In 1985, I found a copy of "Who's Who in Central & East Europe"1)
in a used book store - "Beyoglu Kitapcilik Ltd." - near the Galanta
Tower in Istanbul. It was inscribed, "Dr. S. Schmidt, Istanbul, Turkey"
and was published in 1935 (current through 1934) in the English language
along with an accompanying volume entitled, "Handbook of Central &
East Europe". A revised version (1935-36) with an additional one hundred
biographies was published in 1937. These editions were the first and last
biographical dictionaries to be published concerning this region exclusively
until ÒWho's Who in the Socialist Countries of Europe"2) was published
in 1989.
The "Who's Who" is a twentieth century genre, which gives "brief,
pertinent facts about many persons (generally those living at the time
of the compilation of the dictionary), in alphabetical arrangement. Not
only has it covered nations and geographical area, it has also delved into
every concievably human activity, vocational and social."3) The antecedent
of the "Who's Who" is the biographical dictionary or compiliation
which seems to have played a greater role in the Islamic (Medieval Arabic
and Persian literature) and ancient Chinese (biographical sections of Chinese
dynastic histories) civilizations than it has within the Christian tradition.
The European Biographical Dictionary came into it's own during the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, reaching a peak in the publication of National
Biographical Dictionaries during the development of Nationalism.
"Who's Who in Central & East Europe", as is generally the
case within its genre, is a general biographical reference book with a
rather straightforward organization of factual material. The alphabetically
arranged biographies are themselves divided into categories such as Name,
Address, Birthplace, Birthdate, Married to, Ancestors, Education, Publications,
and so on. Yet under this structure lie buried layers of information not
usually found in contemporary reference works of this type: revelations
of a personal nature, intimate details, traces of desires and fears, life
concepts and philosophies as well as references to major historical events.
Though the majority of these entries are written in the second person singular,
it is apparent that most were composed by the individuals themselves.
As I first began to turn the page of this book, I percieved a complex network
of personal myth construction: a geo-political history of Central and Eastern
Europe put together as if a puzzle from thousands of individual stories,
revealing an image of a vanished world captured at a critical point in
time, which only a few years later would all but cease to exist. From our
present vantage point sixty years thereafter, having experienced the historical
discontinuities of a ÒworldÓ and a ÒcoldÓ war, these expressions of vanity
and self-assurance take on a compelling significance.
In my 10 years work with this text, I have treated "Who´s Who in Central
& East Europe 1933" as canonic: a "given" or "closed"
text to which nothing can be added. With the aid of a computer, selected
text fragments have been dissected and reconstructed, as a simulation of
a "guided tour" through chosen paths in an architecture of biographical
information. I have largely concentrated my selections on the forgotten
lives and the Òno longer famousÓ; (though perhaps individual names might
be familiar to East European specialists), whose forgotten voices call
out to us now, both singly and in polyphonic chorus as an individual and
a "collective" identity and fate. It is precisely this interrelationship
of individual and collective memory that I have tried to imply in the structure
of my ongoing work as an artist with this ÒUr-TextÓ in various projects:
the Hypertext-Opera and book: ÒWho´s Who in Central & East Europe 1933Ó
(1991 and 1994), the exhibition ÒT: Files out of the Great and Small Archive
(1993); and now ÒMemory ArenaÓ a interactive performance installation in
collaboration with Fred Pommerehn (1994-96).
In preparation for the stage version of "Who's Who in Central
& East Europe 1933" in 1991, I developed a plan for entering,
organizing and later accessing this "mountain of information"
for use in developing a Òdigital librettoÓ for the performance. It had
long been clear to me that the only practical approach would lie in the
application of data retrieval technology; reflecting the traditional use
of the computer in the administration of personal data. Heiko Idensen,
suggested the applicaton of"Hypertext") software in 1991 (long
before the World Wide Web) and guided me through the tedious steps in organizing
the material.
The preparation of this text progressed in stages over many years. First,
while reading the entire book, 765 whole or part biographies were selected.
While aiming for representative samples concerning temporal or regional
themes, my scanning eye would be "caught" by tragicomic aberrations:
mistakes, intensely personal revelations: impossible stories of the marginal
figures forgotten by history.
The resulting 765 chosen biographies were then transcribed by hand from
paper book into a digital form representing an information architecture
in which fragments from each biography could be stored and linked to each
other. Due to the limits of performance and paper book, it has long been
my wish to realize a "digital" result which would adequately
present the complexity and depth of my personal involvement with this text.
The continually developing process has been one of searching and scanning
pathways through an otherwise undecipherable text. The thousands of pages
of "found fragments" were then "sifted" through and
"whittled down" in a subtractive process which I liken to "mining
for gold".
In concieving of a basic structure for this book, I was greatly inspired
by the printed form of the Jewish Talmud and of much Medieval Rabbinic
Bible Literature. Here one finds, on a single page, central ÒsourceÓ texts
from Torah surrounded by multiple Òpeeled onion skinÓ layers of often conflicting
commentary and interpretation in an endless ongoing conversation carried
out over centuries internationally. Excerpts and text fragments are cross-referenced
to related pages and topics in other sections and volumes. One has the
sense of entering an information network of ever increasing complexity,
in which all individual elements connect to each other in a kind of medieval
ÒhypertextÓ. It a model which demonstrated to me advanced possiblities
for Hyper-textuality. (Indeed, much of this material is now being issued
within a Hypertext structure by various software firms in the United States
and Israel).
My interest in what is variously defined as "foundÓ, ÒamateurÓ
and ÒprivateÓ or anonymous images stems from my first meeting with Sándor
Kardos in Budapest in 1986. Working for many years as a well-known cinematographer
in Hungary, he has founded the "Horus Archives" which contains
over 200,000, anonymous snapshots from Eastern Europe dating since the
invention of photography. I am greatly indebted to Kardos for his help
and assistance over the years.
Photos from the Horus Archive (along with material from the Private Film
Archive of fellow Hungarian Péter Forgásc) were used extensively
as part of the projected image composition realized by Etta Von Cramer
for the Opera, ÒWho´s Who In Central & East Europe 1933Ó.
Inspired by Kardos and Péter Forgásc (and indirectly by the
Gábor Bódy film, "Private History",1978), I have
been collecting such images myself during over 10 years of travel and research
in Central and Eastern Europe. My interest in anonymous images has developed
parallel to work with "found" or "public" historical
texts. The photographs presented here have been selected from my personal
collection and are not meant to "illustrate" the text fragments
but rather to act as a counterpoint and commentary to them. Carmen Wedemeyer
has developed a unique approach to applying this material within an interactive
architecture: hundreds of faces beckon us to expand their context, much
as the text fragments point to a larger narrative framework.
These private and amateur images present an atmosphere of chance occurrences
and intimate moments: a micro-history of non-protagonists largely devoid
of artistic or documentary intentions. They pose questions about the photographic
representations of reality which seem to mirror the ambiguities implied
in biographical narration and in the recording of personal and collective
history.
It is over eleven years since we were first introduced and it is only
now, after unsucessful attempts at putting you aside and moving on that
I feel capable of addressing you directly.
Many events, both personal and in the world at large, have passed since
the summer in 1985, when I hesitatingly payed 3,500 Turkish Lire for a
book that intrigued me but seemed to offer little to justify its immediate
purchase. It is more than ironic that as the preperation of the first realization
of "Who's Who in Central & East Europe 1933" was reaching
its final stages in East Berlin, the world from which you speak to us leaped
abruptly to the front pages and waking consiousness of the world as buried
and forgotten stories re-emerged. But then, we must admit that it has not
been a complete surprise for us; as we have long been on familiar terms.
If, in selecting You from among the many, and then further chopping You
into little pieces in rearranging this puzzle I have distorted your stories,
I appologize. Sometimes a single fragment could tell an entire story- while,
in other cases an entire voice served only to narrate a fractional part
and more voices were needed. I ask You to remember: behind each of You
stand endless other stories in mirrored piramids; and that you are also
speaking for them. And moreover, I have a story to tell too, and that where
our stories have crossed, howsoever briefly or tangentally, this is the
space where Your book is now rewritten, through me, though hopefully not
for the last time.
Arnold Dreyblatt, Berlin, 1994-6
Footnotes:
1) Central European Times Publishing Co., Ltd., Zurich; R.P.D. Stephen
Taylor, Editor, 1935
2) Sauer Verlag; Juliusz Stroynowski, Editor, 1989
3) "Biographical Dictionaries and Related Works", Second Edition,
Robert B. Slocum, Editor; Gale Research Company, Detroit, 1986