The engagement in St. Domingo

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The engagement in St. Domingo is a novella by Heinrich von Kleist published in 1811 .

The novella, which is set in today's Haiti (formerly Saint Domingue) around 1800 , deals with two individual fates in the turmoil of the war of liberation at the time.

Historical background

Main article: Hispaniola

On December 6, 1492, Christopher Columbus landed on the southeast coast of Hispaniola in what is now Haiti . Due to the brutal treatment by the Spaniards and imported diseases, the native population was almost wiped out within a few decades. Therefore, the Spaniards soon began to import black slaves from Africa. As early as 1503 the first shipload of slaves reached Santo Domingo.

A few decades later, many of the Spanish settlers left the island they had plundered and followed the conquistadors to the newly conquered kingdoms of Mexico and Peru . At the beginning of the 17th century, French pirates landed and ambushed the Spanish looters loaded with silver and gold on their way from Central and South America to Europe. These French pirates turned the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo into a French settlement, which was henceforth called Saint Domingue. In order to increase the population, the French government sent emigrants and also deported criminals to the distant island. When sugar cane was imported from Java in 1644 , an enormous economic boom began. This resulted in huge sugar cane plantations, but also coffee, cocoa and cotton plantations. In 1697 Spain ceded the western part of Hispaniola to France in the Peace of Rijswijk . In the second half of the 18th century, St. Domingue was the richest colony in France, accounting for no less than a quarter of French trade. The French imported 30,000 black slaves annually for their extensive plantation economy. On the eve of the French Revolution , the numerical ratio of the races, which is so important in Kleist's story, was 450,000 blacks to 40,000 whites and 30,000 mulattos.

The French slave law, the Code noir of 1685, provides information about the treatment of blacks by whites . The most common punishment was lashes, carried out with heavy knotted straps, each of which exposed the bloody flesh. Salt and pepper were sprinkled in the wounds or even glowing coals were placed. The French planters special expression for this type of punishment was "tailler un nègre" - "carve a negro". In Kleist's stories, Babekan is the victim of such a punishment.

action

prehistory

At the beginning of the 19th century in Port au Prince, on the plantation of a white man named Guillaume von Villeneuve, which is the scene of this story, a "terrible old negro" by the name of Congo Hoango lives. This man from the gold coast of Africa , who in his youth appeared to be of a faithful and righteous disposition, had been showered with infinite benefits by his master because he had once saved his life on a crossing to Cuba. Guillaume not only gave him his freedom on the spot and, on his return to St. Domingo, gave him his house and farm, but a few years later even made him, contrary to the custom of the land, overseer of his considerable property and gave him because he did not want to marry again, an old mulatto named Babekan came to his aid , with whom he was largely related through his first deceased wife. As Congo Hoango had reached his sixtieth year, Guillaume put him with a handsome salary in retirement and crowned his benefits even with the fact that he even him in his legacy, a legacy threw out. These proofs of gratitude could not protect him from all the anger of this grim person: Congo Hoango was one of the first to reach for the rifle and put a bullet through the head of his former master in order to attack the "white tyranny" on the island fight - together with his partner Babekan and the young Toni, Babekan's daughter from a relationship with a French merchant. Congo Hoango asks Babekan and her daughter to treat whites who come to the house on the run from the black troops as if they would help them and to keep them in the house until Congo Hoango and the "Negro troops." “Comes back from his forays.

Main story

At the moment, Congo Hoango is on the road again to reinforce the insurgents. At home a young white man knocks on the door and asks for shelter. Toni picks him up and shows him her room. He is fascinated by the graceful beauty of the fifteen-year-old mixed breed girl and tells her his story: His name is Gustav von der Ried and he is originally from Switzerland. His family is on the run and is currently hiding in a secret location, and he is asking for food and help. That same night the two get to know each other better, fall in love and become engaged. However, when Toni's mother Babekan stands between the parties, demands that the man be betrayed and his tour group handed over to Congo Hoango, Toni is appalled at first. After pressure from her mother she finally agrees; At the last second, however, she hesitates and forges a plan: Before Hoango returns, she ties him up so that he is not killed immediately and his entourage has the opportunity to free him. For this purpose, she brings the man's family into the house. When Gustav's family and Toni break into the house and fight against Congo Hoango's "Negro squads" and want to free Gustav, the latter shoots his fiancée believing that she has betrayed him. When he realizes his mistake, he judges himself. Congo Hoango and Mr. Strömli, Gustav's cousin and at the same time head of the family of the Strömlis, come to an agreement, and so the Strömlis manage to escape unharmed.

interpretation

As the world's most important sugar producer, Haiti (like the whole of the Caribbean) has been the bone of contention between the rival powers France and Great Britain since the Seven Years' War . Kleist's novella focuses on these conflicts as the consequences of globalization processes, the long-term effects of which the contemporaries around 1800 were completely aware of. Napoleon , who had tried in vain to retake the island, could not prevent Haiti's independence on January 1, 1804. This first and only successful slave rebellion in the New World until the abolition of slavery was a shock to the great powers of the colonial era, who had based their wealth on slavery, and for Kleist a model for the struggle against Napoleon in 1811 the novella was written after suffering a significant military defeat in the Iberian Peninsula.

To the berserk rage of the rebellious slaves compare Kleist's poem “Germania to their children - an ode”, which says about Napoleon: “To arms! To arms! / What the hands blindly gather! / With the club, with the staff, / Stream down into the valley of the battle! / [...] Beat him to death! The Last Judgment / Don't ask yourselves about the reasons! ”In the novella too, people are killed with clubs. As a Swiss, Gustav is apparently involuntarily in French service (Switzerland was a French vassal state from 1803 to 1813). The Dutch and Portuguese (also states occupied by France) are also named as innocent black victims.

Gustav makes use of the hospitality due to the lighter skin color of Babekans and Tonis: “I can confide in you; from the color of your face a ray of mine shimmers towards me. ”This trust in skin color is deceptive, however, since Babekan and Toni, as mulattos or mesticines, stand between the two“ races ”and their loyalty does not automatically apply to the whites.

literature

  • Vance Byrd: “Family, Intercategorical Complexity, and Kleist's Die Verlobung in St. Domingo. ” In: The Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory 92.3 (2017): 223–244. doi: 10.1080 / 00168890.2017.1329702
  • Rolf Füllmann: “The engagement in St. Domingo”. Interpretation. In: Rolf Füllmann: Introduction to the novella. Annotated bibliography and person index. WBG - Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2010, ISBN 978-3-534-21599-7 , pp. 96-100.
  • Barbara Gribnitz: Black girl, white stranger: studies on the construction of 'race' and gender in Heinrich von Kleist's story "The engagement in St. Domingo". Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-826-02317-0
  • Hans Peter Herrmann: The engagement in St. Domingo. In: Walter Hinderer (ed.): Kleist's stories. Reclam, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-15-017505-4 , pp. 111-141 ( Reclam's Universal Library 17505 Literature Study - Interpretations ).
  • Paul Michael Lützeler : "Europe or America? Napoleon's colonial war in Santo Domingo and Kleist's literary resistance". In: Ders .: Continentalization. The writer's Europe. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2007.
  • Herbert Uerlings: Prussia in Haiti? For an intercultural encounter during Kleist's engagement in St. Domingo. In: Kleist yearbook. 1991, ISSN  0722-8899 , pp. 185-201.
  • Herbert Uerlings: The Haitian Revolution in German Literature: H. v. Kleist AGF Rebmann A. Seghers H. Müller. In: Yearbook for the History of the State, Economy and Society of Latin America. 28, 1991, ISSN  0075-2673 , pp. 343-389.
  • Herbert Uerlings: Poetics of Interculturality. Haiti with Kleist, Seghers, Müller, Buch and Fichte. Niemeyer, Tübingen 1997, ISBN 3-484-32092-3 ( Studies on the History of German Literature 92).
  • Sigrid Weigel : The body at the crossroads of love story and race discourse in Heinrich von Kleist's story “The engagement in St. Domingo”. In: Kleist yearbook. 1991, pp. 202-217.

Audio book

  • Speaker: Hans Jochim Schmidt. Verlag Vorleser Schmidt. Format: 2 audio CDs, 1:37 hours, ISBN 978-3-941324-48-0 .

filming

Kleist's story was filmed in 1970 by Hans-Jürgen Syberberg under the title San Domingo .

Opera

The German composer Werner Egk based Kleist's story on an opera that premiered in Munich in 1963 and has since been performed in numerous opera houses.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ David P. Geggus (ed.); The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World. Columbia 2003.
  2. ^ Heinricht von Kleist: Complete Works and Letters , Volume 1, Munich 1977, pp. 25-27.
  3. ↑ Anette Horn: A failed utopia of non-violence in a slave-holding society. In: literaturkritik.de, 2011.
  4. ↑ imdb.com ( imdb.de )