German Jewish poet brought back to life in a new online platform
Else Lasker-Schüler is considered to be one of the greats of German poetry, a bohemian artist who corresponded with many of the most prominent cultural figures of her time.
By TOBIAS SIEGALElse Lasker-Schuler at age 50 in 1919. From the Abraham Schwadron Collection, National Library of Israel Archives(photo credit: NATIONAL LIBRARY OF ISRAEL ARCHIVES)
Else Lasker-Schüler - one of Germany's greatest Jewish poets - who moved to Jerusalem in the 1930s and eventually faded into obscurity, will come back to life in a new digital platform that will display a significant collection of her works online.Lasker-Schüler, who lived between 1869-1945, is considered to be one of the greats of German poetry, a bohemian artist who corresponded with many of the most prominent cultural figures of her time including Albert Einstein, Martin Buber and Thomas Mann.She fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s, arriving in British Mandatory Palestine and eventually settling in Jerusalem. However, success did not follow, and she lived the remaining years of her life in obscurity and poverty.Now, more than 70 years after her death, Jerusalem's National Library of Israel (NLI) and the German Literature Archive (DLA), both holding significant collections of her works, decided to team up in a collaboration aimed at honoring her memory and raising awareness to her forgotten art by making it as accessible as possible.Titled "Poetic Textures: Else Lasker-Schüler Archives. An Online Platform," the platform is available in English and provides a window into the life and work of Lasker-Schüler, offering for the first time digital access to a large portion of her physically scattered literary and artistic legacy, accompanied by explanatory and illuminating texts provided by leading experts.According to its online introduction, the unique project exposes the "consciously hybrid forms of [Lasker-Schüler's] art: the manuscripts, letters, telegrams, and drawings reveal [her] dissolution of the boundaries between life and art, script and drawing, between author and narrator, performed selves and imaginary figures, and even between German and Hebrew in sound, script, and illustration.""Poetic Textures: Else Lasker-Schüler Archives. An Online Platform" is available at: www.laskerschuelerarchives.org.
