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Twisted Spoon Press

PO Box 21 - Preslova 12, 150 21 Prague 5, Czech Republic

 
 
Paul Leppin


Read an essay about Leppin's work here

More about Leppin here (in German)

Two short films based
on Leppin's writing:

Milena
Retribution

  paul leppin

Paul Leppin was born in Prague on November 27, 1878, the second son of Josef Leppin and Pauline Scharsach. Both were from Friedland, in Moravia, and had come to Prague just before their marriage, hoping to be able to improve their social situation in the city through the many opportunities not available in the provinces. She was a teacher, he a clockmaker, a profession he had to abandon to clerk in a law office while his wife cared for their two sons. Forced by the economic difficulties of his family to forgo a university education, Leppin entered the civil service soon after graduating from Gymnasium, working as an accountant for the Telegraph and Postal Service until he retired for health reasons. It was here that he witnessed firsthand the life-numbing existence of his contemporaries, a theme that consistently made its way into his writing.

Beginning with the appearance of the novella The Doors of Life in 1901, Leppins poetry, prose, and essays appeared regularly in Prague and Germany over the next four decades. In contrast to his staid professional life, Leppin's literary career was marked by a desire to "shock the bourgeois," which earned him the unofficial title "king of Prague bohemians." Famous for his mischievous songs, his love of parties, his organizational talent as well as his decadent lifestyle, he became the leading figure of a young generation of Prague German artists during the first decade of the 20th century. Known as Jung-Prag [Young Prague], they congregated around the two literary publications Leppin edited, Fruhling [Spring] and Wir [We], and sought to combat the city's cultural provincialism typified by the conservative Concordia group.

While Leppin's name was becoming known outside of Prague, he was often subject to attacks at home. His novel Daniel Jesus was hailed by the Expressionists in Berlin, yet condemned as pornography in Prague. His railing at the city's literary establishment in the pages of Wir eventually damaged his own future career and the publication had to fold after only two issues. Indeed, Wir was the last attempt by the group to gain an audience, and most associated with it would eventually leave Prague. Leppin was one of the few to stay. He married Henriette Bogner in 1907, and her wish to move to the chic metropolis of Vienna was unable to break the hold Leppin's native city had on him. The Vinohrady district — Prag-Weinberge as he knew it growing up — remained their home.

Leppin once commented that he hoped the revolutionary gestures of his group and the rejection they had endured would at least benefit a younger generation of writers now coalescing around Franz Kafka and Max Brod, who considered him "the chosen bard of the painfully disappearing old Prague." In Leppin's own words, he was "a monument to times past," the last representative of an era. He continued to write novels, plays (performed at the Neues Deutsches Theater), stories, and poems — Prague always forming a strong influence — and he became secretary of the Union of German Writers in Czechoslovakia, which had been founded by Oskar Baum and Johannes Urzidil.

Leppin, in fact, was one of the few German writers to have close contacts with contemporary Czech artists and writers. He translated Czech poetry and wrote articles on Czech literature and art for German periodicals, and had his own work published in Moderni revue, the main organ of Czech Decadence. Serving as a mediator between the cultures, he "set an example as poet and as citizen that a fruitful and peaceful coexistence of both nationalities (Czech and German) is possible in one state without having to give up one's national identity," as Otto Pick remarked in an address given on Leppin's 50th birthday. His contribution to the city's literature and culture was recognized both in 1934, when he was awarded the Schiller Memorial Prize, and in 1938, when on his 60th birthday he received an Honorary Recognition for Writers from the Czechoslovak Ministry of Culture. In the same year, two volumes of his Prager Rhapsodie appeared (a collection of poetry and short prose illustrated by Hugo Steiner-Prag), marking the end of his publishing activity.

The remaining years of Leppin's life were a living hell. After the German occupation of Prague in March 1939, he was temporarily detained and interrogated by the Gestapo. He never learned the reason for it, but most likely he had been denounced as a Jew. Some literary historians did indeed consider him a Jewish writer, and his scandalous books and his good relations with both Czech and Jewish artists provided additional proof that he belonged to a group that undermined Aryan values. Another reason might have been the refusal by the Union of German Writers in Czechoslovakia under his leadership to join the Nazi sponsored Literary Society of Germany. Whatever the case, his poor physical and psychological state, caused by syphilis and a stroke suffered shortly after his release from Pankrac Prison, rapidly deteriorated amd left him utterly helpless in the years to come. The Union was dissolved by the Nazi authorities, and Leppin made a futile attempt to obtain a party membership card in order to receive medical care. He sat in a wheelchair most of the day being looked after by his wife and waiting for the visits of Marianne von Hoop, a young friend who brought him medication to relieve his pain (her husband was a physician). She also understood how to get his mind off his suffering and was able to motivate him to write again: a cycle of poems, Der Gefangene [The Prisoner], and a novella, Monika. Dreizehn Kapitel Liebe aus der Holle [Monika: Thirteen Chapters a Love from Hell], which he completed at the end of 1944. These were his last works.

Leppin died, virtually forgotten, just before midnight on April 10, 1945. He is buried in Prague's Vinohrady Cemetery.

   

published by TSP:

Blaugast

Others' Paradise

Severin's Journey
into the Dark



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