Ribbeck pears
The pears from Ribbeck is the title of a story by Friedrich Christian Delius published in 1991 , in which Theodor Fontane's ballad Herr von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck in Havelland is replicated. It takes place a few months after the end of the GDR system .
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The starting point of the plot is the planting of a pear tree in the garden of the palace, which was used as a nursing home from 1956 to 2004, by a group of West Berliners who entertained the population on the occasion of this event. This festival carries a local in a long monologue, a stream of consciousness (stream of consciousness) similar, increasingly intoxicated the Ribbecker story from his perspective with appropriately interpreted ballads quotations before. Delius' story can also be used as a theatrical text for an actor. The world premiere took place on January 25, 1992 in the Altmark Theater in Stendal .
Literary templates
A pear tree on the crypt of the noble family next to the church of the Haveldorf Ribbeck , which was knocked down by a storm in February 1911, is the subject of a legend that relates to the historical figure of Hans Georg von Ribbeck (1689-1759) and explains How the strange grave planting came about: The old gentleman, who gave the village children every year fruit from his garden, is said to have asked for a pear as a coffin accompaniment, from which a tree with a mysterious whispered voice developed in the churchyard, which the enjoyment of the Invited fruit. The reason for this precaution was the premonition that the stingy son would not continue the tradition of the father and lock his garden.
On the 500th anniversary of the family in 1875, a relative, Hertha von Witzleben, wrote a poem about her generous ancestor, which begins with the following lines: "At Ribbeck at the church there is an old pear tree, with the lush branches of the church roof" . For his ballad (1889) Theodor Fontane resorted to Karl Eduard Haase's "Sagen aus der Grafschaft Ruppin" (1887) (see also: Herr von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck im Havelland ). While in the Federal Republic the poem of the "friendly feudal lord" was part of the regular educational repertoire, in the GDR school education it did not have this canonical status.
A farmer from Ribbeck tells the story of the Havelland village
In the farmer's version, the old childhood friend Herr von Ribbeck is referred to the realm of legend from which Fontane brought him out. The historical reality corresponds more to the tight-knit son who “keeps the park and pear tree strictly safe”. The history of the Havelland ("and the years went up and down") is characterized by lack of freedom and catastrophes:
- by the feudal lords , to whom, however, in contrast to the GDR planned economy, he grants expertise and a functioning way of working, with their system of serfdom ,
- "Through the devastating consequences of the war that can be heard [...] whispering everywhere",
- Through the Nazi dictatorship, whose victims also include the last landowner on Ribbeck, who was murdered in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and whose story the narrator shares in his aversion to legends from his information stand,
- after a land reform that was hopeful for the small farmers and the still manageable cooperatives of the sixties, the increasing bureaucratization of the GDR plan and spy economy, whose "calcified [] worker princes from Berlin who betrayed their ideals", the country ruined and deformed to prison.
As a result of these experiences, the narrator is skeptical of the newly proclaimed freedom and the hope for better money (“the golden autumn season”): He is afraid of the claims of the former large landowners and a possible restructuring of the property structure , sees himself as a “spectator at the big fight over the land ”and fears an emergency slaughter of the whole economy and the loss of his job by adapting to the dominant West market, which declares everything old as“ East scrap ”. As with the planting ceremony organized by West Berliners, he feels like an extra (“farmers and Büdner with a celebration face”) in the Wende process: “Your pear tree is in bloom in our village”, “now you determine the festival program”. But he also admits his own contradictions, the self-pity ("so the children complained, that was not right"), which superimposed the chances of a new beginning ("what luck that we did not win", "everything is open") ). He fantasizes whether one could copulate the elegant new pear tree (No. 4) with the crooked wildling (tree No. 3) that was secretly planted in front of the church in the GDR era and that gives little shade and no pears: “then we would have Perhaps one day fat pears of the “Countess of Paris” variety, in the old place, then the old whispering to girls and boys in the tree again, we downstairs, you upstairs, dreams sprouting from the curves of the pears, a germ in every copulation for the next unification, refinement, reproduction, until nobody knows who we are, who you ”.
Towards the end of the linguistically increasingly fluctuating lecture, there is a grotesque vision in which Ribbeck markets the pear (“so blessing still donates Fontane”, “all of Ribbeck lives from the pear”) and becomes a Fontane pilgrimage site: “with cars and buses and Ships to the fishing village, to the landing stage in the Ribbeck seaport, the Luch becomes a lake, an ocean again, cruise liners dock and hundreds of passengers stroll through the village to see the pear tree in bloom [...] and then back up on the Titanic ”. At the end, the drunken narrator ponders the Fontane saying “We should love everything old, as far as it is entitled, but actually live the new” and asks old Ribbeck: “Or am I wrongly afraid of the new [... ] or do I see ghosts ”, before his stream of consciousness dissolves into fragments of the ballad: still, the hand, still […] in Havelland.
See also
Web links
References and comments
- ^ Delius, p. 9.
- ^ Delius, Friedrich Christian: The pears of Ribbeck . Hamburg 1993, p. 10. ISBN 3-499-13251-6 . This edition is quoted.
- ^ Friedrich Christian Delius - The pears from Ribbeck. Rowohlt Verlag GmbH, accessed on August 21, 2014 .
- ↑ Delius, p. 72.
- ↑ Delius, p. 54 ff.
- ^ Delius, p. 55.
- ↑ Delius, p. 55 ff.
- ↑ Delius, pp. 25, 56 ff., 72.
- ↑ Delius, p. 54 ff.
- ↑ Delius, p. 15 ff.
- ^ Delius, p. 18.
- ^ Delius, p. 65.
- ^ Delius, p. 49.
- ↑ Delius, pp. 20, 25, 32 ff.
- ↑ Delius, pp. 28 ff., 43 ff., 49.
- ↑ Friedrich von Ribbeck, a seven-time grandson of the generous ancestor, has published another account (see “ Family Chronicle of the von Ribbeck Family ”) on his website and commented on the Delius story (see “ About the book by Mr. Delius - request from a student " ( Memento of the original from September 2, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. ).
- ↑ Delius, pp. 28, 38, 48, 50 ff.
- ^ Delius, p. 49.
- ^ Delius, p. 49.
- ↑ Delius, pp. 35 ff., 39.
- ^ Delius, p. 51.
- ↑ Delius, pp. 31 ff., 45, 50 ff., 75.
- ↑ now regulated by a court settlement: s. Ribbeck (Nauen)
- ^ Delius, p. 61.
- ↑ Delius, pp. 52 ff., 58 ff., 64, 70 ff.
- ↑ Delius, p. 11.
- ↑ s. Delius 1993, pp. 60, 62.
- ^ Delius, p. 65.
- ^ Delius, pp. 60, 68.
- ↑ Delius, pp. 60, 61.
- ↑ Delius, p. 40 ff.
- ↑ Delius, pp. 41, 45 ff.
- ^ Delius, p. 69.
- ^ Delius, p. 73.
- ^ Delius, p. 79.
