Jura Soyfer

Jura Soyfer ( born December 8, 1912 in Kharkov, Russian Empire, † February 16, 1939 in Buchenwald concentration camp ) was a political writer in Austria in the 1930s. He has published in several magazines and wrote five plays and three preserved scenes that are performed to this day.

Life

Jura Soyfer was born in Kharkov in the Russian Empire, the son of Jewish industrialist Vladimir Soyfer and his wife Lyubov Soyfer. 1920 the family fled before the Bolshevik Revolution through Georgia and Konstantin Opel and comes 1921, Baden near Vienna, from where they moved to Vienna later. He was ten years old in secondary school Hagenmüllergasse, Erdberg started school, where he successfully graduated later. With 15 years of law Soyfer began to study socialist writings and was a committed Marxist. In 1927, he joined the Association of Socialist middle school and worked in the Agitpropgruppe "Blue Blouse " with. As was said in the family Russian, French and German, developed Soyfer quickly a flair and passion for language and language games. In 1929 he became a member of the political cabaret of the Social Democrats. There he gained his first experience in scenic writing. As of December 1931 political satires of Soyfer published weekly in the Arbeiter-Zeitung and the social democratic weekly The cuckoo. He also wrote two articles for the political stage. In it, he called for a politicization of the theater and the abolition mere distraction and entertainment. In this respect he was the epic theater of Bertolt Brecht very close.

After February 1934 and he joined the illegal Communist Party in written leaflets and began working on his novel Thus died a party. This novel, which is preserved only in a fragment, was a settlement with the policy of the Austrian Social Democratic Party, whose policy has resulted in the defeat of February 1934. 1935 Soyfer learned about Hans Weigel Leon Askin ( Leo Askenasy ), who worked as an actor and director at the Viennese theater ABC, where most have been performed by Soyfer pieces.

1937 Soyfer was (actually, Franz Marek, a leading official of the Communist Party) arrested by a confusion with a certain Seidel. After it became apparent that Soyfer against itself with its critical pieces existed enough incriminating evidence, he was imprisoned for three months. On February 17, 1938, he was released in an amnesty for " political". Only 26 days he was then at liberty. On March 13, 1938 - the day after the connection - he was arrested in Gargellen when trying to come up with skiing to the safe Switzerland by Austrian officials.

He first came into the community Kotter in St. Gallen Kirch, to Bludenz. On March 16, 1938, he was brought before the Regional Court of Feldkirch, although its swearing on Hitler was only on 18 March 1938. On June 23, 1938, he was transported to the Dachau concentration camp, in the fall of the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he died on February 16, 1939 of typhoid fever.

In 1968, the law Soyfer alley in Vienna-Favoriten was named after him.

Work

Soyfer published from early 1932 to 1934 in the Arbeiter-Zeitung ( AZ) regularly poems that dealt with the current political situation. After his trip to Germany in the summer of 1932, he also wrote repeatedly against National Socialism, with its poetry represented both call for vigilance and defense, as well as satire and trivialisation of political opponents. From the establishment of the corporate state in 1934 was Soyfer before publication difficult conditions, until 1935, he again wrote for the Sunday edition of the Vienna day. Furthermore, some songs and poems are integrated into his pieces, to include the ballad in paradise in The Lechner Edi looks into paradise, the vagabond song in Astoria or the ballad of the three in Broadway Melody 1492.

Soyfer first piece end of the world or the world stands on no ' case was more long premiered in early summer 1936 and set down again on 11 July 1936. It shows the humanity from the apocalypse, the destruction of the world by a comet - the violent repression revolting masses and the blindness in which people wait to the end of the world are represented. The comet after all, it does not have the heart to destroy the Earth, giving the piece brings a positive outcome, but at the same time emphasizes the inconsequential and incorrigible stupidity of mankind. The subtitle is a reference to the comet song in Johann Nepomuk Nestroys piece Vagabond.

The second piece Lechner Edi looks to Paradise, which was played from October 6, 1936 to January 6, 1937 in the literature on the Naschmarkt, shows an unemployed person who sets out with the help of a time machine to the culprits of his misery in the past find. He finally unmasked the invention of man as guilty. Nevertheless, the piece with a request of the man to man ends for decision to the political. Soyfer accomplishes here the leap from pathos to the cabaret element of political criticism.

In his third piece Astoria Soyfer problematized the Homeland term that was rife in Austria since 1918. Astoria is a fictional country to which cling to the hopes and dreams of the protagonists in the play. Your dreams are repeatedly destroyed by the impossibility of implementation. This is at the end of the play clearly through a hymn, the singing, the performers on the site, while being taken to prison.

1937 Soyfer wrote the piece Vineta. There he removed from all traditions of the popular play and shows an absurdity of plot and language that inevitably counteracts the bottomless pit and destruction. Be addressed the protest against circumstances that are considered immutable, and the " Non - know - will". Vineta is a warning against the war and against illusions that are created to oppress people.

Broadway Melody 1492 Soyfer also wrote in 1937 for the ABC theater. It is an adaptation of the play Columbus by Kurt Tucholsky and Walter Hasenclever. Soyfer takes the satire on the clergy and the court society, but his political criticism of society falls out far more radical. Through the perspective of the lower layer provides Broadway Melody 1492 classic folk play is where it is clear that are superior to the lower classes of the ruling class, or at least should be.

Three more scenes have been preserved as well. In history class in 2035, a teacher asked his students about the "neo- medieval " ( the Vienna of the 1930s ). The future vision is Soyfer own time as barbaric and backward-looking is so can about a student say about the culture of life " Nix ", to which the professor responds "Set very good". The images around a hot dog cart from 1937, let two Viennese philosophize about the political situation in Europe, but by to chat about the hot dog cart, Soyfer used to the ambiguity of the Viennese dialect. The loyal citizens of Baghdad, listed in late 1937, is a satire on the Austrian corporate state and its pettiness.

In addition Soyfer wrote 2 " Proletarian parties " with the titles Christmas tree of humanity - A proletarian Christmas 1933 and King is dead - long live the king 1934.

During his detention 1937/38, began Soyfer to write another piece, which should deal with the person of Adolf Hitler. From these designs, nothing is received. Another 8 scenes and pieces are not received or not yet found

In the Dachau concentration camp Soyfer co-wrote with composer Herbert Zipper the famous Dachau song with the refrain:

Importance

Jura Soyfer is one of the few Austrian writers who have been translated into more than 30 languages. The concern Jura Soyfer was to present no complete solutions or results in the theater; for him were the only problems in real life shown to be so in the real-world protest, solved. His pieces destroy illusions and call on you to change society as it is. He himself regarded it as a means of propaganda, directly related to the time in which he lived.

Only in 1974 were published Soyfer pieces collected, after former members of the British exile organization " Young Austria " had endeavored. His works were consequently taken out of context and listed among others in the GDR as valid there, timeless social criticism. 1988 was founded in Vienna in the Jura Soyfer Society.

Texts of Jura Soyfer were Georg Herrnstadt and Willi Resetarits (butterflies - Repressed years) set to music and Sabina Hank (CD Evening Songs ).

Commemoration

At the residence of Vienna 9, Kinderspitalgasse 10, there is a plaque that recalls that Jura Soyfer has lived here from 1931 to 1935.

At the Institute of Theatre, Film and Media Studies at the University of Vienna auditorium Jura dedicated Soyfer.

Writings

• Factory output. Ed Horst Jarka. Deuticke, Vienna 2002. 1: heckling left. Poetry. ISBN 3-216-30658-5.
• 2: On us depends on it. Scenes and pieces. ISBN 3-216-30659-3.
• 3: Thus died a party. Prose. ISBN 3-216-30660-7.
• 4: Storm time. Letters from 1931 to 1939. ISBN 3-216-30661-5.