Vicki Baum: Annotated Edition of Selected Works

• Applicant: Privatdozentin Dr. Julia Bertschik
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature)
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 459545753

The international dissemination of texts by the Jewish Viennese star author Vicki Baum (1888–1960) via magazines, books, stage and film has paradoxically lead to the fact that interest in her work has survived outside the literary canon; it has also meant that the literary quality of her writing has been rediscovered and meanwhile increasingly appreciated. A changed, institution-critical attitude towards mechanisms of failed canonisation, which successful women writers were particularly subject to, as well as an increased interest in the functioning of mass and popular culture, especially in the interwar period, have contributed to this development. Additionally, this also lead to a revaluation of Baum who had been discredited for a long time as a ‘mere’ entertaining, light fiction author. The editions of her texts, with frequently missing or newly translated paratexts played a major role here. To recognize the various reception possibilities of Baum’s works in their specific poetics of transmedial and intratextual allusions, as well as autofictional and factual writing, we need an edition which not only presents her works without a commentary (which is also the case with individual recent editions) but which also places it in its socio-historical, literary, medial and gender-specific contexts. The aim of the project is to produce a generally accessible, reliable, annotated and contextualized, initially 6-volume edition of selected works by Baum to fill this gap. The volumes present central prose texts, which are, with one exception, no longer available, and which are the first to illustrate the thematic, narrative, multilingual range of Baum’s work as she moved between Vienna, Berlin and Hollywood: the early works, including the collection of novellas dedicated to her early mentor, Thomas Mann, "Die andern Tage" (1922/31), the modern novels with the Ullstein Publishing House, "Stud. chem. Helene Willfüer" (1928) and "Menschen im Hotel. Ein Kolportageroman mit Hintergründen" (1929), the (self-)critical film novel "Leben ohne Geheimnis" (1932), the autobiographical novel "Marion lebt" (1942) as well as the anti-fascist and globalization critical raw material text "Kautschuk. Roman in 15 Erzählungen" (1943/45). In accordance with current publishing practice and at the same time a novelty for Baum’s texts, this Open Access edition to be produced by the Wallstein Publishing House will be conceived as a hybrid edition. This means that in addition to the commentary sections of the printed volumes, further (more comprehensive and multimedial) documents on the creation, reception and adaptation of the respective texts will be available in digital form on an Internet platform. Dr. Veronika Hofeneder (Vienna) and PD Dr. Julia Bertschik (Berlin), both of whom are proven experts on Baum and have already presented ground-breaking individual editions of Baum, will be the main contributors to this project.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Austria
• Cooperation Partners: Dr. Desiree Hebenstreit, since 11/2022; Dr. Veronika Hofeneder, from 7/2022 until 10/2022