On 2 February 1943, the battle for Stalingrad ended with the defeat of the 6th Army and its allies. The Museum Berlin-Karlshorst is using the 80th anniversary of this historic event as an opportunity to look at the novel "Stalingrad" by Vasily Grossman. Grossman had already reported on the battle as a war reporter, and after the war he wrote this extensive prose work based on his experiences.

Together with Slavic scholars Matthias Schwartz and Heike Winkel, translator Christiane Körner reconstructs the difficult history and transmission of the text. Her translation, prepared together with Maria Rajer and Andreas Weihe and published by Classsen-Verlag in 2021, forms the basis for a discussion about Grossman's literary depiction of the German-Soviet war beyond the ideological constraints of Socialist Realism.

The Soviet reception of the novel will be in focus as well as the question of how we read Grossman's work today, eighty years after the historical events and against the background of the current war. Christiane Körner will provide insights into the challenges of translating the epic and read selected passages.

Free admission. To participate, please register at kontakt(at)museum-karlshorst.de.

Photo: Theme room on the course of the German-Soviet War 1941-1945 in the museum's permanent exhibition (Thomas Bruns, Museum Berlin-Karlshorst)