Anna Zegers
(Anna Seghers, p. 1909)
Anna Zegers is one of the outstanding masters of literature socialist realism. Zegers is the pseudonym of the writer, her real name is Netty Reiling. She was born in Mainz, into a wealthy family of the owner of an antiques and art store. She studied at the Universities of Cologne and Heidelberg, where she studied philology and art history.
Segers' literary tastes were formed both in the traditions of German classical and world literature. During her student years, she became interested in Balzac and Russian literature—Turgenev, Gogol, L. Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky.
On becoming political views The writer was influenced by her participation in the student movement and revolutionary events in Russia and Germany. October Revolution, as Zegers says, “was of great importance to me... the meaning of justice was truly revealed to me thanks to the October Revolution.”
The beginning of Zegers's literary activity dates back to the 20s, when her first works appeared in print: “Grubetsch” (Grubetsch, 1926) and “The Zieglers” (Die Zieglern, 1927).
Segers's first major work, which brought her literary recognition, was the story “The Fishermen's Revolt” (Der Aufstand der Fischer von St. Barbara, 1928). For this story she was awarded one of the highest literary prizes in Weimar Germany - the. G. Kleist.
In the story, the writer develops the theme of the liberation movement, the people’s struggle for their economic and political rights, which will become the main theme of all her work.
Zegers talks about the fishermen's uprising caused by the unbearable conditions of their life. She skillfully and sparingly conveys the harsh and gloomy flavor of life in a fishing village. The writer did well with the crowd scenes - at the gathering, in the tavern, before going to sea.
The story fully revealed Zegers' desire to develop the most burning social problems. At the same time, she shows great courage and honesty. Zegers is against embellishing life; she strives to portray the truth, no matter how bitter this truth may sometimes be. Its fishermen are uninformed and unorganized, but during the uprising, which is largely spontaneous, the courage and bravery of folk heroes such as Andreas Bruin and others are revealed.
The young writer did not succeed in everything in this book. She did not get rid of some expressionist tendencies, which prevented her from fully realizing an important and significant plan. This especially affected the image of the leader of the uprising, Gull, who leaves an unclear, contradictory impression. It is marked by some kind of mystery, reticence, ambiguity.
By his nature, Gull is a stern and courageous person, and at the same time he is haunted by some kind of unaccountable fear. He clearly lacks integrity. The reader knows almost nothing about his views and beliefs. It is difficult to even say whether he belongs to any party. There is no consistency and clarity in his actions.
In the picture characters and the setting also feels the stamp of abstraction and reticence. It is not even clear in what country and at what time the action takes place in “The Fishermen's Revolt.”
A certain touch of naturalism also makes itself felt in the story, especially when depicting episodes related to the maid Maria.
Four years after the appearance of The Fishermen's Revolt, the novel The Companions (Die Gefährten, 1932) was published. These years were marked by significant ideological growth for Zegers, who in Satellites appeared from consistently revolutionary positions.
“Satellites” is dedicated to the depiction of the revolutionary movement, the activities of the communist parties of different countries - Hungary, Bulgaria, Italy, Poland, China.
The book begins with a depiction of the events associated with the defeat of the Hungarian Revolution in 1919. Despite the fact that the novel depicted the defeat of the proletariat in a number of European countries, Seghers pursued the idea of the inevitable triumph of the cause of the revolution.
The author creates images of courageous revolutionaries: the Hungarian Kovacs, the Bulgarian Dudov, the Pole Janek, the Chinese Liau Han-chi and others. They live in different countries, do not know each other, but they are united by common goals, a common struggle. They are comrades, companions in the liberation struggle of humanity. The writer depicts the difficulties of this struggle, which requires strong will, conviction in the rightness of one’s cause, and determination. It shows what tortures and subtle tortures the enemies resort to in order to break the will of the communists.
The theme of the Soviet Union, standing at the forefront of the liberation struggle of the peoples of the world, runs through the entire novel. The writer showed the enormous revolutionary significance of the very fact of the existence of the USSR, the growth of its power and successes in various areas of economic and cultural construction.
"Satellites" testified to the strengthening of Zegers' realist skills. This was manifested in the depiction of characters and the surrounding world. The author, however, does not show his heroes comprehensively here either, but only draws them episodically, in the most important points their lives. But the reader no longer has a feeling of ambiguity or lack of understanding. Zegers still pays a lot of attention to depicting the inner world of his heroes, but avoids complexity and excessive detail of the psychological picture.
The novel “The Way Through February” (Der Weg durch den Februar, 1935) is dedicated to depicting the barricade battles of the Viennese proletariat in February 1934. Segers showed the betrayal of the Social Democratic leaders, who ideologically disarmed the workers and in every possible way contributed to the split of the labor movement.
The depiction of events begins at the end of 1933. Unemployment was rampant in the country, and the ruling classes attacked the economic and political rights of workers. In response to this, the workers, contrary to the opportunist policies of the Social Democratic leaders, take up arms and rebel. One of the Social Democratic leaders, Riedl, constantly instills in the workers the idea that in Austria everything will work out peacefully, without weapons, and that the experience of the Bolsheviks is not suitable here.
The authorities suppress the uprising with extraordinary cruelty. But the bloody events were not in vain. They sobered up many workers who had been deceived by right-wing Social Democracy. The young man Fritz tells Riedl, who was his spiritual mentor, about his deep disappointment in the Social Democratic Party: “Everything with us was fundamentally wrong... We were taught that everything could get better and better... You should have prepared us to casemates, to hard labor prisons, to gunfire, to an illegal situation.”
“The Path Through February” still remains relevant today, helping to fight the betrayal of social democratic leaders.
While in exile (first in France, and since 1940 in Mexico), Zegers carried out extensive social and political work. In 1935, she participated in the work of the International Congress for the Defense of Culture, in 1937 - in the work of the II International Congress of Writers and in a number of other anti-fascist congresses. She never tires of exposing fascism, pointing out its great danger for the cause of peace and freedom,
The thought of the USSR strengthens her faith in the success of the anti-fascist movement. In the article “We Think about the Soviet Country” (Wir denken an das Sowjetland, 1937) she writes about the importance of our country for the world liberation movement, about the growing prestige and influence of the USSR.
During the Patriotic War, the writer followed the heroic struggle with pride and hope. Soviet people, believed in our victory over Nazi Germany.
After the defeat of fascism, Segers returned to his homeland, joining in active work to build a new Germany, in the fight against the revival of fascism and militarism.
The words Segers said during her visit to our country in 1951 sound like an oath: “As a communist, writer, mother, I will do everything to prevent war.”
Of all the works of Zegers of the 40s. Her novels “The Seventh Cross” and “The Dead Stay Young” gained the greatest fame and popularity.
“The Seventh Cross” (Das siebte Kreuz) was written in 1937-1939, at which time it was partially published in the USSR. It was published in America in 1942. In Germany, the novel appeared in its entirety only in 1946.
"The Seventh Cross" is a novel about the underground anti-fascist movement in Germany, about its difficulties and prospects. It was written by a stern and courageous realist who told the reader the bitter truth. The book shows the defeat of the revolutionary movement in Germany. Many thousands of the best fighters were tortured or shot in concentration camps shortly after the fascist coup. Subsequently, the German people turned out to be incapable of a broad underground anti-fascist movement.
It would be wrong to deny the existence of popular resistance to fascism in Germany. It certainly was. And where the struggle against Hitlerism was carried out, it was led by the surviving communists.
The plot of the novel is based on the story of the escape of seven prisoners from the Westhofen concentration camp. The unprecedented case of mass escape alarmed the fascists, who, not without reason, view this as a challenge to the entire Nazi regime. The head of the camp, the sadist Farenberg, vowed to catch all the fugitives and crucify them on crosses. But he failed to complete this.
In developing the anti-fascist theme, Zegers followed her own path. She devotes relatively little space to describing the atrocities of the Nazi executioners, which had already been done with great force in the books of Bredel (“The Test”), Langhof (“Swamp Soldiers”) and some others. They depicted only one side of German life - the concentration camp, the courage of anti-fascists in the conditions of the most difficult trials of the fascist regime. German reality as a whole remained, as a rule, outside the scope of these books.
Zegers takes the narrative mainly outside the concentration camp.
She set out to create a broad, multifaceted canvas of Germany as a whole. She needed to show how different layers of the German people treated fascism, how deeply the Nazis managed to morally corrupt the German people, who could be relied upon in the anti-fascist struggle.
The first impressions of Georg Geisler, who fled from Westhotheia, were discouraging. He thought he would meet people overwhelmed by bitterness and shame for their homeland, but he saw something else. Here he is watching the street along which various people are walking: “Sitting in Westhofen, he imagined a completely different street. Then it seemed to him that shame was reflected on every face, in every stone of the pavement, that grief should muffle every step, every word, even the games of children. But on this street everything was peaceful, people seemed happy.”
Seghers showed how one part of the German population supported Hitler’s policies, while the other, intimidated and demoralized, reconciled with Nazism and abandoned the fight. But no matter how gloomy the picture painted in the novel may be, Zegers does not draw a pessimistic conclusion. It shows that even in these most difficult conditions the anti-fascist struggle was carried out, although its scale was small.
The communists Geisler and Wallau are depicted in the novel as true heroes of the anti-fascist Resistance. Of these, Geisler is depicted with the greatest completeness and versatility; the image of Wallau is less thoroughly and fully revealed. Wallau is a professional revolutionary, a member of the Reichstag, a man of great intelligence and iron will, who had a significant influence on Geisler, who considers him his ideological teacher and inspirer. It is not without reason that in the most difficult moments of his life, Geisler always mentally turns to his friend, trying to imagine what Wallau would have done in this case. Brought back to the camp, Wallau showed himself stronger than his executioners, who, no matter how atrocious they were, could not break the will of the fighter.
The image of Georg Geisler is a particularly great creative success for Seghers. IN previous works the writer repeatedly portrayed the leaders and organizers of the revolutionary movement. These images did not always work out for her. In Geisler's depiction she avoided schematism and achieved great truthfulness. Thanks to the episodes from Geisler's past life introduced into the novel, Zegers was able to show his character in development. In his youth, he was little different from other teenagers from a working environment. However, neither mischief nor sport could occupy him completely. Serving the cause of the revolution elevates, ennobles, makes Geisler's character purposeful and courageous. He owes much to Wallau, who had a profound influence on him. “Who could have foreseen,” says Franz Marnet, “that Georg would turn out like this? Our honor, our glory, our safety suddenly found itself in his hands. Everything was the same - his novels, his tricks, everything was nonsense, not the main thing.”
The will to fight and win, great resourcefulness and endurance ensured Geisler's success in escaping from the concentration camp. This success is least due to luck. One of those who escaped, Fühlgrabe, turned out to be even more fortunate, but, having broken free, he became a coward and decided that he still could not escape the Gestapo. He voluntarily returns to the Nazi executioners in the hope that they will take into account his repentance. In the scene of the meeting after Georg's escape from Fühlgrabe, Seghers very clearly showed the clash of two different worldviews. One of those who fled was the living embodiment of the spirit of struggle, the other was broken and had already capitulated to the enemies.
The writer shows the greatness of Geisler's feat, but she does not embellish the hero even in the most difficult and critical moments of his life. Having escaped from the camp, pursued by the Nazis, Georg experiences a feeling of fear. But he overcomes fear, he daily and hourly triumphs over the manifestations of his own weakness.
When creating the image of Geisler, Zegers' writing skills and realism were clearly demonstrated. She uses a wide variety of artistic means to reveal his inner world, to convincingly and authentically depict his character.
Geisler's feat was not in vain. He awakened the consciousness of those honest Germans who, for various reasons, retreated from the struggle, from political life. These are Franz Marnet, Hermann, Paul Raeder, who at one time took part in the labor movement. Geisler's escape shook them up and forced them to re-engage in the anti-fascist struggle. This is the engineer Kress and his wife, who sheltered Geisler. They experienced a feeling of fear of possible persecution and at the same time a feeling of gratitude to George, who helped them become better, morally purer. These same people include the priest who hid Geisler’s prison clothes from the police, the doctor who bandaged him, and the woman who gave him a lift in the car.
Among ordinary Germans, variously involved in the fate of Georg, the images of the upholsterer Mittenheimer and the student of the agricultural school Helwig stand out. Mittenheimer is a typical philistine, a law-abiding German, ready to submit to any authority. But this man, far from politics, is outraged by the rude treatment of him by Nazi officials. He begins to think about questions that he recently passed by indifferently. And the young Nazi Helwig is very annoyed that Georg changed into his jacket, and wants the fugitive to be caught as quickly as possible. But the gardener Kohler carefully helps the young man approach this story differently, awakening sympathy for the daredevil. And when the jacket was found, Gelwig did not identify it and thereby deliberately directed the search along the wrong path.
Georg's connection with best sons her people helped him emerge victorious in a duel with the Nazis. It is not for nothing that one of them, Farenberg, admits in his impotence that he is “chasing not after an individual person, whose face he knows, whose strength has a limit, but after a faceless and inexhaustible force.”
The seventh cross, on which they wanted to crucify Geisler, became a symbol of the powerlessness of the Nazis, a hint of their impending defeat.
The originality of the novel's composition lies in the fact that Geisler stands at the center of the narrative, p. There are many other characters associated with him, often depicted episodically. Writer with great art, with two or three strokes he can create a living, bright image. The attitude towards Geisler's escape immediately reveals the essence of a particular character.
Zegers has mastered the art of storytelling superbly; she creates a very dynamic, dramatically poignant plot, the development of which the reader follows with unflagging interest. Depending on the nature of the phenomena depicted, Zegers skillfully uses a different style. So, for example, the dramatically intense thoughts of the prisoner in the prologue are replaced by a smooth, leisurely, lyrically colored narrative about the past of the Rhineland.
The national flavor is clearly felt in the novel. “The Seventh Cross” is marked by exceptional diversity and abundance of details in the reproduction of life, customs, and the unique appearance of German cities and villages. Living national specificity is also palpable in the language of the novel, rich and colorful, widely containing, along with literary, bookish speech, colloquial vernacular...” 1 .
The novel “The Seventh Cross” is adjacent to the novel “The Saboteurs” (Die Saboteure), which is a kind of epilogue. In it, the writer again returns to the problems raised in the novel. The novella depicts the unsuccessful attempt of several communists to organize sabotage at a military plant during the Second World War. This attempt did not produce the desired results, since the intimidated workers did not support the communists.
The novella features Franz Marnet, Hermann Schulze, and Kress, already familiar from the novel, who at one time helped Geisler escape abroad.
“The Seventh Cross” is the pinnacle of Seghers’s work, one of the best works of German anti-fascist literature.
"Transit" (Transit, 1943) is one of the exciting works dedicated to tragic fate anti-fascist emigrant. It was completed by Zegers during the years of emigration in Mexico. It reflected the sad impressions experienced by the writer herself in the last painful and alarming months of her stay in France, in Marseille, on the eve of leaving for Mexico, when a significant part of French territory was occupied by the Nazis, and a difficult fate awaited German emigrants.
The novel is narrated on behalf of the main character, the anti-fascist Seidler, who tells his dark story.
Finding himself in an internment camp, he waited every minute to be handed over to the Nazis. With great difficulty, he manages to escape, reach Marseille and, having received a visa, leave for Mexico.
Seidler - average person, overwhelmed by a feeling of confusion. He is exhausted by the trials that befell him and dreams of a little quiet happiness. He is honest, sincere, but he is not a fighter. The spirit of struggle, so characteristic of Zegers' works, is least noticeable in Transit. At the same time, this is the most lyrical work of the writer.
Seghers's novel “The Dead Stay Young” (Die Toten bleiben jung, 1949) is significant in its ideological and artistic concept, which poses fundamental questions of the socio-political development of Germany over a quarter of a century. In a wide epic canvas they are resurrected major events in the life of the German people from the end of the First World War to the defeat of Hitler's army at Stalingrad.
The reader is presented with vivid pictures of the life of all layers of German society, from industrialists, Prussian Junkers and ending with peasants, workers, and the Berlin poor.
A thoughtful artist, Seghers convincingly depicts the socio-historical background to the Nazi seizure of power, which led Germany to a national catastrophe. The author shows the true owners of the fascist empire - the Ruhr industrial magnates. It was they who were interested in Hitler's demagoguery, in his pseudo-socialism. Castricius speaks about this with cynical frankness: “The working class is now only interested in socialism, but not in capitalism.” Or: “We need to find the right person with a cunning program so that we continue to keep the workers in our hands.” Therefore, Castricius demagogically advises: “We need to declare socialism state religion so that he doesn’t destroy us from below, like in Russia.”
Next to Castricius stands the image of another industrialist, Klemm, who not only finances the Nazi party, but is also an active member of it.
Segers refutes the legend created in the circles of the reactionary Prussian military, according to which Prussian officers and generals were supposedly opponents of the Hitler regime. The writer shows the groundlessness of such views. The representatives of Wilhelm's officers, Wenzlow and Stachwitz, depicted in the novel, were the direct implementers of Hitler's policies.
A repulsive impression is made by the former officer Ernst Lieven, a completely immoral person, morally devastated, hating and despising the people, unprincipled, selling himself to anyone who pays. It is he who turns out to be a suitable person for the post of one of the bosses in the Nazi party.
In the image of the peasant Nadler, those layers that were the support of fascism in the countryside are brought out.
The writer still pays a lot of attention to the lives of ordinary people, workers, artisans, who have always been the main characters of her works. Among them, the image of the worker, ordinary social democrat Teschke, who never overcame reformist illusions, and his wife Maria, a simple woman, at times reminiscent of Gorky’s Nilovna, stands out. All her life she stood aloof from politics, devoting herself to caring for her family and children. But this woman, politically underdeveloped, is characterized by a desire for justice and honesty. At first she only harbors distrust of the Nazis, but later it develops into hostility towards the Hitler regime. She fears for the lives of her children, who were in the grip of Nazi ideology.
Maria gradually abandons her apoliticality and apathy, and gradually joins the anti-fascist struggle. This transition to active action is shown by Zegers convincingly and truthfully.
The novel depicts images of communists selflessly fighting the hated regime - Martya, Lemle, Strobel and others. Many of them died, but their work was continued by representatives younger generation. So, in the place of the executed participant in the November Revolution of 1918 Erwin, his son Hans and other young men will take the place. The idea of continuity of revolutionary traditions is peculiarly emphasized in the title of the novel.
However, the communists are described briefly in the novel; they are shown little in practical underground work. The reader does not know what Triebel is busy with, apart from arguing with the Social Democrats, and Martin’s underground work is almost not shown. This is all the more surprising since sometimes the small, insignificant experiences of such nonentities as Ernst Lieven and others like him are described in much more detail.
Segers failed to fully show the activities of the German Communist Party, led by Thälmann, which was one of the most influential political parties in pre-fascist Germany. Such significant miscalculations prevented the novel's concept from being revealed more fully and convincingly.
In the 50s Zegers wrote several cycles of stories, varying in their themes. Here are stories about the leading role of communists in various countries, the growth of their influence and close connection with the people (the collection “Line”), and stories about the new, post-war Germany (the collection “Peace”), and stories about the struggle for peace (the collection “The First Step” " - Der erste Schritt, 1952).
“Peace” (Friedensgeschichten, 1950) is a collection of small sketches dedicated to the theme of the peaceful creative work of the German people. The writer talks mainly about the post-war restructuring in the countryside, about the difficulties on the way to creating a new peace-loving state.
The story “Man and His Name” (Der Mann und sein Name, 1952) is dedicated to the depiction of post-war German reality. It touches on the pressing issues facing the young democratic state. One of them was the attitude towards former Nazis.
The GDR government has stated that it considers it its duty to return social life as full citizens of former Nazi Party members if they do not serve sentences for their crimes.
The hero of the story, former SS man Walter Retzlov, breaks with his past and becomes an honest worker, a citizen of the GDR.
Zegers has certain difficulties in mastering new topics, so she did not succeed in everything in the story.
Seghers gives a deep and comprehensive development of the theme of building a new life in the novel “The Decision” (Die Entscheidung, 1959), which became the first part of the dilogy.
The novel takes place in post-war Germany, East and West, then in the GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany, as well as in the USA, Mexico, and France. But the writer’s focus is on depicting life in the GDR, building a new society, and the difficulties that arise along this path.
One of the first difficulties is general devastation: houses, factories, schools were destroyed. We need to start all over again, and most importantly, we need to instill faith in the souls of desperate people.
The reader meets a wide variety of people representing all walks of life in post-war Germany. Among the characters in the novel we see communists, party and economic leaders. But as in previous novels, the writer brings to the fore ordinary people, “average Germans”, sometimes irresponsible, often making mistakes.
In essence, all of Seghers’ work is, first of all, a struggle for the soul of the “average German”. The writer wants to know this soul as best as possible, “to help it cleanse and strengthen...” 2.
The focus of her attention is on the affairs and people of the Kossinsky Metallurgical Plant, successes and difficulties in the formation of a new person, in establishing a conscious attitude towards work. In this regard, the image of one of the central characters of the novel, Robert Lohse, is interesting. Outwardly, he is a gloomy and reserved person, but honest and principled, in the past he was an active participant in the anti-fascist movement. He conscientiously works as a mechanic, but he is attracted by the desire to be an educator of working teenagers, an instructor of industrial training. On this basis, he has a conflict with the trade union organizer Strucks, a limited man who saw in Lohse’s desire almost a manifestation of careerism.
As always, Anna Zegers pays a lot of attention to young people and the formation of their character in new conditions. I immediately remember Thomas Helger, a former street child who found his calling at the factory, Lisa Tsekh, Tony Endres.
The novel shows how hostile forces in every possible way hinder the construction of a new society, organize all kinds of sabotage, lure specialists to the West and create additional difficulties.
From time to time, the action of the novel is transferred to West Germany, where the reader meets the images of Castricius, Spranger, Bentheim, familiar to him from the novel “The Dead Stay Young,” who played a fatal role in the country’s national tragedy. They are still thriving and are protected by the occupation authorities. Bentheim does not lose hope of returning to Kossin, again becoming the owner of the plant, declared a national enterprise.
Anti-fascist Herbert Meltzer emigrated to America before the war. Becoming famous writer and a journalist, he comes to West Germany and sees how representatives of the American authorities support the militarists and revanchists. He writes a truthful book about this, however, it does not suit the owners of American publishing houses, and they stop publishing Meltzer. But he makes his choice, again returning to active anti-militaristic activity, from which he had retreated at one time.
In an era of intense struggle, the writer argues, there can be no neutrals. Every person faces a choice, a decision, everyone must answer the question: whose side is he on, what is he defending, who is he fighting against. From this point of view, she is primarily interested in the numerous heroes of the novel.
It contains many lively, memorable images, but not all of them were successful for the writer. Sometimes the characters who play an important role in the ideological plan (communists Martin, Richard, Hagen, Vogt) are not fully and deeply characterized. Some descriptions associated with the Kossinsky plant resemble a dry report.
Compositionally, the novel “Decision” is structured differently than “The Seventh Cross,” where the narrative was centered around the main character. In "The Decision" there is no such character, and the narrative moves from one character to another.
The second volume of Anna Zegers's dilogy is the novel “Trust” (Das Vertrauen, 1968), which serves as a continuation of “Decision”. It has basically the same characters, the same setting.
But life has changed, it has presented people with new problems and new possibilities for solving them. Depending on this, the writer's emphasis changes. Other heroes appear in the foreground. The place of Robert Lohse, who played one of the main roles in “The Decision,” is taken by Thomas Helger, a young mechanic at the Kossinsky factory, minor character in the previous novel.
With the formation of a new society, moral and ethical problems arise with great urgency. One of them is the problem of trust, understood broadly and posed in different aspects. Segers, in this novel, shows great courage and boldness in depicting the most pressing and exciting themes of the social development of the GDR.
In conditions of aggravated international situation The theme of trust is closely related to the issue of vigilance. Trusting people does not mean being complacent and losing vigilance to the enemy’s machinations. Zegers shows what mistakes and failures lead to manifestations of carelessness and complacency, cleverly used by the enemy. But vigilance does not mean mistrust, which poisons people’s relationships and prevents them from living.
At the center of the novel is a critical moment in the life of the GDR - the events of June 17, 1953, when the forces of reaction attempted to carry out a counter-revolutionary coup. To ensure the success of this adventure, individual mistakes and miscalculations were cleverly used economic management, which caused discontent among some workers. The enemies of the GDR managed to win over to their side less conscious workers, such as Jaiausch, Heiner Schantz, Weber and others.
But the leading part of the German people, the youth, trusted their government, and the counter-revolutionary adventure was defeated. Among those who repelled the onslaught of reaction we see Thomas Helger, life path who was not infallible, but who, in the hour of the most difficult trials, without hesitation found his place. “They want everything to freeze here,” he says, “the hell with it!” We will work!"
Zegers likes to portray his heroes at such critical moments, when it is best to see what a person is worth. Particularly noteworthy is the image of Ella Bush, a cheerful woman who even gave the impression of being a little frivolous. At the decisive moment, she turns out to be capable of a feat. She tries to stop the rioters, sacrificing herself and her unborn child.
During acute social conflicts Leaders are also tested, and they do not always pass the test of life. This happened with the party worker Paul Meeseberg, who thought too dogmatically and sectarianly, although subjectively he was devoted to the cause of socialism. Something similar happened with the youth leader Lina Sachse. It is no coincidence that these leaders cease to influence the course of events and lose the trust of the team.
Not everything is perfect in the behavior of the party leader of the plant, Richard Hagen, an honest and principled communist. He did not delve enough into the daily life of the workers, into their requests, demands, and opinions. And he condemned himself for this: “Maybe it’s my own fault? Of course... You were far from them. Little did you know. About the lives of these people, about their work.”
The director of the Ulshperger plant is of a different type, a man of great life experience and a difficult fate. He is convinced of the rightness of his cause; his deep principles have not been shaken by severe trials in the past. Ulshperger's hardness is combined with humanity, he knows how to find a way to hearts. He critically analyzes his behavior, his miscalculations, which made it possible for enemy propaganda to lead, albeit temporarily, many workers astray from the right path.
An important ideological function in the novel is performed by Karl Waldstein, a teacher and director of a boarding school, a courageous revolutionary and an amazingly sincere person. Those who were lucky enough to study with him and live next to him will never forget him. He is remembered with gratitude by both his long-time students and yesterday's street children whom he brought into the public eye. In difficult times, they always turn to Waldstein, whose words they believe.
The Zegers dilogy has great educational and artistic value. It gives the reader rich material for thought and helps him better understand the political and moral processes taking place in the GDR.
Anna Zegers does a lot of social and political work. She is a member of the World Peace Council and the International Lenin Prize Committee, and was elected several times as chairman of the GDR Writers' Union. For outstanding achievements in literary and social activities Segers in 1951 was awarded the International Lenin Prize “For Strengthening Peace Among Nations”, as well as the National Prizes of the GDR
Notes
1. Motyleva T. L. Anna Zegers. M., 1953, p. 135.
2. Motyleva T. L. Afterword to the novel by A. Zegers “Decision”. M., 1961, p. 641.
Composition
The work of Anna Zegers (1900-1983) is one of the most significant phenomena in the literature of socialist realism. She has written short stories, novels, a radio play, journalistic articles, articles and essays on art issues, but her artistic talent has been especially evident in the genre of the novel.
* “I feel the need to write novels in German conditions. This genre is most suitable for explaining complex things. And the readers of my country themselves admit that they need such clarifications.”
These words were spoken by the writer in 1960, in the conditions of the GDR, but they could have been spoken earlier: the need to write novels arose in Anna Segers from the very beginning creative path.
Anna Zegers is an epic in the true sense of the word. Movement is the soul of her books. This is not about the degree of their eventfulness - Zegers has novels that are both action-packed (“Companions”, “The Path Through February”) and less eventful (“Salvation”, “Transit”), but the point is primarily in the embodiment of developing life, changes in social atmosphere, evolution of people's feelings and thoughts. Zegers takes life broadly, in its socio-historical development, in its present-day essence and prospects. She is interested in every detail, because the big exists in the small, and she knows how to see the ocean through a drop.
Zegers' style is often close to that of the stage: she is more willing to show than to tell; life in her novels exists as if independently, developing according to its own laws. But the author’s thought keeps everything in sight artistic painting, purposefully organizing it. The world appears in Zeghers’s novels as crowded, multi-layered, in complex webs of contradictions and struggles, and at the same time not chaotic, but holistic, as if united by the main direction of historical development.
Anna Segers' novels are a chronicle of German history from 1929, from the days of the Spartak uprising, to the days of the extensive construction of a new life in the GDR. The writer recreates the path of the people with stern clairvoyance and great love, without bypassing either the heroic or shameful pages of history, striving to expose the truth to the end. Her novels are books about people, about their ordinary and extraordinary lives, about their difficult, indirect path to the light.
Zegers deeply penetrates into the “dialectic of the soul”, into the complex and contradictory processes hidden in the inner world of man. She depicts characters in their variability, in their progressive or regressive movement associated with the development of history. At the same time, Zegers takes a particularly close look at how courage, a sense of civic responsibility and human dignity awaken in the hearts of “little”, ordinary people. “The strength of the weak” - this is what she called one of her collections of stories, and this could be the main theme of her works. The traditions of European novelism are crossed with bold artistic quests, forming new traditions. Among the artists whose works made a deep impression on her, Anna Zegers named Balzac and Stendhal, Dreiser and London, Kafka and Fontane. She showed great interest in Dostoevsky. L. Tolstoy had a deep influence on her.
Creative biography A. Zegers began in the 20s, when she was a university student. The daughter of a wealthy burgher (her father was the owner of an antique store and at the same time the curator of the Mainz Cathedral Museum), she joined the ranks of the Communist Party in 1927, forever linking her fate with the revolutionary struggle of the German proletariat. In the book “The Revolt of the Fishermen” (1928), the young writer talked about how people, oppressed by “need, destitute, living a terrible and dark life,” take their first step in the struggle. The book is about the defeat of the uprising, but also about what it was for these people, what was revealed to them, what changed in their minds, in their souls.
“Satellites” (1932) is a novel about the struggle of communists in different countries against the fascist reaction in the 20s. - one of the first attempts to create European literature anti-fascist epic novel. The action is full of intense dynamics of struggle, the course of events is emphatically rapid. Close-up images of communists are given, the heroism of the revolutionary struggle, loyalty to the party in conditions of brutal persecution of revolutionary fighters is clearly presented.
Anna Zegers. Biography and review of creativity
1900-1983
Anna Seghers belongs to those German communist writers who, back in the 20s, took the path of socialist realism. “After all, we write not for the sake of description, but in order to change the world,” she said in the article “In the Writer’s Workshop.”
Anna Segers (real name Nettie Rehling) was born in the city of Mainz, into a wealthy, intelligent family. She studied at the University of Heidelberg, then at the University of Cologne. During her studies, she became close to student revolutionaries.
N. Reling's first works were short stories, published in the Frankfurter Zeitung newspaper. Subsequently, some of them were included in the collection “On the Road to the American Embassy,” published in 1930. The best of these stories were socially critical in nature. In the story "Grubech" the hero was an unemployed man, in the short story "Zieglers" it was about ruined artisans, in the story "On the Way to the American Embassy", after which the entire collection was named, depicted protest demonstrations that took place in European cities regarding the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti.
In 1927, N. Reling’s first novel, “The Fishermen’s Revolt,” was published, first signed under the pseudonym of Anna Zegers, after one of the heroines early stories. This novel was a great success and received the Kleist Literary Prize. It takes place in a fishing village on the shores of the North Sea. The names of the characters are of Breton, German and Dutch origin. This emphasizes that the events described in the novel are typical for many countries. The fishermen, exhausted by poverty and cruel exploitation, rebelled against their capitalist masters. The uprising is spontaneous and ends in failure: the fishermen go to sea under the same conditions. But the novel does not at all have a pessimistic tone. On the contrary, it inspires confidence that the spirit of struggle will henceforth live in the hearts of local residents. The images of Andreas Bruini, a young fisherman who continues to fight after the liquidation of the uprising, and old Kedenek, bravely rushing at the soldiers, are beautiful; he is killed, but his death served as a signal for the uprising.
The action of the novel takes place against the backdrop of the sea, eternally agitated, boundless, symbolizing the freedom that the rebel fishermen strive for.
This novel was awarded in the bourgeois Weimar Republic, of course, not for its ideological orientation, but for its artistic merits, mainly for its expressive and precise language.
The story "Peasants from Grushov"
Anna Zegers was involved in a lot of social and revolutionary activities; in 1928 she joined the German Communist Party. As everybody advanced people of her time, the writer sees a guarantee of hope in the very existence of the Soviet Union. The story “Peasants from Grushov” shows the struggle of the peasants of Transcarpathian Ukraine with the bourgeois government for the right to use land that they lost back in the 18th century. The peasants are supported by the idea that help can come from distant Russia, from Lenin. One of the heroes, Voychuk, sets off on a long journey: he wants to walk to Lenin. The image of Boychuk is given in the spirit folk art and resembles ancient heroes.
In 1930, Zegers came to the USSR for the first time to attend an international conference of revolutionary writers, which took place in Kharkov. She observed Soviet life with great excitement and interest, which was still familiar to her only from books and newspaper articles. Returning to her homeland, Zegers talks about her impressions in reports at crowded meetings.
In 1933, when the Nazis came to power, Segers left Germany and went to France. She settles in Paris, edits the magazine Neue Deutsche Bletter, and writes on the burning issues of our time. Her book “Thälmann and Hitler” especially stands out. This, on the one hand, is a brilliant description of the leader of the German labor movement, on the other, a sharp pamphlet against Hitler. Zegers participates in congresses of international cultural figures, and in 1937 visits Spain.
In 1939, A. Segers had to leave France, like most German anti-fascist emigrants. Mexico took her in. A. Segers remained in Mexico until 1946, when she was able to return to liberated Germany.
Zegers is deeply interested in the question of the causes of the emergence and development of fascism. In the novel “The Appraised Head” (1934), Seghers talks about the attitude of German peasants towards fascism. In this novel she tells about the revolutionary-minded worker Johann Schultz, who killed a policeman in a skirmish on the street and hid in the village, where local fascists committed suicide against him. Zegers carefully understands the situation of the village. Of course, the family of the kulak Mertz is entirely on the side of the fascists and hates the “Reds,” but the deceived poor man Zillich also ends up on the side of the fascists. With great skill, Zegers shows the “tragedy of darkness” of the village. Zillich thinks that the rich peasant for whom he works will not leave his farmhand in difficult times, so he supports the owner in everything.
However, this novel is not devoid of optimism; it contains pictures of the anti-fascist struggle. The action takes place in the early 30s, when fascism had not yet fully established itself. The fight against fascism is led by communists.
Seventh cross
In 1938, Zegers finished his novel The Seventh Cross. This novel tells about the difficult and heroic journey of a communist who fled from concentration camp Westhofen. Of the seven prisoners who escaped from the camp, six died, but the seventh, communist Georg Geisler, managed to escape and leave Germany safely on a Dutch ship. The seventh cross1 intended for him remained unoccupied.
The entire novel is a description of the several days that the fugitives spent in freedom, hiding from the Gestapo. At first glance, a seemingly hopeless picture of Germany's complete subjugation to fascism is painted. Everywhere we see an insane, mind-numbing fear of the Gestapo. The organizer of the escape, communist Walau, dies, betrayed by his "friend, who had previously been released from the camp with the condition of handing over his friends. Georg's younger brother, whom he carried on his shoulders as a boy at a demonstration, became a stormtrooper and is ready to immediately denounce his brother. Those methods are shown. how the fascists achieve this universal fear and destroy humanity in people. Everyday life in a concentration camp is depicted concisely and simply, without naturalistic details, the main goal of the Gestapo is to make people forget that they are people, to erase their sense of human dignity through torture and beatings.
But among the hunted, intimidated ordinary people, there are often heroes, people of big hearts. Dr. Lowenstein, whom Georg visits on his way to bandage his wounded hand, realizes that he is a man whose help could cost him his life, but he overcomes his fear and fulfills his duty as a doctor. Pity and a sense of duty force worker Paul Raeder, a father of four children, risking his head and the life of his family to help Geisler; He not only hides him at home for the night, but also finds people who smuggle Georg across the border.
“We would read in the “Tribunal” department under the heading “Sentences carried out” the name - Georg Geisler. Wouldn’t your conscience torment you?” - Paul Raeder says to his wife, trembling for their children.
Segers was able to show that there are still living forces in Germany capable of fighting fascism. This was especially valuable in the late 30s, when it seemed that all resistance was broken and underground anti-fascist groups were crushed.
The novel also attracts with its artistic merits. There are many characters in it. Some run through the entire novel, others are revealed in one episode, like young Fritz Helwig or Dr. Kress and his wife. Sometimes the characters do not utter almost a single word on the pages of the novel and yet play a big role, their characters are fully revealed. This is the communist Walau, the inspirer and organizer of the escape, faithful to his cause until the last minute.
Segers took an active part in the construction of the new Germany; Returning to her homeland in 1947, she was vigorously active, fighting to eradicate the remnants of fascism. She writes a number of articles and essays, makes fiery speeches, advocating for peace. “A lot depends on the German teacher,” she says, addressing the teachers, “and how his student will emerge from school depends on him - a duped ignoramus, cannon fodder for mercenary troops, or a powerful fighter for peace.”
Anna Zegers visited the USSR several times, was a delegate to three World Peace Congresses - Paris (1949), Warsaw (1950) and Vienna (1952); the entire progressive world community highly appreciates the merits of the writer. In March 1950, A. Segers was elected a full member of the German Academy of Arts, and on October 6, 1951 she was awarded national award 1st degree, and on December 21, 1953 - International Prize for Strengthening Peace among Nations. In 1956, Anna Seghers became chairman of the German Writers' Union.
"The Dead Stay Young"
In the works of leading German writers - Becher, Bredel, Seghers, Brecht - the close connection of the Nazis with the top of the big bourgeoisie was proven, the true social features of Hitlerism were revealed. The novel by A. Zegers “The Dead Stay Young” contributed to the correct solution of this problem. The writer brought the manuscript of the novel with her from evacuation to Germany in 1947, and it was published in 1949. This novel differs from other works by Seghers in that it covers a large period of time - from 1918 to 1943 and develops an unusually broad picture of life in Germany during this period. The reader is presented with major historical events of those years: class battles in Saxony and the Ruhr, inflation and presidential elections, the burning of the Reichstag and the Munich Agreement, the beginning of the Second World War and the defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad. A. Zegers tries not only to talk about events, but also to reveal their inner essence.
The various layers of German society are vividly depicted and the social role of the bourgeoisie during the years of the establishment of fascism is revealed. Representatives of big capital Klemm and Castricius, with calm cynicism, intend to throw some money at the Nazis so that they distract the workers from their constant interest in the Soviet Union and the construction of communism. They passionately dream of finding a leader for the Nazi party and using him for their own purposes.
In this matter, the representatives of the big bourgeoisie are diligently assisted by officers of the old Prussian army, such as Wentzlow or the hardened cynic from the Ostsee Lieven; they absolutely do not believe in the possibility of a thousand-year Nazi Reich, but they are attracted by the nationalism and cult of aggressive war promoted by Hitler. The fascists are also supported by the fist of Nadler, who frantically clings to his piece of land, corrupted by the soldiery, unaccustomed to work.
It was they who killed the arrested Spartacist, the young worker Erwin, in 1918, allegedly while trying to escape. The novel begins with the scene of this murder. Erwin had a beloved girlfriend, Maria, to whom he wanted to tell about his underground revolutionary work just before his arrest. He didn't have time to do this. Maria never found out where her friend disappeared to. To raise her son with Erwin, Maria married an elderly worker, Geschke.
Segers gives a detailed picture of the life of German workers. It shows their difficult life, constant hardships, the threat of unemployment hanging over them, and shows that part of the blame for the development of fascism lies with the German workers.
The images depicted truthfully in the novel embody Seghers’ faith in the German people and in their healthy powers. This is, first of all, Maria, the beloved of the deceased Erwin, Geschke’s wife. Since childhood, she was distinguished by her active love for people and the desire to help them in trouble. By marrying Geschke, she becomes a real mother for his children and makes no difference between them and her child. Maria is not educated enough to understand what fascism is, she only instinctively feels that its leaders are deceiving the people, and the people are her, her Son Hans and others simple people. This conviction forces her, a quiet, peaceful, middle-aged woman, to begin an underground struggle against the Nazis at the factory where she worked.
Her son Hans also goes against the Nazis. His life is complex and contradictory; his father's old friend, the communist Martin, had a great influence on him. Hans joined the Hitler Youth Society to conduct underground work in it. Once at the front, near Stalingrad, he wants to go over to the Russians. But he is killed on the orders of commander Ventslov, who once killed his father. And this Venclov, himself close to suicide due to the collapse of Hitler’s army, seeing the dead Hans, suddenly remembers the face of his father Erwin.
“The Nazis promised him an earthly paradise, but he did not succumb to deception. They ground him with all the millstones, so that his bones cracked, they threw him into the war, threw him from battle to battle, but they could not kill him, he remained young.” This reveals the meaning of the book’s title – “The Dead Stay Young.”
Zegers has never given such a broad picture of life in any of her works. This is a truly epic canvas, covering an entire era in the life of the German people. But, while depicting historical events, Zegers shows with no less interest the experiences of people, their feelings, thoughts and moods. The writer reveals the essence of fascism and the reasons for its emergence, establishes the degree of guilt of various classes and at the same time demonstrates her unshakable faith in the German people.
In addition to the novel “The Dead Stay Young,” Zegers created many novellas and short stories in the late 40s and 50s. She sometimes touches them historical theme, describing the uprising of blacks in the 18th century. (stories “Wedding in Haiti”, 1949, “Re-establishment of slavery in Guadeloupe”). In the collection “Children,” she talks about the perseverance and courage of the children of revolutionaries, imitating their parents. But the most interesting are those works that depict the life of post-war democratic Germany. Thus, in the short story “Migrants” (collection “The World”) Zegers shows the gradual degeneration of a downtrodden and humiliated poor peasant woman under the influence of new living conditions. The story “The Return” clearly shows what exactly made the apolitical worker Funk initially prefer West Germany, although his family remained in East Germany. Subsequently, Funk wanted to take his family with him, but instead he left for the East. Funk was able to see that in East Germany workers were economically restoring factories, that the aspirations of young people for knowledge were being satisfied, and broad prospects were opening up for everyone.
Solution
In 1959, the novel “The Decision” appeared.
This is the story of a metallurgical plant in the fictional city of Kossin (GDR). The action begins at a time of devastation, in the difficult post-war years. With great difficulty, the workers get the plant damaged by the bombing back into operation; they repair many machines and parts themselves, sometimes without even having the necessary tools. The workers live in poorly equipped, bomb-damaged buildings, receiving meager rations on ration cards.
But the most difficult thing is to cultivate a socialist consciousness. In many, philistinism is still alive, caring only about personal well-being.
The Kossin plant is of great interest to its former owner, Bentheim, who lives in West Germany. Together with adviser Castricius, familiar to the quoter from the novel “The Dead Stay Young,” he maintains close contact with American intelligence. Bentheim, Castricius and the like are helped by the West German press, which prints false reports about everything that is happening in the East. Thus, Western newspapers widely spread the news that the entire top technical intelligentsia fled to the West from the Kossin plant. In fact, only two fled - Chief Engineer Bütner and Professor Berndt.
Seghers reveals Bütner's psychology in detail. He is an individualist, focused on his own gain. During the reign of the Nazis, Bütner secretly served as an informant for them. American intelligence learned about this from secret lists of Nazis who fell into its hands and is blackmailing Bütner, demanding all kinds of services from him. First of all, this is the destruction of the technical leadership in Kossin. Bütner makes a “decision”: he flees to the West, taking Professor Berndt with him through deception.
Berndt is a prominent metallurgist, in love with his science, a fan of the Soviet Union, but an extremely naive person in matters of practical life. He believed Buettner that they both faced arrest if they remained in the East.
On difficult days, the activities of the party bureau and youth organization are especially intensified. A major specialist, Tome, an Englishman and an active anti-fascist, comes to the plant again. An old party member, Robert Hase, who once fought the Nazis in Spain, was brought in to work. The youth organization helped Robert Lohse, who worked at the factory as a turner, obtain a pedagogical education.
The breadth and scope of the new life, the accessibility of its benefits to the people - this is the main thing that forces people to seek and make the right decisions.
A. Zegers's last novel, “Trust” (1969), is to some extent a continuation of “The Decision.” The action takes place in the same Kossin. The former owners of the plant are trying to provoke and organize a strike among the workers, basing their calculations on the mistakes of the local management, primarily on the offensive mistrust that this management showed towards some workers. The culprits of this callous, bureaucratic attitude are the reinsurer Meserburg and the dogmatic trade unionist Lina Zaks.
The troublemakers' attempt to enter the plant fails thanks to the selfless resistance of worker Ella Bush, who sacrificed her life and the life of the unborn child for whom she was passionately awaiting.
The complexity of human relationships, the differences in human characters (even under similar life circumstances) are shown by Anna Zegers with her usual skill.
A. Zegers is known not only for her novels and stories, but also for her journalism. The book of her articles collected by the writer Christa Wolf, published in 1968, is striking in their range and variety. Here are thoughts about the tasks of literature, and portraits of individual writers from the 18th century. until modern times. The articles on Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and the comparison of these two colossuses of Russian literature are very interesting. A great writer, A. Zegers is also a thoughtful literary critic.
Netty Reiling was born in 1900 in Mainz. Her mother Hedwig came from a respected family of merchants from Frankfurt. Father Isidore Riling is an antiquarian and art expert. At the age of 13, Nettie read Dostoevsky, and she was, in her words, “ spiritual and artistic revelation" It was then that her interest in Russian prose and Russian society arose.
In 1924, while studying at the University of Heidelberg, he took on a pseudonym Anna Zegers- named after her favorite Dutch artist XVII century of Hercules Seghers, whose graphic landscapes she admired. He is defending his doctoral dissertation on the topic “Jews and Judaism in the Works of Rembrandt.” In 1925, she married Laszlo Radvany, a Hungarian and active communist. Laszlo was a cheerful, emotional person with a sharp tongue, the direct opposite of the shy Anna. The marriage produced two children - son Peter and daughter Ruth. Through her husband, Anna meets György Lukács, a Hungarian philosopher and literary critic, who for years becomes her spiritual teacher and comrade-in-arms, with whom she conducts extensive correspondence and discussions.
Also in 1925, the couple moved to Berlin, where Anna Segers quickly became famous. Her story “The Fishermen's Revolt in St. Barbara” in 1928 received the most honorable award of the Weimar Republic - the Kleist Prize. At the same time, she works for the German Communist Party, writes articles and reflects on the role of communist prose and communist writers. Together with other German colleagues from Peru, he travels to Soviet Union to participate in the conference “International Cooperation of Revolutionary Writers.”
In 1933, after the Nazis came to power, Anna briefly went to prison. In the same year she manages to emigrate to France. There, in Paris, her most significant novel, “The Seventh Cross,” is published - one of the most readable works German emigrant literature. The novel brought the writer unprecedented success and was translated into more than forty languages. In 1944, The Seventh Cross was filmed in Hollywood and was published issue after issue in several major American newspapers.
The year the novel was completed, German troops occupied France. Anna has to flee again, now overseas with the help of the League American writers" But for political reasons, Zegers is not allowed into America; she is transferred to a cargo ship and taken to Mexico.
My stay in Mexico City was creatively very fruitful. Zegers writes with incredible energy - new impressions provide a variety of themes for his works. She constantly meets with other emigrated writers. One of her friends, Walter Janka, is at the head of the most important emigrant publishing house, Ex Libro libre. There are no difficulties with money - “The Seventh Cross” is published and republished in many countries. She enrolls her children in a private school.
But 1943 brings trouble to Anna. All last years she seeks permission for her mother to leave, but all in vain - her mother is deported to Auschwitz, to certain death. Hardly obtained documents arrive at the address a week after deportation. Anna herself is hit on the street by a truck that fled the scene. It is believed that this was not an accident at all, but an attempted murder, but no serious investigation was undertaken. Arriving at the hospital with a severe head injury, Anna miraculously survives. He suffered from complete amnesia for two months.
In 1947, Seghers returned to the destroyed Germany that had capitulated. For many returning writers, creating a socialist country was their life's dream. And Anna unconditionally puts her pen at the service of the new state. The political leadership treats her with great respect. She becomes one of the organizers of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR, she is elected chairman of the Writers' Union. Zegers writes anti-fascist prose, as well as novels and short stories that explain and defend the party and ideology.
As the political climate gradually becomes tougher, many of Anna's colleagues and friends fall out of favor. Zegers behind the scenes addresses the Minister of Culture and the political leadership, trying to influence the situation. However, like most writers of her generation, she under no circumstances openly criticized the regime.
In 1953, she sharply condemned the general strike in the GDR, and in 1956, the “counter-revolution” in Hungary. In 1957, her close and old friend, party comrade, director of the largest publishing house in the GDR, Aufbau, Walter Janka, was arrested and sentenced to five years of strict regime. Anna Zegers attended the trial as a spectator, but never tried to defend her old friend.
While Janka was in prison, Anna wrote the story “Der gerechte Richter” (“The Fair Judge”) about a regime that she considers dangerous and unjust. The story does not indicate in which country and at what time the case takes place. We are talking about a court acting on the instructions of the party. Judge Yang refuses to pass a sentence on the accused Victor Gasquet, the judge is threatened by the security services, and he soon ends up in prison, where he meets with a friend of his youth - a communist. Despite the fact that both of them are victims of the system, they are unshakable in their belief in ideology, in socialism. The story was written in the late 50s “on the table” and was published only in 1990, seven years after the death of the writer.
Every year, Anna Zegers took part in political debates less and less. Unofficially, she supported the experiments of her younger colleagues (for example, Christa Wolf), but as chairman of the Writers' Union she did not in any way protect them from ideological attacks in their direction. In 1978, after the death of her husband Laszlo, she retired and retired to her apartment.
At the time of her death, Anna Zegers was the most popular writer in the GDR. Streets and squares were named in her honor, there was not a single literary prize, which she would not have received. Her influence on the younger generations of writers was enormous - it is difficult to imagine Christa Wolf, Sarah Kirsch, Franz Fühmann without her. The writer rested in St. Dorothea's cemetery.
ANNA SEGERS
“It is precisely because we know the power of art that our responsibility is so great.” These words of Anna Zegers were not only the principle, but also the essence of her work and life. In love with art since childhood, she studied the history of art and literature at the University of Cologne, in 1924 she defended her dissertation on the work of Rembrandt - and all her later life dedicated to working people.
The fate of Anna Zegers was tragic: she “offended” the fascist regime not only by connecting her life with the communist movement in 1928, but also by having the courage to speak and write the truth. Zegers emigrated first to France, then, to save herself and her family, to Latin America. But wherever she is, her voice, filled with pain for her native Germany - the land of philosophers and poets, sounds at full power.
In 1933, Anna Zegers completed work on the story “The Appraised Head,” which describes the terrifying process of fascisation of people. The novel “The Way Through February” (1935) tells about one of the most dramatic pages in the history of the labor movement - the Schutzbund uprising of 1934.
In 1935, the writer took part in the Congress for the Defense of Culture, which took place in Paris. She spoke about the fate of ordinary people: “When you hear the words “love for your homeland,” ask first what they love in this homeland. Can the sacred riches of a country console the poor? Can holy land console the landless? »
In Mexico, Anna Seghers heads the Heinrich Heine Anti-Fascist Club and publishes articles and political reviews. In 1942, her novel “The Seventh Cross” was published - about prisoners of a fascist concentration camp. Although the core of the novel is the story of Georg Geisler's escape from fascist hell, Anna Seghers painted a broad picture of life Hitler's Germany: concentration camps, total espionage, the tragedy of a deceived and deceived people. The novel exposed fascism as a phenomenon that is anti-human in its essence.
One of the highest artistic achievements Zegers began the story “Walk of Dead Girls” (1943, published in 1946), built on imperceptible transitions from lyrical confession to memories, from the real world to the unreal world. The modern and the past, the real and the intangible, the everyday life of Mexico and Hitler's Reich, the Kaiser's Germany and fascist Germany - everything is combined in the story. And the author’s stream of consciousness reigns in it (like a stream of memories, as well as sketches from emigrant impressions). The story ends with the author’s confession: “I asked myself: “How should I spend my time - today and tomorrow, here or somewhere else?” - because I now felt the endless flow of time, inexorable as air...” Surrendering to the will of this flow of time, Zegers talks about her friends’ school trip and how history and life have distorted the fates of these “dead girls.”
Lene sought happiness and found it by getting married, but her husband was arrested by the Gestapo. Subsequently, men in black uniforms captured Leni and “slowly but surely starved her to death in a concentration camp.”
Marianne once considered Leni her most sincere friend. But when Lene turned to Marianne with a request to send the child to relatives, she refused and added that her husband was a member of the Nazi party and occupied a high position, and Lene and her husband were arrested rightly, since they had committed a crime against Hitler.”
Nora in her school years I did my best to please teacher Sikhel. “However, then she drove the same teacher, already old and weak, from a bench near the Rhine, indecently swearing, because she could not sit on the same bench with a Jewish woman.”
The always cheerful Laura fell in love with a non-Aryan, therefore, “desecrated the race,” and, fearing a concentration camp, committed suicide.
For various reasons, food, Gerda, Elsa, Sophie, Lotte, Katarina, Lisa passed away. “Only Natty reached the end of the road.” It was in her memory that the girls who once traveled with her on a ship, breathed the clean air of the world and believed that life was wonderful, remained alive.
The theme is of particular importance in the story human memory. Natty (as Anna Zegers was called in childhood) lives by the memory of her heart, and therefore the memory of her mind does not fail her. An endless stream of consciousness (facts, events, people), enriched by a stream of emotional memory, causes the appearance of stories - reflections. These were the author’s thoughts about the fate of his homeland and his people. And perhaps humanity too. The story is full of love for a person and pain for her. In Dead Girls Walking by Anna Zegers artistic means leads the reader to the conclusion that every person must go through his or her life path in such a way as to remain worthy of the high title of a person. It was a worthy position of talent, not silted by market changes and political betrayals.
But there were other priests of art in the thirties. Back in October 1933, on the pages of the Frankfurter Zeitung, eighty-eight representatives of the writing guild drew up a “solemn oath of allegiance and obedience” to the Fuhrer. They represented the official literature of the Third Empire. Among these “signatories” there were no names of Heinrich Mann, Erich Maria Remarque, or Arnold Zweig.
Best works world literature (total number - 120,000 titles) were doomed to destruction. On May 10, 1933, by order of Propaganda Minister Goebbels, books whose contents frightened the Nazis were publicly burned in Berlin. And on the same day, auto-da-fé took place in Bonn, Frankfurt am Main, Göttingen, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich, Nuremberg, Würzburg and many other university cities in Germany. Where books are burned, people are then thrown into the fire” (Heinrich Heine). Bonfires made from books became the prologue to the physical destruction of honest artists. The eternal truth was reaffirmed: there have always been and will be those who serve people, just as there have been and will be those who serve the torturers of people.
The artistic palette of literature created between the two world wars is surprisingly equal. Both realists and avant-garde artists were looking for new ways of artistic comprehension of existence.
Serious changes are taking place in the art of realism. In the work of many writers there is a transition from a concrete depiction of life to more abstract sketches and generalizations. Works often acquire a philosophical and allegorical character; their meaning is revealed through parallels with myths, classic literary plots, and historical events. Antiquity approaches modern times in order to reveal what is more significant, the most essential in modernity. This technique becomes leading, for example, in the work of Lion Feuchtwanger, who argued: “I never intended to depict history just for the sake of history.” Many of Bertolt Brecht's dramas are talented adaptations of already well-known literary plots. A characteristic feature of writers was a desire to understand their era. “This process,” wrote Thomas Mann, “destroys the boundaries between science and art, fills abstract thought with living, pulsating blood, spiritualizes the plastic image and creates that type of book that can be defined as intellectual novel».
One of the most accomplished novels of this type is Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain (1924). And although the plot of the novel is limited to events from the sanatorium life of Hans Castorp (falling in love with married woman, discussions and conversations with friends), behind this purely everyday plan one can feel another, deeper one - modern reality in its state of crisis. Thomas Mann said: “Every detail is devoid of interest unless an idea shines through it. Art is life in the light of thought." The artist sought to create a novel on a “European scale.” And this is exactly how Mann’s contemporaries perceived this novel. For example, Sinclair Lewis considered “The Magic Mountain” to be “the quintessence of the spiritual life of all Europe.”
Thomas Mann operated with the means of a realistic novel, but filled what he depicted with symbolism, which made it possible to see the general in the concrete, and the comprehensive in the concrete.
Subsequently, Anna Segers in Dead Girls Walk and Bertolt Brecht in many dramas would follow this path. Interestingly, Bertolt Brecht did not recognize any framework for realism: “one cannot accept the form of any realist (or a limited circle of realists) and declare it the only possible realistic form. This is unrealistic."
Simultaneously with realistic literature, avant-garde literature is intensively developing. Avant-garde appears in literature at the beginning of the 20th century. His first period (the so-called historical avant-garde) occurred between the two world wars. There are many avant-garde movements, schools, directions; Expressionism develops, futurism and surrealism appear. And although each of the directions had unique features of artistic vision and transformation of existence (the emotionality of expressionism was emphasized, the anti-aestheticism of futurism was emphasized, the strengthening of the subconscious in surrealism), they also had common features- rejection of established forms of construction work of art, a gravitation towards inherently conventional art. At the beginning of the century, Louis Aragon, Johannes Robert Becher, Vitezslav Nezvan and others linked their creative destinies with avant-garde art.
Avant-garde is a stage in the development of everything the latest art. The next stage was modernism. Regarding form, avant-garde and modernism have much in common, but they differ significantly in the principles of comprehension and artistic transformation of existence. Avant-gardeism provides for an active social position of the artist, modernism is a universal image of existence and the identification of its philosophical essence. Modernism as a phenomenon in literature arose in the 20s. His philosophical origins were the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche, Henri Bergson, Sigmund Freud, and its most famous representatives in literature were James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Thomas Stearns Eliot. They're in unusual forms depicted the tragedy of a person who does not perceive the world around him. The universe in their works turned out to be torn into many small worlds, and the human community turned into mutually isolated individuals. In such a world it is cold and uncomfortable for the human soul. Is this why in the works of James Joyce and Franz Kafka the inner world of a person is not always built rationally, is not always subject to logic, and an irrational, illogical world cannot generate harmony?
Perhaps the greatest significance for the further development of literature of the 20th century was the “stream of consciousness school,” which some identify with the artistic revolution. In the arsenal of this school there is an internal monologue, the role of which is universal in the novels of James Joyce, and a “stream of consciousness” with its completely arbitrary series of associations devoid of any logic, and associative montage, and a combination of events that real life occur in different time dimensions, and other means.
The work of James Joyce (1882-1941), the originality of his searches had a significant influence on artists of the 20th century, including realists, in particular the artistic style of William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway.
In the period between the two world wars, prose, drama, and poetry actively developed. Fiction creates a portrait of his era in all its completeness and ambiguity. And if the “intellectual novel” begins to dominate in prose, then playwrights are also looking for ways to intellectualize drama. Brecht's “Epic Theater” is a significant event in the artistic life of the 20th century, because the theater became not only a school of morality, but also a school of intellect. The lyrics are increasingly gravitating towards philosophical understanding existence, to unusual forms of embodiment of poetic thought, to original ways of identifying the poet’s “I” in lyrical works.