Die Briefe der Dostojewski-Übersetzerin Less Kaerrick an Ernst Barlach
The Letters of Dostoevsky’s Translator Less Kaerrick to Ernst Barlach

Publication and Commentary

Summary/Abstract: The following correspondence sheds light on a little known episode in the life of Ernst Barlach (1870-1938), namely: his acquaintance with Dostoevsky’s translator Elisabeth (Less) Kaerrick (1886-1966). From 1906 until the beginning of the 1920s, Kaerrick managed to translate (under the pseudonym “E. K. Rahsin”) a bigger portion of F. M. Dostoevsky´s works for his fi rst “complete edition” in German, which was published by Munich’s “R. Piper & Co” and had a very strong influence on the perception of Dostoevsky in German literature and philosophy of the 20th century. However, the article’s scientific novelty is, to bring Kaerrick to researchers’ attention not only as a translator, but also as an extremely original individual and female philosopher and author. In Kaerrick’s letters, we have another impressive testimony of how an inherently very gifted woman sought a new self-determination in the 1910s – in dialogue with such an outstanding contemporary as Ernst Barlach. In addition, the article suggests refl ections on implicit traces of Dostoevsky’s reading in Barlach’s literary work (in his play “The True Sedemunds”). The publication is based on the study of Kaerrick’s personal archive (being part of the historical archives of the Piper publishing house, today in the German Literary Archive in Marbach).

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