Dalmatian Sonnets and Other Poems
Description
This selection of German poems by the Austrian writer Paula von Preradović is the first English language translation of her poetry collection Dalmatinische Sonette. Well known in Austria for writing the country's national anthem, "Land of the Mountains, Land by the River," these sonnets celebrate and reflect a melancholic nostalgia for Krönland Dalmatien, a territory that the Austro-Hungarian Empire lost in 1918 alongside its other Adriatic possessions.
Preradović's father had served as an officer in the Austrian navy in Pula while
the eastern Adriatic was part of Vienna's maritime outlet. Prolonged residence in this azure environment gave the author ample inspiration for an original opus that accurately captured Dalmatia's multifarious essence.
Diving beyond the Adriatic's sea's clichés, the poems recall the permanent
features of the raw environment, a resplendent historical heritage and a (forlorn) longing for the eternal. Through these sonnets, the translators unveil amongst other things the barren islands, the Karst landscape and odes to the lighthouse and the olive tree.
A preface to the translation is included by the descendants of the author, together with a historical introduction to Dalmatia by the project initiator as well as an insight into the translation process.
Author Bio
Paula von Preradović (1887-1951) was an Austrian poet and writer. In 1947, she wrote the lyrics for the national anthem of Austria, "Land of the Mountains, Land by the River."
Irina Pavlović is a research associate at the Slavic Institute of the University of Hamburg and has been a teacher of English, German, and Russian at secondary schools in Hamburg and Bremen. Previously, she worked as a research assistant in the Department of English at the University of Bremen and was the Nick Müller fellow at the University of New Orleans in 2018/2019. Of Croatian and Serbian lineage, she ultimately sees herself as Tyrolean above all.
Vicko Marelić is a historian and museum curator in the town museum on the island of Korčula, Croatia. Although born and raised in Great Britain, most of his summers were spent on the pictoresque Dalmatian island where he now works. After studies in England and France, he decided to follow the trail of the Habsburg myth and ended up living the European dream in Vienna, where he worked as an English teacher in a secondary school for several years. Starting a PhD in history at the University of Vienna that focused on the British diplomatic history regarding Adriatic, he gained several fellowships such as a stint at the Austrian historical institute in Rome. Thanks to the generosity of the Austrian Ministry of Sciences, he was a fellow at the university of New Orleans in 2018-2019. This translation project took off on the other side of the Atlantic, as a tribute to the Alpine-Adriatic realms that have captured his imagination.
