Franz Kafka: Milena!

In 1920, the then 23-year-old Milena Jesenská approached the older, until then unknown writer Franz Kafka in Prague and asked him if she could translate his stories into Czech. From this encounter, an intimate love affair developed over the course of the year, primarily expressed through an intense exchange of letters. During this time, they only met in person twice.

Milena's letters to Franz are lost, while Kafka's letters to Milena were published in 1952, after both of their deaths and against Milena's wishes during her lifetime and those of her family, first in English in New York. Milena Jesenská, a gifted author and journalist in her own right, only became known through this publication, even though her last name was not mentioned in the first edition.

Franz Kafka died in 1924 at the age of just 41 from the effects of tuberculosis, while Milena Jesenská died at the age of 47 due to complications from surgery for a kidney infection in 1944 at the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she had been sent by the Nazis "for re-education" because she had helped persecuted individuals escape before her arrest. In 1994, the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem recognized Milena Jesenská, who also tried to help fellow inmates after her internment in the concentration camp, as "Righteous Among the Nations."

The staging of this correspondence by Metelka and Ofczarek promises to be an emotional and intellectual experience. The combination of Kafka's words with the musical accompaniment by Tunkowitsch will transport the audience to a past world that still feels remarkably relevant.

Text: Nicholas Ofczarek and Tamara Metelka
Violin: Nikolai Tunkowitsch