Mother Johanna of the Angels

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Mother Joanna of the Angels (Polish: Matka Joanna od Aniołów ) is a short story by the Polish writer Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz . He completed it in 1942 and published it for the first time in 1946.

action

The priest Suryn has been commissioned to travel to a remote village in the Polish province to cure the obsession of the nuns living there in a monastery. Before him, other exorcists were sent to the village, but they were all unsuccessful. When he arrived in the village, he discovered that the cause of the nuns' collective obsession was to be found in their headmistress, mother Johanna von der Engeln. That is why he concentrates more and more on her in his exorcisms, at the same time she begins to attract and fascinate him more and more. An unusual spiritual love relationship develops between the two, but over time Suryn becomes more and more desperate because all his attempts to heal mother Johanna fail. Finally, he kills two innocent squires believing that he will be able to take on the evil that has taken hold of mother Johanna and redeem the monastery leader. The platonic love affair between Suryn and mother Johanna is mirrored in the story by another, not at all platonic relationship, as it were: the nun Małgorzata, who is the only member of the convention showing no signs of demonic possession, falls in love with him Polish nobleman Chrząszczewski and spends a night of love with him. But this leaves them again the next morning, and Małgorzata remains in utter despair.

Mother Johanna von den Engeln is characterized by a vagueness that Iwaszkiewicz consciously used. The narrator leaves open what the exact causes of Mother Joan's obsession are: Are there (in the narrated world) real demons who have taken possession of her? Or is she more likely to suffer from a neurotic disorder caused by monastic abstinence? Or maybe she deliberately fakes her obsession to get attention? The text does not provide any clear indications as to which of these three interpretations is the correct one. In the end it is only clear that Suryn's love for mother Johanna plunges him into misery and turns him into a murderer.

The plot of Mother Joanna of the Angels is inspired by real historical events in the French city of Loudun , where a sensational witch trial took place in the 17th century. However, Iwaszkiewicz moved the action to a small town called Ludyń in the eastern Polish province. In addition, the plot begins after the central historical events: Suryn is sent to the village after the main accused of the trial has already been burned at the stake. In addition to Iwaszkiewicz, other artists also referred to the events of the Loudun, such as Aldous Huxley in his novel The Devils of Loudun , to which Krzysztof Penderecki in his opera The Devils of Loudun and Ken Russell in his film The Devils refer.

Film adaptations

The story was from 1961 Jerzy Kawalerowicz filmed .

literature

  • Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz: Mother Joan of the Angels . In: Ders .: Die Fräulein von Wilko. Three novels . Translated from the Polish by Klaus Staemmler. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1985. ISBN 3-518-03581-9 .
  • German Ritz: Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz. A border crosser of modernity . Bern: Peter Lang 1996. ISBN 3-906756-23-8 .