Witiko

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Frontispiece of the first volume (1865)

Witiko is a historical novel by the Austrian writer Adalbert Stifter . The novel was published in full in the fall of 1867 .

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The extensive narrative tells of the founding of the noble family of the Witigones , the downfall of which the founder describes in his story " Der Hochwald " . The story begins in 1138 with the ride of the knight Witiko from Passau via Hauzenberg towards Bohemia . On the way he meets a lively band of horsemen, among whom is the young Vladislav , the son of the former Duke of Bohemia.

Witiko goes to the current Duke Soběslav and puts himself in his service. When Soběslav fell seriously ill, a council met in Prague in which the leading provincial princes ( Župane ) and landlords ( Lechen ) discussed who should lead the country in the future. A few years earlier they had succeeded Soběslav's son, Wladislav. However, this succession should not have occurred for several years, now the still very young and impetuous Wladislaw appears to them as too young and inexperienced for the ducal chair. The ducal dignity should instead be given to the other Wladislav (whom Vitiko met on the ride), who is the son of the previous Duke Wladislav and the nephew of the current, sick Duke Soběslav. Witiko is allowed to take part in the meeting as Soběslav's messenger after thorough consultation; he takes the news of the princes' change of heart and the election of Duke Wladislav to the Soběslav Castle and reports to him. The old Duke warns his son Wladislaw to accept the factual deselection and dies.

Witiko now has to decide which Wladislaw to serve: He vacillates between the elected duke, who is the majority of the princes, and Soběslav's son, who in Witikos' eyes has the right to himself. Finally, he opted for neutrality , said goodbye to the elected Duke Wladislaw and withdrew to his estate in Oberplan . He improves the facilities there and maintains relationships with his neighbors.

Then news reached the south of Bohemia: The lower nobility is dissatisfied with Duke Wladislaw's administration. From their point of view, the young sovereign takes too little account of the interests of the landlords. Some powerful nobles unite in the uprising under the leadership of Konrad von Znojmo. Sobeslav's heir, Wladislaw, also joins. This makes the situation clear for Witiko: The heir, who in his view is the direct descendant of the last Duke Soběslav, has squandered his rights to Konrad, thus legitimizing the rule of the elected Wladislav for Witiko. With some men from the surrounding villages and farms, Witiko moves to Duke Wladislav to help him fight the rebels under Konrad von Znojmo.

The armies of Wladislaw and Konrad meet in Wysoka for battle. The troops of Duke Wladislav are outnumbered and lose some troops in battle through betrayal. But the fighters from the Bohemian Forest, including Witiko and his colleagues, are able to close the gaps and keep the battle undecided. When it becomes clear that a clear decision cannot be expected on the battlefield, Duke Wladislaw decides to retreat to Prague. Most of his men holed up there against Konrad's troops and defended the ducal seat, while he himself went to Nuremberg with a small retinue to ask for the support of the German King Konrad at the Reichstag there .

The German princes decide to give Wladislaw military support. On the way back from Franconia to Prague, other warriors join the army. When the mighty relief army appeared in front of Prague, Konrad's troops gave up the siege of Prague in view of the overwhelming power and withdrew. Duke Wladislaw bids farewell to the German allies, distributes booty and dismisses his followers. Witiko goes back to Oberplan.

Soon there is another uprising in Moravia. Bishop Heinrich Zdik von Olmütz , a confidante of Duke Wladislaw, has to flee. Witiko brings him unrecognized to the Bishop of Passau . From there he travels to Vienna and visits the Margrave of Austria , in whose castle his mother also lives.

Back at Gut Oberplan, Witiko begins an extensive armaments and training program and prepares the farmers and villagers for future battles. Indeed, next spring, Duke Vladislav is calling all his followers to train against the Moravian rebels under Konrad von Znojmo. A well-armed army moves east, defeats the rebels, takes the castle of Znojmo and strengthens the rule over Bohemia and Moravia.

Witiko is appointed liege lord of his area and builds his own castle. This fulfills the conditions under which his neighbor in Bavaria, Heinrich von Jugelbach, wanted to give him his daughter Bertha as his wife. Witiko marries her and moves to Italy with his well-armed knights twice more to support the imperial cities of Northern Italy against the rebellious Milan with Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa .

Structure and style

The novel is divided into three volumes, each containing three to four chapters. Stifter's language is interspersed with archaic sprinkles (so he consistently writes morning , noon , evening and midnight for the cardinal points and largely uses the Germanic names of the months - such as hay moon instead of June).

The ceremonial dialogues of the meetings are reproduced in epic breadth, and the medieval forms of courtesy can also be found in detailed fussiness. As a result, Stifter's carefully refined style sometimes appears sedate and strange from today's perspective.

Emergence

Adalbert Stifter: The Wittinghausen ruins (1833/35)

For a long time, Stifter had planned a historical novel about the time of the Babenbergs and the Rosenbergs . The starting point for the Witiko is the ruins of Wittinghausen Castle in the Bohemian Forest, which Adalbert Stifter had already fascinated in his youth. In the novel it becomes Burg Witikohaus , which the hero has built at the end of the novel. The family of the Witigonen and their rose coat of arms are historically documented, as are the rulers in the novel and the figure of Witiko, who was the chief attendant of Bohemia in the middle of the 12th century . The minor characters in the novel are fictitious.

In the last years of his life, Stifter familiarized himself intensively with the Middle Ages, its weapons, customs and the details of the history of Bohemia . His ambition was to report as authentically as possible. He made minor historical mistakes that he was made aware of after the first volume was published (for example the fact that Witiko eats with a knife and fork in Hauzenberg) and embarrassed the author.

Meaning & reception

Stifter himself saw his Witiko as a historical novel in the tradition of Walter Scott ( Ivanhoe , The Heart of Midlothian ). However, there are worlds between the two. While Scott used the historical background to create romantic adventure stories with e.g. In telling hair-raising twists and turns, Stifter takes the opposite path: the hero's adventures are set against all dangers; on the one hand, the novel is the developmental novel of an ideal type of person. In this respect Witiko is similar to the hero of the summer , only that he has already brought his upbringing behind him and has to prove himself in reality.

On the other hand, however, the action around Witiko provides the pivotal point to be able to depict the major political and historical events of the 12th century depicted vividly and vividly. Stifter himself has stated that his main concern is the overall history.

In 2019, the Austrian author and Nobel Prize winner for literature, Peter Handke, confessed in an interview with the German newspaper ZEIT that he had not understood Witiko when he first read it , but was "hypnotized" when he read it again a few years ago: "A great, huge book. It sounds like that Old Testament, of course without God. [...] What Stifter did, nobody before him and nobody after him did. There are no such beautiful stories in any book of the Bible. Perhaps in the book of Ruth, but they are short. One would like to I like longer stories. "

The forest wall by the Austrian writer Michael Donhauser , published in 2016, sees itself in the generic structure of Stifter's "attempt at sealing" Witiko as his paraphrase - and was awarded the Heimrad-Bäcker Prize and the "New Texts" Essay Prize in 2019.

Current issues

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ DIE ZEIT November 21, 2019, features section p. 62.
  2. ↑ Ad Dichtungsversuch , so the generic name of Witiko von Stifter in the dedication, see: https://www.uibk.ac.at/germanistik/stifter/witiko/htm/widmung.html
  3. ↑ Ad Paraphrase ; see. the subtitle of Waldwand - Eine Paraphrase ; For the procedure, see the publisher's description: "By [Michael Donhauser, note] explaining, quoting and reporting Stifter's attempt at poetry, a unique text of an unknown genre emerges: poetry, epic and philology merge into a reading experience that is not just one of the great texts the German-language literature can be rediscovered and read along, but also makes this text fruitful for your own experience like reading instructions. " ( https://www.matthes-seitz-berlin.de/buch/waldwand.html?lid=1 )
  4. ↑ Heimrad Bäcker Award ceremony in the Stifterhaus in Linz on stifterhaus.at
  5. ↑ Heimrad-Bäcker-Preis award ceremony on matthes-seitz-berlin.de