The seeker of God

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Der Gottsucher is a religion-critical novel by the Austrian writer Peter Rosegger , which was published monthly from October 1880 to September 1881 in the 5th year of the Graz Heimgarten . Adolf Hartleben published the work in book form in Vienna in 1883 . The Ludwig Staackmann Verlag published in 1926 in Leipzig , the 76th.

history

Fritz Lach : Tragöß in 1928

In the Styrian town of Tragöß - not too far from Bruck an der Mur , on the southern slopes of the Hochschwab massif - the Catholic priest Melchior Lang was killed by mountain farmers in 1493 . Lang had not only headed the parish of Tragoss, but was also administrator of the manor.

Peter Rosegger, who in his text pretends to be the chronicler of the events, takes the fememord as the basis for a fiction - the design of the cult of fire and ancestors in a fictional mountain farming community.

content

The mountain farming village of Trawies lies on the banks of the raging Trach, which falls from the Trasank Mountains. The white-bearded Chief Justice von Neubruck and the stern young Father Dominicus with their armor-stiff covering have traveled to the remote location of the action. Both are investigating the murder of Pastor Franciscus with some of the court lords who are still present. After the last service, the head of the Trawies pastor was split open with an ax. After its investigation, the court regards it as proven: the murderer can only be one of the Trawieser farmers. The monster is to be delivered on the spot. The elders of Trawies, headed by fire warden Gallo Weißbucher, refuse. After the counter-speech by the fire warden, Pastor Franciscus was responsible for his own death. Because apart from the relentless collection of the tithe , this unjust lord denied the trawlers the traditional right to forest and pasture, did not spare the harvests and fought the customs inherited from the ancestors. In addition, the fire warden points out a document to the address of the responsible Neubruck landlords. In it the trawieser had demanded a just superior in vain.

All contradiction does not help. By drawing lots, twelve farmers are chosen and eleven of them are beheaded. The trawies remain adamant. The church is banned from the village with its defiant inhabitants .

In contrast to the Neubruck court lords, the attentive reader knows that the Trawieser carpenter Wahnfred vom Gestade is the murderer. Wahnfred had been determined as the perpetrator - again by drawing lots - by a Trawieser femme court . Like most trawies, Wahnfred has additional motives for his fatal ax blow. One motif is related to one of the pagan customs (more precisely: Rosegger refers to the mythology of the Germanic peoples ) against which Franciscus attacked by force of arms during his lifetime: During the hated celebration of the summer solstice , the pastor shot Wahnfred's little son Erlefried in the arm . The other motive: The deeply religious Christian Wahnfred hesitates; he doesn't want to kill. Before his murder, Wahnfred had visited the pastor , who was suffering from nervous fever, in his home and cared for it fearlessly. As a "thank you", the recovered Franciscus had later accused him of theft while nursing him. If necessary, the father can forgive the shot at Erlefried, but not the dishonorable accusation as a thief. That's why he strikes.

Because Wahnfred went into hiding after the bloody act, that is, kept hidden by the members of the Feme Court, the Neubruck court let him look - albeit in vain. Wahnfreds wife takes away the grief with time. Erlefried is accepted by one of the Trawies conspirators. The fire warden hides Wahnfred in an inaccessible orphaned hermitage of a hermit who has hanged himself. The hermit carpenter seeks and finds God in fire that destroys everything.

Wahnfred returns to Trawies and is chosen frenetically as their charismatic captain by the still rebellious and rebellious inhabitants.

Years go by. The Trawieser Rotte fights - mostly successfully - against the occasional storming episcopal armed forces. However, hardly any trawieser would like to go back to their usual farm work in times of peace. Wahnfred, the murderer of the priests and molester of the Christian altar, leads a futile fight against the work-shy, instinctively egocentric rabble. But one thing he achieves: The actually religious farmers - who have become fire worshipers under his guidance - build a wooden temple. The well-calculated atonement of the religious zealot Wahnfred: At the solemn temple inauguration, the guilty Wahnfred burned himself with the guilty trawlers trapped in the new building. Only Erlefried gets away with his life with his bride Sela - the daughter of the fire warden.

As a boy, Erlefried had to help his father sharpen the tools of the murder, but the narrator Peter Rosegger does not find him guilty for this. Because life goes on in the valley of the raging Trach on the crags of Trasank. Rosegger offers a happy ending. The couple cultivate their fields and lead a happy life. In the novel, true piety - that in the hearts of Erlefried and Sela - triumphs over the “ nihilistic mania for power, order and purification of church or non-church priests”.

reception

  • Rosegger, inspired to write by the legend from 1493 mentioned above, had intended his novel to be fictional. Nevertheless, he came pretty close to social realities.
  • Why does Wahnfred die by fire in the newly built temple with his brutalized Trawieser congregation? Is it atonement for murdering the priest? Did the work-shy trawies have to be punished? No doubt. Ultimately, however, Wahnfred followed the example of the hermit, in whose hermitage he was allowed to spend the winter. From the papers he left behind, the carpenter, who knew how to read, had discovered the terribly pessimistic debacle: "The extinction of the population is ... the self-redemption of creation."
  • The fire cult, ostensibly celebrated by romanglobal, incarnated in the ancestral fire, initially only appears as a “tamed element of popular religion ... tolerated by later Christianity”. Only under episcopal-Catholic pressure did the defiant Trawies raise that flame as a symbol of their struggle for freedom.
  • Using a few female characters, Bubeníček goes into the supporting role of women in Rosegger's prose.
  • “A small governor of the feudal-absolutist clergy” dishonors “the priesthood through arrogance, arbitrariness and laziness”, Hahl sums up the anger of Father Franciscus in the “initially still morally healthy community” Trawies. Why does Wahnfred fail to raise his wild trawies? Hahl finds one of the reasons. It seems as if Wahnfried is too similar to the ministerial priests.

literature

expenditure

Secondary literature

  • Gerald Schöpfer : Peter Rosegger. A credible witness to economic and social historical changes? Pp. 25–42 in: Uwe Baur (Ed.), Gerald Schöpfer (Ed.) And Gerhard Pail (Ed.): “Foreign made?” The folk writer Peter Rosegger . Böhlau, Vienna 1988, ISBN 3-205-05091-6
  • Hanna Bubeníček: land surveying. Peter Rosegger's characters between utopia and failure on the edge of the provinces. An attempt at topography . P. 143–165 in: Uwe Baur (Ed.), Gerald Schöpfer (Ed.) And Gerhard Pail (Ed.): "Foreign made?" The folk writer Peter Rosegger . Böhlau, Vienna 1988, ISBN 3-205-05091-6
  • Werner Hahl: Ritualization of the sensual experience. Attempt, temptation and failure of a religious foundation in Peter Rosegger's 'Der Gottsucher'. P. 57–84 in: Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler (ed.) And Karl Wagner (ed.): Peter Rosegger in context . Böhlau, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-205-98841-8

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hahl, p. 60, 15. Zvo and p. 70, 18. Zvu
  2. ^ Entry in the project Historischer Verlag
  3. ↑ Hahl, p. 68, 8. Zvo
  4. ↑ See also: Galgen Pichl-Großdorf , Willi Senft: Pfarrermord in Tragöß , Peter Rosegger, author of the important work “Der Gottsucher”, would be 170 years old
  5. ↑ Hahl, p. 68, 1. Zvo and 9. Zvo
  6. ^ Hahl, p. 79, 1. Zvo
  7. ↑ Hahl, p. 72, 19. Zvo and 8. Zvu
  8. ↑ Schöpfer, p. 40, 17. Zvo See also note 41: Herwig Ebner : Peter Rosegger's novel 'Der Gottsucher' und die Tragösser peasant revolts. Anno 1957
  9. ↑ Bubeníček, p. 150, 6. zvo
  10. ↑ Bubeníček, p. 150, 21. Zvo
  11. ↑ Bubeníček, p. 154
  12. ↑ Hahl, p. 68
  13. ↑ Hahl, p. 73, 1. Zvo