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Imitation – the capacity to learn and love from the prenatal realm
35 minPeter Selg
“Transforming Life” – On Svetlana Geier, Andrej Belyj and Rudolf Steiner
Description
A contribution by Peter Selg
The lecture recalls the book “Transforming Life” by Andrej Belyj, which Svetlana Geier translated into German and which was published in 1975 – exactly 50 years after Rudolf Steiner's death. The gifted translator Geier was born in Kyiv, where she survived the horrors of the Second World War (including the Babi Yar massacre) and Stalinist persecution. Later she found a new home in Freiburg. She understood translation as a “primordial human activity”, as an inward turning and a listening.
The Russian Symbolist Belyj wrote his work in 1928–29 as a kind of testament, in order to portray Steiner's character before his own death, out of love and freedom. The initial closeness of their relationship was followed by estrangement and finally by a reconciling encounter in Stuttgart in 1923.
A contribution by Peter Selg to the supporting programme of the exhibition “To Kindle from the Spirit of the Cosmos ...” at the Goetheanum.
German | Subtitles · DE · EN
Publication: 29 May 2026
Translated by AI from the original (Deutsch), not reviewed · Read the original
Speakers
Peter SelgPeter Selg (born 1963 in Stuttgart) is a physician specialising in child and adolescent psychiatry. Since 2006 he has directed the Ita Wegman Institute for Basic Research into Anthroposophy in Arlesheim. He is professor of medical anthropology at Alanus University and the author of numerous books on Rudolf Steiner and the history of anthroposophy.
All videosProduction · Section at the GoetheanumSection for Fine ArtsAll videossbk.goetheanum.org
Details
- Series
- Vorträge zur Biographie und zum Werk Rudolf Steiners, Episode 4 of 5
- Section
- Visual Arts
- Language
- German · Subtitles: German, English
- Access
- With subscription
