Regula Rohland by Langbehn. DIHA Center Editorial. Buenos Aires. 2023.
4º(24 x 17 cm), 500 pp, 1 sheet. Paperback publisher binding.
An attractive book, Argentinische Publikationen in German Sprache, has just been published under the editorial seal of the DIHA Center (Documentation Center for German-Speaking Immigration in Argentina - UNSAM). Ein Katalog. / Argentine publications in German language. A catalog [1].
The work gathers information on German-language publications produced in Argentina, regardless of their content. The bibliography of books in German about Argentina is much more extensive than the collection to which the catalog refers, if we consider that many successful authors in Europe published all their published production referring to Argentina, or a good part of it, in their homeland. Swiss, Austrian or German (later in West Germany or Democratic Germany). Only for some of their works did they look for a publisher or printer, generally from their compatriots in Argentina, as in the cases of Jovita Epp and Roberto Schopflocher. Among scientists and travelers it was common to publish in German in Germany or in Spanish in Argentina.
The edition of the Katalog book was carried out in a limited edition in Argentina, which was expanded with book on demand through www.lulu.com abroad. In the future, a free version will be offered on the Internet, without the illustrations that the printed version has, which will constitute a work or consultation instrument, intended for other specialists to add titles or missing data.
The catalog itself is entirely written in German, although the book is published with a double title because the introduction was also written in Spanish.
It has countless color images that reproduce the cover or cover of the publications that are listed, thus making it a pleasant book to browse and consult. It will be noted that the illustrations are limited to those materials that are physically present in the DIHA Center library and respond to the expectation that in the long run this collection will be completed with the titles that are missing for now. Each entry consists, in addition to bibliographic data, of up to four aggregates, which are: observations referring to the book or fascicle (if necessary); a brief description of the topic (may be missing when the bibliographic entry already gives the tone); an observation if it is recorded or treated in any bibliography; and to locate the material, up to three libraries where copies are preserved, in Argentina, Germany, and Austria or Switzerland. Given that, in some cases, generally when referring to periodical or institutional publications, the description can be very extensive and there is a risk of losing the nature of a list of the work, some of them were gathered in Section IX.
The catalog itself occupies pages 61 to 458, of which the first 150 are dedicated to publications that are searched by the name of their authors arranged alphabetically, and the remaining to various types of publications: II. Fine letters, that is, anthologies; III. Consultation and teaching works; IV. Prospects of the Argentine state in German; V. Institutional bibliography and VI. Newspaper publication. Other sections follow: VII names the series and collections in which many of the books were grouped; VIII introduces a special catalog made by Valentin Kramer [2] on German institutional publications in Rosario and Esperanza; IX contains the aforementioned extensive descriptions of publications. The last one includes records that coordinate the entries by concepts such as “literary texts”, “institutional publications” and similar, bringing together everything that refers to each of these topics, in a section that will be useful, above all, for those who consult the paper edition.
The introduction guides about the content of the catalog and its parts, and deals with historical topics, such as that of German publishers, editors and printers, and analyzes how many books each of the authors published in Argentina. It also provides guidance on the fundamental difference in presentation between the main body and section VIII, by Valentin Kramer, which dealt with materials that could have been integrated into Section V of the catalog itself, dedicated to institutional publications. In Section V, genres were privileged as the idea of order: the statutes of the different institutions, reports, teaching books, etc. were brought together, while in Section VIII, Kramer privileged institutions: he breaks down each school or association in Esperanza or Rosario, and brings together everything that refers to them. Another difference: Kramer gave an entry to each booklet or printed document that his research allowed him to see, while in the main body he opted for complex entries, covering under a single name an entire newspaper with its numerous issues or all the years of publication. the memories of some association. Sections V and VI could thus be summarized in entries that cover several or many specimens. But it is sobering to look at the material broken down, as found in Section VIII. Finally, another peculiarity can be observed in Kramer's work: Section VIII completed the record of the publications, which began as pamphlets in German, registering those that followed them in Spanish. On the other hand, the catalog in its main body only refers to publications in German.
The work in its entirety constitutes a reflection of the literary and cultural development of the German speakers who came to integrate into Argentina, ignoring, of course, the parallel development of other arts, music, pictorial arts, architecture, which also They brought German impulses to Argentina, although these are represented bibliographically in the catalog.
In the published books, but above all in the periodicals in German, extreme political positions are expressed, from socialism in the newspaper Vorwärts (1886-1901) to the fascism of the National Socialists in the newspaper Der Trommler (1933-44), which remained in force in Argentina until well into the 60s with the magazines Der Weg (1947-1957) and La Plata Ruf (1962-1977). The material consigned contains several series of learning textbooks and the brief six volumes of a mathematics compendium for use in primary school; books for children and adolescents; religious works, religious and popular songbooks, including several Nazi songbooks and books of poems, among which Von Goethe bis Brecht stands out, which the former socialist deputy August Siemsen edited around 1942 for use in teaching students at the Pestalozzi School.
The Katalog constitutes in principle a bibliography and will surely be useful for consultation. But in the content notes or sometimes in the bibliographical observations it also includes an endless number of contextualizations, thus adding information and comments to many themes of the community: its growth, its composition, its internal antagonisms and its self-concept, but also the concepts occasionally encountered about the people and country of adoption.
The amount of approximately 1,800 titles does not cover everything produced, but rather everything that has been registered so far. Among the registered titles there are many materials of minimal format, such as booklets of association statutes or the casual specimens of ephemera (brochures, flyers, advertisements, etc.) that could be found, but there are also many linear meters of shelves, in the case of the newspapers Deutsche La Plata Zeitung (1882-1944) and Argentinisches Tageblatt (1889-2023). The work invites us to study curious phenomena such as the simultaneous establishment in 1895 of two religious magazines: the Volksfreund, edited by the Fathers of the Divine Word since their arrival in Argentina until 1965 and which is aimed at Catholics, and the Evangelisches Gemeindeblatt edited by the Evangelical Synod and currently by the Evangelical Church of the Río de la Plata in Spanish. Both were distributed by mail to believers, especially to those who lacked access to worship or lived dispersed in various provinces and national territories. They were widely read by the Germans of Russia from La Pampa to the Chaco, from Entre Ríos to Buenos Aires and the south as the areas taken from the Indians were populated.
The German-speaking minority, whose most massive immigration occurred in several waves between the mid-19th century and the mid-20th century, constitutes only around 2% of immigrants. However, this small percentage of people includes many thousands of individuals who brought their dreams, their culture and their habits, with which they contributed to the idiosyncrasy of the country that welcomed them. By appreciating the data that was gathered, the image of an active community is created, of the sympathies and rejections that it originated, of its growth in difficult life situations in Europe and its gradual extinction or assimilation in many cases in recent years. decades of the 20th century in Argentina, especially when the old continent once again attracts young people, whose ancestors left it behind.
* Special for Hilario. Arts Letters Trades
Notes:
1. Editor's note: Warned of the relevance of this bibliographic contribution, we share with our readers a summary of its content, prepared exclusively by its author.
2. Valentin Kramer specialized in archival science after his doctorate and works at the Landesarchiv NRW (Land Archive of the Nordhrein-Westphalen), Westfalen Department in Münster. He collaborated with the catalog based on documentation collected in the province of Santa Fe for his doctorate in history, completed at the German University of Eichstädt. He published his doctoral topic in the book Zwischen den Heimaten. Deutsch-argentinische Einwanderervereine in Rosario und Esperanza: 1856-1933. Bielefeld: Transkript, 2016. It is an important work on German schools, the Protestant church and German associations in two of the German communes established since the 1850s in Santa Fe.