It is not easy to be a god
It is not easy to be a god , even a God to be hard (OT: Russian Трудно быть богом , transcribed Trudno byt 'bogom ), is a 1964 published science fiction - novel by Strugatsky Brothers . Within her work he belongs to the world of noon .
content
The utopian novel is set on a distant planet with human-like inhabitants, whose society is at a feudal level of development corresponding to the late Middle Ages of the earth . Anton is one of the observers at the Institute for the Experimental History of the Earth in the Kingdom of Arkanar . For five years he has lived there unrecognized with the help of the advanced technology of the earth in the identity of the late noble Don Rumata. The persecution and murder of scholars and artists has recently begun under the security minister Don Reba. Although the observers are ordered not to interfere, Anton rescues some of the threatened intellectuals and brings them to safety in neighboring realms. He fears that Arkanar - contrary to the basic theory of feudalism , which predicts social developments - will turn into a fascist surveillance state . However, other observers advise him not to interfere in the history of the planet.
In Arkanar, Don Reba has Doña Okana, an informant of Anton, tortured and murdered. In front of the sick and weak king, Anton challenges Reba by accusing him of arresting the famous doctor Budach, who could alleviate the king's suffering. As a result, Don Reba murders King Arkanars and the Crown Prince, who is guarded by Anton, and puts himself to power with the help of the Holy Order . A fascist theocracy emerges in Arkanar .
Anton's situation is becoming explosive. Don Reba now knows that "Don Rumata" is not real, that he has fought many duels but never killed a person and that his gold is out of this world. In the public eye, Budach, for whom Anton stood up, poisoned the king and did not prevent the prince's assassination during his watch. Anton agrees a non-aggression pact with Reba, brings Budach to safety and plans to flee to Earth with his lover Kyra. When an arcane revolutionary, who knows Anton's god-like power, asks for help with weapons, he refuses.
When Don Reba finally has Anton's lover Kyra murdered, the earthly observer loses all control and causes a bloodbath.
To the novel
The basic theory of feudalism and its failure, mentioned in the novel called “the best utopian novel in Soviet literature”, is a criticism of the historical materialism widespread in the former Soviet Union and the persecution of intellectuals is reminiscent of the Stalinist purges . Don Reba still had the name Rebija in the manuscript, an anagram of Beria , the head of the secret service under Stalin . Darko Suvin , who describes the novel as an “educational novel in which the reader is the hero”, wrote of Anton’s dilemma : “External interference cannot liberate a people without leading to the emergence of a new enlightened dictatorship” and “the gods from earth are both ethically obliged to act and historically condemned to inactivity ”.
"Rumata's conflict gets under your skin, the novel itself is complex and always interesting."
German editions
- First edition: It is not easy to be a god. Novel, translated by Hermann Buchner and Marion von Schröder Verlag, Düsseldorf 1971
- Paperback: It Is Not Easy To Be A God. Utopian novel, translated by Hermann Buchner, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1972 (text identical)
- GDR edition: Being a god is difficult. Fantastic novel , translated by Arno Specht, Verlag Volk und Welt, Berlin (East) 1975 (edition as novel newspaper No. 464, 1988)
- first complete (uncensored and reconstructed based on the manuscripts) German edition in: Werkausgabe, fourth volume , Wilhelm Heyne Verlag 2012, pp. 149–370. ISBN 978-3-453-52686-0
Film adaptations
The novel was filmed twice. The first film adaptation was directed by Peter Fleischmann as a German-Soviet-French co-production and was released in 1990 as It is not easy to be a god . The second film, It's Hard to Be a God , was shot by Alexei German from 2000 to 2006 and, after his death, completed by German's wife Swetlana Karmalita and their son Aleksey German Jr. and premiered in 2013.
proof
- ↑ Erik Simon: Werkführer
- ↑ Darko Suvin in the afterword to Die Schnecke am Hang p. 261, Suhrkamp, 1978, ISBN 3-518-06934-9
- ↑ Darko Suvin in the afterword to Die Schnecke am Hang p. 262, Suhrkamp, 1978, ISBN 3-518-06934-9
- ↑ Reclam's Science-Fiction-Führer Ed. By HJ Alpers, W. Fuchs and R. Hahn, p. 399, Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart, 1982, ISBN 3-15-010312-6
- ↑ It's hard to be a god on moviepilot.de