Das Wort
{{Short description|German language magazine published in Moscow, Soviet Union (1936–1939)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2023}}
{{Infobox magazine
| image_file = Das Wort 1938.jpg
| image_size =
| image_caption = Das Wort issue, 4 April 1938
| editor = {{ubl|Willi Bredel|Lion Feuchtwanger|Bertolt Brecht}}
| editor_title = Editor-in-chief
| previous_editor = Fritz Erpenbeck
| frequency = Monthly
| circulation =
| category = Literary magazine
| company =
| publisher =
| founder =
| founded = 1936
| firstdate = July 1936
| finaldate = March 1939
| country = Soviet Union
| based = Moscow
| language = German
| issn =
}}
Das Wort ({{IPA|de|das ˈvɔʁt}}, "The Word") was a monthly literary magazine which was published in Moscow in the period between 1936 and 1939. The magazine is known for its editors, including Willi Bredel, Lion Feuchtwanger, and Bertolt Brecht. Its subtitle was Literarische Monatsschrift ({{langx|de|Literary Monthly}}).{{cite book|author=Zlata Fuss Phillips|title=German Children's and Youth Literature in Exile 1933-1950: Biographies and Bibliographies|publisher=K. G. Saur Verlag|year=2011|isbn=978-3-11-095285-8|page=163,211
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tGvDBQ64WPgC&pg=PA163|location=Munich}}
History and profile
Das Wort was launched in Moscow in 1936 following the recommendation of the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern. The first issue appeared in July 1936. Its editors were Willi Bredel, Leon Feuchtwanger, and Bertolt Brecht. Fritz Erpenbeck also briefly edited the magazine in 1936.{{cite web|title=Erpenbeck, Fritz|url=https://www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de/de/recherche/kataloge-datenbanken/biographische-datenbanken/fritz-erpenbeck|publisher=Bundesstiftung Aufarbeitung|access-date=18 December 2022|language=de}}{{Cite book|author=David Pike|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/939890795|title=German Writers in Soviet exile, 1933-1945|year=2012|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|isbn=978-0-8078-6580-4|page=209|location=Chapel Hill, NC|oclc=939890795}} Of them only Bredel was in Moscow.{{cite journal|author=Katerina Clark|title=M. M. Bakhtin and "World Literature"|date=Fall 2002
|journal=Journal of Narrative Theory|volume=32|issue=3|pages=268–269,275|jstor=30224583}} The goal of the magazine was to become a literary organ of German exiles who left Germany after the Nazi rule. It also attempted to support the Popular Front policy by gathering together the anti-Fascist Germans.
Maria Osten headed the Paris office of the magazine. Das Wort supported the concept of world literature. It focused on the debate concerning the versions of realism which were legitimate and needed to attack against Fascism. However, it did not pay attention to the discussions about the controversial forms of experimentalism common in German expressionism and early modernism. Between September 1937 and July 1938 the magazine featured various articles which contained discussions about expressionism. In these writings Bertolt Brecht, Ernst Bloch and Hanns Eisler defended expressionism against György Lukács and Mikhail Bakhtin. In the poems and fictions published in Das Wort the contributors argued that their true heimat was the Soviet Union.{{cite journal|author=Katerina Clark
|title=Germanophone Intellectuals in Stalin's Russia: Diaspora and Cultural Identity in the 1930s|journal=Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History|date=Summer 2001|volume=2|issue=3|pages=529–551|doi=10.1353/kri.2008.0043|s2cid=161893311 }} Some parts of Bertolt Brecht's play entitled Furcht und Elend des III were first featured in the magazine.{{cite journal|author=John J. White
|title=Bertolt Brecht's "Furcht und Elend des III. Reiches" and the Moscow "Realism" Controversy|journal=Modern Language Review|date=January 2005|volume=100|issue=1|pages=138–160 |jstor=3738060}} Das Wort ceased publication in March 1939.{{cite thesis
|author=James W. Seward|title=The German exile journal Das Wort and the Soviet Union|location=Portland State University|pages=1–4|degree=MA
|year=1990|doi=10.15760/etd.5988|doi-access=free}}
References
{{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wort}}
Category:1936 establishments in the Soviet Union
Category:1939 disestablishments in the Soviet Union
Category:Defunct German-language magazines
Category:Defunct magazines published in Moscow
Category:Defunct literary magazines published in Russia
Category:German-language magazines published in Europe
Category:Magazines established in 1936
Category:Magazines disestablished in 1939