Karlo Štajner

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Karlo Štajner
Karlo Štajner
Štajner with his book Seven Thousand Days in Siberia, 1988
Born
Karl Steiner

(1902-01-15)15 January 1902
Vienna, Austria-Hungary
Died1 April 1992(1992-04-01) (aged 90)
Zagreb, Croatia
CitizenshipYugoslav
Occupation(s)printing worker, politician, author
Known forsurviving 20 years in the Gulag
Notable work"Seven Thousand Days in Siberia"
Political party
SpouseSonya Štajner

Karlo Štajner (15 January 1902 – 1 April 1992) was an Austrian-Yugoslav communist activist

Yugoslavia
. He spent the rest of his life in Zagreb with his wife Sonya whom he married in Moscow in the 1930s.

In 1971, Štajner published a book titled "Seven Thousand Days in Siberia" about his experiences.[3] The book was a bestseller in Yugoslavia and was named the "book of the year 1972" by the Vjesnik newspaper.

Biography

Štajner was born Karl Steiner in

Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes by the Young Communist International to help the CPY. From January 1922 until 1931, he lived in Zagreb, where he ran an illegal communist printing house, and was helping local CPY cell.[5] During this time, he became a citizen of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.[4]

In 1931, Yugoslav police found out about the printing house, so Štajner fled the country to avoid arrest. He initially traveled to Paris[4] where the Central Committee of CPY had its side-base. He lived in Paris for almost a year, but was arrested for his communist activity and expelled from France. He moved to Vienna, where he tried to establish an illegal printing house in order to distribute communist literature all over the Balkans.[4] There, Štajner was arrested again, and expelled from Austria, as he was no longer a citizen of that country. Georgi Dimitrov helped him travel to Berlin to avoid being extradited to Yugoslavia, and to help the Communist Party of Germany. Facing arrest once again, he fled Germany and traveled to the Soviet Union in July 1932.

Štajner settled in Moscow, where he was appointed manager of the

factory worker
.

In 1955, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union resumed

state pension, and he spent the rest of his life living in Zagreb.[13] He visited Soviet Union once more in 1966.[14]

In June 1991, the Government of newly independent Croatia stripped Štajner (and many other communists) of the state pension.[15] Štajner died on 1 April 1992, and was buried in Zagreb.[16][17]

Family

Štajner married Russian woman Sonya Yefimovna in Moscow in 1935. At the time of his arrest, she was 20 years old, and in the ninth month of pregnancy. She gave birth to a girl named Lida, but the baby died when she was two years old[18] of cold and illness.[19] During Štajner's time in prison, Sonya was humiliated, mocked, and tortured by the authorities and was labeled "wife of an enemy of the people".[19] She never repudiated her husband, and spent most of her time trying to help him.[19] She was able to exchange a few letters with Štajner until 1940, but then did not hear about him for the next five years. Although she suspected that her husband was dead, she never remarried. In 1945, Štajner managed to reestablish contact with his wife through a woman who worked in the prison camp. The two met for the first time after almost 19 years in March 1955 when she visited him in Maklakovo, where he lived in exile. In 1956 she emigrated with her husband to Yugoslavia and lived with him in Zagreb. She died in Zagreb on 11 March 2005.[20][21]

Literary work

After his return to Yugoslavia, Štajner became an author and published three books[22] about his arrest, trial, and experiences in Siberian gulags. The books are titled:

  • "Seven Thousand Days in Siberia" (1971,
    Serbo-Croatian
    : "7000 dana u Sibiru")
  • "Return from the Gulag" (1981,
    Serbo-Croatian
    : "Povratak iz Gulaga")
  • "A Hand from the Grave " (1985,
    Serbo-Croatian
    : "Ruka iz groba") – a collection of interviews with Štajner, and texts about Štajner written by others.

His first book, "Seven Thousand Days in Siberia" was very popular in Yugoslavia, and was translated to German,[23] French,[24] English,[3] Slovene and Czech,[25] Esperanto (S.A.T., 1983). It was named "the book of the year" in 1972 by the Vjesnik newspapers, and Štajner was awarded the Ivan Goran Kovačić prize as the author of the book of the year.[26] Štajner finished the manuscript for "Seven Thousand Days in Siberia" in 1958, but no publisher was able to publish it until 1971 because of political controversy.[27] The copies of the manuscript he sent to the publishers in Zagreb and Belgrade disappeared without trace, but Štajner had already sent the original manuscript to his brother living in Lyon, France.

Štajner's life and work was a major inspiration for Danilo Kiš' book of stories A Tomb for Boris Davidovich, published in 1976.[28] Kiš befriended Štajner and wrote an introduction to "Seven Thousand Days in Siberia".[29] Kiš also wrote about Karlo and Sonya Štajner in his 1983 book of essays and interviews "Homo poeticus". Title of Štajner's book "A Hand from the Grave " comes from Miroslav Krleža who mentions Štajner in his "Diaries" and compares him to the biblical Lazarus who rises from the grave.[30]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Štajner 1985, p. 186.
  2. ^ Štajner 1985, p. 97.
  3. ^ a b Štajner 1988
  4. ^ a b c d e f Štajner, Karlo (10 June 1988). "Karlo Štajner" (Interview). Interviewed by Dragoslav Simić. Zagreb. Retrieved 14 August 2013.
  5. ^ Štajner 1985, p. 208.
  6. ^ Matvejević 2004, p. 26.
  7. ^ Štajner 1985, p. 209.
  8. ^ Štajner 1988, p. 11.
  9. ^ Štajner 1985, p.40.
  10. ^ Štajner 1985, p. 78.
  11. ^ Kiš 1988, p. 1.
  12. ^ Štajner 1985, p. 168.
  13. ^ Matvejević 2004, p. 208.
  14. ^ Štajner 1985, p. 94.
  15. ^ Lovrić, Jelena (16 June 1991). "SIBIR U HRVATSKOM SRCU..." Slobodna Dalmacija (14563): 6–7.
  16. ^ Židovski biografski leksikon
  17. ^ "Umro Karlo Štajner". Slobodna Dalmacija (14849): 7. 2 April 1992.
  18. ^ Štajner 1985, p. 167.
  19. ^ a b c Kiš 1988, p. 2.
  20. ^ Gradska groblja Zagreb: Sonja Štajner, Mirogoj Ž-12A-II-84
  21. ^ Matvejević, Predrag (26 November 2002). "Predrag Matvejević (drugi dio)". Kulturni intervju, Radio 101 (radio) (in Croatian). Zagreb. Retrieved 15 August 2013.
  22. ^ Matvejević 2004, p. 209.
  23. ^ Štajner, Karlo (1975). 7000 Tage in Sibirien. EuropaVerlag. Retrieved 15 August 2013.
  24. ISBN 9782070266227
    . Retrieved 15 August 2013.
  25. ISBN 80-206-0278-X
    . Retrieved 1 November 2013.
  26. ^ Štajner 1985, p. 204-205.
  27. ^ Kiš 1988, p. 3.
  28. ^ Thompson, Mark (31 July 2013). "Danilo Kiš, posljednji jugoslavenski pisac" [Danilo Kiš, the Last Yugoslav Writer]. e-novine.com (in Croatian). Globus. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  29. ^ Kiš 1988, p. 4.
  30. ^ Štajner 1985, the book sleeve

References

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