Las Casas before Charles V

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Las Casas

Las Casas before Karl V. Scenes from the time of the conquistadors is a story by Reinhold Schneider , which was written in the winter of 1937/38 and published in 1938 by the Leipziger Insel Verlag .

The Dominican P. Bartolomé de Las Casas , father of the Indians , who digs at the foundations of the Spanish world power, received in 1542 in Valladolid from Charles V the privilege of bringing the Indians into the New India "from Mexico to Peru " to clear the Leyes Nuevas (New Laws).

time and place

With the conquistador period the first two thirds of the 16th century are meant. The facts communicated by the author do not really fit the mentioned year 1542: Bartolomé de Las Casas (* 1484) was almost seventy years old in the year of the story, Prince Philipp (* 1527) was a boy. The prince was to rule Spain during his father Charles V's trip to the Reichstag in Regensburg. At this time, however, the Reichstag in Regensburg was in 1541 and 1546.

action

Titian : Charles V.

Bartolomé de Las Casas travels from Verakruz along the Yucatan coast via Habana , Bermuda , the Canary Islands and finally up the Guadalquivir to his hometown Seville . Charles V convened the Council of India in Valladolid to "examine the order of the colonies as thoroughly as possible". Bartolomé is supposed to argue in front of the emperor with the “great law teacher” Ginés de Sepulveda , author of the book “about the just reasons for the war against the Indians”, on the occasion of the “ Valladolid dispute ”. During the "legal dispute" Doctor Sepulveda defends the thesis that Spain has been appointed by God as the regulating power in the New India . Order is the be-all and end-all in the world. Order can only be created by force. Bartolomé, on the other hand, believes that the Spaniards should not disregard the souls of the Indians, believes that he has finally lost in the dispute. The emperor cannot and does not want to speak against Sepulveda in public. But then Charles V ordered the monk to stay with him, made him Bishop of Chiapa and sent Bartolomé with the shepherd's staff west to the New India. Bartolomé is supposed to "represent the new laws" there.

Reports

While the plot may seem a little flat overall, three notable episodes are inserted into the text as retrospectives, some of which flow into the ongoing plot.

Bernardino

The book can be read as the story of the knight Bernardino de Lares from Valladolid. Bernardino, a former landowner in San Juan , reports as a terminally ill passenger on the ship that Bartolomé is taking to Spain, of the atrocities of Alonso de Hojeda and of his own robbers as a conquistador . Bernardino had the indigenous dwellings burned down and the gold digged out of the ashes. When the ship with the “Indian drivers” lands happily in Spain, Bartolomé asks the sick knight to part with his movable belongings. Bernardino cannot make up his mind to do this, even though he had already released his Indians from slavery in Haiti . Because Bernardino has a son from Maria, a girl he left in Haiti. Bartolomé disapproves of the innocent son inheriting the father's "bloodstained" treasures. Nevertheless, the monk looks for and finds the son in Spain. It is a young priest who comes to his father's deathbed and wants to leave for the New India with Bartolomé.

Vargas

Captain Vargas, a Basque , is called to witness the dispute by Doctor Sepulveda, who himself has never been to New India. Vargas, an old warrior who fought valiantly “in all latitudes” for the world power Spain, is not a man of many words. His appearance is also short, but very effective. The soldier does not want to know anything about humanitarian dealings with foreign, work-shy, rebellious peoples. According to Vargas, only hardship was and is appropriate in New India alone.

Bartolome

The brother Bartolomé de Las Casas, who in his own words “remained a hothead”, has made several trips to the New India and has seen the suffering of the Indians in Haiti and Cuba . Bartolomé “saw how peoples perished”. On his forays across the islands, he got to know the Indians and understood why the natives met the Spaniards so trustingly: The Indians believed that the Spaniards came from beyond the world, from the land of souls. Bartolomé was missing and wrong. So he believed z. B. to alleviate the suffering of the Indians with African slaves .

Quotes

  • "We cannot achieve good with bad means."
  • "All guilt can turn into grace."
  • "We don't have to fear errors, but lies."

Inner emigration

Schneider wanted with the text - in the middle of the National Socialist era - "to say a word against the persecution of the Jews [...]". After the first edition, the work was banned by the National Socialists and can be considered a work of internal emigration . So z. B. before Charles V disputed "the possible right of one people to rule another". On the occasion, Sepulveda postulates that “a higher class and more highly developed people” like the Spanish would have “a right to the pious of the world over lower peoples”. Schneider's positions reveal a much greater distance to the prevailing worldview than any of the novels of “Inner Emigration”.

Salvation history

Schneider's prose is "Presentation of history as salvation history ". The confident outcome of the book fits this assertion: The young priest wants to bring the “Indian gold” gathered by his father Bernardino back from Spain across the ocean to the New India. He wants to use it to build houses of worship and schools among the Indians.

reception

expenditure

  • Las Casas before Charles V. Scenes from d. Conquistador period . Insel Verlag, Leipzig 1938 (66th – 75th in the Insel-Bücherei 741)
  • Las Casas before Charles V. Scenes from the time of the conquistadors. Frankfurt a. M. 1963 ( Ullstein book No. 9 - license from Insel Verlag)
  • Las Casas before Karl V, edited by Edwin Maria Landau. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 2003, 8th edition ( Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch 1772 - license from Insel Verlag) ISBN 978-3-518-38222-6

literature

  • Heinrich Ludewig (Ed.): Reinhold Schneider 1903–1958 . Reinhold Schneider Foundation Hamburg. Issue 22, May 1983,
  • German literary history. Volume 10. Paul Riegel and Wolfgang van Rinsum: Third Reich and Exile 1933–1945 . Pp. 113–116 dtv Munich 2004. ISBN 3-423-03350-9
  • Gero von Wilpert : Lexicon of world literature. German Authors A - Z . Pp. 553-554. Stuttgart 2004. ISBN 3-520-83704-8

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Riegel and van Rinsum p. 116
  2. ↑ Schneider p. 173
  3. ↑ Schneider p. 119
  4. ↑ Schneider pp. 174,184
  5. ↑ Schneider p. 85
  6. ↑ Schneider p. 132
  7. ↑ Schneider p. 141
  8. ↑ Schneider p. 168
  9. ↑ Schneider p. 172
  10. ^ Schneider on July 28, 1947 based on: Riegel and van Rinsum p. 116
  11. ↑ Schneider p. 79
  12. ↑ Schneider pp. 128, 129
  13. ↑ (see also Gertrud von Le Fort, Ernst Wiechert or Olaf Saile)
  14. ↑ from the blurb of the source
  15. ↑ Jochen Klepper in: Ludewig p. 8