Enemies (Gorky)

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Feinde ( Russian Враги , Wragi), also Die Feinde , is a drama that the Russian writer Maxim Gorki wrote in America in the summer of 1906. In the same year Dietz in Stuttgart and Snanije in Petersburg published the book edition in Russian. The production by Boris Mikhailovich Sushkevich premiered on September 25, 1933 at the Leningrad State Drama Theater.

Since the enemies were banned from performing in Russia , the German premiere is decades before the Russian: On November 24, 1906, Victor Barnowsky brought the play to the stage of the Kleiner Theater Berlin . However, the German police banned the play. Barnowsky's production was last given on December 7, 1906. The German translation of the text by Otto Demetrius Potthoff was published by Ladyschnikow in Berlin that same year . Then on December 8, 1912, the enemies could be seen at the Freie Volksbühne . In 1920 Piscator included the play in the program of his proletarian theater. In 1952 Fritz Wisten directed the production at the Volksbühne . Wolfgang Heinz brought the play to the boards of the German Theater Berlin on October 3, 1967 . In 1976 the ZDF broadcast its version with Rolf Henniger , Margot Trooger and Pinkas Braun .

Gorki used the fabric, among other things, from the strike in the Morosow textile factory in 1905.

Gorky in 1889

action

Criminal case

The workers demand from the management that Leuteschinder Ditschkow should be fired. The 40-year-old factory director Mikhail Skrobotov, partner of the 45-year-old factory owner Sachar Bardin, has put all his capital into weaving. He wants to temporarily close the factory as reprisal because he fears the next demand from the workers. Skrobotov armed himself, went ahead and was shot dead by worker Andrei Akimov during a physical altercation. Before his death, Skrobotov had called the military for help with a telegram to the lieutenant governor. Rittmeister Bobojedow and his sergeant Kwatsch approach with their soldiers and quickly find the people behind them. The clerk Sinzow alias Maxim Markow, a socialist , instructs the young locksmith Alexej Grekow and the older weaver Jefim Levschin in the weaving mill. Comrade Grekov, on the other hand, who had already become conspicuous as a revolutionary propagandist in Smolensk , leads a group of younger workers and Levshin an older worker.

conflict

Two conflicts are dealt with in the play. The first is related to the criminal case outlined above and deals with the industrialization of rural Russia. The second conflict reveals different views of the Russian upper class on this industrialization. The first act lives from the differences between the factory director Mikhail Skrobotov and the factory owner Sachar Bardin. The latter sees the workers more than peasants in a locksmith's suit according to the motto: “The farmer has a feeling of respect for the landlord that has been acquired over centuries”. Mikhail Skrobotov is furious because he got involved with a squire. Bardin's wife Polina suits her husband. She fears that after the factory closes, the poor working-class families could starve to death without a daily bread. Polina's 18-year-old niece Nadja is even worse in that regard. She gets involved in difficult conversations with the eloquent worker Grekow and, in the course of the play, shows increasing understanding for the enemies of her uncle Michail. With her rebellious speeches Nadja goes so far that Rittmeister Bobojedow scolds a revolutionary towards the end of the play. Then Nadja: "Then I'm a revolutionary."

Quotes

  • Factory director Mikhail Skrobotov: "It smells of socialism ... yes!"
  • The prophecy of the Deputy Prosecutor Nikolai Skrobotow "What can bring us [Socialists] these people? Nothing but destruction. And think of my words: with us this destruction will be more terrible than anywhere else ... "

shape

At first glance, Gorky's black-and-white painting clearly separates good and bad. As indicated above, the good guys are led by Sinzow - according to the stage directions, "the face and figure [Sinzows] have something calm and significant". And anyway, all the workers who play a role are good. But not all capitalists are bad. The factory owner Sachar Bardin - in his own words "more landowner than industrialist" - asserts several times that he only wants good. Ultimately, he has to realize - the title says it all, the workers are his enemies.

The example of the clerk Pologij shows how experienced Gorky built his piece. Right at the beginning, this love servant Pologij is portrayed as unsympathetic if he wants to report the workers just because they stole a few cucumbers from his vegetable patch. Later, after the death of his brother Mikhail, the 35-year-old Deputy Public Prosecutor Nikolai Skrobotov told Rittmeister Bobojedow that Pologij could be useful. That’s what happens. The clerk knows his way around the workers and testifies against them during interrogation. As Pologij clearly opposes the workers, his initial statement about the course of the physical confrontation takes on considerable weight for the spectator seeking meaning: "The director [Mikhail Skrobotov] was very excited ... and kicked a worker in the stomach." Mikhail had previously shown a revolver to his brother Nikolai. When Levschin speaks to the shooter Akimov at the end of the play: "... he [Mikhail Skrobotov] put the pistol on your chest, and there you have ...", then the audience can figure out the sequence of events: The factory director succumbed to you Shot from your own gun. The rumor fits in with this: "They say Skrobotov wanted to shoot, but someone snatched the revolver from him and ..."

The appearance of deeply tragic, hilarious and plot-bearing characters appears believable to the viewer in each of the three cases. Tragedy: The widow of the factory director Mikhail Skrobotov - that is 30-year-old Cleopatra - cannot hide her anger at the Bardins: "Only you with your accursed sluggishness have him [the dead] on your conscience!" Sachar Bardin is a washcloth, because he responded to all demands of the rebels. Funny: The old general a. D. Pechenegow, uncle of the Bardins and his factotum Konj, a resigned soldier, haunt the entertaining piece as a strange and quirky couple. Actors: From the artist milieu, the 28-year-old actress Tatjana and at her side her 40-year-old husband Jakow Bardin, a drinker - that is Sachar Bardin's brother - should not go unmentioned. As an actress who has already performed successfully in Voronezh, Tatjana has unreserved respect for the devious, nasty villain in the play. What is meant is Rittmeister Bobojedow. Much more than that: Tatiana plays a key role in the play as a representative of Russian morality, humanity and reason.

reception

  • 1907 Plechanow : On the psychology of the labor movement. Maxim Gorki: "The Enemies"
  • 1907 meetings of Lunacharsky and Vorovsky
  • August 1960: Warm speaks two truths. "Every figure is drawn into the struggle between the weavers and the factory owners ... Only Nadja [from the factory owner camp] finds the way to the revolution ..."
  • Ludwig devotes a separate chapter to the piece in her Gorki book. The author has called his enemies a "happy and simple" play. Ludwig quotes the Russian censor on the prohibition of the play in February 1907: "The irreconcilable hostility between workers and employers is shown, the former being portrayed as staunch fighters who consciously pursue the set goal - the destruction of capital - while the latter as narrow-minded egoists appear. "

German-language editions

  • Enemies. With an afterword by Günter Warm. Translated from the Russian by OD Potthoff . Reclam, Leipzig 1961 ( RUB 7672), 106 pages

Used edition

  • Enemies. German by Georg Schwarz. With an afterword and comments by Ilse Stauche. P. 561–651 in: Maxim Gorki: Dramen II. 672 pages. Vol. 21 from: Eva Kosing (Ed.), Edel Mirowa-Florin (Ed.): Maxim Gorki: Collected works in individual volumes. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1974

literature

  • Nadeshda Ludwig: Maxim Gorki. Life and work. Series of Contemporary Writers. People and Knowledge, Berlin 1984.

Web links

annotation

  1. ↑ Two villains fall into the eyes of the audience. The other is Deputy Prosecutor Nikolai Skrobotov. Sinzow knows more about him: "He is subordinate to ... in the city ... the political processes, and he treats the prisoners abominably." (Edition used, p. 610, center)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian Сушкевич, Борис Михайлович
  2. ↑ Stauche in the edition used, pp. 667–670
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 571, 15. Zvo
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 609, 18. Zvo
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 589, 4th Zvo
  6. ↑ Edition used, p. 650, middle
  7. ^ Fritz J. Raddatz (ed.): Marxism and literature. A documentation in 3 vol.
  8. ↑ Stauche in the edition used, p. 669, middle
  9. ↑ Günter Warm, p. 101 and p. 103
  10. ↑ Ludwig, pp. 140-144
  11. ↑ The Russian Censor to the Enemies, quoted in Ludwig, p. 144, 9. Zvo
  12. ^ Entry in the German biography