Note to the text

The present edition of this epistolary network is based on documents from many different archives (cf. link). Levi’s private archive, temporarily deposited at the State Archives of Turin (Sezione Corte, Complesso di Fondi Primo Levi, Fondo Primo Levi), conserves many of the letters that have been transcribed and analyzed here. The archive, which was classified and numbered by the International Primo Levi Studies Center of Turin was the starting point for bringing together Levi’s whole German network. 

Another portion of the letters are held in public, state, or local archives, primarily in Germany and Austria, which safeguard the funds of Primo Levi’s correspondents. By comparing the documents in these funds with Levi’s private archive, it was possible to reconstruct the individual exchanges of letters. During the second half of the 20^th century, it was a common epistolary practice to preserve the letters a person received, as well as a carbon copy of one’s own letters (rarely are rough drafts of the letters present). Thus, when both the original of a letter (in the recipient’s archive) and its carbon copy (in the sender’s archive) are available, the original has always been used as the basis for the transcription. When it was necessary to make a transcription of the carbon copy, the contents of the front of the sheet of paper used for the copy are always noted (and, in a few cases, also transcribed).

Each letter features a description of the document being transcribed: the type of support; the presence, or lack thereof, of handwritten insertions; the ink and the type of pen used for the insertions. Unless otherwise indicated, the paper size is always A4. Moreover, each document indicates where it is held, the archival shelf mark, and the numbering on the sheets of paper, when present. Regarding the documents conserved in Primo Levi’s archive and in that of Hermann Langbein, all of the sheets of paper are perforated on the left-hand margin with two close-set holes, a system they used for archiving the correspondence in ring binders.

Correspondence dating from the second half of the 20^th century is often typed on sheets of letterhead paper, which bear the name and address of the private person writing, or the specifics of the company, the institution, or the association on whose behalf the person was writing. Since it is not part of the body of the letter, the letterhead of these sheets is always transcribed in a separate area, as metadata, alongside the description of the documents and the archives where they are held. Since a facsimile of the document is provided, only the text of the letterhead has been transcribed, respecting the original format but without describing the page layout, fonts, or colors.

The transcription of the letters is based primarily on conservative criteria. Given the multilingual nature of this network of correspondence, the morphological and syntactical errors, when present, of the correspondents who are not writing in their mother tongue have been maintained. These errors are indicated in a note when ambiguous or when they compromise the letter’s comprehension. Conversely, during the transcription phase, typographical errors on the part of correspondents writing in their own mother tongue have been emended. Exceptions to this general rule are a few recurring errors, including those by non-mother tongue writers, which have been emended and indicated because the errors could be an impediment to the reading (cf. 1.3). The paragraph below (cf. xxx) provides a list of the errors that have been maintained or emended, relative to each set of correspondence, indicating the number of the letter, the form in the letter and the correct form. In those cases in which the error has been emended, this correction is indicated with the symbol > and an asterisk. 

Given the overall chronology of the correspondence (1959-1986), all of the correspondents used writing forms that predated the orthographic reform for French (1990) and German (1996); these forms have been maintained in the transcription without exception.

Acronyms have been standardized without the use of full stops (thus, U.I.R.D, C.I.C., I.A.K., C.I.L.A.A., U.R.P.E have become UIRD, CIC, IAK, CILAA, URPE, etc.). Typed numbers, too, have been standardized (for example, when a lower-case o has been used instead of a 0, 1o has become 10, 2o has become 20, etc.). In order to simplify the legibility of the texts, abbreviations with full stops of commonly-used words have been written out in full (for example, ted. > tedesco, Ausch. > Auschwitz), as have the names of people and cities, as well as book titles, in those cases in which there can be no doubt as to their identification. Exceptions to this general rule are: people’s names with full stops, which have been conserved in the cases in which they have been used to avoid repetition; titles such as prof. or dott., but also forms of courtesy, such as spett.le, egr., in every language used in the correspondence; and abbreviations in greetings and addresses.

Handwritten insertions have been transcribed maintaining the abbreviations as they are, in order to render the rapid and incisive writing style these insertions reflect. In the typewritten letters, which constitute the majority of the corpus, handwritten insertions have been treated differently on a type-by-type basis. In particular:

a) A note features transcriptions of every addition made either by the writer inside the main body of the letter immediately after it was typed (postscripts, notes, and asterisks; additions or glosses) or by the recipient of the letter, who, while reading it, added annotations, notes, or underlining to the typewritten document. In the note, in addition to the text or annotation, identification of the letter’s author, the type of pen used (whenever it is possible to identify it), and the color of the ink are always provided. Besides the signature, the exceptions are the document’s greetings and closing comments, which have been copied into the text so the letter does not seem suspended.

b) In those cases in which the person writing the letter hand-corrected their own typing error or handwritten mistake, or added accents and diacritics from other languages, the transcription has reproduced the version corrected by the author. This procedure is marked in a note only in those cases in which it is of significance. 

The punctuation used by the writer has always been maintained. In particular, even when expressing himself in other languages, Levi followed standard Italian editorial criteria for punctuation and these have been maintained in the transcription (therefore, his letters have not been standardized, for example, to conform with the French usage, which always calls for a space before the punctuation).

As a general rule, apostrophes have been standardized and when necessary, angular quotation marks are used. Nevertheless, in the case of the German-language correspondents writing in their own language, it was decided to conform to the German editorial standard, which calls for lower-case apostrophes before the word and upper-case apostrophes after it. Book titles are in italics. In the few cases in which single apostrophes were used, they have been eliminated and replaced by italics when used to indicate terms in another language, (for example, in Letter 54, written in French, ‘displaced person’ has been transcribed as displaced person), whereas they have been kept when they appear between double apostrophes or angular quotation marks. Expanded spacing and underlining have been rendered using italics for book titles and in those cases in which they have been used to emphasize one or more words. In all other cases, the underlining has been maintained (if written by hand, this is indicated in the note), with the exception of addresses, in which case it has been eliminated. Expanded spacing (which the correspondents sometimes use to indicate proper nouns) has also been eliminated.

The transcription has followed the original page layout as far as the overall organization of the text and its division into paragraphs are concerned, whereas the spacing between one paragraph and another and the size of indentations have been standardized.

2.1 List of incorrect lections that have been preserved and of those that have been emended 

The following list has been subdivided per individual correspondent. It is the only modular section of the note to the text and will be implemented concurrently with the online publication of each set of correspondence.

2.1.1 Correspondence between Primo Levi and Hermann Langbein 

Levi

Letter 2: réproduction for reproduction; addressiez for adressiez; parait for paraît; Au cas for Au cas où. 

Letter 4: fevrier for février; reponse for réponse; rélation for relation; tractatives for tractations; ètre for être; ira à bon point for ira à bonne fin. 

Letter 5: démonstrer for démontrer; a Turin for à Turin.

Letter 8: complie for compile; revision for révision; nécéssaire for nécessaire; recu for reçu. 

Letter 11: rélation for relation; paraitra for paraîtra. 

Letter 16: par reflexe for par reflet. 

Letter 22: leur for leurs

Letter 24: reduite for réduite

Letter 27: il-y-a for il y a; soie for sois; tout-à-fait for tout a fait; nécéssaire for nécessaire; àussi for aussi; A’ > À*; À bientôt te revoir for À bientôt de te revoir. 

Letter 32: hiers for hier. 

Letter 34: Aout for août. 

Letter 36: C’est pour cette raison for C’est à cette raison; un seconde copie for une seconde copie; méner for mener; à bon fin for à bonne fin; récueilli for recueilli; Connais tu for connais-tu

Letter 41: reponds for réponds. 

Letter 44: redacteur for rédacteur; catastrophale for catastrophique; réstauration for restauration; reduire for réduire. 

Letter 48: chez-eux for chez eux; leur for leurs; à Juin for en Juin; sécrétaire for secrétaire; téléfone for téléphone; hiers for hier; leur volumes for leurs volumes; chez-toi for chez toi. 

Letter 51: repondre for répondre; extrèmes for extrêmes.

Letter 52: déja for déjà (twice); retraîté for retraité; licencier, Italianism; tout seule for toute seule; ci-joint for ci-jointe; posticipée, Italianism; a rééditer for à rééditer. 

Letter 52, enclosure: reduit for réduit (Italianism); notre for nôtre; costituer for constituer; révelé for révélé; prémière forpremière; éditorielle for éditoriale; théatre for théâtre. 

Letter 54: L’aurais > J’aurais*; du for dû; il-y-a for il y a; pensioner, Italianism; allemands for Allemands; enjambés,Italianism; ménaçants for menaçants; biologue, Italianism (corr biologiste); fantasie for fantaisie; authorisant forautorisant.

Letter 57: il-y-a for il y a; alogénés for halogénés; cyanidrique for cyanhydrique; plus haut du point for plus haut que le point; eventuelles for éventuelles; puisq’il for puisqu’il; dégrés for degrés; jusq’à for jusqu’à; desarment for désarment; sur for sûr; leur for leurs; repétitions for répétitions; rélation for relation; cordialment for cordialement. 

Letter 58: déja for déjà.

Letter 60: sur for sûr; reponds for réponds; résonnance for résonance. 

Letter 63: nich for nicht*.

Langbein

The following is the series of incorrect variants, always emended, in the letters written by Hermann Langbein. Virtually all of them are typographical errors; in the two cases of letter 55, although they concern terms in Italian (and thus not in the writer’s native tongue), the decision was made to emend the errors, since they were produced during the act of mechanically recopying from a foreign language but do not produce a discordant reading that is linguistically relevant.

Letter 3: Storia die dieci > Storia di dieci; lge > lege.

Letter 23: dass sie nicht > dass Sie nicht*; können, Falls es > können. Falls es*; doch nich möglich > doch noch möglich*.

Letter 28: Elana Napolitano > Elena Napolitano*; Giulana Tedeschi > Giuliana Tedeschi*.

Letter 37: nun nochmals deswegen mit Daniele Ponchiroli deswegen in Verbindung setzt > nun nochmals deswegen mit Daniele Ponchiroli in Verbindung setzt*.

Letter 45: ein eingestriches Exemplar > ein eingestrichenes Exemplar*.

Letter 55: il dovere di lestimoniare > dovere di testimoniare*; associazione nationale > associazione nazionale*. 

Besides the notes that indicate handwritten additions (see above), notes have been included that provide historical contextualization and resolve possible ambiguities involving the letter in question. In part thanks to the creation of a system of hypertextual cross-references to the pages offering in-depth information or to other letters, the quantity of notes was limited as much as possible in order to facilitate reading (both as pop-ups, and in the column to the right of the page layout). For this reason, too, it was decided not to insert notes of an interpretative nature. Link pathways, in-depth information, and analyses of the correspondence can be found in the section Insight, to which each letter is connected through the function “Related Contents.” 

All the letters have been annotated; the enclosures, which are always described, have only been annotated when the letters were written by Levi himself or when they are of particular interest.

The tags have been created as instruments of semantic markup of the text. Five categories of tagged elements have been identified:

• People 
• Works 
• Publishers and Journals
• Historical Events 
• Institutions 

In each letter, the tagged information can be visualized (both as pop-ups and in the column to the right of the page layout) and each tag element is accompanied by a few coordinates and a brief definition: in this sense, the semantic markup also replaces a number of annotations. The tag tool also allows the research to be filtered in each letter present in this edition.

Since the entire portal is available in Italian and in English, each letter has two twin source files in XML/TEI format: one with the metadata and paratexts in Italian and one with the metadata and paratexts in English. Every XML file contains all the metatextual and textual information (including translations and complements) of each individual letter.

To encode the files, the most recent guidelines proposed by the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) have been followed, and the decision was taken to use a structural type of textual markup, in which the portions of standard text of the epistolary genre have been encoded. 

The <teiHeader> contains the metadata (title, editor, and translator, publication, archive of provenance of the documentary source), the type of text (described using the <correspDesc> module) and a facsimile, and also offers two typical elements of this correspondence: the letterhead paper (marked with <head>) and the enclosures of the individual letters (rendered with <accMat>).

What sets this edition apart are the translations alongside the original texts. For this reason, the <text> field has been subdivided into various modules (<div>) that correspond to the original texts and their respective translation. The structure of each has been described using the modules <opener>, <dateLine>, <addrLine>, <salute>, <p>, <closer>, <signed>, typical of epistolary texts.

Semantic tags have been encoded inside the body of the text, subdivided into five designated categories (<person>, <work>, <publisher>, <historical-event>, <institution>), and the notes.

It will soon be possible to download the letters in XML/TEI format.

Letter 001, Primo Levi to Hermann Langbein, 12 13, 1960, in University of Ferrara 2022-2027, LeviNeT – Primo Levi’s Correspondence with German Readers and Intellectuals, https://www.levinet.eu/en/lettere/001-hermann-langbein-to-primo-levi-december-13-1960/, doi: https://doi.org/10.15160/50h9-v003, accessed 2 August, 2024.