Do you still remember why you decided to study German and literature?
Timofiy: I started studying German studies in Lviv in 1988, and literature was a part of it. After that, I also studied philosophy for one semester in Freiburg im Breisgau and took an exam on Heidegger's philosophy. In between, I travelled to Germany and later Austria again and again. For me, the beginning was similar to that of my wife. I come from Ivano-Frankivsk, which was once Stanislav. The number plates on my parents' car still had S and JA, that was Stanislau until 1962. After 1962, the town was renamed Ivano-Frankivsk in honour of the great writer, ethnographer and scientist Ivano Franko, who also did his doctorate at the University of Vienna at the time. I was also sent by my parents to a school with extended German lessons. The only reason was that my brother already attended this school and it was about the same distance from home as the three other schools in the area. That's how I got into this school, but the language, the literature, that caught my interest from the beginning. In any case, German and the language and literature came quite easily to me. I always had an open ear, without being aware of it, but then I became more and more aware of it.
Compared to Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk was a closed garrison town, there was quite a lot of Russian military, which meant it was not so easy to get in even from outside. The Soviets, the Russians, had their nuclear warheads aimed at the West and stationed somewhere near the city. Therefore, at that time I could not even imagine that I would use German at some point, except to read the books that were accessible and then to teach myself or to research the literature that was available.
Ideological distances
In the geography classroom there was a map where the distances from Ivano-Frankivsk to different metropolises were drawn. The ideologists probably overlooked something, because there was a line - I remember it to this day - there was a line from Ivano-Frankivsk to Berlin, there was none to Vienna, and it was really much shorter than the one to Moscow. That also impressed me somehow, this line length alone, because ideologically these distances were so inverted that it seemed as if it was as far away as on another planet. Also because there were many restrictions, travel restrictions - I don't even need to talk about freedom of travel. It was not even possible for a Soviet citizen to travel so easily to Czechoslovakia or Hungary. Then I came to the university in Lviv and we studied German together.
Contact with Joseph Roth, a compatriot
Let's talk about these very early contacts with German: Sometime in the early 1980s, I came across a book by the author Joseph Roth, "Radetzkymarsch", in the Russian translation, in my brother's library. I was too young then, at 11, 12 or 13, I leafed through the book and it didn't appeal to me then. But the preface! I read the preface and there was the general curriculum vitae and the creative work described and it said that he came from Galicia. At that time I had no idea what Galicia was. Yes, well, there was the town of Halytsch nearby, which is where the name comes from. That is to say, the history of Galicia goes back much longer into the past than just the Austrian era of Galicia.
It was strange, for me it was as if Joseph Roth came from far away, Galicia is located I don't know where. Then during my studies I already read him, there were quite a few books, even in German, the GDR editions in the academic library. That's when I realised that Joseph Roth was my compatriot, and I think that brought about quite a change in consciousness. But the real impetus for my interest in German literature was the Austrian Library, which was set up in Lviv shortly after the fall of communism. I think those were the first two Austrian libraries in Ukraine, one in Kyiv and the other in Lviv. One of my colleagues brought it to my attention and we went there. I became acquainted with all the great authors whose names I didn't even know. Many of them appealed to me and I also translated many of them. This was my first real conscious contact with the richness of Austrian literature in particular, and so I slowly turned more and more to Austrian literature via the Austrian library, from German, say Weimar Classicism or Romanticism such as Heine or Büchner. To Trakl, who was in Ukraine during the First World War, but also to Celan or Rose Ausländer, who came from Ukraine, namely from Černivci in Bukovina. This fascinated me so much that I started researching and translating these authors, especially those who had a common connection to the region. I translated quite a few Austrian authors into Ukrainian in the 90s of the twentieth century and the early noughties of the twenty-first century. In my career, the Austrian library played a fundamental role in my interest in Austrian literature. And later I came to Vienna for the first time for a one-month German course in August.
Why did you choose Austria?
For me, the deciding factor was the Austrian library and the discovery of new authors. Everything else happened automatically. Of course, I continued to read German authors, but my attention was already focused on Austrian literature. The start or the big discovery was the opening of the Austrian Library in 1992. And the next step was in 1998, when the first anthology of Austrian poetry was presented in Ukraine and I was the youngest translator of some texts, some authors, including Hermann Broch and Christine Lavant. There was a very large group presentation in Kyiv and Prof. Schmidt-Dengler was also present at this event. In this context, I think the Franz Werfel programme was also presented very briefly. I liked that. I then went and found out more, then I also wrote to Prof. Schmidt-Dengler about supervision and he immediately agreed.
From 1999-2001, I was a Franz Werfel scholarship holder, with a few interruptions. For two years, or a little longer, because in between I also taught in Ukraine and briefly had a translation project here at the Institute for Human Sciences, where I translated a German author or scientist, Hans-Georg Gadamer. I translated his poetic and essayistic texts on poetry, including a bit on Austrian literature like Paul Celan, into Ukrainian. That was the most important foundation for my research on Austria, my trips to Austria, for my interest in Austria and its literature and culture.
The good thing about this programme was and is, and I always say this when I recommend this programme in Ukraine, that there is also follow-up support. That means that the end of the scholarship is not the end, there is a continuation, and that is quite important. This has also helped me personally a lot, so that I have written a few academic books on Austrian literature. One of them also in German, and all of them have now become reference works at Ukrainian universities. Austrian literature is not offered as an independent subject, but if I compare it with the time when I studied, Austrian literature - including the literature of the Second Republic up to the present - is relatively well represented. Until the 1990s, it was virtually unrepresented at the universities and also not researched. A lot has changed in this direction in these 20, 25 to 30 years.
Werfel conferences
I don't know of any programme as well conceived as Franz Werfel's, also because of these conferences that take place annually and where a scholarly volume is then also compiled, which is quite important. It is gaining more and more authority, that is, it is becoming more and more representative. There is also much more interest and echo from other German studies institutes in other countries in these texts and volumes in Austria and also in Germany. I think the programme was more Central European in the beginning, but then it grew. We also had quite interesting researchers from the USA or African countries who came with their different view and approach, where I then also learned something for myself, not only from libraries, but how people in different cultures also conduct academic research. It's always quite similar, but somehow also different.
Werfelianer
There is also a Werfelianer community, a platform, a website within the OeAD. We are also always in mutual correspondence and are always all in CC when someone is written to. In Szeged, Hungary, there was a conference or meeting to which Attila Bombitz, also a former Werfel scholarship holder, invited me. Attila Bombitz recently presented a volume at the Buch Wien 2022, to which he also invited me, which also happened through Werfel. It is a rather interesting volume on the research and translation of Austrian literature into other languages, newer perspectives. There is, for example, a text of mine on the translations of Austrian literature into Ukrainian. Also a bit with a retrospection at the tradition of translation, which is hardly known, not even in Ukraine, because these translations already started at the end of the 19th century. This exchange between Ukraine, especially Western Ukraine, as long as it was not part of the Soviet empire, between states, countries and cultures in the first third of the 20th century was quite intense. Ivan Kruschelnytsky, for example, was a very representative poet and lyricist for the West Ukrainian literary consciousness. He was in correspondence with Hugo von Hofmannsthal, by whose aesthetics he was quite influenced, and there is a small volume of their correspondence.
What influence did the scholarship stay have on your personal and professional development?
It had a very positive and strong influence on me, right down to everyday life. During this time, we were not forced to worry about our survival, but we had time to research and educate ourselves. That was quite important, especially in those 90s, which were economically very crisis-ridden for Ukraine.
From 2004-2006 as well as 2008-2012, Timofiys wife Oksana Havryliv organised a series of lectures in Lviv, to which many well-known historians, natural scientists and experts came. When Elfriede Jelinek received the Nobel Prize, Timofiy also gave two lectures, which were very well attended.
The Nobel Prize was very fresh, it was announced in mid-October that she had won the Nobel Prize. That's when I spontaneously and probably as the first in Ukraine gave the first lectures and presented her multifaceted work not only with books but also with visual media. That was quite successful at the time.
On the basis of this personal, private, but also academic career, if you then look at it in a generalised way, this process of growing together of what was suddenly torn apart by the Soviet totalitarian regime, very brutally and sharply, becomes visible in several such biographies. It is now growing together through the research, through the mutual journeys. This is the long, and due to the Russian aggression and invasion now bloody, path of the return of the Ukrainians to the European community, where they have always belonged.
Another important facet: within the framework of this Werfel communication, there are then these cross-connections and cross-events on other terrain in Central Europe. That is also very important. For example, projects were created by former scholarship holders in the Czech Republic, Poland or Hungary, where other Werfelians were invited and books were written. It has grown beyond this narrower Viennese circle, but always with reference to Vienna and the Werfel scholarship. Most academics with a connection to Austria are also multi-talented. My interest in literature is also multifaceted because I read, write, research and translate. It's multifaceted, literature interests me in every way.
In 2009, I taught at Humboldt University for a semester, including a seminar on German-language literature from Galicia, on this cultural heritage of Austria and Ukraine; again Franz Werfel was helpful to me.
How does your wife's research on profanities influence your work or translation?
On the one hand, I'm up to date, and on the other hand, a lot of things are clear scientifically when I read something by writers of this experimental generation after World War 2, who use a lot of swear words and swear constructions in their texts. That means that for me, too, there is almost no word I don't understand. That makes it easier for me to read and that I can then understand the content completely. If I can understand it completely, then I can also write about a certain topic or a certain book. This scientific side, but also personal side for my writing, has enriched me and made it easier for me to use certain swear words in my texts, when the characters are motivated by certain situations, because there wasn't this kind of literature in our country. There were the 60s, which were also, as far as it was possible in the Soviet Union, more or less experimental. But ranting was frowned upon and forbidden, I think it was even threatened with prison sentences in the Soviet Union. In other words, writers avoided it. It is banned again in Russia today by Putin.
I don't have any difficulties with the research material either, because on the one hand literature is always being written about and on the other hand the classical and older texts can and must always be read anew, there must be new interpretations as well as perspectives, theories, approaches. This refreshment, to read it anew, is always important. The material never runs out for a literary scholar. And that pleases me.
Do you have any tips for Werfel applicants?
For the initial applications, the general tips and rules apply, I don't see any special features there. Only the general, the interest must be there. You have to establish contact to a professor in Austria who will supervise you. It would be nice to do something in the direction of Austrian literature, not just the German language. After all, the first scholarship holders came as German teachers, not even as literary scholars. At that time, literature in general was at a disadvantage. Language was so forced and offered on a much larger scale. I also came to literature from linguistics, because literary studies only existed to a limited extent, let alone Austrian studies.
Dare to do it
Reviewing my story might help younger people who apply, who dare to apply. I would also say you have to dare to do it. I think the Franz Werfel programme is very well thought out. But I don't know why so few dare to apply. Probably many think it is already too upscale, too strong and too highly established. But that's not the case. When you first join, it's enough if you're really interested in literature and literary studies and already have a bit of experience. Applying in German is also a very big advantage for Germanists, because many Germanists naturally know German much better than English. With the other academic funds, you now have to submit in English even for German studies.
Franz Werfel Conference 2023
On 31 March and 1 April 2023, this year's Franz Werfel Conference on "Multilingualism - Polyphony" will take place in Vienna.
Links:
Interview with Oksana Havryliv
Oksana and Timofiy about the importance of turning to science during difficult times
