Letters exchange with Henry Bollah: Engineaker Bakhmann wrote for a long time from a male point of view

How exactly is the opposites attract? At first glance, Ingeborg Bakhmann and Henry Bellus have practically nothing to do with each other- here is mysterious, shy and form and confident poetry, there is a realistic, everyday author. They met each other as a young and unknown writer in the early 1950s at the Group 47 conference, which at that time was hardly observed in the literary environment. Obviously, they felt a community.

The first letter that Bellon wrote to Bakhman, unfortunately, was no longer preserved – the starting point and the step will be very interesting. The letter of Bakhman from the answer of December 12, 1952 is at the beginning of the corresponding correspondence with the final proposal: “It is good to know what is.”

Letters very often affect current problems, financial restrictions and orders for bread, which are repeatedly in the way of literature. The ten -year -old Bolle, obsessed with spelling and the father of several children, gives Bakhmann, which is associated with an agency by a short story, which at that time is completely unusual for a woman as a freelance writer. New dynamics develops around the 47 group at the Cap Circeo conference in the spring of 1954. This was her first international conference. Ingeborg Bakhmann, who lives in Italy, found a suitable place south of Rome and convinced the boss of the group Hans Werner Richter. Like the Romans, she formed something like the secret center of this meeting.

Then some participants remained in Rome, including Bell. It is unlikely that there is evidence of how these days were in detail. But in the first reaction of Bellus, the card on a return trip from Lucerne, the tone has changed noticeably. He talks about “baggage – if it is one” – that he left in Rome and adds: “If you sometimes pass by the Termini station, remember the baggage that may be there.” A certain defeat is accurately. Later, we are talking about a taxi trip in the rain and sparkling Frizzante.

“She kisses in bars with straw”

In the next few weeks, there are topics that were probably mentioned. Thus, the experience of Bellus as a young Wehrmacht soldier seems to have played a role. During this time, Bakhmann wrote several pages on a new project called Evgen, which focuses on such a military return. It should also be about the deep Catholic vega Bellla. When Bakhmann first of all writes the radio function about the rebellious mysticism of Simone Vale for money, both exchange ideas about their relationship with Christianity.

First of all, the role of Bakhmann in group 47 receives several new contours. Bell asks her about the poem “From”, as he writes, “The wrong lover”, which she read in Kirceo’s cap and, obviously, leads him. He says “Nonfland”, where he says: “My lover is incorrect, / I know that she sometimes swims / on high shoes for the city, / in the bars that she kisses with straw / glasses deep in her mouth, / and I do not understand this language.”

This is the central place in Bakhmann, which she constantly wrote from a male point of view for a long time, because it was dominant. According to her, the autonomous female language was not available in its socio -political environment. However, from the point of view of a man, she describes a very specific manifestation of a woman. She, who found out early, playing with masks and roles, is trying to outline her own position. Bakhmann causes fantasies that are connected with themselves as an independent female person and initiate protection (“I do not understand this language”).

This context also belongs to the fact that Bell seemed to suddenly report a month later: “By the way, I again read Troil and the Cressida of Shakespeare.” The correspondence editor writes in his comment: “The link is unclear. There are no signs of why Bell was dealing with this. ” But Bellon probably does not write this in a clean room. The main characters of this drama – the pacifist in love and a highly torpedo female trophy – correspond to the current constellations, which he ironically calls in the imagination. The fact that Bakhmann, in turn, turned to Hans Werner Richter during the Roman days after the group meeting, on a completely different stage, completes the picture: “Otherwise, everything went well, although the group never threatened to leave again, and sometimes I still have a feeling when I walk along the streets, someone who forgot, could appear.”

Both belong to the opposition minority

The differences between Böll and Bachmann are also great in the private environment. She lives alone, slowly writes and always complains about the lack of money, but he is an employed author and father, who describes his daily worries as follows: “I like to drive a car and a lot, you left so quickly and packaged everything so quickly / woman, children, a little baggage and an advance in his pocket.” Is Bell a child of his time when his wife could not even withdraw money on a bench without her husband’s consent? Nevertheless, he works with his wife Annemari as a translator and several times complain that she is also officially mentioned, for example, Suhrkamp Verlag, which promises more attention thanks to the exclusive names of Bellla. Therefore, Bellus is very noticeable.

In general, it is important to visualize modern circumstances. What Bellus and Bakhmann connects is their extremely exposed political attitude at that time. They belong to the opposition minority in the Adenauer Republic. Group 47 is ignored or despised by the right conservative literary representative, such as Friedrich Zaburg or Hans Egon Holtusen, and that Bakhmann is committed to the Bundeswehr atoms in 1958, and Hans Werner Richter is an obligation.

The consequences are not insignificant: the police combed without warning, and without an official order to search for Richter’s house, a number of documents are confiscated. This can only be explained to such an origin that the meeting of group 47 in the change of Bachmann/Bellla letters are perceived as a kind of imaginary homeland: “Do you come in the 47 years?”, It says repeatedly, and before the 1960 conference writes: “A good thing that is ashaffenburg, that you are the same.”

In 1965, Bakhmann turned to Bellu, because she, who has nothing to do with the SDPG, joined the campaign Gunter Grass for Chancellor Willy Brandt: “I would not like to take this role ago because I see myself far from it, but this is probably not a point.” This correspondence gives amazing information about the time that is unlikely to have any attitude towards ours – except that the awareness of difficult conditions for which they fought a lot, which, of course, seems today.