A Network Make from Letters

  "Excluded from society and without natural interaction, she had a tremendous hunger for human contact, eagerly awaiting the smallest of events, longing for any kind of utterance." This is how Hannah Arendt describes Rahel in her study on "Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess." Rahel Varnhagen is a German Jewish society lady from German romantic times who is probably the best known salon hostess and epistler of the 19th century. When Hannah Arendt was writing, she approached the character of Rahel Varnhagen with all the ambivalence that comes from being different versus being assimilated; yet, Arendt was still unfamiliar with Rahel's main work – 1600 letters and journal entries, carefully collected and arranged by Rahel herself and husband Karl August Varnhagen von Ense. The material was slated to be published upon Rahel's death in 1833. A small portion appeared in the summer of 1833, yet another in 1834. With the revolution of 1848/1849 defeated, Karl August Varnhagen foregoes publishing the major body of his wife's work. He does not want the censors to change that which Rahel has created.
    This treasure was only liberated from a Cracow archive in the 1980s. Professor Barbara Hahn dedicated herself to publishing the critical edition that had been planned by Varnhagens: "Rahel. Ein Buch des Andenkens" – a book of memories in six volumes, published last year. Barbara Hahn teaches German language and literature at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. It is she to whom we owe the rediscovery of Rahel Varnhagen for modern readers of the 21st century. It is the testimony of a great women who was not afraid to think for herself, a "Selbstdenkerin" as the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel noted: "A unadulterated reading pleasure, a history lesson and a social novel as well as an expression of the most acute sensitivity."   aufbau spoke with renowned German studies expert Barbara Hahn about the artistic expression in the edition, Rahel Varnhagen's ability to discuss major issues in all seriousness side by side with the trivialities of daily life and how she had different  correspondents for any topic.

AUFBAU: Ms. Hahn, at a Cracow archive you held 1600 letters and journal entries by Rahel Levin Varnhagen actually in your hands. She herself and especially her husband Karl August Varnhagen von Ense had prepared the material for publication. In an effort to shield the documents from the pen of the censors,  publication was postponed and the documents stored hoping for better times.
BARBARA HAHN: At first, the task seemed very easy because everything had been prepared so nicely. Everything was carefully copied, provided with handwritten notations. I thought I was getting a handwritten manuscript and I would just do everything as Karl August Varnhagen von Ense had planned. But during my work with the material I realized that this would not be possible. Rahel Levin Varnhagen had often gotten her dates mixed up, which is a problem if the chosen editorial structure was to be chronological. For example, she wrote: "Monday, December 3rd." However, research revealed that during that year there was no Monday that would have fallen on the third day in December. However, it also meant correcting the dates would change the structure of the book.

But how could this happen to an authoress like Rahel Varnhagen who wrote daily? Was it carelessness or an artistic gimmick?
I do not believe that it was a gimmick. Perhaps it points to a layer in Rahel's personality that we have not yet learned on how to read. But I had to make a decision and I opted for the following: if I knew for a fact that the date was wrong, I would change it. This means I manipulated the structure of the book quite significantly. However, Karl August Varnhagen also changed the order or letters, when he noticed that they were in disarray. This is why I did it too – I followed his guideline.

Being a "devoted widower," did Karl August Varnhagen von Ense make a very subjective selection?
Over the course of the long years until his own death in October 1858, Karl August Varnhagen von Ense included new letters over and over, added new material as  supplements. He opted for many items that a purely devoted widower would have hidden under a cloak of silence. He saw himself, however, as a historian; this is why the work has a documentary aspect. I believe he chose well because he was always intent on illuminating all facets of Rahel Levin's intellect. His whole life he pondered whether it would be better to just go ahead and publish all the letters in an unabridged fashion. The resulting publication would have been quite different.

The six volumes demonstrate the entire universe of what it means to be human – ranging from questions of religion or lifestyle to housekeeping and illness. Everything follows in quick succession. Would you have preferred at times to see more abstraction and less daily routine?
Life has a lot to do with daily routines; nevertheless, routines are in part hidden in established thought patterns. In Rahel's thinking, daily routines are present which means: everything that she thinks about also has something to do with her daily life. Daily routine can mean incredibly complicated conversations about the great questions of existence but also about personally feeling unwell. For Rahel, this was not merely a bodily sensation but a way in which we move in the world. Her body learned all kinds of things ahead of time before her thinking could catch up and for which there was no proper jargon at the time. Thanks to these many levels in her work, I was never bored. If I had, I would not have been able to finish this tour de force.

It is in a way never-ending self-realization; however, the thoughts were not chronicled in a diary but thrown out into the world by the medium of the letter.
Indeed, it is self-realization, which is also why readers are drawn in – into a world where so unbelievably many things happen. It is not self-mirroring; this would get tiresome over time. No, this is the testimony of an exciting life in a world that was dramatically changing.

Rahel Varnhagen herself does not separate between public and private life.
This I would see a bit differently. In this edition, the reader learns about the content of the letters in succession, irrespective of the person to whom they were addressed. Fact is she only discussed certain issues with certain people. When, for instance, a wave of anti-Semitism raised its ugly head after the Congress of Vienna, she discussed this topic only with family but not with friends.

Were the letters perhaps also a piece of freedom from the narrowly defined external parameters of the life of a "wench?"
Yes, this is quite true; for her as a person, these letters were indispensable. She subscribed to the tenet adhered to by many writers: after a certain point, there is no longer a choice 'to write or not to write.' Writing becomes a driving force. What else could Rahel have written in the times in which she lived? The only other accepted format was the novel. But not everybody is a romancer; and Rahel certainly was not. Narrative prose did not come easy to her.

Her work were the letters?
Yes, and I also believe that she also did not give the possibility of novel-writing much thought. If she had had the gift, she would have written poetry. Her writing is discursive, reflected. At a later time in history, a person with her talent would have written essays.

Do you get very close to her as a person when you edit her letters?
Yes and no. It is very tricky work. There is always the necessary to struggle with many small, formal details. This creates distance. Editing is indeed a handicraft.

But then intimate love letters surface ...
... especially those I find very hard to understand. This is when I would have liked to read the answer letter, but only fragments of them have survived. These letters are the least "worldly."  But perhaps this is the nature of love – love is not worldly. The question remains: how are we to read them? Maybe they are not intended for us. When I think  about the edition, I still wonder whether the love letters have a place in it or not.

Why did it take so long for Rahel Levin Varnhagen's letters to be published? Did the Iron Curtain prevent it?
Yes, that was one of the reasons. For a long time, we did not even know if the letters had survived the Second World War at all. After the war some – among them Hannah Arendt – attempted to find out what happened to the Varnhagen estate. It did not become accessible again until the 1980s. I do not know why they were not published then. Perhaps there were indications already then of the tremendous amount of work that would lie ahead. I certainly did not understand how much work was involved when I started. A great deal of life-time has flown into these letters ...

Rahel Levin Varnhagen's letters are among the few bodies of correspondence created by women.
This has to do with the historical record. We have considerably fewer letters that were authored by women instead of men. Women often wrote to men. But the male recipients did not save the letters. On the other hand, if women corresponded with so-called "important" men, they naturally saved the letters. The archival record taken by itself allows for drawing poignant conclusions as to the cultural hierarchy. This is a another reason of why the collection of Rahel's manuscripts belongs to the most extraordinary treasures that we have from this period. Plus, the letters were intended for publication. These letters were Rahel's great project for publication. She had decided that she as a woman was a representative of her culture and that she would write herself to that culture's attention.   

Barbara Hahn (Ed.): "Rahel: Ein Buch des Andenkens für ihre Freunde." With a preface by Brigitte Kronauer, Wallstein Verlag, 2011, 6 Vols., 3288 pages.

Irene Armbruster was the head of the Berlin offices of aufbau. She now lives in Stuttgart and works as a salaried writer for the publication.