International Translators´ Day 30.09.2021
On Thursday, 30.09.2021 / 6 pm the translators will read: Mareen Bruns (Berlin), Elna Lindgens (Munich), Franziska Zwerg (Potsdam) - Introduction: Klaus-Jürgen Liedtke (Berlin).
Saint Hieronymus is considered the patron saint of translators. He retired to the desert to translate the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into living Latin. The International Translators' Day (German: Hieronymustag) is dedicated to him, on which translators leave their chambers to become publicly visible.
Nord Stream3, a project funded by the the German government's "Neustart Kultur" program, brings together essayistic texts from 1990 to the present from the border regions and peripheries of the Baltic Sea area.
The introduction presents the rebirth of a sea and its hidden linguistic diversity.
News July - November 2021
Nord Stream 3 - Babel pipeline thru the Baltic Sea
The translations of following essays to German have been made available thanks to the support of Deutscher Übersetzerfonds from the state programme "NEUSTART KULTUR" of the commissioner of the federal German government for culture and media (Beauftragte des Bundes für Kultur und Medien):
- Riga - eine Heimstatt für Ideen? Essay by Pēteris Bankovskis. Translated from Latvian by Sven Otto
- Meine Stadt. Essay by Gintaras Grajauskas. Translated from Lithuanian by Claudia Sinnig
- Weiße Nächte und schwarze. Translation of two Letters by Jaan Kaplinski and Johannes Salminen from Finnish resp. Swedish by Maximilian Murmann and Elna Lindgens
- Von einem Ort zum anderen. Essay by Birgitta Trotzig. Translated from Swedish by Hannes Langendörfer
- Geraubtes Land. Essay by Elin Anna Labba. Translated from Swedish by Hedwig M. Binder
- Brücken ins Nirgendwo? Identität der Bewohner des Kaliningrader Gebiets im 21. Jahrhundert. Essay by Ilya Dementiev. Translated from English by Barbara Wiebking
- Neue Erkenntisse über Labyrinthe. Essay by Christer Westerdahl. Translated from Swedish by Christina Möllring
- In Lappland (Lotten von Düben). Essay by Eva Dahlman. Translated from Swedish by Maike Barth
- Elena Guro: Malerin, Dichterin, Pantheistin. St. Petersburg – Karelische Landenge 1877-1913. Essay by Margareta Tillberg. Translated from English by Maria Meinel and to Russian by Natalya Zlydneva
- Ebenen und Kanten: eine höchstpersönliche Sicht auf das historische Lettgallen. Essay by Sergey Moreino. Translated from Russian by Franziska Zwerg
- Bekenntnis. Performative Produktion von Geschlechtsidentität und Gedächtnis in Tõnu Õnnepalus Roman "Im Grenzland". Essay by Eneken Laanes. Translated from English by Anna Hildegard Czinczoll
- Eine Reise in zwanzig Stationen entlang der Landesgrenzen Skandinaviens. Essay by Malin Nord. Translated from Swedish by Ricarda Essrich
News June 2021
Another half-year passed and our Baltic babel pipeline continues to pump new essays and cross-languages translations. Many of them – translations to and from German - have been made available in the framework of our project “Nord Stream 3”. Those translations were made possible thanks to the support of Deutscher Übersetzerfonds from the state programme "NEUSTART KULTUR" of the commissioner of the federal German government for culture and media (Beauftragte des Bundes für Kultur und Medien).
„Everything since my childhood has led me to the work I do now.“ Yury Dmitriev in “A visit to Yury Dmitriev”. Interview by Sergey Lebedev.
We recommend a conversation now available in Russian, German and English between the writer and journalist Sergey Lebedev and the Karelian historian and human rights activist Yury Dmitriev, conducted after the latter was first released from prison in 2018. Dmitriev who has worked on mapping the places where Stalin carried out his Great Terror regime, speaks about what it does to him to locate mass graves and what sense the identification of the then murdered has today. By relocating the human remains of the victims to new cemeteries, he created space, so that “people can come to remember”. He as well speaks of faith which helps him to find peace with those who have brought guilt upon themselves.
Other (newly translated) uploaded works are:
One who came back / Erinnerungen eines Überlebenden. Memoir by Josef Katz. Now in Polish translation by Dorota Stroińska.
Henry Parland. Poems. (Russian translation) Translated from Swedish by Olga Mäeots.
Germania (Estonian translation) by Cornelius Tacitus. Translated from Latin by Kristi Viiding.
Ice and Heather. Essay by Jaan Kaplinski.
Плоскости и грани: частное видение исторической Латгалии. Essay by Sergey Moreino.
Esteros žirklutės. Essay by Mindaugas Kvietkauskas.
En resa längs Nordens nationsgränser i tjugo punkter. Essay by Malin Nord.
Mein Vater, Flüchtling aus Karelien. Essay by Jukka-Pekka Pietiäinen. Translated from Finnish by Ilse Winkler (In original: Isäni, evakko)
Страна которой нет. Essay by Sergey Zavyalov.
Das Land, das nicht ist. Essay by Sergey Zavyalov. Translated from Russian by Christine Hengevoß.
Das Alexandria der Ostsee. Essay by Johannes Salminen. Translated from Swedish by Elna Lindgens.
Von Isländern, Eisbären und Königen. Essay by Gert Kreutzer.
In autumn some of the texts will be recorded as audio files as well.
Good reading otherwise!
With best wishes
chief editor
Klaus-Jürgen Liedtke
News January - June 2021
The translations of following essays to German have been made available thanks to the support of Deutscher Übersetzerfonds from the state programme "NEUSTART KULTUR" of the commissioner of the federal German government for culture and media (Beauftragte des Bundes für Kultur und Medien):
- In Wasser geschrieben. Essay by Clas Zilliacus. Translated from English by Mirko Bonné
- Frühling in Kaunas: Henry Parland in Litauen. Essay by Per Stam. Translated from English by Mirko Bonné
- Der Vorzug der Randlage. Essay by Lars Kleberg. Translated from English by Mirko Bonné
- Grenzen und Grenzpolitik oder Ein russisches Ei des Kolumbus. Essay by René Nyberg. Translated from Swedish by Elna Lindgens
- Porträt einer Zeit - Anna Achmatowas lyrisches Werk. Essay by Barbara Lönnqvist. Translated from Swedish by Mareen Bruns
- Karelienmythologie in der finnlandschwedischen Literatur. Essay by Agneta Rahikainen. Translated from Swedish by Karl-Ludwig Wetzig
- Mein Vater, Flüchtling aus Karelien. Essay by Jukka-Pekka Pietiäinen. Translated from Finnish by Ilse Winkler
- Herder, Finnland, Europa. Essay by Sakari Ollitervo and Kari Immonen. Translated from Finnish by Ilse Winkler
- Das Alexandria der Ostsee. Essay by Johannes Salminen. Translated from Swedish by Elna Lindgens
- Der Ostseeraum - Spannungsfeld im Wandel der Zeiten. Essay by Nils Blomkvist. Translated from English by Susanne Bonn
- Die Ostsee und ihre Mythologie in der polnischen Literatur. Essay by Małgorzata Czermińska. Translated from English by Valeska Henze
- Das Land, das nicht ist. Essay by Sergey Zavyalov. Translated from Russian by Christine Hengevoß
- Hogland - vergessene Insel in der Ostsee. Essay by Barbara Lönnqvist. Translated from English by Yvonne Eglinger
- Blå Jungfrun. Die Blaue Jungfrau. Essay by Lennart Sjögren. Translated from Swedish by Karl-Ludwig Wetzig
- Sofi Oksanens "Fegefeuer" in Estland. Essay by Eneken Laanes. Translated from English by Elvira Willems
- Die Schere von Esther. Essay by Mindaugas Kvietkauskas. Translated from Lithuanian by Vytene Muschick
- Johannes Bobrowskis literarische Landschaft. Essay by Anders Björnsson. Translated from Swedish by Karl-Ludwig Wetzig
- Der knorrige Stamm. Demut als Edelmut in der finnlandschwedischen Literatur. Essay by Clas Zilliacus. Translated from Swedish by Klaus-Jürgen Liedtke
- Die Angst des Kindes in Tomas Tranströmers 'Ostseen'. Essay by Karin Haugane. Translated from Norwegian by Caren Gäbel
- Zu Besuch bei Jurij Dmitrijew. Interview by Sergey Lebedev. Translated from Russian by Franziska Zwerg
- Der Fürst. Über Czesław Miłosz. Essay by Eugenijus Ališanka. Translated from Lithuanian and Polish by Claudia Sinnig
- Kaliningrad. Eine Sekunde der Erleuchtung. Essay by Algirdas Patackas. Translated from Lithuanian by Claudia Sinnig
News December 2020
We are finishing off this year – against all odds - with good news: from 1st December 2020 (until the end of November next year) a special programme will be supported by Deutscher Übersetzerfonds with culture historical essays from North Eastern Europe's borderlands and peripheries, to be translated to German and included in our essay section.
Thus we are part of a programme "Neustart Kultur" by the German government to mitigate the consequences of the corona crisis in the cultural field.
During the last half year we have included new biographies (Dahlmann, Hans Henny Jahnn, Andreas Kelletat, Lars Kleberg, Enel Melberg, Adam Olearius, Porthan, Natalya Tolstaya)
as well as new texts on the Baltic Sea Library by:
Nikolay Karamzin, Письма русского путешественника (Letters of a Russian Traveler, including his famous visit to Immanuel Kant in Königsberg) in Russian and German in an old translation by Johann Richter
Tõnu Õnnepalu, Hind (The Price) in Estonian original, Finnish (tr by Juhani Salokannel), German (tr by Horst Bernhardt) and Norwegian (tr by Turid Farbregd)
Strindberg's The People of Hemsö in English, translated by Peter Graves
Astrid Lindgren's Seacrow Island in Russian:
Na ostrove Saltkroka translated by Olga Mäeots
Werner Bergengruen's Report of the Life- and Death Circle of a Famous Man in Estonian:
Aruanne ühe eriskummalise mehe elu- ja surmakäigust translated by Mati Sirkel
and
Jómsvikinga saga in Danish, Norwegian, Swedish (in older translations)
Tempus adest floridum from Piae Cantiones with an essay by Åke G. Sjöberg, Den blomstertid nu kommer (in Swedish)
as well as two essays in German by:
Katarina Holländer, Von Vilnius nach Kaunas. Begegnungen in einer Zwischenzeit
and
Daniel Zwick, Auf den Spuren des ältesten See-Itinerars der Ostsee: eine archäologische Zeitreise
New audios include Clas Zilliacus reading Edith Södergran and Henry Parland (in Swedish)
And if you want to hear Latvian please listen to Tomas Tranströmer's Baltijas jūra read by Baiba Broka!
Last July Juris Kronbergs, one of our important contributors, died. We will remember him especially for his translations from Latvian to Swedish.
Good reading otherwise! And a Happy New Year,
With best wishes
chief editor
Klaus-Jürgen Liedtke
PS. The first article about us has been written for German Wikipedia:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Sea_Library
and we would be grateful if articles in other languages could follow.
News April 2020
New texts included in the Baltic Sea Library after 10 years:
We did not have any celebration – just passed our 10-years anniversary without saying...
Now, in times of corona crisis, no visits to the shores of the German Baltic Sea coastline are possible anymore. This is an exceptional time in many ways and we are trying to keep alive and going and to stay healthy!
Maybe this is also a time for expanded usage of digital platforms, so do use us and have a look what news our team has made available for you in this low budget project.
During last year we have had to make big efforts to update our homepage which has not proven to be an easy task. We now want to welcome Joest Feenders as our new webmaster who has helped us to improve the Baltic Sea Library! And want to thank Berislav Zuparic for the years he has striven together with us.
By the way, we want to improve our offerings of audio takes! We are now applying for support in order to install readings of Tomas Tranströmer's Baltics (Östersjöar) in all our languages, hoping for the best to be able to record all the translators' voices during this year.
And already now we have – alongside with reading by Kerry Shawn Keys (of Sigitas Geda' poem), Vladas Braziunas, Klaus Rifbjerg, thanks to lyrikline.org - included Erika Drungytė's, our Lithuanian editor's rendering of Kristijonas Donelaitis' Metai (The Seasons):
https://www.balticsealibrary.info/authors/lithuanian/items.html?cid=81:lithuanian&id=150:metai
After the succesful update of our homepage we can now offer new texts or excerpts from books for your reading, as usual free of charge:
Jens Baggesen, Labyrinten, eller Reise gjennem Tydskland, Schweitz og Frankerig (danish / german)
Alexander Bestuzhev, Poedzka na Revel (russian / german)
Hans Henny Jahnn, Kleine Reise durch Kopenhagen (german / danish)
Edith Södergran, Förhoppning / Hoffnung (swedish / german)
Ulla-Lena Lundberg, Kökar (swedish / german)
Daniel Odija, Kronika umarłych / Die Totenchronik (polish / german)
Anders Fjellner, Päiven Pārne᾿ / Der Sonnensohn (sami / german)
Anta Pirak, Jåhttee saamee viessoom / En nomad och hans liv (lule saami, german, swedish)
Anta Pirak, Impaa ja su par'neeh / Impa och hans söner, eller hur man tvingade lapparna att forsla silvermalm (lule saami / german / swedish)
Janis Poruks, Kauja pie Knipskas / Die Schlacht an der Knipska (latvian / german)
Hella Wuolijoki, Sõja laul / Estonian War Song (estonian / german)
and the poems and one story by Johannes Bobrowski new translated by Aare Pilv to Estonian:
https://www.balticsealibrary.info/authors/estonian/item/692-pilv-aare.html
with the most welcome support from the International Johannes-Bobrowski-Society! (http://www.johannes-bobrowski-gesellschaft.de)
Among the essays you can find, on the history of Danish-Swedish wars:
Sven Ekdahl: Das Stockholmer Blutbad 1520
on Herder's conception of translation:
Andreas F. Kelletat: Von (kleinen) Nationen und dem Übersetzen als "nation building"
on a lost Finnish, now Russian island:
Barbara Lönnqvist: Lost in the Baltic - the island of Hogland
and about one of our main Sami authors an older text from 1938 by Torkel Tomasson in Swedish:
Anders Fjellner en efter samiska förhållanden märklig poetisk begåvning
Now that the Baltic Sea Library has been existing for more than 10 years, our biggest wish for the future is to build up a translations' fund in order to be able to finance translations of texts chosen for the Baltic Sea Library to al the other languages.
If you want to support us, please notify "Translations' fund" and address to our account:
Forum Mare Balticum e.V.
IBAN DE33 8306 5408 0004 0072 98
And also please send us your proposals on which texts that should be translated to which languages (now that we have 14 of them). You can of course tell us as well what you find is missing in order to shape a literary identity of the Baltic sea region!
Best regards
from chief editor
Klaus-Jürgen Liedtke
PS.
My own German edition of Die Ostsee has been sold in more than 5,000 copies last year, only some 250 copies still left: https://www.book2look.com/book/9783869711751
Photo: Bengt Ljunggren, Gotland, May 1960
Page 2 of 9