Catharina of Georgia

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Data
Title: Catharina of Georgia or Reinforced Persistence
Genus: Tragedy
Original language: German
Author: Andreas Gryphius
Publishing year: 1657
Place and time of the action: The tragedy begins before the sunrise and ends with the day. The setting is the royal hope of Shiraz in Persen. The whole trade forms from the last day of Queen Catharine's life.
people
  • Catharina . Queen of Georgia
  • Salome / Serena and Cassandra . The queen instead of virgins
  • The Queen's Room .
  • Procopius and Demetrius . Envoy from Georgia.
  • Ambrose . The priest.
  • Chach Abas . King of the Persians.
  • Hisel Can and Iman Culi . The king's most secret.
  • The envoy from Reussen .
  • A servant .
  • The blood judge .
  • The eternity .
  • Mute people:
    • The king and the Persians were courtiers .
    • Two blends .
    • The court servants of the Reussian ambassador .
    • The Hencker .
    • The choirs are in the women's room. The murdered ghosts. Of virtues. Death and love.
Catherine of Georgia.jpg

Catharina of Georgia is a German baroque drama by Andreas Gryphius that exemplarily shows the conflict between two cultures, which is reflected in the relationship between the two main characters, the Christian Catharina and the Muslim king of the Persians , Shah Abas.

The drama, created between 1647 and 1650 with the subtitle Reinforced Resistance , first appeared in 1657.

content

Catharina ( Georgian ქეთევან, Ketewan ), the Queen of Georgia , after she was able to defend her kingdom against the King of Persia , Shah Abas, tries to counter the overwhelming power by going to the enemy camp in order to seek peace ask. The king, inflamed in love for the proud queen ( "You, my heart's delight, my light, the royal sun, how do I find you? What cloudy veil covers this lovely face?" ), Lets them be captured and in his for years Lock up the dungeon. An envoy of the tsar, who has negotiated a peace treaty between Persia and Russia, asks Shah Abas for the release of Catharina, which the king initially promises. But since he realizes that he will lose Catharina, he breaks his promise and offers her marriage and the crown of Persia. Since the queen persists with Christi Bekaendtnues and does not want to be unfaithful to her murdered husband, Shah Abas first has her tortured and, when this still does not lead to the desired success, finally burns at the stake. The death of Catharinas leaves Shah Abas in despair. The transfigured martyr Catharina finally prophesies Abas the punishment of God, which does not occur in the play.

Historical background

The source for the tragedy is the collection of stories Histoires tragiques de nostre temps by Claude Malingre . The Iranian Shah Abbas I the Great (1587–1629) from the Safavid family fought from 1620 on the east of the then Iranian province of Georgia, Kakheti . Hundreds of thousands fell victim to this struggle, but the population, which was finally decimated to a third, fought heroically and in 1625 Shah Abbas I had to recognize the Kingdom of Georgia, which was ruled by Teimuras I , the son of Catherine of Georgia.

Catherine of Georgia was born in 1565 into a noble Georgian family. She married David I. (Georg .: დავითი I. Daviti p'irveli )., The prince of Kakhetien and became their queen in 1601.

According to stories, she made herself available as a hostage during negotiations for the independence of Kakhetia from Persia in 1614. Shah Abbas tried to get them to renounce Christianity and convert to Islam. When she refused, she was tortured to death with red-hot iron bars and died in Persian captivity in 1624.

Portuguese monks dug up the body and took the right arm to an Augustinian monastery in Velha Goa, India, where it was kept as a relic until the monastery collapsed in 1842.

Indian archaeologists have since managed to find the arm. DNA analyzes by the Center for Cellular & Molecular Biology (CSIR) suggest that it is actually the arm of a Western Eurasian woman.

literature

  • Joachim Harst: Heilstheater. Figure of the baroque tragedy between Gryphius and Kleist. Fink, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-7705-5396-9 .
  • Nicola Kaminski: Andreas Gryphius. Reclam (= Reclam Universal Library, vol. 17610), Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-15-017610-7 .
  • Albrecht Koschorke: The desire of the sovereign. Gryphius' "Catharina of Georgia". In: Daniel Weidner (Ed.): Figures of the European. Cultural-historical perspectives. Munich, Fink 2006, pp. 149–162.
  • Torsten W. Leine: Martyrdom as a political issue. Religious staging of a political event in Andreas Gryphius' "Catharina of Georgia" . In: Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft and Geistesgeschichte , 84, 2010, pp. 160–175.
  • Hans-Jürgen Schings: Catharina of Georgia. Or reinforced resistance . In: Gerhard Kaiser (ed.): The dramas of Andreas Gryphius. A collection of individual interpretations. Metzler, Stuttgart 1968, pp. 35-72.
  • Christopher J. Wild: Theater of Chastity - Chastity of Theater. On a story of (anti) theatricality from Gryphius to Kleist. Rombach, Freiburg 2003, ISBN 3-7930-9361-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christopher J. Wild (2004, 2007 German): Anatomy and Theology, Transience and Redemption , in: A New History of German Literature , edited by David E. Wellbery, Judith Ryan, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Anton Kaes, Joseph Leo Koerner and Dorothea E. von Mücke. Translated by Christian Döring, Volker von Aue, John von Düffel, Peter von Düffel, Helmut Ettinger, Gerhard Falkner, Sabine Franke, Herbert Genzmer, Nora Matocza and Peter Torberg. Berlin University Press, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-940432-12-4 , pp. 389-393.
  2. ↑ Ancient bone relic in Goa church might be of Queen Ketevan of Georgia The Hindu . December 23, 2013. Page visited on January 27, 2014