The island of peace

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Data
Title: The island of peace
Original title: Остров мира
Genus: comedy
Original language: Russian
Author: Yevgeny Petrov
Publishing year: 1947
Premiere: 1947
Place of premiere: Comedy Theater, Leningrad
Place and time of the action: around 1939/1940, first in London, then on the "Nameless Island"

The Island of Peace ( Russian Остров мира ) is a four-act comedy by Yevgeny Petrov . It was created in 1939/1940 and was first printed and performed posthumously in 1947.

content

Josef Jacobs is a 65-year-old London-based businessman and pacifist. He lost his brother and son in the First World War and is constantly outraged by the armed forces of the great powers and the general crisis in Europe. The reports that reach him on the radio are also turning over more and more. Petrov used current events ( Sudeten crisis , situation in Gdansk , Japanese aggression, the invention of increasingly destructive weapons).

Jacobs makes a decision that he announces to his family at the end of Act I: In view of the immanent threat, he would like to leave England and move to a distant island for ten years until the situation has calmed down. The colonel, a friend of his, traveled the oceans in his youth and at that time briefly landed on this island, which is called the "Nameless Island" on the map. It has not yet been annexed by any of the great powers, as there seem to be no raw materials there. According to information in the text, the island is 7,000 miles from London, 260 kilometers long and 78 kilometers wide and is inhabited by a peace-loving native tribe.

In the second act, Jacobs and his family have already been on the island for a year. He himself enjoys the peace, but his wife is bored and wants to go back. His son Arthur became friends with the island chief Machunchina. The islanders also greet O-Ma, a Japanese captain who was shipwrecked off the island and is the only survivor of his crew. At the end of Act II, an oil fountain breaks - so the island is located on a valuable natural resource.

The III. Akt is located less than three years after arriving on the island. The oil found has massively changed life on Peace Island. The great powers are fighting to establish bases on the island. Meanwhile, the islanders have each founded joint-stock companies for themselves, including the Japanese stranded O-Ma. When the dispute escalated, the allegedly peace-loving Jacobs had a box of weapons that he had secretly shipped to the island fetched. The shareholders of his island family (himself, his wife, the housekeeper Kathrin Morrison as well as the doctor and the clergyman) join forces to form the "United Silent Ocean Naphta, Josef Jacobs junior and Co." to fight against O-Ma.

O-Ma has since overthrown the island's chief and installed a government by his grace. In the fourth act he demands the surrender of the chief who had fled to the Jacobs family. Jacobs gives in to this request after a lengthy negotiation due to quibbles, knowing full well that the chief will be executed by O-Ma. He later sells this deal as a peacekeeping measure (an allusion to Chamberlain's appeasement policy ). Shortly afterwards, O-Ma attacks anyway, and warships from various parties appear on the horizon. The arriving Colonel says to Jacobs:

“You see, I was right. We cannot escape war, and if we try we will carry it with us whether we like it or not. We ourselves are the war. "

Full text

expenditure

Yevgeny Petrov: The Island of Peace. A comedy in 4 acts. German by Georgia Tanewa. Berlin: Henschel 1947.