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Peter Demetz

Peter Demetz (born Petr Demetz; October 21, 1922 – April 30, 2024) was an American scholar of German literature. He was born in Prague, where he was persecuted under the Nazis and escaped the Communist regime in 1949. He worked in Germany as a teacher and radio journalist. He emigrated to the United States in 1952, studied further, and began teaching at Yale University in 1956; he was later appointed a Sterling Professor there and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Rutgers University. From the 1970s, he also worked as a literary critic for German papers such as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. He is known for his 1997 book, Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City.

Peter Demetz
Demetz in 2012
Born
Petr Demetz

(1922-10-21)October 21, 1922
Prague, Czechoslovakia
DiedApril 30, 2024(2024-04-30) (aged 101)
NationalityAmerican
Occupations
  • Scholar
  • Author
OrganizationsYale University

Life and career

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Petr Demetz[1] was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, on October 21, 1922.[2]: 17 [3][4] His mother was a Jewish seamstress, and his father a Catholic German.[4][5][6] They had married after World War I; his mother divorced his father.[4] He grew up in Brno, where he experienced a working democracy.[7] Under the Nazi occupation, Demetz joined a resistance group. He was arrested by the Gestapo and forced to do hard labor.[4][6] His mother died in Terezín concentration camp. [1]

Demetz studied philosophy, comparative religious sciences, German studies and English at the Charles University in Prague, with Hugo Siebenschein, Jan Patočka and Ladislav Rieger;[2]: 21  he achieved a doctorate in German studies in 1948.[5][8] His dissertation dealt with the influence of Franz Kafka on literature in English from 1947.[2]: 21 

Demetz and Hanna, his future wife, fled the rise of Communism in Prague and emigrated to Germany in 1949. They first reached Munich, where Demetz soon found work because of his fluent English. He was a teacher in a camp for children in Bad Aibling run by the International Refugee Organization, where his students were orphans who had been persecuted for racial and political reasons.[4] In the late 1950s, he became one of the first journalists of the American broadcaster Radio Free Europe,[3] running a daily literature feature in Czech, which contained poetry and music.[4]

The Demetz family moved to the United States in 1952,[4] where Peter achieved a master's degree in German studies at Columbia University[8] and another doctorate in comparative literary history,[2]: 21  at Yale University,[4][5] with a dissertation about the Prague years of Franz Kafka and Rainer Maria Rilke.[6] He was on the faculty of Yale from 1956 until 1991 when he retired,[8] from 1962 as professor of German literature and comparative literary history, serving as head of the department from 1963 to 1969,[2]: 21  and from 1972 as Sterling Professor.[5] He lectured as a guest at universities including Columbia, Cornell, Princeton and the University of St. Gallen. He was vice-chair and later chairman of the Modern Language Association (MLA), and he served on the jury of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize for ten years.[2]: 21 [6] including the Austrian Institute for Eastern and Southeastern Europe at the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University in Brno, and the Austrian Library in Lectures cycle in collaboration with the Moravian Library.[2]: 22 

From 1974, Demetz wrote as a literary critic for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,[4] invited by Marcel Reich-Ranicki,[5] and also for Die Zeit.[4] In 1997, he published a key work, Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City, both a history and personal memoir, reflecting the city that inspired Johannes Kepler, Rabbi Judah Loew, composers Mozart, Antonín Dvořák and Bedřich Smetana, and authors Rilke and Kafka.[8] His books were published in German, Czech, and English.[6] He wrote autobiographic books, including a collection of essays, Böhmische Sonne, mährischer Mond in 1996, and Mein Prag in 2007, narrating his experiences under the Nazi occupation.[5] Demetz was the Craig Distinguished Visiting Professor at Rutgers University from 2007 to 2008.[8][9] Demetz turned 100 in October 2022[4][10] and died on April 30, 2024, at age 101.[1][5]

Publications

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  • René Rilkes Prager Jahre, Düsseldorf[2]: 19 
  • Marx, Engels, and the Poets: Origins of Marxist Literary Criticism. Translated by Sammons, Jeffrey L. (Revised ed.). Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press. 1967.[3]
  • Formen des Realismus – Theodor Fontane, Munich, 1964[2]: 19 
  • Böhmische Sonne, mährischer Mond. Essays und Erinnerungen. Deuticke, Vienna, 1996, ISBN 3-216-30203-2.
  • Prague in black and gold : scenes from the life of a European city. Macmillan. 1997. ISBN 9780809016099.[11]
  • Air show at Brescia, 1909. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2002. ISBN 9781429998840.[2]: 19 [12][13]
  • ''Böhmen böhmisch, essays, 2006[2]: 19 
  • Mein Prag. Erinnerungen 1939 bis 1945. first in English, translated by Barbara Schaden. Zsolnay, Vienna, 2007, ISBN 978-3-552-05407-3.
  • Demetz, Peter (2008). Prague in danger : the years of German occupation, 1939–45 : memories and history, terror and resistance, theater and jazz, film and poetry, politics and war. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9781429930352.[14]

Awards

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References

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  1. ^ a b c Ivry, Benjamin (April 30, 2024). "How a Jewish son of Prague became a 101-year-old historian of human ideals". Forward. Archived from the original on April 30, 2024. Retrieved April 30, 2024.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Herčík, Radim, ed. (November 26, 2014). "Peter Demetz Doctor honoris causa". Masaryk University. pp. 14–27. Retrieved May 3, 2024.
  3. ^ a b c d e f "Peter Demetz". Exil-Archiv (in German). Else-Lasker-Schüler-Gesellschaft [de]. 2024. Archived from the original on June 7, 2023. Retrieved May 2, 2024.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Fleckenstein, Jutta (October 21, 2022). "Peter Demetz – Seine Münchner Jahre" [Peter Demetz – His years in Munich]. Jewish Museum Munich (in German). Archived from the original on November 27, 2022. Retrieved November 27, 2022.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Platthaus, Andreas (May 1, 2024). "Jahrhundertfigur der Literaturwissenschaft". FAZ (in German). Archived from the original on May 2, 2024. Retrieved May 2, 2024.
  6. ^ a b c d e "Peter Demetz". kulturforum.info (in German). April 23, 2012. Archived from the original on May 4, 2024. Retrieved May 2, 2024.
  7. ^ Richter, Jan (June 4, 2009). "Author Peter Demetz: you could be of any nationality and still feel Czechoslovak". Radio Prague International. Archived from the original on October 23, 2020. Retrieved May 3, 2024.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h "Distinguished Visiting Professor". Rutgers University (in German). 2011. Archived from the original on January 26, 2011. Retrieved November 27, 2022.
  9. ^ "A Fairy tale by Grimm Comes to Light". The New York Times. September 28, 1983. Archived from the original on December 20, 2016. Retrieved December 11, 2016.
  10. ^ Teetz, Kristian (October 14, 2022). "100. Geburtstag von Peter Demetz: "Ich habe mehrere Heimaten"" [100th birthday of Peter Demetz: "I have multiple homelands"]. RND (in German). Archived from the original on November 27, 2022. Retrieved November 27, 2022.
  11. ^ "Review of Prague in Black and Gold by Peter Demetz". Kirkus Reviews. July 1, 1997. Archived from the original on January 18, 2017. Retrieved January 18, 2017.
  12. ^ Bernstein, Peter (November 19, 2002). "Review of The Air Show at Brescia, 1909 by Peter Demetz". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 18, 2017. Retrieved February 11, 2017.
  13. ^ "Review of The Air Show at Brescia, 1909 by Peter Demetz". Kirkus Reviews. October 1, 2002. Archived from the original on January 18, 2017. Retrieved January 18, 2017.
  14. ^ "Review of Prague in Danger by Peter Demetz". Kirkus Reviews. April 22, 2008. Archived from the original on January 18, 2017. Retrieved January 18, 2017.
  15. ^ "Georg Dehio-Buchpreis 2012". kulturforum.info (in German). April 23, 2012. Archived from the original on May 4, 2024. Retrieved May 2, 2024.
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