Jerusalem (novel)

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Jerusalem is the title of a two-volume novel by the Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf . It was published in 1901 and 1902 and, based on a real event, deals with the fate of some farmers from Dalarna , Sweden , who emigrated to Jerusalem as a result of a religious awakening experience to join a colony founded by American evangelicals .

History of origin

From the banks of the Dalälv ...

In 1896, a group of farmers from the Swedish community of Nås in Dalarna was gripped by a religious revival. As a result of this revival, they immigrated to Jerusalem to join an American evangelical group.

Selma Lagerlöf found out about this while she was working on The Miracles of the Antichrist . She recognized the potential in this event and decided to make it the subject of her next novel. It was fortunate that Selma Lagerlöf had lived in Falun , very close to Nås, since 1897 . So she could easily do studies for her novel project. In addition, Selma Lagerlöf traveled with her friend Sophie Elkan to Palestine and Jerusalem, where she inspected the scenes of the second volume and also spoke to the Swedish farmers who had emigrated.

The introductory chapter of the first volume, the story Ingmarssönerna (“Die Ingmarssons”), written earlier and now incorporated into the novel , is based on a true story: Selma Lagerlöf read in the newspaper about a man who picked up his fiancée from prison even though she killed their child.

In 1901 the first volume of Jerusalem appeared in Swedish, a year later also in German. Jerusalem was unanimously praised by the critics and, after Gosta Berling, finally cemented Selma Lagerlöf's reputation as a unique writer. In Germany , Jerusalem became the cornerstone of Selma Lagerlöf's popularity.

In 1902 the second volume of Jerusalem appeared in Swedish , and a year later in German. The recording this time wasn't quite as enthusiastic as the first tape. Selma Lagerlöf herself was not entirely satisfied with the second volume either and in 1909 reworked it in depth. The version of the second volume that is widely used today is the revised version from 1909.

For the scene in the first volume, in which Gertrud Storm meets Jesus Christ in the forest , Selma Lagerlöf was possibly inspired by a famous painting by Albert Edelfelt , which shows the encounter between Jesus and Maria Magdalena in a northern birch forest.

Selma Lagerlöf dedicated the novel to Sophie Elkan.

Historical background

The American lawyer Horatio Spafford and his wife Anna suffered the death of their two-year-old son, then the economic ruin of the Great Fire of Chicago and finally the deaths of all four daughters in a shipwreck. As a result of these events, Stafford wrote the famous hymn It Is Well with My Soul . When their parish saw the blows of fate as “God's punishment”, the Spaffords resigned and emigrated in 1881 with several like-minded people to Jerusalem , where they founded the Christian “American Colony”, which is dedicated to charity work. This later joined a group of Swedish farming families. The "Colony" played an important role during and shortly after the First World War in supporting the residents through soup kitchens, hospitals, orphanages and other charitable institutions.

content

... to Jerusalem: The route of the Swedish emigrants

The novel is set in a community not named in Dalarna and in Jerusalem at the end of the 19th century. Jerusalem deals with two storylines: On the one hand, the fate of the peasants who emigrate to Jerusalem is portrayed. On the other hand, Jerusalem is about the Ingmarssönerna family , the "Ingmarssons", the most distinguished and respected farming family who run the largest and oldest farm, Ingmarsgården (the "Ingmarshof"). The two storylines are linked by the fact that Karin Ingmarsdotter, who owns the Ingmarshof after the death of her father Ingmar Ingmarsson, becomes the leader of the emigrants. Her younger brother Ingmar Ingmarsson, who is supposed to be the heir to the farm, is cheated of his future when Karin Ingmarsdotter puts the farm up for auction in order to get money for the trip to Jerusalem. Finally, Ingmar Ingmarsson gets the Ingmarshof after all, by marrying Barbro Svensdotter, the daughter of the person who bought the farm. Of course, he can only do this at the price of abandoning his fiancée Gertrud Storm, the village teacher's daughter. Gertrud joins the emigrants and travels with them to Jerusalem. When she got into mental confusion there, Ingmar Ingmarsson drove from Barbro to Jerusalem to reconcile with Gertrud. After reorganizing the American-Swedish colony according to the model of the Swedish home community and giving everyone work and thus saving the colony from ruin, and after Gertrud has meanwhile turned her heart to another man, Ingmar goes back to Gertrud and her fiancé Sweden. After the birth of their son Ingmar Ingmarsson, Ingmar and Barbro finally fell in love too.

meaning

Jerusalem is considered to be one of the best works by Selma Lagerlöf. Her technique of putting together a long novel from individual chapters that represent self-contained episodes is celebrating triumphs here. The introductory chapter of the first volume, Ingmarssönerna , was originally a stand-alone novella before Selma Lagerlöf put it at the head of the novel. Jerusalem is about the traditional Swedish peasantry, whereby the Ingmar sons represent less a realistic description of Swedish large farmers (until the 19th century they did not live on large lonely farms, but in villages) than a mythical allegory of Swedish peasantry. At the same time Jerusalem describes how the old order with the self-evident authority of the Lutheran state church is shaking under the onslaught of the new age. It is not for nothing that the village teacher who builds the mission house and thus unintentionally triggers the whole religious revival movement is called Storm . The consequences of religious zeal are vividly described, although Selma Lagerlöf herself does not take a clear position. Above all, the immensely intense design of human destinies and the colorful description of life in both Dalarna and Jerusalem are captivating. Ultimately , as is so often the case with Selma Lagerlöf, Jerusalem is about the triumph of love.

The chapter on the Ingmarshof auction deals with Selma Lagerlöfs own traumatic childhood experience, the fear of losing her home. Karin Ingmarsdotter's fate in the first volume, when she is suddenly paralyzed and can just as suddenly walk again later, goes back to Selma Lagerlöf's own childhood experience, described in Mårbacka , when she was temporarily paralyzed after an illness. The beneficial effect of work, also an important motive for Selma Lagerlöf and already of decisive importance in Gösta Berling , plays an important role in the second volume when Ingmar Ingmarsson saves the colony by teaching it to work. Moreover, Jerusalem next Vilhelm Moberg's emigrant epic one of two major Auswanderromane the Swedish literature. It was also remarkable for the time that Selma Lagerlöf turned simple farmers into the heroes of a novel.

Film adaptations

Jerusalem was filmed in 1996 by the Danish director Bille August , the screenplay was written by Klas Östergren . The film, which was shot in Swedish, is a joint production between Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland. The lead roles are Ulf Friberg as Ingmar, Maria Bonnevie as Gertrud, Pernilla August , the director's wife and first wife of the screenwriter as Karin, Lena Endre as Barbro and Sven-Bertil Taube as Helgum. Playing time of the film is 167 minutes. The film premiered on September 6, 1996.

Previously, a total of five silent films were made based on Jerusalem .

expenditure

  • First edition: Stockholm: Albert Bonniers förlag (1901–1902)

Several translations have been made from Swedish. Here, after the translator, the publisher and the year in which the translation was first published are given.

literature

  • Vivi Edström, Selma Lagerlöf , Stockholm 1991
  • Göran Hägg: Den svenska literaturhistorien . Wahlström & Widstrand, Stockholm 1996, ISBN 91-46-16928-8 .
  • Rainer Maria Rilke Two Nordic women's books (Amalie Skram, Ein Liebling der Götter; Selma Lagerlöf, Jerusalem I) Printed: Bremen, August 21, 1902. Written probably early to mid-August 1902 in Westerwelle pp. 604–610. In: Complete Works / Rainer Maria Rilke. Edited by the Rilke archive in conjunction with Ruth Sieber-Rilke. Acquired by Ernst Zinn Vol. 5: Worpswede. Rodin. Essays Frankfurt am Main: Insel-Verlag 1965

Web link

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The American Colony in Jerusalem, 1870-2006 . Retrieved May 2, 2013.