Riot of angels
Aufruhr der Engel (French original title: La Révolte des Anges ) is a fantastic novel by Anatole France that was published in 1914.
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The novel deals with the planning and preparation of an uprising by angels against God . The angels are divided into a strict hierarchy, on the lowest level are the guardian angels , who accompany their human protégés invisibly on earth.
Maurice d'Esparvieu is a young man from a wealthy, respected Catholic family from Paris. To the chagrin of his parents, he runs into debt, has several affairs and maintains relationships in an unsuitable environment. Maurice's Guardian Angel Arcade spends (invisibly) a lot of time in the old and extensive private library of Maurice's father to learn more about nature, the universe and the position of God in it. He comes to believe that God is neither omniscient nor omnipotent, nor is he the only divine being. Instead, he is an insignificant demiurge named Yaldabaoth , who rules only a tiny planet in the vastness of the universe - and even the inhabitants of this planet, the humans, he only pretends to be his great power. He is arbitrary and cruel towards angels and humans and must therefore be overthrown; Lucifer is to take his throne. This is identified with Dionysus and is supposed to start a new golden age of lust, joie de vivre, harmony, reason and the turning away from the opposition between virtue and sin.
Arcade takes on a human form and searches for allies for the rebellion in the seedy districts of Paris. Therefore, he renounces his protégé Maurice, which he refuses to accept and follows Arcade through Paris. Maurice's relationship with his parents' conservative and bigoted parents deteriorate until his father eventually disowned him.
After years, the movement has grown to hundreds of thousands of angels and Arcade goes to Satan / Lucifer with his earliest comrades in arms to ask him to lead them into battle. He doesn't want to answer you until the next day. During the night he dreams of his future rule and realizes that as a ruler he would be just as cruel as God: Both would swap places, but nothing would change for the people. Therefore, no war should be fought against the heavenly hosts, but an inner battle:
“But what use is it that people are no longer subject to Yaldabaoth if the spirit of Yaldabaoth is still in them, if they are jealous, violent, contentious, greedy and enemies of the arts and beauty in his image? [...] As for us, heavenly spirits, exalted demons, we have only destroyed our tyrant Yaldabaoth when we have eradicated the ignorance and fear in us. "
References to reality
Because angels and people meet in contemporary Paris, the work is not only a fantastic novel, but also a social novel in which the social conditions and political struggles of the Third French Republic are shown through the distanced, ironic depiction of the characters . Especially the hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie, the Catholic Church and the military are mocked.
Translations and adaptations
Three years after the French original edition, the first German translation by Rudolf Leonhard appeared in 1917 . In 1979, the Aufbau-Verlag published a new translation by Heidi Kirmße in the bb series , followed by a new translation by Oliver Fehn in 2018 . In addition to German, the novel has been translated into ten other languages.
In 1978 Helfried Schreiter wrote a theater adaptation.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Anatole France: Revolt of the Angels . Translated from the French by Heidi Kirmße. Aufbau-Verlag Berlin and Weimar, 1979, p. 224f.
- ↑ Entry on Worldcat
- ^ Entry in the German National Library