The never-ending escape

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Flight Without End is a novel by Joseph Roth , in 1927 during Albania emerged journey of the author and in the same year at Kurt Wolff appeared in Munich. According to Roth, the novel is a piece of autobiography . Sternburg contradicts this.

Franz Tunda, first lieutenant in the Austrian army, escapes from Russian captivity and is drawn into the Russian civil war on the long way home from Irkutsk to Vienna . Arrived home happily, the officer, one of the losers of the First World War , has nothing to do with himself. He cannot expect help from post-war society in Vienna or Paris .

time and place

The novel is set in Irkutsk from August 1916 to August 27, 1926 in Paris. In between, the protagonist acts in the Ukraine , Baku , Vienna and in a medium-sized German university town on the Rhine.

action

Franz Tunda, born in 1894, escapes from Russian captivity and finds shelter in the taiga with the Pole Baranowicz in Verkhne-Udinsk . In the spring of 1919 the lieutenant found out that the war was over and wanted to go to Vienna to see his bride, Miss Irene Hartmann. After all, Tunda made it to Ukraine in September. In the midst of the turmoil of the Russian civil war, the refugee first fell into the hands of the whites and finally stayed with the reds . Tunda falls in love with his superior, the Russian Natascha Alexandrovna, becomes a revolutionary himself , gives brilliant communist speeches and proclaims self-made appeals. Natascha is also fiery, but only as a soldier in bed.

Then in Moscow, when the revolutionary post-war everyday life has to be mastered and Tunda is about to join the party, the candidate makes off to Georgia and falls in love with Alja. The couple get married in Baku. Tunda looks after a French delegation from Paris, shows the newcomers the petroleum area , sleeps with Ms. G., the only lady in the party, and is mistaken for a spy by the French. As a farewell, Madame gives Tunda her Paris postal address. Tunda leaves his wife, receives an Austrian passport in Moscow without further ado and comes to Vienna legally. The bride Irene, it is said, lives, married and with a child, in Paris. Tunda receives poor unemployment benefits. The Sibiriak [Siberian] longs for the taiga as much as for Irene. On the way to Paris, Tunda passes his brother, a well-off music director, on the Rhine. They have nothing to talk about .

The Rhenish family is relieved when the guest finally drives on. Tunda publishes an account of his experiences as a book and sends his wife a little money to Baku. In Paris he meets Mrs. G. But everyone in France seems to smell that Tunda is broke. A Frenchman helps, but only for the moment. Once, Tunda and Irene meet in passing. But he neither recognizes her nor does she recognize him. Baranowicz writes from Siberia: Alja has just arrived at his place. Both are waiting for the refugee. Tunda, who had moved out to look for Irene, could return to the Irkutsk region. The first lieutenant doesn't know what to do.

Quotes

  • In the souls of some people, sadness causes greater jubilation than joy .
  • It takes a long time before people find their face .
  • How ugly is money that you don't have!

shape

The author subtitles the novel A Report and assures in the foreword that he neither invented nor composed anything . Two first-person narrators appear in the text: Joseph Roth and his friend, comrade and like-minded fellow Franz Tunda.

reception

  • Joseph Roth's report was occasionally assigned to the New Objectivity . According to Hans Mayer, however, the text is neither new nor factual . Roth had already contradicted this categorization in 1929.
  • Steierwald makes it clear that the revolutionary novel is not about revolution.
  • According to Claudio Magris , Roth defines the literature in the novel as a patchy approximation of the truth to be examined in the relevant text.
  • Joseph Roth wrote not only a novel about the Soviet Union, but also about post-war Europe. The author viewed the young Soviet Union rather skeptically because of its inherent compulsion. So his freedom-loving tunda had to flee westwards from the country.
  • Kiesel quotes Siegfried Kracauer . Accordingly, Roth does not protest against the European post-war conditions, but merely states facts. There is a sense of sadness in the narrative tone.

filming

Michael Kehlmann filmed the novel in 1985 for television with Helmuth Lohner , his wife Dagmar Mettler and Peter Weck .

literature

source

Secondary literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rudolf Leonhard, quoted in Sternburg, p. 340 above
  2. ↑ Sternburg, p. 343, center
  3. ↑ Hackert p. 396
  4. ↑ Hackert p. 462
  5. ↑ Hackert p. 481
  6. ↑ Hackert p. 389
  7. ↑ Hackert p. 391
  8. ↑ Nürnberger p. 73
  9. ↑ Roth, quoted in Sternburg, p. 340 below
  10. ↑ Steierwald p. 90
  11. ↑ Magris, quoted in Sternburg, p. 340 middle
  12. ↑ Kiesel S. 811-812 and S. 868
  13. ↑ Kiesel p. 812
  14. ↑ Nürnberger p. 152