The boys and the river
The boys and the river is a story by the German writer Josef Mühlberger . Mühlberger's most famous work was first published in 1934.
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"A friendship like that of the two boys Waschek and Jenjik is rare in the village, rare in the countryside."
The opening sentence names the subject of the book, which is set in Moravia . The time of the action is not precisely specified; However, references to factory sirens and fire brigades towards the end of the book place it at the earliest in the middle of the 19th century, when the industrial revolution had also reached Moravia.
Two growing peasant sons from a small village in central Moravia are close friends. They spend the days of the summer holidays together, preferably at the village's pond, which they explore with a borrowed rowing boat.
When Waschek came home one evening with Jenjik, he found out that he had to come to an uncle's funeral in a neighboring village the next morning. The journey and the funeral always wander off his mind and he wishes he would rather be at the pond with Jenjik, which at the same time causes him a guilty conscience towards the dead man he loved. After the hasty return trip, Waschek looked in vain for Jenjik by the evening pond; on the way to Jenjik's farm he steps into a shard of glass, Jenjik's mother tends to the wound that prevents him from bathing for a few days.
The two continue to spend their summer days together; Together with other boys from the village, they set up a scout group with whom they go on excursions in the area. In a soccer game against the selection of a neighboring town, Waschek saved the victory in the goal of the actually defeated team. At Jenjik's instigation, the beautiful Jarmila Waschek hands over the wreath.
Waschek meets Jarmila, kisses her once, but has the feeling that he is betraying his friendship with Jenjik.
One day Waschek found out that he should go to the forestry school in Ostrau at the end of summer . He is completely shaken to have to part with Jenjik. This reacts more calmly; After a short time, Waschek's drama dissolves: Jenjik is also supposed to go to Ostrau - albeit to the agricultural school - the two are even billeted with the same farmer, Mr Woska, in the suburb of Nowa Wes.
For the first time both are away from home, but settle in well. Waschek learned to play the violin and reads a lot, both of which were viewed with great skepticism by his father at home. They are particularly fascinated by the power and majesty of the river (the Oder ), in which they still go swimming in late summer. Again a girl pushes herself into friendship, Wjera, the daughter of her host.
They both start a flirtation with her, vying for her attention. In late spring, the area is hit by heavy floods, the raging river destroys bridges and houses near the river. They spend the summer with Wjera, they agree to leave both of her and they can't keep it up.
The two boys finally decide to let the lot decide who should receive Wjera. During Sunday mass they give the girl two envelopes with a slip of paper on each of the boy's names and tell her to burn one of them. The winner of the lot is Waschek.
After mass and lunch, Jenjik takes a nap. Wjera wakes him up because she misses Waschek. You set out to find the missing person. Jenjik finds a strikingly detached stone on the river bank. When he dived into the river, he found the body of Waschek, who had tied a large stone to his leg to drown himself in the river.
The funeral will take place in their hometown. Jenjik returns to Ostrau, finds a new roommate and keeps up the memory of Waschek.
Language and style
The work is written in German, although the characters come from the Czech culture. Mühlberger indicates that the dialogues written in German are actually in Czech, using the Czech diminutive and name variations ( Waschku ). Few regionalisms (such as butterflies for cream) can be found in the text.
In terms of composition, in the episode with the funeral at the beginning, Mühlberger takes up the subject of the narrative in a kind of exposition: Forced separation of the boys, relationship conflict with a third party and, at the end, the injury and wounding of Waschek.
The perspective alternates between an authoritative narrator and the protagonist, with the author most often slipping into Waschek's perspective. While Waschek experiences the affection intensely, Jenjik is portrayed more indifferently: both the upcoming separation after the end of the summer and the role of the girls in their relationship as well as the drama of the triangular relationship with Wjera seem to burden Jenjik less than Waschek; Mühlberger is accordingly reluctant to interpret Jenjik's behavior, which is mostly only reflected in Waschek's reflections.
Origin and reception
The story was published when Mühlberger was established in the German-speaking cultural life of Czechoslovakia : he had made a name for himself as the editor of the cultural magazine Witiko .
The Boys and the River received mixed responses when it was first published. Hermann Hesse was enthusiastic: "It is the most beautiful and simplest young poetry that I have read for a long time." The narrative was particularly rejected by the National Socialists : "Disgusting this affection ... a sultry embracing and patting, a sigh that is perverse. The boy act is a suspicious favorite performance of the poet".
Waschek is torn between his affection and love for Jenjik, which also has erotic traits, and the desire for a relationship with girls, which those around him take for granted and take for granted. The glorification of male friendship was in the spirit of the time, for example with the Bundische Jugend , which is reflected in the story with the founding of the boy scout group, or also propagated by the circle of poets around Stefan George . In any case, the comparison of Waschek's dilemma with Mühlberger's own life situation is obvious: as a high school teacher, he was firmly anchored in bourgeois life, the allegations of homosexual activity that led to his arrest in 1938 threatened his existence.
Mühlberger, who grew up the son of a German-speaking father and a Czech-speaking mother, was also chalked up by the German Nationalists and National Socialists for the friendly portrayal of the Czech ethnic group.
In a review of the new edition from 2003 in the NZZ , Andreas Nentwich praised language as a small miracle of timbres and speech music
Work editions
- First edition: The boys and the river , Leipzig, Insel-Verlag, 1934
- The boys and the river , ISBN 9783458085812 , Frankfurt, Insel-Bücherei No. 581, 2003.