Ödön von Horvath: Vienna Edition (analogue/digital)

The Vienna Edition of the collected works of Ödön von Horvth (1901-1938) is a critical historical edition. In eighteen volumes, it encompasses all of the authors works whether finished or fragmentary, as well as all his note books, letters and ego documents. Taken as a whole, therefore, the Vienna Edition provides for the first time a long-awaited, complete and reliable textual and documentary resource on one of the most important and popular representatives of literary modernity. It will prove invaluable to both literary scholars and theatre researchers and practitioners alike. As the result of two previous FWF projects, by autumn 2015 the first ten volumes of the edition will have appeared in print and the completed manuscript versions of two further volumes will have been submitted to the publishers. The current project proposal applies to the production of the remaining six volumes and the completion of the edition by an editorial team that is now well- established and has proved its worth. In addition, the amended final versions of all Horvths works will have been made freely available to researchers across the world in a digital form that complies to TEI P5 guidelines. Its publisher Walter de Gruyter makes the Vienna Edition available in both hard copy and as ebooks. Where FWF funding has been granted for selected individual volumes (first applied for and secured for the volume Ein Sklavenball/Pompeji), they can be consulted as open-access publications. Follow-up applications for open-access funding will be made for the volumes of the edition that are still to be completed. The Vienna Edition has had significant impact, not only in the area of literary studies, but also on contemporary theatrical performance. For example, in his acclaimed production of Kasimir und Karoline at the Residenztheater in Munich in autumn 2011, the director Frank Castorf put the new edition at the centre of his interpretation, staging the production process of the text as reconstructed there. Work on the Vienna Edition is embedded in numerous outreach activities: affordable readers editions of Horvths most important works have been published by Reclam (currently in planning: Sportmärchen and Glaube Liebe Hoffnung), students are introduced to the volumes and how to work with them at seminars and lectures at university departments of German and Theatre Studies, and workshops and conferences are held to encourage established researchers as well as early career colleagues to engage with the editions wealth of material pertaining to the genesis of the texts and the new possibilities for interpreting Horvths works that these allow.

Ödön von Horvth (1901-1938) is a modern classic. His novels and prose texts are perennially popular with the reading public and his plays continue to have a powerful effect on today's stages. For decades, Horvth has also been the object of intense and diverse academic scrutiny. Literary scholars have repeatedly drawn attention to the necessity of establishing a reliable text and source basis for research on his works and biography. Based on previous projects, the project "Ödön von Horvth: Wiener Ausgabe (analog/digital)", which is being carried out at the Franz Nabl Institute at the University of Graz, has continued the development of the historical-critical, so-called "Vienna" edition of the complete works of Ödön von Horvth. Comprising a total of 19 (before: 18) volumes, the following 5 volumes have been added in the present project: Sladek / Italienische Nacht (vol. 2, 2016), Sportmärchen, Kurzprosa und Werkprojekte Prosa (vol. 13, 2017), Frühe Dramen (vol. 1, 2019, including the just recently rediscovered early play Niemand), Himmelwärts / Mit dem Kopf durch die Wand (vol. 7, 2020) and Glaube Liebe Hoffnung (Bd. 5, 2020). Up to this date, 15 volumes have been completed. Another volume, Fragmente und Werkprojekte Drama, is in preparation. The historical-critical edition of Horvth's works began publication in 2009 with the eminent Berlin publishing house de Gruyter and is one of the largest edition projects on modern German literature currently underway. It places particular emphasis on materials that throw new light on the genesis of Horvth's texts, increasing our understanding of how some of the most influential works of German literature were produced. Ödön von Horvth can be called a "paper worker", who often changed the basic concept of his texts, rewrote sizeable sections of them and subjected his materials to intensive cutting and sticking operations. To demonstrate the complex genetic process, the edition uses facsimiles, an easily accessible critical apparatus and various graphical representations ("simulation graphics"). Furthermore, in cooperation with the Centre for Information Modelling (Zentrum für Informationsmodellierung, ZIM) at the University of Graz and based on the historical-critical edition, a web-based digital edition of Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald has been developed. The digital edition as well as the underlying, XML-based data model is freely accessible and complies to the well-established standard of TEI P5, which allows for independent analysis and research. The digital edition offers new approaches to Horvth's most famous play within the newly founded paradigm of digital humanities. A selection of digital tools makes it possible to highlight specific features of the text and to generate networks of the dramatis personae for further analysis.