Бесплатный фрагмент - Rilke. A Requiem

Tell me, poet, what is your deed? — I praise

R.M. Rilke

About the Author and His Book

“Don’t let your doubts get the best of you.”

Every life is lived a thousand times by a thousand lives.

Sometimes in tercets.

Sometimes with fists.

— Paul Zech, “Self-Portrait”

The image of Paul Zech (1881–1946), one of the most prominent figures of German Expressionism, is shrouded in a web of myths he diligently wove around himself. An extraordinary poet, novelist, playwright, essayist, and translator, he was known for the stubborn disposition of a “Westphalian-blooded peasant,” had a penchant for mystification, and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital on more than one occasion.

His biographers had to work hard to separate the wheat from the chaff in his eventful life. We will focus on just a few strokes of his portrait.

Throughout his life, Zech tried his hand at many professions. At first, facing extreme poverty, he earned a living as a stoker on a cargo ship and a laborer in the mines, then as a storekeeper and a confectioner. In the literary field, he worked as a correspondent, editor, playwright, head of an advertising department, and a librarian’s assistant.

His first significant poems were published in the journal Der Sturm in 1910. In his early poetry and prose, he focused primarily on nature before turning to his main theme: the world of labor and the working class.

Over the years, he maintained friendships or correspondence with Else Lasker-Schüler, Franz Werfel, Stefan Zweig, and Max Herrmann-Neisse.

It is unknown whether Zech was personally acquainted with Rilke, but it can be said with certainty that he could have attended the poet’s performances, however rare, and was undoubtedly his ardent admirer. In the turbulent sea of life, Zech often found refuge by mooring his frail vessel at Rilke’s Orphic island. Unsurprisingly, Zech was one of the first to publish a study of his idol’s work, at a time when Rilke was not yet widely renowned. This occurred in 1912, during Rilke’s lifetime.

At the beginning of the First World War, Zech was drawn to patriotic poetry, but by 1915 his attitude towards the war had shifted to one of sharp skepticism, which was reflected in his works. He fought on the Western Front, went through the hell of Verdun, and endured the horrors of the Battle of the Somme. In the summer of 1916, Zech was seriously wounded, buried alive in a trench. For his combat service, he was awarded the Iron Cross.

True literary success came to him with the publication of the short story collection “The Black Baal” in 1917. The Kleist Prize, awarded to him in 1918, and the inclusion of twelve of his poems in Kurt Pinthus’s prestigious anthology “Twilight of Humanity” (1919) were well-deserved recognition of his mastery.

In addition to his numerous works, which included poetry, prose, and drama, Zech was actively engaged in the “reimagining” of world literature masterpieces. He became known as an overly free translator of Villon, Rimbaud, Balzac, Louise Labé, and Jorge Luis Borges. His adaptations of “The Wicked Ballads and Songs of François Villon” brought him the most popularity. Among them were his own poems stylized after Villon, which enjoyed no less success. In a similar fashion, he adapted the 24 sonnets of Louise Labé, basing his work on Rilke’s translation published in 1917.

In memory of Rilke, who passed away on December 29, 1926, Paul Zech wrote a deeply moving article in January 1927 titled “Requiem for Rilke” for a special issue of the magazine Orplid, edited by Martin Rockenbach. That same year, the Berlin publishing house Officina Serpentis released a slim volume by Zech in a bright red cover, titled Rainer Maria Rilke. A Requiem.

Three years later, in Dresden, Zech published a biographical study of Rilke’s work — Rainer Maria Rilke: The Man and His Work — which was more comprehensive than his previous one from 1912. The book bore the ambitious subtitle “The First Comprehensive Study of Rilke’s Work.” It was later discovered that the appendix to this edition included two letters fabricated by Zech himself. The first letter was supposedly written by the poet on September 12, 1907, in Paris, and the second on December 24, 1920, at Berg am Irchel Castle.

In 1933, Zech was forced to flee Germany for Argentina, but not solely because of his hostile attitude toward Nazism. It turned out he was wanted for the theft of over 2,500 valuable books from a library where he was responsible for processing rare items from private collections.

In exile, Zech barely made ends meet. He continued to write prolifically and, to attract readers’ attention, did not shy away from fabrications. He was particularly fond of telling stories about his travels through South America and his life among indigenous tribes.

Zech never abandoned his thoughts of Rilke. In June 1946, his extensive article “Rainer Maria Rilke and Bettina von Arnim” was published in Spanish in the magazine Saber Vivir, in which Zech quotes Rilke’s remarkable words about Bettina:

She is one of the greatest transfigurations through which the Universe becomes reality.

These words, upon reflection, perfectly conclude Zech’s “Self-Portrait”: “Every life is lived a thousand times by a thousand lives” — all for the sake of the main event — the great transformation.

Soon, on September 7, 1946, in Buenos Aires, Paul Zech departed from this world. Returning home, he felt unwell and collapsed on the lawn just a few steps from his apartment door. They were unable to save him in time.

Zech left behind a significant literary legacy. Many poems, prose texts, and dramas from his period of exile remain unpublished to this day.

Surveying the winding life path of Paul Zech, one can say that he had a controversial reputation and a complex relationship with fate. But, to his credit, he never abandoned his literary calling, and a passionate heart beat in his chest until its very last beat.

Gravely ill, Zech had awaited his death for years and had even contemplated suicide. For this reason, he prepared an epitaph in advance and wished for it to be carved on his tombstone. The epitaph reads:

He who rests in a foreign land,

Among worms, roots, in the darkness of ferment,

Of birth, death, and transfiguration,

Was, after all, of our blood, and no other.

And all that we condemned in him,

His actions, thoughts, his path,

Were but our own reflection and the essence

Of the times in which we wandered.

Literal translation

*

“I praise!”

“Ich rühme!”

True art can only come from an exclusively anonymous source.

— R.M. Rilke

Ultimately, there is only one poet, the one without beginning, who makes himself known, here and there, throughout the centuries, in the minds that can surrender to him.

— R.M. Rilke

Paul Zech was able to pour out all his accumulated passion for Rilke in his culminating work about him — the “Requiem.” The result was a unique image of the poet, one that differs from those typically drawn by literary scholars. This portrait was painted with the brush of an artist who admired Rilke and was a witness to his creative work.

Zech reveals the phenomenon of Rilke from two opposing yet complementary sides: as a person and as a poet. Moreover, in his human form, he is a “creation” of himself [Ich-Seiende], just as enigmatic and outstanding as he is in the role of a self-sufficient and creative poetic principle [Da-Seiende].

With particular expressive power, Rilke’s psychologism, his inner man, and his drama are revealed in the confessional letters to Lou Salomé, full of soulful cries, from which Zech quotes fragments. In them, Rilke appears as a man painfully overcoming the illusion of his separate “I,” whose experiences reach extreme Dionysian manifestations, bordering on complete self-isolation and despair. His self-creation [Ich-Werk] is a spiritual crusade [Kreuzzug], a battle between Spirit and Flesh. He is a sacrificed Orpheus, symbolizing his suffering and his struggle against the frenzied maenads of decay and leukemia.

However, in his highest lyrical revelations, Rilke is seen in a completely different light — as an Orphic poet who overcomes death and possesses heroic traits. He is at the very heart of things and events; he is their driving force, their sacred center, their creator. Zech does not spare epithets to describe his greatness.

…he cmpleted his path within himself, repeatedly liberating himself in the process of self-creation [“Ich-Werk”] and achieving full concentration for his highest works.

Rilke the poet moves along the Apollonian paths of Being [Da-Seinszüge]. He becomes a God-Singer, an Orpheus who raises his lyre above the realms of the living and the dead. Through its sounds, all worlds merge into a single whole, and in this unity, the poet reveals the immortal human image as the focal point of all beings in their true essence [Ur-Sinn].