The Republic of the Southern Cross

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The Republic of the Southern Cross. An article from the special issue of the Northern European Evening Messenger ( Russian Республика Южного Креста , Respublika Juschnogo Kresta ) by the Russian symbolist Valeri Jakowlewitsch Brjussow is a dystopian first published in January 1905 in the journal Wesy of the Moscow Novelle .

content

Bryusov's story is a utopian portrayal of an ultra-modern welfare dictatorship in the Antarctic , which, due to its enormous steel deposits and the - as extremely positively presented - political system has brought great wealth and international reputation. Brjussow describes the events from a present in which the actual plot has already passed, and presents this in the form of a newspaper article, a special edition (special'noe izdanie), of the Northern European Evening Gazette (Severoevropejskaja večernaja gazeta), which describes the fate of the republic, especially that of their capital, reconstructed.

The republic, located at the South Pole , has 50,000,000 inhabitants, of whom 2,500,000 live in the capital. The star city (Zvezdnyj gorod) is an oversized tent-like architecture with artificial lighting and climate regulation. The fascist , pseudo-socialist regime offers workers, who make up 60 percent of the population, a seemingly carefree life if they place themselves under the subordination relationship in the system.

However, the republic is plagued by a mental illness that spreads to an epidemic and affects almost the entire population. This disorder, referred to by Brjussow as "mania contradicens", puts the infected into a state of permanent contradiction, which leads to madness and ends in a latent stage. As a result of this epidemic chaotic conditions arise in the star city until they lead to a mass exodus. The intellectuals, the merchants, the artists and even the government are leaving the city. A man named "Horace Divile" takes the initiative in this crisis situation and tries to bring about peace and order in the opaque chaos. But the disorder and the fear of their own illness let the citizens sink into an eschatological delirium and most people indulge in complete moral decay, which degenerates into sexual orgies, robbery, murder and even cannibalism . All attempts to rescue Diviles fail until finally he and his last supporters are overrun by the afflicted in the building of the town hall, the last asylum for the healthy.

The few survivors who were “unconscious” and “resembled wild animals” are later forcibly captured by armed columns of the government. The newspaper report ends with a description of the situation in the entire republic and the reactions abroad. In keeping with the authenticity of a serious newspaper, Brjussow lets the author of the evening paper promise regular reports on the current situation during the reconstruction of the Star City and the Republic of the Southern Cross.

expenditure

  • Республика Южного Креста. Статья в специальном № «Северо-Европейского Вечернего вестника» . In: Wesy. Knigoizdatestwo Skorpion, Moskva 1905, No. 12, countless pp. 25–46. In Cyrillic script. ZDB -ID 339139-5 , electronic edition ZDB -ID 2593938-5 .
    • Note: Due to printing difficulties in December 1905, the edition could not be printed on time. Therefore, the subscribers of the year 1905 received the issue as No. 12 of the year 1905, the subscribers of the year 1906 this as No. 1, 1906, which results in the different publication years 1905 and 1906. Both editions are identical in content and were delivered in January 1906.
German
  • Valerius Brjussoff: The Republic of the Southern Cross. Novellas. Transfer from Hans von Guenther . Drawings by Otto zu Gutenegg. Munich: Weber 1908.
  • Valerij Brjussow: The Republic of the Southern Cross. German by Johannes von Guenther. Hamburg / Munich: Ellermann 1964.
  • Valery Bryusov: The Republic of the Southern Cross. Stories and a drama (= fantastic library. Vol. 270). Translated from the Russian by Margit Bräuer. With an afterword by Klaus Städtke . Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1990. ISBN 3-518-38314-0 .

literature

  • Leonid Heller & Michel Niqueux: History of Utopia in Russia. Edition Tertium, Bietigheim-Bissingen 2003, ISBN 3-930717-56-5 .
  • Hartmut Lück: fantasy, science fiction, utopia. The realism problem of utopian-fantastic literature. Focus-Verlag, Giessen 1977, ISBN 3-920352-96-3 .
  • Andreas Guski: Respublika Južnogo Kresta. Stat'ja iz special'nogo izdanija Severoevropejskoj večernej gazety. In: Kindler's new literary dictionary . Volume 3. pp. 189f.

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