Mišter Krabat

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Mišter Krabat (German Master Krabat the good Sorbian magician ) is a 1954 Sorbian novel by Měrćin Nowak-Njechorński ( Martin Nowak-Neumann ), in which he deals with the Krabat saga .

content

The action of the book begins after the Thirty Years War . In Jitk , Krabat grows up as the stepson of a shepherd . The thirst for knowledge leads the poor shepherd's son, who earned extra income for the family as a beggar boy, to a heather mill near Schwarzkollm . The miller there is a magician who has made a pact with the devil . Every year one of his twelve journeymen has to die so that he himself can live forever. The mill called "Teufelsmühle" by the local population also serves as a "black school". Krabat would like to learn the miller's trade with him. In return for the hard life of the miller, the miller offers him lessons in black art . Krabat learns quickly and after a short time outstrips his fellow journeymen. As the end of the year approaches, Krabat tries to flee. He returns to his family and persuades his mother to release him. The black miller turns his fellow journeymen into black crows. Krabat is the only one to clean himself under the right wing and so his mother recognizes him. The black miller has to release him.

At home, his parents still suffer from hunger and poverty. Krabat, who stole the magic book " Koraktor ", decides with his father to take some greedy cattle dealers for their money. As a transformed ox, Krabat is sold for a lot of money and flees from the cattle dealer. The second time they try the trick with a horse. However, the black miller finds out about them and steals the horse without the father being able to remove the halter . He wants to have Krabat chop a burning horseshoe , but the blacksmith's apprentice takes the dishes from Krabat. Krabat escapes and a duel ensues between him and the black miller. As a fox, Krabat succeeds in defeating the black miller who had turned into a rooster. Finally freed from the black miller, Krabat looks for new opportunities.

Krabat is taken away by August the Strong , King of Saxony, and plays a prank on him as a kitchen boy. Then he hires out as a wandering journeyman who plays tricks on some millers who treat him badly. Finally he is drafted as a soldier and ends up in the Great Turkish War . There he freed the Saxon king from Turkish captivity and spied on the Turks' war plans. On the run, he has to kill an old fellow who had switched sides. Krabat only found out when it was too late. The king thanks him for his deeds with a useless patch of land near Groß Särchen . Krabat makes the fallow land fertile with the help of his magical powers and from then on acts as the king's advisor. He also plays a few trickery pranks on various people who are hostile to the king as well as a malicious pastor.

When Krabat gets older and is about to die, he bequeaths the land, which has meanwhile been splendidly cultivated, to the poor farmers in the area and frees them from the yoke of tyrants.

Emergence

Nowak-Njechorński published the book in 1954 in the Sorbian language , provided with woodcut-like illustrations he had made himself . The German translation was made by Jurij Brězan , himself the author of the novels The Black Mill , Krabat or The Metamorphosis of the World and Krabat or The Preservation of the World , also based on the legend , and was first published in the GDR . In 1978 another edition was published by Domowina-Verlag in Bautzen .

Nowak-Njechorński mixed motifs from the Pumphut saga with the actual Krabat saga as well as elements from the life of the historical model Johannes Schadowitz . The wandering years are clearly influenced by the pump-hat stories. Further sources of inspiration were the Krabat traditions from folk poetry, especially that of Georg Pilk .

background

The story includes large parts of the original Krabat saga and is told in a popular form, with many idioms and an authorial narrative style . The reader is often addressed personally, in the style of legends or fairy tales.

In some places Nowak-Njechorński deviates from the original legend in order not to portray the king and the pastor as a popular figure. In this sense, Krabat serves here as a socialist ideal, which actually uses evil magic in the service of a just idea. The ending in particular is reminiscent of a Sorbian Faust who at the end of his life reclaims the fallow land and hands over his property to the people.

Otfried Preußler described Nowak-Njechorński's version as a source of inspiration for his own youth book Krabat , which, however, is limited to Krabat's apprenticeship years. Preußler discovered the material in 1958 in the International Youth Library in Munich and was given the book in Czech .

literature

  • Martin Nowak-Neumann: Master Krabat the good Sorbian magician . Translated into German by Jurij Brězan . Bautzen: Domowina publishing house. 7th edition 2008. ISBN 978-3-7420-0291-4

Individual evidence

  1. a b Heiko Fritz: The mystery of the mill. With an interpretation of the events in Otfried Preussler's novel “Krabat”. Hamburg: Igel Verlag. ISBN 978-3-89621-147-7 . P. 68f.
  2. ^ Marie-Luise Ehrhardt: Meister Krabat - a magician in folk tradition and youth literature (excerpt) . In: Otfried Preußler: Krabat. Instructor leaflet. Edited by Heinrich Pleticha . Stuttgart / Vienna: Thienemann Verlag 1992. ISBN 978-3-522-14450-6
  3. Otfried Preußler : On the genesis of my book "Krabat" . In: Otfried Preußler: Krabat . School book edition with materials. Stuttgart / Vienna: Thienemann Verlag 1988. ISBN 978-3-522-14410-0 , pp. 290-294