Georges Bernanos

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Georges Bernanos

Georges Bernanos (born February 20, 1888 in Paris , † July 5, 1948 in Neuilly-sur-Seine ) was a French writer . In some German editions, the spelling of the first name is also "Georg".

Life

Memorial plaque on the Hôtel de la Bessière in Bar-le-Duc , where Georges Bernanos lived from 1924 to 1926.

In his upbringing, his parents conveyed their Catholic, religious and monarchist basic convictions to Bernanos; on his father's side, he has French and Spanish ancestors. Until 1924 he wrote his novels at home in Fressin im Artois . In literary terms he is one of the main representatives of the Renouveau Catholique . At the University of Paris, he obtained the academic degree of " Licencié en droit et licencié ès lettres " (roughly equivalent to a BA in Law and Literature). He married Jeanne Talbert d'Arc, whom he had met in the monarchical environment in Paris; she was a direct descendant of the brother of Joan of Arc .

Bernanos was a soldier in World War I , a member of Action française from 1908 to 1919 and an active monarchist (in the youth organization Camelots du roi ). He emerged as a novelist from 1926, but later also as a political writer, when he revolted against the repeated backsliding of the French Republic from Adolf Hitler . He lived on Mallorca from 1934 to 1937 , from where he sharply attacked the national Spanish Falange and the opportunism of the Catholic bishops and especially the Jesuits . Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli commented on the 1938 book on the Great Cemeteries : Cela brûle, mais cela éclaire (“That burns, but that cleanses.”). Bernanos was convinced that Pope Pius XI. personally prevented him from being put on the "index" which Spanish bishops did.

Disgusted by his country's subservience to Hitler, he went into exile in July 1938 (two months before the “Munich Agreement”), first to Paraguay and soon afterwards to Brazil . From 1938 to 1945 he lived not too far from Rio de Janeiro , where he lived alone and secluded on a farm with his wife and six children (three sons and three daughters). From there he went in essays and appeals against the Nazi-loyal "Vichy regime" and campaigned for the Resistance (under Charles de Gaulle ).

As a war disabled he was unable to actively take part in the fight against the totalitarian and anti- freedom regimes he was attacking ( Nazi regimes , fascist and Stalinist regimes), but his two eldest sons took part in the Second World War from 1941 - in the fight against the occupation of France .

After the liberation of France, General de Gaulle invited him to return to where he had his place, y compris au gouvernement (also in a participation in the government). Although he returned to France from Brazil in 1945, he soon went to Tunisia for two years (where he gave the famous lecture Nos amis les saints in Tunis on April 4, 1947 ) and died in 1948 in the American Hospital Paris in Neuilly-sur- His.

Create

The position of man between good and evil, between divine and diabolical power, is the focus of his novels. Here are priests and doctors often the focus of an action that takes place in the rural milieu. For Bernanos, indifference is particularly considered a form of evil: against this background, no satisfactory explanation for the blindness of his compatriots with regard to the political and social situation in the period between the world wars could be found. On the other hand, divine grace and mercy are just as central - often the only hope for the poor and abandoned in this world.

The word imbéciles (in the plural: feeble-minded, simplistic ... "the stupid") occurs frequently in Bernano's essays . His open and clear language provoked some, but also found unreserved admirers, for example the French philosopher Simone Weil (1909–1943), who wrote letters to Bernanos about the fighting during the Spanish civil war, and Albert Camus (1913–1960), who In a letter in reply to Gabriel Marcel ( Why Spain? ), he praised the compassionate participation of Georges Bernanos in the events of the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). The Austrian writer Peter Handke admits that he was deeply touched by Bernanos' books.

The Catholic Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote an extensive book about Bernanos' life and his complete works: Gelebte Kirche - Bernanos (3rd edition 1988).

Works (selection)

  • Sous le Soleil de Satan (1926). In German as Die Sonne Satans. Hegner, Hellerau 1927.
  • L'Imposture (1927) - The Fraud.
  • La Joie (1929) - The Joy (winner of the Prix ​​Femina 1929).
  • L'Imposture and La Joie appeared together in German as Der Abtrünnige. J. Hegner, Hellerau 1929.
  • La Grande Peur des Bien-pensants (1931).
  • Journal d'un Curé de Campagne (1936). ( Grand Prix du Roman de l'Académie française in 1943) In German as a country pastor's diary . Thomas Verlag Jakob Hegner, Vienna 1936. (3rd edition J. Hegner, Leipzig 1936).
  • Nouvelle Histoire de Mouchette (1937) - The new history of the Mouchette.
  • Les Grands Cimetières sous la Lune (1938) - The great cemeteries under the moon. Verlag Die Zwölf, Munich 1949. (Bernanos condemns the atrocities of the nationalists in Mallorca and turns away from supporting the Franco nationalists).
  • Nous autres Français. Gallimard, 1939 (Published from exile in Brazil. Bernanos had recognized the unresisting attitude of the French against Nazi Germany and denounced it. He feared the beginning of the ensuing world war and a defeat for France.).
  • Monsieur Ouine. (1943) Rio di Janeiro. German as Die tote Gemeinde. J. Hegner, Cologne 1949.
  • Plea for liberty - letters to the English, the Americans, the Europeans. Translation from French by Harry Lorin Binsse, design by Stefan Salter. Pantheon Books, New York 1944.
  • La France contre les Robots (1945) - Against the robots. Translation by Werner von Grünau. G. Kiepenheuer, Cologne 1949 (An argumentative curse of the omnipotence of technology, of what will be called "The System" twenty years later; Bernanos regards French civilization as incompatible with a glorification of the world of technology as he does it His analysis, in which he prophesies a French revolt, saturated by a society full of material goods and advertising, anticipates part of the student unrest of May 1968 and also has a reference to the - from the middle of the Socio-critical movements that began in the 1960s.).
  • Français, si vous saviez! (1945–1948), German under the title: Europeans - if you knew ..., Essen 1962.
  • World without freedom. Translation by Josef Ziwutschka, Amandus Edition, Vienna 1947.
  • Les Dialogues des Carmélites (1949, 1957) - The gifted fear - Bernanos wrote this screenplay some time before his death, based on the story The Last on the Scaffold by Gertrude von Le Fort , which in turntakes upthe true story of the martyrs of Compiègne who lived on the Place de Grève were guillotined . The piece was arranged for the stage by M. Tassencourt and A. Béguin. A setting as an opera Dialogues of the Carmelites took Francis Poulenc (premiered in 1957).

Work editions

  • M. Estève (Ed.): Œuvres romanesques. 1961.
  • J. Murray (Ed.): Correspondance. Collected by Albert Béguin. 1971; Lettres retrouvées. 3 volumes. 1983.
  • M. Estève (Ed.): Essais et écrits de combat. 1972.
  • Complete editions: Romans (suivis de Dialogues des carmélites). 1 volume; Essais et écrits de combat. 2 volumes. Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris 1961–1991.

Film adaptations

  • 1950: Diary of a country pastor ( Journal d'un Curé de Campagne )
  • 1959: Sacrifice of a nun ( Le dialogue des Carmelites )
  • 1966: Mouchette
  • 1987: The Sun of Satan ( Sous le soleil de Satan )

literature

  • Hans Urs von Balthasar : Lived Church - Bernanos. 1st edition. Cologne-Olten 1954 a. ö.
  • Albert Béguin : Georges Bernanos in personal reports and photo documents. Translation by Guido G. Meister, Reinbek b. Hamburg 1958.
  • Gerhard Desczyk : Afterword . In Georges Bernanos: diary of a country pastor. Union-Verlag, Berlin (GDR) 1970.
  • Paul Gregor, La concience du temps chez Georges Bernanos. Juris Druck + Verlag, Zurich 1966.
  • Joseph Jurt : Essai de bibliographie des études… consacrées à Georges Bernanos. 3 volumes. Paris 1972-1975.
  • M. Gosselin: L'écriture du surnaturel dans l'œuvre romanesque de Georges Bernanos. Paris 1979.
  • AR Clark: La France dans l'histoire selon Bernanos. Paris 1983.
  • P. Gille: Bernanos et l'angoisse. Étude de l'œuvre romanesque. Nancy 1984.
  • Jean-Loup Bernanos: Georges Bernanos à la merci des passants. Plon, Paris 1986, ISBN 2-259-01432-1 (biography; French; 505 pages).
  • M. Kohlhauer: Bernanos and Utopia. 1992.
  • Veit Neumann: The theology of the Renouveau catholique. Reflection on the faith of French writers in modern times using the example of Georges Bernanos and François Mauriac. Frankfurt a. M. 2007.

Web links

Commons : Georges Bernanos  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Georges Bernanos  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b quotation from Jean-Loup Bernanos: Georges Bernanos à la merci des passants. Plon, Paris 1986, ISBN 2-259-01432-1 , p. 292.
  2. ↑ In: Albert Camus: Questions of the time. Reinbek 1977, ISBN 3-499-14111-6 , p. 71.
  3. ↑ Peter Handke in an interview remix. "Is the forthcoming jubilee day, your 75th birthday, bothering you?" Compiled by Raimund Fellinger . In: peter-handke.de, accessed on May 17, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Bernanos, Georges
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bernanos, Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French author
DATE OF BIRTH February 20, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH July 5, 1948
Place of death Neuilly-sur-Seine