.diegetraeumten.at/e/15-en/

Meyer Ebner on Leibu Levin – 1935

From Ruth Levin, an article from the “Ost-Yiddishe Zeitung”, 2.6.1935:

“…Dr. Landau introduced to the audience a young man whose name
should not be forgotten. Probably, we’ll hear from him again and again.

Levin isn’t a singer, rather he’s an artistic reader. He’s not a reader, rather
he’s an actor. As a matter of fact he’s all in one: singer, artistic reader, actor
and poet. Why also poet? He reads to us only the poems of others, does he not?
That being so, this is the secret of his art. He reveals what is hidden between the lines.
He brings the poet to completion. He draws from the poet’s soul riches the poet himself
did not know of, riches that were hidden in his sub-conscious…

Frequently the words of the text in his mouth serve solely as a stimulus that awakens –
just for a passing moment – the poetic spiritual inheritance of his own, and that has
always to be born anew, like the music.

The art of Leibu Levin needs not only to be heard, though, but also to be seen. He himself
one has to hear and see, how he breathes into the dim hall, into the pearls of strangers’
poetry, his young burning soul, the creative, sometimes ecstatic, and sometimes weeping
soul…  His profound understanding drew one deeply into the fables of
Eliezer Steinbarg and the ballads of Itzik Manger.

From time to time the reader becomes singer, and only when he was seen as well as heard,
did I finally understand the meaning of the old expression “to sing and to say”
regarding troubadours and minnesingers. When his spoken word passes to song, it reminds me
of a flying ship hovering above the earth and taking off to the blue heavens…

Talent is as rare as gold. From the gold it is possible to forge a holiday crown for
priests who serve gods and it is possible to pay with it the penance for sinful impurity…

Talent can be refined to capture surpassing art, or can descend to cheap popular
entertainment. It seems to me that all in Leibu Levin aspires toward and is uplifted to the
shining heights of noble art .”

Dr. Meyer Ebner
The newspaper “Ost-Yiddishe Zeitung”, 2.6.1935

Ostjüdische_Zeitung_1935_00169 Kopie

Prof. Petro Rychlo Received the Georg Dehio Cultural Award

DSC_0075Rychlo-9-15

 

Christel Wollmann-Fiedler
Berlin, 24. September 2015
Georg Dehio-Kulturpreis 2015  an Professor Dr. Petro  Rychlo aus Czernowitz

Das moderne helle Atrium der Deutschen Bank in einem Altbau Unter den Linden in Berlin-Mitte ist eine schöne Umgebung für das wichtige Fest, für die Georg Dehio-Kulturpreisveleihung des Jahres 2015. Eine künstlerische Collage des Czernowitzer Jugendstilbahnhofs in Großformat  steht  auf dem Podium und ist von weitem zu erkennen. Der Kulturpreis geht schließlich an einen aus Czernowitz kommenden, einen in vielen Ländern bekannten und hochgeschätzten  Literaturprofessor der Jurij Fedkowitsch Universität, Herrn Dr. Petro Rychlo. Den Nebenpreis erhält das tschechische Filmprojekt „Alois Nebel“,  des  Regisseurs Tomas Lunak , des Grafikers Jaromir 99 und des Autors Jaroslav Rudis. Martin Becker, der Journalist und Schriftsteller, hält die gekonnte ideenreiche Laudatio.

Das Deutsche Kulturforum östliches Europa in Potsdam hat zu dem Abend eingeladen und  vergibt den honorigen Preis. Continue reading