Katya Petrovska and her Maybe Esther

Yurko Prohasko, translator of the Ukrainian-language version of the book Maybe Esther by Katya Petrovska, will participate in a discussion with Hromadske Radio’s Iryna Slavinska on April 23, 2015 at 19:00 at the “Papir” Hall at Mystetskiy Arsenal to discuss the novel. Attendance is open to all. The following is an interview Ms. Slavinska conducted with Ms. Petrovska in Israel recently about her work.

Katya Petrovska is a German writer of Ukrainian heritage who was born in Kyiv, but has long lived in Berlin. Two years ago her first German-language book Maybe Esther was published and immediately became an event in the world of contemporary literature, with translations into many languages. English and Ukrainian translations will also be published soon. The book consists of a number of stories, with many dealing with Kyivan Jewish history, including the evacuation during the Second World War and Babi Yar.

Maybe Esther is being translated into Ukrainian by Yurko Prohasko. We had a talk with Katya Petrovska in Jerusalem during the Jerusalem Book Fair, which she was attending for a presentation of her book and where she found the time to speak with “Encounters.” We discuss the book, the peculiarities of memory, and where surreal walks in Babi Yar can lead you. The project “Encounters” is supported by the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter.

Katya Petrovska: First of all, it is not a novel. In German this genre is called “geschichte” which means stories. This is where it all begins. These are small stories about my family and they are incorporated into a bigger story. The book starts with a suggestion. What if I describe all these short stories and through this I will describe the entire 20th century? This is connected to the big catastrophes, to the war, Jewish emancipation, and the trials.

Among my illustrious family there was even a character named Judah Stern, who in 1932 shot the German ambassador in Moscow just a few days before the presidential elections in Germany. The story of the trials and the history of the Second World War grow from this story. Each story in the book is built into a great historical formation, and it is told in the most subjective way.

In many languages there is this game between “story” as a little story-narrative, and the “big story.”

Iryna Slavinska: If the stories are told, to whom are they told? Who is the recipient?

K.P.: This is the most interesting question. Many say that this is a story of a family and the story of finding roots, but in fact it is more like the search for the interlocutor, the companion. This is how it starts. You imagine your friend, who does not speak German or does not speak Russian, and you want to tell him this story. For me, the design to whom I am telling this and what I am telling was of the first importance, and the topics were not as important.

According to my vision, the tension of the story or the conversation was a man who speaks German in some surprising way. I have been living in Germany for fifteen years already and my friends are not necessarily Germans, but we speak in German. They are Israelis, Romanians, Italians, French, but we all have been living for some time in Berlin and speak German. Among my friends there even are Germans.

Surprisingly, the German language was the principal thing in this conversation. The story of the Soviet-Jewish-Polish-Ukrainian family is told. If it is told in Russian, and it is my mother tongue, then this will be some sort of memoir, and if it is told in German, then suddenly it turns out that you are not equal to your own history. You tell the story of your family, but by assigning it a different language, you show that this is the story of your family, but it is not you.

I have the right to choose who I am myself. The gesture of freedom is made in another language. In this text I am myself and not myself at the same time. Because it is not logical to write this in German. This was the first idea.

Later it turned out that writing in German provides other amazing opportunities. People perceive the book as artistic, literary, fiction. This is an amazing situation because in the book there is not a single word of fiction, though the stories are sometimes phantasmagorical. The stories of life are much brighter and more fantastic than literary fiction.

If I wrote in Russian, it would be a story of the suffering of the Jewish people and the incredible victorious efforts of the Soviet people in the struggle against the German fascist invaders. This book appeared from memories; it is a product of the last Soviet generation, raised on the war. The war was our biggest myth, which combined truth and lies in an entirely surprising way.

If this is transposed into the German language, it will be an attempt to get rid of predestination. I do not want to be described as a victim.

In the memory of German culture some things were already talked about many times. Some of them were subjected to inflation. In Russian and Ukrainian they are not being talked about. Those are not just words, but also ways of thinking. They are given to the intellectuals, but when you have just the conversation, it is not clear how to describe these things.

I did not want to have this Jewish bonus. I am from a family, part of which was killed at Babi Yar, so... I do not have any right to say that my people achieved victory in World War II, so...people who have the right to say this are at war now.

Actually, because of the fact that the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet Union did not understand and did work around the theme of the memory of the Second World War, we have whatever we have now.

I.S.: The gesture of freedom which you talked about and the distancing through language—why was it so important?

K.P.: In fact, I started to write some stories in Russian, but they wanted to be written in German. This is because of completely practical matters. If you live for any time in some linguistic setting, this is what happens. Then it turned into an internal solution, because it still needs to be resolved. I am really interested more in writing not about me, but in writing about the search for the Other. The Other is such a timeless structure.

I.S.: Where were you searching for the Other?

K.P.: I myself was always in situations with this Other or felt another Other. At the Berlin railway station you meet a man who asks you, “What does it say at the top? Why does it say “Bombardier willkommen in Berlin”? [Bombers are welcome in Berlin. Editor’s note.] Why the “bombs”? And here begins a conversation with another person, and he turns out to be an Iranian Jew living in New York. This is not a fictional story. We talked about bombs, but in fact we talked about the language that is assaulting us.

This book is much more than a book about “gewalten,” or violence, the assault of these words on a person. Because in the beginning there was the word. And, unfortunately, this is not only God’s good news, but also political news.

It is an illusion—language does not offer the slightest distance. Very often people talk about personal distance in relation to the disaster, which I describe. In fact, it is not about emotional distance, but about the fact that the characters I describe suddenly become not mine.

Generally speaking, the German language in any situation provides another level. This appeared in several stories. In the book there is a story my dad told me about how during the evacuation from Kyiv he was supposed to be put into the truck but there was a ficus tree in it. His father removed that ficus and put my father and his brother into the truck. Thus they were saved. The next time my dad did not mention the ficus. It was obvious to me that the ficus saved my father’s life, and therefore I exist, because the pot with the ficus was removed from the truck. And then suddenly my dad stopped remembering it. Thus appeared a chapter on whether the ficus existed at all.

I started to write this in Russian. It was depressing for me because at that moment I realized that I could not tell anything at all because I do not know anything. And every time you try to hold this reality and say something that really took place. And this reality is constantly slipping away. And how should I tell this?

I tried to write this thing down. It seemed to me quite unsympathetic. But some “fiction” all of a sudden appeared out of this ficus. But not in the Russian understanding, where it is fiction, lies, a construction, fake. In German, where it is literature, belles-lettres, fiction…it is an amazing thing and I understood it with the ficus, but did it intuitively. The German language in this case was my salvation. I will not tell you that there is a word in German, something like “fuck.” [“Ficken” is the German curse word for “to fuck.” Editor’s note.] And I am scared that every time somebody will ask me about this: “Didn’t you think that…?”

And this is weird. As a matter of fact, in the book there are all of these parts: from metaphysics to improprieties that exists in post-Soviet areas.

Interestingly enough, a German soldier creates this wonderful abstract level. This does not mean that I start having emotional distance. This is the level of abstraction, when you realize that you are telling a story that on the one hand is your own, and, on the other hand, is very typical, and you do not speak on your own behalf, and you get into the metaphysical space of the twentieth century and just broadcast the information. You create a space for a particular perception of the world, and not even write about it.

Everybody has heard of German philosophy. It is surprising that Russian philosophy was embodied mainly in such personalities as Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. Russian culture knows much less of emancipated philosophy in the German sense. And surprisingly enough, in telling the stories in German, you feel that the German language offers this level of philosophical abstraction.

I.S.: There is an interesting subject of history that is not known. The same as about the ficus…How can you tell a story that you do not know? Where do you search? How do you search?

K.P.: I read kilometers of literature about Babyn Yar, and I did it only to write ten pages about Babi Yar in a semi-journalistic style. It is one of the chapters in the book. It is built on completely different texts. Those are attempts to look from different angles at the history of three or four characters of my family who did not escape Babi Yar.

The book is called Maybe Esther. It is named after the grandmother from my father’s side. Here we are talking about what we can know, but what is impossible to know. We know for sure that my father had two grandmothers. One of them was Esther. He does not know which one exactly, because the grandmother who lived with them was called “mother” by his parents and “grandmother” by him. Thus, she is “maybe Esther.” And this is fundamental. Her name is not Esther, her name is maybe Esther. This is not a suggestion, we know this for sure. We also know for sure how she was killed. I have read and gathered lots of information about that. My father said she died in Babi Yar, but she did not even reach it. She was killed on Luteranska Street, 11. She just came out the building and most likely asked for directions.

What does it mean what we can know and what we cannot know? Every search is an ethical task. How much do we need to learn about some issue to have the right to speak? This is a question for everyone, but it is also a question and search for the genre. If you perform historical research, that is one thing, but if you want to tell a story about some person or about twenty minutes of his life, it is different. For many years I tried to read something about this, and although I do have the nerves to look in that direction I do not have the protection of the profession. If I were a historian studying the Second World War, it would be easier. I stand in front of these disasters naked, which is not always aesthetically pleasing.

As a matter of fact, one should always think of the modality of expression. This is the most important thing in the search for the truth, and not how much we know and how much we do not know. We do know that her name was probably Esther; we know what this day looked like, which patrols where there and exactly where they were...The ability to see is a very small step that separates you from your historical material. I read it all in order to not necessarily use all of this, but to have the right to say a few words.

An entire chapter is based on my walk to Babi Yar. I spent one day there, trying to describe the interaction between a person and landscape in this place and in general the landscape between the subway station and St. Cyril’s Church. Some incredible stories happened to me there, all of which are based on the movie Blow Up, where you reveal some crime, of which there is no trace anymore. There is nothing material left, and at the end you see a group of mimes playing tennis. At some point, being lost in these hills, I met a group of incredibly beautiful young men who were playing in The Lord of the Rings. My day in Babi Yar and this walk were thus described, and then there were different chapters that were written in totally different genres. The search for genre in the book was probably the most important.

The book balances between journalistic texts, a small novel, and some completely delusional pieces without commas, with no capital letters, because the material does not allow you to get closer. For instance, when I was working on the Judah Stern show trial in 1932, you are trying to figure out whether he was bribed by some forces and if he was working for others, and so on. In such cases, delirium is required as the only way to describe the reality.

I.S.: This story that you tell in German for German readers is a story about finding the Other. This is a story on the same subject in another language, about the same family, but for the Ukrainian reader and in the Ukrainian language. Is this another story?

K.P.: This is a very interesting question. The book emerges from the Soviet discourse of victory and struggle on one hand, and of the German culture of memory on the other hand. It exists in between them.

For example, in Germany they frequently say “Auschwitz,” and it is put into the mouth so often that it seems like a piece of pizza. And we have the opposite situation.

I.S.: The story of Babi Yar has not been definitively told?

K.P.: Absolutely. If we look at how many people died—not only in Babi Yar, but during Stalin’s repressions and during the Civil War—then these stories are impossible to tell. We cannot be the voice of twenty thousand or six million. This is not real.

In this issue there cannot be excess, but there can be such an inflationary moment when people do not know how to talk about the issue. This is something else. But these stories are impossible to tell until the end.

I think the Babi Yar story has not been definitively told and it is not perceived correctly. The Famine eclipsed everything. In Kyiv we once had a conference entitled “Between the Famine and the Holocaust.”

I.S.: But the Famine has also not been definitively told…

K.P.: The thing is that it is impossible to simulate the need. It is possible to support the need with radio, television, journalistic texts, it is possible to create the need, to speak of the need, but it is impossible to compel writers—it will turn into a societal order and socialist realism, whether we want it or not.

I.S.: But still, is this story possible for the Ukrainian reader?

K.P.: The whole book is geared to the European reader, who knows what the culture of memory is and who grew up—especially the German reader—with the feeling of guilt. How is it possible to translate this book for an environment where there were no such discussions?

I had a seminar with ten translators, and over the course of four days we were sitting there and reading page by page. It was funny.

In my book there is a chapter about how I go abroad for the first time—to Poland. This trip was bought through some co-op. I was nineteen years old and my parents sent me there. On the sixth day, for some reason on the sixth day, we were all put on the bus and brought to Auschwitz without any previous notice. It was a program on the tour. And my text is about the fact that I do not remember anything. As a matter of fact, this is a text about the standard human timidity in crossing these boundaries. Who gave us the right to see all of this? In what role are we to see this catastrophe? When we cross this boundary, we suddenly take the place of an overseer in a concentration camp. Who are we?

I had a funny experience with the translation in this regard. I do not say the word “Auschwitz,” I say “Oświęcim” in Russian, because I called it like that in the past. This is a different place because the word “Auschwitz” has a very certain connotation in German. It turns out this place should be called “Auschwitz” in other languages because the readers will not understand, but I do not call this place like that on purpose. My text is also based on the phrase “arbeit macht frei.” [The German slogan “Work Makes You Free” which was placed over the entrance of Auschwitz. Editor’s note.] These words are scattered throughout the text, and the German reader sees them right away and remembers them, but it is not stated anywhere. The Romanian translator said that he would mention this phrase, because Romanians have a special attitude towards work.

As for the Ukrainian translation…I am very scared because it is impossible to know where it will end up. This is not because the translation is good or bad.

I was very lucky because one of the most famous translators Yurko Prohasko wanted to translate the book. He is an amazingly accurate translator, especially when it comes to Austrian literature, and I am very honored by this.

You can hear this post-Soviet current of wind in Russian and in German. This is the 20th century with all of its dancing storms, and you are located in a historic updraft from which arose this thoughtlessness, where you do not know to which nation you belong, except for the Soviet, and to what culture, and where you are located. The book starts from the Berlin station, where there are drafts, and it is very interesting. The word “zug” is a train; “Luftzug” and “zug” is also a move, as in chess. And this is a kind of theme that runs throughout the entire book.

I have read translations by Yurko. They are beautiful works with rhythm, style, and taste. Suddenly I understood they have something alien and incredible. Of course, there is always this attitude towards translations, “Oh my God, what is it?” But in the Ukrainian translations there is this coziness, and I am not talking about these two or three words of dialect from Galicia that I do not even know, which is natural. I am talking about the general tone of the language that creates some incredible coziness of a person from a very cozy world, who is secure. I do not know if it is tied to Yurko Prohasko or to his Viennese orientation, but this is another world, where I suddenly feel that everything becomes cozy, and it is not in the original book. There is no coziness there.

If truth be told, when I was writing the book in German, there was already a loss in translation. I was trying to convey not only the rhythms and sounds into the German language. There are very many things that arise from the logic of the Russian language, but they are not seen.

For instance, I discovered only recently that the beginning of the book, where there is the Berlin railway station—and the book is based on this trip, this poetic pilgrimage from the Berlin railway station to my house on Instytutska Street—is called “voc zal,” “the hall of the voice,” from etymologized Russian poetry. But this is a fake etymology because the station is named after one place near London. [Vauxhall Station in central London. Editor’s note.] And Mandelstam has a poem “A Concert at the Railroad Station”—absolutely tautological. Mandelstam is always thinking through the German language. When I read this poem, after I had already written the book, I was shocked because a peacock and a piano are in this poem, and they are also in my book.

The novel starts with the character of a switchman—that is me. This appears not only from Stelling’s Dutch film [The Pointsman by Jos Stelling. Editor’s note.] but simply because of the sense of history that you cannot change. I do not know whether this is due to the severe vaccination of Russian literature, with a sense of the railroad, which runs from Nekrasov and ends with the fear of the railroad that any Jewish person has. This is the railroad that when it first appeared was perceived as the invention of the devil, and which really gives a feeling of connection to the world, but on the other hand this industrialization led to the Holocaust.

The switchman was the one who was supposed to switch the arrows so that the trains went in one direction or another. But I was born too late, and I cannot do anything. This switchman cannot change anything. This switchman sets all the motifs of the book: to shoot, a shot, the arrow of Achilles, and the hands of a clock—but in German this morpheme is not visible. The Russian language defines a set of moves, as does the station, because different voices are gathered at this station. I was interested in a resonant space.

I.S.: How is Yurko Prohasko doing with it? Are you reading his translation?

K.P.: I am not sure if I have the right to talk about this. Because this book is written between languages, there is a challenging batch of Russian-German, and Ukrainian is also heard. At least, I know it. Thus, it is unclear how it is possible to translate this into Ukrainian. Yurko already contacted me and asked to work on some things together and try to make some decisions together. Of course, any decision will be a compromise. This is very interesting because translators do not always want such close interaction. This sometimes does not work well, especially with languages that you know very well. Therefore, for me it is invaluable that Yurko, as an honest translator, felt the need for this step.

I am very much looking forward to the Ukrainian translation and I am very scared of it.

I think the main theme is the flirtation with the German language, an almost erotic lust and desire to possess the language. All my German language is an attempt to reverse the occupation. And all this Soviet vocabulary was an attempt, to the last drop of blood, to win this language at any cost. Because if I am speaking German, then there is peace in the world. But I was too late.

Originally appeared in: https://hromadskeradio.org/programs/zustrichi/katya-petrovska-ta-yiyi-mabut-ester

Translated by: Olesya Kravchuk, journalist, interpreter

Additional translation and editing by Peter Bejger