Die Stadt hinter dem Strom
Encyclopedia
Die Stadt hinter dem Strom (The city beyond the river) is a German language existentialist
novel by Hermann Kasack
, published in 1947 in Berlin. It is considered one of the most important novels written in Germany after World War II, dealing with the horrors of Nazi Germany
, along with works such as Thomas Mann
's Doctor Faustus and Günter Grass
' The Tin Drum
.
, but remained in what was later described as "Innere Emigration" (inner emigration). He shows the individual, helpless in an incomprehensible society, questioning existence.
A shortened version of the novel was published in the Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel
already in 1946. The complete novel was published in 1947. The novel was well received and soon translated to several languages. The first translation to English by Peter De Mendelssohn was published in 1953 by Longman
in London and New York. A revised version of 1956 was published in 1960.
Kasack's fictional vision of a city shows similarities to Ernst Jünger
's Heliopolis
.
In 1949 Kasack was awarded the Fontane Prize of the city of Berlin for this work. He was the first recipient of this prize. Kasack himself used the novel as the base for an opera libretto
. The work Die Stadt hinter dem Strom
, termed an "Oratorische Oper" (Oratorio Opera), by Hans Vogt
was premiered at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden
in 1955.
Dr. Robert Lindhoff, introduced to the reader just as Robert. He travels by railroad on a mission which is unclear to him to a foreign city, which appears as strange and incomprehensible. He meets people whom he believes to be dead, such as his father and his beloved Anna.
Robert receives the order from an invisible authority of the city to write a "Chronik" (chronicle) of the city. Robert is called the Chronicler, and he explores the city, partly on his own, partly guided. The city is a megalopolis
under a cloudless sky, full of catacombs
, without music. Its people appear more and more strange and incomprehensible to him. The people resemble shadows and perform senseless, repetitive and destructive tasks. Two factories employ many of them, one producing building blocks from dust, one destroying building blocks to dust. Robert feels unable to write the chronicle. The authority who ordered it thanks him anyway for his work full of insight.
Back in his home country, Robert travels restlessly, lecturing on the sense of life. In the end he travels to the city, as in the beginning.
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
novel by Hermann Kasack
Hermann Kasack
Hermann Robert Richard Eugen Kasack was a German writer. He is best known for his novel Die Stadt hinter dem Strom . Kasack was a pioneer of using the medium broadcast for literature...
, published in 1947 in Berlin. It is considered one of the most important novels written in Germany after World War II, dealing with the horrors of Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, along with works such as Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
's Doctor Faustus and Günter Grass
Günter Grass
Günter Wilhelm Grass is a Nobel Prize-winning German author, poet, playwright, sculptor and artist.He was born in the Free City of Danzig...
' The Tin Drum
The Tin Drum
The Tin Drum is a 1959 novel by Günter Grass. The novel is the first book of Grass's .- Plot summary :The story revolves around the life of Oskar Matzerath, as narrated by himself when confined in a mental hospital during the years 1952-1954...
.
History
Hermann Kasack described a "Schreckensvision" (horror vision) initiating the writing of the novel: "'Ich sah die Flächen einer gespenstischen Ruinenstadt, die sich ins Unendliche verlor und in der sich die Menschen wie Scharen von gefangenen Puppen bewegten." (I saw a vast ruined city, extending endlessly, in which people moved about like imprisoned puppets). Kasack wrote the novel in two periods, first during the war from 1942 to 1944, then after the war in 1946. Kasack had not left Nazi GermanyNazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, but remained in what was later described as "Innere Emigration" (inner emigration). He shows the individual, helpless in an incomprehensible society, questioning existence.
A shortened version of the novel was published in the Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel
Der Tagesspiegel
Der Tagesspiegel is a classical liberal German daily newspaper...
already in 1946. The complete novel was published in 1947. The novel was well received and soon translated to several languages. The first translation to English by Peter De Mendelssohn was published in 1953 by Longman
Longman
Longman was a publishing company founded in London, England in 1724. It is now an imprint of Pearson Education.-Beginnings:The Longman company was founded by Thomas Longman , the son of Ezekiel Longman , a gentleman of Bristol. Thomas was apprenticed in 1716 to John Osborn, a London bookseller, and...
in London and New York. A revised version of 1956 was published in 1960.
Kasack's fictional vision of a city shows similarities to Ernst Jünger
Ernst Jünger
Ernst Jünger was a German writer. In addition to his novels and diaries, he is well known for Storm of Steel, an account of his experience during World War I. Some say he was one of Germany's greatest modern writers and a hero of the conservative revolutionary movement following World War I...
's Heliopolis
Heliopolis (novel)
Heliopolis is an utopistic or dystopian novel by Ernst Jünger published in 1949. In the fictional city of Heliopolis the henchmen of a Proconsul and a Landvogt fight each other. Commander Lucius de Geer belongs to the staff of the Proconsul, but he stands more and more aloof these inner fights....
.
In 1949 Kasack was awarded the Fontane Prize of the city of Berlin for this work. He was the first recipient of this prize. Kasack himself used the novel as the base for an opera libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
. The work Die Stadt hinter dem Strom
Die Stadt hinter dem Strom (opera)
Die Stadt hinter dem Strom is an oratorio-opera in three acts composed by Hans Vogt to a libretto by Hermann Kasack based on his 1947 dystopian novel Die Stadt hinter dem Strom.-Background and performance history:...
, termed an "Oratorische Oper" (Oratorio Opera), by Hans Vogt
Hans Vogt (composer)
Hans Vogt was a German composer and conductor.-Professional career:He was born in Danzig. From 1929 to 1934 he studied with Georg Schumann and Otto Frickhoeffer at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. From 1934 he worked in Minden as a cellist, pianist and conductor. In 1935 he was appointed...
was premiered at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden
Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden
The Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden is the State Theatre of the German state Hesse in the capital Wiesbaden, producing operas, plays, ballets, musicals and concerts on four stages. It is also known as Staatstheater Wiesbaden or Theater Wiesbaden...
in 1955.
Plot
The protagonist is the orientalistOriental studies
Oriental studies is the academic field of study that embraces Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology; in recent years the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Asian studies and Middle Eastern studies...
Dr. Robert Lindhoff, introduced to the reader just as Robert. He travels by railroad on a mission which is unclear to him to a foreign city, which appears as strange and incomprehensible. He meets people whom he believes to be dead, such as his father and his beloved Anna.
Robert receives the order from an invisible authority of the city to write a "Chronik" (chronicle) of the city. Robert is called the Chronicler, and he explores the city, partly on his own, partly guided. The city is a megalopolis
Megalopolis (city type)
A megalopolis is typically defined as a chain of roughly adjacent metropolitan areas. The term was used by Oswald Spengler in his 1918 book, The Decline of the West, and Lewis Mumford in his 1938 book, The Culture of Cities, which described it as the first stage in urban overdevelopment and...
under a cloudless sky, full of catacombs
Catacombs
Catacombs, human-made subterranean passageways for religious practice. Any chamber used as a burial place can be described as a catacomb, although the word is most commonly associated with the Roman empire...
, without music. Its people appear more and more strange and incomprehensible to him. The people resemble shadows and perform senseless, repetitive and destructive tasks. Two factories employ many of them, one producing building blocks from dust, one destroying building blocks to dust. Robert feels unable to write the chronicle. The authority who ordered it thanks him anyway for his work full of insight.
Back in his home country, Robert travels restlessly, lecturing on the sense of life. In the end he travels to the city, as in the beginning.
Editions in German
- Berlin 1946, shortened version in Der TagesspiegelDer TagesspiegelDer Tagesspiegel is a classical liberal German daily newspaper...
- Berlin 1947
- Frankfurt am Main 1960, SuhrkampSuhrkamp VerlagSuhrkamp Verlag is a German publishing house, established in 1950 and generally acknowledged as one of the leading European publishers of fine literature.In January 2010 the headquarters of the company moved from Frankfurt to Berlin.-Early history:...
, revised version of 1956 - München/Zürich 1964, KnaurDroemer KnaurDroemer Knaur is a German publishing house, with headquarters located in Munich. The company was founded in 1901 by bookbinder Theodor Knaur. It is owned jointly by Holtzbrinck and Weltbild.- External links :* official homepage...
paperback - Frankfurt am Main 1983, Suhrkamp, Weiße Reihe
- Frankfurt am Main 1988, Suhrkamp, volume 296 of Bibliothek Suhrkamp
- Leipzig 1989
Translations
- Staden bortom floden, Stockholm 1950
- La ville au delà du fleuve, Paris 1951
- La città oltre il fiume, Milano 1952
- Kaupunki virran takana, Helsinki 1952
- The city beyond the river, London, New York, Toronto 1953
- Byen og elven, Oslo 1954
- La ciudad detras del rio, Buenos Aires
- also to Chinese and Japanese
Literature
- Hermann Kasack: Die Stadt hinter dem Strom. Eine Selbstkritik, Die WeltDie WeltDie Welt is a German national daily newspaper published by the Axel Springer AG company.It was founded in Hamburg in 1946 by the British occupying forces, aiming to provide a "quality newspaper" modelled on The Times...
, No. 142, 29 November 1947, p. 2 - Wolfgang Kasack: Hermann Kasack. "Die Stadt hinter dem Strom" in der Kritik. Eine Bibliographie der wichtigsten Aufsätze und Besprechungen., Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart, 1952
- Lothar Fietz: Strukturelemente der hermetischen Romane Thomas Manns, Hermann Hesses, Hermann Brochs und Hermann Kasacks, Deutsche Vierteljahresschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 40, 1966, p. 161-183
- Ehrhard Bahr: Metaphysische Zeitdiagnose: Hermann Kasack, Elisabeth Langgässer und Thomas Mann, in: Gegenwartsliteratur und Drittes Reich, H. Wagner, Stuttgart 1977, p. 133-162
- Gene O. Stimpson: Zwischen Mystik und Naturwissenschaften. Hermann Kasacks "Die Stadt hinter dem Strom" im Lichte des neuen Paradigmas, Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe 1 - 1503, Frankfurt am Main 1995
- Mathias Bertram: Literarische Epochendiagnosen der Nachkriegszeit, in: Deutsche Erinnerung. Berliner Beiträge zur Prosa der Nachkriegsjahre (1945-1960), Ursula Heukenkamp, Berlin 2000, p. 11-100
External links
- Bibliographie: Die Stadt hinter dem Strom University of PotsdamUniversity of PotsdamThe University of Potsdam is a German university, situated across four campuses in Potsdam, Brandenburg, including the New Palace of Sanssouci and the Park Babelsberg.- Profile :...