Rio Preisner
Encyclopedia
Rio Preisner was a Czech poet, philosopher, translator, and scholar of Czech and German literature.
). In his childhood, he was exposed to a multicultural environment of Czech, Slovak
, German
, Ukrainian
, Hungarian and Jewish communities; Mukačevo possessed the only gymnasium in all of Europe which offered instruction in Hebrew. He spent his adolescence growing up in Prague
under the shadow of the Nazi protectorate
.
He graduated from high school (receiving his maturita
) in 1944, when he was drafted to work in the Českomoravská-Kolben-Daněk factory in Prague, building Panzer
tanks. At the end of the war he studied in the German and English Departments of Charles University in Prague
, obtaining his doctorate in 1950 with a dissertation on Franz Werfel
. For the next year, he taught in the German Department of Charles University, and worked as a literary translator for the Mladá fronta
and Státní nakladatelství krásné literature publishing houses.
One month after his marriage to the art historian Olga Wittová in 1952, Preisner was arrested and sentenced to hard labour in a Stalinist
labor camp
. He had no idea as to the length of his sentence. "It was rumoured that I was to be sent to Siberia
," he once said. "Only Stalin's death, and the following thaw, averted this fate." His imprisonment lasted from October 1, 1952 to November 28, 1954.
Upon his return to Prague, he taught German in the Státní jazyková škola (State Academy of Languages) until 1965. He also worked as a free-lance translator, and lent his hand in attempts at reforming the Československá strana lidová (Czechoslovak People's Party). In 1968, he won the Mladá fronta newspaper's literary prize for his Kafkaesque novel Kapiláry.
That same year, after the Warsaw Pact
's squelching of the Prague Spring
, he, his wife Olga, and their daughter Ruth left Prague for exile, first in Vienna, and later, from 1969, in the USA. The overwhelmingly positive response in Europe to the German edition of his critical work on Nestroy was the effectual cause of his being offered a professorship at Pennsylvania State University
.
From 1969 to his retirement in 1992, Preisner was Professor of German at Penn State in University Park, Pennsylvania
. There, he taught both graduate and undergraduate students, and directed many MA and PhD theses in German, Czech, and Comparative Literature. After his retirement, he and his wife moved to the Pittsburgh area, where he continued to write. His works, banned for some two decades, were again being published in the Czech Republic, and received with critical acclaim.
Preisner belonged to the Svaz československých spisovatelů (Czechoslovak Writers' Union), the PEN-Club (Vienna), and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts
. He was also named Fellow of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Penn State. In 2000, President Václav Havel
awarded him the "Za zásluhy" medal ("For Meritorious Service") in the field of culture and scholarship.
Preisner died on August 2, 2007 in Indianola, Pennsylvania.
— Aspekte einer provokativen tschechischen Germanistik (Aspects of Provocative Czech German Studies. Vol 2: Avantgarde—Ideologie. Würzburg: Jal Verlag. Published as vol. 12 in the series "Colloquium Slavicum."
Biography
Preisner was born in the easternly town of Mukačevo (presently in UkraineUkraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
). In his childhood, he was exposed to a multicultural environment of Czech, Slovak
Slovaks
The Slovaks, Slovak people, or Slovakians are a West Slavic people that primarily inhabit Slovakia and speak the Slovak language, which is closely related to the Czech language.Most Slovaks today live within the borders of the independent Slovakia...
, German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
, Ukrainian
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
, Hungarian and Jewish communities; Mukačevo possessed the only gymnasium in all of Europe which offered instruction in Hebrew. He spent his adolescence growing up in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
under the shadow of the Nazi protectorate
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was the majority ethnic-Czech protectorate which Nazi Germany established in the central parts of Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia in what is today the Czech Republic...
.
He graduated from high school (receiving his maturita
Matura
Matura or a similar term is the common name for the high-school leaving exam or "maturity exam" in various countries, including Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Kosovo, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia,...
) in 1944, when he was drafted to work in the Českomoravská-Kolben-Daněk factory in Prague, building Panzer
Panzer
A Panzer is a German language word that, when used as a noun, means "tank". When it is used as an adjective, it means either tank or "armoured" .- Etymology :...
tanks. At the end of the war he studied in the German and English Departments of Charles University in Prague
Charles University in Prague
Charles University in Prague is the oldest and largest university in the Czech Republic. Founded in 1348, it was the first university in Central Europe and is also considered the earliest German university...
, obtaining his doctorate in 1950 with a dissertation on Franz Werfel
Franz Werfel
Franz Werfel was an Austrian-Bohemian novelist, playwright, and poet.- Biography :Born in Prague , Werfel was the first of three children of a wealthy manufacturer of gloves and leather goods. His mother, Albine Kussi, was the daughter of a mill owner...
. For the next year, he taught in the German Department of Charles University, and worked as a literary translator for the Mladá fronta
Mladá fronta DNES
Mladá fronta Dnes, also known as MF DNES or simply Dnes , is the second most sold daily newspaper in the Czech Republic. Its name could be translated into English as Youth Front Today...
and Státní nakladatelství krásné literature publishing houses.
One month after his marriage to the art historian Olga Wittová in 1952, Preisner was arrested and sentenced to hard labour in a Stalinist
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
labor camp
Labor camp
A labor camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons...
. He had no idea as to the length of his sentence. "It was rumoured that I was to be sent to Siberia
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
," he once said. "Only Stalin's death, and the following thaw, averted this fate." His imprisonment lasted from October 1, 1952 to November 28, 1954.
Upon his return to Prague, he taught German in the Státní jazyková škola (State Academy of Languages) until 1965. He also worked as a free-lance translator, and lent his hand in attempts at reforming the Československá strana lidová (Czechoslovak People's Party). In 1968, he won the Mladá fronta newspaper's literary prize for his Kafkaesque novel Kapiláry.
That same year, after the Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
's squelching of the Prague Spring
Prague Spring
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...
, he, his wife Olga, and their daughter Ruth left Prague for exile, first in Vienna, and later, from 1969, in the USA. The overwhelmingly positive response in Europe to the German edition of his critical work on Nestroy was the effectual cause of his being offered a professorship at Pennsylvania State University
Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University, commonly referred to as Penn State or PSU, is a public research university with campuses and facilities throughout the state of Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1855, the university has a threefold mission of teaching, research, and public service...
.
From 1969 to his retirement in 1992, Preisner was Professor of German at Penn State in University Park, Pennsylvania
University Park, Pennsylvania
University Park, Pennsylvania is an unincorporated community in Centre County, Pennsylvania, United States, and is the location of the flagship campus of the Pennsylvania State University....
. There, he taught both graduate and undergraduate students, and directed many MA and PhD theses in German, Czech, and Comparative Literature. After his retirement, he and his wife moved to the Pittsburgh area, where he continued to write. His works, banned for some two decades, were again being published in the Czech Republic, and received with critical acclaim.
Preisner belonged to the Svaz československých spisovatelů (Czechoslovak Writers' Union), the PEN-Club (Vienna), and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts
European Academy of Sciences and Arts
The European Academy of Sciences and Arts was created in 1990 in Salzburg, Austria by heart surgeon Felix Unger of Salzburg; the cardinal archbishop of Vienna, Franz König; and the political scientist and philosopher Nikolaus Lobkowicz....
. He was also named Fellow of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Penn State. In 2000, President Václav Havel
Václav Havel
Václav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
awarded him the "Za zásluhy" medal ("For Meritorious Service") in the field of culture and scholarship.
Preisner died on August 2, 2007 in Indianola, Pennsylvania.
Poetry
- 1968 – Kapiláry ("Capillaries"), Brno: Blok. I: Pan Schwitter platí účet v DVSP ("Mr Schwitter Pays His Dues"); II: Půdorys města ("City Plan")
- 1977 – Odstup ("Distance"), Montréal/Zurich.
- 1978 – Zvíře dětství ("The Animal of Childhood"), Munich: Poezie mimo Domov.
- 1980 – Zasuto ("Buried Layers Deep"), Munich: Jadrný Verlag.
- 1989 – Královská cesta ("The Royal Road"), London: Rozmluvy
- 1992 – Visuté mosty ("Hanging Bridges"), Prague: Rozmluvy
- 1992 – Praha za času plujících ker ("Prague in Thaw"), Prague: Pražská imaginace.
- 1994 – Vídeňské veduty ("Viennese veduti"), Prague: Proglas 8/94
- 1996 – Visuté mosty: Selected Poems, translated into English by C.S. Kraszewski, Rome/Svitavy: Accademia Cristiana/Trinitas.
- 1997 – Básně (Collected Poems), Prague: Torst
Prose: Criticism, Philosophy, Political Science, History, Cultural History
- 1968 – Jan Nepomuk Nestroy: Tvůrce tragické frašky ("Jan Nepomuk Nestroy: Creator of the Tragifarce"), Prague; German edition JNN: Der Schöpfer der tragischen Posse, published 1968 by Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich.
- 1973 – Kritika totalitarismu ("A Critique of Totalitarianism"), London: Rozmluvy.
- 1977 – Aspekte einer provokativen tschechischen Germanistik ("Aspects of Provocative Czech German Studies"), Vol 1: Kafka—Nestroy. Würzburg: Jal Verlag. Published as vol. 8 in the series "Colloquium Slavicum."
- 1981 – Kultura bez konce ("Culture Without End"), Munich.
— Aspekte einer provokativen tschechischen Germanistik (Aspects of Provocative Czech German Studies. Vol 2: Avantgarde—Ideologie. Würzburg: Jal Verlag. Published as vol. 12 in the series "Colloquium Slavicum."
- 1984 – Česká existence ("Czech Existence"), London: Rozmluvy.
- 1987 – Až na konec Česka ("To the Very End of the Czechia"), London: Rozmluvy.
- 1992 – Americana Brno: Atlantis. 2 vols.
- 1996 – Kultura bez konce ("Culture Without End"), re-issue with Václav Černý's O povaze naší kultury ("On the Character of our Culture"), Brno: Atlantis.
- 1999 – O životě a smrti konzervatismu ("On the Life and Death of Conservatism") Olomouc: Votobia, 1999
- 2003 – Když myslím na Evropu ("When I Think of Europe: Collected Essays"), Vol. I Prague: Torst
- 2004 – Když myslím na Evropu ("When I Think of Europe: Collected Essays"), Vol. II Prague: Torst
Translations of German and English Authors
- Christian Geisler. Žádám odpověď (Anfrage—The Question)
- Johannes Bobrowski. Levinův mlýn (Levins Mühle—Levin's Mill)
- H. Broch. Smrt Vergilova (Tod des Vergil—The Death of Vergil) —Náměsíčníci (Die Schlafwandler—The Sleepwalkers)
- Hans Helmut Kirst. Nula osm patnáct (Null acht fünfzehn—0815)
- Stefan Zweig. Strach (Angst—Fear)
- Hans Jakub Christoffel Von Grimmelshausen. Poběhlice Kuráž (Landstörzerin Courasche—Mother Courasche the Beggar) —Divous Skočdopole (Der seltsame Springinsfeld—The Antic Springinsfeld)
- H. Hesse. Klingsorovo poslední léto a jiné prózy (Klingsors letzter Sommer, Morgenlandfahrt— Klingsors' Last Summer and other Prose Tales)
- Jean-Paul. Doktor Škrtikočka jede do lázní. Hrst aforismů (Doktor Katzenbergers Badereise, Aphorismen—* Doctor Katzenberger's Trip to the Spa, Aphorisms).
- Erich Auerbach. Mimesis (with V. Kafka and M. Žiliná)
- Friedrich Dürrenmatt. Soudce a jeho kat, Malér (Der Richter und sein Henker, Die Panne—The Judge and * His Hangman, The Breakdown)
- Franz Kafka. Aphorisms.
Poets translated by Rio Preisner
- Karl KrausKarl KrausKarl Kraus was an Austrian writer and journalist, known as a satirist, essayist, aphorist, playwright and poet. He is regarded as one of the foremost German-language satirists of the 20th century, especially for his witty criticism of the press, German culture, and German and Austrian...
- Rainer Marie Rilke
- Friedrich HölderlinFriedrich HölderlinJohann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin was a major German lyric poet, commonly associated with the artistic movement known as Romanticism. Hölderlin was also an important thinker in the development of German Idealism, particularly his early association with and philosophical influence on his...
- Gottfried BennGottfried BennGottfried Benn was a German essayist, novelist, and expressionist poet. A doctor of medicine, he became an early admirer, and later a critic, of the National Socialist revolution...
- T. S. EliotT. S. EliotThomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
- Gerard Manley HopkinsGerard Manley HopkinsGerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. was an English poet, Roman Catholic convert, and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous 20th-century fame established him among the leading Victorian poets...