The Capuchin Crypt

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First edition

The Capuchin Crypt is a novel by Joseph Roth , which was published in 1938 by the Bilthoven publishing house "De Gemeenschap". The final chapter was published in advance on April 23, 1938 in the exile magazine Das Neue Tage-Buch under the title “Black Friday”. The first edition from 1938 was printed in an edition of 3,000 copies. About half of this edition was buried in May 1940, before the occupation of the Netherlands by German troops, and sold on after the end of the Second World War .

Franz Ferdinand Trotta tells - looking back - from his life; paints its own picture of the fall of his beloved Danube monarchy until the end of Austria as an independent state in 1938 ("connection" to National Socialist Germany).

time and place

The novel is from April 1913 to March 12, 1938 in Vienna , Galicia and Siberia .

Trotta

Franz Ferdinand Trotta, born in 1891, comes from "Sipolje in Slovenia ". His grandfather's brother was Lieutenant Joseph Trotta , "who saved the life of Emperor Franz Joseph in the battle of Solferino " and was ennobled for it. Although Franz Ferdinand Trotta frequented Viennese aristocratic circles, even though the café owner addressed him as "Herr Baron", he was middle-class. Because he speaks of the “ennobled branch” of his “gender” when he wants to stand out against his own bourgeois branch. His father was a chemist during his lifetime, rebelled against Emperor Franz Joseph, owned two newspapers in Agram and strove for a "Slavic kingdom under Habsburg rule" (see trialism ).

content

Sarcophagi of Franz Joseph I in the Capuchin Crypt .

In April 1913, Franz Ferdinand Trotta, who lived in Vienna as a rich young man, was visited by his cousin Joseph Branco, farmer and occasionally chestnut broiler from Sipolje. Branco, who speaks Slovenian with Trotta , has a friend from a regimental comrade, the Jewish coachman Manes Reisiger from Zlotogrod in Galicia. A little later the coachman emerges from the “Far East” of the empire and asks Trotta to find a place for the only son “Ephraim” in the “ Conservatory ” in Vienna . Trotta seeks out one of his many friends in the “happy” Viennese pre-war society, Count Chojnicki. The count, a "Galician", gives the boy the job without looking.

In the summer of 1914, Trotta traveled to Zlotogrod at the invitation of the coachman. Reisiger and Trotta become friends. Then the war breaks out. Ensign Trotta rushes to Vienna and lets himself be transferred from his home regiment in Vienna to a regiment in eastern Galicia, in which his two friends Branco and Reisiger serve. Trotta's Viennese regimental comrades are disappointed about the "transfer" of the "war spoiler". Trotta cannot take these Viennese "waltz dancers" into consideration and, promoted to lieutenant, travels eastwards to the Galician battlefield. Before that, the newly crowned lieutenant marries his girlfriend Elisabeth Kovacs, daughter of a Viennese hatter and war profiteer, head over heels . The couple has a full sixteen hours to consummate their marriage. Nothing will come of the “wedding night”. Elisabeth flees. Trotta moves into the field as a "single traveler". He meets his friends Branco and Reisiger safe and sound. The first battle of the three at "Krasne-Busk" ends in glory. Captured, they are brought to the Lena in Wiatka . The prisoners of war flee and find shelter with the "Siberian Pole Jan Baranovich". Friendship falls apart in Siberia. All three friends can make their way home. Trotta returns home alone at the end of 1918. The dead emperor lies in the Capuchin Crypt . Elisabeth Trotta works as a “craftsperson”; she has become a " wrong one ", d. H. she lives in a homosexual relationship with a woman, Jolanth Szatmary. Trotta manages to win back his wife. The wedding night will be rescheduled. In the hectic interwar period, Elisabeth had a child. Trotta becomes domestic. He loves his son. Elisabeth leaves her husband and child.

During the “Night of the Revolution”, “shots” rang out through Vienna. “The government is shooting at the workers,” rumors say. “This Dollfuss ” wanted to “kill the proletariat”. The young Galician musician Ephraim Reisiger, who has since become a “rebel” and perished, is buried in Vienna by his father, the coachman Manes Reisiger. Count Chojnicki and Trotta's other Viennese friends also have to spoon out the “doom soup”. "They destroyed the state with frivolous coffee shop jokes". Trotta would have preferred it. He sees himself "as one who lives wrongly". The years go by. Trotta sends the son to Paris for education.

Greetings from the “ Third Reich ”: Trotta is sitting in a café with his aristocratic friends. A puss in boots and spurred young man appears on the threshold and speaks to the guests with " Volksgenossen !" speaks of the "new German people's government". Jewish business people leave Vienna. Trotta doesn't know where to go now. He wants to “go to the Capuchin Crypt, where his emperors lie”, but the crypt is and remains closed. The Habsburg legitimists have to bury their hopes. The novel ends on the morning of March 12, 1938: swastika flags were hoisted and the Nazis took over the country.

Mrs. Trotta

The first-person narrator Franz Ferdinand Trotta portrays his mother particularly vividly. After her husband's death, Frau Trotta leads a strict regime at home. Trotta ducks. Here comes the war. You have to reveal the cards. The mother confesses that she “doesn't like Elisabeth”. Trotta - in fear of the imminent great death - asserts his head and marries hastily. The mother surprisingly gives her blessing. The reception of the homecomer Trotta by her mother at the end of 1918 is frightening, incomprehensible and has something “almost supernatural” about it: Frau Trotta humiliates herself in front of the loser of the war. And her end: the mother dies as she lived - with decency.

The artistic portrayal of this magnificent woman is one of Joseph Roth's masterpieces of fiction.

Self-testimony

In the draft of a prospectus text that he sent to his publisher on August 5, 1938, Roth stated that the novel was a continuation of the Radetzky March and addressed "the devouring of Austria by Prussia". And he describes the Capuchin Crypt in this text as the “most recent novel of this time”.

shape

After Doppler is the Kapuzinergruft a period novel in which the events up to the present (March 1938) is brought up . Formally, it is a first-person story told by a member of the Trotta family of novels. The first-person narrator names causes which, in the opinion of Joseph Roth, led to the decline of the empire. The atrocities of war are not coloring. The post-war misery in Vienna is largely described in a humorous way. Some sentimentality is annoying - e.g. B. when Trotta explores the secrets of his wife's body .

Quotes

  • “Austria is not a state, not a home, not a nation. It's a religion. "(Count Chojnicki, in the" Capuchin Crypt ")
  • "The essence of Austria is not the center, but the periphery."
  • "Above all else, the hallmark of the aristocrat is equanimity."

words and phrases

  • "Our government idiots".
  • "Weeping women have an appetite."
  • "The street girls were young, especially the elderly."
  • "The Viennese nights were wrinkled."

reception

  • In 1938 Hans Natonek wrote in the Neue Weltbühne : “It is a novel with no way out, except in a crypt. After such a book it is difficult to write another one. "
  • Regarding the title of the novel, Doppler remarks that the Capuchin Crypt is the room where the symbols of the old world decay .
  • With the novel, the author lets his big topic Austria end in a deeply pessimistic way .
  • Trotta is going through an identity crisis .
  • Steierwald points to the novelist's peculiar photography of the war.
  • The National Socialism in Austria, as Joseph Roth to the novel circuit just discussed it is considered by Steierwald.
  • The Alps moron , these are the German-Austrians , played according to Joseph Roth blame for the decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
  • If Trotta calls himself an enemy of this time, Müller-Funk sees it as a reflex to the triumph of National Socialism in Austria .
  • The longing for death is omnipresent in Joseph Roth's novels, including in the Capuchin Crypt .
  • Raffel goes into the hometown of Galicia in the work of Joseph Roth, especially in the Capuchin Crypt .
  • Sternburg quotes statements by Ludwig Marcuse and Franz Theodor Csokor on the novel.

filming

The novel was filmed under the title “ Trotta ” by Johannes Schaaf with András Bálint , Doris Kunstmann and Rosemarie Fendel . The world premiere took place on November 16, 1971.

expenditure

  • Joseph Roth: The Capuchin Crypt. Novel . De Gemeenschap, Bilthoven (Holland) 1938. 231 pp.
  • Joseph Roth: Novels 4. The Capuchin Crypt . Pp. 9-130. Cologne 1999. 297 pages, ISBN 3-462-02379-9
expenditure

literature

  • Theo Bijovet, Madeleine Rietra: Joseph Roth and 'De Gemeenschap' . In: Michael Kessler / Fritz Hackert (eds.): Joseph Roth. Interpretation of reception criticism. Tübingen 1990. 476 pages, ISBN 3-923721-45-5
  • Alfred Doppler: "The Capuchin Crypt": Austria in the mind of Franz Ferdinand Trotta . In: Michael Kessler / Fritz Hackert (eds.): Joseph Roth. Interpretation of reception criticism. Tübingen 1990. pp. 91-98. ISBN 3-923721-45-5
  • Elke Frietsch: The Wiener Werkstätte as a symbol for the end of the Austrian monarchy in Joseph Roth's novel “Die Kapuzinergruft” . In: In the prism. Joseph Roth's novels. Edited by Johann Georg Lughofer. Vienna / St. Wolfgang 2009. pp. 403-426.
  • Clemens Götze: Radetzky March faded away. On the death of the Habsburg myth in Joseph Roth's “The Capuchin Crypt”. In: CG: "I will go on living, and really well". Modern Myths in 20th Century Literature. Berlin 2011. pp. 13–46.
  • Jürgen Heizmann: Joseph Roth's "Capuchin Crypt" as a dance of death. In: L'art macabre 4 (Yearbook of the European Dance of Death Association). Edited by Uli Wunderlich. Düsseldorf 2003, ISBN 3-934862-06-3 , pp. 78-90.
  • Wolfgang Müller-Funk : Joseph Roth . Munich 1989. 131 pages, ISBN 3-406-33160-2
  • Helmuth Nürnberger : Joseph Roth . Reinbek near Hamburg 1981. 159 pages, ISBN 3-499-50301-8
  • Eva Raffel: Familiar strangers. Eastern Judaism in the work of Joseph Roth and Arnold Zweig . Tübingen 2002.
  • Ulrike Steierwald: Suffering from history. On the modern conception of history in the texts of Joseph Roth. Diss. Munich 1992. 198 pages, ISBN 3-88479-880-4
  • Wilhelm von Sternburg : Joseph Roth. A biography. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2009 (2nd edition), ISBN 978-3-462-05555-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bijovet, Rietra pp. 41-46. Working title: A man is looking for his fatherland
  2. ↑ Roth p. 13
  3. ↑ a b Roth p. 126
  4. ↑ In the first print from 1938, instead of “April of the year 1913”, it incorrectly says: “April of the year 1914”. See the edition by W. Bellmann, p. 206.
  5. ↑ Roth p. 64
  6. ↑ Roth p. 11
  7. ↑ Roth p. 127
  8. ↑ Roth p. 12
  9. ↑ Roth p. 88
  10. ↑ Roth p. 56
  11. ↑ a b Roth p. 28
  12. ↑ Roth p. 58
  13. ↑ a b Roth p. 55
  14. ↑ Roth p. 20
  15. ↑ Roth p. 62
  16. ↑ Roth p. 70
  17. ↑ Roth p. 72
  18. ↑ Roth p. 75
  19. ↑ a b Roth p. 80
  20. ↑ Roth p. 83
  21. ↑ Roth p. 96
  22. ↑ Roth p. 111
  23. ↑ Roth p. 117
  24. ↑ Roth p. 123
  25. ↑ a b Roth p. 98
  26. ↑ Roth p. 99
  27. ↑ a b Roth S. 125
  28. ↑ Roth p. 128
  29. ↑ Roth p. 129
  30. ↑ Roth p. 48
  31. ↑ Roth p. 60
  32. ↑ Roth p. 122
  33. ↑ quoted in the edition of Bellmann, p. 269
  34. ↑ Doppler p. 92
  35. ↑ Roth p. 94
  36. ↑ Roth p. 19
  37. ↑ Roth p. 18
  38. ↑ Roth p. 92
  39. ↑ Roth p. 124
  40. ↑ 35th year, No. 22, p. 683; quoted from the edition by Bellmann, p. 279
  41. ^ Doppler p. 97
  42. ↑ Nürnberger p. 117
  43. ↑ Steierwald p. 108
  44. ↑ Steierwald p. 144
  45. ↑ Steierwald pp. 169–170
  46. ↑ Müller-Funk p. 108
  47. ↑ Müller-Funk p. 110
  48. ↑ Müller-Funk p. 118
  49. ↑ Raffel p. 101
  50. ↑ Sternburg, p. 478, 15th Zvu
  51. ↑ Nürnberger p. 152, Trotta in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  52. ↑ Despite two complete corrections, the first edition shows numerous errors and inconsistencies; see. also the edition by Werner Bellmann, pp. 200–203 and 276f.