'Schlaf ruhig. Die Erde ist dein': Eva Priester, a Political Poet in Exile

Abstract

'Schlaf ruhig. Die Erde istdein5: Eva Priester, a Political Poet inExile CHARMIAN BRINSON* ImperialCollegeLondon At first glance, Eva Priester's inclusion in a volume dedicated to Austrian lyric poetry might well seem strange, since she was neither originally Austrian nor primarily a poet. The first she became cby adoption' ? a Wahl?steneicher?n ? from the mid-1930s (although she did not finally acquire Austrian citizenship until 1948); her career as a poet appears to have been kindled by and to have flourished within the exile experience, first in Czechoslovakia and then inGreat Britain,1 but then, so far as is known, not to have survived her post-war return toAustria. Eva Priester, n?eFeinstein, was born in St Petersburg in 1910 into a com fortably off, well-educated, assimilated Jewish family who spoke Russian, French and some German within the home.2 In 1921, in the wake of the Russian Revolution, the family moved to Germany where Priester com pleted her education and became a journalist, learning her trade on the celebrated liberal Berliner Tagebhtt. In Berlin she became involved first in Socialist and then, from 1933, in Communist politics, joining the KPD [German Communist Party] after the Reichstag fire. Imprisoned for a time in Germany on account of her political activities, Priester fled to Czechoslovakia and thence, in 1936, toAustria. In Vienna she continued to earn a living as a journalist, joined theKP? [Austrian Communist Party], and met and worked with Austrian Communists of note such as the poet and dramatist Jura Soyfer, who later lost his life in Buchenwald, and the * I should like to express my thanks to the following for access to archive materials and for their kind assistance and interest: the Alfred Klahr Gesellschaft, Vienna, and Dr Willi Weinert; the Deutsches Exilarchiv, Deutsche Bibliothek, Frankfurt a. M.; Hilde N?rnberger-Mareiner; Alfred Schiemer; and Erna Woodgate. 1 On the proliferation of poetry under exile conditions, see, for example, J. M. Ritchie, 'London-Gedichte von Exillyrikern inGro?britannien', inDeutschsprachige Exillyrik von igjj bis zur Nachkriegszeit, ed. by J?rg Thunecke (Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA, 1998), pp. 217-34. 2 For Priester's early life,see theautobiographical fragmentfrom 1940held inEva Priester papers, Alfred Klahr Gesellschaft [AKG], Vienna, 155. See also Heide Maria Holzknecht, 'Eva Priester: Journalistin, Schriftstellerin, Historikerin' (Unpublished thesis, University of Innsbruck, 1986);and Glaudia Trost, 'Eva Priester:Ein biografischer Abri?', inDie Alfred KlahrGesellschaft und ihrArchiv. Beitr?ge zur ?sterreichischen Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. by Hans Hautmann (Vienna, 2000), pp. 347-70. GHARM IAN BRINSON Ii; journalist Jen? Kostmann, with whom she would continue to be profession ally associated in British exile. Itwas at this period of her life that her close identification with Austria appears to have originated.3 When, however, the Germans marched into Austria inMarch 1938, Eva Priester was by chance in Prague, where she had no option but to remain. Interestingly, it was not the Anschluss but rather the ceding of the Sudetenland toHider later that year and the occupation of Prague in 1939, which she experienced at first hand, that provided the impetus for her first, or at any rate her first published poems, inwhich she expressed rage and bitterness at these occurrences. One of the earliest, entided 5.M?rz' [15th March], takes as its central device a personification of hostile natural elements ? a common feature in her laterwork, too ? which are portrayed as in keeping with the political events while also being assigned the role of witness to the defeat of the nation: Wirbelsturm Wintersturm feg durch die Stadt, rei?e vom Baum Knospe und Blatt! Wei?er Sturm kalter Schnee fege auch du, eisiges Tuch deck alles zu! Lichter am Br?ckenturm geht schweigend aus, Finsternis h?lle Stra?e und Haus! Sturm und Schnee Finsternis saget es allen: Durch die Stadt zieht der Feind. Prag istgefallen!4 3 On this,see the latertributetoPriesterfromher old friend Walter Hollitscher, inwhich he refers to her as 'in die KP? "eingeheiratet"5 ['married into' the Austrian Communist party] (see Hollitscher, 'Kollegin, Freundin, Genossin Eva', ?steneichische Volfastimme, 13October 1979, p. 3). By the mid-1930s, Priester was already divorced from her first husband, Hans Priester, and had reportedly entered into a...