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2012
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AA – Information Sources; Information Science
Vol. 15/16. 2009/10. 2012. 234 p. ISBN 978-3-88-7656-006-4: EUR 40
For the first time in the history of the yearbook, an RREA volume covering two IFB volumes—17 (2009) and 18 (2010)—was published, resulting in the double volume RREA 15/16. It includes many more reviews than RREA 14; among the total of 232 titles, 200 English-language abstracts were prepared by 25 North American librarians, and 32 extensive original reviews were penned by ten North American reviewers. Special emphasis is placed on the following topics and subject ranges: AP (Archives, Libraries, and Museums), B (Religion), BD (Literature), CBB (Higher Education), DG (European History and Geography), and EK (Medicine). Indexes at the end of the volume list IFB reviewers, RREA abstractors and original reviewers, titles, and keywords.
This reviewer, the publisher of IFB, is grateful to his American colleagues, who through their efforts make these reviews accessible to academic librarians in the Anglophone world, thus increasing the exposure of the works covered and the potential that they may be purchased for collections. Additional gratitude is owed Harrassowitz, the main exporter of German books to the USA, and to Casalini Libri, and especially Barbara and Michele Casalini, upon whose shoulders the main burden of this publication rests. Finally, the reviewer wishes to remember his former colleague and long-time friend, Eduard Isphording, who died on 17 May 2012 at the age of 77. Review 222 belongs to him. [sh/jmw]
AB – Bibliographies and Catalogs
The editors state in an introduction that they make no claim to in-depth cataloging but only aim to offer as concisely as possible the essential codicological and content data for the cataloged items. Fortunately, this claim is understated since the catalog descriptions for the medieval manuscripts satisfy in all aspects what one would expect from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft’s [German Research Council] in-depth Richtlinien Handschriftenkatalogisierung [Guidelines for Manuscript Cataloging], 5th ed. (Bonn, 1992—see IFB 93-1/2-004). Likewise, the cataloging of the early modern manuscripts leaves nothing to be desired.
The first part of the catalog lists 34 medieval and early modern pieces, including 15 fragments, mostly theological and liturgical in nature. The second part lists 75 manuscripts primarily from Jesuit study centers and Catholic canons, and includes college reports, philosophy, and sermons. The third part lists 109 modern and 19 Sorbian-language manuscripts. The separate indexes for incipits (German and Latin) and persons and places, however, do not provide an entirely adequate means of access to the exemplary catalog material. Aside from this small limitation, there can be no doubt that a quality catalog is now available. [jg/rc]
Vol. 1. Cod. Guelf. 1 bis 276 Helmst. 2012. cxxiii, 450 p. ISBN 978-3-447-06730-0: EUR 184
This volume marks the start of a large project to bring the cataloging of the medieval manuscript collections of the Herzog-August Library in Wolfenbüttel into accordance with current standards. The Helmstedt manuscripts belong to the earliest collection of the ducal library founded in 1572. The original cataloging of these manuscripts was done by Otto Heinemann (1824-1904) and comprises volume 1 of the 10-volume Die Handschriften der Herzoglichen Bibliothek zu Wolfenbüttel (Wolfenbüttel, 1884-1890). The present catalog concentrates on the medieval collection and lists 147 titles in 151 volumes out of the 1,020 numbered medieval manuscripts.
The high quality of the catalog and the great care given to it by the authors is best seen by comparing the individual catalog entries with those of Heinemann. Especially impressive is the exhaustive use of information available in databases of watermarks and book bindings.
If there is anything at all to criticize, it is the absence of images from the volume. Otherwise, one can rejoice in anticipation of the remaining volumes, with the help of which it will be possible to form a well-founded picture of one of the most important medieval manuscript collections in northern Germany. [jg/rc]
From October 19, 2012 to January 13, 2013 the Bavarian State Library presented an exhibit of 72 manuscripts from its collection (along with three additional manuscripts borrowed from the Bamberg State Library). This was a rare opportunity to view a fascinating assemblage of medieval manuscripts, textual as well as beautiful illuminated codices, in a single location. Reflecting the holdings of the Bavarian Library, the exhibit did not cover the entire range of early and high medieval German illumination but focused on the southern German cultural area. The present publication is the catalog of this exhibit. Like the exhibit itself, the catalog is meant to address a wide public. The accompanying essays are written in a lean, readable style that omits a detailed reference apparatus and extensive expert discussion.
A general introduction by Claudia Fabian, the director of the manuscript department of the Bavarian State Library, discusses the background and conception of the exhibition. It was designed in connection with a project to digitize Carolingian manuscripts for the website Kulturportal Europeana [European Cultural Portal] and to mark the 1000th anniversary of the consecration of the Bamberg Cathedral on May 6, 2012. An essay by Bernd Schneidmüller presents the historical and political context in which these manuscripts were produced, with emphasis on the close relationship between the spread of literary culture and the growth of the Holy Roman Empire from the Carolingian period to the 12th century. The catalog’s main part is subdivided into five chronologically ordered sections ranging from the Carolingian through the Ottonian to the Romanesque periods. In each of these sections Elisabeth Klemm provides an introductory essay on the artistic and stylistic developments of the period. Materials, scripts, initials, and illuminations are discussed, as well as rare pieces such as the “Wessobrunn Prayer,” the oldest existing document in Bavarian dialect, or an Augsburg manuscript with the oldest known cycle depicting the discovery of the true cross. The descriptions of individual items present the intellectual and cultural context of the textual manuscripts and an art-historical evaluation of the illuminations. A large number of full-page illustrations of both the textual and the illuminated manuscripts are included. A final essay by Rainer Kahsnitz provides a brief history of the magnificent bindings and containers using gold, ivory and precious gems.
Overall the essays and descriptions are informative and readable, and the illustrations are brilliant. The omission of in-depth discussion means that this work will have limited appeal for subject experts. Nevertheless this work offers a glimpse of these parchment treasures that neither the general public nor experts should miss. [mem/jc]
The book at hand is a large-scale census and catalog of the book holdings of Swedish libraries. It builds on the pioneer work by Swedish incunabulist Isak Collijn (1875-1949), whose Svenska boksamlingar under medeltiden och deras ägare: smärre bidrag [Swedish Book Collections during the Middle Ages and their Owners: Shorter Essays] (Uppsala, 1902-1904) has until now been the sole bibliography of incunabula in Swedish libraries. Wolfgang Undorf’s two-volume work, which catalogs the holdings of 46 Swedish libraries, is thus an especially welcome contribution to the field.
A senior librarian at the Swedish National Library in Stockholm, Undorf received his Ph.D. from the Humboldt University in Berlin in 2012. His dissertation is entitled From Gutenberg to Luther: Transnational Print Cultures in Scandinavia 1450-1525 (http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/dissertationen/undorf-wolfgang-2012-01.../undorf.pdf; accessed January 16, 2014). His Catalogue lists 4,070 incunabula editions, and he has supplied corrections and supplements to existing catalog records. When combined with Collijn’s 4,250 records, we now have a catalog of 6,100 incunabula, the largest number of which are found in the Uppsala University Library and the National Library in Stockholm.
The bibliographic descriptions in the Catalogue follow the guidelines of the British Library’s Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/istc; accessed January 16, 2014). Descriptive fields include provenance, location, descriptive information, and any annotations in the book, as well as cross-references to alternative author and title headings. The volumes of a series or collection are identified separately, but the master record is given only once. Undorf pays special attention to the history of each book’s provenance. Until the Reformation, Swedish libraries acquired books via dealers, binders, and printers. The city of Lübeck was a major port through which books from central Europe, particularly western Prussia and Bohemia, were shipped to Sweden. During the Thirty Years’ War, a large number of books were taken as war booty to the National Library, but most of the library and the archives were destroyed in a major city-wide fire in 1697. From the 18th century onward, private dealers and auction houses were the chief sources for book acquisition.
Undorf’s Catalogue has indexes of places of printing and the names of printers, concordances to the most important incunabula indexes, and an index of owners. However, information about workshops, illuminators, and collected volumes must be gleaned through tedious leafing through the catalog. Other than the need for additional indexes, it is “hats off” to Wolfgang Undorf for persevering with and completing this monumental work. [jg/ga]
Hans-Werner Liebert is a Stuttgart architect, and Ute Liebert is known for her many publications and exhibits concerning publishing houses that specialize in children’s and young adults’ literature. Their interesting volume is partly an annotated bibliography of over 1,000 children’s literature texts from the late 17th to the early 20th century that focus on architectural themes, and partly a catalog of titles. The emphasis is on recent illustrated children’s texts that deal significantly with building, architecture, and the environment. There is an introductory essay, numerous indexes, and a bibliography of secondary material. [mmk/ldl]
Among the many publications celebrating the 200th anniversary (in 2004) of Grimms’ Fairy Tales, this exhibit catalog stands out—it is, however, more a collection of essays than a catalog, produced with good taste, care, and affection for its subjects. The exhibit was a collaboration among the Berlin State Library of Prussian Cultural Heritage, the Arbeitsstelle Grimm-Briefwechsel am Institut für Deutsche Literatur der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin [Grimm Correspondence Work Project at the Humboldt University Institute for German Literature], and Märchenland, Deutsches Zentrum für Märchenkultur [Fairyland, the German Center for Fairy Tale Culture] (www.maerchenland-ev.de; accessed July 21,2014).
The Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and the Humboldt-Universität together hold the largest collection of the Brothers’ private library and personal papers. Each year across Europe the Deutsches Zentrum organizes up to 1,500 events related to fairy tales. In this exhibition work, the essays cover biographical topics and bibliographic information about the Grimms’ private library, their personal papers, the edition history of their fairy tales, and topics in cultural history and reception.
A discussion of the Grimms’ exile from Göttingen and their integration into the intellectual life of Berlin is completed by a detailed account of Berlin streets and buildings named in their honor. The holdings of the Grimm papers at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin are described in fascinating detail, with interesting notes on the many manuscripts, Grimm publications, medieval manuscripts, excerpts and hand written annotations, scholarly materials for the dictionary research, lecture manuscripts, and correspondence, with a related discussion on how the Brothers Grimm approached their sources.
Special consideration is given to the publishing history of the fairy tales, from the historic publishing industry in relationship to the Brothers Grimm enterprise at the time, to the post-World War II editions of the Grimm fairy tales in East and West Germany. This publishing history includes the pedagogical debates about leisure reading and classroom use of fairy tales and their effect on children. A comprehensive cultural history of fairy tale illustrations for the 19th and 20th centuries with reference to German history rounds out this collection of essays. The overview is enriched by special focus on fairy tales on the stage, fairy tales in children’s opera, fairy tales on the Berlin puppet stage, and the treatment of the devil in tales through the ages.
The names index has 659 entries, and all of the essays have footnotes, though there is no overall bibliography. This catalog offers substantial essays on an array of subjects by noted scholars and can serve as a scholarly introduction to the issues and trends in fairy tale studies. [wh/hm]
[Ed. note: See also Die Brüder Grimm in Berlin: Katalog zur Ausstellung (RREA 12:95), published on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the completion of volume 1 of the Grimms’ Deutsches Wörterbuch [German Dictionary] in 1854; and Ralf Breslau’s two-volume Der Nachlass der Brüder Grimm (RREA 9:81), published by the Handschriftenabteilung [Manuscript Division] of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.]
This bibliography of translations is one of the most appealing examples of its genre to come out in the last 40 years. Instead of limiting itself to bare-bones citations, it takes care to place works of fiction into a rich literary and sociological context. There are ten chapters dedicated to different historical periods (from 1900-1916 to 1981-1990), each subdivided into bibliography and commentary parts. The former organizes the titles chronologically; within each publication year, titles appear in alphabetical order by author. The citations provide the German and original language titles, the translator’s name, and other expected bibliographical information (plus optional brief annotations). The commentary section is further divided into subsections dedicated to: (1) the political and economic context of the selected period, (2) the publishing houses, (3) middlemen (i.e., the translator, the editor, and the editorial staff), and (4) the significant books of the period as well as their authors. Altogether, the bibliography contains entries for 3,220 titles and is copiously supplied with footnotes (all told, almost 500). The introduction discusses previously published bibliographies of translations. An extensive bibliography and a name index of both authors and translators are to be found at the end. [sh/as]
This bibliography made its timely appearance near the opening of the 2012 Frankfurt Book Fair, which was significant, because Brazil was to be the Guest of Honor at the 2013 Book Fair. Klaus Küpper is perhaps the individual best acquainted with German-Latin American literary relations and is thus an appropriate bibliographic messenger. The work, edited through the auspices of the Archive for Latin American and Caribbean Literature in [German] Translation, is a companion piece to his Bibliographie der argentinischen Literatur … in deutscher Übersetzung (Köln, 2010—see IFB 10-4). Although no edition statement is given, the work is in effect a second edition, the original having been published in 1994 (see IFB 95-1-021).
The entries in the volume cover literary works (in all genres) that appeared on their own or as dependent works in anthologies or periodicals. Although publications since the 19th century fall under its purview, the majority of titles are from the past 50 years. The coverage is up to date: through the end of July 2012 for single works and through the end of 2011 for periodical contributions. The main section is alphabetized according to Brazilian naming customs, and a given work is described in all its editions. Throughout, the bibliographic entries are full and rich. Separate indexes offer a select bibliography of Fairy Tales, Myths, etc. as well as one for Folk Songs, followed by further helpful indexes (to anthologies, consulted journals and other periodicals, editions for the visually impaired, works of drama, children’s and juvenile literature), and finally a two-part index for secondary literature. The accompanying CD-ROM depicts facsimiles of bindings, covers, title pages, and dust jackets. (It would be helpful if the titles pictured had been marked in the bibliography proper.) Just as with the Bibliography of Argentinian Literature which came before it, Klaus Küpper’s Bibliography of Brazilian Literature is a splendid example of a bibliography for literature in translation, offering a solid basis for investigations into the reception of Brazilian literature in German-speaking countries. [sh/rdh]
2013/14. 2012. 255 p. ISBN 978-3-629-13020-4: EUR 15; ISBN 978-3-426-41726-3 (e-book): EUR 12.99
This book, whose forward is entitled “Germany: A Colorful Catholic World,” documents in 800 short biographies the most influential Catholics in Germany and German Catholics in the world. These include, from farthest to nearest, German Catholics in the Church worldwide (and especially in Rome and The Vatican); archbishops, bishops, and leading clerics at the bishopric and diocese level; members of cloisters, monasteries, and orders; Church organizations; persons in lay institutions, particularly the media, science, the economy, politics, and society (prominent persons from society, culture, entertainment, and sports). The work concludes with a name index to persons mentioned in the entries.
Pope Benedict XVI has the place of honor, the longest entry, and is the only one given a bibliography of major works. The size of biographical entry decreases as one moves down the church hierarchy. Most of the laity receive only the briefest of treatment, which raises the crucial question of what exactly is the relationship between a given person’s Catholicism and her/his life, profession, or vocation. The editors call for suggestions for improvements for the next edition, but it is by no means clear that this “standard work” can be improved. [sh/ga]
AP – Archives, Libraries, and Museums
Praised in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (March 18, 2005, p. 36) as “the best-known German librarian since Lessing,” Paul Raabe’s Bibliographica, published on the occasion of his 85th birthday, takes on particular significance following his death on July 5, 2013. This great library historian, bibliographer, and cultural politician published numerous works on Expressionism, the history of the book, literary periodicals, and literary authors. Reviews in Reference Reviews Europe include his very successful Einführung in die Bücherkunde zur deutschen Literaturwissenschaft (see RREO 94-3/4-445), a selective bibliography of over 450 reference works; his August Hermann Francke 1663-1727: Bibliographie (see RREA 8:76), and volumes 1, 2, 14, and 15 that he edited for Bernhard Fabian’s 27-volume Handbuch der historischen Buchbestände in Deutschland (see RREA 2:48 and 4:57).
Just over half of this slim volume consists of an overview by Raabe of his career as a bibliographer, including some reflections on the future of bibliography in the digital age. As such, this work can be seen as a supplement to the author’s other commemorative and autobiographical contributions. The volume concludes with a list of Raabe’s publications since 2002, constituting a continuation of Strutz’s earlier Raabe bibliography (Munich: Saur, 2002). Secondary literature is not included. [sh/cjm]
Serious study of German libraries during the Third Reich began in the late 1980s, for example with Ingo Toussaint’s anthology Die Universitätsbibliotheken Heidelberg, Jena und Köln unter dem Nationalsozialismus [The University Libraries of Heidelberg, Jena, and Cologne under National Socialism] (München, 1989), in which Hans-Gerd Happel contributed an essay “Die Universitäts- und Stadtbibliothek Köln im Dritten Reich” [The USB Köln in the Third Reich] (p. 289-328). Happel’s article elicited a critical response from Severin Corsten (nephew of Hermann Corsten and also director of the USB Köln from 1971-1986), “Die Universitäts- und Stadtbibliothek Köln im Dritten Reich: Ergänzungen und Berichtigungen” [The USB Köln in the Third Reich: Addenda and Corrigenda], pages 114-128 in the Mitteilungsblatt des Verbandes der Bibliotheken des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, NF. 39/40 (1990).
Christiane Hoffrath, the author of this biography of Hermann Corsten, published a summary article on this subject, Hermann Corsten in Köln, on pages 225-242 in Michael Knoche’s Wissenschaftliche Bibliothekare im Nationalsozialismus: Handlungsspielräume, Kontinuitäten, Deutungsmuster (see RREA 17:31).She also has published Bücherspuren: das Schicksal von Elise und Helene Richter und ihrer Bibliothek im “Dritten Reich” [Book Traces: The Fate of Elise and Helene Richter and their Library during the Third Reich] (Köln, 2009—see IFB 08-1/2-043).
Like many German librarians, Hermann Corsten (1889-1968) did not enter this career until well into his working life. His higher-education studies began with mathematics, physics, and chemistry at the Technical University in Aachen from 1912-1914. Called up for military service and seriously injured in World War I, he returned to his studies and graduated with a degree in engineering in 1922. After unsatisfactory work for his wealthy father-in-law’s company, he returned to the university to earn a doctorate in economics in 1927, and in 1928 finished his librarianship degree in Berlin, where he worked for five years. In 1933 he was called to become the director of the USB Köln, a post he held until 1954.
While not necessarily a believing Nazi, Corsten managed to enter the party before its March 1933 cutoff for membership, which possibly enabled his appointment to the directorate of what had recently become the combined university and city library. He directed the move into a new building and the creation of a unified alphabetical catalog, and he was successful in integrating, without opposition, long-time staff members of both organizations into the new system. For the next few years he was also able to avoid dismissals of staff for racial or political reasons and win some room for maneuver to keep the library available to Jewish patrons and suppliers.
Bibliography was also in the library director’s purview, and Corsten edited two major works: the Rheinische Bibliographie: das wissenschaftliche Schrifttum über das Rheinland und seine Grenzgebiete seit Erfindung der Buchdruckerkunst bis zum Jahre 1933 einschließlich [Rhenish Bibliography: Scholarly Writings on the Rhineland and its Neighbors since the Invention of Book Printing through the Year 1933] (Köln, 1943); and volume 1 (1800-1939) of the Bibliographie des Ruhrgebietes: das Schrifttum über Wirtschaft und Verwaltung [Bibliography of the Ruhr Area: Writings on Economics and Administration] (Düsseldorf, 1943). But volumes 2-4 had to wait until his retirement; he completed them between 1955 and 1966.
By the end of the 1930s, foreign literature was no longer available for purchase, and during the war years, acquisition of foreign works took on a rather more nefarious character. German librarians were members of the German occupation regimes in many European countries, and Corsten had a major interest in the founding of a new state library in Luxembourg, but that project never materialized (for more on Nazi policies in Luxembourg, see Die nationalsozialistische Kunst- und Kulturpolitik im Großherzogtum Luxemburg 1934-1944—RREA 18:139). “Buying trips” were undertaken in 1941 in Belgium and northern France.
Maintaining good cooperation with the Dominicans in Walberberg near Bonn, Corsten was able to acquire their cloister library (some 400 volumes) and keep it out of the hands of the Gestapo, who had long kept him under surveillance. He was also able to move valuable collections out of harm’s way during the bombing attacks, and Cologne’s libraries survived the bombings with their collections relatively intact. He survived the Nazi period basically untainted and was retained in his post after the War. However, his handling of the acquisition of Elise and Helene Richter’s library, purchased at a rock-bottom price, was duly noted as “disgusting.” Until his retirement in 1954 Corsten remained closely involved with the rebuilding of the library, the profession, and post-war interlibrary organization and cooperation.
Christiane Hoffrath’s work is detailed and well researched, with rich illustrations, explanatory tables and diagrams, and a good bibliography of sources. Her work is an important contribution toward understanding the role of leading German officials as they worked to hold off the Nazis’ pernicious goals and objectives. [mk/ga]
Well into the mid-1990s, the topic of Nazi plunder impinged only slightly on the minds of German library directors. This changed in 1998 with the publication of the “Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art.” The Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz-Bibliothek, one of the three Landesbibliotheken [State Libraries] of Lower Saxony, played a significant role in the ensuing consciousness-raising through its hosting of four symposia. Beginning in 2002, these symposia helped to draw attention to the need to do proper research into questions of provenance.
The volume under review contains the proceedings of the fourth of these symposia, held in Hannover in May 2011. The first three concentrated on library collections (for a review of the proceedings of the second symposium, Jüdischer Buchbesitz als Raubgut, see RREA 12:23). One goal for this fourth symposium, as indicated in the volume’s title, was to expand the circle to include museums and archives. Twelve contributions, about a third of the total, are devoted to museums inside and outside Germany. The remaining two-thirds of the contributions are devoted to libraries. Despite the proclaimed intention to include archives, they have in fact been overlooked.
The library contributions turn again to some of the personalities and incidents familiar to those conversant with the proceedings of the previous three symposia. There are descriptions of the dispersal of the famed Library of the Rabbinical Seminar in Breslau and the Jewish Library of Mainz. There are reports on Nazi plunder that found its way into the collections of the Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz-Bibliothek in Hannover, the State and University Library in Göttingen, the University Library in Marburg, and the Zentral- und Landesbibliothek in Berlin. There is a report on the role of the Nazi-era Reichstauschstelle [Reich Office of Exchanges] in acquiring books in Nazi-occupied Europe and distributing them to German libraries, ostensibly to serve the rebuilding of German libraries after a German victory.
An especially valuable and extensive contribution is devoted to the work of the Offenbach Archival Depot, a central processing point for looted art established by the Allies in 1945.
[Ed. note: For information about the rebuilding of the Jewish Library of Mainz, see Andreas Lenhardt’s Die jüdische Bibliothek an der Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität Mainz 1938-2008: eine Dokumentation, in RREA 15/16:36. As well, between May and July 2011 the State and University Library in Göttingen held an exhibition of Nazi-looted books in their collections: Nicole Bartels, ed. Bücher unter Verdacht: NS-Raub- und Beutegut an der SUB Göttingen: Katalog der Ausstellung—see RREA 17:30].
The volume includes an exemplary set of indexes to assist in accessing the wealth of information contained in it. The contributors are all prominent scholars in the field, as is clear from the biographical sketches included at the end of the volume. As their reports make clear, almost every medium- to large-size library in Germany accepted items that fit the definition of Nazi plunder. This volume constitutes another valuable element in the ongoing exploration of this dark chapter of Germany’s past and another step toward the goal of restitution. [mk/crc]
Through the research that went into this catalog the reader is afforded insight into how a large and tradition-laden university library acquired materials seized illegally during the Nazi era. The event that occasioned this catalog was an exhibit held at the University of Leipzig Library from November 2011 to March 2012. As described in the introduction by Cordula Reuß, the influx of illegal acquisitions began immediately after the beginning of World War II, coming from occupied countries in Europe. The research for this volume and the exhibit was underwritten by the German government and entailed the entry of findings into a database (http://nsraubgut.ub.uni-leipzig.de; accessed July 24, 2014) and the beginning of identification of heirs to these holdings.
Of the 12,650 titles researched, 5,308 were deemed suspicious; physical inspection led to the conclusion that 4,595 had indeed been seized by the Nazis. Seventy-nine cases are still under investigation. Targets for seizure included the libraries of Communists, Social Democrats, labor unions, individual Jews, and Jewish communities, first in Germany, then in all of Europe but especially Eastern Europe. Indeed, other groups, such as “friends of nature,” free-thinkers, monists, Freemasons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, fell victim to Nazi confiscations. This catalog describes well the illegal seizure practices and the resulting incorporation of the books into an important German library. The entries are carefully documented, as are the illustrations from pertinent sources. [mk/rlk]
An RREA Original Review by Gordon Anderson (University of Minnesota)
As noted in RREA 18:14, Cordula Reuß, Jens Kupferschmidt, and the other creators of the Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig’s exhibition and catalog of Nazi-looted books in the collections have concurrently produced a bibliographic database of books and similar publications identified as Nazi plunder. This database is publicly accessible at http://nsraubgut.ub.uni-leipzig.de (accessed July 21, 2014) and is intended as a crowd-sourcing means to help restore these items to their rightful owners or, given the number of years that have elapsed, to the owners’ heirs.
Germany was one of 44 governments to endorse the 1998 Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art (http://www.lootedart.com/MG7QA043892; accessed September 13, 2014) and after signing issued a 102-page Handreichung zur Umsetzung der “Erklärung … zur Auffindung und zur Rückgabe NS-verfolgungsbedingt entzogenen Kulturgutes, insbesondere aus jüdischem Besitz” [Recommendation for the Implementation of the … “Declaration on the Location and Return of Cultural Property, especially from Jewish Owners, Confiscated through Nazi Persecutions”] (see http://www.lootedart.com/handreichung; accessed September 5, 2014). This document was revised in 2001 and again in 2007 and provides the basis for government funding as well as a mandate for this type of library project.
The library’s looted-books website contains detailed information about the project and provides much additional information. The Dokumentation tab provides reports on the history of the library’s acquisitions 1933-1945, including research on the provenance and identification of specific personal collections, the story of the search for suspected books, and technical specifications for the project. It also includes instructions and suggestions for using the NS-Raubgut database. The Links tab provides references to key websites and documents, such as the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany (http://www.claimscon.org) founded in 1951, the Washington Conference, and the German Government’s 1999 recommendation. This tab includes links to seven other German libraries—the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Preußischer Kulturbesitz [Berlin State Library of Prussian Cultural Heritage], the Universitätsbibliothek Marburg, the Herzogin-Anna-Amalia-Bibliothek (HAAB) [Duchess Anna-Amalia Library] in Weimar, the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Köln, the Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen [Lower Saxony State Library, Göttingen], and the Leibniz-Bibliothek in Hannover—that have websites or webpages about their looted-books projects. At the time of this RREA review, however, the links to the Berlin, Köln, and Göttingen pages either have broken or lead only to the institution’s main page. However, one can get to the information by creatively searching the respective library’s website (not the catalog), using “NS-Raubgut” or a similar term.
The catalog’s basic search (Einfache Suche) is by keyword; the advanced search (Komplexe Suche) allows searching by keyword, author, title, publisher, date, accession number (entered as key word), call number (Signatur), and provenance. Each bibliographic record carries the rubric “NS-Raubgut” and the Library’s original accession number, which was an important source for identifying books as confiscated. Many bibliographic records include a scanned image of personal stamps, exlibris, or handwritten entries. The link Indexsuche goes to the shelflist of the collection, which, although a bit unwieldy, is very useful and informative to browse. Each item record (Datensatz) provides a static URL. The user can send annotations to a record by clicking on Anmerkungen zu diesem Datensatz senden. This is a crowd-sourcing tool for gathering further information about the book, particularly in regard to ownership.
In her essay on the history of the acquisition of these books (http://nsraubgut.ub.uni-leipzig.de/Erwerbungen_der_UBL_1933-1945.pdf; accessed Sptember 13, 2014), Cordula Reuß notes that early in 1933, in the aftermath of the Reichstag Fire and numerous arrests of the Nazis’ political opponents, the Leipzig police and SA units began systematically to confiscate “destructive and undesired writings” from personal libraries and also from publishers, book dealers, antiquarian dealers, and corporate libraries. The Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig and the Sächsische Staatsbibliothek [Saxony State Library] in Dresden were authorized to acquire and archive (but not catalog or shelve) these books. The Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin received acquisitions lists, and duplicates were sent on to other libraries.
In the project’s first phase, approximately 3,400 books were identified as having been confiscated, of which 522 have stamps or other marks that identify 81 different individuals or organizations as the original owners. Among the recognizable prewar owners is the world-renowned Polish-Jewish pianist Artur Rubinstein (1887-1982). In the fall of 1939, he had left his Paris residence for the United States, and following the Germans’ 1940 march into Paris, the Einsatzstab Rosenberg [Rosenberg Squad] confiscated his Paris possessions and sent them to Germany. Other books are from the estate of Stefan George and from the libraries of the brothers Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg and Berthold von Stauffenberg, confiscated following their separate arrests after the failed 20 July 1944 attempt to assassinate Hitler.
Resources aiding in identifying pre-Nazi ownership include documentation in the Sächsisches Staatsarchiv [Saxony State Archive] in Leipzig; the Leipzig police’s inventory records (consisting mainly of books seized from early opponents of the Nazi régime); the Gestapo’s inventories of collections they seized (mainly Jewish property following pogroms in Poland); and records in the Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden [Main State Archive in Dresden] and the Bundesarchiv [Federal Archive] in Berlin. Because the books were not fully cataloged, the accession numbers, inventory lists, and exlibris and other inscriptions became the chief tools for determining whether or not the book was looted and for determining a book’s owner at the time of confiscation.
Recent issues of Reference Reviews Europe Annual have featured many reviews of German libraries’ efforts to identify looted books in their collections. Among the books reviewed are conference reports from Berlin (2006 and 2007), Hannover (2007), and Vienna (2008), (see RREA 14:40-43); Detlef Bockenkamm’s Geraubt: die Bücher der Berliner Juden (see RREA 14:44); Martine Poulain’s Livres pillés, lectures surveillées: les bibliothèques françaises sous l’Occupation (see RREA 14:45); and Matthias Harbeck and Sonja Kobold’s Aus der Bibliothek Agathe Lasch: Provenienzforschung an der Universitätsbibliothek der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (see RREA 15/16:39).
Nicole Bartels edited the catalog of a 2011 exhibition in Göttingen entitled Bücher unter Verdacht: NS-Raub- und Beutegut an der SUB Göttingen (see RREA 17:30). Michael Knoche and others examined the work of librarians during the Nazi period in Wissenschaftliche Bibliothekare im Nationalsozialismus: Handlungsspielräume, Kontinuitäten, Deutungsmuster (see RREA 17:31).
In their book NS-Provenienzforschung an österreichischen Bibliotheken (see RREA 17:32), Bruno Bauer, Christina Köstner-Pemsel, and Markus Stumpf describe the restitution work that Austrian libraries have been pursuing since the 1998 passage of Austria’s Kunstrückgabegesetz (Art Restitution Law). In her Geschichte der Universitätsbibliothek Graz 1938-1945 (see RREA 17:33), Katharina Bergmann-Pfleger covers both the restitution of stolen books and the history of the library and its librarians.
A common theme in these projects is the painstaking difficulty of identifying stolen books, determining rightful ownership, and returning these books to their owners. For librarians in research libraries everywhere who deal with the large-scale acquisition of books over a long period of time, these and other accounts offer a sobering perspective—and put a human face—on the otherwise detached and methodical work of processing tens of thousands of books annually. Reports and books on this sad chapter in history should be required reading for librarians.
In recent years Austrian librarians have engaged in very intensive examinations of the history of their institutions after the country was annexed by Hitler in the Anschluss of1938, and they have brought to light many important facts about the book seizures carried out by the Nazis. Good examples of this work are two studies published in 2011, Provenienzforschung an österreichischen Bibliotheken: Anspruch und Wirklichkeit and Geschichte der Universitätsbibliothek Graz 1938-1945 (see RREA 17:32 and 33).
A team of Salzburg librarians and historians has now searched systematically for looted books in the collections of the Salzburg University Library. The first part of the resulting study gives an overview of the library’s history from the end of the First World War to 1950, during most of which time it was headed by the noteworthy scholar and librarian Ernst Frisch. Frisch did not share the Nazi leanings of his colleague at the National Library in Vienna and tried as much as possible to follow traditional library and scholarly principles during his tenure in Salzburg. He could not, however, completely escape National Socialist literary and library politics and had, for example, to accept useless collections from the local genealogy library.
The second part of the book concerns provenance research, providing many details about looted books and the locations from which they were taken in Salzburg and the surrounding areas. Among them were the libraries of a number of religious orders, as well as renowned theater director Max Reinhardt’s extensive private collection housed in Salzburg’s Leopoldskron Castle. Other items that came to the library during the Nazi and also post-war eras included looted books from the Offenbach Archival Depot run by the Americans from 1945 to 1949, as well as materials from the “Tanzenberg Collection” in Carinthia, to which a team led by Alfred Rosenberg had brought looted cultural property from all over Europe with the aim of establishing an institute for research on the opponents of Nazi ideology. Not only the regular holdings of the Salzburg University Library were examined as well, but also its special collections, although a large number of them had belonged to the library since long before the Anschluss.
The essays and the numerous well-chosen illustrations combine to form a successful volume. An extensive bibliography documents the contributors’ profound knowledge of the research literature. They obviously profited from the ongoing refinement of the methods utilized in provenance research to date and have also added their own improvements. It is evident how much work is involved: only a fraction of the more than 13,000 acquisitions made from 1933 to 1945 could be unambiguously identified as looted, out of a total of about 240,000 volumes that were examined. Only in a few cases, such as those of Max Reinhardt, could the looted books be restored to the heirs. This study, which includes a useful name index, is not only an additional and important contribution to the research on looted cultural property, but it also expands our knowledge of the history of Salzburg libraries in the 20th century. [mk/nb]
An RREA Original Review by Thomas M. Izbicki (Rutgers University)
The library of the Franciscan house in Padua, the Biblioteca Antoniana, is one of the few collections of religious houses in Italy still nearly intact. A catalog of its medieval manuscripts was published in 1975. Maria Cristina Zanardi has now provided a catalog of the library’s earliest printed books, the incunabula. The oldest volume was printed by Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer in 1459; the last of the 206 entries chronologically is dated to August of 1500. Venice is the place of publication of by far the largest number of surviving books. Others appeared elsewhere in Italy or as far away as Paris. As might be expected, works of theology and religious devotion are common in the library; however, legal, classical, and humanist writings also appear. The Greek texts appear in Latin translation. Franciscan theologians, especially Duns Scotus, are well represented. Even the polemics of William of Ockham against Pope John XXII are represented in the Biblioteca Antoniana.
Zanardi’s catalog begins with a preface by Carlo Carena and an introduction by the librarian of the Antoniana, Alberto Fanton. Following a letter of the younger Aldus Manutius (1547-1597) about the proper care of books comes a section providing background on the criteria of bibliographic description, bibliography, manuscript notes by owners and users of the books, decoration, binding, state of conservation, and collocation. A list of the major works consulted, with their short forms of citation, and a page of abbreviations conclude the front matter.
The catalog proper is arranged alphabetically by author, beginning with Albertus Magnus and ending with “Zochis, Jacobus de”; anonymous printings are inserted under their titles. A second copy (for example, in the entry for Johannes Canonicus) is added to the same entry number as the first, with a note on any specific variations, such as a different binding. The catalog is illustrated with 19 colored plates at its end, while 12 black-and-white figures have been inserted into the text.
Zanardi has provided detailed indexing for this catalog. Authors, places of printing/publication, printers/publishers, commentators and editors, and years of publication each receive an index, as do the entries for the individual editions in standard indexes to incunabula. One of the more interesting index features focuses on such typographical peculiarities as Gothic type and text in Greek, as well as on format (folio, quarto, or octavo). Zanardi also indexes particular manuscript elements such as glosses added by readers and notes of ownership. Bindings are indexed, including indications of date, material, and decoration. Notes on condition, including foxing, evidence of repairs, and even lost bindings, are compiled as an index. Another useful index shows the location signatures in the Antoniana collection.
The catalog also has a group of useful appendixes. One lists four editions later than 1500 found among the incunabula. Another appendix lists incunabula once present among the manuscripts of the library, as listed in handwritten inventories, one dated to 1449 and the other to 1764. Zanardi gives both the inventory numbers of those volumes once among the manuscripts still present at the Antoniana but later transferred to its collection of printed books and extensive evidence for those incunabula that are now lost. A third appendix provides evidence of payments made for repairs and binding. Zanardi also has published here documentation of the bequests of two scholars, Antonio Trombetta and Valerio Polidoro, to the Antoniana. The volume closes with a bibliography, a list of websites consulted with their URLs, and a glossary of the terms employed.
Clearly, Catalogo degli incunaboli della Biblioteca Antoniana di Padova has been a labor of many years, and scholars will benefit from Zanardi’s industry in compiling it. Institutions documenting the history of books and libraries will find this catalog of early printed books found in a nearly intact monastic library particularly valuable.
An RREA Original Review by Barbara Alvarez (University of Michigan)
Although the title may seem a bit misleading, Biblioteca de al-Andalus is a bio-bibliographical dictionary of authors of medieval Islamic Iberia, known as al-Andalus or simply Andalus, covering the period 711-1492. With 2,481 author entries and 7,990 references to their texts, it is the most complete reference work of its kind to date, covering a wide range of fields from literature, linguistics, history, and philosophy to religion, law, medicine, and natural and physical sciences. One hundred sixty-six experts from Spain and abroad have contributed entries to this comprehensive dictionary. Furthermore, the editors promise to continue covering the intellectual and cultural production of al-Andalus within the series Enciclopedia de la cultura andalusí.
Biblioteca de al-Andalus is divided into seven main volumes and has an appendix volume (A, Apéndice) with 584 new author entries. The main set, completed in 2012, has also been supplemented by a volume of findings and indexes (volume B, to be released in the fall of 2013) entitled La producción intelectual andalusí: balance de resultados e índices [Andalusí Intellectual Production: Summary of Results and Indexes]. The tall volumes are printed on glossy heavy-weight paper, so with its 5,527 pages, the set occupies a considerable amount of shelf space.
The author entries, which vary in length from a couple of short paragraphs to articles over 20 pages long, are arranged alphabetically under the shuhra—the Arabic name element by which the author was best known—excluding the initial definite article al. (An example is “Al-Idrīsī,” for the noted 12th-century geographer Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Idrīsī, which files under Idrīsī.) Each entry contains the commonly used elements of the author’s name (e.g., “Al-Idrīsī, Abū ‘Abd Allāh”), then the complete name (which may comprise many additional elements) and any variant spellings. A biography is followed by a section that lists works attributed to the author, with information about each one’s date, genre, subject, publication history, state of preservation, etc. Dates are given according to both the Islamic and Christian calendars. The articles carefully note any existing discrepancies or points of scholarly debate. Each entry concludes with a list of medieval sources and a bibliography of modern publications. Some entries are augmented with images of manuscripts, genealogical trees, maps, tables, and occasional black-and-white photographs.
Access to the content is facilitated by indexes included at the end of each volume, conveniently keyed to unique entry identification numbers. In addition, volume B contains comprehensive indexes of authors’ names; titles of works; places; subjects of works and authors’ activities; and nisbas. (The nisba, also romanized as nisbah, was an element of a medieval Arabic name expressing a person’s family, clan, tribal, geographical, professional, intellectual, or other affiliation. For example, a man known as “al-Baghdādī” was “the man from Baghdad.” A single individual could have more than one nisba.)
Last but not least, this final volume features an interesting cumulative analysis of the lives and works of the Andalusí authors included in the set. Equipped with numerous tables, graphs, and maps, this section presents textual and visual analyses of authors’ origin, gender, ethnic and religious background, and paths of migration and travel, as well as their subject expertise and writing output. Similarly, the intellectual production of these authors is mapped thematically across the relevant historical periods, including the preservation and translation of the texts.
In summary, Biblioteca de al-Andalus is an excellent contribution to the advancement of knowledge of the intellectual history of medieval Iberia. This reference work is intended for both specialists in the field and those who wish to become more acquainted with Andalusí culture. As such, it is highly recommended for academic libraries that support programs in medieval, Iberian, or Near Eastern studies.
AQ – Book Trade and Publishing
Vol. 2. Lambach-Zwolle-Bibel. 2012. p. 333-756. ISBN 978-3-7772-1209-8: EUR 198
Volume 1 (Adelphi-Meister through Kursive) was published in 2009 (see RREA 15/16:49); volume 2 concludes the work. The Lexikon zur Buchmalerei is intended as a specialized lexicon for all questions of book and manuscript illumination in Western Europe. In order to keep the amount of work involved within acceptable limits, the editor re-used, wherever possible, existing articles from the second edition of the eight-volume Lexikon des gesamten Buchwesens [Lexicon of the Entire Book Trade] (Stuttgart, 1987-2009). Only a relatively small number of articles for topics not touched on in that work were newly written for the Lexikon zur Buchmalerei. Other articles were revised as needed and provided with updated bibliographies. Some articles were expanded; occasionally, an article was shortened.
This second volume contains a higher number of updated articles compared with the first volume. There are occasional references to digitized images of manuscripts that can be consulted online. (It is to be hoped that the URLs provided are of the persistent type!) The references to online images are especially useful in view of the fact that the volume contains relatively few illustrations. The presence of URLs for some digital collections makes their absence in other cases painfully obvious. It would have been most desirable to provide a systematic list at least of those digital collections hosted permanently by well-known public universities and other institutions. Access to digitized images via the Internet is after all swiftly becoming the primary mode of access to illuminated manuscripts, both for scholars and interested laypersons. It has the advantage of making these works easily available for viewing without the inevitable restrictions that must be imposed on access to the original manuscripts themselves.
Although the articles on individual manuscripts are generally well-researched, they vary widely in quality and depth: some are rich in information, others rather superficial and uninformative. More effort should have been made to regularize the forms of entry for persons’ names and the names of manuscripts. The Légende de S. Denis for example is better known as the Vie de S. Denis, and the usual form of entry for Christine de Pisan is Christine de Pisan, not Pisan, Christine de. There are other instances of careless editing, for example in the presence of separate articles on closely-related topics that would have been more usefully combined into a single article. It is surprising that the lexicon contains next to no information on watermarks, whose study is so important for the dating of manuscripts.
It would appear that in some cases contributors to this volume lacked the hands-on experience with manuscripts that should have informed their work. One is forced to ask whether we really need a pastiche of slightly “freshened-up” articles from the 1980s and 1990s. The serious researcher is left unsatisfied, whereas the layperson will find this volume too expensive. Librarians will wonder whether they need to purchase a resource that consists in large part of already-published material. Lastly, the editorial flaws are too bothersome to be ignored. [wm/crc]
The subject of the culture of the book in Leipzig around 1500 gets its due attention in this slim volume, created to accompany an exhibit in 2012 at the Leipzig University Library. Fortunately, while the exhibit unlocked the 3,700-strong incunabula holdings of the Library, Döring does not restrict himself to the pre-1501 period but includes pre-Reformation book publishing activity in his catalog as well, featuring 85 holdings. An interesting picture of the Leipzig book industry is achieved through the arrangement of the catalog by addresses of the key players: the printers, bookbinders, book dealers, and libraries. An informative introduction provides a good panorama of the publishing industry of Leipzig up to the point of the Reformation, ca. 1520. The quality of book illumination in the second half of 15th-century Leipzig comes through as well. And by providing German translations of the Latin titles the author makes the volume more accessible to a wider reading audience. Finally, while there are some lapses in the strict and consistent adherence to professional referential identification, they do not take away anything from the value of this work. [jg/rlk]
Wolfgang J. Kaiser, director of the Tusculum Rare Books Limited in London, curated a travelling exhibit about the books of Frederick the Great, and designed and published the accompanying catalog. This exhibit, commemorating Frederick’s 200th birthday, opened at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz; the French Embassy in Berlin; and the two Prussia-Museums in Minden and Wustrau.
The catalog offers six chapters of varying length on the following topics: Frederick the Great in his Youth; Frederick the Philosopher (which includes his relationship to French and Classical Literature, and to the French and German Enlightenment); Frederick the Writer; Frederick as a Lover of Fine Books; Frederick and His Six Private Libraries (only three are intact today in the castles of Charlottenburg, Sanssouci, and Potsdam); and Frederick as a Thinker of his Time and his Reception. Every chapter starts with a table that contains a summary in German and English (but not in French), with small reproductions of book covers around the border.
The featured books are rare, and contain dedications and information about provenance; they were selected mostly from the collection of a person referred to only as “P. O.” The books are described in great detail, and the photos of the covers and illustrations are of very high quality. The appendix contains transcriptions and translations, a time table, a bibliography, and an index. Tusculum Rare Books Limited in London is a dealer known for the quality of its Fridericiana, and the exhibit and this catalog confirm their expertise. [sh/hm]
First published in 1839 by Otto August Schulz, the trade directory Adressbuch für den deutschen Buchhandel und verwandte Geschäftszweige became one of the most important and relied-upon resources for the German bookselling industry in the 19th and 20th centuries. Michael Hoffert’s work offers an analysis of this directory and the data therein. His methodology and resources used are laid out in the introduction. Chapter one provides an impressive 42-page historical overview of the German book trade industry. In chapter two, Hoffert discusses the development of Schulz’s directory and compares it to other directories of the time. By way of examining the quality of some directory entries, the author evaluates the directory’s data in chapter three. Full digitization of the Adressbuch and how it would benefit researchers are discussed in the next chapter. Except for those with knowledge of programming, the detailed overview of database theory and different database systems presented in chapter five can be skipped over. The last chapter provides a summary of the author’s arguments. A very useful bibliography on the Adressbuch and an equally useful bibliography and chronology of other directories are included as appendices. A fourth appendix gives a summary of the analysis of six editions of the Adressbuch in the period from 1839 until 1948. Hoffert’s work will serve to stimulate further research on book and related trade directories. [mgh/bwv]
Thomas Keiderling has given us a well-researched, illustrated, readable, and comprehensive overview of the rise and fall of Leipzig as a city of books. It is recommended, not only to scholars but also to the general reader. Beginning with “the early pre-history” 1480-1618 through its “dominance of the book” zenith 1871-1914/16, to its demise in the Third Reich and the East German state and its re-emergence after 1990, the author presents Leipzig’s 500-year publishing history. The work concludes with a 13-page bibliography and indexes to illustrations and to personal and corporate names.
A concluding assessment is that, despite a continuing, partly (n)ostalgic characterization of Leipzig as the locus of publishing, and despite the re-emergence of the Leipzig Book Fair and other bibliophilic enterprises, Leipzig’s dominance has been eclipsed, for a variety of reasons. For more on the effects of privatization on the state-owned publishing enterprises in the former East Germany, see Christoph Links’ Das Schicksal der DDR-Verlage (see RREA 15/16:52). Keiderling’s history will become a standard work on the subject. [rr/rlk]
Founded in 1912, the book series Insel-Bücherei is, alongside the series Reclams Universal-Bibliothek (founded in 1867—see RREA 18:26), one of the most successful and widely distributed book series in the German publishing world. Its books have always been popular with bibliophiles and collectors, and the series is fortunate in having been the object of a number of well-founded, scholarly bibliographies, often published in celebration of a particular anniversary of its publishing house, the Insel-Verlag. The most recent of these previous bibliographies was issued in 1999 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the company. The volume under review, although designated as 1. Auflage [1st Printing], is in fact a revised and corrected edition of the 1999 publication, expanded to include series titles issued between 1999 and its closing date of November 2011.
The volume is organized in order of the series numbering, beginning with number 1 and ascending to number 1365, which does not reflect the actual number of titles in the series, however. One number was never used, 385 numbers were used more than once, and 77 publications are in multiple volumes that each received a series number of their own. The total “real” number of titles thus comes out to 1,672. The bibliographic descriptions are quite brief, even dispensing with the number of pages. The number of abbreviations and conventions adopted by the editor means that it is necessary to study the User’s Guide (“Benutzerhinweise”) carefully.
The bibliography includes a number of special lists, as for example of boxed sets issued on anniversaries, leather-bound editions, special editions, and lists of two subseries, the Österreichische Bibliothek and Pandora. There are three indexes: (1) by author, editor, translator, and title; (2) book artists and illustrators; and (3) creators of dust jackets. A sequence of unnumbered plates contains illustrations. [sh/crc]
[Ed. note: The Insel-Bücherei and Reclams Universal-Bibliothek series were so well known among German readers that, during the Second World War, anti-Nazi propaganda was often distributed in the form of identically sized books with falsified Reclam or Insel covers. See the review of Heinz Gittig‘s Bibliographie der Tarnschriften 1933 bis 1945 in RREA 2: 96-2/3-152.]
In recent years, no fewer than three large monographs have been devoted to the publishing house of Kiepenheuer. The present volume is the catalog of an exhibition held in Weimar’s Stadtmuseum [City Museum] in 2012; it deals with the early years of Kiepenheuer’s history, beginning with the firm’s founding in Weimar in 1909, and concentrates on the history of the publisher’s series entitled Liebhaberbibliothek, or “Book Lover’s Library.” The series commenced in 1912 and was conceived as a numbered series of editions aimed at connoisseurs and bibliophiles; the books were handsomely bound and attractively illustrated. The series was devoted to narrative fiction by prominent authors, from the Romantics to the present day, and was a forerunner to the Insel-Verlag’s more famous series Insel-Bücherei (see RREA 18:24) which was launched two months later.
The catalog’s introduction provides an historical overview as well as information on the marketing campaign developed for the series, and it documents the contemporary response to the series. Also included are biographical sketches of 29 artists who created illustrations, covers, or bindings for the books, as well as biographical sketches of Weimar authors who played a role in these publications, either as authors or editors.
The major portion of the volume is a bibliography of the series, with entries for each of the 54 numbers published between 1912 and 1918 in Weimar, as well as three additional volumes published in Berlin and Potsdam between 1919 and 1920 (these three volumes were assigned numbers that had already been used for other titles, namely 9, 21, and 22). Each entry contains a full bibliographic description with details on content, dimensions, illustrations, number of printings, the printers, and binding (in some cases, volumes were issued in several bindings, each of which is noted accordingly). Numerous colored illustrations give an excellent impression of each book’s appearance. The index provides names of all persons involved, with indications of their function. [sh/crc]
Established in 1867, Reclam’s Universal-Bibliothek, along with Insel’s century-old Insel-Bücherei series (see RREA 18:24), belongs to the most successful, widely-used book series in Germany. There is scarcely a German student who has not held in her hands one of these pocket-sized books with the bright yellow cover. It is also no wonder that hardly any newspaper failed to report on the redesign of these covers in 2012. The publishing house itself documents this occasion with a 15 cm-sized publication the same size as the titles in the series.
Die Welt im Gelb, it is not so much about the color of the cover as it is about the typography. Essays discuss the redesign and the design history of the series, the color system, the pricing schemata, and numbering system. In the opening essay, Friedrich Forssman, who directed the 2012 redesign, provides color images of the changes in the Universal-Bibliothek’s covers since 1867, including illustrations from the Leipzig postwar editions (1945-1990). Essays by the company’s marketing and enterprise director Karl-Heinz Fallbacher comprise most of the work, which ends with a two-page chronology.
The director of the company, Frank Rainer Max, has slightly revised and updated his 2003 Der Reclam-Verlag: eine kurze Chronik (see IFB 03-1-066). The bibliography (p. 96) is arranged chronologically, but the references have been reduced by half and still end with 2003.
While there are several old and new publications documenting parts of the history of the House of Reclam, and a weighty volume—Dietrich Bode’s Reclam: Daten, Bilder und Dokumente zur Verlagsgeschichte, 1828-2003 (Stuttgart, 2003)—appeared on the occasion of the publisher’s 175th anniversary (see IFB 03-1-065), a comprehensive bibliography that meets the needs of scholars and antiquarians is still lacking. The most recent and so far most extensive bibliography of this series appeared in 1992—Dietrich Bode’s Reclam, 125 Jahre Universal-Bibliothek (Stuttgart, 1992—see IFB 93-1/2-049)—together with a list of available titles, but both are limited to the Stuttgart period (1947-1992). Compared to previous bibliographies, that was a step forward, in that not only was more detailed bibliographic information included, but also later, revised editions were documented, although limits of this effort.
It can be hoped that the publisher’s archive for the period following 1945 has really preserved all editions, but a complete bibliography documenting prewar production would still not be possible without an autopsy of the volumes held in libraries, because in December 1943 the publisher’s archive was destroyed along with the Leipzig building housing it. Even though the publisher has been able to succeed in assembling a relatively complete and well-preserved prewar collection, there would still remain a need for the development of a bibliography that represents the years 1867-1945. That would be a great benefit for enthusiasts of publishing, book, and education history. [sh/jmw]
In more than 1,560 entries, this subject dictionary covers the areas of “old media” (press and radio), “new media” (Internet and social media), and media law, advertising, and public relations. Short definition entries as well as longer and more comprehensive ones are included. The entries are supplemented with a number of tables, graphs, and topical boxes, which cover some of the more important topics on media. A list of approximately 120 websites and links is usefully organized by topic. The dictionary provides an overview and index. Some shortcomings in this publication are nevertheless apparent: cross-references to other entries are for the most part missing, as is an adequate listing of references for further reading.
These shortcomings aside, Das Medienlexikon is a useful work and an updated complement to Anja Kühner and Michael Schmuck’s Das Medien-Lexikon: die wichtigsten Fachbegriffe aus Print, Radio, TV und Internet (see RREA 15/16:60). [wub/bwv]
This work is the product of a research project initiated by the Institut Deutsche Presseforschung [Institute for German Press Research] of the University of Bremen. A preliminary report on this study appeared in 2009 (see IFB 10-3). The project’s goal has been to investigate a group of German-language publications that have been previously scarcely examined. The designation “newspaper excerpts” is used here to describe publications that flourished from the mid-17th century until the end of the 18th century. These were generally serial in nature, usually appearing weekly or monthly, and contained selected reprints from contemporary newspapers or other publications.
In an introductory essay Esther-Beate Körber sketches some characteristics of these publications, their purpose, and their place in the German publishing landscape of the 17th and 18th centuries. Because of their heterogeneity Körber refers to them not as a genre but as a “functional group of early modern publications.” They represent a unique type of publication between the genres of newspapers and journals. Based on her examination of 126 titles, Körber describes their function as the selecting and organizing of factual reports from other publications. The extracts often had a subject or geographic arrangement and sometimes included indexes and explanatory information. They served both as a summary of current publication activity and as a marketing tool to promote interest in contemporary publications. The central section of this work is a title list of the publications, each with a detailed bibliographical description, followed by an exhaustive commentary. An additional 70-page section provides biographical information on over 700 persons related to the production of these publications. An index of subjects and places provides excellent topical access to the abundance of information contained in the descriptions and the commentaries. Körber follows the bibliographic format used by Holger Böning and Emmy Moepps in their multi-volume Deutsche Presse: biobibliographische Handbücher … von den Anfängen bis 1815 (see RREA 96-4-386, 98-3/4-186, and 10:7).
Esther-Beate Körber’s work opens an entire spectrum for further research that would not be possible, or even imaginable, without this volume. [wub/jc]
Aby (Abraham Moritz) Warburg (1866-1929) was a prominent member of the Hamburg banking family Warburg, about whom much has been written. Two biographies in English are Ron Chernow’s The Warburgs: The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family (New York, 1994) and E. H. Gombrich’s Aby Warburg: An Intellectual Biography (Chicago, 1986), to which Fritz Saxl contributed a memoir on the history of Warburg’s private library, known as the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek [Warburg Humanities Library]. Now an engaging biography of Fritz Saxl (1890-1948) has been written by Dorothea McEwan, the director of the Warburg Institute’s archive from 1993 to 2006. During her tenure McEwan accomplished extensive cataloging and digitization of major components of the archive and also produced numerous publications on Warburg, the library, and its vicissitudes.
The stately volume under review here begins with a 184-page introduction, followed by a seven-page section of illustrations, excerpts from the correspondence between Saxl and Warburg, and a bibliography of Saxl’s published and unpublished writings. It concludes with substantial literature and name indexes. This well-written biography of Fritz Saxl is noteworthy not only for its treatment of Saxl’s life but also for its discussion of the correspondence between Saxl and Warburg.
Saxl was Viennese but received his doctorate (on Rembrandt) in 1912 from the University of Hamburg. Through his interest in astrology and occult texts Saxl came to know Aby Warburg at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, where Saxl had a fellowship in 1913-1914. He served in Italy in the Imperial Austrian armed forces as a lieutenant, but by 1920 he became the director of Warburg’s private library in Hamburg. Warburg, for many years in poor health (he died in 1929), had granted Saxl plenipotentiary powers over the library and its quarters, and Saxl cultivated a close relationship with the University, his alma mater. There he hired many of the persons who were to become lifelong employees of the library.
Sensing that the Nazis were on the ascendant, Saxl utilized his many contacts and colleagues in Hamburg and in London to arrange for the entire library to be sent to London “on temporary loan” (a pure fiction), which was the only way to get the materials out of Germany. In 1944 the library was incorporated into the University of London. In 1945 Saxl received the title of “Professor of the History of the Classical Tradition” and Gertrud Bing became the library’s deputy director. He was able to see the publication of two of the three volumes of his Catalogue of Astrological and Mythological Illuminated Manuscripts of the Latin Middle Ages = Verzeichnis astrologischer und mythologischer illustrierter Handschriften des lateinischen Mittelalters (Heidelberg, 1915-1926); volume three was published in London in 1953.
After Fritz Saxl died in 1948, librarians Gertrud Bing and Hans Meier, secretary Clara Hertz, accountant Eva von Eckardt, the photographer and director of technical operations Otto Fein, and a number of scholars were able to put the library onto a sound footing. The library became the core of the growing Warburg Institute, which is still part of the University of London. “The Warburg Institute is concerned mainly with cultural history, art history, and the history of ideas, especially in the Renaissance. It aims to promote and conduct research on the interaction of cultures, using verbal and visual materials. It specializes in the influence of ancient Mediterranean traditions on European culture from the Middle Ages to the modern period” (from the Institute’s website: http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/home; accessed September 5, 2014).
Dorothea McEwan’s work documents in great detail Saxl’s extensive contributions to scholarship and librarianship. Her work also is rich in information about the many people in Saxl’s circle, including Gretrud Bing, his longtime close colleague. A minor weakness is the insufficient discussion of Percy Ernst Schramm, who worked closely with Saxl, and inadequate discussion of the role played by Raymond Klibansky in the transfer of the Warburg library from Hamburg to London. Despite these desiderata, McEwan’s research is an important contribution to the study of German scholars in exile after 1933. [frh/ga,ldl]
Although Ernst Bloch has not attained the canonical status of Nietzsche, Heidegger and Benjamin, some of his ideas and concepts (“Principle of Hope”) are still of interest to philosophers today. There is an entry for him in Helmut Reinalter and Peter J. Brenner’s Lexikon der Geisteswissenschaften (see RREA 17:45) and in Heinrich Schmidt’s Philosophisches Wörterbuch (see RREA 15/16:65). As a Marxist who ended up leaving the German Democratic Republic, he also played a noteworthy role in German-German (East vs. West) cultural history, and he became an important mentor to activists and revolutionaries during the turbulent 1960s and 70s.
This dictionary is not so much an indication of widespread interest in Bloch as it is an attempt to stimulate that interest. It is explicitly directed to philosophers and specialists (including natural scientists) as well as to “non-professional readers.” The editors did not strive for comprehensive coverage of Bloch’s work but aim, rather, to address those topics that are most characteristic of and important to his thinking, including Anticipation, Aesthetics, Atheism, Alienation, Progress, Freedom, Home, Hope, Intensity, Not-Yet, Space, Revolution, Utopia, and Time.
Criticism of Bloch is, unfortunately, addressed only cursorily. This dictionary (almost a handbook) remains, nonetheless, a superb introduction to Bloch’s philosophy and is recommended to collections in both philosophy and in the intellectual history of the 20th century. [tk/sl]
This excellent reference book, first published in 1998, provides information concerning some 160 individual philosophers of art, including brief biographies, and discussions of the philosopher’s texts and the relationship of individual texts to the philosopher’s writings as a whole, as well as a brief history of the reception of these texts. Entries contain brief bibliographies of primary texts and secondary literature. This work is an important complement to Paul von Naredi-Rainer’s Hauptwerke zur Kunstgeschichtsschreibung [Major Works of Art Historiography] (Stuttgart, 2012—see IFB 12-2). With occasional exceptions, it is clear that the editors have taken pains to make this book as up to date as possible. [tk/ldl]
Now in a second edition ten years after it was first published, this work is a very extensive compendium by a single author concerning the most important theoreticians of politics from antiquity to more recent times. In more than 600 pages it offers considerable information. Unfortunately, the bibliographical references have not been updated. Definitely not superficial, it should be of use to political science students, as well as others who are interested in political theory. The author discusses political theoreticians in more depth than is possible in general reference volumes [Ed. note: see for example, Theo Stammen’s Hauptwerke der politischen Theorie (see RREA 13:214) and the many books on political theory and theorists that are cited in this IFB review.] But it is necessary to consult other works for information about current thinkers, because Pfetsch limits himself to the “classic” ones, beginning with Plato and Aristotle and ending with Niklas Luhmann and Jürgen Habermas.
The volume is a useful aid. However, it is surpassed, especially from a bibliographical point of view, by Henning Ottmann’s multivolume work Geschichte des politischen Denkens (Stuttgart, 2001-2012), which is without a doubt a must for anyone who deals with political thought and its history. [tk/nb]
An RREA Original Review by Kristen Totleben (University of Rochester)
While the work’s title denotes that it is a dictionary, its lengthy definitions actually resemble encyclopedia essays. Previous works by renowned music scholar Ramón Andrés, such as El diccionario de instrumentos musicales [Dictionary of Musical Instruments] (Barcelona, 1995, 2d ed. 2009) and El mundo en el oído: El nacimiento de la música en la cultura [The World in the Ear: The Birth of Music in Culture] (Barcelona, 2008), show a natural progression of topic and advancement in Andres’s studies, leading to this work, which he has dedicated to Jorge Luis Borges.
The introduction serves as an explanation, review, and analysis, acquainting the reader with the mysteries of the natural, symbolic, mythological, and spiritual ties that have characterized human relationships with music throughout time. Next, Andrés labels a sample definition, convenient for consultation, that displays etymology, grammatical functions, bibliographical references (in brackets), and other descriptive features.
The wide span of alphabetically arranged entries includes plants, animals, objects, gods, goddesses, and other terms, expressing their connections to music. Each entry’s essay-like content covers a broad chronological and cultural range, addressing, for example, Greek, Celtic, Hindu, and Scandinavian mythologies. The typical length of each entry is usually at least a few pages, and some are considerably longer. For example, the entry for laberinto [labyrinth] extends about 15 pages, starting with a literal definition followed by a linear discussion tracing labyrinths through history, while noting mythological and metaphorical meanings, poetic verses, and abundant bibliographical references. Cross-references are embedded as needed in each entry. Some entries include black-and-white images.
Following the main body is an appendix listing mythical beings that, while not directly related to music, are characters in musical works. For instance, the entry Perséfone [Persephone] lists operas and other musical works in which she is mentioned or involved. The book closes with an extensive bibliography and an index.
Although reading proficiency in Spanish is required to consult this reference work, its multidisciplinary qualities make it applicable for a variety of subjects. It would prove useful for consultation by faculty and upper-level undergraduate and graduate students, as well as other scholars, in the fields of music, religion, literature, mythology, and classical studies. It could also hold its own in the general stacks as a collection of analyses and reviews. Beyond these purposes, it is an entertaining, aesthetically delightful read, inviting the reader into Andrés’s celebration of the unknown and showing music’s ability to connect humans with it. The Diccionario de música, mitología, magia y religión covers its broad scope well, successfully accomplishing its ambitious aims.
On the 11th of October 1962 more than 2,500 participants walked in a festive procession from the halls of the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City across Saint Peter’s Square to Saint Peter’s Basilica, where Pope John XVIII opened the 21st Catholic Ecumenical Council. This meeting was to become the most meaningful event in the Catholic Church in the 20th century. The Council’s main purpose was to bring the faith up to date (“aggiornamento”). In the three years that followed, the Second Vatican Council (referred to in the media as “Vatican II”) approved 16 documents that together represented a groundbreaking renewal as well as significant change in the life of the Church, changes and effects that are ongoing today.
Among the well known participants were Yves Congar, Hans Küng, Karl Rahner, Marcel Lefebvre, and Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI). But most of the participants remain basically unknown beyond the Vatican, although they also made history. And it is this principle that is the basis for the Personenlexikon zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil—a document of those who constructed and launched this monumental change in the Church’s life. In brief bibliographies the book introduces those actors, with emphasis on persons from German-speaking Europe. Many of these persons are included in the 11-volume Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche (LThK) [Dictionary of Theology and Church], 3d ed. (Freiburg, 1993-2001); volume 1 of that publication was reviewed in RREO 94-3/4-421, volume 8 in RREA 5:89, and volume 11 in RREA 7:72. But many of the Council participants were not included in the LThK, and a need was also perceived for fuller treatment of those persons who were covered there. Furthermore, the LthK itself can be seen as a complement to such basic works as the five-volume Herders theologischer Kommentar zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil (see RREA 13:71)
The dictionary is divided into five parts. The informative introduction by Michael Quisinsky gives a survey of the events leading up to Vatican II, its course, and its later reception. Included is the entry Vaticanum II from the LThK, which discusses the issues and debates, the theologians, and the need (or not) for new conciliar reforms. This section concludes with an index of abbreviations used, a bibliography, and an index of authors. The main part of the dictionary contains more than 400 articles that present all the German-speaking participants as well the best-known figures from other countries. Among the latter are Bible scholar and ecumenicist Augstin Cardinal Bea, Protestant theologian Oscar Cullmann, the prior and founder of the Taizé Community in France Roger Schutz, and the General Secretary of the Council Willem Adolf Visser ‘t Hooft. Among the lesser-known participants are activists in the Catholic women’s movement Marianne Dirks and Gertrud Elisabeth Ehrle and the Lutheran theologian Kristen Ejner Buhl Skydsgaard. The articles, written by more than 80 authors, give a brief biography and information on each subject’s contributions to and activities within the Vatican II. Bibliographies are also included, many of which extend through the year 2012, lending great bibliographic value to the dictionary. In many cases, the entries also list the person’s contributions to the Council, speeches, and documents outlining the person’s views and positions on issues. Many articles also feature portraits. The dictionary concludes with a subject index and an index of illustrations.
The Personenlexikon zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil is a noteworthy document for the significant 50th anniversary of the opening of Vatican II. It provides a solid introduction to the participants and an up-to-date compilation of research on the Council. It is a practical guide to the themes and issues of the day that is helpful for the interested layperson, and at the same time it serves as an in-depth guide to research on this chapter in the Catholic Church’s history. It will be of great service to students and practitioners as well as to the broad lay readership, which is the work’s greatest success. [mbe/ga]
The title of this bibliography fails to convey what is stated in the preface, viz, that it covers only publications from the years 1968-2010. The source works from which the compiler has assembled his list are well documented also in the preface. Much of the content is drawn from HeBIS, the on-line version of the Hessische Bibliographie (http://cbsopac.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/LNG=DU/CHARSET=iso8859-1/DB=2.4/; accessed September 13, 2014).
The work consists of six sections, within which the titles are arranged alphabetically, with discovery aided through the use of multiple cross references. Sections 3-5 cover geographic entities, key terminology, and biographies, so that the lack of indexes for the sections does not hinder access except in section four, whose arrangement is not self-evident. Despite such minor desiderata, however, the bibliography is an admirable example of the regrettably vanishing genre of special bibliographies. [sh/rlk]
The genre Klosterbuch refers to a topographical inventory of monastic institutions, with detailed articles derived from primary sources and covering defined geographic regions of the German-speaking countries. Books for several regions have already appeared; the footnotes to the IFB review of this work give citations for a number of them. Books covered in Reference Reviews Europe include Württemberg (see RREA 11:79) and the Northern Rhine Valley (see RREA 15:16:80). An extensive inventory of German monasteries is available in Thomas Sterba’s 900-page Herders neues Klösterlexikon (see RREA 15/16:79).
The newest title in this genre, Niedersächsisches Klosterbuch, is notable not only for its great size and range of coverage, but it is also unique among its peers in that all four volumes have appeared simultaneously. The 250 locations are arranged alphabetically in the first three volumes. Each entry gives brief factual information about the religious background of the institution, its history, and its significance. Published and non-published sources, discussion of relevant monuments, a list of the institution’s officials, and a bibliography complete the entry.
Volume 4 contains a 300-page alphabetical compilation of sources and literature. Josef Dolle’s index of personal and geographic names extends to around 370 pages. The volume concludes with a subject index, an index of contributors, 16 maps showing all towns with at least three monasteries or convents, and a folded map with these institutions’ orders and insignias (in color).
A further title, Mecklenburgisches Klosterbuch [Book of Monasteries for Mecklenburg] was scheduled to appear in 2012. [sh/ga]
Following the local success of Erwin Knauß’s collective biographical work, Die jüdische Bevölkerung Gießens 1933-1945 [The Jewish Population of Giessen 1933-1945] (Wiesbaden, 1947-87), local historian and genealogist Hanno Müller has extended this history back some 150 years before the infamous Third Reich. This thoroughly researched work includes 5,037 entries to include even persons who lived relatively briefly in Giessen, for example, for purposes of study at the university there.
Most of the entries (4,943) are for the city itself; the remainder are for the two outlying districts of Wieseck and Rötgen. Each entry includes fore- and surnames (and variants), life-dates, marriage dates, names of wives, and names of children. Numerous sources, such as the city archives, police records, newspaper entries, and address books, were consulted. In the introduction, the author provides detailed information on how to use the work. The volume concludes with an index of sources, a long list of portraits, voter and tax rolls, an index of birthplaces, and a combined glossary and index of abbreviations.
The author also refers readers to the website Stolpersteine Giessen [Giessen Stumbling-Blocks] (see http://www.stolpersteine-giessen.de; accessed January 14, 2014). This urban art project recognizes and commemorates Giessen’s Jewish inhabitants who were driven out or taken away during the Nazi period. Small bronze commemorative plaques are fixed to paving-stones on the city’s sidewalks, so that the pedestrian in a real sense stumbles upon a person’s name, birth and death dates, and fate.
This reviewer (who attended gymnasium in Giessen), feels especially pleased to have discovered Hanno Müller’s work quite by chance in the bookstore of Giessen’s central railroad station. [sh/ga]
An RREA Original Review by Anthony J. Oddo (Yale University)
As its title implies, this comprehensive dictionary covers the various cults and myths that flourished in ancient and proto-Christian Sicily. Roberta Rizzo writes in her introduction that the goal of the work is to present to the reader the vast cultural and religious diversity that formed a virtual mosaic from indigenous, Phoenician-Punic, Greek, Roman, and oriental influences.
Designed for quick reference searches, each entry defines a specific myth or cult, describes its importance in the context of the island’s religious history, identifies the locations of its centers of worship, and highlights any contact that existed with other myths or cults associated with Sicily. For example, the entry for Mozia (whose name is also cited in Greek) describes the female mythological figure associated with the modern city of Mozia. She is said to have offered assistance to Herakles in one of his adventures, and references to that Greek hero—whom the Romans later adapted as Hercules—indicate possible early contact between Greek and Phoenician colonies on the island. Libero, an old Italic god of the fields, is cited as being identified with Bacchus, the Roman god of wine, as well as with the Greek god Dionysius.
Each entry is accompanied by a bibliography listing the ancient literary sources, inscriptions, and archaeological reports consulted. The publication concludes with an extensive bibliography of secondary sources, a detailed list of primary sources cited throughout the text, and several indexes of historical events, religious rites, and places found within the main text.
Academic institutions offering programs in ancient history, classical studies, anthropology, religious studies, or geography would find Culti e miti della Sicilia antica e protocristiana a valuable resource. A special library associated with a religious institution would also benefit from having this dictionary in its collection.
BC – Philology; Languages and Linguistics
Each title in this unnumbered series is a bibliographic instruction course as well as a guide to essential print and Internet-based scholarly resources. In addition to the three volumes under review here, four more—in history, political and social sciences, pedagogical sciences, and jurisprudence—appeared in 2012, and several more are projected for 2013 and 2014.
The author of the Germanistik volume, Klaus Gantert, is also the series editor. He has previously published bibliographic-instruction guides in history and Germanistik, most recently Elektronische Informationsressourcen fur Germanisten (see RREA 17:62), some with De Gruyter Saur. Jochen Haug is bibliographer for English (including Celtic) and American philology at the Berlin State Library and also teaches information science at the technical university in Potsdam. Ulrike Hollender is bibliographer for Romance languages and literatures at the Berlin State Library and a specialist in database instruction and publishing.
These volumes are attractively printed and easy to read (except for some screenshots), and they all closely follow the same organizational scheme. Chapter 1, Basics [sic], introduces library catalogs, subject bibliographies, and Internet search engines, and includes tips for searching and researching in databases. Chapter 2, Advanced [sic], discusses the most important printed and electronic bibliographies, reference works, journals, and subject-specific databases and indexes. It further covers real, digital, and virtual libraries, online portals, bio-bibliographical databases, text archives, and other essential electronic information resources.
Chapter 3, entitled either Informationen weiterverarbeiten [Working with the Information] (Gantert and Hollender), or Post-Research (Haug), focuses on the evaluation, export, and management of search results and includes a guide to citation formats. Each volume closes with a guide to further readings, resource and subject indexes, and (in the volumes of Gantert and Hollender) a link to the website Informationskompetenz.de (see www.informationskompetenz.de/glossar; accessed January16, 2014) instead of a glossary.
Each title is limited to between 130 and 150 pages, which means there are some compromises in the amount of description given to reference works and bibliographies, and the omission or only brief mention of some tools such as retrospective and book-review sources. On the other hand, these guides are intended for student use, so the focus is on current tools, quick information about resources and methods, ease of use and reference, and an affordable price (20 Euros).
Of the three reviewed here, Klaus Gantert’s book is the most detailed, accurate, and near-complete. He refers to three earlier, still almost indispensable, standard bibliographical works in Germanistik: Carsten Zelle’s Kurze Bücherkunde für Literaturwissenschaftler (see RREA 4:117), Hansjürgen Blinn’s Informationshandbuch deutsche Literaturwissenschaft (see RREO 95-1-077 and RREA 8:96); and Paul Raabe’s Einführung in die Bücherkunde zur deutschen Literaturwissenschaft (see RREO 94-3/4-445). One wishes he had given them more commentary and prominence, however. But Gantert succeeds admirably in bringing the state of bibliography up to date inthe electronic era.
[Ed. note: A search on WorldCat reveals that the e-book edition of Jochen Haug’s … Anglistik und Amerikanistik is owned by more than 400 libraries worldwide, about half of them in the United States and chiefly by small and medium-sized college libraries. While this may be due to its possible inclusion in a larger e-book package as much as to specific demand for the title, it is still a significant fact that a German-language study guide is found in so many US libraries.]
Haug could have included more general research guides in the first chapter, such as James Harner’s Literary research guide (2009 online). Baker und Huling’s A Research Guide for Undergraduate Students (6th ed. 2006) and Kehler’s Problems in Literary Research (4th ed. 1997), while in part obsolete or superseded, still have high research value. They are as valuable as Böker und Houswitschka’s more recent Einführung in das Studium der Anglistik und Amerikanistik [Introduction to the Study of English and American Literatures] (2d ed. 2007) and Korte, Müller und Schmied’s Einführung in die Anglistik (2004), which are included in the bibliography. Chapter 4 (p. 261-344) is an extensive, annotated list of guides and aids to research. Haug rightly includes many titles from Scarecrow Press’ excellent series Literary Research: Strategies and Sources, including Christenberry and Courtney’s Literary Research and the Literatures of Australia and New Zealand: Strategies and Sources (Lanham, MD, 2011), as well as the major English-language online databases, like the MLA International Bibliography and the Literature Resource Center, and he does not include online sources that have less than satisfactory features. There are a few erroneous observations, for example, that the Oxford Companion to English Literature is limited to English-speaking authors and their works. On the contrary, this Oxford Companion also contains a wealth of information on literary and historical topics and non-English writers, all of direct importance to English literature and culture.
Ulrike Hollender’s guide to research in Romance languages and literatures captures the best from the huge number of resources available, avoids factual errors, and in some cases is more thorough than the other two authors in her critique of individual resources, such as Kindlers Literatur-Lexikon (2009 online). She also includes older and still valuable guides to research, for example, Klaus Schreiber’s Bibliographie laufender Bibliographien zur romanischen Literaturwissenschaft [Bibliography of Serial Bibliographies for Research in the Romance Literatures] (Frankfurt, 1971). Hollender delivers an up-to-date, concise, and also large-scope introduction to literary research and the bibliographies of the Romance languages and literatures, with accurate reportage on individual works’ strengths and shortcomings. She covers all the major online bibliographies and databases but perhaps could have included more about the resources in Romance linguistics. In this regard, it is regrettable that she gives only brief mention of neither Gerhard Ernst’s Die Romanische Sprachgeschichte: ein internationales Handbuch… [The History of the Romance Languages: An International Handbook...] (Berlin, 2003-2008) nor Holtus, Metzeltin, and Schmitt’s 12-part Lexikon der romanistischen Linguistik [Bibliography of Romance Linguistics] (Tübingen, 1988-2005), which is also available as an e-book.
Despite a few shortcomings, these three authors have succeeded in compiling easy-to-use, up-to-date, and efficient research guides that explain key concepts in a didactically engaging manner. These guides are appropriate for public, college, and university libraries. [sek/ga]
An RREA Original Review by Sarah G. Wenzel (University of Chicago)
Further subtitled “accompagné d’une analyse historique, linguistique et grammaticale de ces usages” [with historical, linguistic, and grammatical analysis of the vernacular], this dictionary of Norman French in the maritime Cotentin Peninsula of northwestern Normandy carries the concise half-title “Normand en Cotentin.” The dictionary thus situates itself very precisely in a narrow geographic area, with a particular focus on the sea and fishing, recording a dialect that is in the process of disappearing.
The half-title page describes the content still more specifically: the dictionary proper, preceded by a linguistic description of Normand and an explanation of the orthographic conventions used in this dictionary, is followed by a grammatical summary of morphology, syntax, and conjugation. In the main body, each definition includes a broad subject category under which the term falls (such as marine zoology), as well as, when known, the specific locations where use of the word has been verified. Cross-references are provided. In the Hague region, for example, crapâo, the spelling given to represent the local pronunciation of crapaud [toad], is used both for the amphibian and as a brief form of crapâo de mé (standard French crapaud de mer [sea toad]). The entry for the toad includes a “see-also” reference to clloquetyi, a dialect name for the common midwife toad. From crapâo de mé, there is a “see” reference to grassécasse (known in English as the long-spined sea scorpion), which is vividly described as a species of cottoid fish with long spines on each side of its head and bright colors that can change as camouflage, as well as with a mouth armed with solid ranges of teeth—a voracious fish able to swallow even large prey.
Perhaps in part because Marie, a professor of modern literature who has studied and taught Normand, is not professionally trained in linguistics, one of the quirks of the book is that he does not use the International Phonetic Alphabet for pronunciation. Especially when an author is transcribing words for the first time, essentially creating the orthography, a recognizable pronunciation standard seems nearly essential. Perhaps, again, because Marie is not a trained lexicographer, while numerous types of grammatical variations are included (e.g., adjective numéral cardinal [adjective for a cardinal number] and adjective numéral ordinal [adjective for an ordinal number]), there are only two indicating register: archaïque [archaic] and péjoratif [pejorative]. This lack limits the usefulness of the dictionary for determining the tone of a document or oral statement.
In comparing this dictionary to the Dictionnaire normand-français of Jean-Paul Bourdon et al. (Paris, 1993), the strengths of Marie’s compilation emerge when the number of headwords and the length of entries are compared. As suggested in Marie’s prefatory matter and illustrated by the grassécasse example above, when it comes to maritime terms he often provides an explanation—even a short encyclopedic entry—rather than a mere definition. The verb conjugation tables at the end of this book, although few, are quite helpful. René Lepelley’s much slimmer Le parler de Normandie [The Speech of Normandy] (Paris, 2008) contains even fewer entries and shorter definitions than the Bourdon dictionary does, although it is worth mentioning as it offers brief etymologies.
To serve an interest in Norman history or language, Marie’s Dictionnaire normand-français would be useful both for its record of regional speech and for descriptions of current practices. In other respects, if the Bourdon dictionary is already held, Marie’s does not offer sufficient added value to justify adding it to a collection.
An RREA Original Review by Anthony J. Oddo (Yale University)
Nuclear engineer Mirko Moretti has compiled extensive lists of non-Latin words that have come into common daily usage in the Italian language. Acknowledging the importance of Latin as the source of much of the daily vocabulary in use in today’s Italy, the author writes in his introduction that his purpose is to illustrate the etymology of many of the non-Latin words that are now also essential in the language.
The major portion of the book is divided into several chapters, each devoted to a specific language (Greek, English, French, etc.). Within each chapter, the word entries are arranged alphabetically. This arrangement by language and the lack of an index limit the usefulness of this publication as a straightforward dictionary, as the researcher must already know a word’s language of derivation to find it.
Each entry consists of the Italian word, the year of its first use, the language of origin, and current usage. It is apparent, though, that some entries receive more detailed etymological treatment than others. For example, in the chapter on terms of Germanic origin, the Italian word bianco [white] is identified as being derived from the German word blank [shiny]. The entry further indicates that bianco had totally replaced the Latin word for white, albus, by the 12th century. In the same chapter, on the other hand, the Italian word banca [bank] is simply defined as being derived from the German Bank, without further historical background.
The volume closes with two chapters specifically devoted to the field of chemistry. In the first of them, concerning names of chemical elements, the author offers a mini-dictionary in Italian for all the chemical elements, including each one’s scientific symbol and periodic number, a brief history of its discovery, and the origin of its name. The next chapter lists the Italian name and origin for many common chemical products, such as Vaseline, aspirin, and acrylic.
While there is much to appreciate in Vocaboli italiani di origine non latina, it is highly specialized, so it is not appropriate for language beginners or for a general reference collection. Institutions offering advanced programs in the Italian language or linguistics in general would find it a valuable resource. It would also be a worthwhile addition to the personal library of an individual scholar whose research focuses on these areas.
An RREA Original Review by Anna L. Shparberg (Rice University)
This biographical dictionary aims to put names and faces to the centuries-long relationship between the Czech lands—Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia, which today constitute the Czech Republic—and English-speaking countries of the “developed world.” Aiming to map the Czech-English cultural contacts from multiple perspectives, it includes both Czechs who have lived in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, or Australia, and Czech scholars, authors, and translators who have displayed significant awareness of that English-speaking world without leaving their home country.
Possibly the earliest figure included in the dictionary is Kosmas of Prague (ca. 1045-1125), whose Chronica Boëmorum [Chronicle of the Bohemians] lends support to the theory that the wife of King Boleslav II of Bohemia, Emma, was of English origin. One of the posthumous recensions of this chronicle also records the martyrdom of Thomas Becket in 1170. Two centuries later, in 1382, Anne of Bohemia became queen of England upon marrying Richard II (Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Parliament of Fowls was composed in honor of this event). Since then, numerous Czechs have left their homeland, permanently or temporarily, voluntarily or as exiles, to settle in Great Britain or one of its former colonies. In turn, many British, American, and other Anglophones have visited or resided in the Czech lands. The country boasts a long and venerable tradition of British and Anglophone studies, which is richly reflected in the present book.
The dictionary was printed as two paperback volumes. Its design is workmanlike rather than aesthetically pleasing; the generously sized font makes the narrow margins appear even smaller. The quality of the paper and binding, while not the best, is sufficient for scholarly use.
The introduction provides an overview of the Czech-English contacts through the centuries and lays out the methodology used in compiling the book. Chronologically, it covers the period from the Middle Ages to 1989, after which the number of people involved in those contacts increased too dramatically to provide satisfactory coverage. The geographical scope of the dictionary is limited to the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and Australia. (Ireland is mentioned only if the person also had contacts with Great Britain.)
The body of the book contains 2,574 biographical entries on statesmen, writers, doctors, members of the military, clergymen, composers, actors, scholars, noblemen, opera singers, and many others—including such unexpected occupations as agent of the state security apparatus. A typical name entry provides the dates of birth (and death, if deceased) of its subject, his or her profession, and a brief biography, concluding with a bibliography of works by and about the person. Lesser-known figures merit only a couple of lines, while prominent ones can have much longer entries; for example, the article on Václav Havel runs to five pages.
In the case of such prominent individuals, the book refrains from providing their complete biographies, focusing instead on their contacts with the included Anglophone countries. As an example, the entry on the musician Antonin Dvořák begins with a synopsis of the early performances of his works in Great Britain. The rest of the article is divided into numbered paragraphs describing his visits to and residence in England and the United States in considerable detail, including musical performances and works composed.
The bibliography following the main dictionary, in volume two, lists the sources used in compiling these articles. To address this work’s focus on perceptions of the English-speaking world in the Czech Republic, which were often mediated by translations of Anglophone literature into Czech, an additional 99-page bibliography of translations is provided at the end of the second volume. Arranged by translator, it contains an alphabetical list of 826 individuals, with scant, if any, biographical details. The purpose of the entries in this section is to provide a bibliography of translations, primarily of popular works of fiction such as Westerns or detective novels, although practical guides and theological treatises are also included. It should be noted that many of the people profiled in the main section of the dictionary (e.g., Pavel Dominik) included translation among their other activities. Their names and bibliographies of their translations are not duplicated here.
As often happens when dealing with formerly popular works that have lapsed into obscurity, the bibliography of translations offers fertile ground for errors and misattributions. In some cases, such as that of the translator D. Krásová, author Jaroslav Peprník was unable to identify the English-language originals of translated fiction. In another instance, the article on Jaromír Acler credits him with two translations—Dřevěné zbraně and Stín (both Praha, 1930)—of works by a certain “Serge Owen Barter.” That name appears to be a mistranscription of “George Owen Baxter,” one of the many pseudonyms of Frederick Schiller Faust (1892-1944) and the one associated with the originals of Acler’s translations, Wooden Guns and The Shadow of Silver Tip respectively (both first published in book form New York, 1925). While the title pages of later editions of these Westerns use Faust’s best-known pseudonym, Max Brand, neither the connection with Max Brand nor that with Faust is made in this bibliography.
To better assist those studying the reception of English-language literature abroad, the dictionary would have benefited from an index of translated authors and the titles (original and translated) of their works. A geographical index would also have been useful.
Overall, Češi a anglofonní svět is a valuable reference work that can be recommended for purchase by academic libraries with collections in Central and Eastern European history or comparative literature. While this biographical dictionary is written in Czech, a researcher unfamiliar with that language can still benefit from consulting it, since many of the terms used in the articles are easily understandable in English. The copious bibliographical information provided in the book will be of particular value to the scholar.
An RREA Original Review by Thomas M. Izbicki (Rutgers University)
The late Carl Egger turned several modern Italian, French, German, and English expressions and words into Latin, with renderings based on his knowledge of classical texts. These translations have now been published in a brief alphabetical lexicon. Some of them are short, even terse, while others are lengthier and not at all pithy. One of this reviewer’s favorites for verbosity is femme fatale, translated as femina illecebris suis virorum corruptrix [a woman who corrupts men by means of her allurements]. It is not easy, of course, to turn “hot line” into communicatio colloquii telephonici urgentis [communication of urgent speech via telephone]. Even that phrasing is rooted in a classical text, a reference by Cicero in a letter to Atticus to “communicatio sermonis” [communication of speech]. It is easier to turn momento giusto [the right moment] into temperi, a word used in the Pseudolus of Plautus. Most of the words and phrases are translated from Italian. The Italian panetone, a sweet bread loaf, appears in Latin as panis natalicus [Christmas bread]. The gender of each individual noun (masculine, feminine, or neuter) is noted. The book concludes with a table of abbreviations and a list of Latin works employed.
There will be little of practical value to anyone in North America in Egger’s work, but Latin teachers may find it useful to interest students in a language that refuses to die entirely. There is also a great deal of pleasure to be derived from seeing how Eggers translated expressions such as rifornimento in volo [in-flight refueling], Latinized as praebitio liquoris propolsorii in aerio itinere [supply of propulsive liquid on an aerial journey]. So, if you want to know the Latin for Jehovah’s Witnesses (Testes Iehoviani) or “cash and carry” (pretium solve remque asporta [pay the price and carry the thing away]), this book is for you.
The rich linguistic landscape of the Europe is a gift and a challenge. The linguistic diversity of the European Union alone, with its 22 official working languages, has led to substantial research on the theoretical and practical challenges of multilingualism. When it comes to the languages of Europe as a whole, the Council of the European Union took on the mission of protecting the many additional regional and minority languages by passing the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) in 1992. This handbook provides as comprehensive an overview as possible for the languages that the European Charter was designed to protect.
The editors of the handbook organized a conference on the day by which all EU countries were supposed to have ratified the treaty—April 1, 2012. But, in fact, only 25 countries had ratified the charter by this deadline; eight countries had signed the charter (among them France, Italy, and Ireland), and 14 countries had simply acknowledged the charter (among them Belgium, Greece, and the Baltic States). For each country that did adopt the charter, and thereby agreed to be monitored and make all related documentation publicly available, the handbook presents the history of the minority languages up to the point of the adoption of the charter, the implementation, and an overall evaluation of the history and current situation of the minority languages.
The thorough presentations make this handbook a very useful tool for surveying the linguistic diversity of Europe. [ks/hm]
BD – Literature and Literary Studies
This handbook is among those whose goals are not clear and which represent the current state of research within a field that is itself poorly defined. Even those scholars in the field of “literature and knowledge” have no clear professional consensus regarding the outline of its scholarly borders. In the context of literature, the concept knowledge is not epistemologically precise and may include esoteric ideas that are scientifically unverifiable or otherwise problematic. Recent works related thematically to Literatur und Wissen include Carlos Spoerhase’s Unsicheres Wissen: Skeptizismus und Wahrscheinlichkeit 1550-1850 [Uncertain Knowledge: Skepticism and Probablity 1550-1850] (Berlin, 2009—see IFB 11-1) and Hans Feger’s Handbuch der Literatur und Philosophie [Handbook of Literature and Philosophy] (Stuttgart, 2012), which treats its subject from a number of disciplinary and cross-disciplinary perspectives.
The first chapter examines approaches to literature and is subdivided into the broad categories: Narrative, Metaphor, Concepts, Discourse, Poetics of Knowledge, Materiality, Practices, and Writing. The second chapter, “Disciplines,” presents subjects from anthropology through zoology and their relationship to literature. The field of Medical Humanities, which is already well-established, is presented briefly out of necessity, due to its breadth and depth. The third chapter, “Paradigms” presents an overview of topics including mythology, theology, astrology, physiognomy, evolution, cybernetics, and ecocriticism (for which the editors chose the English word over a perfectly good German word). The fourth chapter, “Methods and Forms,” includes an entry for “Truth,” which one could argue is neither a form nor a method. Entries for concepts such as “Observation”, “Experiment,” “Comparison,” “Essay,” “Case History,” “Protocol,” and “Popularization” are also presented here. A broad chronological bibliography is included in each entry, but only occasionally refers to recent titles, as in the case for the article “Essay.” For many concepts, a comparison with other reference works is recommended; such is the case for the entry for “Comparison,” itself. Of particular interest is the last chapter, “Exemplary Readings,” which engages 23 literary works. The canon is not limited to works written in German, English, and French, and so the omission of works in Italian, Dutch, Russian, Spanish, and perhaps some Scandinavian languages is curious, especially for a publisher such as Metzler. There are, however, some great suggestions presented for (re)reading, such as Shelley’s Frankenstein, Melville’s Moby Dick, Moritz’ Anton Reiser, and Zola’s Le docteur Pascal. The volume, which can easily be described as a stimulating compendium on literature and knowledge, includes an index of disciplines and an index of persons. It is recommended especially for scholarly literary reference collections. [tk/jmw]
Collected in this volume are a number of Niggl’s published, as well as some previously unpublished, studies on autobiography from recent decades. Thus one cannot expect a monographic presentation of the genres of autobiography that systematically handles all their significant aspects with both theoretical and factual emphases. The volume begins with a basic discussion of the theory of autobiography and the problem of using only the text to determine whether it is really non-fiction. Niggl then surveys autobiographic writings of antiquity, but he devotes more attention to the 18th century, especially to Goethe’s Dichtung und Wahrheit [Poetry and Truth] and Italienische Reise [Italian Journey]. The 19th century is represented by Theodor Fontane, and the 20th by Christa Wolf, Günter Grass, and Alfred Döblin. A comprehensive index includes subjects and concepts as well as personal names and works.
Niggl’s work offers useful studies on a type of literature that enjoys great popularity but is often not read very analytically except by literary scholars and historians. This volume will not change that, but it does clearly demonstrate that the autobiography is a valid object for productive research. [tk/nb]
Censorship is a complex phenomenon, and it is difficult to find common denominators when there are so many reasons to suppress books. At different places and times the same book can be revered or censored, and contrary to optimistic liberal assumptions, it is hardly a practice confined to the past, as Leo Strauss’ Persecution and the Art of Writing (New York, 1952)—still the definitive text on this subject—makes clear in persuasive fashion. Books such as Mogens Laerke’s The Use of Censorship in the Enlightenment (Leiden, 2009) and Christine Haug et al., Geheimliteratur und Geheimbuchhandel in Europa im 18. Jahrhundert [Secret Literature and the Secret Book Trade in Europe in the 18th Century] (Wiesbaden, 2011) are essential to understand how censorship worked in particular epochs, including the ways in which some authors managed to evade censors and gain distribution for their books. Some works, like the late-Classical critiques of Christianity written by Celsus or Porphyrius, were so effectively neutralized that they survive only in fragmentary form, as Winifried Schröder explains in his instructive study, Athen und Jerusalem: die philosophische Kritik am Christentum in Antike und Neuzeit [Athens and Jerusalem: The Philosophical Criticism of Christianity in Ancient and Modern Times] (Stuttgart 2011).
Werner Fuld’s new book offers a multi-layered portrayal of the theme of forbidden books that is rich in anecdotes, even if it is not the definitive “universal history” promised in the subtitle. At the start of the book is a series of anecdotes about authors’ own efforts to suppress the publication of some or all of their own work. This material does not belong in a book about censorship if definitions of censorship are not to be stretched beyond all recognition; just skip this and move on to the chapters actually dedicated to censorship. The later chapters contain useful and educational details about various cases and ideas. Many eras and political systems are examined; for instance, Fuld discusses the censorship efforts of the Catholic Church, especially the Inquisition and the Index librorum prohibitorum, which offers plenty of good examples. His examples of censorship—in German-speaking countries after the Congress of Vienna; in pre-Revolutionary as well as modern France; in the United States, where the post office was involved in suppressing distribution of undesirable literature; and in West Germany, whose constitution expressly prohibits censorship prior to publication—show that the establishment of a republican form of government does not guarantee a censorship-free state. Fuld expresses harsh and unforgiving criticism for East Germany’s entire body of published literature, which he deems worthless, especially weighed against the persecution that so many of its authors suffered. Inexplicably, discussion of censorship in England and South Africa in the second half of the 20th century is entirely missing, despite ample work done on both countries. For England, see for instance Donald Thomas’ A Long Time Burning: The History of Literary Censorship in England (New York, 1969); for South Africa, see The Literature Police: Apartheid Censorship and Its Cultural Consequences by Peter D. McDonald (Oxford, 2009). Also, while he does cover censorship in the U.S.S.R., Fuld says little about samizdat (literally “self-publishing”), the corpus of underground literature published unofficially in the Soviet Bloc. [Ed. note: examples from RRE include Präprintium: Moskauer Bücher aus dem Samizdat (see RREO 99-1/4-0940) and Monographien im polnischen “zweiten Umlauf,” 1976-1990 (see RREA 14:6)].
Werner Fuld’s achievement consists of highlighting an important social aspect of literature and indirectly connecting readers with books that for all sorts of reasons found themselves on censors’ lists. His volume will doubtless find many readers and is recommended mainly to public libraries for that reason. [sh/rb]
One of a series of handbooks on literary topics published by Metzler in recent years, this volume gathers together essays by multiple contributors largely from the field of Theater Studies, but with some representation from related subject areas (such as Germanic Studies, English Studies, and Japanese Studies). As reflected in the title, the handbook is divided into three parts—the first introducing key concepts and terms, the second offering “analytical” perspectives on formal elements of the drama and contemporary theoretical questions, and the third (and longest) part providing a historical overview of the development of the forms of the drama since antiquity. A select bibliography of core criticism and anthologies is provided at the end of the work; readers seeking more specialized bibliographic information should turn instead to the lists of references at the end of each individual contribution. Despite several shortcomings (notably a shortage of illustrations, scanty consideration of non-European drama and theater, and weak coverage of the Romance countries), this is an eminently serviceable reference work. [tk/cjm]
Although much has changed in the publishing industry since the advent of the computer age, editors have not become entirely unnecessary. This appears to be the basic position held by the contributors to this volume of 12 richly diverse essays presented to Michael Assmann, longtime staff member of the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung [German Academy for Language and Literature]. Not only is the collection diverse in theme but also in form, ranging from work reports, experiential accounts, essays, and even a poem die bibliotheken [the libraries].
Most of the contributions take editorial practice as the main point of consideration. This slight volume contains, nevertheless, much that is stimulating and worth considering. [wa/rc]
The second edition of this excellent encyclopedia from the Metzler publishing house has been considerably expanded since it was first published in 2008 (see RREA 14:79). The general structure of the work has not changed, but there are now 456 articles instead of the original 412, covering most symbols of significance in the history of literature. A welcome feature is that the new lemmas—from Archiv to Zigarette/Zigarre—are listed separately, so that the user can go to them directly. All in all, the old and new lemmas together offer much intriguing information—one can quickly become absorbed in reading and find oneself on a voyage of discovery through literary symbols.
The Metzler-Lexikon literarischer Symbole remains a reference work of exemplary conciseness and usefulness, one that should not be lacking in any library. [tk/nb]
This literary history of the tragedy forms a parallel volume to the author’s similar work on comedy, Die Komödie: eine theatralische Sendung [The Comedy: A Theatrical Mission], (Tübingen, 2006). Bernhard Greiner, professor of German literature at Tübingen, has written an ambitious and erudite work that will be a useful tool for instructors and students of drama. Certainly, other substantial works on this topic already exist, including the classic work by Benno von Wiese, Die deutsche Tragödie von Lessing bis Hebbel. Greiner’s work is, of course, more current and includes references to recent secondary literature. Another recent work on drama in the respected Metzler series is Peter W. Marx’s Handbuch Drama: Theorie, Analyse, Geschichte (see RREA 18:51). The latter is more useful as a general reference work, whereas Greiner’s book is more theoretical, focusing on the nature of the tragedy and its manifestations from the Greeks to the present, with emphasis on German works.
Greiner’s book lacks a real introduction that explains his broad concept of the genre and the criteria whereby he chose works for inclusion. Also missing is an index of persons and works. His long second chapter analyzes Greek tragedy, focusing only on certain works to illustrate his points. Eventually, Greiner turns to the form elements of the Greek tragedy, before moving on to modern European theater with examples from English, French, and German tragedies. A separate chapter analyzes the concepts of the three most influential theorists of the tragedy, Aristotle, Hegel, and Nietzsche, and of other German thinkers who wrote about it, i.e., Lessing and Schiller. There is also a chapter about Walter Benjamin and Hermann Cohen, describing Jewish concepts of tragedy. Included among the dramatists whose works Greiner interprets in depth are most of the great names of German theater, such as Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, and, among the more modern, Büchner, Hauptmann, Wedekind, Brecht, and Heiner Müller. Noteworthy are the author’s closing remarks about the most important theories of tragedy in the late 20th century, namely George Steiner’s thesis about the death of the tragedy and Helga Arend’s Mythischer Realismus: Botho Strauß’ Werk von 1963 bis 1994 (Trier, 2009), which discusses Strauß’s provocative and widely misunderstood essay on the topic. [tk/akb]
This encyclopedia contains information on 226 first editions of first works by 20th-century German authors, with some limited coverage of works published at the end of the 19th century. Full bibliographical details are provided for each work, together with information on its genesis and influence, and suggestions for further reading. This is a highly attractive volume, featuring illustrations of book covers, bindings, title pages, sample pages, and promotional material relating to the editions. One shortcoming is that the criteria governing the selection of authors are not transparent; those seeking more exhaustive coverage should turn to classics such as von Wilpert and Gühring’s Erstausgaben deutscher Dichtung ... 1600-1990 [First Editions of German Literature] (Stuttgart, 1992) and Der Taschengoedeke [The Pocket Goedeke] (München, 1990). [Ed. note: Eduard Isphording‘s two books on book art from the German National Museum in Nürnberg reviewed in RREA are worth mentioning here: Seiten-Ansichten: Buchkunst aus deutschen Handpressen und Verlagen seit 1945 and DraufSichten: Buchkunst aus deutschen Handpressen und Verlagen der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts (see RREA 6:12 and 11:9 respectively)]. [sh/cjm]
This Metzler-Lexikon is not about German-Jewish literature but is a bio-bibliographic dictionary in the narrowest possible sense. Listing 310 German-Jewish authors from the Enlightenment to the present in only 568 pages, this second, updated and expanded edition includes 50 newly revised articles, with the remaining articles reflecting only minor revisions. The relatively harsh criticism that the first volume garnered may still be valid in this case, although the selection of authors and bibliographies following each article are worthy of at least some discussion. The anachronistic reference works listed among the biographical details and within bibliographies leave readers shaking their heads in this age of databases and OPACs.
Considering that this volume is alphabetically arranged and is not a systematic handbook, the true subject—German-Jewish literature—takes a back seat to the biographical sketches of the authors. Portraits are written by experts and offer a pointed approach to the life and works of the authors treated. Critical discussion of their work is reductive in nature and acknowledgment of the writers’ contributions to the aesthetic development of German literature is omitted, save for a few exceptions. The treatment of the authors’ essays is anemic and in articles about poetry, a disregard for such work is palpable. An example is Hartmut Vollmer’s brief article about Jacob van Hoddis, in which biographical details and generalizations about modern poetry are present, but no real criticism of his work is engaged.
For the informed scholar, this Lexikon is not useful. Instead, the scholar should use Renate Heuer’s monumental work Lexikon deutsch-jüdischer Autoren [Encyclopedia of German-Jewish Authors] (München, 1992- ). The first eight volumes of her projected 22-volume work were reviewed in RREO 95-1-059 and RREA 2:34, 6:42, and 9:344. A final review is to be included in IFB 2013 and RREA 19. The layperson, however, probably would not bother with such a tome and will find useful information referenced in this one-volume Lexikon. [mm/jmw]
This book is an anthology of works by members of the PEN-Zentrum Deutschsprachiger Autoren im Ausland [PEN Center for German-Speaking Authors Abroad], founded in 1934 in London by German authors forced into exile by the racial and censorial polices of the National Socialist regime. Now called Exil-P.E.N., its members are German writers who live in many countries all over the world. More information can be found at their website www.exilpen.net (accessed January 16, 2014).
In this volume, current members present their reflections on the lives and work of 28 deceased PEN members, including Ernst Bloch, Bertolt Brecht, Else Lasker-Schüler, Thomas Mann, and Stefan Zweig. Many of the entries are intimate portraits of the authors that also provide broad reflections and recollections on related topics. The volume is dedicated to Guy Stern, a professor emeritus of German literature at Wayne State University and prominent researcher on exile literature and the Holocaust. Lists of the 99 current and 360 deceased members are included, as is a facsimile of the first membership list from April 16, 1934.
This is the 5th collection published by the PEN Center for German-Speaking Authors Abroad since 2005, among them the notable volume, Briefe aus dem Exil: 30 Antworten von Exilanten auf Fragen von Arnim Borski [Letters from Exile: 30 Answers by Exiles to Questions from Arnim Borski] (Berlin, 2011—see IFB 12-3). Even more strongly than the previous volumes, this one honoring Guy Stern offers an illuminating view of the group’s current members, their self-understanding, and their perception of the historical legacy of the founding generation of “Exil-PEN”. [wub/ldb]
Belgian literature scholar Ine van Linthout’s 2008 dissertation (Humboldt University and the University of Antwerp) was published by De Gruyter as an e-book in 2011 and in book form in 2012.
Although the Nazis were at the forefront of exploiting the new mass media of the time, and despite the spectacular book burnings of 1933, the book remained a significant instrument for implementing Nazi propaganda and indoctrination programs. Although the rulers strove for Gleichschaltung, i.e., bringing society into line to create a strong appearance of cohesion, order, and common routines, van Linthout extensively documents the tensions and competition among cultural, ideological, and economic interest groups; the many audiences that needed to be supplied with books and literature (for example, workers, the educated, young adults, women, Reichsdeutsche [Germans within Germany’s 1937 borders] and Volksdeutsche [Germans outside Germany], foreigners, soldiers, party members, and skeptics); and the many different social institutions and circles utilized for the propagation of reading (for example, school, work, leisure, vacation, the Eastern and Western Fronts, hospitals, charities, and local communities).
In her research the author consulted a wide variety and number of sources: party and official documents housed in the federal archive in Berlin, press releases from the propaganda ministry, protocols from secret ministerial conferences, Joseph Goebbels’ diaries and his Meldungen aus dem Reich [Reports from the Reich], memoirs, other diaries and letters from contemporaries, and German newspaper and journal articles from the years 1939-1945. These are extensively listed in the 44-page bibliography at the end of the book.
The table of contents (http://d-nb.info/1014558654/04; accessed January 16, 2014) provides a detailed overview of these distinct social and political entities. The first chapter of the book, Der Stellenwert des Buches in der Mediendiktatur [The Significance of the Book in the Media Dictatorship], treats in depth publicity measures and campaigns that cost millions of Reichmarks and were sponsored in large part by the doctor of German philology, author, journalist, and avid reader Joseph Goebbels, as well as the artist and author Adolph Hitler, who wanted to build a völkisch [people’s] cultural state on the ashes of the literature of the Weimar Republic. While the mass media of film and radio could influence public opinion and popular culture over the long run, books provided an inexpensive, non-technical, and successful means of taking Nazi ideology to every part of the country and beyond.
The second chapter analyses the totalitarian control exerted over all aspects of authorship, publishing, marketing, and distribution, and the pursuit of an obsessive political ideology that aimed to coordinate the needs of mass entertainment, a common popular culture, and a new literary canon permeated with Nazi ideals. Book fairs and festivals, an NS-Bibliographie (1936-1944), advertising, and charitable drives to provide books to soldiers and the local population—all reinforced the popular image of das gute Buch [the good book] as cultural heritage.
The third chapter studies the many differences alluded to earlier among the major book-publishing actors: Nazi officials, publishers, and distributors; the radically varied quality of authors (many of whom were hack writers); the reading public’s preferences (especially as war damage, hardship and fatigue wore on); the deterioration in literary quality; and dilemmas and strife among top officials, with some wanting to appease a war-weary population with neutral popular literature and others agitating for keeping literature and other writing ideologically pure.
The final sections of chapter 3 focus on the limits the Nazis faced in their quest for a comprehensive, penetrating book culture in the new Germany, not only because of a lack of time (only 12 years) but also because of the many competing interests, power struggles, and ideological wars that went on underneath the veneer of a broad ideological consensus.
Apart from a few minor shortcomings, Ine van Linthout’s high-quality and groundbreaking work is a sound, stimulating, and important study of the book as a basic and indispensable tool for furthering the Nazis’ media culture. [jpb/ga]
This collection of 16 conference papers by established experts in the field, demonstrates the scope of research on “inner emigration” as manifested in the lives and works of writers who did not sympathize or collaborate with the Nazi regime, yet stayed in Germany to continue to write in spite of censure and actual suppression. The chapters are organized around the themes of analytical research; historical-political perspectives; types of publications; analysis of circles of writers; several individual case studies; and perspectives on future research on the Inner Emigration.
All of the authors struggle with the term “inner emigration.” It has come to have negative associations, because it was too often used by opportunists and conformists to legitimize their actions during the Third Reich. The concept was also used in a pejorative manner in the documented disputes between authors who claimed to be working in inner emigration versus authors who lived and worked in exile.
Researchers want to step back and use their historical distance to reevaluate all literary production by those who remained under the Nazi regime and by those in exile. This includes an understanding of communication and publication patterns in the Third Reich, a willingness to reevaluate literature for its potential to show and spread resistance, and an appreciation of the associated aesthetic qualities. The goal of this reexamination is to understand the varieties of resistance that are represented by many individual lives, fates, and works; from considering suicides like Jochen Klepper, to rereading the works of Werner Bergengruen and others.
The papers issue a broad call to reexamine this period of German literature and history; they highlight the challenge of naming, because neither “resistance” nor “inner emigration” seems to be sufficient for this group of writers. Consequently, the authors ask for a renewed consideration of the courses of the lives, the motivations, and the political and aesthetic practices of writers from this period. [sak/hm]
Supplement 12. 2010. 124 p. ISBN 978-3-89528-821-0: EUR 18.50
Supplement 13. 2012. 129 p. ISBN 978-3-89528-886-9: EUR 18.50
IFB has been reviewing each supplement as it has appeared; RREA has included abstracts for all but two of those reviews. Supplement 11 was reviewed in RREA 15/16:108, and with each new volume, the reviewer raises the same concerns and questions: the bibliography suffers from a complicated organizational scheme and no sequential numbering of the titles, and some years there are very few new titles added. In the introduction to Supplement 12, hopes were raised that a cumulative CD-ROM edition would be produced, but these were dashed in the introduction to Supplement 13, when the project was dropped. The latest data on the bibliography also come from Supplement 12: since the first volume, some 14,000 entries have been documented on more than 2,000 pages. Even with these reservations, it is hoped that Karl-Heinz Müther, who recently celebrated his 85th birthday, will continue his work on this important bibliography. [sh/ga]
Ulrich Goerdten has previously published a bibliography of the library of Julius Stinde (1841-1905), Berlin journalist and novelist who wrote several stories and novels about bourgeois life in 19th-century Berlin (see RREA 7:114).
The Berlin-based Jewish German-literature scholar, journalist, and bibliophile Gotthilf Weisstein (1852-1907) was known primarily for his important 11,076-volume library, with its focus on German literature of the Classical and Romantic periods, the history of theater, and the history of Berlin. (The Weisstein Collection had been held by the Prussian State Library but was auctioned in 1933 and scattered to the winds.) This bibliography—a testimony to its compiler’s persistence and hard work—includes listings for Weisstein’s few separately published works, his many contributions to journals and published collections of essays, and obituaries and publications about Weisstein. The bibliographical listings are preceded by a brief biographical forward. [sh/sl]
Vol. 4. 2012. 167 p. (…, 15). ISBN 978-3-503-13727-5: EUR 29.80
The Silesian writer and 1912 Nobel Prize winner Gerhart Hauptmann (1862-1946) has found his bibliographer in the German scholar Sigfrid Hoefert, Professor Emeritus at the University of Waterloo. His bibliography, which includes works from the beginning to the present, aims at completeness for primary literature and selectiveness for secondary literature, limiting the latter to works with “informational value and relevance for scholarship.” Three previous volumes have already appeared, in1986, 1989, and 2003 (see RREA 9:82). The latest volume covers publications from 2000 to the end of 2011. In addition, a separate section includes supplements to the first three volumes.
All of the volumes follow the same clearly organized format. Primary literature is divided into collected works, individual works, letters and autobiographical writings, and fragments and early versions of works, followed by translations. Secondary literature is grouped by works in German, then in foreign languages. This “old-fashioned” scheme, intuitive and easily understood, compares favorably with some recent bibliographies, e.g., the Bibliographie Arno Schmidt (see RREA 18:60) whose convoluted format mystifies the user. A search conducted in late 2012 turned up very few individual works by Hauptmann published during that year, and just four works of secondary literature, including this bibliography and Peter Sprengel’s very substantial Gerhart Hauptmann: Bürgerlichkeit und großer Traum, eine Biographie [… Bourgeoisie and Grand Vision. A Biography] (München, 2012—see IFB 12-4). For a special issue in the future—perhaps to mark the 150th year of Hauptmann’s birth—one would wish for a volume devoted to a listing of sound recordings and films of the author’s works. For example, in August 2012 Arte released a restored version of the 1927 silent film of Die Weber [The Weavers], accompanied by new instrumental music. [sh/akb]
Published in connection with the centenary exhibition of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice in Lübeck and Munich, this book represents much more than an exhibition catalogue. In addition to illustrations of exhibited works inspired by Death in Venice by 21 artists between 1921 and 2005 (with particular emphasis on work produced after Visconti’s 1972 film), the volume offers information on 42 translations published between 1913 and 2005, 70 performances of Britten’s Death in Venice between 1973 and 2012, and diverse stage and dance adaptations from the final three decades of the 20th century. The volume also contains several critical essays on thematic aspects of Mann’s text and its reception in film and music. In sum, The Sensuality of Decline represents both an informative and a scholarly contribution to our understanding of a core literary work. [jli/cjm]
The cultural relationship between Germany and Great Britain is the topic of Rüdiger Görner’s volume of very readable essays. He has previously written about Anglo-German mythologies in literature, the visual arts, and cultural theory, for example, In the Embrace of the Swan (Berlin, 2010—see IFB 11-1). Despite some pioneering work by Michael Maurer in his Aufklärung und Anglophilie in Deutschland [Enlightenment and Anglophilia in Germany] (Tübingen, 1987), the subject remains a fertile area for scholarship. An area of investigation might be the work of J. J. Eschenburg, known for his efforts to popularize English literature in Germany in the 18th century (see IFB 13-1 for a review of the 2013 edition of Eschenburg’s Von Chaucer zu Pope [From Chaucer to Pope]). Another is literary translations from one language into the other; a relevant work here is Stefanie Stockhorst’s Cultural Transfer through Translation (Amsterdam, 2010—see IFB 10-4). Writings documenting travel in England and Germany offer interesting insights (see the IFB 12-3 review of Editha Ulrich’s dissertation, “Old England for ever!” England in den Wahrnehmungen und Deutungen deutschsprachiger Reisender [...England in the Perceptions of German-Speaking Travelers], Frankfurt, 2009).
Görner begins with a discussion of Anglophilie and Germanophobie, analyzing stereotypes and cultural differences that create barriers to understanding. He points out how the novelist Theodor Fontane, who spent much time in England, plays with cultural prejudices in his works. He pays particular attention to the relationship between German and English Romanticism, using the examples of Coleridge and Wordsworth, and Heine or Novalis. Görner’s essay on Eliot is one of his best. T.S. Eliot had a significant influence on the English view of Germany in the sense that he rejected the Victorian image of the German poet Goethe, accepted by such writers as Carlyle and Matthew Arnold. A chapter on Stephen Spender and his preoccupation with the ruins of post-war Germany reveals him to be a significant cultural influence. Görner explores some familiar territory—the German fixation on Shakespeare (see IFB 13-1 for a review of Beatrice Dumiche’s work, Shakespeare und kein Ende? [No End to Shakespeare?], Bonn, 2012); Heinrich Heine’s view of England; the influence of German culture on Matthew Arnold’s writings—and some less well known topics, such as George Eliot’s lively engagement with German literature and music on her visits to Berlin, George Bernard Shaw’s perception of Wagner, and the more contemporary writer W.G. (Max) Sebald, who as a German in England is a particularly interesting figure.
This collection of informative essays can be recommended for readers with an interest in German and English culture and the influence of one on the other. Görner’s book may well stimulate further research in this area of study. [tk/akb]
To Germanists, “German Literature” refers to literature written in the German language, with little regard to geographic and political borders. Thus, a category like “Weimar-Era” insensitively downplays, for example, the Austrian-ness of authors like Elias Canetti, Robert Musil, or Ödon von Horváth. “Literature of the Interwar Period” would be more inclusive of Germany’s neighboring writers. Through this project, Zeyringer and Goller attempt to provide some redress by placing Austrian literature within social, historical, and cultural contexts, and try to avoid the biases in other Austrian literary histories, such as a nationalist bent in Josef Nadler’s Literaturgeschichte Österreichs (Salzburg, 1951) or a conservative Catholic perspective in Herbert Zeman’s Geschichte der Literatur in Österreich (Graz, 1994-2006; volume 1 was reviewed in RREA 2:130).
The authors provide a summary of literature prior to 1700, as well as seven biographical sketches of major authors from Ferdinand Raimund to Elfriede Jelinek, and discuss the development of an Austrian aesthetic beginning with the introduction of Hanswurst, the Austrian equivalent of Punch, on the country’s stages. Additionally, the strong connection between the civil service and literature during the Enlightenment is discussed, and the authors note that, with the exception of folk poets, there is not one Austrian writer who was not working as an official, and even suffering themselves under state censorship. Stormy love-lives and hypochondriac, misanthropic, and depressive tendencies of the authors are discussed in the biographies, without detracting from the scholarly quality of the work. As in any good literary history, the authors include lesser-known texts, such as the realistic village stories of Franz Michael Felder (1839-1869). The most important turning points of the 20th century are highlighted, and in all the chapters, the socio-historical influence on and its relationship to literary production is clearly outlined. Zeyringer’s and Gollner’s volume reflects their academic training and professional positions. In a perfect world, this would be a two-volume set, instead of a very heavy, single-volume tome. But at its affordable price, this is a worthwhile purchase for anyone who values German-language literature. [sak/jmw]
With the adoption of the pan-European Bologna Accords, which standardized Bachelor and Master degree programs across Europe, a new marketplace for the textbook industry was opened. In order to provide appropriate textbooks, the industry must remain one step ahead of the specific curricular requirements, as textbooks must now be tailored directly to the specific standardized modules of accredited programs of study. This, however, is not uncharted; what is new is the rigor and strict adherence to the chronological framework, as well as to the points system of the course of study. It is no accident that the 14 chapters of this introduction to Slavic literature correspond directly with the number of teaching units taught over the course of a semester. They offer an introduction to literary periods, from the medieval through the literature of the 20th century. Nevertheless, this book does not simply follow a chronological, historical approach to literature, but also integrates literary theories that helped shape the development of literature. It is, therefore, a comprehensive and thorough introduction to Slavic literature. The excerpted texts from various Slavic literatures are presented in the original, which is to say not only in Russian and Polish, but also Czech, Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, and Ukrainian. As such, this compendium presents literary history, theories, and functions as a chrestomathy. The numerous exercises and questions following the annotated texts are specifically directed toward beginning students. The comprehensive illustrations and graphics integrated into the texts enhance understanding and lend significant clarity to the material. With regard to the terminology and access to the texts, the authors do not present their readers with “literature lite,” rather they demand much from the student. It would be helpful if the references were scaffolded to the specific learning units. [ks/jmw]
This volume on Russian drama, edited by the eminent Slavic scholar Bodo Zelinsky, is the third in the series “Russian Literature in Individual Interpretations,” following installments on poetry (2002—see IFB 02-2-343) and the novel (2007—see IFB 07-1-090). A fourth volume, dedicated to the short story, is yet to appear. The current volume constitutes a major revision of Zelinsky’s publication on the same topic from 25 years ago (Düsseldorf, 1986).
The extensive introductory article (it takes up almost a quarter of this thick volume) provides a useful overview of Russian drama from its beginnings up to the present time. The chapters that follow offer in-depth interpretations of notable works. The historical overview starts with the skomorokhs (the wandering folk comedians of the Russian Middle Ages) and concludes with the situation of theater at the end of the Soviet Union, before the abolition of censorship ushered in a new era in Russian letters. Separate chapters are dedicated to such classical works as Fonvizin’s Niedorosl’ [The Minor] and Griboedov’s Gore ot uma [Woe from Wit: The Mischief of Being Clever], continuing with Pushkin’s Boris Godunov, Ostrovsky’s Les [The Forest], and Tolstoy’s Vlast’ t’my [The Power of Darkness], as well as works by Chekhov and Gorky. Chapters on the post-revolution Russian drama feature works by Blok, Kruchenykh, Mayakovsky, Bulgakov, Erdman, Babel, Aleksandr Vvedenskiĭ, Aleksandr Vampilov and Liudmila Petrushevskaia. The back matter contains a rich, comprehensive bibliography and endnotes for the chapters, as well as a brief afterword. [ks/as]
The editor, who has run the Allgäuer Auktionshaus [Allgäu Auction House] with his sons since 1994, created this reference partially to facilitate the firm’s work but also for art experts and lovers. It includes short articles on over 6,000 artists who spent time in the Allgäu region. The criteria are not strictly enforced, so artists influenced by the landscape, culture, and language of the Allgäu are included even when they did not reside within the region’s legal boundaries. Art is also broadly defined, with each artist designated by a symbol for his or her medium of choice: brush (painters in the broadest sense, and graphic artists, including photographers); house (architects and all related building professions); chain (metalsmiths, fabric artists, and bookbinders); hammer (sculptors and installation artists); mug (glassmiths and potters); clef (instrument makers and bellfounders); and book (writers, although leafing through the volume brought no articles on the latter to light). The goal is to be as comprehensive as possible, not to judge the value of the art or artist. The articles include abbreviations for the sources used, but given that there is no chart explaining the abbreviations, it is sometimes difficult to match the source to a given citation. [sh/rg]
This volume contains the proceedings of an international symposium held at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte München [Central Institute for Art History, Munich], May 6-8, 2010. The four editors are researchers on the staff of the Zentralinstitut. There are 13 signed contributions; unfortunately, the volume lacks a list of the contributors, which would have provided information about their locations and backgrounds. This information is, however, available on the conference’s website, http://www.zikg.eu/archiv/main//2010/kunstschutz/index.htm (accessed June 30, 2014). The scholars at the symposium hailed from Germany, Austria, Italy, and the USA—although not all of the presentations made at the symposium are included in the present volume. Presentations were made in German, English, and Italian, but all are in German here, though sadly no credit is given to the person or persons who performed the difficult task of translation.
The establishment of a Military Unit for Art Protection (its exact name in German was Abteilung Kunst-, Archiv- und Bibliothekschutz der Militärverwaltung) was called for by the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. Although there was a stipulation for the protection of archives and libraries, the German military only instituted an art protection unit for Italian territory in late 1943, after the Kingdom of Italy declared war against Germany on October 10 of that year, and the unit’s zone of activity encompassed only the northern Italian territories that formed the rump state known as the Repubblica Sociale Italiana [Italian Social Republic], led by Mussolini and allied to Germany. The activities of the German art protection unit in Italy were first documented in 1992 by Lutz Klinkhammer of the German Historical Institute in Rome, who also contributed to the present volume. Although the art protection unit was a military organization, it incorporated civilians in its staff; often, these were art historians, archivists, librarians, and other specialists. A number of prominent academicians were also involved, such as Hans Gerhard Evers, university professor in Munich from 1942 on, and Ludwig Heinrich Heydenreich, in 1941 a professor in Berlin who went on to found the Zentralinstitut in Munich in 1946.
The unit’s professed goal was to prevent the plunder or confiscation of private property, or, when such acts had occurred, to carry out restitution. Its additional tasks were to identify and mark historic buildings, and to establish depots for moveable objects. It had to act within a complex environment characterized by the competing interests of the nominally sovereign Italian Social Republic and an entire cast of Nazi functionaries pursuing their private agendas. Its role may be compared to the roles played by the U.S. Army’s Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section (founded on August 20, 1943), or the British Macmillan Committee, which did not come into being until May of 1944.
The occasion for this symposium was the discovery of a previously unknown collection at the Zentralinstitut, a trove of some 1,500 photographs of endangered or destroyed Italian buildings of artistic or historic value. Ludwig Heinrich Heydenreich had evidently acquired these photos from Italian news agencies, Italian professional photographers, and German propaganda offices in 1943 and 1944. The volume’s intent is to throw light on a chapter of Germany’s past that had, like so many others, been willfully repressed. The links that bind the present to the past are still evident and need to be addressed—in this connection it is noteworthy that the Zentralinstitut is housed in the building (on Munich’s Königsplatz) that once served as the Headquarters of the Nazi party. Many questions about this collection have yet to be resolved: Heydenreich’s motivations in compiling it, how it made its way from Florence to Germany, why Heydenreich waited until 1948 to deposit it at the Zentralinstitut, and why he did not offer these photos for use in the 1946 documentary volume edited by Henry La Farge, Lost Treasures of Europe. Aside from the historical value of these photographs, many also serve as evidence of Nazi Germany’s propaganda aims: some photographs are part of “before and after” series meant to document the damage inflicted by Allied bombing attacks.
This volume is admirable for the wide spectrum of aspects it addresses, for its thoroughness of research, and for the excellent selection of high-quality illustrations. It is a milestone of research into the history of military art protection. It is unfortunate that there is no name index, which would have provided access to many important names that are hidden in footnotes; it would also have been desirable to provide a bibliography that might have documented the current state of research. [frh/crc]
An RREA Original Review by Rebecca Price (University of Michigan)
In these days of Internet wikis and online encyclopedias, a print visual dictionary fills a unique, if somewhat traditional, niche. The second, expanded edition of Diccionario visual de términos arquitectónicos presents a significant increase in terms and definitions, with more than 150 pages added to its 2008 predecessor. Yet, at approximately 25 by 17 centimeters, the Diccionario visual is still a comfortably manageable book. The presentation of material is aesthetically pleasing, the volume is nicely bound, and the weight of the paper is sturdy without being too heavy.
Most of the entries that are repeated from the earlier edition have not been changed significantly. The growth of the content comes primarily from the many new entries, including conceptual terms. Examples of new entries include architectural elements and details—such as Ambón [ambo], Patio [courtyard], and Portada [portal]—and typological and conceptual terms, e.g., Planta [plan], Proporción [proportion], and Sección áurea [golden section]. Some existing entries (e.g., Templo griego [Greek temple]) have been enlarged by adding a typological treatment.
Each entry is thorough and presented in a consistent and organized format, including a definition; a historical or functional synthesis enriching the term; a linguistic description of the term including etymology, as well as the term in English, French, German, and Italian; a see-also list of related words, some with full entries and others as glossary entries; and a visual description with a photograph or two and a sketch. With lighter and thus more legible images than those in the first edition, the photographic quality is much improved. A minor criticism in this international age is that almost all of the illustrations provided are from the western European tradition. Only rarely are examples from South America, Asia, or other non-European locations used to illustrate an architectural element or concept. The sketches provide valuable interpretive information such as labeling of elements; simulation of a process (for example, an ancient mill mechanism); or cutaways that allow the simultaneous representation of interior and exterior features. Occasionally the subject of the sketch is not identified, although that information would be welcome.
The bulk of the book (544 pages), devoted to the main entries, is followed by a comprehensive glossary of nearly 100 pages, which includes all the main entry terms plus related terms. Glossary terms marked with an asterisk have full entries in the first part of the book, while those without reference to full entries are given a definition and usually include see-also references. An extensive reference bibliography is provided, though there are no connections made between the entries and the bibliographic sources.
Within the context of other architectural dictionaries, this one stands alone. Compared to Ernest Burden’s Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture (3d ed. New York, 2012), the entries are more thorough and the images are both more plentiful and more illustrative. It also serves as a valuable complement to several other illustrated dictionaries of architecture, such as Dictionary of Architecture and Building Construction by Nikolas Davies and Erkki Jokiniemi (Amsterdam, 2008), which is replete with comparative line drawings, and Francis D. K. Ching’s A Visual Dictionary of Architecture (Hoboken, 2012), the second edition of a now classic hand-drawn presentation of building types and elements.
Readers not fluent in Spanish should not be intimidated by the fact that the Diccionario visual is a Spanish-language dictionary, as the illustrations are plentiful and self-explanatory, each term is presented in the major European languages, and the text is written clearly and simply. Likewise, nonspecialists in architecture will find straightforward and clear descriptions of the terms.
Overall, this 2012 edition of Diccionario visual de términos arquitectónicos shows an improvement over the earlier edition. It will be a useful and pleasant addition to academic and museum libraries serving educators, researchers, and students of art and architectural history.
Modernist architecture of the former GDR has so far largely evaded the attention of preservationists. Like many examples of post-war modernism in Western Germany, many of the the numerous Halls of Culture, canteens, concrete-block apartment houses, union hostels, and other period buildings have already been razed or renovated to the point of being unrecognizable. A striking example is the Maple Leaf restaurant building in Berlin, which was razed in 2000 and replaced by a bland commercial structure.
The time has now come to address the issue of preserving the deteriorating and vanishing structures that remain. This requires striking a delicate balance between two competing interests—historical conservation and the need for city development and renewal. Defining which buildings from that period have sufficient historical or aesthetic merit to be worthy of conservation is a challenge in itself. A review of Stefan Boness’ photographic essay on the “shrinking city” of Hoyerswerda (see RREA 18:74) grapples with these questions.
This attractively illustrated book defines the characteristics of East German modernism and highlights the urgency for its conservation. Two introductory essays precede 16 chapters on post-war modernist architecture in East Germany, distributed under four section headings: The uneasy balance of conservation; examples from other Central and Eastern European countries; acquisition processes; and the potential for preservation. The book affords a look at city planning in the GDR compared with Communist approaches to architecture in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the former Soviet republics. It succeeds in demonstrating both the promise and the vulnerable condition of these buildings. [mki/as]
This title features an encyclopedic dictionary with biographical entries for approximately 2,500 artists. The lengths of the entries vary greatly, with some limited to date of birth and death, medium, location, and a single reference source. The work is of great interest despite this limitation, as it includes many artists who do not appear in encyclopedias with a broader scope. The biographical section is followed by a bibliography, a list of museums with relevant holdings, and 43 chiefly colored illustrations. The following section examines specific landscapes, their history, and the artists associated with them. The numerous subsequent informative appendixes include lists of teachers and students in the region’s art schools, institutions, art associations, and art exhibitions. This title, which documents a vanished artistic landscape, is a valuable addition to any library collection alongside other German regional art histories. [sh/rg]
[Ed. note: other regional German art dictionaries reviewed in RREA and IFB include dictionaries for the Allgäu (RREA 18:68), Cuxhaven (IFB 04-2-566), Württemberg (RREA 8:147), Hessen-Kassel , (RREA 10:131), the Starnberger See (RREA 17:97), Hamburg (RREA 11:201), and Nuremberg (IFB 09-1/2)].
An RREA Original Review by George I. Paganelis (California State University, Sacramento)
Established in 1979 after the death of Cypriot business magnate Anastasios G. Leventis, the A. G. Leventis Foundation (Hidryma A. G. Leventēs) assumed custodianship of the private art collections that Leventis had built during his life and has been augmenting and periodically exhibiting these collections since then. This bilingual catalog documents the collaboration between the A. G. Leventis Foundation and the Ethnikē Pinakothēkē, Mouseion Alexandrou Soutsou [National Gallery of Athens, Alexander Soutzos Museum], in an exhibition of selected works at the National Gallery that took place from March 1 through June 3, 2012, prior to its closing for renovation and expansion.
The catalog features a total of 270 works from the three Leventis Foundation collections: the Paris collection of European art; the collection of works by Greek artists; and the collection of works by Cypriot artists. Each section begins with a scholarly introduction of profiled works by a noted authority, interspersed with a few small images in the margins, followed by full-color images of the works of art themselves. The works appear in chronological order and are grouped by stylistic movements. A list of works by collection concludes the volume.
The Paris collection is the oldest of the three, having been originated by Leventis during the 1950s and housed in his Paris residence. The collection spans the first half of the 17th century to the mid-20th century. Among the 67 works included are oils, drawings, and watercolors strong in plein air compositions and in French Impressionist and Postimpressionist styles, with works by notables such as Canaletto, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Marc Chagall. This exhibition and catalog presentation of the Paris collection marks the first time that it has been on widespread public display.
The Greek collection is the largest and best known of the three, today numbering over 260 paintings, drawings, and prints representing some of the most noteworthy Greek artists of the 19th and 20th centuries. Exhibition venues over the years have included Athens, Salonica, Corfu, Nicosia, and London. Leventis purchased the core of the collection (190 pieces) from the Greek political figure Evangelos Averoff-Tossizza in 1973. In 1989 the Leventis Foundation published The A. G. Leventis Collection: 19th- and 20th-Century Greek Paintings, a catalog profiling 187 of the works collected to that point (introduced by Averoff-Tossizza himself, who tells the story of why he came to sell his collection to Leventis). The present catalog includes a selection of 176 works by 90 artists, including Agēnōr Asteriadēs, Spyridōn Vikatos, Dēmētrios Galanēs, Nikos Engonopoulos, Vikentios Lantsas, and Geōrgios Roïlos, among others.
Modern Cypriot art is a late phenomenon that developed only incrementally after the British took control of the island in 1878. Even well into the 20th century, art production in Cyprus was limited. The earliest modern Cypriot artists studied art in order to become secondary school teachers, often pursuing their artistic training abroad, in Greece and in Britain. Solo art exhibitions on the island did not begin to occur until midcentury. Accordingly, of the three Leventis collections, the smallest and newest is the Cyprus collection, from which 27 paintings (oils and watercolors) by eight 20th-century Greek-Cypriot artists from the “first” and “second” generations of Cypriot art were selected for this catalog. Artists included are Ioannēs Kissonergēs, Adamantios Diamantēs, Geōrgios Polyviou Geōrgiou, Viktor Ioannidēs, Telemachos Kanthos, Christophoros Savva, Michaēl Michaēlidēs, and Leuterēs Oikonomou.
A permanent gallery space that will unite all three Leventis collections in one venue is currently under construction in Nicosia, Cyprus. In the meantime, Apo tis sylloges tou Hidrymatos A. G. Leventē provides an up-to-date conspectus of a significant institutional set of art collections. This catalog is recommended in particular for library collections in Modern Greek or Cypriot studies and would also prove useful for collections in European art history.
What becomes of a constructed utopia when the conditions under which it was created are completely reversed? What should be done with buildings that no longer have any function? And what does that mean for how we deal with the structures of the last 50 years? Do buildings have a right to disappear from the landscape without a trace? Or must they be preserved in spite of good reasons to eliminate them? These questions are posed by Stefan Boness’ 57 photographs in this mainly illustrated volume. The former socialist model city reflects one of the central developments of urban Central Europe today: a gradual decline and shrinking process with an uncertain outcome. Hoyerswerda is currently a dying city, even though numerous attempts to save it have been made by downsizing and restoring parts of it. The photographs capture the effects of the changes in society and in urban planning that occurred after 1989 and reflect the accompanying upheavals.
The brief introductory text in German and in English lays out the theme. A somewhat more comprehensive essay on the subject and on the significance of Hoyerswerda as a possible “monument to modernity” would have been desirable and would have freed the book from representing simply a snapshot of decaying buildings. It would have been fascinating to have included in the volume pictures of the same buildings from 20 or 25 years ago. Moreover, it is somewhat disconcerting that Stefan Boness appears to define the city only by its buildings and their disappearance. Hardly any of the pictures captures the people and their life in the city landscape. How do they live in this desolation? Is there even any life in the city, if only the skeleton of a city still exists?
This volume is photographic inventory of a grand experiment in urban architecture, nothing more, although Hoyerswerda is hardly a unique case. [mki/nb]
This is an updated and revised version of a work edited by Géza Hajós, Historische Gärten in Österreich (see RREA 13:150]. The three editors of are recognized experts in the history and cultivation of gardens and monuments in Austria. One of them, Eva Berger, is the leading editor of the two-volume Historische Gärten Österreichs: Garten- und Parkanlagen von der Renaissance bis um 1930 (see RREA 13:150).
The book contains histories and descriptions of 54 historically important gardens, from the Renaissance to the 20th century. It aims to publicize existing horticultural treasures, highlight examples of successful restorations, and point out examples of historic gardens and parks worthy of preservation. The gardens selected for the volume provide an overview of 450 years of European and Austrian garden culture, and the essays are rich with historical detail. Some of the important gardens discussed include the reconstituted Renaissance garden of Ambras Castle near Innsbruck; the Baroque monastery garden of Maria Luggau Monastery in Carinthia; the garden at Linderhof am Allersee, with its 20th-century summer house designed by British architect Kate Hawkins; the park and gardens at Leopoldskron Castle in Salzburg, which Max Reinhardt had restored to Baroque style in 1918, and where he constructed a Baroque-inspired garden theater.
The essays are written in a relaxed style and provide a history of each garden, a discussion of its artistic and stylistic elements, an evaluation of its general condition, discussion of current developments, and information on maintenance and preservation needs. Each essay also includes from four to seven illustrations, generally in color, including both historical views and current photographs. This is an excellent first volume of a new series on Austrian garden history. [ev/jc]
BG – Theater and Performing Arts
The name Reinhart Meyer is well known to bibliophiles and researchers of 18th-century literature and theater. His bibliography on 18th-century German theater, Bibliographia dramatica et dramaticorum, which began in 1986 and is now nearing completion, is a fundamental resource for this subject. (see RREA 2:104 and IFB 99-1/4-277). Research on this bibliography has led Meyer to remote libraries and rare collections, and he has assembled a collection of over 500,000 copies of plays and related theatrical items. Over the years Meyer has published numerous essays addressing various aspects of this topic. A number of these have now been reprinted in this volume, arranged in thematic groups (Theater in the 18th Century; Court and National Theater; Bibliographical Research; Metastasio; Theater and the Enlightenment). Although the texts are presented in their original form and hence do not reflect more recent scholarly developments, the collection provides access to essays from a variety of journals that today would be difficult to acquire. The anthology also contains a bibliography of Meyer’s scholarly publications and includes a summary of his work with the Regensburg Student Theater, where he has directed several works from his bibliography. This book belongs in major libraries with holdings in theater, music, and social history. [psu/jc]
Vol. 7. Ergänzungen bis 2010 und Korrekturen [Additions up to the Year 2010 and Corrections]. Ed. Kathleen Neubert and Günter Ziegler. 2011. p. 980-1222. EUR 10
The six-volume biographical dictionary of Dessau artists started as a project in 1994 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Anhaltisches Theater [Anhalt State Theater]. Volumes 1 through 6 (978 pages total) were published between 2005 and 2010 (see IFB 11-1). Volume 7, which represents pages 980-1222 of the dictionary, provides updates and corrections to existing entries, as well as new artist biographies. There are more substantial additions of entries for contemporary artists up to 2010 than for theater artists from the past. It is unfortunate that the title suggests that this is a comprehensive dictionary of all Dessau artists, when it in fact only lists artists connected to the Anhalt Theater. The set does not include a names index. The epilogue provides a summary of the history of this project, and provides dates and runs for performances where there is no playbill. [sh/hm]
For many years Alexis Vorontzoff was the chief cameraman and technical advisor for UNESCO in Paris and since his retirement has pursued his “favorite occupation” of collecting and cataloging books and other literature for film technicians, interpreters, and other film professionals around the world.
In the past Vorontzoff applied his exceptional language capabilities to two publications in this field: his Vocabulaire français-anglais et anglais-français du cinéma: extrait de l’annuaire professionnel Le Tout Cinéma, éditions 1950 et 1952 [French-English and English-French Vocabulary of the Cinema: Excerpts from the Professional Annual Le Tout Cinéma from 1950 and 1952] (Paris, 1952) and his Dictionnaire technique du cinéma et de la télévision: anglais-français [English-French Technical Dictionary for the Cinema and Television]: (Paris, 1991).
Vorontzoff has collected and personally examined 564 dictionaries for this bibliography. Each entry has thorough bibliographic information (including the languages of each dictionary) plus annotations; some have been transcribed from the works; the others he has personally written. The dictionaries cover narrow technical aspects of film and television, as well as other factual terms. Included are both single-language dictionaries and multi-language dictionaries in several languages and in many possible language combinations. Non-European languages are not represented, however.
The bibliography concludes with a language index (that uses French names for all languages) and a topic index. The language combinations are listed both in French (given first) and in the respective languages, and transliteration (occasionally lacking appropriate diacritics) is done according to the French system.
Vorontzoff’s bibliography is noteworthy for its historical breadth, the range of dictionaries that it covers, and the variety of languages that it includes. Some of the dictionaries could be viewed as encyclopaedias or handbooks. Even though it contains many older and technically obsolescent dictionaries, this is not a fault, but rather an attractive quality. His labor of love is a boon for current film and television professionals, for interpreters and translators, and for historians and other devotees of this aspect of film and television. [wub/ga,ldl]
An RREA Original Review by George I. Paganelis (California State University, Sacramento)
With roots in the painted spectacle posters of the latter half of the 19th century, and influenced by the aesthetic of Toulouse-Lautrec and the three-dimensionality of set design, cinema posters were a marriage of art and advertising, promoting the romance and adventure of larger-than-life actors to an enthusiastic moviegoing public in the days before television prevailed. These ranged from the vast murals of the painted giant posters that adorned the façades of theaters and movie houses to the smaller lithographic iterations plastered on walls throughout neighborhoods around a city and distributed farther afield. This highly ephemeral, “seven-day artwork,” so called due to the weekly creation, installation, and removal of painted giant posters as new films arrived, has in recent decades become acknowledged as an important element of the modern graphic arts found in the urban landscape, one which Greek art and film aficionados such as the editor of Prosechōs have taken pains to salvage and preserve. This lavishly illustrated bilingual catalog chronicling the works of Giōrgos Vakirtzēs, one of the leading artists of painted cinema art in Athens before and after World War II, presents an in-depth profile of the man, the medium, and film in Athens during those years, highlighting the treasures of his creations and commemorating both the 90th anniversary of his birth and 25th anniversary of his death.
Born on the island of Mytilēnē (Lesbos), Vakirtzēs became an apprentice at the age of 15, in Athens, to the artist and hagiographer Stephanos Almaliōtēs, the godfather of the painted cinema poster medium and founder of the “School of Athens” for Vakirtzēs and many others of his generation. At Almaliōtēs’s insistence, Vakirtzēs attended the Anōtatē Scholē tōn Kalōn Technōn [Athens School of Fine Arts], from which he graduated in 1946. He was then hired by the Spyros D. Skouras film distribution company to design advertising materials for theaters that the company managed, such as the Attikon. After organizing his own workshop in 1948, Vakirtzēs attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1952-1953 and traveled to Barcelona, where he was influenced by the pistolet (airbrush) technique, which he later adapted after his return to Athens. By 1968 he quit painting giant posters, which by that point had come to depict films photographically, and turned his artistic energies to other themes and, later, reinterpretations of cinematic ones, until his death in 1988.
The Starlets Collection, the source of most of the works of art featured in the book, is a rich compendium of artistic and documentary material—a complement to the Syllogē “Hellaffi” [Hellaffi Collection] of giant painted posters compiled by the editor and his friends, which is now on loan to the Mouseio Kinēmatographou Thessalonikēs [Thessaloniki Cinema Museum]. In addition to the painted giant posters and lithographic posters, the collection contains supplementary materials such as photographs of facades of Athenian cinemas; material from Vakirtzēs’s archive, including art not related to cinema; drawings by contemporaries of Vakirtzēs; and other ephemeral documentary sources. Interestingly, the existence of photographs of theater facades was a by-product of the requirement by theater owners for artists to document their finished work through visual proof.
The works from the collection featured in the catalog fall into four categories: models and drawings for painted giant posters; models and drawings for lithographs; painted giant posters themselves; and lithographs themselves. Poster artists worked from “documents,” photographic source materials detailing the actors and scenes provided each week by the movie distributors; from these sources, they quickly designed and produced new posters on a weekly basis. Seeing the sketches of each type of poster—often containing Vakirtzēs’s notes and comments to his assistants and printers—together with the final product offers satisfying insights into the creative process from conception to execution. Through the use of the découpé technique, Vakirtzēs created giant posters that would exceed the frame of the cinema façade, allowing for larger-scale posters and creating the illusion of depth. He was well versed in the narrative requirements of the medium—stars sell tickets—and produced striking portraits in pencil and paint of some of the most famous international and Greek actors of his day. Vakirtzēs was also attuned to the effects that neon lights had on the colors of giant posters at night and adjusted his palette to account for anticipated distortions. He always signed models and lithographs but did not sign his posters while they were installed on facades; he signed some of his posters, years later, only upon donating them to Ethnikē Pinakothēkē, the Greek National Gallery.
The reproductions in this richly illustrated catalog are enhanced and reinforced by informative essays and tables outlining the works in each of the four categories above. Also included in Prosechōs are a conspectus of painted giant poster artists in Vakirtzēs’s circle and a useful section on Athenian cinemas of the time, rounded out with bibliographies of Greek and non-Greek sources and several indexes. Readers interested in giant posters of other Athenian artists of the period are advised to consult Gigantoaphises apo tous kinēmatographous tēs Athēnas, 1950-1975 = Painted Giant Posters from the Cinemas of Athens, 1950-1975 = Affiches géantes peintes des cinémas d’Athènes, 1950-1975 (Athēna, 1993). Margaritēs’s work on Vakirtzēs is a welcome addition to the literature on this art genre and is highly recommended for graphic arts and film collections.
An RREA Original Review by David D. Oberhelman (Oklahoma State University)
Jorge Leitão Ramos, noted critic and film historian, has already established himself as an authority on the Portuguese cinema with his reference works Dicionário do cinema português, 1962-1988 (Lisboa, 1989) and Dicionário do cinema português, 1989-2003 (Lisboa, 2005), in which he chronicles the films, directors, actors, composers, editors, producers, technicians, and other figures associated with the Portuguese film industry since the 1960s. With Dicionário do cinema português, 1895-1961, he extends his historical survey from the earliest days of motion pictures in Portugal to its Golden Age in the 1930s and1940s and the censorship of the right-wing Estado Novo [New State] dictatorship during the 1950s. The volume takes the analysis up to the early 1960s, the period just before the birth of Portugal’s Cinema novo [New Cinema] movement, which ushered in a new era of experimental techniques. Ramos cautions that he is not writing an exhaustive guide to all aspects of film in Portugal but rather is giving a very broad road map of the major people in the industry along with the key titles in the cinematic tradition of the country over roughly the first half of the 20th century. Together with the two earlier installments, Ramos provides a succinct yet thorough catalog of Portuguese film-making from its infancy to the 21st century, so this latest volume is a welcome addition to the set that students and researchers will want to consult.
The dictionary has several hundred entries on people and films, organized alphabetically. People who have entries both in this volume and in one of the other previously published volumes have an arrow symbol followed by the numerals 2 or 3 next to their names to indicate that additional information about them is available in either the second or third volumes. The entries are generally brief but can be several pages in length for important figures or notable actors and actresses. Each entry designates the individual’s main profession (director, actor, cinematographer, actor, composer, etc.) and gives basic biographical facts, assessments of that person’s contributions to Portuguese cinema, and concise filmographies of his or her work. The entries cover many different aspects of the film industry and offer an excellent overview of how Portugal sought to create its own distinctive national cinema in the wake of the other European cinematic traditions better known in American film-studies circles. The entries on individual films have basic information on release date, running time, and credits; a synopsis; and short but insightful critical appraisals of each work. The essays on classic Portuguese films such as A canção de Lisboa [Lisbon Song] (1933), a milestone in the development of Portuguese sound film and comedy, and Aniki-Bóbó [Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Moe] (1942), a stylistic forerunner of Italian neo-realist films, effectively demonstrate how Ramos can capture the historical significance of films even in the space of a few paragraphs.
The lack of an index or table of contents does make this dictionary somewhat difficult to consult, particularly for those who are looking for entries on specific people or motion pictures. The bibliography, which contains biographies, chronologies, histories, and critical studies of Portuguese film ranging from 1905 to 2011, is an excellent resource for researchers. Apart from the outdated Nomes e números do cinema português [Names and Numbers of Portuguese Cinema] (Amadora, 1969) and the Prontuário do cinema português, 1896-1989 [Records of Portuguese Cinema, 1896-1989] (Lisboa,1989), the three volumes of Dicionário do cinema português are the most comprehensive reference sources on this national cinema. This work will be useful for academic libraries supporting programs in Portuguese cultural studies and European cinema.
An RREA Original Review by Wendeline A. Hardenberg (Southern Connecticut State University)
Although this hefty volume is called a dictionary and indeed takes the form of a dictionary, with entries arranged in alphabetical order, its content owes more to the personal essay genre than to that of reference books. Writer, philosopher, and music critic André Tubeuf begins with a nine-page preamble that whimsically traces his own musical education and experiences in Turkey and France, along the way illuminating the spirit in which he undertook this work, namely, as a lover, or amateur, of music, addressing other amateurs who do not wish to become experts but only to understand music better when they listen to it. He explicitly rejects the definitions that specialists have given to common names in order to reach music lovers who have no special knowledge. This approach fits very well into his reputation in France, which is as a fresh voice in literature about music, walking the line between fiction and musicology.
The entries themselves are eclectic, ranging from musical terms (including clarinette, legato, and quintette), composers (such as Béla Bartók and Gabriel Fauré), and places (e.g., Bayreuth and Salzburg) to extremely esoteric concepts, for example, “Ineffable” and “Silence.” The scope is emphatically European in focus—Russia appears to be as far as east as it goes, and Italy as far south, with only a few Americans included—and heavily centered on the 19th and 20th centuries, although there are occasional forays into the 16th through 18th centuries, as well as three individuals who at least survived long enough to see the 21st century, even if their musical output had occurred earlier.
Entries range from a paragraph or two to several pages long and consist entirely of Tubeuf’s thoughts on the subject at hand. He frequently alludes to people and musical works, sometimes with dates, but otherwise gives his poetically written opinion of a given entry’s quality, meaning, and significance. There are line drawings by Alain Bouldouyre scattered throughout, but there is not a single reference to outside sources.
The Dictionnaire amoureux de la musique is essentially an open love letter to the idea of music in its many facets. The reader can turn to the table of contents at the back and see at a glance which people and concepts Tubeuf has chosen to elaborate on, but otherwise one must simply plunge in and find out what he has to say. Although not a book to consult for a straightforward definition or history of a word, it nevertheless could have value for those researching or engaging in music criticism or appreciation, as well as for anyone with an interest in André Tubeuf himself. It is recommended for libraries with very large music collections and a strong departmental interest in writing about music.
This volume is the third in a triptych, along with the Lexikon Programmusik (see RREA 7:177) and the Lexikon “Musik über Musik,” (see RREA 10:155), published by Bärenreiter. All of them focus on program music, defined as “instrumental music that represents or suggests a specific subject, to which the composer usually refers either in the title or in a summary of the contents.” Author Klaus Schneider notes that the lexicon offers “bibliographic descriptions of instrumental works, which are organized with regard to individual areas, countries, and peoples using about 1,500 ethnic and geographical key words for 14,200 compositions by a total of 4,500 composers from the 16th century to the present, including e-music, palm court music, and light music.”
The work is arranged by continents, and within each continent alphabetically by regions, countries, and localities. Although the limitation to instrumental music means that one need not even try to look for Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West in the section “America/North America/Prairie/Wild West,” one can certainly find there Bartók’s Cowboy’s Lament, Rosenheck’s Wildwest-Suite, and many other relevant pieces. In the entries, the title and the name of the composer are followed by the instrumentation, work number, and date of composition, as well as the publisher and year of publication—although publication data are omitted for “very well known composers..., as there is no difficulty in obtaining these scores.” An appendix lists publishers with names and locations, and includes a composer index and a subject index of geographical and ethnographical terms. Record companies are not listed, because “in the Internet age it is easy to obtain such information.” But the bibliography at least offers a solid basis of information, so that when trying to find a recording one knows for which composers and titles one must search.
Research libraries with holdings in musicology and also large public libraries should include this work, as well as its two companion volumes, in their reference collections. [sh/nb]
Founded by Willibald Gurlitt in 1950, the goal of the HmT is to offer a comprehensive treatment of musical terminology in a variety of European languages, from the past to the present. The use of these terms in disciplines other than music is also discussed.
The HmT has been an important reference work both for the terminology of musicology and as an etymological dictionary, as it provides in-depth histories of the development and changes in terminology over time. The leading editor and developer of the HmT was Hans Heinrich Egebrecht, who along with Albrecht Riethmüller directed the growth of the dictionary over several decades. Markus Bandur has been the chief editor since 1995.
Gurlitt envisioned an index of more than 1,000 terms, consisting of some 330 basic concepts and 700 references, plus a bibliography of works on musical terminology. The print version of the Handwörterbuch (Stuttgart, 1972-2006) was published in fascicles of some 100 printed pages each. Forty fascicles in all are bound into six Ordner [folders], which together contain some 3,700 pages and 247 extensive essay-length entries, called “monographs.” These entries cover in detail the origin and meaning of musical terms along with the historical development of their lexical meanings. The entries are not alphabetized, but there is an index to the essays. There is also a list of most commonly used abbreviations, and a bibliography of works published (through 1999) in Latin, French, Spanish, German, and Italian. An 18-page index of key words and their locations throughout the six folders concludes the work.
In 2012 the dictionary was published in DVD form, and an online version is now searchable at http://www.bibliothek.uni-regensburg.de/dbinfo/frontdoor.php?titel_id=12524 (accessed September 5, 2014), as part of ViFaMusik—Virtuelle Fachbibliothek Musikwissenschaft, a joint project of the Bavarian State Library, the German Research Council, and the State Institute for Music Research, Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.
The DVD includes a .pdf file of the entire printed version. All the functions of Acrobat Reader are supposedly available for the file, but unfortunately a full-text search option could not be found.
The ViFaMusik has integrated the HmT into its full-text capability to the extent that an online search for a term will produce the article about it, although browsing without searching for a specific term is not possible. The advantage of this approach is a persistent link for every HmT page, allowing scholarly citation. There are also useful indexes to named persons and places, as well as a bibliography of pre-1900 publications, with links to any digital versions of these works. Authors of individual articles are identified and the presumed date of completion of the articles is provided. There is a comprehensive index of terms. [mr/ga,ldl]
Franz Schubert fundamentally grasped the individuality and poetic essence of the most varied of poets, from Goethe to Wilhelm Müller to Walter Scott to Heinrich Heine, and faithfully gave each poem its rightfully true, beautiful, and noble musical expression, so wrote Eduard von Bauernfeld in his Wiener Biedermeier: Begegnungen und Erlebnisse [The Vienna Biedermeier: Encounters and Experiences] (Wien, 1960). Likewise, Dürr and Kohlhäufl’s dictionary of Schubert Lieder is the result of years of research into the incredible creativity of Schubert’s art-songs.
Schubert wrote 634 Lieder for solo voice and accompaniment and defined the genre for the rest of the 19th century. In this dictionary, each song receives a two-part treatment. The first part analyses the song’s text—the poem—from a literary history perspective, highlighting the poem’s special features and elaborating on its linguistic and conceptual characteristics. The second part focuses on the musical setting, its specific musical characteristics, the connections between the text and the music, and the song’s relation to other compositions of the period. Most of the entries have musical notation for the opening measures of the song and the text according to Bärenreiter’s near-definitive Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke [New Edition of the Complete Works] for Franz Schubert, also referred to as the Neue Schubert-Ausgabe (Kassel, 1964- ).
Schubert’s texts range from translations of ancient Greek and Roman poetry (Aeschylus and Petrarch) through Shakespeare to the many German poets of the 18th and 19th century during Schubert’s lifetime (1797-1828). Following the chronology of Otto Erich Deutsch’s catalog, each entry gives the musical incipits, the complete text, concise commentary on the text and the music, and specific information about the song: voicing, origin, editions, and secondary literature. The book concludes with short biographies of the poets. The 26 contributors bring their own perspectives and methodologies to the work, giving it considerable diversity of perspective. While this is all to the good, one would also wish for an overarching, summarizing essay. The layout of the work is of the highest quality, and the footnotes and name and title indexes make this work very easy to use. This volume will long be indispensable for Schubert scholars and for academic research in musicology and the Schubert era. For a comparable audio resource, Schubert scholars and devotes are referred to Thomas Hampson and Jon Tolansky’s Lieder on Record: 1898-2012 (EMI Records, 2012), a 17-disc boxed set of Schubert Lieder recorded by various musicians between 1898 and 2012. [ewp/ga]
“Silenced Voices” is the catalog of an exhibit held in Bayreuth from 22 July to 14 October, 2012, as part of an ongoing project documenting the “Nazification” of German theater by the expulsion of Jewish artists and other undesired groups from its theaters. For a review of previous exhibits in Berlin (2008), Stuttgart (2008), and Darmstadt (2009) see RREA 18:86-88; exhibits covering Dresden and Hessen (2011) are reviewed in RREA 17:98-99.
Catalogs for the exhibitions follow a standard format, offering local historical background and biographies of artists. This latest volume is somewhat atypical, since it deals with the Bayreuth Festival, whose anti-Semitic history and practices go back much further than 1933, to the year they were founded in 1876. Hannes Heer’s introduction describes the history of the Festspiele before 1933 and the roles played by Richard Wagner, Cosima and Siegfried Wagner, and Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Further essays reveal the misuse of the Festspiele to mobilize anti-Semitic German nationalism and describe the anti-Semitic hiring practices of the Festspiele since 1876. The journal, Bayreuther Blätter (published 1878-1938), served as the mouthpiece for the racist Germanic ideology dominant at the Festspiele. Annette Hein’s Es ist viel ‘Hitler’ in Wagner (Tübingen, 1996) offers in-depth treatment of this journal plus an index to issues 1-61 (see RREA 3:107). The catalog includes short biographies, with portraits, of 53 Jewish artists active in Bayreuth since 1900 who were persecuted (12 murdered) during the Third Reich, primarily singers, but also musicians, choral singers, conductors, and others. Even if the anti-Semitic tradition of the Bayreuth Festspiele is well known, one can learn new background about this difficult history from the catalog, especially about its first 50 years. [sh/akb]
[Ed. note: Abstracts for these IFB reviews did not appear in RREA 17 (2011); they are included here to complement those 2011 reviews (of the Dresden and Hessen exhibits—see RREA 17:98-99) and that of the Bayreuth exhibition (see RREA 18:85)]
The first of this series of attention-getting title Silenced Voices exhibitions took place in Hamburg in 2006, but no catalog was published to accompany it. The first catalog accompanied the May 2008 exhibition in Berlin and has continued with successive exhibits in Stuttgart in the fall of 2008 and Darmstadt in the fall of 2009.
All three catalogs have the same composition: opening speeches; testimonies from contemporaries—expellees, expellers, and profiteers—to the events; and 44 biographies of prominent artists. The biographies are one page in length, with portrait, and cover composers, conductors, directors, and singers. There are additional brief entries of other stage artists and their fates in the Third Reich—persecution, destruction, emigration, or re-emigration. The section entitled Zeitgeschichte [that is, the history of the period] discusses the political-cultural situation in Germany, the particular role of Jews in music, and similar topics, and offers a list of audio examples available at the exhibition. A CD recording for the 2006 Hamburg exhibition was published under the same title, Verstummte Stimmen (Hamburg, 2006) and includes a 54-page brochure. Twenty-one performers are featured in monaural recordings from the period, including Lotte Lehmann, Joseph Schmidt, and Richard Tauber.
Each catalog also contains material specific to the venue, for example in the speeches given at each city’s exhibition opening, in the Zeitgeschichte section and in the further-readings section. The bibliography includes the infamous Lexikon der Juden in der Musik from 1940, which was reprinted in 1999 with commentary by Eva Weissweiler (see RREA 6;178). Not included in the bibliography, however, is the relevant Kulturlexikon zum Dritten Reich: wer war was vor und nach 1945 (see RREA 13:31 and 15/16:26). [sh/ga]
Since the American musicologist Pamela Potter published her 1998 groundbreaking study on the fate of “the most German of the arts” during the Hitler years, there has been a continuing stream of new monographs on the musical life of the Third Reich. Other researchers have revised previous research, such as Frank-Rutger Hausmann’s more general bibliography, Die Geisteswissenschaften im “Dritten Reich” (see RREA 17:119). These studies have brought many previously unknown facts to light, but without revealing much that was fundamentally new. The two authors of this study, Ulrich Drüner, a music rare-books librarian in Stuttgart, and Georg Günther, a librarian and musicologist, also in Stuttgart, are attempting to raise research on the musical life of the Third Reich to a new level, offering information drawn largely from previously unknown sources, many of them in private hands. Their goal is to offer an “up close and personal” perspective on the actual working lives of musicians and musicologists during the Hitler years.
The authors evaluate a group of some 500 items (124 documents; 214 printed books, journal issues and brochures; and 200 scores), most of which they apparently acquired through private purchases (researchers hoping for access to the original documents are advised to contact the authors directly). Many of the names represented here are very well-known, for example Béla Bartok, Max Brod, Fritz Busch, Werner Egk, Herbert von Karajan, Hans Pfitzner, Arnold Schönberg, Richard Strauss, and Igor Stravinsky. A valuable addition to the text is a 27-page section of illustrations, containing high-quality reproductions of documents and personal photographs. That the authors have compiled such a trove of documents is an astounding achievement. However, questions may arise as to whether the “case studies” presented here are truly representative and to what extent they constitute a true paradigm for research. The bibliography of sources consulted is not comprehensive, and the resources listed there are only sparingly referred to in the text itself. Numerous important monographs, such as those by Anselm Gerhard or Isolde von Foerster, are missing from the bibliography. Another serious lack is the absence of an index of names (the well-organized list of documents in the appendix only partially compensates for this lack, because it contains no references to page numbers).
Yet in many ways the authors have made a good thing of their material. It is logically organized into nine chapters, which by reaching back to 1910 and forward to 1960 take in both the “prehistory” and the “posthistory” of National Socialism. Proper attention is paid to the role played by the notorious 1938 exhibition Entartete Musik [Degenerate Music] and the anti-Semitic Lexikon der Juden in der Musik [Lexicon of Jews in Music] (reprinted and thoroughly debunked by Eva and Lilli Weissweiller in their Ausgemerzt!: das “Lexikon … “ und seine mörderischen Folgen (see RREA 6:178). Composers whose careers were damaged or destroyed by the Nazis (for example Erich Korngold, Ernst Krenek, Franz Schreker, and Ernst Toch) are profiled. Chapter 9 shows how the federal republics of Germany and Austria struggled after the war in their attempts to come to terms with the Nazi past. Attempts to whitewash the events of the Hitler years are found even in such standard works as the first edition of the famous music lexicon Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart [Music in History and the Present]. Though somewhat flawed by its failure to integrate fully the available scholarship, Musik und “Drittes Reich” remains an impressive achievement. [frh/crc]
In time for the 200th anniversary of Wagner’s birth, and 25 years since the publication of the Richard-Wagner-Handbuch (Stuttgart, 1986), comes this new, authoritative overview of current Wagner scholarship. It avoids focusing on Wagner’s biography, though important events are noted in the 16-page chronology, and references to love and intrigue have been omitted. Included among the 11 chapters are “Lebenswelten” [Life and Environment], “Politik und Gesellschaft” [Politics and Society], and “Vokalwerke und Schauspielmusik” [Vocal Works and Theatrical Music]. All the chapters are arranged thematically and examine the work appropriately. Literary, sociological, and musicological questions are engaged in many articles, as are more problematic issues including Wagner and anti-Semitism and Wagner as ideologue.
[Ed. note: For a study of the role of anti-Semitism and the gradual exclusion of Jewish musicians from the Bayreuth Festivals, see the review of Verstummte Stimmen: die Bayreuther Festspiele und die “Juden” 1876 bis 1945 in RREA 18:85].
The oft-neglected areas of Wagner’s career, such as his conductorships, are given some attention here, as are some of the instrumental works and theatrical music that were very popular during his life. While it might be expected to have chapters discussing Wagner’s image of women or his attitudes toward Protestantism, they would not be appropriate here, as the goal of this work is to provide an interdisciplinary introduction to Wagner scholarship. The biggest names in current Wagner research include Egon Voss and Sven Friedrich (contributing two articles, respectively) and Stephan Mösch, who has one article included in this volume. Other noted contributors include medievalist Joachim Heinzle (Marburg) and musicologist Ulrich Tadday (Bremen). Many, including Laurenz Lütteken and his collaborators, as well as Hans Joachim Hinrichsen and others, are academics at the University of Zürich.
While a subject index would have been helpful, readers will have to make do with an index of works and the individuals mentioned. All in all, this is a useful guide for navigating the jungle of interdisciplinary Wagner research. [amr/jmw]
The Laaber Verlag has set a high standard for lexicons devoted to musical composers. Previous examples include Laaber’s Das Bach-Lexikon (see RREA 6:215), Das Mozart-Lexikon (see RREA 13:170), Das Beethoven-Lexikon (see RREA 14:112), and Das Haydn-Lexikon (see IFB 12-2). In earlier instances, these lexicons were the final volume of a multi-volume handbook devoted to a composer. The title under review is a stand-alone volume and with this comes a number of problems.
First, there is the selection of article topics, which includes coverage of characters in Wagner’s works, persons and places associated with Wagner, and institutions and corporate bodies. Not even all of Wagner’s most important works have their own article. The lack of an article on the much-discussed Buddhist inspiration of Die Sieger [The Victors] or on Buddhism in general is a grave omission. The small selection of performers covered is scarcely comprehensible and many literary figures who influenced Wagner have been neglected.
Those selected to write the articles are not well-known musicologists. With some exceptions, and rather to the Wagner-Lexikon’s credit, they are younger authors from the fields of theater and music studies, who have mostly done very good work in this volume. Two of these authors were also responsible for the bulk of entries not wanted by any other author; they have been conscientiously written but with some shortcomings at times. For example, the article on “Grimm, Jacob” has been rather carelessly pulled together from standard bibliographic reference sources that are sloppily cited. Elsewhere, the Austrian esoteric Walter Hain, who published works teaching the origin of humans on Mars, is cited as a serious source.
The forward gives no indication of the intended audience for this volume. From the point of view of the medievalist, the book is unusable. The literary historian will derive only small profit from it. Music theory is addressed only to a degree. Just stage artists and theater goers remain as potential users. For the latter group, this a useful tool, better than most concert programs (and doubtless a future source for such). The book can only be recommended for public libraries; the researcher will avoid it, except perhaps to pad out a quick footnote. [amr/rc]
The book jacket advertises this volume as the “first comprehensive reference work of its kind,” and in fact the Encyclopedia of Film Music covers TV shows and series as well as thematic topics of music composition, production, and technology, and film music composers and directors. There are, however, no articles about films and music pieces per se. As a complement to Gervinck and Bückle’s work, one should consult Jürgen Wölfer and Roland Löper’s Das grosse Lexikon der Filmkomponisten: die Magier der cineastischen Akustik; von Ennio Morricone bis Hans Zimmer (see RREA 9:130), among other reference works.
The main editor, Manuel Gervink, Professor of Musicology and Head of the Institute for Musicology in Dresden, introduces the Lexikon der Filmmusik as both a reference work and an invitation to read and browse. Co-editor Matthias Bückle is an administrator at the Laaber-Verlag publishing house. They explain that the relatively high number of English-language titles cited as resources is due to the fact that German film music scholarship has only experienced a growth spurt in the past decade. The 430 articles set in two columns are from 62 contributors and include references to related articles, chronological bibliographies (filmographies in the cases of composers and directors), and, where appropriate, Internet addresses. Articles show up that one might not expect, but always with film ties, such as to the Beatles, BeeGees, Pink Floyd, and similarly. Indexes of articles and of abbreviated author names are found at the front, while the traditional index location at the back sports a single page for general film music literature, a name index, and an index of film titles mentioned. Film music in the Internet includes portals, journals, online magazines, music databases, streaming sites, and more. Unfortunately, the indexing work itself is very incomplete and full of mistakes. The encyclopedia does belong in music libraries, at least in German-speaking countries. The erroneous indexing relates less to content than to editorial finesse, so it could be quickly corrected in a new edition. [mr/rdh]
This book serves a variety of purposes. It is a standard organ inventory; a handbook of historic preservation for this special genre of cultural property; an “appetizer” for enthusiastic laypersons; a source of information about the profession of church musician and organist; an introduction to the construction of organs; and a history of organs in the North of Germany.
The first part, entitled “The Fascination of the Organ,” begins with a history of two famous North German organ builders, Arp Schnitger and the Marcussen Company, followed by a history of organ building in the 20th century, and concluding with a description of the many organs of Lübeck and of the Göteborg [Sweden] Organ Art Center, a multi-regional research center. The second section, “Organ as Instrument,” has essays on the construction of organs, the professions of builder and of organist, and the dynamics between the clergy and organ.
The third part, “The Bases for Evaluating the Organ,” is not as dry as it sounds. Here the fate of organs and their traditions in Schleswig-Holstein’s contested history, the special physical and acoustical properties of the instrument, and the problems of the region’s stressful physical climate are discussed in several essays. The fourth section is a 70-page (but by no means complete) catalog of organs in Schleswig-Holstein. The mainly color illustrations are attractive; the data are Spartan but very useful for the serious reader.
Sections follow on the tonal concepts of organs; issues of repair, renovation, retrofitting, and restoration (especially of pneumatic organs); interviews with four senior organists; and case studies in organ building and preservation. The appendices and indexes provide additional information about regulations, terminology, names, and places.
This book provides a wealth of information for the organ devotee and historic preservationist alike. The entries are written by highly competent experts, and the book’s relevance extends well beyond Schleswig-Holstein. [ar/ga]
Since the publication of Hajo Bernett’s trail-blazing 1978 work (Der jüdische Sport im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland 1933-1938), the study of Jewish sports history in Germany has made some progress, thanks in no small part to the authors of this handbook. They draw on their earlier bibliography, Jüdischer Sport und Sport der Juden in Deutschland: eine kommentierte Bibliographie, (see RREA 15/16:145) and Lorenz Pfeiffer’s annotated bibliography Sport im Nazionalsozialismus (Stuttgart, 2009--see IFB 09/1-2). The authors’ intensive research in Jewish newspapers and numerous archives turned up 27 Jewish sports organizations (under both the Makkabi and the Schild umbrellas), in which approximately 200 Jewish athletes and functionaries were active.
This work examines the relationship between Jewish and non-Jewish athletes in Lower Saxony before 1933, as well as the existence of Jewish sports clubs before the Nazi seizure of power and especially afterwards. Following an instructive overview of Jewish sports history from their beginnings to 1938, the book’s main chapter is an alphabetical listing of places that gives deep insight into local and regional sports history.
The section on Bremen, for example, depicts the local sports history before 1933; then the exclusion of Jewish athletics from sports clubs after 1933; the specifically Jewish sports history in the following years; short biographies of Jewish athletes up to their ultimate fate (in so far as is known); and bibliographic and archival information.
The next chapter covers the biographies of 16 prominent athletes and functionaries. Given the scarcity of good source material, it is not surprising that some major figures are missing.
In the absence of any previous work in this field, the authors break new ground here, both methodologically and substantively.
There are enormous advantages to this handbook: the archival work that undergirds it, the resulting wealth of information and the well-chosen photographs. The understanding it provides—and not only of sports history—also applies to other German regions, for which one would wish similarly detailed descriptions. Place and name indexes in this volume would also have been useful. [mk/sl]
Ten years ago, Lorenz Pfeiffer and Matthias Fink published a well-researched state-of-the-field book, Zum aktuellen Forschungsstand der Geschichte von Körperkultur und Sport in der DDR [The State of Research on the History of Physical Culture and Sports in the GDR] (Köln, 2003). Now, Fink’s 2012 dissertation on the National Olympic Committee (NOK), directed by Pfeiffer, has been published in book form. With German unification, previously inaccessible historical files are available and have also made other studies possible. For details on available sources, see Hans Joachim Teichler et al., Archive und Quellen zum Sport in der SBZ/DDR (see RREA 9:39).
Some of the factual details described in Fink‘s book are well known from other sources, such as Gunter Holzweißig‘s Diplomatie im Traininganzug: Sport als politisches Instrument der DDR (München, 1981), Norbert Lehmann‘s Internationale Sportbeziehungen und Sportpolitik der DDR in den innerdeutschen und internationalen Beziehungen (Münster, 1986), the first two volumes of Manfred Lämmer‘s Deutschland in der Olympischen Bewegung: eine Zwischenbilanz (Frankfurt am Main, 2000), Tobias Blasius‘ Olympische Bewegung, Kalter Kriegund Deutschlandpolitik 1949-1972 (Frankfurt am Main, 2001) and Uta Andrea Balbier‘s Kalter Krieg auf der Aschenbahn: der deutsche Sport 1950-1972 (München 2007). But this detailed and close-to-the-source contextualization of the East German NOK within a broader historical context is Matthias Fink’s contribution.
Although the NOK was somewhat more independent than other sports organizations in the GDR, it was still always bound tightly to the goals of the Politburo. The West German partners or opponents like Willi Daume (1913-1996), longtime chair of the West German National Olympic Committee, also had to orient themselves by the policies of the Federal Republic. See, for example, Jan C. Rode’s Willi Daume und die Entwicklung des Sports in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1945-1970 [Willi Daume and the Development of Sports in the Federal Republic of Germany] (Göttingen, 2010—see IFB 09-1/2). This led to a stubborn, decades-long, often nerve-wracking jockeying for political as well as athletic field position. One hopes for a new work taking up the period from 1973 to 1989, where this book leaves off. [mk/rb]
Part 1: Biographie einer Institution [Biography of an Institution]
Vol. 1. Gründung und Blütezeit der Universität zu Berlin 1810-1918 [Foundation and Flourishing of the University in Berlin, 1810-1918]. Ed. Heinz-Elmar Tenorth and Charles E. McClelland. 2012. xliii, 674 p. ill. ISBN 978-3-05-004622-8: EUR 99.80; ISBN 978-3-05-06376-8 (e-book) [13-3]
Vol. 2. Die Berliner Universität zwischen den Weltkriegen 1918-1945 [The University of Berlin between the World Wars, 1918-1945]. Ed. Michael Grüttner. 2012. 593 p. ill. ISBN 978-3-05-004667-9: EUR 99.80; ISBN 978-3-05-005850-4 (e-book) [12-3]
Vol. 3. Sozialistisches Experiment und Erneuerung in der Demokratie: die Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin 1945-2010 [Socialist Experiment and Renewal in Democracy: The Humboldt University of Berlin, 1945-2010]. Ed. Konrad H. Jarausch. 2012. 715 p. ill. ISBN 978-3-05-004668-6: EUR 99.80 [not reviewed in IFB]
One year after multiple works on the University of Leipzig’s 500th anniversary in 2009 (see RREA 15/16:152-157), a six-volume commemorative history of the Berlin University’s 200th anniversary in 2010 was published. Volumes 4-6 appeared in 2010 under the rubric Praxis ihrer Disziplinen [The Practices of the Disciplines], a history of the University’s departments, faculties, schools, and other disciplines. Volumes 4 and 5 were reviewed in IFB 10-2 and 11-3 respectively. Under review here are volumes 1 and 2 of a second rubric, a more general history of the University, indicated by the chronological divisions in the titles. A bibliographic citation for Volume 3 is included here, but the volume is not discussed.
The University was founded in 1809-10 as the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, by which it was known until 1946. In the ensuing division of Berlin, the University was located just inside the eastern, Soviet sector. In 1949 it was renamed the Humboldt-Universtät zu Berlin, and it retained that name following the reunification of Germany. Reflecting the division of the city, the Freie-Universität Berlin [Free University of Berlin] was founded in 1948 in the western sector of the city as a democratic alternative to the communist-controlled university in the eastern sector. Thus, in principle, volume 3 should have included a history of the Free University. However, the editors purposely chose to exclude the Free University from this history and focus instead on the university as conceived and put forward by Wilhelm von Humboldt.
Volume 1 contains 12 monograph-like chapters, of which six are written by Heinz-Elmar Tenorth and four by Charles McClelland. Tenorth is the chief editor of the entire series. In addition, there is no shortage of other monographs and histories of the University, for example, Max Lenz’s four-volume Geschichte der Königlichen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin [History of the Royal Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin] (Halle [(Saale], 1910-1918) and on a more specific topic Aleksandra Pawliczek’s Akademischer Alltag zwischen Ausgrenzung und Erfolg: jüdische Dozenten an der Berliner Universität 1871-1933 (see RREA 17:117).
In the middle of the Napoleonic Wars, Wilhelm von Humboldt led the creation of a completely new university model, departing sharply from the university of the early modern period. Humboldt’s model called for strict selection of professors, who would provide both basic instruction and intensive research. The so-called “research imperative” soon became the norm for universities across all the German lands. Students were admitted to university only after successfully completing the Abitur, a rigorous test taken at the conclusion of their secondary education. The numbers of students and lecturers in Berlin increased dramatically in the next decades, and by the latter part of the 19th century the University of Berlin had become the most important German university. Much of the University’s growth and stature was boosted by the unification of Germany under the Prussian crown in 1871, with Berlin as the capital of the new German Empire. Wilhelm von Humboldt and his fellow educators intended the University to be a Prussian and Protestant institute of higher education on the Spree River, and Catholic and Jewish academics had little chance of receiving teaching appointments there. Thus, many talented lecturers remained in the private sector as so-called Privatdozenten, growing in number throughout the 19th century.
This volume offers an historical survey covering almost every aspect of university life, including the founding and governance of the institution and the culture of the university (e.g., student life and organizations, academic politics, and the teaching and research environment and ethos). At about the time of the University’s 100th anniversary, decline began to set in. The idealized Humboldt model had failed in some of its objectives, mainly in the unification of all scholarly disciplines under one roof. Also, one spoke of the unity of teaching and research only reluctantly. Nevertheless, Wilhelm (and later his brother Alexander) von Humboldt had created a modern higher-educational system for Prussia that remained intact in a united Germany.
Volume 1 concludes with approximately 20 pages of indexes to persons, tables, and illustrations. The index of the rectors of the University gives a good indication of the number of intellectual giants who were influential in the Berlin of their time.
All six volumes comprise more than 3,000 pages, meaning that most likely few people will in actuality read the entire work. This is regrettable, because these volumes have exploited new sources of information. The monographic essays in volume 2 are rich in detail and eminently readable. Much of this success is due to its editor, Michael Grüttner, one of the most experienced and prolific specialists on the institutional history of German universities. He penned the first four chapters of the volume, which cover the post-World War I and Weimar periods. The remaining four chapters, also by acknowledged specialists, cover the Nazi period (1933-1945), and Grüttner summarizes all eight chapters with an essay entitled “Die Universität im Schatten der Weltkriege” [The University in the Shadow of the World Wars]. Following is a list of the scholars of the University who fell victim to National Socialism.
The carefully edited volume includes 40 tables of informative data, numerous photographs mainly of professors and students, and a comprehensive index of persons. Set between the two catastrophic military defeats of 1918 and 1945, the chapters in this volume describe the decline of and departure from the shining ideal of the University during the Weimar period. Even the significant gains among Catholics and Jews in attaining faculty positions were nullified after 1933: the University in Berlin ranked second only to the University of Frankfurt in the ratio of faculty dismissed for racial or political reasons (35 percent). In his introductory chapter, Michael Grüttner gives a detailed survey of the complex nature of society in the post-World War I decades. In the atmosphere of such intense political and social issues (for example, the morale-depressing Treaty of Versailles, or the search for scapegoats—usually Jews), finding common ground and a degree of consensus was a challenge almost beyond the power of reason.
The volume concludes with the same kinds of indexes as in volume 1. It is regrettable that none of these volumes includes a unified list of sources or a comprehensive bibliography.
The 1949 renaming of the university after the Humboldt brothers denoted a significant break with the past, which lasted through the Soviet Zone of Occupation (SBZ) and the German Democratic Republic (DDR). The editors’ choice of descriptive name—Unter den Linden (the famous boulevard on which the University is located) in the title of the work—is intended to emphasize the institution’s historical continuity. [frh/cjm,ga]
Vol. 6. Die Jahre 1892-1900 [The Years 1892-1900]. 2012. 603 p. ISBN 978-3-89739-669-2: EUR 99
The next to last volume of the edited matriculation records of the University of Leipzig up to its 500th anniversary in 1909 documents the student body from 1892 to 1900. Previous volumes were reviewed in RREA 12:168 (v. 1, 1809-1832), RREA 15/16:154 (v. 3, 1863-1876), and IFB 11-1 (v. 4 and 5, 1876-1884 and 1885-1892 respectively). During the period 1892-1900, between 1,645 and 1,969 students were entered into the matriculation records each year. At this time the city and university were experiencing rapid development. The university gained a top position in the German Empire along with Berlin and Munich. Lack of space forced new buildings to be located in the suburbs. The fields of theology, humanities, and law no longer characterized the university. Women were not admitted until 1906 in Saxony (1908 in Prussia). The foreword names 22 students from this period who later became famous in Germany, including Gustav Stresemann, Martin Buber, and Hans Carossa.
These Leipzig University matriculation records are also available in e-book format (see http://www.vdg-weimar.de/katalog/?fltFolder2=302; accessed July 27, 2014), in seven volumes. With the last volume in 2013, there will be a complete list of about 100,000 Leipzig students for the period 1809-1909. Electronic versions will enable research among all the volumes and comparisons with the matriculation records of other universities. Die Matrikel der Friedrich-Wilhelms Universität zu Berlin 1810-1850 (see RREA 15/16:149) and Register zur Matrikel der Universität Erlangen (see IFB 10-1) are two recent similar publications. [mk/gph]
Vol. 1. Westeuropäische Staaten, Türkei, Palästina/Israel, lateinamerikanische Staaten, Südafrikanische Union [West European Countries, Turkey, Palestine/Israel, Latin American Countries, Union of South Africa]. 2012. x, 655 p. ill. ISBN 978-3-11-025857-8: EUR 169.95
This important reference work is the product of well over 20 years of research. The intellectual force behind the project, Manfred Walther, is an emeritus professor at the Leibnitz University in Hannover, who with legal scholar Leonie Breuning began this work during the 1980s. In the Federal Republic of that time, emigration research began to document histories of scholars in all disciplines who were expelled from academia after the Nazi seizure of power. This work covers those in the legal profession who, in their country of exile, were able to reestablish themselves in academia, whether in law or in another discipline. The first volume covers emigrants to countries other than the USA; the second volume will cover those who settled in the United States.
In 1933 (a sample year) there were 496 professors of law in Germany, of which 131 (26 percent) were removed from their positions for (primarily) racial or political reasons. This percentage ranks among the highest in comparison with other academic disciplines. More than half of those removed for racial reasons went into exile in some 40 countries, where many secured academic work, but usually not in the same field as in Germany.
The majority of this volume is devoted to in-depth portraits of 23 prominent law professors, for example, the prolific scholar Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1874-1936). The biographies go into considerable detail about each professor’s early life, education, curriculum vitae, and many details about the subject’s public life outside academia, the reasons for removal and/or expulsion, photographs, and a bibliography. Another 50 brief bibliographies, in tabular form, follow the main section, and these persons for the most part did not find work in an academic profession in their host country. The work also concludes with an 11-page personal name index, indexes of abbreviations and cited texts, a bibliography of source books and scholarly monographs by these academicians, and a register of the legal texts used to justify the removals as well as postwar restitution to these professors.
Each entry is the result of careful, comprehensive, and repetitive research. To date, these portraits are the most extensive and detailed found in any reference work about the 1933-1945 emigration. Breunung and Walther’s work succeeds in its goal of explaining the depth and breadth of this “brain drain” from German academia and also the “brain gain” to academic institutions in the countries that received these scholars. This work is also one of remembrance, as demonstrated by the sheer number of entries in the personal name index. However, it is regrettable that this project does not include those who survived in Germany in “inner emigration,” most often because they had “Aryan” wives. [frh/ga]
If one considers recent examinations of the history of German and Austrian universities between 1933 and 1945, Innsbruck’s efforts compare favorably. This project at Innsbruck was led by Peter Goller (1961- ), lecturer and staff member of the university’s archive, who has published several works on the university’s history, including his Geschichte der Universität Innsbruck 1669-1945 [History of the University of Innsbruck] (Frankfurt am Main, 1996). The volume under review would not, however, have been possible without the co-authorship of Georg Tidl (1948- ), professor and television journalist with the ORF [Austrian Broadcasting Company]. Pages 47-88 (unpaginated) contain a fascicle reproduction of the core document, a decree from the Reichsführer-SS Sicherheitsdienst Donau [Leader of the Danube Reich Security Service] entitled Material des Dozentenbundes-Sonderhefte [Material on the Lecturers Association: Special Files]. This document comes from Tidl’s family archive, a deposition made by his father, the publisher Johann Tidl. Johann Tidl was a member of the Reichsarbeitsdienst [Reich Labor Service, functioning like an army reserve unit] until 1942, when he was arrested and charged with anti-fascist resistance and was sentenced to jail and the infamous penal colony, Strafkompanie 999. At the end of the war Johann Tidl was recruited for denazification commission work, where the file came into his possession.
The Material des Dozentenbundes document contains information on all university faculty and staff who taught in the faculties of philosophy, law, political science, and medicine; the Catholic theological faculty had been disbanded in July 1938, and was not included. Brief assessments were given of their political views, their attitudes toward National Socialism, their family origins, and their character. These served as the basis for the political persecution carried out at the University of Innsbruck. The introduction to Jubel ohne Ende (p. 9-44) and the three special studies at the end of the book (p. 169-207) describe an academic environment of revenge, anti-Semitism, and anti-socialism that had existed in the University since 1914. It was no surprise, then, that Jewish, devout Catholic, and Austrian nationalist members of the University were the first victims of the Nazis’ thoroughgoing purges.
Over the summer of 1938 approximately 22 percent of the 276 tenured professors were purged and some 14 percent of the lecturers fired. Additionally, in the case of six lecturers, the University retracted recognition of their recently completed Habilitationen [second dissertations]. Until this time the university’s faculty was overwhelmingly comprised of Austrians, giving it a provincial character, and after these purges a number of Germans, as well as Austrians who were teaching in Germany, were recruited.
Pages 89-166 contain valuable and useful biographical commentaries on the faculty and instructors purged during the period 1938-1945. These people were named in the security service’s Material des Dozentenbundes document. The three appendices supply further details on habilitation dissertations written between 1938 and 1945, as well as information on students and university graduates who were hounded out of the University. The brief bibliography (p. 208-210) lists mainly Austrian secondary sources. [frh/ga]
Vol. 2. 2012. 673 p. ill. ISBN 978-3-205-78764-8: EUR 79.90
The first volume of this important work appeared in 2008 to considerable acclaim. A third volume will follow. Fifteen historians are portrayed here, making a total of 34 so far. Among the criteria for inclusion are that the scholars must have been born in Austria (i.e., the Habsburg monarchy) and/or have been an Austrian citizen after 1918; must have been trained as historians; and must have experienced a period of significant scholarly activity between 1900 and 1945 or briefly thereafter. In addition they must have made notable contributions to their fields or in other areas. (Not all of these criteria are always met.)
As in the previous volume, the articles, each approximately 40 pages in length, are of high quality, going well beyond those in the usual bio-bibliographical handbook. All have been well researched, documented, and organized, and include a photograph. Even in those cases where the scholar portrayed has been honored in numerous other publications it was possible to highlight new aspects. Facilitating the discovery of cross-connections is a reliable name index.
Although it was not the intention of the editor to focus solely on their activities during or for the Nazi regime, not all of the Austrian historians portrayed here were free of anti-Semitism, which is seen before the background of the time and place in which they lived and worked. This volume is pertinent to the history of scholarship not only in Austria, but also in Germany and Czechoslovakia. [frh/nb]
CC – Sociology and Social Sciences
Inspired by the well-known bibliography Die Frauenfrage in Deutschland: Strömungen und Gegenströmungen (Burg, 1934), Dagmar Jank, professor of library and information science at the technical university in Potsdam compiled this bibliography of reference works from the time period of the early women’s movement in Germany, with the goal of “examining them more closely and describing them in detail.” It covers about two dozen bibliographies and other reference works of interest to women, particularly in the information sciences. A table of contents listing the titles and the four sections under which they are categorized can be seen at http://d-nb.info/1024944050/04 (accessed September 6, 2014).
The descriptions of these titles go well beyond what would typically be expected in a general reference volume, with the genesis of the work, the persons involved in it and their collaboration with women’s organizations, and its reception in the women’s and library trade press receiving special emphasis. The bibliographic descriptions, on the other hand, leave much to be desired. They vary widely and do not follow any set standards, foregoing, for example, a notation of the extent of a work or its physical presentation, although a 139-page typewritten bibliography is likely to be of lesser value than the 800-page Frauenfrage in Deutschland, which was reprinted in its entirety in both 1961 and in 1984. Those facts are also not noted here, which can only be considered suboptimal, as they indicate a recognition of the importance of the 1934 work.
A section on “sources and bibliography” contains approximately 150 entries (including the titles discussed at length in the main portion of the volume. An index of names is also included. Having read in the preface that “information resources such as bibliographies, library catalogs, reference books, and directories are part of our cultural memory,” the reviewer finally knows the exalted worth of his own publication, which is dedicated to a critique of this genre. [sh/jmw]
The catalog presents a fairy tale exhibit hosted by the Goethe Haus/Freies Deutsches Hochstift [Goethe House/Free German Foundation] in Frankfurt, in collaboration with the Institut für Jugendbuchforschung an der Universität Frankfurt am Main [Institute for Research on Juvenile Literature Books at the University of Frankfurt]. The exhibit includes folk and fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm, as well as the literary fairy tales of the Romantic era, by writers like Clemens Brentano, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Novalis, Carl Wilhelm Salice Contessa, Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, Philipp Otto Runge, and Achim and Bettine von Arnim. The emphasis of the exhibit is on the illustrations for fairy tales that were published in the first half of the 19th century and that have endured in many illustrated versions for 200 years. The first 50 pages of the catalog offer essays with 13 illustrations; the exhibit part of the catalog is 108 pages with 89 illustrations. There is an index of lenders, but no index of artists.
The book begins with four essays. In the first one, Wolfgang Bunzel provides a historical overview, tracing the shift in aesthetics from imitating nature and adhering to genre to an appreciation of individualism and for transgressing the limitations of genre during European Romanticism. This shift was first seen in novels, and later in the rise in popularity of fairy tales, starting with Des Knaben Wunderhorn [The Youth’s Magic Horn: Old German Songs] (1806). The essay also traces technological innovations in its discussion of the relationship between text and image. Wood engraving was invented around 1790; lithography appeared in 1796, color lithography in 1826, and steel engraving in 1824. Varying technical means of rendering images enhanced the appeal of illustrated fairy tales.
Hans-Jörg Uther presents the history of the Grimm collection. He highlights the editorial process of the Grimm brothers, their pedagogical guidelines, and the relationship between the spoken and the written word.
Regina Freyberger examines the role of the arabesques, drawing on her award-winning dissertation on fairy tale illustrations Märchenbilder–Bildermärchen 1819-1945 (see RREA 18:103). Here she analyses the positions of Goethe, Schlegel, Cornelius, and Brentano, as well as the development of the arabesque from an architectural term to an independent narrative form that made the text almost redundant, as seen in Eugen Napoleon Neureuther’s Dornröschen [Sleeping Beauty] from 1836.
Claudia Maria Pecher highlights the explosion of formats that deliver the fairy tale over the centuries. She gives many examples of minimalistic, realistic, abstracted or dark fairytales fashioned for anti-authoritarian critique or just entertainment, and also examples of their formats: cloth books for children, miniature books, early readers, comics and manga, cell phone texts, pop-up books, fantastic novels and crime novels, fairy tale apps, podcasts, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Slideshare, picture books, advertisements, films, puzzles, and activity books. The versions and formats are international, and substantially rework the fairy tale motifs and themes, often with an eye to marketing the material successfully.
The exhibit section of the catalog presents 200 years of fairy tale illustrations with annotations about materials from 58 collections. The creators of the exhibit have included all important German illustrators, as well as all foreign illustrators who have had influence and effect on the development of German illustration. With few exceptions, all the illustrators discussed in Regina Freyberger’s work cited above are included in this catalog. The second half of the catalog, Schüsselszenen [Key Scenes] presents iconic fairy tales whose illustrators have captured the essence of the story in their images. Included are stories by E.T.A. Hoffman (e.g., Nußknacker und Mäusekönig [The Nutcracker and the Mouse-King] and other famous authors, along with the well-known Der gestiefelte Kater [Puss in Boots], Rotkäppchen ]Little Red Riding-Hood], and Vom Fischer un syner Fru [The Fisherman and his Wife].
The catalog captures the essence of scholarly interest in the past 200 years of fairy-tale illustrations, with accompanying essays full of interesting historic detail. [wh/hm]
The author has revised her 2008 dissertation (University of Munich) for the book trade, earning high praise and awards for it. Her work reflects her strong scholarly interest in the subject of illustrations for fairy tales, as well as her personal love of the subject.
The book’s contents are arranged chronologically in two parts: 1812/19-1893 (from the appearance of the first illustrated edition to the year that the Brothers Grimm’s copyright expired) and from 1893 to 1945. (The 1933-1945 era brought about a thorough reexamination of the place of these tales in German culture.) In her dissertation Regina Freyberger examined 1,630 published editions of Grimms’ Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Grimms’ Fairy Tales], which are the most frequently illustrated of fairy tale collections and which are an important part of Germany’s national literature. Many non-book imprints were also included, such as wall posters in school classrooms, paintings, and other wall art. The book’s quarto size allows for high-quality reproductions of these illustrations. Seven hundred black-and-white illustrations and 72 color illustrations are included.
The 17-page bibliography is carefully compiled and lists titles published between 1790 and 2007, with half the titles published since 1980. The index contains 1,189 entries and combines persons (780 headings), titles of tales (217), geographic names (75), publishers and media (89), series titles, and the names of artist groups. Cross-references are limited to notations of variant titles that are often the result of less rigid spelling standards in the 19th century, for example, “Sneewittchen → Schneewittchen” [Snow White]. The number of illustrations per fairy tale gives an indication of each tale’s popularity, with Aschenputtel [Cinderella] (93) and Dornröschen [Sleeping Beauty] (92) the most frequently illustrated.
The most important part of the appendix is the last section, the 83-page bio-bibliographical catalog. Arranged by illustrator name, each entry has life dates, a brief biography, and a bibliography that includes publications illustrated by the artist and books that were cooperative projects with others, as well as additional stand-alone illustrations. The catalog contains 580 well-known persons, as well as a number of anonymous illustrators. The entry for L. E. (Ludwig Emil) Grimm, the “artist brother” of Jacob and Wilhelm, extends to ten columns and includes a sizeable bibliography. Dr. Freyberger has personally examined every illustration and documented its source publications.
While one wishes that Dr. Freyberger had continued her documentation past 1945, she argues convincingly in her conclusions that the postwar media landscape and marketing have radically altered the reception of fairy tales among the reading public. Dr. Freyberger’s work is an indispensable contribution to art history, literary history, and folklore. [wh/ga]
Vol. 11. 2000/2002. Mit Festschriftenregister 1864-2002 [... With Festschrift Index, 1864-2002]. Ed. Dietrich Pannier and Anja Aulich. 2012. 972 p. ISBN 978-3-8305-1895-2: EUR 219
Until his death in 2010 Helmut Dau was the editor of this bibliographic series, each volume of which covers three years’ worth of publications and cumulates the index of festschrifts from 1864 until two years before the date of the volume’s publication. Dietrich Pannier and Anja Aulich took over the editorship with volume 10, which along with volume 9 and 8 have been reviewed in RREA 1:490, 4:144, and 12:200). This bibliography in continuation is notable not only for its six-decade history but also for the consistency of its indexing, organization, and scope (although ISBNs and prices are not given).
Volume 11 indexes 292 festschrifts in its first main section, and 9,924 contributions to festschrifts, 366 more than in the previous volume. The work concludes with five indexes: (1) authors and editors, (2) named persons, (3) places and countries, (4) key words, and (5) a cumulative index of persons celebrated and their institutions of those celebrated.
The number of festschrifts continues to increase with each three-year period, indicating that this genre enjoys an uninterrupted appreciation in the German-speaking countries. The size of the bibliography indicates the high importance of these publications to members of the profession, one which is particularly writing-intensive. The cumulative bibliography continues to be published here, even when all the titles are contained in the OPACs of the Bundesgerichthof (Federal Constitutional Court), the German National Library, and other state libraries. Whether in future as many libraries will continue to collect this title, given its luxurious price, remains to be seen, especially in an age in which online bibliographies are vastly preferred to printed ones.
Although the catalog records in the ZDB (Zeitschriftendatenbank [Periodicals Database]) indicate that the series has been discontinued, this reviewer is not so certain that volume 11 will be the last volume. The editor, Dietrich Pannier, was honored with a festschrift on the occasion of his 65th birthday (Köln, 2010), and it is foreseeable that he may wish to continue this bibliography work after his formal retirement. [sh/ldl,ga]
Vol. 4. S. Ed. Bernd Isphording, Gerhard Keiper, and Martin Kröger. 2012. xiv, 413 p. ill. ISBN 978-3-5 06-71843-3: EUR 118
Volume 1 of this five-volume work appeared in 2000, with several years separating the appearance of each successive volume. Volume 4 appears some four years after volume 3 (2008), but the completion of the fifth and final volume, T-Z, was announced in December 2012, and it is scheduled to appear in 2013. Volumes 1-3 have been reviewed in RREA 6:265; 11:166, and 13:224, and for a general description of the work’s organization and content, it is useful to quote from the RREA review for volume 3:
The handbook covers all officials and higher-level employees of the Foreign Office, both at home and in diplomatic and consular service abroad. Also included are some outside experts in trade, the economy, culture, and the press. The data are based on systematically analyzed personnel files made available for the first time, as well as other source files. The latter supplementation of Foreign Office files was indicated in cases of gaps in the record due to war circumstances. Each article provides information on the individual’s career, including details and dates of postings, assignments, and other duties. [jli/rlk]
Because of a significant concentration of German names beginning with S, volume 4 is limited to just this letter. The biographies include the individual’s professional background and activities prior to diplomatic service and any post-diplomatic work, as well. Each person’s foreign-service career is documented in tabular form and in significant detail. Perhaps the best-known personage in this volume is Gustav Stresemann, Weimar Republic foreign minister from 13 August 1923 until his death on 3 October 1929. The last head of the foreign office in the post-Hitler Dönitz government, Johann Ludwig (Lutz) Graf Schwerin von Krosigk (3-23 March 1945), is not included.
Beneath the “tip of the iceberg” are countless, in part downright suspenseful, biographies of officials and other foreign-office employees (for example, journalists), whose service in the 1930s and the war years involved much intelligence-gathering and intrigue. One shortcoming of this work is that too often death dates are not given, although they are available in other resources and catalogs. With the recent appearance of the fifth volume, scholars’ long-held wishes for a quick conclusion to this extremely valuable research work have finally been granted. [jli/ga]
This is a practical tool for use during excavations which frequently require communication between specialists from various disciplines and nationalities. The multilingual technical dictionary includes terms related to archeology, architecture, excavation techniques, historic preservation, topography, geology, measurements, and time. The terms appear in eight languages: Arabic, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Spanish, and Turkish. The unfortunate concentration on West European languages restricts its usefulness to excavations in the Mediterranean region; the inclusion of Chinese and Russian would have made for a more global resource. The treatment of the Arabic and Greek script is frustratingly inconsistent: the Greek is not romanized at all, and the romanization of the Arabic is inadequate, while the original Arabic script is lacking. A revised edition would benefit from the correction of typographical errors, more user-friendly tables, and more thorough research of proper English terminology, especially in the areas of architecture, building research, and historic preservation. Despite these issues, the book is admirable in its goal to provide a shared vocabulary tool, although its efficacy will only become evident once it is tested in the field. This dictionary perfectly complements the publisher’s recent Grabungsleitfaden [Excavation Guide] (see IFB 12-2). The addition of a complementary picture dictionary would further help to avoid misunderstandings. [mki/rg]
This two-volume index provides access to two periodicals devoted to the archaeology of Lower Saxony. Volume 1 covers the Nachrichtenblatt für Niedersachsens Vorgeschichte [Bulletin for Lower Saxony’s Protohistory] and its successor title, Nachrichten aus Niedersachsens Urgeschichte [News from Lower Saxony’s Prehistory]. Volume 2 indexes the supplements (Beihefte) to Niedersachsens Urgeschichte and also the periodical Die Kunde: Zeitschrift für niedersächsische Archäologie [The News: Journal for Lower Saxon Archaeology]. Coverage extends from the first issue of each periodical (1920 for the Nachrichtenblatt; 1933 for Die Kunde) up to the index’s closing date of 2009. Volume 2 indexes the supplements to Niedersachsens Urgeschichte and Die Kunde.
Each volume opens with a conspectus listing every issue of the periodical with its number, publication date, and place of publication. Following the conspectus there are four indexes: (1) for place names in the order in which they occur in each volume of the periodical, (2) for authors’ names in the order in which they occur in each volume of the periodical, (3) an alphabetical sequence of place names, and (4) an alphabetical sequence of authors’ names. The Beihefte to Niedersachsens Urgeschichte began publication in 1998, and so far six have been published. The index to the Beihefte takes up most of volume 2. A complete table of contents for each Beiheft is given, followed by three indexes: (1) an alphabetical list of excavation sites, (2) a list of excavation sites under the names of the jurisdictions in which they are located, and (3) an alphabetical list of authors. A topical index was not included, as most users will be interested primarily in searching on place names and secondarily on authors’ names. [sh/crc]
This book was published shortly after the conclusion of the exhibit Die Welt der Kelten: Zentren der Macht, Kostbarkeiten der Kunst [The World of the Celts: Centers of Power, Treasures of Art] held at the Landesmuseum Württemberg [Württemberg State Museum] in Stuttgart between September 2012 and February 2013. The guidebook provides a window into the culture and heritage of this diverse group of tribes through a look at nine representative sites located in southern Germany. An informative preface introduces the reader to present-day scholarly debates surrounding Celtic archeology. For those wishing to explore further, the book gives references to a number of other Celtic sites in the country, as well as in Austria, Switzerland, and France. It also includes the addresses of relevant clubs, museums, and cemeteries; a bibliography; a glossary of terms; and a list of illustrations.
This guide is an informative and well researched work, providing depictions of the most important Celtic archaeological sites in southern Germany. It is regrettable, however, that its format makes it look more like a scholarly treatise than a guidebook. When preparing a second edition of this work, the author would do well to increase the number of illustrations and preface every chapter with an abstract that would sum up information about the site and provide other practical advice. [mki/as]
The publisher’s series of cultural guides to history and archaeology began in 2010 with a guide to Ephesus in Asia Minor. While not reviewed in IFB 12-3, it is worth including here also the guide to ancient Apulia (today the Italian region of Puglia).
Each guide is written by classical archaeologists or historians and is intended for the visitor who wishes to be informed in some detail about the history and archaeology of region that is discussed. The books contain colored photographs, sketches of the foundations of buildings, maps, explanations of terms, practical tips, and bibliographies. [sh/ldl]
Specialists in Christian archaeology and classical studies will find this biographical encyclopedia an interesting research tool. It covers researchers active in early Christian studies and archaeology from the Renaissance up until the present day (which actually means only those who died in the 21st century, a fact not mentioned in the text) from over 30 countries in Europe, Asia, North Africa, and North America. Especially noteworthy is the inclusion of many scholars from Eastern Europe whose Slavic-language publications are not easily researched and accessed. The recently published Geschichte der Altertumswissenschaften (Stuttgart; Weimar, 2012) offers biographical coverage of fewer than half as many persons.
Entries provide a short biography of the individual and his or her place in the historical intellectual context, as well as information about archival holdings, bibliographies, writings by and about the scholar, and more than 700 illustrations of relevant items. The work closes with indexes listing persons, places, and members of religious orders.
Despite slight factual errors, such as misspelled or poorly transliterated personal names and missing birth or death dates, this work, with its broad chronological and geographical scope, sets a high bar for future comparable reference works and provides abundant information for researchers in the fields of both Christian archaeology and classical studies. [map/ldb]
This volume consists primarily of papers presented at an international symposium held in Göttingen, Germany, September 11-13, 2008, to mark the completion, in 2007, of the second edition of the highly regarded multi-volume encyclopedia, the Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. The Reallexikon was originally issued between 1911 and 1919; its second edition commenced publication in 1968. The adjective “Germanic” (i.e., “Teutonic”), though present in the title of the work being honored, was omitted from the title of this homage; that was a deliberate choice, and reflects the doubt now felt in the scholarly community as to whether it is still possible to posit the existence of a discrete “Germanic” culture.
This collection is organized into three main sections. The first comprises a history of the Reallexikon along with an elucidation of the mindset that underlay its creation. The second section, entitled “Perspectives,” is an overview of the less controversial thematic sections of the Reallexikon, such as philology, law, and medicine. The third section is fittingly entitled `Problemfelder” [problematic areas], and is devoted to difficult questions of historiography in relation to such concepts as “Teutonic,” “tribe,” and the origins of the “Anglo-Saxons.” This section contains useful résumés of current research (including archaeological and DNA studies) on these topics, along with up-to-date bibliographical references.
The volume represents a culmination and summation of the Reallexikon and thus should be attractive to any institution or person able to acquire all 37 volumes of the Reallexikon itself. [map/crc]
Supplement Volume 6 comes 13 years after the completion volume 13—the final volume—of the parent series Der Neue Pauly [The New Pauly] (see RREA 6:273). Two other supplement volumes have been reviewed in RREA: Landfester and Egger’s Geschichte der antiken Texte: Autoren- und Werklexikon (see RREA 13:129) and Maria Moog Grünewald’s Mythenrezeption: die antike Mythologie in Literatur, Musik und Kunst von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (see RREA 14:123). The six supplement volumes published to date area also available—for a pretty penny—in English translation (for volume 6 the translated title in the citation above is also the title of the English translation).
Volume 6 contains about 750 biographies of researchers from the 14th to the 20th century, that is excluding living scholars and researchers. More than half of the articles are about persons from the 19th and 20th centuries. The editors intend this work to be an internationally important tool for the history of classical scholarship. Seven disciplines are covered: humanism, classicism, philology (17th-18th centuries and 19th-20th centuries), archaeology, ancient history, and oriental studies. More specifically the persons included belong to the disciplines of philology, archaeology, ancient history, antiquities, epigraphy, numismatics, papyrology, Egyptology, ancient orientalism. There are representatives, as well, of neighboring disciplines that incorporate the history of the ancient world, for example Max Weber, Karl Polanyi, and Michel Foucault. The editorial limitation of coverage to these seven disciplines (in one volume) means that many scholars and researchers who otherwise made important contributions to the study of ancient history, are not included.
The biographies average two columns in length. Each provides basic biographical and professional information as well as a bibliography of secondary literature and the scholar’s own publications. The editors have also supplied a detailed survey of classical studies from Petrarch to the 20th century. The volume contains an index of abbreviations, a chronological listing of the articles according to the subjects’ birth years, and a table for the transcription of ancient Greek. A lengthy index of personal names completes the volume.
The biographical entries give a pithy survey of their subjects. In the case of scholars of Christian archaeology, the reader would do well to consult also the more extensive Personenlexikon zur Christlichen Archäologie (see RREA 18:114), which includes a number of scholars in classical studies. [mep,sh/ga]
This work was originally issued in 2007 at the hefty price of nearly 180 euros. It is now being re-issued for the much more reasonable sum of 39.95 euros. Since it represents a more attractive purchase at this price, it seemed best to grant it another review.
The main section consists primarily of maps with associated commentaries. Most of the maps are in color and are printed on the right-hand pages, with their accompanying commentaries on the left-hand pages. Some 60 percent of the maps used here are drawn from this volume’s parent work, Der neue Pauly.
The broad progression of the atlas is chronological, from prehistory up to the Byzantine Empire. There is a division into seven main categories: (1) Ancient conceptions of the world; (2) The epoch of the first civilizations, 3000-1200 BC; (3) The epoch of the eastern empires, ca. 1200-600 BC; (4) The restructuring of the Mediterranean world, 6th to 3d centuries BC; (5) The epoch of the great powers, 4th/3d century BC to 1st century BC (divided into two subsections, one for Alexander and the Hellenistic world, the second for the rise of Rome); (6) Imperial Rome, 1st century BC to 5th century AD; and (7) The epoch of the Byzantine Empire, 5th to 15th centuries AD.
Despite a few gestures towards a more global approach, the volume stays close to the classical Western conception of Antiquity; little space is devoted to the civilizations of the Far East or to the Slavic peoples.
In a few instances, statements are made that are not fully in line with the current thinking of experts in the field, but this is a mere quibble. Now that the volume is available at a reasonable price, it can be recommended to everyone in the field of classics and ancient history. [mma/crc]
Vol. 6. 1939. Ed. Friedrich Hartmannsgruber. 2012. lxx, 966 p. ISBN 978-3-486-71257-5: EUR 108
Volume 1 of the series Akten der Reichskanzlei—Regierung Hitler was published in 1983 under the editorial leadership of Karl-Heinz Minuth. Volume 2 did not appear until 1998, edited by Friedrich Hartmannsgruber, who has led the preparation of each volume since then. These volumes, published the Historical Commission of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences for the Federal Archives, have appeared at regular intervals every three to four years. Volume 5 (2008) was reviewed in IFB 09-1/2.
The year 1939 was one of a broad spectrum of events, which are covered in this volume: foreign policy and the road to war; the absorption of the remainder of the Czech lands and the establishment of the Bohemia-Moravia Protectorate; the continuing deprivation of Jewish rights; the outbreak of war and the move to a war economy; resettlement of peoples, and a host of changes in laws, the constitution, and economic, finance, labor, and social policies. Volume 6 contains 222 documents from the many Reich ministries, and a further 391 “Lammers Reports”—delivered to Hitler by Hans Heinrich Lammers (1879-1962), the chief of the Chancellery. For all practical purposes the Reichskabinett (the conference of ministers) had ceased to meet after February 1938 and did not meet again until 1945, and any legislation, regulations, or decisions were accomplished by informal consultation among the ministers.
In 1937 Hitler named Lammers as state secretary and chief of the Reich Chancellery, a position Lammers held for the rest of the Nazi period, and he remained a close associate of the Führer. Hitler himself took a keen personal interest in many details of the Chancellery, for example, in the renaming of streets and plazas in conquered territories (such as Bohemia and Moravia), assuming control of the 1940 Winter Olympics, being closely informed about railway operations (albeit because of the transport of Jews to concentration camps), reorganizing districts within the larger provinces (Gaue), deciding on the new national anthem, and similarly. Lammers was the signature authority for these decrees and regulations, but they had received the Führer’s personal approval beforehand.
The volume for the year 1939 is thus another trove of documentation on the domestic and foreign policies of the Third Reich, on a broad array of subjects and topics. The work is of lasting high quality and compiled with great care and professional attention to the annotations, which are excellent references to further research. The volume begins with a 35-page introduction to the major events and themes and concludes with detailed indexes to persons, places, and subjects. There is significant inconsistency with the abbreviations for the corporate headings and document series, necessitating further consultation with the index of abbreviations. And it is most curious that the 1939 volume has only roughly half the number of documents (222) as the 1938 volume (391) and Lammers Reports (391 for 1939, 601 for 1938). However, this fact could be a reflection of the greatly diminished role of the Chancellery and government, and the increasing frequency of government by decree, between 1939 and 1945. [jli/ga]
Nazi administration of the occupied regions of Europe has only recently emerged as an independent area of historical research. The Reichskommissariat Ostland contains presentations from a 2009 conference organized by the Schleswig-Holstein Institute for Contemporary and Local History at the University of Flensburg. Collaborating in the conference were the German Armed Forces Military History Research Office and the German Historical Institute Warsaw. That a research institute in Schleswig-Holstein should undertake this study is no coincidence; the chief commissar for the Eastern Realm was Hinrich Lohse, Nazi Gauleiter of Schleswig-Holstein. The Reichskommissariat Ostland (RKO) administered a region that included present-day Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Belarus, home to several hundred thousand Jews.
The introductory essay by Sebastian Lehmann is followed by 17 chapters on both the history of the RKO during the time of the occupation and also later historiographical and legal interpretations. Broad topical categories include the Nazis’ Vernichtungspolitik [policy of extermination], internal and organizational affairs, and particular aspects of the occupation. The book presents a rich and multifaceted picture of the RKO and its treatment in contemporary historiographical and legal circles. A personal name index is provided at the end of the volume. For information in English on the RKO see David Gaunt, “Reichskommissariat Ostland,” p. 210-220 in Jonathan C. Friedman, ed., The Routledge History of the Holocaust (London, 2011). [jli/as]
In February 1945 Hitler admitted belatedly: “The alliance with Italy obviously helped our enemies more than it did us. While I was heading toward Montoire, Mussolini took advantage of my absence to start his unfortunate campaign against Greece. Against our will we were forced to intervene by force of arms in the events in the Balkans, which caused the fatal delay in the advance on Russia. If we had already attacked Russia by May 15, everything would most likely have been different.” The recognition that in Italy he had chosen an unsuitable ally came so late because Hitler was always very hesitant to revise decisions once they had been made and apodictically proclaimed irrevocable.
Even considerably before Mussolini rose to power, Hitler had determined upon Italy as a future ally, despite the Anglophilia that had earlier led him to feel Britain would be a better partner. In view of his fixation on Italy, it is astonishing that there has not previously been any research into how Hitler came to it, or what his concept of Italy and its people was and how it changed over time. Jobst C. Knigge, a journalist and historian who was a foreign correspondent in Rome from 1970 to 1980, has now filled this gap. His study, based on printed sources of the time as well as relevant research literature, is structured in two parts: how Hitler’s picture of Italy came into being, and then its “confrontation with reality.”
Hitler, an autodidact, admired notable Italians of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, such as Cola di Rienzo and Macchiavelli, and possessed a general knowledge of Italian art, music, and architecture. He had never been to Italy and did not know any Italians. He first met with Mussolini in 1934 and ascribed to him the values of the ancient Romans. He was initially unwilling to accept that both the Italian people and their head of state were very different from his concept of them. The two men were disparate not only in their temperaments but also in their political goals. Mussolini was content to fight merely in Hitler’s wake, and his army was less capable than it seemed. The Italian leader did enact anti-Jewish race laws similar to those in Germany, but he was no racist and did not participate systematically in the so-called “Final Solution.” The author delineates how the relationship between Mussolini and Hitler changed over the years. Hitler’s political successes led to an increase in his self-confidence and moved Mussolini to give him a free hand in Austria, thereby ceding Italy’s most significant trump card and coupling its fortunes with those of Germany.
Knigge has written an informative and readable book that is an important complement to the 1996 work by Andrea Hoffend[-Mentrup], Zwischen Kultur-Achse und Kulturkampf: die Beziehungen zwischen “Drittem Reich” und faschistischem Italien in den Bereichen Medien, Kunst, Wissenschaft und Rassenfragen [Between an Axis of Cultures and a Battle of Cultures: The Relationships between the “Third Reich” and Fascist Italy in the Media, Art, Science, and Race Issues] (Frankfurt, 1998). Knigge’s bibliography is comprehensive and current, and the name index is reliable. More substantial methodological depth could have been achieved if the author had made use of imagology, which has helped literary and cultural scholarship to reveal stereotypes such as those that characterized Hitler’s concept of Italy. [frh/nb]
This collection of short biographies of 437 contemporaries of Frederick the Great appeared in time for the 300th anniversary of his birth. The author is a lecturer at the University of Mainz. Two other reference works appearing in anticipation of the anniversary—the Fridericianische Encyclopédie: Friedrich der Große und seine Epoche; das Lexikon; Ereignisse, Personen, Sachverhalte (see RREA 17:156) and the Handbuch zur preußischen Militärgeschichte, 1688-1786 (see RREA 17:157)—also devote a significant amount of space to biographical articles.
The names of those included are listed by subject groups in an appendix. The entries are generally a little more than half a page long. Each entry heading provides the name with date and place of birth and death. All articles conclude with a bibliography of primary and/or secondary sources.
The General Index of names prints in bold type the names of those persons with articles to distinguish them from names mentioned only in the text. The 16 full-page black-and-white portraits are of passable quality while the 25 poorly-reproduced illustrations of statues, separating the alphabetical sections, leave the impression of a “cheap,” print-on-demand product.
Academic libraries owning larger standard reference works may consider this title for its ease of access. [sh/rc]
The volume is a catalog of an exhibit mounted by the State Archive and the State Library in Berlin from July 6 to September 30, 2012, under the aegis of their parent organization, the Foundation for Prussian Cultural Property. Contrary to the first part of its title, it does not deal with King Frederick the Great only as a literary author. Its focus encompasses all the work he carried out at his desk, much of which is characterized by the designation “written communications.”
Nine separate sections of greatly varying lengths cover such topics as Frederick’s work in politics, philosophy, history, and the military; his correspondence with family; his private press and his connections to contemporary authors; and his musical activities. Bibliographical references are given at the end of each section, but there is no comprehensive bibliography. The text is interrupted by unattractive pink pages that accommodate illustrations, end notes, and quotations, and the awkward design of the cover makes it difficult to handle the volume. The designers would have done better to follow the example of the excellent catalog Die Bücher des Königs (RREA 18:21), which accompanied an exhibit in the State Library of a private collection of items from Frederick’s library. [sh/nb]
Section 3.1871-1898.
Vol. 1. Schriften [Writings], 1871-1873. Ed. Andrea Hopp. 2004. lxxxii, 638 p. ISBN 3-506-70130-4: EUR 60
Vol. 2. Schriften, 1874-1876. Ed. Rainer Bendick. 2005. lxxx, 710 p. ISBN 3-506-71350-7: EUR 66
Vol. 3. Schriften, 1877-1878. Ed. Michael Epkenhans and Erik Lommatsch. 2008. xc, 659 p. ISBN 978-3-506-76525-3: EUR 69
Vol. 4. Schriften, 1879-1881. Ed. Andrea Hopp. 2008. c, 287 p. ISBN 978-3-506-76526-0: EUR 78
Vol. 5. Schriften, 1882-1883. Ed. Ulrich Lappenküper. 2010. cv, 678 p. ISBN 978-3-506-76848-3: EUR 78
Vol. 6. Schriften, 1884-1885. Ed. Ulrich Lappenküper. 2011. cxxiii, 855 p. ISBN 978-3-506-77171-1: EUR 78
The Neue Friedrichsruher Ausgabe (NFA) [New Friedrichsruh Edition] of Bismarck’s collected works, published by the Otto-von-Bismarck-Stiftung [Otto von Bismarck Foundation], contains his writings, speeches, and conversations. The NFA is intended to replace the original Friedrichsruher Ausgabe published between 1924 and 1935. The NFA contains a wealth of previously unpublished documents from before and after 1871, and it covers subjects and critical inquiries that were not in the historiographical field of vision those many decades ago.
The Neue Friedrichsruher Ausgabe begins with Abteilung 3 [Section 3], which begins with Bismarck’s term as Reich Chancellor in 1871 (the unification of Germany) and runs to the end of his life in 1898. At least nine volumes of his Schriften are planned, and six have appeared so far. An additional two volumes of his Gespräche [Conversations] and three volumes of his Reden [Speeches] will be published in this third section. This reviewer welcomes the fact that the NFA begins with the period 1871-1891 and covers Bismarck’s Schriften in nine volumes; the earlier Friedrichsruher Ausgabe covers his Schriften in a single one volume and is limited to writings on domestic policy. Bismarck’s writings on foreign policy were left to Die große Politik der europäischen Kabinette 1871-1914: Sammlung der diplomatischen Akten des Auswärtigen Amtes [The Grand Politics of the European Cabinets, 1817-1914: A Collection of the Diplomatic Files of the Foreign Office], edited by Johannes Lepsius, Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy, and Friedrich Thimme (Berlin, 1922-1927).
In comparing the two editions, suffice it to say that the NFA contains many times more documents. For example, for the years 1884-1885, the Friedrichsruher Ausgabe contains 43 documents, while the NFA contains 563 (out of 3,100 documents for the entire period). The editors have thoroughly searched the collections of the federal German foreign ministry archives, the Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz [Secret State Archive of Prussian Cultural Heritage], the Otto-von-Bismarck-Stiftung, provincial archives in Munich, Dresden, and Magdeburg, and the Bleichroeder Collection in the Baker Library of the Harvard Business School.
The documents are arranged in chronological order and are reproduced in their entirety, with few exceptions. Each volume has a brief thematic introduction. Because there are no changes in Bismarck’s spelling or punctuation, the documents receive a brief commentary in the form of elaboration on dates or events, and they are cross-referenced to related documents. The personal name index contains bibliographical references, and a chronological index completes the volume. The lack of a subject or keyword index makes searching for corporate bodies more difficult and detracts slightly from this otherwise outstanding collection.
Much still needs to be done to complete this project, and this reviewer hopes that the energy for completing the work will not flag. Additionally it is hoped that the editors and compilers will be able to create a cumulative index volume, whether in print or on line. This important project deserves a timely and successful outcome. [jli/ga]
Section 4. Gedanken und Erinnerungen [Thoughts and Remembrances]. Ed. Michael Epkenhans and Eberhard Kolb. 2012. xxxi, 616 p. ill. ISBN 978-3-506-77070-7: EUR 56
Otto von Bismarck’s Gedanken und Erinnerungen have appeared in several editions, each slightly different from the others (often because of well-intended but poorly executed editorial judgments). The Neue Friedrichsruher Ausgabe (NFA) [New Friedrichsruh Edition] is the third critical edition of Bismarck’s memoirs to appear since 1932. The NFA presents Bismarck’s memoirs in the text he authorized, including his corrections to the galleys of the 1898 edition. Michael Epkenhans and Eberhard Kolb have left any critical interpretation of Bismarck’s text to the other critical editions; here they strive for rigorous adherence to the text Bismarck left behind. The text is true to the letter, with no modernization of orthography (a major orthography reform was introduced in 1901) or in punctuation. Errors and false information are retained, with corrections noted in the remarks section.
This edition contains some heretofore unpublished documents: two fragmentary sketches of Bismarck’s letter to Leopold von Gerlach (25-30 May 1857) and five notes by Herbert von Bismarck from April 1890 to November 1896, which pertain to the publication of Otto von Bismarck’s memoirs. The volume concludes with indexes of abbreviations, sources, and literature, along with a register of personal and geographical names. There is no subject index, which is not as crucial to these memoirs as it would be to Bismarck’s writings published in Section 3 (2004-2010).
Bismarck’s memoirs were a bestseller in his time, with some 500,000 copies sold in 1898, the year of his death. This figure is especially impressive considering that the concepts of marketing and bestsellers were not part of the book trade of that time. The authentic text and informative annotations in this excellent edition offer the reader a pleasant and engaging read. [jli/ga]
Bernd Braun, a well-regarded researcher on the Weimar Republic, presents the biographies of 12 Weimar chancellors in an unusual but very readable format. The lives of the 12 chancellors are arranged thematically rather than alphabetically or chronologically. The monograph, following Braun’s pictorial work on the same subject, Die Weimarer Reichskanzler: zwölf Lebensläufe in Bildern [The Weimar Chancellors: Twelve Biographies in Pictures] (Düsseldorf, 2011), explores the biographies along the following lines: their origins (three from Baden, nine from Prussia), their family background (most of them were from families of modest means), their education and profession, their careers in politics, the political influences on them (from family or environment), the characteristics of their terms in office, their lives after their terms had ended, and a portrait of their immediate family.
The author makes a well-reasoned plea for a renewed appraisal of the Weimar Chancellors. While significant work has been done on Gustav Stresemann, Heinrich Brüning, and Franz von Papen, there are no biographies at all for Gustav Bauer, Hermann Müller, or Wilhelm Cuno.
This book would be more user-friendly if it presented the biographical information in tables as well as in the essays, but it is nevertheless very useful as a reference work because of the extensive bibliography. [jli/hm]
Trained at the University of Mainz’ Department of Translation Studies as a conference interpreter and translator for English and French, Miriam Winter has created a basic introduction to the situation of the training and professional practice of foreign-language interpreters in the Nazi regime. Her goal is to describe systematically a rather obscure and complicated situation and to trace the enforcement of ideology within the profession. The first part of the book looks at the conflicting attempts of several different agencies within the National Socialist bureaucracy to introduce national exams and training regimes for the profession, and the eventual creation of a national qualification for “interpreters, translators, stenographers, stenotypists, foreign-language secretaries, and ‘machine writers’,” by the German Central Congress with the support of the several ministries and the Nazi Party of Berlin in 1941. The second part uses the example of English-language study material published in the early 1940’s to analyze the political and cultural direction of the professional training of interpreters. Winter’s work is somewhat superficial, for several reasons. First, she does not make sufficiently clear the overlap between interpretation and translation, with the result that she relies too much on one set of sources and neglects many others (e.g., professional periodicals and book series), which would have provided ample evidence for the militarization of the field. Second, she neglects some key secondary sources, like Gideon Botch‘s analysis of the Foreign Studies Department at the Friedrich-Wilhelm University in Berlin, “Politische Wissenschaft” im Zweiten Weltkrieg: die “Deutschen Auslandswissenschaften” im Einsatz 1940-1945 (Paderborn, 2006) and Frank-Rüdiger Hausmann‘s study of the Interpreter Companies under the Ministry of Defense, “Vom Strudel der Erignisse Verschlungen”: Deutsche Romanistik im “Dritten Reich” (Frankfurt am Main, 2008). Miriam Winters’ slim volume is a first step on the way to a systematic body of research and description of the fields of interpretation and translation during the Third Reich. Unfortunately she has missed the opportunity to put together a comprehensive study of the subject matter, but this book can still serve as a point of departure for future work. [frh/rb]
The year 1112 is regarded as the first official mention of the territory of Baden. In the deed of gift from Emperor Heinrich V to Margrave Hermann II of the Diocese of Bamberg, Hermann is addressed as de Baden (or Badun). This catalog appeared on the occasion of the large state-sponsored exhibit Baden! 900 Jahre: Geschichten eines Landes [... Stories of a State] in the Baden State Museum in Karlsruhe, from 16 June to 11 November 2012. The authors of this excellent catalog have chosen to present the history of the state of Baden using spotlights on historical figures, places, and events that represent key moments in the agricultural, economic, political, cultural, and literary history of this area. Each of these highlights is accompanied by an informative essay. The participant is truly invited to discover the history of this state. [mk/ldl]
Following her stately volume about Munich historical figures from 2010 (see IFB 10-4]), the busy historian Katharina Weigand has now produced a no less captivating portrait collection of great figures in Bavarian history. This work complements her earlier collective biography, Die Herrscher Bayerns: 25 historische Portraits von Tassilo III. bis Ludwig III (see RREA 8:245).
The present volume also contains 25 individual short biographies crafted by experts at Bavarian institutions of higher learning (there is a list of authors on p. 595-596). The goal was not to be comprehensive but rather representative in breadth and variety. We find men and women, politicians and church leaders, writers, musicians and artists, lawyers and inventors. Thus the title itself comes into question, as the figures come from “history” only in the most broadly understood sense, from “greatness” often only in a limited sense, and from “Bavaria” only in the borders after 1800 (granting honorary proto-Bavarian citizenship to Albertus Magnus—the only personage with greatness in his name—and Albrecht Dürer). The inclusion of the Franconian Ludwig Erhard, among others, is emblematic of the editorial desire in this volume to struggle against the Lederhosen-and-sauerkraut-and-beer-based clichés of what a Bavarian has allegedly always been like. Within the Erhard narrative is the statement that Bavaria is more than—and different from—the common conception.
The volume is professionally edited and full of variety and informational tidbits. Monotony and predictability are absent. At the end of the work come notes and a well-crafted index to relevant literature (p. 577-593). There is, unfortunately, no index to names. [frh/rdh]
This dictionary is an important and at the same time very attractive work. The book and the three maps—Nürnberg: amtlicher Stadtplan [Nürnberg: Official City Plan] in two parts at a scale of 1:15,000 and a single map of the Altstadtteil [Old City] at a scale of 1:7,500—are packaged in a slipcase. The dust-jacket of the dictionary features excerpts from city maps from 1900 and 2005. Integrated into the dictionary are four fascicles of 48 double-sided plates with aerial photographs of Nürnberg districts from 1927; the rest of the dictionary is also richly illustrated.
The city views come predominantly from photographs or postcards; included also are portraits of people and coats of arms of localities or families after which streets are named. Other sources of illustrations include posters of sights and events, such as the city zoo or the Hans Sachs Festival of 1976. The introductory essay by co-editor Steven M. Zahlaus explains the history of street naming in Nürnberg and describes the most important types of street names.
Laid out in two columns per page, the dictionary contains 5,414 entries, of which 3,147 are full entries. The remaining entries are cross-references, based on syntax (e.g., inverted word order or personal names with titles), references to previous names, and also references to street names proposed but never implemented (for example, for a new street in 1951 the name “Max-Planck-Straße” was chosen over “Edisonstraße”). Full entries are given exclusively for street names in use today, with historical antecedents, the reasons for their names, and coordinates to their locations on the enclosed maps. Most articles are between five and ten lines in length. The information is current through 2011.
This collection of interesting facts and explanations (for example, after which king was the Königsstraße named? was the Orffstraße named for the composer or a military officer?) provides a unique cultural history of the city. The dictionary’s comprehensiveness, basic information, and appealing layout make it a valuable research tool for specialists and local historians, as well as for the broader public. It is also an important supplement to Michael Diefenbacher and Rudolf Endres’ 1,200-page Stadtlexikon Nürnberg (see RREA 8:248), which focuses on the Old City and gives only brief information about the outlying districts. The Stadtlexikon is also searchable online at http://online-service.nuernberg.de/stadtarchiv/dok_start.fau?prj=biblio&dm=Stadtlexikon (accessed January 19, 2014). [hdw/ga]
Vol. 5. 2010. 425 p. ill. ISBN 978-3-8353-0640-0: EUR 29.90
Vol. 6. 2012. 507 p. ill. ISBN 978-3-8353-1025-4: EUR 32
While already intimated in earlier volumes, in 2012 the editors formally announced that volume 6 would be the last of this series begun in 2001. (Volumes 1-2 were published by Verlag Christians, Hamburg.) This reviewer finds himself bereft of the distinct pleasure of anticipating the next engaging volume, having reviewed all six volumes of this Who’s Who in the literary, cultural, scholarly, and historical life of the city of Hamburg.
Four of the five previous volumes have been reviewed in RREA (8:253, 11:200, 12:224, 14:147), and volume 5 is cited and information from its IFB review (11-1) incorporated here to bring the project to proper closure. Volume 5 contains 265 articles, volume 6 a further 250 articles, bringing the total number to 1,891. Criteria for inclusion are persons of note who were born and/or died here, as well as those who were part of Hamburg city life. Persons come from most centuries of the Common Era; the first entry is for Karl der Große (Charlemagne), whose wars profoundly affected the North Elbe region and Hamburg itself. Contrary to older historiography, however, Charlemagne was not the founder of Hamburg and probably never set foot in the city.
The most recently deceased personalities of German and wider fame include the Austrian actress, theater lecturer, and screenwriter Monica Bleibtreu (b. Hamburg, 4 May 1944, d. Vienna, 13 May 2009); German-British sociologist, politician, and essayist Ralf Dahrendorf (d. 17 June 2009); author Peter Rühmkorf (d. 8 August 2008); actress, singer, and lifelong citizen Heidi Kabel (d. 15 June 2010); and Hannelore (“Loki”) Schmidt (d. 21 October 2010), wife of German chancellor Helmut Schmidt. In volume 6 are found numerous prominent librarians from many centuries.
Volume 6 contains several indexes, some of which were included at the suggestion of this and other reviewers. For instance, there is an index of the 88 women and men who contributed to volume 6, with detailed information about them. The cumulative index to articles and names for all six volumes is very important, because it identifies a large number of individuals who are given only passing mention in the biographical entries. There is also an index of the 244 persons who contributed to the entire project, volumes 1-6, showing the tremendous variety in their backgrounds. [sh/ga]
The biographies in this reference work are not arranged alphabetically, as one would expect, but into six topical chapters. The first covers the origins of the House of Hesse to its partition in 1568. Subsequent chapters cover the resulting individual family branches, including the two main lines (Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Darmstadt), as well as three smaller branches. Negotiating the text is facilitated by consulting the included family trees. Within each chapter, the individual signed biographical entries are arranged in genealogical/chronological order and include biographical details, burial location, information on the estate, and bibliographical references to literature and portraits. At the request of the family, only a limited number of the family’s living members are included. The appendix lists participating institutes, archives, and museums, a bibliography, and an index of persons, families, and places. The 346 chiefly colored illustrations contribute to the attractiveness of the work, which can be used as a reference book as well as a monograph to be read from beginning to end. [sh/rg]
With its small size, narrow scope, and numerous illustrations, this work is more of a guidebook than a reference work on a specific aspect of Marburg’s history. Based on a 15-year project in Marburg, in which buildings of significance to famous denizens were marked with commemorative plaques, the book was published in cooperation with the city’s Fachdienst Kultur der Stadt [Municipal Office for the Culture of the City] as part of the project.
The unusually detailed foreword gives advice on how to use the book. Each personal entry is double-sided, with a color photograph of the house or location on the left-hand page and information and a portrait of the person on the right. The book contains many photographs of Marburg’s side-streets and out-of-the-way locales, but many of these photos unfortunately detract from the aesthetics of the city, depicting pretentious modern architecture and plain, everyday shops and storefronts, for example, “Elly’s Coffee & More” (in English) next to the 13th-century Elisabeth Church.
The indexes and tables at the end of the book are helpful in planning one’s walking-tour through the city (although a GPS app would be quite useful here). The city tourist office’s website has a page for Marburger Berühmtheiten (http://www.marburg.de/en/11790; accessed September 5, 2014), which displays all 50 persons, with portrait and brief information.
For a richer cultural picture of Marburg, the visitor should consult Marita Metz-Becker’s Schreibende Frauen: Marburger Schriftstellerinnen des 19. Jahrhunderts [Writing Women: Marburg’s Women Authors of the 19th Century] (Marburg, 1990—see IFB 99-B09-530) and Ellen Kemp et al., Marburg: Architekturführer [Marburg: An Architectural Guide] (Petersberg, 2002—see IFB 04-1-196).
Even though the publisher supplies the subtitle “ein Stadtrundgang” [a city stroll], having studied in Marburg some decades ago and having made extended visits there from time to time, this reviewer is not averse to including this popular-scholarly publication, with its small size, narrow scope, and numerous illustrations, in a review journal dedicated to libraries and scholarship. [sh/ga]
The publishing working group Andere Geschichte [Alternative History] has compiled a new biographical reference work about 68 prominent citizens who died after 1900 and who have ties to the city of Braunschweig, Germany. Representatives of the National Socialist Party are excluded, due to the criterion that no coverage be given to persons who committed any crime. The entries provide names, birth and death dates, addresses, and a small black-white portrait and are on average four pages in length. The profiled personalities come from all walks of life, with an emphasis on individuals associated with the Technical University of Braunschweig. Well-known past denizens of Braunschweig include the authors Wilhelm Raabe, Ricarda Huch, and Ina Seidel, the philosopher Fiedrich Boden, and Otto Grotewohl, the first president of the German Democratic Republic.
Those wishing more information about second- and third-tier personalities should consult the much larger biographical works available. The two volumes of the Braunschweigisches biographisches Lexikon (see RREA 12:246 and IFB 99-B09-546) cover the 8th to the 20th centuries with some 2,800 entries. The Braunschweiger Stadtlexikon (see RREO 95-2-283 and RREA 3:228 respectively) contains some 1,400 entries, a large portion of which are biographical.
Even so, this 20th-century collective biography under review is a sensible addition to libraries with collections on German history. [sh/ldb]
Building on the success of Das grosse Köln-Lexikon (see RREA 11:189), the same publisher has now come out with a reference work on Düsseldorf, the capital of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Including 2,124 short articles on both subjects and people (for Cologne, people were covered in a separate volume, the Kölner Personen-Lexikon (see RREA 13:236), this work is current as of December 2011 and addresses topics such as the city’s significant streets and districts, buildings, organizations and companies, issues of historical and contemporary interest, and people who are no longer living but either came from Düsseldorf or were active there, even if only briefly. The entries are accompanied by one or two bibliographic references. The appendix includes lists (rulers, mayors, honorary citizens, etc.), numerous statistics, a chronology, a map (only one, alas) and a bibliography.
Intended as both a reference work and an “an attractive book for reading,” it is aimed primarily at residents and visitors, which, however, does not mean that it would not be of interest to scholarly libraries. [sh/sl]
The review of the first edition of this work (see RREA 12:230) describes the substance of the current iteration, as well. It is striking that although the new preface touts “nearly 100 new entries,” the page count is identical. A number of illustrations were replaced and several articles moved around based on re-identification (for example, the Deutsche Bücherei becomes the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek). There are still no bibliographic references. Librarians will have to decide whether the proffered update is worth acquiring. [sh/rlk]
Since 13 February 1945 Dresden has often been referred to as the “Stadt der Opfer” [City of Victims]. However, as the capital city of the Gau [district] of Saxony, Dresden was also a leading “Stadt der Täter” [City of Perpetrators] in Nazi Germany. In Braune Karrieren, 33 authors have written 42 essays on key personages not only from the Nazi party and the secret police, but also from the professions of law, medicine, the economy, architecture, the church, science, education, and the arts. The term Akteure refers to those persons whose actions, while difficult to prosecute in a court of law, were nonetheless very useful to the Nazi state.
The book covers the relationships and personal motives of persons with similar functions or with family connections within these social and institutional organizations. One encounters, for example, medical professionals carrying out Nazi racial and eugenic policies in hospitals and clinics; a leading author who lead public book-burnings; museum directors who were closely involved in the Sonderauftrag Linz [Special Assignment Linz] (Hitler’s project to assemble all of Europe’s art treasures in one vast museum in Linz, Austria); and an architect married to Hitler’s half-sister. There is also a section entitled Angehörige berichten [Relatives Recount] in which, for example, a daughter writes about her mother, who was the deputy regional leader of the Bund Deutscher Mädel [German Girls’ League], the female branch of the Hitler Youth.
Braune Karrieren complements Clemens Vollnhals’ Sachsen in der NS-Zeit [Saxony in the Nazi Period] (Leipzig, 2002), which contains biographies of 502 Nazi perpetrators and bullies, likewise not only from the SS or the Gestapo but also from the professions and other pillars of society. [sh/ga]
Vol. 11. Ed. Joachim Bahlcke. 2012. 671 p. ill. ISBN 978-3-7686-3513-4: EUR 49.80
All 11 volumes of this series, from 1922 to the present, are still in print—the first six volumes reprinted between 1985 and 1990. Volumes 7 (2001)-10 (2010) were reviewed in RREA 7:335, 10:258, and 15/16: 208 respectively. In contrast to the organization in earlier volumes, the 47 biographies in volume 11 are arranged chronologically by the subject’s birth year, ranging from the 12th century to 1930. Three of the persons, artist Bernhard Heisig, the Polish historian Karol Jonca, and one of the main speakers for an expellees association, Herbert Hupka, lived into the 21st century. Three women are included: diarist and chronicler Marie (Dorothea Elisabeth de Castellane, Princess) Radziwill (1840-1915), memoirist Princess Daisy of Pless (1873-1943), and novelist Ruth Storm (1905-1993).
Forty-four contributors, including six from Poland and three from the Czech Republic, are given brief biographies in the index. The work concludes with a place-name register (with concordance) for volume 11, and a cumulative name index to all previous volumes, bringing the total number of subjects to 533. While in the foreword is mention that this series may conclude soon, it remains the oldest and best biographical source for Silesia. [sh/ga]
Vol. 10. Q – Sch[warz]. Ed. Harald Roth. 2012. vi, 441 p. ISBN 978-3-412-20758-8: EUR 54.90
This tenth volume of the Encyclopedia of Transylvanian German Writers is part of a nearly 150-year-old project. For a review of volume 9 (2004), see RREA 10:252. Continuation of the work has been newly entrusted to the Transylvanian Institute in Gundelsheim and thereby into the care and keeping of the talented specialist Harald Roth. He has published a number of works on the Germans of Transylvania, among them is volume 17, Siebenbürgen, in the series Handbuch der historischen Stätten (see RREA 10:253). As often occurs with such changes in editorial venue, the publication of this volume required some eight years. This change has brought a welcome growth in the size of the writing staff as well: a number of members of the Arbeitskreis für Siebenbürgische Landeskunde [Working Group for Transylvanian Studies] are now contributing articles and updates. As with preceding volumes, volume 10 contains new articles as well as updates and extensions of articles that were originally included in earlier volumes.
Biographical information extends from one-half to several pages, followed by bibliographic data in the categories “Data about Him” and “Literature in Print by Him.” The pronoun “Him” makes it clear that all the authors have been male up to now; after a volume 11 to complete the alphabet, See-Z (estimated to appear in 2014), the 12th volume has been announced as an introduction and index to female Transylvanian German writers. May this work, which has extended from the 19th into the 21st century, soon fulfill its destined purpose. [sh/rdh]
German troops occupied the neutral Grand Duchy of Luxembourg on 10 May 1940, and before long a new German administrator began efforts to “de-Francify” the country and unite it with the German Reich. These processes are known in various details, but the means of carrying out the Germanization policy have until now been studied only sketchily. Having done her research in Luxembourg (national and municipal) archives, the author has accomplished groundbreaking work in her 2010 dissertation, which she defended jointly for the Universities of Heidelberg and Luxembourg.
From its inception as a Grand Duchy in 1815 and into the first third of the 20th century, there were constant tensions in Luxembourg between German and French influences. Despite its citizens’ wish for independence, most of those pursuing advanced degrees studied in France or Germany. This was true for those in the fine arts, as well. Once the German occupation was underway, pro-German propaganda found its way into the practice of literature and art, from the founding of the (German) Society for Literature and Art in 1934 up to the last politically themed exhibition in the spring of 1944. The history presented in this volume is neither about individual fates nor about collaboration or resistance, but about the usurpation of the fine arts by the Nazis as instruments for their own purposes. Key findings for the research came from exhibition catalogs, placards, and various propaganda organs, but above all from the contents of Luxembourg newspapers of the time. The most important of these sources are the daily Nationalblatt [National Paper], the arts sections of the Luxemburger Wort [The Luxembourg Word] and the Escher Tageblatt [Esch Daily News], and the journal Moselland: Kulturpolitische Monatshefte [Mosel Land: Cultural-Political Monthly]. The reproductions from all these sources are of excellent quality.
The work is divided into six parts: (1) Introduction; (2) On the Eve of the Second World War; (3) National Socialist Policies for Art and Culture during the German Occupation, 1940-1944; (4) Reactions within the Luxembourg art community (somewhere between resistance and collaboration); (5) Conclusion; (6) Appendix, including 12 related addenda. Where short biographies are offered, they confirm that the majority of artists were educated in France or Germany and were obliged to adapt to the artistic taste dictated by the Germans if they cared to have their art exhibited. The investigation is carefully documented and presented, along with important side notes such as “Art Trips” into the Reich for Luxembourg artists. At the height of Nazi power in Luxembourg, “art education” had become a mandatory field of study. [frh/rdh]
An RREA Original Review by David D. Oberhelman (Oklahoma State University)
The Diccionario ilustrado de símbolos del nacionalicismo vasco represents the first effort to catalog the various cultural and political symbols, objects, persons, and iconic emblems related to the Basque nation and people. Its origins stem from an earlier reference work by Rosa Sala Rose, Diccionario crítico de mitos y símbolos del nazismo [Critical Dictionary of the Myths and Symbols of Nazism] (Barcelona, 2003), which cataloged the symbols associated with German National Socialism (such as the swastika). Jesús Casquete of the Universidad del País Vasco [University of the Basque Country], along with other historians at the same institution, sought to create a version of that work for the Basque culture by bringing together a dozen scholars to write 53 essays on key concepts and topics associated with the nationalist movements and the history of the Basque Country over the centuries. This work is not a typical reference source for quick consultation, but rather is a compendium of in-depth, analytical essays on the symbolism associated with the Basques. It thus is an important addition to any library supporting not only Basque studies but also Spanish and European political and cultural history.
The entries are a somewhat eclectic mix of biographical studies, historical accounts, discussions of thematic concepts, and overviews of important aspects of Basque culture. Important people covered range from Sancho el Mayor [Sancho the Great], the medieval king of Navarre whose name was later used by Basque nationalists, and Saint Ignacio de Loyola, the Basque priest and theologian who founded the Jesuit order, to 20th-century Basque politicians such as Manuel Irujo, leader of the Partido Nacionalista Vasco (PNV) [Basque Nationalist Party]. The authors examine how each of these historical figures has played a role in the shaping of Basque cultural identity and has been incorporated into the repertoire of the Basques’ nationalist symbols. Other essays focus on the more abstract symbols associated with the Basques, including the elusive concept of Euskadi/Euskal Herria [the Basque Country or Nation]—the geographical as well as linguistic and cultural territory of the Basque people—and the letter “E,” which is charged with many social and political meanings in the context of Basque nationalist rhetoric. Some of the controversial aspects of Basque nationalism are covered in entries such as the one for July 31, 1959, the date of the founding of the ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna) [Basque Homeland and Freedom] armed separatist organization. Each essay has black-and-white or color illustrations and a brief bibliography at the end.
The volume begins with an excellent overview essay on symbolism and Basque identity by Casquete and Ludger Mees, one of the other general editors. Following the entries is a general bibliography of major sources on Basque history and culture; brief biographical sketches of the contributors; indexes of acronyms, illustrations, and proper names (the onomastic index); and an analytic index of groups, places, and general topics. Although there have been earlier historical reference works on the Basques—for example, the Diccionario de historia del País Vasco [Dictionary of the History of the Basque Country] (San Sebastián, 1983)—this source is distinctive in its coverage of the Basque peoples through the symbols that they have created to define themselves. Researchers and students interested in the civilizations and conflicts on the Iberian Peninsula will find this work a useful introduction to Basque cultural identity.
An RREA Original Review by Anthony J. Oddo (Yale University)
This Italian-language publication is a comprehensive toponymic dictionary of the streets, piazzas, courtyards, and byways of the city of Palermo in Sicily. The author states in his foreword that his purpose is to offer to the researcher the city’s rich historical, religious, artistic, civic, and social heritage as reflected through city streets named to honor notable people and places from Italian and world history. It does not function as a road map to be used in wandering throughout Palermo; in fact, it does not contain a map. Each entry does indicate, however, crossing or related streets (e.g., “traversa dello stradale Bellolampo” [crosses Bellolampo Road] and “dalla Via Notarbartolo alla Via Arrigo Boito” [from Notarbartolo Street to Arrigo Boito Street]).
Arranged alphabetically, the brief entries cover individuals, institutions, and places. Each biographical entry includes birth and death dates, occupation, additional biographical data when available, and any notable publications. For example, the entry for the Via Giuseppe Oddo [Giuseppe Oddo Street] cites Oddo’s birth and death dates (1865-1954), his profession as a chemist, a short biography with details such as institutions where he taught, and a notation recognizing his contribution in the formulation of the Oddo-Harkins rule related to geochemistry. Another instance is the entry for the Piazza Franco Restivo, which commemorates Restivo (1911-1976), a lawyer, university professor, and politician. The name of the Via Santa Rita [St. Rita Street] refers to the Augustinian convent located on that street, while the Piazza San Paolo [St. Paul Square] is named for the parish church located on it. The dictionary provides concise historical and architectural background about the church, the convent, and St. Rita herself. Geographic examples include Viale Campania [Campania Alley], named after the southern Italian region, and Via Norvegia [Norway Street].
At the end of the book, Di Liberti has included four bibliographies to assist the researcher in obtaining further historical and biographical information. Following a general bibliography of the sources for the citations within the dictionary, the other three cover guidebooks, road maps, and other cartographic resources on Palermo; art catalogs from various art exhibitions held within the city; and proceedings and compiled papers of notable congresses held there that related to Italian history and civilization. Because there is no index, entries for a particular type of feature, such as piazzas, cannot be identified as a category, and references to places, persons, and historical events buried within a given entry are not easily retrievable.
Despite the lack of an index, Palermo: dizionario storico toponomastico is a worthy addition to a reference collection at an educational institution offering programs in Italian history or language studies. This local history dictionary would also be a valuable addition to the personal library of those individual scholars whose interests concentrate on Sicily and its civilization.
Vol. 12. Kontinuitäten und Brüche: Lebensformen, Alteingesessene, Zuwanderer von 500 bis 1500 [Continuities and Breaks: Forms of Life, Established Populations, Immigrants from 500 to 1500]. Ed. Karl Kaser. 2010. 634 p. ill. ISBN 978-3-85129-512-2: EUR 145
Volume 11 was reviewed in RREA 13:245. At that time, the publisher had announced that volume 12 would appear only on line in the electronic version of the encyclopedia (see RREA 13:247). But to people’s pleasant surprise, volume 12 has been published in print as well. The entire Wieser-Enzyklopädie is divided into three parts: the Lexikon-Abteilung [Dictionary Section] (volumes 1-10); Themen-Abteilung [Thematic Section] (volumes 11-17), and volume 18, entitled Dokumente [Documents] (see RREA 13:246), which provides images, pictures, maps, and other documents to accompany volumes 11-17. The Lexikon-Abteilung includes not only historical dictionaries of the most of the languages of this region, but also separate monographs on the peoples, states, and cultures therein. The entire encyclopedia to date can be viewed on line (http://eeo.uni-klu.ac.at/index.php?title=Thema:Kontinuit%C3%A4ten; accessed June 30, 2014).
As its title describes, Volume 12 is a broad look at the ethnic origins and the social, political, economic, and national development of present-day Central and Eastern Europe. The work begins with the post-Roman Empire great migrations of peoples: the Germanic tribes moving from the north to the south as far as Africa, the Slavic tribes from the northeast to the southeast as far as Crete, and the Asiatic tribes from the depths of Asia west into Central Europe. Far from being a “clash of cultures,” this historical period is multifaceted. The five chapters address topics of (1) humans’ dialogue with nature within a millennium of migration; (2) forms of settlement and village structures; (3) issues and aspects of co-habitation among the established and the migrant peoples; (4) the development of hierarchical and social relationships and structures; and (5) an epilog reflecting on the meaning of this millennium for the rise of national consciousness in the 19th century. A further volume in this section is in the planning stages, on the subject of Herrschaft und Öffentlichkeit [Rulers and the Ruled]. Volume 12 contains scores of illustrations and numerous maps that richly provide an illustration of movement during this long period.
Meanwhile, three new volumes have appeared, Miroslav Timotijević’s Die Geburt der modernen Privatheit; das Privatleben der Serben ... [The Birth of Modern Privacy: The Private Life of the Serbs ... in the 18th century] (Vol. 2, pt. 2, 2012); Wolfgang Geier’s Juden in Europa: historische Skizzen aus zwei Jahrtausenden [Jews in Europe: Historical Sketches from Two Millennia] (Vol. 9, pt. 1, 2012); and Dušan Škvarna’s Slowakei: Geschichte, Theater ... [Slovakia: History, Theater (and most other aspects of culture and the arts)] (Vol. 1, pt. 1, 2011).
Without question, it is most fortunate that this ambitious and necessary encyclopedia is being continued, and it is hoped that it will come to a speedy and successful conclusion. [ks/ga]
An RREA Original Review by Anna L. Shparberg (Rice University)
This substantial reference work documents Polish publications issued between 1981 and 2006 about the Auschwitz Concentration Camp and the Państwowe Muzeum Oświęcim-Brzezinka [Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum]. It reflects the recent explosion in published materials about the Holocaust and, specifically, about Auschwitz. While there are several bibliographies on the earlier period, including Bibliografia KL Auschwitz za lata 1942-1980 [Bibliography of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp for 1942-1980], compiled by Anna Malcówna (Oswięcim, 1991), and Jerzy Lukowski’s Bibliografia obozu koncentracyjnego Oswięcim-Brzezinka [Bibliography of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp] (Warszawa, 1968-), the current work has been compiled to address the need for satisfactory bibliographic coverage of more recent works.
The bibliography is based mainly on materials held by the library of the Państwowe Muzeum Oświęcim-Brzezinka as well as a number of other state, university, and museum libraries in Poland. Additional important sources are private collections, other bibliographies, and periodical publications such as the journals Zeszyty oświęcimskie [Auschwitz Notebooks] (1957- ), also published in German as Die Auschwitz-Hefte, and Pro memoria [In Memory] (1994-2009), both issued by the Państwowe Muzeum Oświęcim-Brzezinka.
The compiler has conducted a visual examination of most of the approximately 3,800 publications included in the bibliography. Their wide-ranging scope encompasses primary sources; reference and research works; textbooks and lecture notes; biographies and survivor testimonies; and diverse literary genres, including prose, poetry, and even comic books. Of particular value is the inclusion of short pieces, such as articles and essays, scattered throughout periodicals. As this bibliography focuses on the materials published in the country, the overwhelming majority of them are in Polish. Some Polish works (especially publications of the Państwowe Muzeum Oświęcim-Brzezinka) also appear in translation. Foreign works are included only in their Polish-language translations; for example, the entry for Mengele: Polowanie na anioła śmierci (Kraków, 2000) makes no reference to the original New York 1986 publication of Mengele: The Complete Story, by Gerald G. Posner and John Ware.
The six major chapters of the book, each further divided into sections, are as follows: (1) general bibliographies, encyclopedias and dictionaries, reviews of the state of research, and periodicals; (2) the Auschwitz Concentration Camp—historical, biographical, sociological, psychological, and medical aspects, as well as literary responses; (3) legal and criminological perspectives, including the prosecutions and trials of war criminals and Holocaust denial; (4) the Państwowe Muzeum Oświęcim-Brzezinka itself—its charter, general works about the museum, visitor guides, exhibition and other catalogs, and publications on preservation issues; (5) controversies surrounding the museum, over such matters as its buffer zone, the erection of crosses next to its grounds, and the sign over the gate of Auschwitz I; and (6) commemoration of Auschwitz, including memorial plaques and monuments, exhibits, research bodies, foundations, conferences, ceremonies, reunions, religious services, and philosophical-theological considerations.
Within each section or subsection, the entries are organized alphabetically by the author’s last name or, for anonymous publications, by title. They vary in length between three and 100 pages. In addition to the citations proper, entries are supplied with subject headings, including biographical headings for individuals in addition to topical headings.
A name index lists personal authors of the works included in the bibliography. While it also occasionally lists names of notable people who are the subjects of works, such subject references can be frustratingly haphazard. To give just one example: the entries for two biographies of camp commandant Rudolf Höss provide the subject heading “Biografia—Rudolf Höss,” while on the same page a biography of Josef Mengele is cited with the heading “Biografia—Josef Mengele.” However, while Höss is included in the name index, there is no corresponding listing for Mengele, just as there are no entries for the famous Auschwitz victims St. Edith Stein and St. Maximilian Kolbe.
Furthermore, there is no topical subject index, so the value of the subject terms within entries is uncertain at best. As an example, for Maria Slisz-Oyrzańska’s two-part article series “Przeżyłam śledztwo i obozy” [Surviving Interrogations and Camps] and “Ustawiczne widmo śmierci” [The Omnipresent Specter of Death], both published in the journal Farmacja polska [Polish Pharmaceutical Science], 42, nos. 5 & 6 (1986), the entry contains two subject headings, for memoirs of pharmacists and for the women’s concentration camp. The book, however, does not provide a way to check whether there are any more memoirs written by pharmacists or other works about the women’s camp.
In the absence of a subject index, the only way to navigate the book apart from consulting the imperfect name index is to use the table of contents. Because of the time and effort spent in compiling this extensive bibliography, it is regrettable that it has not been equipped with better indexing, which would vastly improve its usefulness and reduce the need for a good reading knowledge of Polish. It would be ideal if the Państwowe Muzeum Oświęcim-Brzezinka could publish an online database version, so that the subject tags could be accessed at least by keyword searches pending the preparation of more robust controlled vocabulary indexes.
In spite of its shortcomings, however, the print Bibliografia KL Auschwitz za lata 1981-2006 is still a good supplementary reference source on the Holocaust, useful for institutions with collections in modern European history or Jewish studies.
A discussion about the role the Poles played in the murder of the Jews in Poland in World War II is still a delicate topic among the Poles, usually countered by more nationalistic groups in Poland and among émigrés with the assertion that the Poles were themselves victims of the Germans. The question of who the real victims were can still ignite a fiery debate among Poles of differing political persuasion. This was illustrated in May, 2012, at a ceremony in which President Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously to the Polish resistance fighter, Jan Karski. (See Karski’s Mein Bericht an die Welt [My Report to the World], München, 2011—IFB 11-4). Obama made the mistake of referring to the “Polish death camps,” instead of the German death camps in Poland, which set off a storm of protest and threatened to mar the traditionally good relations between Poland and the U.S.
The debate is reflected in the nine essays of this volume, authored by American and Polish historians. The impetus for the book came from a conference held at Princeton University in October, 2010, “The Holocaust in Occupied Poland: New Findings and New Interpretations.” Based on the analysis of new source material, the essays show that neither collective vindication nor condemnation of groups of people can arrive at the “truth” about these historical events. In some cases, Jews in Poland were killed by Poles, for example, in the Jedwabne pogrom, but what their motives were is difficult to reconstruct, since most of the perpetrators and witnesses are no longer alive. Thus, documents of court proceedings must now serve as the primary sources for research. This re-examination of source materials is an important contribution to reaching an understanding of the Holocaust in Poland, as well as demonstrating the passions that these historical events can still call forth and the way they can influence present-day politics. [ks/akb]
Since the 1989-1990 fall of communism in Poland, the Holocaust has commanded ever more attention; questions are still open and wounds have not yet healed. The Jews’ and Poles’ common sorrowful experiences of Nazi racial hatred have not necessarily brought the two any closer together. The 21 contributions to this volume (four in English, 17 in German) are an attempt to bring Jews and Poles into conversation and grapple with the taboo themes and the question of why their common suffering has not resulted in a shared memory. The essays are organized into four broad areas: (1) Remembrance and Responsibility, (2) Remembrance and the Politics of Communist Poland, (3) The Public Debate in Democratic Poland, and (4) The Representation of Memory in Literature, Films, and Museums.
To be sure, the field is rife with tensions and conflicts. Those who attempt a rapprochement on this issue are immediately challenged by self-promoting interpretations, historical falsifications, and outright denials of the Holocaust. The intellectual atmosphere can easily become charged by hardened positions, sanctity of particular viewpoints, clichés, one-sided interpretations, occasional hate campaigns, feelings of guilt, and as one author frankly posits, the persistence of anti-Semitism without Jews (as there are few Jews still living in the region). All this makes face-to-face meetings, critical examination, and scholarly research much more difficult, but this book is a good step in the right direction, and one hopes that it will be successful in this encounter and assumption of a dialog between Jews and Poles. [ks/ga]
An RREA Original Review by Anna L. Shparberg (Rice University)
The landscape of the Bohemian region of the Czech Republic, with its forests, meadows, and gently rolling hills, can seem deceptively unassuming. In fact, numerous clues to the prehistory of this land are concealed just below the surface. Two Celtic tribes, the Boii and the Volcae (represented by this tribe’s Tectosagii sept), were the first inhabitants of Bohemia that are known by name. In the late Bronze and Iron Ages, tribal societies belonging to the Celtic ethnolinguistic group dominated most of Europe. They lived in the territory of Central Europe, including present-day Bohemia, from approximately the 7th century BCE until the end of the 1st century BCE, when they were displaced or assimilated by Germanic tribes. One of the visible signs of early Celtic settlement in the area is the name Bohemia itself (via the Latin Boiohaemum, or the Home of the Boii), which comes from the proto-Celtic boio [cow or warrior] and the Proto-Germanic haim [home]. Excavators working in Bohemia have discovered thousands of sites showing evidence of the Hallstatt and La Tène material cultures, which are associated with Celtic occupation. So far, they have unearthed between one and two million artifacts, ranging from pottery and ornaments to weapons and tools.
Czech historians first became aware of the country’s Celtic prehistory in the mid-16th century through the study of ancient authors such as Livy, Caesar, and Tacitus. Archaeological excavations began in earnest three centuries later. Celtic archaeology is now flourishing in the Czech Republic, supported by the worldwide and local popular interest in the Celts. Archaeological discoveries are also tied to the political concerns of our time. Since its entry into the European Union in 2004, the Czech Republic has been eager to assert its place as a full-fledged EU member and an equal participant in the European project. Traces of a Celtic presence on Czech soil therefore constitute a palpable symbol of the country’s Western European orientation.
Those who wish to discover the country’s hidden Celtic heritage can avail themselves of a number of resources. The Informační centrum keltské kultury Nižbor [Nižbor Celtic Culture Information Center] at Zámek Nižbor [Nižbor Castle], supported by the EU as part of the Celtic Europe project, opened its doors in 2004. The center offers a wealth of information about the Boii, including multimedia presentations. Several recently established archaeological parks offer a wide variety of programming for both children and adults. Visitors to the Archaeopark Prášily [Prášily Archaeological Park] can see accurate reconstructions of fortifications, houses, and artisans’ huts. Celtic craft techniques such as weaving, minting coins, firing pottery in Iron-Age-style kilns, and ironworking can be tried out; other popular activities include flour milling, sword fighting, and storytelling. The park periodically holds Celtic crafts weekends. Elsewhere in the country, tourists have the choice of visiting museums and notable digs, many of them being stops on historical hiking trails. Some enthusiasts go so far as to search for the location of Marobudum (the ancient Marcomanni seat) or energy vortices.
The three titles under review here attest to the maturation of Celtic archaeology in the Czech Republic in various ways. The 2012 tourist guide Keltské Čechy, while written for a non-scholarly audience, is a good introduction to the field. Most of its source material was drawn from the two earlier titles Encyklopedie keltů v Čechách and its 2007 supplement. All three publications were written by Jiří Waldhauser, the doyen of modern Celtic archaeology in the country, who has penned over 140 scholarly (and several popular) works on the subject.
The 2001 encyclopedia is a hefty hardcover volume that aims to provide a near-comprehensive inventory of the thousands of identifiable Celtic sites for archaeologists, historians, and museum workers. It is the first reference work ever to assemble this scattered information from a multitude of published and archival sources.
After a brief preface outlining the scope and intended audience of the book, the extensive, 125-page introductory chapter on the history of the Celts in Bohemia traces the spread of Celtic tribes into Bohemia from the 5th century BCE to their decline by the 1st century BCE. A discussion of the ethnology and demographics, as well as the ecology and climate, of the region comes next. A rich presentation of Celtic material culture follows, providing extensive classifications of ceramics, pottery, settlements, buildings, and burial sites; chronology and dating are also discussed. Readers learn much about the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age diet, technology, and economy, which included hunting, fishing, animal husbandry, and trade. The local Celts traded with many other Celtic tribes as well as with Greek city-states and, later, the Roman Republic, as evidenced by numismatic finds. The introduction then goes on to present Celtic religion, burial customs, warfare, medicine, music, architecture, calendar, and other topics, concluding with a discussion of the significance of Celtic civilization for the history of the Czech nation.
The concise, informative chapter on historiography includes pictures of notable Czech archaeologists of the last two centuries. A brief and convenient chronological outline follows, complete with a series of maps illustrating the distribution of Celtic settlements in Bohemia through the centuries as well as the appearance of Germanic tribes in the 1st century BCE.
The instructions for getting the most out of the encyclopedia identify eight broad categories of entries: (1) fortifications; (2) early funeral sites: cremation; (3) later funeral sites: cemeteries; (4) settlements of approximately the 5th century BCE; (5) settlements of the 4th-1st centuries BCE; (6) isolated finds such as coins (including foreign coinage), glass beads, ploughshares, etc.; (7) sites found via aerial surveillance, with likely dating to the 5th-1st centuries BCE, and (8) possible Celtic etymologies of hydronyms, oronyms, and other toponyms. This section also contains a table of archaeological periods and a glossary of terms used in assessing Celtic sites and items of material culture.
The main body of the encyclopedia is an alphabetical list of approximately 3,500 sites and other toponyms. Entries are generally quite terse, running for about five or six lines in a three-column layout, although occasionally they can be longer. They follow a uniform structure: the date, circumstances, and agent of discovery (many sites were found accidentally while plowing a field, building a railroad or a pipeline, or laying the foundation for a house); a brief description of the site; the current location of artifacts removed from the dig (usually a museum collection); and bibliographical references.
Following the main part, a tourist guide highlights about 180 of the most interesting sites and archeological parks, rated according to their popular attractiveness and historical value. This small section was the germ of the later full-length guide Keltské Čechy. The encyclopedia concludes with an afterword describing some discoveries that happened just as the encyclopedia was going to press; a dictionary of terms used in Celtic archaeology; an extensive bibliography, with a list of classical sources on Celts appended at the end; and a brief biography of the author.
The copious black-and-white illustrations, which are found in all sections, run the gamut from plans of excavations and sketches illustrating the wide variety of types of objects found (such as coins, beads, pottery, and ornaments) to chronological charts, tables, maps, photographs, and reconstructions of buildings.
The slender 2007 encyclopedia supplement, published in paperback, contains numerous updates, including approximately 370 newly discovered sites. The introduction outlines the work done since 2000 and highlights the most important new discoveries, concluding with a small section on experimental archaeology. One interesting recent project noted in the supplement, conducted by archaeologists from the Univerzita Hradec Králové [University of Hradec Králové], involved building a dugout shelter with a fire pit. (A number of such shelters have been unearthed in sites dating from ca. 500 BCE.) At the conclusion of the experiment, the shelter was set afire and the ashes compared with actual archaeological finds.
An essay on the relation of Celtic archaeology and tourism discusses archaeological parks and cultural monuments, as well as the Informační centrum keltské kultury Nižbor, exhibits, and other popular activities (such as performances of Celtic music). A photograph of a Celtophile sporting impressive facial tattoos adorns this section. The supplement also lists errata and rectifies some omissions (for example, it supplies scholarly photographs missing from the main encyclopedia). The bibliographical update notes works published up to 2006, including an additional 33 publications written or co-authored by Waldhauser. The supplement ends with an alphabetical listing of locations and a list of basic reference publications on history and archaeology.
The tourist guide Keltské Čechy begins with a foreword and a user guide. The introduction outlines the history and culture of the Celts in Bohemia. It is enlivened by color photos of enthusiasts in full costume recreating Celtic religious rituals, engaging in arts and crafts, and brandishing ancient weapons. The next chapter contains an overview of the types of Celtic sites and archaeological parks.
The body of the guide is a list of 150 locations, which were specially chosen from the huge inventory in the Encyklopedie. They are rated on a scale of one to three according to their level of interest (using golden coin images instead of stars). There are 10 color-coded types of sites: gords (early settlements from the 6th to 4th centuries BCE with wooden fortifications); oppida (later fortified settlements); rectangular earth walls; burial sites; general settlements; mountains and hills; springs, bogs, and riverbeds; caves; rock formations; and mines.
In contrast with the brevity of the encyclopedia, a typical guide entry covers a full two pages, including illustrations. Brief genius loci [spirit of the place] notes, intended to stir the visitor’s imagination and provide a spiritual connection to the location, appear at the end of each entry. These notes most often describe particular enduring features of the landscape, such as mountains, prominent rocks, or wells, but they can also be meditations on an aspect of Celtic culture or quotations from ancient poets. The copious illustrations, the majority of them in color (unlike the accurate but dry line drawings prevalent in the encyclopedia), showcase the most notable finds, such as torcs (golden and bronze neck rings), small sculptures, and decorated pottery. Gorgeous photographs of dig locations do much to bring the genius loci closer to the reader or visitor. All entries contain the exact GPS coordinates and directions to the sites.
Following the main guide content are a brief update on the most recent discoveries, an afterword, a map of the country with locations, and a glossary of archaeological terms. A three-page bibliography of selected publications, a note about the author, and a list of illustration credits complete the volume.
While all three titles are recommended for academic libraries with collections in the archaeology of prehistoric and protohistoric Europe, Encyklopedie keltů v Čechách together with its supplement is an essential purchase for universities with strong Celtic studies programs, by virtue of being the only currently existing reference work on Celtic occupation in that area of Europe. Although one would need to know some Czech to reap the full benefit of the encyclopedia, it has enough features useful to everyone—such as maps, illustrations, toponyms, and the near-comprehensive multilingual bibliography—to be of value for North American collections.
As for Keltské Čechy, the tourist guide, it is a good complement to the encyclopedia, with the additional benefits of longer entries on those sites selected, some more up-to-date material, clear color illustrations on glossy paper, and directional information. The handy format of this attractive little book also makes it easy to carry around on outings.
Erich Donnert is a noted and widely published historian of Eastern Europe and Russia, whose Russisches illustriertes Freimaurerlexikon also is reviewed in this issue (see RREA 18:150). This volume on Kievan Rus’ constitutes a thorough revision of his seminal work, Das Kiewer Rußland—Kultur und Geistesleben vom 9. bis zum beginnenden 13. Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1983). In addition, Donnert and his colleague Edgar Hösch also recently revised their Altrussisches Kulturlexikon (3d ed., Stuttgart, 2009—see RREA 14:148).
Das altostslavische Großreich Kiev is divided into three parts, following the topics in the title: The Old East Slavic Empire of Kiev; Society and State; and Culture, Art, and Literature. The volume begins with the emergence of the young Kievan state along the Dnieper, which served as a trade route between Byzantium and the Baltic Sea. The Norman theory of the origins of Kievan Rus’ (which emphasizes the part played in the formation of this state by North Germanic tribes, such as the Varangians and the Vikings) is mentioned but not discussed in any great detail. The book concludes with the decline of the Kievan state following internecine strife and the conquest by the Mongol tribes.
Aimed at the popular reader, the volume is not provided with either footnotes or endnotes. On the other hand, simple transcription of East Slavic terms has been abandoned in favor of transliteration. Both the number and quality of illustrations have suffered somewhat in comparison with the original.
These shortcomings aside, it is important to understand that the three modern states of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus trace their roots to Kievan Rus’, and knowledge of their shared history is key to gaining insight into the political dilemmas of our time. This volume provides a convenient starting point to develop this understanding. [ks/as]
In the course of his long career, Erich Donnert has produced voluminous research on European Freemasonry. The slender tome under review here can be considered a supplement to this body of work, in particular his Die Freimaurerei in Russland: von den Anfängen bis zum Verbot von 1822 [Freemasonry in Russia: From its Beginnings to its Proscription in 1822] (Innsbruck, 2003). A number of other works on European Freemasonry have been reviewed in RREA, for example, Donnert’s colleague and co-author Helmut Reinalter’s Handbuch der freimaurerischen Grundbegriffe (see RREA 9:55) and Eugen Lenhoff’s Internationales Freimaurerlexikon (see RREA 6:93 and 11:45).
The introduction provides an overview of the history of Freemasonry in Russia, pointing out the significant impact of foreign Freemasons, including Germans, on its emergence and development. Biographical sketches of 32 Freemasons (24 Russians and eight Germans) follow. Among the Russian Masons are such illustrious names as Nikolai Karamzin, Nikolai Novikov, and Aleksandr Radishchev. Provided with (rather blurry) black-and-white portraits from the author’s private collection, the entries are typically one or two pages in length. Each of them concludes with a bibliography, a significant part of which consists of works by Erich Donnert himself. The appendix contains 12 scenes from the lives and pictorial representations of Freemasons, as well as six portraits of late 18th-century and early 19th-century rulers of Russia and Sweden. [ks/as]
Following the successful 1995-96 exhibit, Berlin-Moskau 1900-1950 = Moskva-Berlin, with its extensive catalog published by Prestel (München, 1996), came a second similar event in 2012. Under review here is the two-volume companion publication for that exhibit. One of the volumes contains the exhibit catalog itself (divided into seven sections) and the other is an extensive essay collection about various aspects of the exhibit.
[Ed. note: a companion publication is the exhibit’s 128-page guide-book, Kursbuch zur Ausstellung, by Wilfried Menghin, Julienne Franke, and Friederike Terpitz (Berlin, 2012).]
The catalog begins with an introduction that walks the reader through the halls of the Berlin exhibit. There are almost 400 separate stations that display a broad array of archeological artifacts, utensils, jewelry, books and documents, photographs, works of art, and many other objects. The display is divided into seven general chronologically defined categories: (1) Novgorod and the early contacts, (2) The rise of Moscow, (3) St. Petersburg: a window to Europe, (4) The 19th century, (5) World War I and the interwar period, (6) World War II, and (7) The war’s end, the Cold War, Perestroika.
Written by renowned Russian and German scholars, the 65 essays comprising the second volume come under the following general headings: (1) The beginnings, (2) Novgorod and the Hanseatic League, (3) Diplomacy, dynastic ties and alliances, (4) Germans in Russia, (5) Art, literature and science, (6) Enemies and friends, (7) Perspectives, and (8) Afterword. The essays attest to the mutual fascination felt by Germans and Russians over many centuries of contact. There are essays on the numerous German narratives of travel to Russia, the founding of the Russian Academy of Sciences, dynastic ties, and much more. After reading the book, it is hard to name a field of human endeavor that has not been affected by the long-lasting ties between these two peoples. [ks/as]
“Buchenwald” and “Gulag” represent the suffering and death of countless human beings at the hands of two barbaric systems. Two organizations that have dedicated themselves to the documentation of the crimes and victims of the camps are the Moscow “Memorial” Society and the Buchenwald and Central Building Dora Memorials Foundation, which collaborated to produce a traveling exhibit about the Soviet “gulag,” shown at Schloss Neuhardenberg and at the Schiller-Museum in Weimar in 2012. The illustrated guide to this exhibit, though not a true catalog of all the items displayed, contains several essays about the history of the gulag and the work of the Moscow “Memorial” Society, a selected bibliography, and other information.
Readers may not need to be reminded that “gulag” was the short form for “Glavnoe Upravlenie ispravitel’no-trudovykh LAGereĭ” [Main Correctional-Labor Camp Administration], founded by the Soviet NKVD (secret police) in 1930, referring to the system of forced labor camps in remote areas in which politically untrustworthy people were imprisoned. Although the editors caution readers not to draw unwarranted parallels between the concentration camps established by the Soviets and those of the Nazis, it is difficult not to, since for the victims it would hardly matter which outlandish ideology condemned them to death. A recent in-depth study of the Soviet gulag is Jörg Baberowski’s Verbrannte Erde: Stalins Herrschaft der Gewalt [Scorched Earth: Stalin’s Reign of Power] (München, 2012—see IFB 12-2).
The displayed objects are often frightening in their banality. On a simple sheet of paper, signed by Stalin himself, are written the number of people from each republic who are to be shot (from 500 to 8,000) and the number to be sent to the camps—proof of the brutal casualness with which thousands of people were sent to their deaths without a trial. The exhibition is a shocking and moving testimonial to the consequences of totalitarian regimes. [ks/akb]
Bordering on Romania, Moldova has historically also been known as Moldavia or Bessarabia. The German name for the province, Moldau, is not to be confused with the German form of the musically famous Vltava River in the Czech Republic. Since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Moldova has been the official name, which is also increasingly being used in Germany. For example, the University of Leipzig’s Moldova-Institut sponsored and led the publication of this book and their earlier Vademecum: Contemporary History Moldova; A Guide to Archives, Research Institutions, Libraries, Associations, Museums, and Sites of Memory (Leipzig, 2009). This guide is available in full text at http://d-nb.info/1000591476/34 (accessed September 5, 2014).
The seven sections of the handbook deal with the area’s history (13); population and geographic boundaries (10); government, law & administration (11); foreign policy (9); the economy (9); society, national/ethnic groups, and immigration (25), and culture (13). Each section concludes with a brief bibliography, and there are indexes to abbreviations, personal names, and to the authors (which has a brief biography of each). The Moldovan language, spoken by most of the population, is almost identical to Romanian, but approximately 20 percent of the population speaks other languages, mainly Ukrainian (8.5 percent) and Russian (5.9 percent). More than 60 contributors, the majority of whom reside in Moldova, have produced an interesting, informative, reliable—and timely—guide to this European country and historic province. [ks/ga,ldl]
Within the context of accelerated global warming, this book examines in detail the likely effects of climate change and reduced biodiversity on Germany over the next 20 years.
The introduction describes the macro-regions of Germany and imparts a basic knowledge of biodiversity, weather, climate, climate change, and greenhouse effect. The 15 chapters that follow provide thorough research on the effects of climate change on the different regions and ecosystems, for example ground water, liminal, marine and urban spaces, soil ecosystems, forestry and agriculture, and health concerns.
Every chapter provides, in addition to a wealth of illustrations and tables, numerous bibliographical references for further reading and research. The most comprehensive chapter, Gesellschaftliche Wahrnehmung von Klima- und Biodiversitätswandel: Herausforderung und Bedarfe [Social Perception of Changes in Climate and Biodiversity: The Challenge and the Demands] is concerned with social and ethical problems of climate-related changes, for example, declining bee populations, the arrival of invasive species, illnesses, or environmental protection. Whoever does not want to work through the crushing weight of data and facts is best served by reading the final chapter, Zusammenfassung [Summary], which condenses the most important findings and recommendations into a plan of action on all levels. A glossary, an extensive subject index, as well as an abbreviations and author index, conclude the book.
It is encouraging that in the field of biodiversity so much is being eagerly researched and published, although at the same time the extinction of species in the animal and plant kingdoms, not only in Germany, continues unabated around the world. Whoever tracks how financial crises and special-interest lobbyists block a good German policy on the environment, must gradually come to doubt the political value of this work of diligent research. This book gives a very good and successful view into the current status of research on biodiversity, but whether the recommendations herein find a sympathetic ear among the decision-makers is in some doubt. [jr/ga]
The introduction to Bienen Mitteleuropas states that this edition relies mostly on the text and photos from the previous edition (Bienen: mitteleuropäische Gattungen, Lebensweise, Beobachtung. München, 1997), with only a few changes due to “new discoveries and additional photos.” A side-by-side comparison reveals that some of the changes are actually quite substantial. The new edition contains more than twice as many drawings in the Anatomy and Behavior section as does the previous one and features larger, more numerous, and clearer illustrations of the species diagnostics in the Species Key. Many diagnostics cannot be detected without a microscope, which generally means killing the bee. Unfortunately the book lacks any reference to environmental protection or to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List (http://www.iucn.org), the international listing of species conservation status, given that the collection of wild bees always requires the permission of the appropriate environmental protection agency. In the classification section, there are a few adjustments to genus and species classification of certain groups. Species portraits (total of 170 species from 40 genera) are clear, with texts divided into diagnostic characteristics, distribution, flight time, and biological data, but unfortunately nothing on conservation status. In some places, the expected page placement of illustrations across from the respective species descriptions is out of order, forcing the reader to pick his way through text and footnotes in order to avoid confusion. The bibliography has been reduced, with references to periodicals like Bombix, Melissa, or Apidologie eliminated, even though these periodicals are alive and well. The index has also stricken its German common names for bee species, listing Latin names only.
While Bienen Mitteleuropas focuses on anatomy, Wildbienen emphasizes practical field identification, bee behavior, and conservation efforts. The first part of the book discusses ways to distinguish wild bees from other winged insects easily confused with them, the sometimes large size differences between males and females, the small size of many species, and the roles they play as pollinators. Solitary, social, and parasitic bees are described, along with flight times, nesting and pollination behavior, and more. Species belonging to each genus are listed in a systematic overview. The second part of the book details various aspects of the complex relationship between bees and humans. The role of gardens as a food source, plants especially suitable for attracting wild bees and a wide variety of sensible ways to encourage nesting are discussed in detail. Particularly unsuitable plants and nesting materials are also described. The nine species most commonly seen by gardeners attempting to attract wild bee nests are portrayed in detail; 92 of the 500 wild bee species documented in Germany are depicted with drawings in the book. The key identifying nest closures of the most common species and their solitary-wasp competitors is truly unique. There is a brief annotated bibliography consisting mainly of out-of-print books and English-language titles, but this is really the volume’s only weak point. The text is well written and educational, and it is illustrated generously with 479 gorgeous photos. The author, surely one of the most renowned experts on wild bees, brings his deep biological and ecological knowledge to bear in this excellent introductory work. Because of the moderate price, this outstanding book can expect to sell well both to the public and to libraries. [jr/rb]
While most ornithological works published by Haupt cover specific topics such as migration behavior (e.g., Johnathan Elphic, ed. Atlas des Vogelzugs. Bern; Stuttgart, 2008—see IFB 8-1/2-371) or what birds can tell us about the environment (e.g., Martin Walters, Die Signale der Vögel. Bern; Stuttgart, 2011), this atlas constitutes a brief introduction to several topics: evolution and adaptations; habitats world-wide; classification, number of species in each country in the world, and the most significant orders of birds; bird behavior, from mating to migration routes; human uses of birds, from cooking to bird-watching to art, myth, and literature; environmental dangers posed to birds by habitat loss, hunting, and global warming; efforts to protect birds; and statistical data on birds by country. Both the chapter on bird protection and the bibliography are basically advertisements for BirdLife International (www.birdlife.org; accessed July 29, 2014) and the URLs in the bibliography point mainly to English-language sites. Surprisingly, the highly informative Avibase (http://avibase.bsc-eoc.org; accessed July 29, 2014) website, available in both English and German, goes unmentioned. However, the statistical tables and clear illustrations are persuasive, and the book is recommended for public libraries. This book is the German translation by Oralie Wink of the author’s The Atlas of Birds (Princeton, 2011), which is also owned by many university libraries. [jr/rb]
Patterned after a similar field guide published by Haupt—Stadtfauna Zürich: 600 Tierarten ... (Bern, 2010)—this more general field guide likewise provides entries for 600 different species living among urban landscapes across Central Europe. Factors like climate, diet, and habitat, including those favorable to many invasive species, are examined in the seven introductory chapters. Likewise, problems posed by parasites, pathogens, and vermin are presented. Among the 11 assembled groups, the more attractive species, such as birds, mammals, and butterflies are depicted in detail. The smaller, less desirable creatures such as insects, worms, and spiders, which make up the majority of the entries, are illustrated only with representative examples. Entries are organized first by family, then species. Whether dust mite or fox, each entry includes a photograph and matching description, a fact sheet highlighting identifying markings, locations within Central Europe where the species occurs, and pictograms illustrating its habitats. Here, readers will learn about species they might not expect to find in an urban landscape, such as the white-throated dipper, a bird which tends to favor clear, rushing waters, and the fox tapeworm, which is transmitted by pigeons or so-called “sky rats.” Because many urban projects have been delayed or halted due to conservation efforts, the authors include discussions of a few examples, such as efforts to save the lesser horseshoe bat (rhinolophus hipposideros), which delayed construction of the Waldschlösschen Bridge in Dresden and ultimately led to the construction of a €220,000 “bat management system.” The extensive glossary, bibliography, and index of links, as well as indices listing both the scientific name and the German name are nice additions. [jr/jmw]