Periodic Reporting for period 1 - LeviNeT (The German Network. Primo Levi's Correspondence with German Readers and Intellectuals)
Período documentado: 2022-09-01 hasta 2025-02-28
Primo Levi (1919-1987), one of the most important witnesses of the Holocaust, has been studied increasingly over the last three decades, and he is currently recognized as one of the few Italian thinkers of essential importance for the understanding of the 20th century as a whole. The LeviNeT project aims to provide the very first edition of a significant portion of Levi’s multilingual correspondence.
The edition will be open source and hosted on an online platform. It will concentrate on Levi’s German correspondence: the epistolary exchanges that took place between Levi and his German-speaking readers, interlocutors, friends, survivors and former oppressors from 1959 to 1987. This correspondence constitutes a stunning epistolary network between him and many German-language correspondents, including translator Heinz Riedt, philosopher Jean Améry, historian Hermann Langbein, politician Hety Schmitt-Maass. It consists of a rich and vibrant discussion on themes such as guilt, the possibility of overcoming the past, and the consequences of that past on the present. What is at the heart of this network is the rebuilding of a post-war European identity.
In short, this project uncovers a new and decisive crossroad in European cultural history. Thanks to the authorization of Primo Levi’s heirs, it will be possible to access Levi’s private archive for the first time, and so to have a complete view of his German network. The planned open-source edition will include: a philological transcription and a semantic analysis of each letter, a graphic visualization of the German network, in-depth biographical information for each correspondent, a timeline and a map, and a series of thematic itineraries. This edition will provide a brand-new narrative in studies of Primo Levi and unique core material for literary scholars and historians. Moreover, it will be an
innovative didactic tool for the international community of teachers, students and readers.
The edition will be open source and hosted on an online platform. It will concentrate on Levi’s German correspondence: the epistolary exchanges that took place between Levi and his German-speaking readers, interlocutors, friends, survivors and former oppressors from 1959 to 1987. This correspondence constitutes a stunning epistolary network between him and many German-language correspondents, including translator Heinz Riedt, philosopher Jean Améry, historian Hermann Langbein, politician Hety Schmitt-Maass. It consists of a rich and vibrant discussion on themes such as guilt, the possibility of overcoming the past, and the consequences of that past on the present. What is at the heart of this network is the rebuilding of a post-war European identity.
In short, this project uncovers a new and decisive crossroad in European cultural history. Thanks to the authorization of Primo Levi’s heirs, it will be possible to access Levi’s private archive for the first time, and so to have a complete view of his German network. The planned open-source edition will include: a philological transcription and a semantic analysis of each letter, a graphic visualization of the German network, in-depth biographical information for each correspondent, a timeline and a map, and a series of thematic itineraries. This edition will provide a brand-new narrative in studies of Primo Levi and unique core material for literary scholars and historians. Moreover, it will be an
innovative didactic tool for the international community of teachers, students and readers.
The online platform of the open access edition is conceived so as to:
(1) make all the letters available, giving the user several ways to read them, offering for each letter metadata and semantic tags, that will become tools for an advanced search of them. Offering these versions is a way to come close to the idea of “inclusive text”.
(2) build thematic focuses, literary excursuses, and in-depth historical and cultural analyses throughout:
- graphic visualization of the network of correspondence. This visualized network will form the main page of the website and represent the first ‘door’ that readers open to access the entire material. It will have Primo Levi at the very center and will be made up of the four other main nodal correspondents;
- biographical and intellectual focus for each of the correspondents: not only the five nodal characters, but also the secondary correspondents linked to them, such as Jean Améry, Ferdinand Meyer, Albrecht Goes, and others;
- timeline showing the progression and frequency of the correspondence in Levi’s biography;
- geographic map tracing the borders crossed by these letters and the cities and countries involved;
- thematic itineraries suggesting critical reading of groups of letters, focusing on philosophical concepts (guilt, shame, responsibility) or reflecting on the historical, geographic and cultural context. Some in-depth itineraries will also concern the books discussed in these exchanges, in order to build up the virtual bookshelf of this German network.
The framework that will be designed will take into consideration not only the FAIR Data and Open Science principles, but also a User Design perspective. An open source framework will be used to create the platform for LeviNeT.
LeviNeT aims to reach an international audience and community of scholars, students, teachers, and users. For this reason, the interface, the map, the timeline and the thematic itineraries will be in both Italian and English, translated into Italian and English by one or more professional translators employed for the project. The letters are in fact written in four different language (Italian, English, French, German); each letter will have a transcription in the original language next to the translation.
(1) make all the letters available, giving the user several ways to read them, offering for each letter metadata and semantic tags, that will become tools for an advanced search of them. Offering these versions is a way to come close to the idea of “inclusive text”.
(2) build thematic focuses, literary excursuses, and in-depth historical and cultural analyses throughout:
- graphic visualization of the network of correspondence. This visualized network will form the main page of the website and represent the first ‘door’ that readers open to access the entire material. It will have Primo Levi at the very center and will be made up of the four other main nodal correspondents;
- biographical and intellectual focus for each of the correspondents: not only the five nodal characters, but also the secondary correspondents linked to them, such as Jean Améry, Ferdinand Meyer, Albrecht Goes, and others;
- timeline showing the progression and frequency of the correspondence in Levi’s biography;
- geographic map tracing the borders crossed by these letters and the cities and countries involved;
- thematic itineraries suggesting critical reading of groups of letters, focusing on philosophical concepts (guilt, shame, responsibility) or reflecting on the historical, geographic and cultural context. Some in-depth itineraries will also concern the books discussed in these exchanges, in order to build up the virtual bookshelf of this German network.
The framework that will be designed will take into consideration not only the FAIR Data and Open Science principles, but also a User Design perspective. An open source framework will be used to create the platform for LeviNeT.
LeviNeT aims to reach an international audience and community of scholars, students, teachers, and users. For this reason, the interface, the map, the timeline and the thematic itineraries will be in both Italian and English, translated into Italian and English by one or more professional translators employed for the project. The letters are in fact written in four different language (Italian, English, French, German); each letter will have a transcription in the original language next to the translation.
LeviNeT will provide:
i. A new narrative in Primo Levi studies in literary fields. The analysis of Primo Levi’s correspondence represents a fundamental contribution to the fields of both literature and history: to compare the correspondence with their fictionalization in Levi’s short stories; to follow Levi’s creative process during the sixties and seventies; and to follow the evolution of his attitude towards German and European history and culture since the early post-war years.
ii. Brand-new core material for cultural historians in an international perspective. LeviNeT will be a first case study for a set of studies on cultural and literary European correspondence networks. These networks reflected on guilt, collective memory and the current events of their times. LeviNeT aims to re-write a portion of an essential and ongoing story: the cultural process of re-building a European identity after the tragedy of the Second World War and the Holocaust. In this context, LeviNeT gives us the opportunity to uncover a compelling new story of European cultural history.
iii. A broader impact. The publication of this letters exchange will not only have a scholarly and didactic impact, but it will be a brand new and focal case for a public and political discussion on all the contemporary political contexts of post-conflict reconciliation and reconstruction, i.e. geopolitical contexts with recent history of ethnic and political violence, mass terror, civil wars, collective traumas.
Those results will be reached by making the online edition user-friendly both for a scholar and for a wider international audience: this is one of the biggest challenges in terms of projecting and shaping the platform.
The documentary, audio-visual exhibition "Primo Levi europeo", that will take place in Turin and in Ferrara and organized with the CISPL, is planned to travel and be held also in Germany and Germanophone countries. A portion of the exhibition will be then put online, connected with the platform and available for virtual tours.
i. A new narrative in Primo Levi studies in literary fields. The analysis of Primo Levi’s correspondence represents a fundamental contribution to the fields of both literature and history: to compare the correspondence with their fictionalization in Levi’s short stories; to follow Levi’s creative process during the sixties and seventies; and to follow the evolution of his attitude towards German and European history and culture since the early post-war years.
ii. Brand-new core material for cultural historians in an international perspective. LeviNeT will be a first case study for a set of studies on cultural and literary European correspondence networks. These networks reflected on guilt, collective memory and the current events of their times. LeviNeT aims to re-write a portion of an essential and ongoing story: the cultural process of re-building a European identity after the tragedy of the Second World War and the Holocaust. In this context, LeviNeT gives us the opportunity to uncover a compelling new story of European cultural history.
iii. A broader impact. The publication of this letters exchange will not only have a scholarly and didactic impact, but it will be a brand new and focal case for a public and political discussion on all the contemporary political contexts of post-conflict reconciliation and reconstruction, i.e. geopolitical contexts with recent history of ethnic and political violence, mass terror, civil wars, collective traumas.
Those results will be reached by making the online edition user-friendly both for a scholar and for a wider international audience: this is one of the biggest challenges in terms of projecting and shaping the platform.
The documentary, audio-visual exhibition "Primo Levi europeo", that will take place in Turin and in Ferrara and organized with the CISPL, is planned to travel and be held also in Germany and Germanophone countries. A portion of the exhibition will be then put online, connected with the platform and available for virtual tours.