Christine Lavant. A Biography

The aim of the project is the first biography of the author Christine Lavant (1915-1973; CL). It shall be addressed to a scholarly and a wider public. As a scholarly work with a documentary foundation, it will be the basis for future Lavant research. The sources consist of the letters, personal documents of life, first person statements and photos as well as letters and memoirs of other parties and newspaper articles. The primary source for the biography is the scholarly edition of CL`s complete correspondence edited by Annette Steinsiek (the applicant) and Ursula A. Schneider at the Brenner-Archives Research Institute. That correspondence, which is the subject of an FWF project running until Oct., 2003, includes more than 2000 items. However slanted first person statements (letters included) may be - the sheer amount of available material makes it possible to contrast the statements with each other. Data will be presented in chronological order, concentrated in the relevant thematic sections. Objective situations and personal decisions are treated as co-ordinates for presenting a life and will be represented as such. In contrast to a mere chronology, a biography has to represent continuities, changes or repeated incidents and to show the complexity of a human drama. Teleological patterns as well as moral intentions, sensationalism or idealization must be avoided. CLs life is of interest as the life of a writer, with all its implications and complications. Thus a portrait of the person can be a possible avenue of access to the oeuvre - but her works will not be read as biographical statements. Points of concentration will include: CLs relationship to her own writing (and its development) and to writing in general; her activities in literary, cultural and political contexts; her self-presentation in public; the subject of illness (a "de-pathologization" can only be reached through a look at the possible functions of illness); her social activities for family and friends (and how she put it in contrast to her art); her relationship with the painter Werner Berg (not as a personal matter but as it bears upon the concept of "life" and "art", structures of private and public support, her change from prose to lyric etc.).