Gregor von Rezzori explained

Gregor von Rezzori (pronounced as /de/; 13 May 1914 – 23 April 1998), born Gregor Arnulph Herbert Hilarius von Rezzori d'Arezzo, was an Austrian-born, Romanian, German-language novelist, memoirist, screenwriter, and author of radio plays, as well as an actor, journalist, visual artist, art critic, and art collector. He married Beatrice Monti della Corte.

Early life and education

Gregor von Rezzori was born 13 May 1914 in Czernowitz, Bukovina, part of Austria-Hungary at the time. He originated from an Italian aristocratic family from the Province of Ragusa, who had settled in Vienna by the mid-18th century. His father was an Austrian civil servant based in Czernowitz. The family remained in the region after it became part of the Romanian Kingdom in 1919, and the young Gregor von Rezzori became a Romanian citizen.

After World War I von Rezzori studied in colleges in Braşov, Fürstenfeld, and Vienna. He began studying mining at the University of Leoben, then architecture and medicine at the University of Vienna,[1] where he eventually graduated in arts.

Languages and citizenship

Von Rezzori was fluent in German, Romanian, Italian, Polish, Ukrainian, Yiddish, French, and English.

During his life, Von Rezzori was successively a citizen of Austria-Hungary, Romania, and the Soviet Union, before becoming a stateless person and spending his final years as a citizen of Austria in Italy.

Career

In mid-1930 he moved to Bucharest, took up military service in the Romanian Army, and made a living as an artist. In 1938 he moved to Berlin, Germany, where he became active as a novelist, journalist, writer in radio broadcasting, and film production. Given his Romanian citizenship, von Rezzori was not drafted into the Wehrmacht during World War II.

Until the mid-1950s, he worked as an author at the broadcasting company Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk. He regularly published novels and stories, as well as working in film production as a screenplay author and actor (starring alongside actors such as Brigitte Bardot, Jeanne Moreau, Anna Karina, Marcello Mastroianni, and Charles Aznavour).

Beginning in the early 1960s, Rezzori lived between Rome and Paris, with sojourns in the United States, eventually settling in Tuscany after his marriage in 1967.[1]

Literary works

Rezzori began his career as a writer of light novels, but he first encountered success in 1953 with the Maghrebinian Tales, a suite of droll stories and anecdotes from an imaginary land called "Maghrebinia", which reunited in a grotesque and parodic key traits of his multicultural Bukovinian birthplace, of extinct Austria-Hungary and of Bucharest of his youth. Over the years, Rezzori published further Maghrebinian Tales, which increased his reputation of language virtuosity and free spirit, writing with wit, insight and elegance.[2]

Other books, such as The Death of My Brother Abel, Oedipus at Stalingrad, or The Snows of Yesteryear, recording the fading world at the time of the World Wars, have been celebrated for their powerful descriptive prose, nuance and style.[3]

Rezzori first came to the attention of English-speaking readers with the 1969 publication of the story "Memoirs of an Anti-Semite" in The New Yorker, On this occasion, Elie Wiesel, who was born in Bukovina's neighboring Maramureş, wrote:

"Rezzori addresses the major problems of our time, and his voice echoes with the disturbing and wonderful magic of a true storyteller."[4]

The novel-length version of Memoirs of an Anti-Semite was published in Germany in 1979, with the English translation following in 1981. It received enthusiastic reviews from Christopher Lehmann-Haupt[5] and Stanley Kaufmann[6] when originally published. It was reissued by New York Review Books in 2007,[7] and Christopher Hitchens wrote in a retrospective review, "Gregor von Rezzori could claim the peculiar distinction of being one of the few survivors to treat this ultimate catastrophe in the mild language of understatement. This is what still gives his novel the power to shock".[8]

Reissues of The Snows of Yesteryear and An Ermine in Czernopol followed in 2008 and 2012,[9] [10] respectively. In 2019 NYRB published The Death of My Brother Abel and its sequel Cain as a single volume.[11] Elie Wiesel wrote of The Death of My Brother Abel, "If a great novel can be recognized by its obsessions, its characters and, above all, its tone, then The Death of My Brother Abel is unquestionably great. Rezzori addresses the major problems of our time, and his voice echoes with the disturbing and wonderful magic of the true storyteller."[12]

Rezzori's controversial description of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita as "the only convincing love story of our century" appeared on the cover of the second Vintage International edition of the novel.[13] It was attributed simply to Vanity Fair (magazine), the magazine which published Rezzori's original review of the book, and Rezzori was not often credited as the author of the quote.

In his Guide for Idiots through German Society, Von Rezzori also used his noted taste for satire. Although he was not unanimously perceived as a major author in the German-speaking area, his posthumous reception has arguably confirmed him among the most important modern German-language authors.[3]

Awards

Other activities

Besides writing and performing, Von Rezzori and his spouse Beatrice Monti della Corte were significant art collectors, and together founded the Santa Maddalena Retreat for Writers.

Personal life

He married Beatrice Monti della Corte in 1967, and the couple lived in Tuscany.[1]

Her father was from Lombardy, and her mother an Armenian from Constantinople. Monti della Corte grew up on the island of Capri where she got to know many of the writers and artists who visited or lived on the island, including Alberto Moravia, Elsa Morante, Norman Douglas, and Graham Greene. In 1955 she opened an art gallery in Milan, exhibiting contemporary American art.[1]

The couple restored a group of buildings in Tuscany, part of Florence's Donnini frazione, which they called Santa Maddalena. This became a meeting place for writers and artists and was known for its hospitality. Frequent visitors who liked to work there included Bruce Chatwin, Michael Ondaatje, Robert Hughes, and Bernardo Bertolucci.[1]

Death and legacy

Von Rezzori worked at Santa Maddalena until his death there on 23 April 1998.[1]

In 2000, the Santa Maddalena Foundation was created as a place where established as well as emerging writers could undertake residencies in order to write.[1]

The Premio Gregor von Rezzori (Gregor von Rezzori Award), is a literary prize awarded at the annual Festival degli Scrittori in Florence.[14] [15] [1]

Selected works

Filmography

Screenwriter

Actor

See also

References

Sources

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: About . Santa Maddalena Foundation . 3 June 2020 . 21 November 2023.
  2. Killy, p. 410
  3. Kraft, p.1027–1029
  4. Wiesel, in MIT Tech Talk
  5. News: Books Of The Times. 1981-07-01. The New York Times. 2019-08-26. en-US. 0362-4331.
  6. News: Imaginings of a New Life . Kauffmann . Stanley . 1981-07-19 . The New York Times. 2019-08-26. en-US. 0362-4331.
  7. Web site: Memoirs of an Anti-Semite. New York Review Books. 4 December 2007 . en. 2019-08-26.
  8. Web site: The 2,000-Year-Old Panic. Hitchens. Christopher. 2008-03-01. The Atlantic. en-US. 2019-08-26.
  9. Web site: The Snows of Yesteryear. New York Review Books. 2 December 2008 . en. 2019-08-26.
  10. Web site: An Ermine In Czernopol. New York Review Books. 10 January 2012 . en. 2019-08-26.
  11. Web site: Abel and Cain. New York Review Books. 4 June 2019 . en. 2019-08-26.
  12. News: War and Remembrance: Elegy for a Lost Europe. Elie. Wiesel. September 8, 1985. The Washington Post. August 26, 2019.
  13. A Stranger in Lolitaland. An Essay", 1993, Vanity Fair
  14. Web site: Chi siamo . Premio Gregor von Rezzori . 28 October 2019 . it . 21 November 2023.
  15. Web site: Festival degli Scrittori 2015 in Florence . Firenze Made in Tuscany . 5 June 2015 . 21 November 2023.
  16. Web site: Changing of the Guard . New York Times Book Review . March 2, 2012 . March 14, 2012 . John Wray . John Wray (writer) .

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