Hans Urian or the story of a trip around the world

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Hans Urian or The Story of a World Tour is a novel by the German children's book author and storyteller Lisa Tetzner . The book was published in 1931 by D. Gundert Verlag in Stuttgart with illustrations by Bruno Fuck .

Emergence

The novel is based on the children's play Hans Urian goes to bread. A children's fairy tale comedy from today by Béla Balázs "using some ideas from Lisa Tetzner". It was premiered on November 13, 1929 by the group of young actors and in the same year published by Max Reichard in Freiburg im Breisgau . The children's book Jean sans pain: histoire pour tous les enfants (1921) by Paul Vaillant-Couturier may have served as inspiration for the piece .

With the novel, the storyteller Lisa Tetzner made the turn to realistic children's literature.

content

Hans is a nine-year-old boy who lives with his mother and siblings in a wooden hut outside the city. After his father dies in an accident at work and his mother falls ill, Hans sets out to get bread. The baker explains to him that he cannot buy grain from the farmer without payment. Hans meets the talking hare Trillewipp, who can fly with the help of his removable ears. The two set out to find the farmer who owns the grain. Hans learns from him that many in America have had their fill. Hans sits on Trillewipp's back to fly there, but they land first in Greenland, where they meet the orphan boy Kagsagsuk and take them with them on the journey. In New York they meet Bill, who continues the journey with them. On their further way they come to Africa, China and Russia. They encounter exploitation and misery everywhere, only in the USSR are they treated humanely. Kagsagsuk stays there, Bill is picked up by his father, and Hans makes his way back home with Trillewipp.

reception

Thomas Mann wrote in a letter to the author:

“Thank you for the 'Hans Urian'. You made me happy with it, which I will also let my little ones take part in. It is a special kind of children's book that includes the real social world in an unobtrusive and cheerful way in its fairy tale and adventure world and precisely because of this it will arouse a lot of devout opposition, but will also win a lot of joy among young and old. "

The book was on the list of books burned in 1933 .

Translations

The novel was published in English translation in 1934 as Hans Sees the World in the USA , in 1934 in Hebrew translation in Palestine and in 1936 in Polish translation in Poland .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ DNB 572115830
  2. ↑ Margrid Bircken, Marianne Lüdecke, Helmut Peitsch (eds.): Breaks and upheavals: women, literature and social movements . Universitätsverlag Potsdam, 2010, ISBN 978-3-86956-085-4 , p. 270 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  3. ↑ Jack David Zipes (Ed.): The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales . Oxford University Press, 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-968982-8 , pp. 616 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  4. ↑ a b Norbert Hopster, Petra Josting, Joachim Neuhaus (eds.): Children's and young people's literature 1933–1945: A manual . tape 2 : Performing part. Springer, 2005, ISBN 978-3-476-01837-3 , pp. 858 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  5. ↑ Cathleen Kolath: Lisa Tetzner: Hans Urian (1931). In: Library of Burned Books. Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies , accessed February 12, 2019 .