These are the drawings of Franz Kafka, including his self -portrait

The National Library of Israel digested and published an archive of manuscripts and drawings of the writer Franz Kafka. Documents required intensive restoration and cataloging. Until 2010, they were stored by the daughters of the secretary of the friend of Kafka, who refused to transfer them to the library.

"Paper" shows the published drawings of Franz Kafka, including a self -portrait.

Why the archive was published only now

Franz Kafka died of tuberculosis in 1924, asking to burn all his manuscripts. However, his friend Max Brod decided to preserve his works and published them, due to which Kafka was recognized as one of the important writers of the 20th century.

Max Brod died in 1968, bequeathing to transfer the collection of Kafka's manuscripts to the Israeli National Library. He entrusted this to the secretary and mistress of Esther Hoff, who did not do this and, in particular, sold the manuscript of the novel “The Process” for two million dollars in 1988.

Esther Hoffe died in 2007. The Kafka archive remained in her apartment in Tel Aviv, as well as in storage facilities in Israel and Switzerland. The daughters of Hoffe - Eve and Ruth looked after him. As the Lenta wrote , the daughters planned to sell materials to Germany - in the literary archive of Marbach.

In 2007, the National Library of Israel asked Hoffe's daughters to fulfill the request of the late Max Brod and transfer the manuscript of Kafka to her. They refused. But in 2010, the Israeli Supreme Court sided with the library - and she received an archive.

The manuscripts had to be restored for a long time-in particular because part of the archive was spoiled by cats, BBC reports . By 2021, an archive with personal letters, diaries and drafts of “wedding preparations in the village” can be viewed here .

Drawings by Franz Kafka

There were many Kafka drawings in the archive, including self -portrait, portraits of other people, as well as simple sketches. Some of them are grotesque carications.

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