From the History of the Literary Activity
 of Andreas Saks, a Russian and German Writer:
 The Preparation of His Schwanks for Publication in Russian
 (1960–1970)

Abstract

Andreas Saks (1903–1983), a Russian (Soviet) ethnic German playwright, prose writer and poet has been one of the most well-known authors of prosaic schwanks in Russian German literature. The article is the first effort to describe how he prepared his schwanks for publication in Russian.
 In the 1960–1970s, he lived and worked first in Astrakhan, and then in Tiraspol, he wrote and published his schwanks in German. His first publications appeared as a rule on the pages of Soviet German newspapers. Thus, in the conditions of Soviet post-war and post-Stalin reality, he sought, firstly, to retain
 schwanks as a genre of German folk literature and, secondly, to help Russian Germans devoid of their original nationality in the USSR to maintain their national and cultural identity.
 Moreover, Andreas Saks was eager to expand his readership by publishing his schwanks in Russian. While preparing these works for book publications for numerous Soviet readers, he himself translated them into Russian. In his introduction to these editions he aimed to acquaint Soviet readers of different nationalities with a «schwank» as a unique phenomenon of German literature and
 culture as well as its genre peculiarities.