Histoire d'un conscrit de 1813

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Histoire d'un conscrit de 1813 is a historical novel by the French authors Erckmann-Chatrian from 1864.

content

Plot and people

The novel depicts an episode from the final phase of the First French Empire (1804–1815) and takes place between 1812 and 1814. Joseph Bertha , son of a woodcutter from Dabo ( Moselle department ; German: Dagsburg ), apprentice watchmaker in Phalsbourg , believes Due to his weak constitution , he initially protected himself from being drafted into the imperial army . Due to the devastating losses during the Russian campaign in 1812 , however, 300,000 new recruits are drawn in based on a Senate resolution to make up for the losses. Although he showed little inclination to leave his cousin and fiancée Cathérine and to travel through Europe in the honor and glory of Napoleon and his family, Joseph was drafted and drafted to Mainz for basic training . As a member of the 6e Régiment d'infanterie légère under Marshal Ney , he finally took part in the Battle of Großgörschen (French bataille de Lützen ) on May 2, 1813. There, seriously wounded, he also witnessed an appearance by Napoleon. After recovering from a hospital stay, he took part in the next campaign. During the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig from October 16-19, 1813, he fell critically ill with typhus . He is picked up lifeless and, with febrile seizures, is taken on a baggage cart by French soldiers who are fleeing through Germany after the lost battle. In Quatre-Vents (German: four winds ) he is recognized by his fiancée and her mother. They can arrange for him to be left with them for care. When Joseph regained consciousness in January 1814, he heard the thunder of cannons: the nearby Phalsbourg is being besieged by the enemy, who used to be so often inferior, while Blücher is already on his way to Paris with the advance guard of the Allied troops .

worldview

Erckmann first describes his hometown Phalsbourg at the beginning of the 19th century with its recruit camps that were constantly being refilled, its veterans' associations, their site administration and their picturesque everyday fortress life despite the permanent state of alarm. His descriptions are based on stories and notes from his father and from veterans of the Napoleonic Wars , many of whom Erckmann had met in his youth in Phalsbourg. He also followed the historical path of the 6e Régiment d'infanterie légère through Germany and France himself, based on the war diary of Capitaine Vidal, the uncle of a Phalsbourger friend. Erckmann also used the history of the First Empire by Adolphe Thiers as a further source . For many of the secondary characters in the plot there are real role models in Erckmann's youth in Phalsbourg. Erckmann made a conscious decision to portray the historical events from the perspective of a common soldier. For his biographer Georges Benoit-Guyod he anticipated the figure of the Unknown Soldier in the figure of Joseph Bertha . The British literary critic and writer VS Pritchett sees the strength of the novel in addition to its pacifist stance in the “ patriotistic charge of despotism , which is based on the description of what a man or woman from the common people felt at the time Has. It is a book full of fruitful grumbling and telling irony. "

shape

The narrator is the old Joseph Bertha, who in the last sentence of the novel expresses the hope “that my story can serve to show the youth that nothing makes people happier than peace, freedom and work” and announces, even his own To report experiences in Waterloo .

Position in literary history

Histoire d'un conscrit de 1813 is one of the most successful of the series of Romans nationaux by the French author couple. With this series of novels, the authors documented a century of French history from 1775 to 1875. Both of them knew numerous veterans of the Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars from their families and their circle of friends, and the two authors drew the material for their historical from the memories and stories of these farmers and craftsmen Stories and novels. Against the contemporary French feuilleton novel, in which history was only used as a source of exciting anecdotes and interesting personalities, and against the claim of the Second Empire under Napoleon III to have ended the age of revolutions, Erckmann-Chatrian wanted the ongoing political and social Clarify the significance of the events at the beginning of the 19th century.

reception

Histoire d'un conscrit de 1813 first appeared in sequels in the Journal des Débats , then, due to its great success, in 1864 as a book in the publishing house of Pierre-Jules Hetzel and was reprinted 25 times between 1864 and 1885. The book was first translated into German as early as 1865 and published under the title History of a Recruit by Anno 1813 .

literature

Text output

  • Histoire d'un conscrit de 1813 . Hetzel, Paris 1864 (French original edition; online at fr.wikisource : Histoire d'un conscrit de 1813 )
  • Story of a recruit from 1813 . Hendel, Halle as 1865 (in the library of general literature at home and abroad, vol. 398/399; German first edition)
  • History of a recruit from 1813 (J. von Harten, K. Henniger (ed.): Schaffstein's Blue Ribbon, Vol. 44/45). Schaffstein, Cologne am Rhein, undated
  • Long live the emperor. Story of a recruit from the Napoleonic Wars . Diogenes, Zurich 1991. ISBN 978-3257211993

Audio book

  • Jens & Joerg G. Fieback: Napoleon and the Battle of Nations - decision near Leipzig . Zeitbrücke, Aue 2012. You refer to the source in the booklet.
  • Émile Erckmann, Alexandre Chatrian: 1813 - The recruit . Zeitbrücke Verlag, Aue 2013. Unabridged reading of the novel in a translation by Egon Krannich, spoken by Ben Münchow . Release Date: March 13, 2013. ISBN 978-3981471779

Secondary literature

  • Georges Benoit-Guyod: La vie et l'œuvre d'Erckmann-Chatrian , in Jean-Jacques Pauvert (ed.): Erckmann-Chatrian, Contes et romans nationaux et populaires, Volume XIV. Pauvert & Hachette, Paris 1963 (new edition at Editions Serpenoise 1987. ISBN 2-87697-001-5 )
  • VS Pritchett : Foreword pp. 7–14 in Long Live the Emperor. Story of a recruit from the Napoleonic Wars . Diogenes, Zurich 1991

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Georges Benoit-Guyod: La vie et l'œuvre d'Erckmann-Chatrian , pp. 116-118 in Jean-Jacques Pauvert (ed.): Erckmann-Chatrian, Contes et romans nationaux et populaires, Volume XIV. Pauvert & Hachette , Paris 1962
  2. ↑ Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire, faisant suite à l'Histoire de la Révolution française . Paris, Paulin 1845–1862 (German: History of the Consulate and the Empire, 1843–1864 ; Reprint Hamburg, VRZ-Verlag ISBN 3-931482-22-7 )
  3. ↑ Georges Benoit-Guyod: La vie et l'oeuvre d'Erckmann-Chatrian , pp 115-116 and 118 in Jean-Jacques Pauvert (ed.). Erckmann-Chatrian, Contes et romans populaires et nationaux, Volume XIV Pauvert & Hachette, Paris 1962
  4. ^ VS Pritchett: p. 10 in Long live the emperor. Story of a recruit from the Napoleonic Wars . Diogenes, Zurich 1991
  5. ↑ Long live the emperor. Story of a recruit from the Napoleonic Wars . Diogenes, Zurich 1991, p. 227; as a continuation of Bertha's story then Erckmann-Chatrian appeared: Waterloo . Hetzel, Paris 1865
  6. ↑ Georges Benoit-Guyod: La vie et l'œuvre d'Erckmann-Chatrian , p. 209 or 372 in Jean-Jacques Pauvert (ed.): Erckmann-Chatrian, Contes et romans nationaux et populaires , Volume XIV. Pauvert & Hachette, Paris 1963