‘Ich lebe in einem Vexierbild. Ich bilde mich aus und heraus für ein Vexierleben.’—Erich Fried—Jew, Humanist, Socialist—A Study of Opposing and Complementary Aspects of his Identity as Reflected in his Work Manya Elrick Imperial College London Department of Humanities Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Imperial College London 1 Declaration of Originality: I hereby declare that the work contained in this PhD thesis is my own original and independent research and everything else is appropriately referenced. Signature: Date: 25 October 2013 Copyright Declaration: The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives licence. Researchers are free to copy, distribute or transmit the thesis on the condition that they attribute it, that they do not use it for commercial purposes and that they do not alter, transform or build upon it. For any reuse or redistribution, researchers must make clear to others the licence terms of this work. 2 Acknowledgements I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to Professor Charmian Brinson on her advice and kind support during the writing of the thesis. This work would not have been possible without the help of Dr Volker Kaukoreit and the staff at the Literaturarchiv der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek and Dr Ursula Seeber and the staff at the Literaturhaus Wien and the Österreichische Exilbibliothek. I also warmly thank the staff at the following institutions: BBC Written Archives Centre at Caversham, British Library in London, Institute of Romance and Germanic Studies at the University of London and Imperial College London library. I would also like to thank Catherine Fried, Petra Fried, Akiva Orr, Gerhard Wilke, Dr. Pól Ó Dochartaigh, Mark Shuttleworth, Dr Anna Nyburg and Professor Moshe Zimmermann for their kind advice and generous time. 3 Abstract The following interdisciplinary study focuses on the poetic, prose and translation work of the Austrian Jewish writer Erich Fried. The present research concentrates on expressions of Fried’s identity or his sense of self in his work. Rather than being interpreted as a constant value, identity is perceived as fluid, expressed as a strategic positioning in one’s surroundings. It is postulated that various aspects of Fried’s identity appear in his work. Several traits coalesce to show one aspect or a combination of aspects, presenting an unexpected unity in disparity, as is shown throughout four core chapters. The kaleidoscopic blend of apparent inconsistencies and uncertainties becomes visible in the shape of different faces of Fried which shine through his work. This is indicated in the main proposition: the title of the thesis and the image of the ‘Vexierbild’ draw on Fried’s idea of ‘hidden faces’. The current thesis does not seek the author’s one ‘true face’ which possibly remains hidden under layers of traced and distorted circumlocutory accounts in his work, but rather captures the dynamic which drives the interchange between and metamorphosis of various components which contribute to the framework of Fried’s identity at different times of his life. The complexity of Fried’s identity in exile and its combined evidence in Fried’s literary and translation work is an aspect which has so far not been analysed. The findings reflect the main hypothesis—as suggested by the ‘Vexierbild’ image, aspects of Fried’s identity are complementary and opposing at times, dynamically and productively mirrored in his work. 4 Table of Contents: Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 7 Chapter 1 Publications on Fried and Other Sources: A Survey of Academic Writings with a Focus on Erich Fried, Complemented by Personal Accounts and Archival Material ................................... 22 1.1. Doctoral theses ............................................................................................................................... 24 1.2. Two seminal monographs .............................................................................................................. 28 1.3. Other studies with emphasis on conceptually-structured argument ......................................... 32 1.4. Articles relating to Fried’s political poetry .................................................................................. 34 1.5. Other works with focus on identity and exile .............................................................................. 36 1.6. Archival and additional sources ................................................................................................... 38 Chapter 2 Aspects of Fried’s Biography ................................................................................................ 41 2.1. A spider’s web ................................................................................................................................ 41 2.2. Early years in Vienna .................................................................................................................... 43 2.3. London, in exile .............................................................................................................................. 49 2.4. Relationship with Austria and residual Jewishness .................................................................... 64 2.5. Lifelong exile and a citizen of the world ...................................................................................... 65 2.6. An engaged poet ............................................................................................................................. 67 Chapter 3 Conceptual framework: ‘Jew’, ‘Humanist’, ‘Socialist’ and Issues of ‘Identity’ .............. 70 3.1. Identity ............................................................................................................................................ 72 3.2. Judaism and Jewishness ................................................................................................................ 78 3.3. Jewish ethics ................................................................................................................................... 81 3.4. Humanism ....................................................................................................................................... 84 3.5. Socialism ......................................................................................................................................... 87 Chapter 4 [...] ‘Die liegen nebeneinander und schlafen sehr (un)gleichen Schlaf’—Fried’s Early Communist and Socialist Identity (A Journey from Communism to Socialism) ................................ 96 4.1. Der Kulturstaat ................................................................................................................................ 98 4.2. Early exile publications ................................................................................................................. 99 4.3. They Fight in the Dark ................................................................................................................. 109 4.4. Anthologies ................................................................................................................................... 111 4.5. Deutschland and Österreich ......................................................................................................... 118 Chapter 5 Socialism, but also Humanism? Aspects of Fried’s Identity from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s ................................................................................................................................................. 130 5.1. False humanism? .......................................................................................................................... 132 5 5.2. A propagandist? ........................................................................................................................... 136 5.3. Between communism, socialism and humanism ....................................................................... 141 5.4. New humanism?—Ein Soldat und ein Mädchen ........................................................................ 151 5.5. Re-educating his audience? ......................................................................................................... 170 5.6. Überlegungen ................................................................................................................................ 173 Chapter 6 ‘Gelegentlich einzelne Schüsse’—Documents from Vietnam—The reflection of Fried’s Identity in his Poetry Devoted to the Vietnam War............................................................................. 186 6.1. Use of memory in und Vietnam und ............................................................................................ 188 6.2. und Vietnam und—The background .......................................................................................... 191 6.3. The protest of und Vietnam und .................................................................................................. 195 6.4. Criticism of Fried’s Vietnam stance ........................................................................................... 203 6.5. Against propaganda ..................................................................................................................... 206 6.6. Fried’s