The great Alexander train
The great Alexanderzug is a youth novel by Hans Baumann published in 1967 . It is about the life of Alexander the Great .
content
The Deutsche Taschenbuchverlag (dtv junior) describes the book as follows:
“Alexander the Great had only 33 years of life available. He was king for fourteen years; during this time he conquered half the world. A "day runner" who has to count the steps of the columns charging forward and thus measures the distances covered, reports on the life of Alexander the Great. He does not carry weapons and does not take part in any battle. He has leisure to watch his master and collects stories that friends, soldiers, bankers, Macedonians, Persians and Indians tell about the great military leader. In this way it is possible for him to describe the most important stages in his master's life. "
The great Alexanderzug is divided into an introduction ( the narrator introduces himself ), a main part with 55 chapters and a final part ( the narrator says goodbye ).
The main part tells the story of the twelve-year-old Alexander up to the decline of his world empire after his death. After the death of his father Philip II , Alexander becomes king of Macedonia . In the war against Dareios III. and the old Persian empire of the Achaemenids grew in him the will to become ruler of all of Asia. He wins at Granicus and Issus . Alexander conquers Tire and Gaza . After conquering Egypt , he founded Alexandria , just as many other city foundations will bear his name on his campaign. After storming the royal castle of Persepolis , his troops began to murder and pillage. Alexander is shocked and has the burning Persepolis extinguished. He wants to be king of the Persians and not king of Persia. A short time later Darius is murdered by Bessos . Alexander had Darius buried in Persepolis alongside the other Persian kings. He then judges Bessos, the murderer of his former rival. With the noticeable turn to the conquered peoples and the adoption of Persian rituals , he alienates himself from the Macedonians, who are slowly getting tired of war. He only knows how to maintain his power through despotic behavior. So he directed his critics Philo Lates, Parmenion and Cleitus .
After Persia, Alexander turned to India, but had to realize after several battles that he could not defeat India and reach the end of Asia. He returned to Persia, losing a large part of his army in the Gedrosien desert . Another part reaches the destination under the leadership of Admiral Nearch with Alexander's fleet. Alexander celebrates the arrival of the army in Susa with a big party and a mass wedding. He himself chooses two new women, including the eldest daughter of Darius. He still suppresses small mutinies, but after the death of his friend Hephaistion he moves, drawn to Babylon , where he dies of a fever attack. After his death there is no successor, and the Macedonian empire crumbles through envy and war.
In the final part, the narrator sums up Alexander and the other protagonists of the story in the form of a nameless "day runner" . He sums up his sympathies as follows:
“My love, of course, did not belong to him. She turned to others who I met on the big procession: Poros , the vanquished, and Taxiles , who rode towards Alexander alone and held out an unarmed hand. Dindimus appeared to me as the greatest of the kings and sent his soldiers home to work the fields. Closer to my heart is Nearch, the Cretan. And my admiration belongs to Callisthenes , who stopped before the king when others were kneeling, and who said without fear what he was thinking. I discovered a lot about Alexander that frightened me. But I also saw that he was capable of repentance when he allowed himself to be carried away into a reprehensible act. "
This résumé can certainly be seen as an autobiographical processing of Baumann during the time of National Socialism, provided that his publisher is right and his statement about his novel I drew with Hannibal is also valid here:
“ It's not a historical book. I was trying to describe what I was experiencing myself and I took a past scene to make it clearer. "
expenditure
The great Alexanderzug first appeared in the Ehrenwirth Verlag (Verlagsgruppe Lübbe), later (from 1977) in the dtv junior program of the German paperback publishing house , where it reached its 11th edition. It has also been translated into English and appeared in London and New York under the title Alexander's Great March .
Individual evidence
- ^ Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag: Author Hans Baumann Access: (September 13, 2010)