Revolt of the fishermen of St. Barbara

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Uprising of the Fishermen of St. Barbara is the first book publication by the German author Anna Seghers in 1928. In the same year, the author was awarded the Kleist Prize for the story . A film adaptation of Erwin Piscator's novella was published in 1934 under the title Der Aufstand der Fischer .

content

Johann Hull flees the city of Port Sebastian to the fishing village of St. Barbara. During the mutiny last spring, in which around twelve people were killed in Port Sebastian, he was caught by advancing soldiers and shot in the foot while trying to escape. He has been wanted on a wanted list ever since. On the one hand, Hull fears his capture, but on the other hand, calms down. Apparently nobody recognized him in St. Barbara. Hull finds accommodation in the fishing village in the inn owned by the landlord Desak and spends the winter there. In the tavern he meets the skipper Kedennek. The local is taken with an idea from Hull. All fishermen from St. Barbara should meet the fishermen from the neighboring villages of St. Blé, Wyk and St. Elnor. The men in the orphaned youth Andreas Bruyn have an attentive listener. Andreas was taken in by his uncle Kedennek and his wife Marie. The uncle wants to take the young boy with him to fish on his ship Veronika in the coming season. With the once large fish market in St. Barbara, the economy is on the decline. On that market is the subsidiary of the United Bredelsche Reederei company .

The meeting of fishermen from the four villages takes place in St. Barbara. Hull appears as a speaker and formulates the fishermen's demands on the shipowner. Firstly, the fishermen are demanding an advance from the shipowner, secondly, higher market prices are negotiated for the fish and thirdly, as long as the shipowner does not comply with demands one and two, all ships will remain in their ports. There is an uprising. It doesn't go without incidents. A son of Bredel is badly off. He is badly assaulted in St. Barbara. Several fishermen are "arrested and taken to the capital". The office door of the Bredel branch in St. Barbara is smashed by the angry insurgents. The fishermen threaten the white-haired office worker. The police arrive and, according to the shipping company, arrest several people. The branch door is fastened. The white-haired glasses wearer are being replaced by "solid people". Foreign scabs are beaten at exit attempt by the fishermen of St. Barbara and beaten with stab wounds. A regiment of soldiers marches, shoots and is sometimes "pushed into the water". The argument escalates. The skipper Kedennek dies of a gunshot wound. Shipowner Bredel wants to force a ship to leave. Andreas prevents the ship from leaving by sabotage  - only with a screwdriver and a saw. All of the men on board - except three - die, but the boy is among the rescued. For a few more days he hides in the cliffs. Then he is caught and shot trying to escape. Hull is arrested. The fishermen, and especially their younger children, weakened by hunger, are giving up the resistance.

Self-testimony

When asked about the imaginary location of the action, Anna Seghers replied evasively that she had told a legend in which she wanted to articulate what particularly touched her with the “color of fairy tales ”.

shape

After the first three sentences, the reader has a complete overview of the overall statement. The uprising of - in modern terms - workers has failed. All power was returned to the employers. However, the story had to be read through from cover to cover, because Anna Seghers wanted to tell us that we could get new confidence in victory even from defeat.

The language is sparse, but precise. The author speaks in pictures: “The wind was happy because the door was open.” Or: The strong wind tears off “small pieces of light from the heavy sun”. Class struggle aspects: “A meeting” was “not quorate”.

The location of the action is in a bay and - as indicated above - cannot be localized in more detail. The indication of a port of Docrere, supposedly west of Port Sebastian, does not help either. Brandes suspects a location in northern Atlantic Europe at the beginning of the 20th century.

interpretation

Brandes clearly expresses the message of the text. The defeat of the fishermen is the hour of their immortal desire for freedom .

The Christian symbolism shows itself first in the fact that the uprising takes place at Pentecost . Maria appears to the reader in two parts as mother and whore. The mother is the exemplary housewife Marie Kedennek, with many children, who gives birth to a new child precisely at Christmas. The whore Marie from Docrere helps Desak out in the tavern in winter. The landlord beats her up once a year and then sleeps with her. Hull wants to take the prostitute, but is turned away. Andreas is more successful there. Actually, he is aiming for a very specific beauty, "round and brown as a nut". But for lack of opportunity he sleeps three times with Desaks Marie. Anna Seghers does not use the word whore for the bony girl; on the contrary, she gives her human traits. Desaks Marie, for example, provides Andreas with food when he is hiding in the cliffs from the military. She is eventually raped by those soldiers.

Likewise, the leader of the uprising is divided into two parts: the rebel Hull and the skipper Kedennek. Hull, "the rebel with charisma", comes as a ready, seasoned leader from outside to St. Barbara and brings Kedennek to the sacrificial death described by his appearance; a martyrdom . While the adventurer Hull is not only out as a savior , but also as an instinctual human, among other things, to gain pleasure , Kedennek is portrayed as the socially more valuable of the two leaders. Anna Seghers prepares Kedennek's heroic death when he sacrifices himself for the fishermen's cause - by seeming trivial matters: Kedennek's voice is more booming than the Hulls at the crucial moment.

According to Neugebauer, Andreas is also a hero. By driving the outgoing ship aground with man and mouse through his “ anarchic attack”, he puts the fishermen's just cause over his own life and is ultimately killed. Anna Seghers drew the romantic picture of a revolutionary with Andreas.

reception

  • Hans Henny Jahnn , who certified Anna Segher's “strong formal talent”, had chosen the text from 800 works as the Kleist Foundation's confidante. Arno Schirokauer then decried the award-winning story as a mish-mash of a bit of Expressionism and New Objectivity . Batt calls the subject revolt expressionistic and the illustration of the uprising objective. The Marxists went one step further. The raised index finger of Otto Biha have un-Marxist means. In the Soviet Piscator film from 1934 (see below) the statement from defeat to victory over the exploiters was then remodeled.
  • In 1928 Werner Türk praised the artistic discipline and simple objectivity of the author in literature . Sentimentality and crassness in the presentation were avoided.
  • Some praises of the text from 1973–1983 should be treated with caution. Reich-Ranicki , Merkelbach and Helmut J. Schneider are assumed in order to reduce the late work created in the GDR a little. For now there is only talk of rebellion . To world revolution is what Anna Seghers in later texts.
  • Batt thinks that a collective event will be shaped. The insurgents suffer and starve. Their need not only creates solidarity , but also wears them down.
  • Hilzinger quotes Volker Klotz in 1981: “Collective as main person: How it can be told and read. To Anna Seghers' 'Uprising of the Fishermen of St. Barbara' "
  • Although Kiesel discusses the text under the chapter on agitation literature, he has to make it clear that Johann Hull is neither a functionary nor an agitator, but rather is driven by his “natural sense of justice”. Many reviewers in the Rote Fahne and in the left turn did not like this fact. When Kiesel looks for a historical example for Hull, he thinks of Max Hoelz .

Film adaptations

literature

Text output

First edition
  • Revolt of the fishermen of St. Barbara . Kiepenheuer, Potsdam 1928. 187 pages, linen
Used edition
  • Revolt of the fishermen of St. Barbara. Narration . 133 pages. Construction Publishing House Berlin 1958
Further editions
  • Revolt of the fishermen of St. Barbara . P. 5–90 in: Anna Seghers: Uprising of the fishermen of St. Barbara. The companions . Volume I of the collected works in separate editions . 308 pages. Aufbau-Verlag GmbH, Berlin 1951
Latest issue
  • Revolt of the fishermen of St. Barbara . Afterword by Sonja Hilzinger, 2nd edition, Aufbau-TB 5150, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-7466-5150-6 ; Text edition with materials: Klett, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 978-312-353804-9 .

Secondary literature

  • Heinz Neugebauer: Anna Seghers. Life and work. With illustrations (research assistant: Irmgard Neugebauer, editorial deadline September 20, 1977). 238 pages. Series “Writers of the Present” (Ed. Kurt Böttcher). People and Knowledge, Berlin 1980, without ISBN
  • Kurt Batt : Anna Seghers. Trial over development and works. With illustrations. 283 pages. Reclam, Leipzig 1973 (2nd edition 1980). Licensor: Röderberg, Frankfurt am Main ( Röderberg-Taschenbuch Vol. 15), ISBN 3-87682-470-2
  • Ute Brandes: Anna Seghers . Colloquium Verlag, Berlin 1992. Volume 117 of the series “Heads of the 20th Century”, ISBN 3-7678-0803-X
  • Andreas Schrade: Anna Seghers . Metzler, Stuttgart 1993 (Metzler Collection, Vol. 275 (Authors)), ISBN 3-476-10275-0
  • Sonja Hilzinger: Anna Seghers. With 12 illustrations. Series of Literature Studies. Reclam, Stuttgart 2000, RUB 17623, ISBN 3-15-017623-9
  • Helmuth Kiesel : History of German-Language Literature 1918 to 1933 . CH Beck, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-406-70799-5

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ The fishermen of St. Barbara fish, for example, off Newfoundland (Edition used, p. 19, 14. Zvo).
  2. ↑ The fishermen demand a 60% share and seven pfennigs per kilogram of fish from the shipowner (edition used, p. 67, 9. Zvo).
  3. ↑ To be more precise, the author does not disclose what damage the young Bredel took in the attack (see for example the edition used, p. 81, 17. Zvo). In general, some things remain in the dark. For example, it is not specified who initiated Hull's arrest - one of the fishermen, the landlord Desak or a soldier? (Edition used, p. 122, 14. Zvo) Anna Seghers does not pay the slightest attention to such clarification. The respective options are sometimes simply listed and done.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edition used, p. 81, 16. Zvo
  2. ↑ see also Batt, p. 38, 18. Zvo
  3. ↑ quoted in Batt, p. 37, 8th Zvu
  4. ↑ Schrade, p. 14, 11. Zvu (see also Neugebauer, p. 25, 2. Zvu)
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 42, 13. Zvu
  6. ↑ Edition used, p. 97, 4th Zvu
  7. ↑ see also Neugebauer, p. 29, 9. Zvo
  8. ↑ Edition used, p. 81, 11. Zvu
  9. ↑ Edition used, p. 78, 8. Zvo
  10. ↑ Brandes, p. 33, 17. Zvo
  11. ↑ Brandes, p. 34, 13. Zvu
  12. ↑ see also Neugebauer, p. 28, 5. Zvo
  13. ↑ Hilzinger, p. 91, 10th Zvu
  14. ^ Batt, p. 39, 3. Zvo
  15. ↑ Edition used, p. 95, 7th Zvu to p. 96, 10th Zvo
  16. ↑ Brandes, p. 33, 13. Zvu
  17. ^ Batt, p. 39, 6th Zvu
  18. ↑ see also Schrade, p. 12, 15. Zvu
  19. ↑ Neugebauer, p. 25, 16. Zvo
  20. ↑ Brandes, p. 34, 1. Zvo
  21. ^ Batt, p. 43, 20. Zvo
  22. ↑ quoted in Brandes, p. 35, 4th Zvu
  23. ^ Batt, p. 45 above
  24. ↑ Batt, p. 46 below
  25. ↑ Brandes, p. 35, 1. Zvo
  26. ↑ Kiesel, p. 856, 10th line from the bottom
  27. ↑ Schrade, pp. 11., 12. Zvo
  28. ^ Schrade, p. 12., 9. Zvu
  29. ^ Batt, p. 38, 6. Zvo
  30. ^ Batt, p. 41, 8. Zvu
  31. ↑ quoted in Hilzinger, p. 220, 7th entry
  32. ↑ Kiesel, pp. 856-857
  33. ↑ Russian Серге́й Алекса́ндрович Мартинсо́н