A touching story is popular on the Internet: supposedly the Austrian writer Franz Kafka met a girl who lost the doll, and for weeks he wrote letters on behalf of the toy to console. We decided to check whether something like that happened in reality.

On cognitive And entertainment sites, as well as in social networks ("VKontakte" X, Facebook*, Instagram*, Threads) and blogs (Livejournal, "Zen") You can often find a life -affirming story: supposedly Kafka, walking in the park, met an inconsolably sobbing girl who lost the doll. The writer tried to find a toy, but to no avail. The next day, he again came to the park and handed the girl a letter written by him on behalf of the same doll: supposedly she went on a trip, but promises to write to her mistress. For some time, Kafka brought the girl more and more messages with a description of the adventure of the doll. After some time, he gave the child a new doll, and when the girl objected that she was not at all like the old one, the writer handed her a note where it was written: "Travels changed me." Many years later, after the death of Kafka, the matured mistress of the doll allegedly found a letter hidden in the toy with the phrase “Everything that you love will most likely be lost, but in the end, love will return in another way!”. History is also found at literary portals and on resources dedicated children.

During life Franz Kafka He was not such a famous and successful writer as he became posthumously. Moreover, unlike many outstanding figures who could not get the recognition of contemporaries, Kafka did not strive for him. He was extremely reluctant to publish his works, so during his lifetime only a few collections of short prose were published. His most significant books - the novels “Castle”, “Process”, the story “Transformation” - saw the light after the writer died in 1924 from tuberculosis. Before his death, he bequeathed to his friend, writer and criticism Max Broda Destroy all unpublished manuscripts and not reprint what has previously been published. The ford was convinced of the exceptional importance of Kafka’s literary works, therefore he published all previously unpublished manuscripts, as well as several biographies of the writer.

In 1939, Brod moved to mandate Palestine - so the manuscripts of Kafka got to Israel and in 2018 were nationalized and Transmitted to the national library of the country. For many years, the authorities of Israel have sued the descendants of the Assistant Esther Hoff, who, after his death, went to the manuscripts. The Hoffe family considered them their property and for years before nationalization managed to sell some of the documents of Kafka in private collections.

Some of the manuscripts, as well as the letters and diaries of Kafka were stored by his lover - actresses Dora Diamant. Unlike Brod, at the request of the writer, she still burned part of his literary heritage, but she had about 35 of his letters and 20 notebooks of his diary records. In 1933, in her Berlin apartment, the Gestapo searched, the papers were seized and disappeared. Non -profit volunteer organization Kafka Project He is still trying to find these documents. It turns out, despite the fact that part of the Kafka heritage is studied and digitized, this is far from exhausting the list of texts that came out of his pen.

In the published works of Kafka, it was not possible to find the distributed story “verified”. Nevertheless, the source was very close to the writer: for the first time about the “puppet” letters in his memoirs published in 1948, told Dora Diamant, with whom the writer spent the last year of his life. Walking with his lover in the park, Kafka, according to Diamant, really met an inconsolably sobbing girl who lost the doll. To calm her down, he told her that the doll was not lost at all, he had just seen her at the station: she asked the hostess not to be upset and even handed over a letter that the writer promised to bring the girl the next day. The next day he really came to the park with a letter, and then met with the girl again and again, handing her letters on behalf of her lost toy, where doll adventures were described. In these notes, he said that the doll was terribly missing the mistress, but cannot return, as he is busy with his toy affairs. According to Diamant, Kafka did not know how to finish this correspondence without upsetting the child, and in the end decided to write that the doll had married, so he could no longer return to his former life. No doll purchased in return lost in history is mentioned.

Illustrations for the book "Kafka and wandering doll." Source: Isabel Torner / Facebook

However, Max ford in biography "Despair and atonement in the work of Franz Kafka»Gives a slightly different story, but also refers to the fact that he learned it from the diamond. In his version, Kafka corresponded with a girl on behalf of the doll until he had to leave Berlin for health reasons. Then he bought a new toy for the child, explaining that the travels had changed her. This version is closer to the network that has dispersed, although Brod also does not mention the part in which the matured girl finds a note hidden in the doll. However, in order to write about this, the ford at least was to be familiar with this woman, and there are some difficulties with this.

The researchers of the life and work of Kafka have not yet been able to find neither the originals of the very letters, nor the ad spricky. One of the most noticeable attempts to find out anything about this story and her alleged heroine I did it In 2001, American literary critic Mark HarmanHe worked at that time at the American Academy in Berlin. About his search even Wrote Several large German newspapersHowever, Harman did not find any traces. But this does not mean that the story is fictional: the girl herself could, for example, not live until the moment when the diamond spoke about this case. In addition, as already mentioned, during the life of Kafka he was not a celebrity, so the girl could not attach particular importance to this episode from childhood and not to tell anyone about him. The key episode of history in the presentation of bloggers and authors of publications on entertainment sites is a note allegedly found after years. However, the researchers did not find that very girl, so this detail is most likely fully fictitious.

The factor of the Snopes project also investigated The dispersed story about the "puppet" letters of Kafka. They came to the conclusion that for the first time a phrase from the years allegedly found by the girl later, the notes (“Everything that you love will most likely be lost, but in the end, love will return in another way!”) Appeared in article Psychotherapist May Benatar in Huffpost in 2011. She notes that there are many versions of this story, but it was this Benatar who heard from her friend a teacher of meditation and a psychologist. It is not known where she got this information. But in general, such metamorphoses of this story are not amazing, since the plot has repeatedly met not only in studies dedicated to Kafka, but also in fiction, enriched with colorful details.

So, for example, the American writer and translator Guy Davenport devoted to this story one of the stories in the collection "Green fields table", Published in 1993. In the Belinda Circle Journey, he retells the story of Kafka’s meeting with a girl who has lost the doll, and then gives several specific texts of letters in which the toy describes the girl his incredible adventures. In the last letter, the doll says that she gets married, and invites the girl to visit her and her wife in Argentina. In the notes to the collection, Davenport explains that he came across the story of the letters of the doll in the biography of Kafka edited by Ronald Heiman. And his story is the reconstruction of these alleged letters.

Thus, at the moment, the researchers could not find either the alleged letters themselves or the girl to whom Kafka wrote them, not at least her relatives who could confirm this story. For the first time, the writer’s lover told her, who, according to her, was personally present both at the meeting of Kafka with the crying girl, and when creating “puppet” letters. The original letters could really be lost or destroyed, as well as a significant part of the written heritage of Kafka. Therefore, at the moment, it is not possible to confirm or refute this story: it can be both real and completely fictitious Doramant. Nevertheless, a fragment of how the matured girl found a note in a doll years after Kafka’s death, apparently completely invented - since no one was looking for that very girl, there would also be no one to tell about this amazing find.

Photo on the cover: Atelier Jacobi: Sigismund Jacobi (1860–1935), Public Domain, Via Wikimedia Commons

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