The wedding of Haiti

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The Wedding of Haiti is a short story by Anna Seghers that was published in Berlin in 1949. The text, along with “Reintroduction of Slavery in Guadeloupe” and “The Light on the Gallows”, is part of the “Caribbean Stories” published in 1962.

content

In Haiti during and shortly after the French Revolution : Slaveholders like Count Evremonts have been squeezing blacks on their coffee and sugar cane plantations near Le Cap in French Haiti for over two hundred years . Fifteen years before the start of the action, the extremely wealthy Frenchman Count Evremont summoned the Jewish jeweler Samuel Nathan to the tropics.

On the occasion of the forthcoming wedding of the Count's daughter, old Nathan was entrusted by his most distinguished customer with the procurement of particularly precious jewelry. So the old man brought his son, the young diamond dealer Michael Nathan, over from Paris. When Michael arrives with the ordered goods in his luggage and presents the treasures to the count, a Mr. Antoine is present as a guest. However, the purchasing power of the estate manager Antoine is insufficient to acquire such exquisite treasures.

Mulattos among Haitian slave owners are demanding the same rights from the National Assembly in Paris as their white professional colleagues. The mulatto Ogé, who also keeps slaves, goes even further. He wants to enforce the freedom of blacks in Haiti by force of arms. His troops, reinforced by black slaves, are defeated. Ogé is hanged, but his example catches on. The best slaves run away from Mr. Antoine and join a black Toussaint Louverture in the mountains . Toussaint formed the rebels militarily. Michael is called to Toussaint in the jungle. He recognizes Mr. Antoine's coachman in the black general. A couple of letters to Paris are dictated to the white man. Toussaint offers his services to the Convention Commissioners . In distant France, the National Assembly has long since decided to abolish slavery. But the lily banner is still blowing over French Haiti. Farms are on fire. Landowners flee with their families on the nearest ship. Toussaint and his “great army” help the République française in the fight against the French slave owners; also throw back approaching possessive English and Spanish. Michael's father, Samuel, emigrates to London with the family. The wedding of Count Evremont's only daughter to a certain Count Lavette can no longer be celebrated in Haiti. Evremont and his family have to go to Jamaica under the protection of the English . Meanwhile in Le Cap there is a completely different connection. Michael gets to know and love Margot, a black girl. The Evremonts had exchanged the skilled young seamstress from Martinique for a music box. A daughter emerges from Michael's life bond with the beautiful black slave.

Toussaint defeats the slave owners. The tricolor is blowing over Haiti . Slavery is abolished in the "Negro state". Michael, it looks like, Toussaint's only white confidante, often visits his troops and makes himself available to the general as secretary.

After Bonaparte became consul , he did not tolerate any blacks among his senior officers. He's sending an army. Toussaint is outwitted by the officers of the landing force, taken prisoner and dies while in custody. Michael loses his wife and child. Margot and the daughter die of yellow fever . Michael, broken, travels to London, takes the wife chosen by his father, fathered two sons with her and died around the same time as Toussaint.

Self-testimony

“ Kleist , whom I admire very much, cannot help that he does not understand much about the Negro revolution. For him, San Domingo was something fantastic. "

shape

Anna Seghers does not make it easy to get started with the subject. The author first spreads Michael's family relationships in the Haiti area like an almost impenetrable undergrowth in front of the reader who is grumbling. You must also be careful when playing back simple processes. The father hugs Michael at the harbor. Only half a page later is the port city of London mentioned. Things get more complicated when the name Margot is introduced for the young woman at Michael's side. 14 pages earlier, the “little exceptionally beautiful”, initially nameless “black woman” was talked about in great detail.

interpretation

The title allows three interpretations. An explanation such as "French Revolution spilling overseas prevents the wedding of the noble Fraulein Evremont" would be banal. The association of the title with the connection between Michael and the beautiful Mrs. Margot pushes deeper. And Neugebauer starts from the meaning of the word; interprets the wedding as a "high celebration" - so to speak, the time of freedom for centuries of enslaved people on the island of Hispaniola .

reception

  • The core of the text contained the definition of the indivisibility of freedom between races proclaimed by the French Revolution.
  • The "historical necessity of the liberation of slaves" is emphasized.
  • The author probably assumed “The engagement in St. Domingo”, but emphasized the social causes of social processes more than her role model.
  • Brandes would like to see Napoleon's desire for expansion as a reference to Hitler's Barbarossa . Anna Seghers warned against such "parallels".
  • Barner et al., Who mention the story under "A« New Beginning »?" (1945–1952), consider the text to be "told openly".

literature

Text output

First edition
  • Anna Seghers: The Wedding of Haiti. Two novels. (together with "Reintroduction of Slavery in Guadeloupe") 140 pages. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1949
expenditure

Secondary literature

  • Heinz Neugebauer: Anna Seghers. Life and work. With illustrations (research assistant: Irmgard Neugebauer, editorial deadline September 20, 1977). 238 pages. Series “Writers of the Present” (Ed. Kurt Böttcher). People and Knowledge, Berlin 1980, without ISBN
  • Kurt Batt : Anna Seghers. Trial over development and works. With illustrations. 283 pages. Reclam, Leipzig 1973 (2nd edition 1980). Licensor: Röderberg, Frankfurt am Main ( Röderberg-Taschenbuch Vol. 15), ISBN 3-87682-470-2
  • Ute Brandes: Anna Seghers . Colloquium Verlag, Berlin 1992. Volume 117 of the series “Heads of the 20th Century”, ISBN 3-7678-0803-X
  • Andreas Schrade: Anna Seghers . Metzler, Stuttgart 1993 (Metzler Collection, Vol. 275 (Authors)), ISBN 3-476-10275-0
  • Wilfried Barner (ed.): History of German literature. Volume 12: History of German Literature from 1945 to the Present . CH Beck, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-406-38660-1
  • Sonja Hilzinger: Anna Seghers. With 12 illustrations. Series of Literature Studies. Reclam, Stuttgart 2000, RUB 17623, ISBN 3-15-017623-9

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ engl. Vincent Ogé
  2. ↑ Toussaint is actually only referred to as a general in the second Caribbean story ("Reintroduction of slavery in Guadeloupe", edition used, p. 313, 9. Zvo).
  3. ↑ The path into the jungle was dangerous on its first stage. Margot had initially helped Toussaint's officers guide Michael out of Le Cap.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edition used, p. 463, 10. Zvo
  2. ↑ Edition used, p. 463, 6. Zvo
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 284, 10. Zvu (name from the story "Reintroduction of slavery in Guadeloupe")
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 278, 14. Zvo
  5. ↑ Anna Seghers in a letter, quoted in Schrade, p. 92, 7. Zvo
  6. ↑ see also Schrade, p. 91, 22. Zvo
  7. ↑ Edition used, p. 276, 5th Zvu
  8. ↑ Edition used, p. 260, 7th Zvu
  9. ↑ Edition used, p. 246, 14th Zvu
  10. ↑ Neugebauer, p. 119, 4. Zvo
  11. ^ Batt, p. 193, 6. Zvo
  12. ↑ Hilzinger, p. 154, 6. Zvo
  13. ^ Neugebauer, p. 118, 14th Zvu
  14. ↑ Brandes, p. 65, 14. Zvo
  15. ↑ Edition used, p. 278, 6. Zvo
  16. ^ Schrade, p. 91, 13. Zvu
  17. ↑ Barner, pp. 137-138