Between Sarmatia and Socialism: The Life and Work of Johannes Bobrowski.(Review)

Between Sarmatia and Socialism: The Life and Work of Johannes Bobrowski. By JOHN P. WIECZOREK. Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Rodopi (Amsterdamer Publikationen zur Sprache und Literatur, 139). 1999. xi + 269 pp. 25.50 [pounds sterling].

Johannes Bobrowski's works have been interpreted for at least thirty years as esoteric, complex in style and restricted in their focus on the relationship between Germans and their East European neighbours. His evocation of a distant Sarmatian past, still detectable in a landscape scarred with invasions and local feuds, is examined here chronologically and as an essential stage in his search for self-identity within the German Democratic Republic. The opening biographical chapter adds nothing new to known details, but highlights his presence at Kaunas on 28 June 1941 when 3,800 Jews were massacred by released prisoners, an event that 'scarred him emotionally for life' (p. 4). His later life, cut short by peritonitis at the age of forty-eight, was one of tension and ideological co-existence, a struggle to achieve recognition just within the law. He was a lover of literature, art and music for their aesthetic and human values. Dr Wieczorek is right to emphasize that his first two volumes of poetry, Sarmatische Zeit and Schattenland Strome were written between the East German uprising of June 1953 and the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961. The way forward from this 'Sarmatischer Divan', in which he came to terms with his Eastern past, is seen in the posthumously published Wetterzeichen. Having assessed the relative importance of Hamann, Klopstock and Celan for Bobrowski's signature, the first two accompanying him throughout his adult life, Celan a respected but peripheral figure, Wieczorek opens up new ground in his analysis of Wetterzeichen as a whole and of its individual poems. Here he sees Bobrowski's concern for the present and awareness of a dimension of hope despite the bleak political and social situation. Hamann's belief in reality as the spoken word of God was applied by Bobrowski 'as a spoken and hence living, vibrant, changing phenomenon' (p. 138). Poetic language became here a uniting force 'beyond the divisive logic and materialistic dogma that surrounded him' (p. 141)

Although Wieczorek's reading of all three volumes of poetry is well-observed and full of technical detail, his chapter on the short stories occasionally seems to steer away from some central issues: the characters' inability to be sensitive towards Pinnau's suicide in 'Epitaph fu r Pinnau' deserves more than a footnote; the accidental drowning of a deranged Jew in 'Lipmanns Leib', with the inhuman response of the witnesses and ...