How the steel was hardened
How the steel was hardened ( Russian Как закалялась сталь ; Kak sakaljalas stal ; scientific transliteration Kak zakaljalas 'stal' ) is a novel by the Soviet writer Nikolai Alexejewitsch Ostrowski . It is one of the best-known examples of the literature of Socialist Realism and, according to the GDR Lexicon of World Literature , which was published in 1963, played an important role "in the socialist education in the Soviet Union and in the socialist awareness-raising of progressive youth around the world."
Content and changes
The life story of Pawel "Pawka" Korchagin is based on the author's biography. Korchagin is fighting in the Red Army , the Komsomol and the Communist Party . He goes blind and is tied to the bed. But the hero never loses his confidence and courage to fight. Pawka is constantly looking for a way back into "rank and file" (or "fighting rows", depending on which translation the edition is based on).
Ostrowski worked on his main work from 1930 to 1933. The first publication took place in the years 1932 and 1934. The book changed over the years. While Pawka z. B. is still a member of the workers' opposition in the first edition, Ostrowski revised this in the third edition in order to make the young revolutionary appear flawless. The book is exposed to a lot of criticism today because it is very colored by the political line of the time. The most obvious is the portrayal of the Makhnovshchina as a criminal gang and the generally derogatory tone towards inner-party, oppositional currents of the workers' opposition and Trotskyism .
The famous quote
In the third chapter of the second part, Pawel Korchagin is still weak from typhus and has for the fourth time “stood on the threshold of death and has come back to life.” He spends his convalescent leave with his family of origin in a small town, where he - disgusted by "Petty-bourgeois milieu" - longs for "the huge stone buildings, the sooty workshops of his company, the machines and the soft whirring of the belts". While walking he is seized by a “strange dejection”. On the outskirts he comes to the place where comrades were hanged and to their graves: “Here the brave comrades had given their lives so that the life of those who were born in misery and poverty would be more beautiful and for whom the birth alone would be more beautiful marked the beginning of slavery. ... grief, deep grief filled his heart. "He takes off his cap and thinks:
“The most valuable thing a person possesses is life. It is only given to him once, and he has to use it so that he does not painfully regret the years spent senseless, the shame of a petty, meaningless past does not oppress him and that he can dyingly say: All my life, all my strength, I have to him Most glorious in the world - dedicated to the struggle for the liberation of humanity. And he must hurry to live. Because a stupid illness or some tragic coincidence can suddenly put an end to life. "
In parting he played the accordion for his mother, who was amazed: “In his music there was no longer the irrepressible audacity, that great exultation full of exuberance, that drunken arrogance that made the young accordion player Pawka famous all over town. His music sounded melodic, but without losing its power it had become more serious and profound. "
Film adaptations
The book was filmed three times by Soviet directors: How steel was hardened in 1942 ( Mark Semjonowitsch Donskoi ), Pawel Korchagin in 1957 ( Aleksandr Alow and Vladimir Naumow ), How steel was hardened in 1975 (Nikolai Mastschenko).
Voices about the work
Per
The French writer Romain Rolland in the foreword to How steel was hardened , 1936:
“Everything in Ostrowski is a flame of action and battle - and this flame grew and expanded the closer night and death surrounded him. He overflowed with tireless courage to live and optimism. And this joy united him with all struggling and advancing peoples of the earth. "
Publishing advertising from 1950:
“The author tells with great truthfulness the story of a young generation that was brought up and hardened in the storm of historical events. [...] The struggle between good and bad, pure and dirty, high and low, beautiful and ugly, human and barbaric, which rages within people themselves, but which people also fight among themselves, finds true expression in this poet. "
From the Handbuch der Sowjetliteraur (1917–1972) , 1975:
“[…] Ostrowski [created] a wealth of typical characters from that time. A clear structure, which is determined by the inner development of the hero Pawel Korchagin, a quickly developing action without delay and tranquility, combative pathos and lyrical intimacy characterize the individual artistic profile of the novel, which is not diminished by some linguistic weaknesses. "
Contra
In September 2004, Dunja Welke said on Deutschlandradio that “there is obviously a superman and superhero at work”, which “was not discussed in the GDR schools”. “The Stalinist tendencies excluded the German teachers.” In the same broadcast, Boris Groys judged that the will power of the protagonists of the novel should evidently represent “symbols of Stalin's will”. Thomas Reschke , who translated the book into German in 1977, comments as follows:
“And what do we learn about these Trotskyists? They wake up in the morning still half drunk, are unshaven, are work shy and drink a lot and have no morals at all and are no good in any way. But what the Trotskyists actually wanted and what the essence of their quarrel with Stalin consisted of, we do not hear a word about it as far as I can remember. "
In 2011, a former GDR student reported in Literaturforum.de that he had been subjected to reprisals for criticizing the book and remembers: "Ostrowski praises the people of the 'Cheka', the cruelest torturers that the socialist Soviet regime has ever produced, and he reviles the 'kulaks', the big farmers whom Stalin later sent almost entirely to Siberia. "
expenditure
- First edition in two volumes, Moscow 1932–1934
- German editions
- Translation: Anonymous. State Publishing House of the National Minorities of the USSR, Kiev 1937 (first German edition)
- Translation: Anonymous. New life, Berlin 1947
- Translation revised by Nelly Drechsler
- With drawings by Kurt Zimmermann. Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin 1954 (13th edition)
- Reclam, Leipzig 1957
- Translation revised by Ernst Dornhof
- Drawings by Kurt Zimmermann. Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin 1961 (20th edition)
- Reclam, Leipzig 1969 (13th edition)
- Drawings by Kurt Zimmermann. Weltkreis-Verlagsgesellschaft, Dortmund 1973
- New translation by Thomas Reschke
- Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin 1977 (36th edition); Weltkreis-Verlag, Dortmund 1977, ISBN 3-88142-018-5 ; Reclam, Leipzig 1981 (22nd edition)
- Illustrated by Eberhard Binder . Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin 1985 (43rd edition); Weltkreis-Verlag, Dortmund 1985 (6th edition), ISBN 3-88142-018-5
- Illustrated by Kurt Zimmermann. LeiV, Leipzig 2004, ISBN 3-89603-197-X
- Translation, new edition Thomas Reschke , new foreword by Benedikt Kaiser ; Renovamen-Verlag, Bad Schmiedeberg 2017, ISBN 978-3956211324
Dubbing
- How the steel was hardened. Pavel's years of apprenticeship. Arranged for the record by Jürgen Schmidt. Litera, 1973
Web links
- Online edition (German)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lexicon of World Literature - Foreign-language writers and anonymous works from the beginning to the present. Volksverlag Weimar 1963, p. 511.
- ↑ 17th, unchanged edition. German translation revised by Nelly Drechsler . Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin 1959, p. 270. Russian: “Самое дорогое у человека - это жизнь. Она даётся ему один раз, и прожить её надо так, чтобы не было мучительно больно за бесцельно прожитые годы , чтобы не жёг позор за подленькое и мелочное прошлое , чтобы, умирая, смог сказать: вся жизнь и все силы были отданы самому прекрасному в мире - борьбе за освобождение человечества. И надо спешить жить. Ведь нелепая болезнь или какая-либо трагическая случайность могут прервать её. "
- ↑ Nikolai Ostrowski: How the steel was hardened. 17th, unchanged edition. German translation revised by Nelly Drechsler. New Life Publishing House, Berlin 1959, p. 272.
- ↑ https://www.deutschlandradio.de/archiv/dlr/sendung/merkmal/307471/index.html
- ↑ https://www.deutschlandradio.de/archiv/dlr/sendung/merkmal/307471/index.html
- ↑ https://www.literaturforum.de/threads/8183-ostrowski-nikolai-wie-der-stahl-gehaierter-wurde