From Journeys into Modernity
After the great wars, my work was discovered in the vault of a fascist national library alongside other ‘degenerate literature’. An equestrian statue of me was erected on a children’s playground. I hurried along to see it.
On the whole I was satisfied with the statue. The artist had chosen to portray me with a friendly expression, which I heard had been requested in the commission. I understood that this was an honour: recognizing my friendly attitude towards coming generations.
“But why a horse?” I asked my companion.
“It indicates he dates back to antiquity,” was his answer. “And between us, there is yet another reason. Horses are completely extinct. The statue was intended to kill two birds with one stone, insofar as it also preserved the form of this animal in memory.
Undated, probably circa 1940, Werkausgabe, Vol. 19, pp. 425-426
On the conjunction of lyric poetry and architecture
A historical inquiry into the effects of art would without doubt conclude that all new effects in art appear together with transformations of consciousness, and indeed arrive together with the transformations in the economic-political base of human society.(Scenes of recognition from antiquity point to commerce and to military campaigns, just like the ‘oedipus complex’)
There are long-term consequences. Weighty experiences, which are built into “inheritances”, still trigger reactions, which are fading away, slowly, centuries later. And in a weaker, changed form, the novelties in the communal life of people are present: feudal types of relations are passed to the proletariat and the bourgeois, and so on.
The photography of the Russian Revolution – not only that of 1917, but also that of 1905 – displays a peculiar literarisation of street scenes. Cities, and indeed villages, are littered with sayings as though they were symbols. With broad brushes, the conquering classes write their opinions and slogans on conquered buildings. “Religion is the opium of the masses” is scrawled on churches. And on other buildings there are other instructions for their use. On demonstrations shields bearing inscriptions are carried; at night films appear on the walls of houses. In the Soviet Union, this literarisation has been naturalised. The year-round demonstrations, both regular and for special occasions, have formed a tradition. The working masses developed a particular type of sense of form in their emblems. At the great Mayday demonstration in ’35 I saw a beautiful emblems of a textile factory (made of white wool), narrow, lightly fluttering flags of a new form, fantastic representations of political enemies, and many slogans upon transparent banners, so that at any one time many of these slogans and pictures were visible. The qualified lyric poetry of the Soviet Union has not kept pace with the development of this mass art. The beautiful stations of the Moscow subway have enormous marble walls, which could so easily bear poems that would describe the heroism linked to their production by the population of Moscow. The same is also true for the cemetery for great revolutionaries in the Kremlin. And with the scientific institutions, sports stadiums, theatres. Their inscription could greatly elevate lyric poetry. It is their task to sing the deeds of the great generations, and to preserve their memory. The development of language from here contains its finest impulse. That those words that stone will bear have to be so carefully chosen, and will be read for a long time, and always by many people at the same time. Competitions would spur lyric poetry on to new achievements, and later generations would receive, together with the buildings, the instructions and the writings of their builders.
1935 (Werkausgabe, Vol. 19, pp. 387-388)