Vlad Stasov the origin of Russian epics. IN

GERHART HAUPTMANN

Gerhart Hauptmann

Translation by L. Ginzburg

Seven passengers snore, tired.
I can't sleep alone.

And in a solemnly measured whirling
Ghosts float by outside the window.
And by the light of a flashing lamp in it
My reflection appears.
The train is flying faster and faster
Past ditches and steep slopes,
Past thickets, past groves, past wastelands,
It flies past walls and fences.
Meanwhile, the darkness thickens around,
And hot tears from my eyes suddenly
They run, their faces flooding.
The wild heart is pounding,
And I no longer have control over myself,
In a sweet whim, languishing.
I would rush into moonlit night, there,
In the deepening blue twilight,
For telegraph wires
Along obliquely running lines.
And again it opens before me
Illuminated by exactly the same moon
There is no more blissful night in the world.
As if in a dream, I plunge into it, and now
Again the elves lead a round dance near the pond,
The elf plays the lyre for them.
Yes, I remember the elf played so magically,
That the grass didn’t dare rustle.
The stream near the mill froze:
The water went numb with delight.
And the tears of the purest dew sparkled
On the eyes of lilies of the valley, wild roses,
And in the valley, I remember, in the valley
The singers listened to this game,
Creators of sweet-sounding, tender melodies,
Having learned something from now on.
But the steel train is carried away further and further,
My wondrous dream was filled with fumes.
He cuts through the mountain like crazy,
Flies over a waterfall.
The planet is in a fever. A squall is bubbling.
What kind of demon has me in its clutches?
And carries you into boundless distances,
Not letting me stay under the moon,
Here, alone with myself,
And so that the stars twinkle to each other?..
The vision disappears in smoke, in smoke.
And below me everything is roaring,
It rumbles and rages like hell,
Everything is roaring and doesn’t want to stop.
Either a groan or a groan fills the night.
It's like this whole train is dragging along rails
It happened to the huge Cyclopes,
And they, straining themselves, cry out to us
With your booming voice, like thunder,
Pleading and merciless:
“We are now carrying you through the fragrant night,
In exhaustion, wheezing and moaning.
We have built golden houses for you,
Like kites, not knowing shelter.
We weave dresses for you, we bake bread for you,
You pay us with death, need, scourge.
But we will break the shackles!
We will claim the goods that you took as ours.
We are tormented by thirst: we want blood!
We are ready for vengeance, for vengeance!
We are a rude, ruthless, formidable people,
And our thoughts are bloody.
But throw off the burden of sorrows and adversity,
Give the right to life and death!
Oh, if, measuring your path as a convict,
We can take a deep breath at least once,
Then the song of thunder will sound:
The motive is not like the songs of the elves,
He is gloomy, he breathes rage, and yet
It will become the anthem of the century!..
Do you want to understand this song, piit?
Forget about the stunted pipe!
Hear the car thunder victoriously,
How the steel rails began to sing!
Sparks fly, wires hum,
The steamboats are smoking - the water is bubbling!
But, full of saintly compassion,
Incline your sensitive ear
To the groans and cries of people, so that they
In your poems they came to life again!..”
The train shakes, rushes, flies,
It rushes through the lunar midnight.
Seven passengers snore, tired,
I can't sleep alone.
The lamp goes out, then blinks again,
And the car will rock, then push, then shake,
The noise is incredible.
But, having gained hearing and magically seen,
I clearly hear that call, that chant,
It is clear to me in the chaos of sounds.
Now it subsides slightly, now it will surge again,
As if escaping straight from the abyss,
To rage and rage,
Furious iron rumble.
He fills everything with himself, and then
It falls silent and suddenly disappears completely,
Awakening both desire and will -
A tune born of heavenly spring.
At the heights of life, in the midst of earthly life
Feast your fill with all your heart!

Translation by V. Levik

Germany, great country,
The fetid one became like a quagmire,
Where is everything that she was famous for in the world,

Dies ingloriously in the sticky stinking mud, -
A breeding ground for corpse flies, an earthly abscess,
For the executioners this has now become Eden!

The vulture dulled its beak with food,
Without knowing fear, hyenas enter the temple
And they brazenly devour the holy bread,

And they shit on the floor, urinate on the walls,
And the tiger purrs, satiated with blood,
And only the eyes burn with the fire of Gehenna.

The European throne is being prepared for him.
In front of him is a stew of carrion. He stinks
And I am intoxicated by the spectacle of rotting.

And, emboldened, the jackals wander nearby.
And someone's bones crunch in the dark.
And the world whispers, searching with a confused look:

“Where is the beast? Who is he eating? My sorrowful brother!
Walk with your eyes downcast from sadness.
Go quickly and don't look back

On a rotting place that stinks of shame!

"Come and conquer, New Year..."

Translation by L. Ginzburg

Come and conquer, New Year
from the birthday of Christ,
in the name of universal happiness
uniting our human race!

Your path is covered with snow,
but beyond an invisible line
you are radiantly illuminated
by the Lord's holy grace.

Closing in on the distant New Year,
in the middle of winter spring melts
and breathe summer fertility.

Autumn wine is bubbling...
The movement of days pleases God...
And everything calls, and everything commands:
Forward! Forward! Forward! On the road!.

Gerhart Hauptmann(1862–1946). - Mainly a playwright and prose writer. A representative of naturalism, for a long time he was influenced by neo-romanticism (a German version of symbolism). The plays “The Weavers” (1892), “The Sunken Bell” (1897), “Before Sunset” (1932) and others brought him worldwide fame. He made his debut with imitative poems (“Spring of Love,” 1881), and returned to poetry in his declining years (“New Poems,” 1946). Translated "Hamlet" by W. Shakespeare (1930). Laureate Nobel Prize(1912). During the Nazi years, the elderly writer remained in Germany.

- his son, about 42 years old, professor of philology. Dry, like a German professor.

Egmont Clausen (called Egert at home) – younger son Privy Councilor, 20 years old, slender, handsome, athlete.

Bettina Clausen - daughter of the Privy Councilor, 36 years old. Slightly lopsided. More sentimental than smart.

Ottilie - daughter of the Privy Councilor, 27 years old, by her husband Klamroth; pretty, attractive woman, does not stand out in any way.

Erich Klamroth - Ottilie's husband, 37 years old. Director of Clausen's enterprises. Uncouth, businesslike, provincial.

Paula Clotilde Clausen - née von Rübsamen, 35 years old. She has sharp, unpleasant facial features and a long neck, like a vulture. Rough, clearly sensual appearance.

Steinitz is a sanitary adviser, about 50 years old. Family doctor and friend of the Clausen family. Single; wealthy, reduced his practice.

Hanefeldt is a legal adviser, a flexible person, 44 years old.

Immoos is a pastor.

Geiger is a professor at the University of Cambridge. old friend Privy Councilor Clausen.

Dr. Wuttke is Clausen's personal secretary. Small, round, with glasses.

Abish is a gardener, over 50 years old.

Frau Peters, née Ebisch, is the gardener's sister, about 45 years old.

Inken Peters is her daughter. Northern type.

Winter is the personal servant of Privy Councilor Clausen.

Chief Burgomaster

Chairman of the municipality.

Members of the municipality.

Municipal councilors.

The setting is a large German city.

Act one

Library and office of Privy Councilor Matthias Clausen in his town house. On the left above the fireplace is a portrait of a beautiful young girl by Friedrich August Kaulbach. Books line the walls to the ceiling. In the corner is a bronze bust of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Two doors, one opposite the other, leading to other rooms of the house are open, as is a wide glass door in the back wall, opening onto a stone balcony.

There are several large globes on the floor; on one of the tables there is a microscope. Beyond the balcony you can see the treetops of the park, and the sounds of jazz can be heard from the park.

Hot July day. Time - about an hour.

Enter Bettina Clausen; she is accompanied by Professor Geiger.

Geiger. It's been three years since your mother died, and I haven't been here since.

Bettina. It was very difficult with my father, especially the first year. He couldn't come to his senses.

Geiger. Your letters, dear Bettina, often filled me with anxiety. It was almost impossible to believe in his recovery.

Bettina. And I believed unshakably, and because I believed, it happened! (With a dreamily enlightened face.) True, I fulfilled my mother’s last wish; she literally handed my father over to me, literally gave me responsibility for his fate, literally begged me to take care of him. Two days before her death, my mother said: “Such a person still has a lot to do on earth; it needs to be preserved for a long time, and you, Bettina, take care of it. From the minute I close my eyes, your duties begin.”

Geiger. You have fulfilled these difficult duties with honor.

Bettina. They were both difficult and easy at the same time. You are your father’s best friend, Mr. Professor, you knew him long before me and better than me; It was only in recent years that I was given the opportunity to truly understand him and get closer to him. You can imagine how important this time was for me! And finally, such happiness, such a reward for her, made by me.

Geiger. He has now become completely the same.

Bettina. After the death of his mother, he seemed to go blind. And he had to slowly, almost gropingly, return to life! He admitted this to me himself.

Geiger (comes to the open door of the balcony, looks into the garden, from where the sounds of jazz are heard). And now there is life in the house again - there is a holiday in the garden: wine, soft drinks... as it happened in the old, happy times.

Bettina. Yes, he came back to life.

While talking and apparently heading into the garden, they go out the opposite door. Professor Wolfgang Clausen and his wife Paula Clotilde appear from the door from which they previously entered.

Wolfgang. My father was just presented with a certificate of honorary citizen of our city.

Paula Clotilde (with feigned indifference). This intention has been talked about for a long time... What's special about it?

Wolfgang. In the evening, from two to three thousand people - representatives of different parties - organize a torchlight procession in his honor.

Paula Clotilde. Well, you'll have to endure it.

Wolfgang. Will you have to endure it? What do you mean by this?

Paula Clotilde. After all, what is a torchlight procession? My father, when he was a corps commander, had to endure such amusements every now and then. It got to the point where he almost didn’t get up from the table...

Wolfgang (slightly annoyed). Of course, your father is used to such things. But for dad this is something new, this is proof that he is loved. This will make him very happy.

Paula Clotilde. I don't understand anything about this whole story. At first, your father huddles in a hole, hides, and doesn’t want to talk to anyone. And suddenly this whole farce is set in motion. There is something behind this.

Wolfgang. Dad gave in to our requests: mine, Ottilie's, Bettina's - and did not leave on his birthday. In the opinion of Klamroth’s son-in-law and our father, as a person connected with the life of the city, this was necessary. The father should not alienate wider public circles.

Paula Clotilde. Unfortunately, he used to do this often.

Wolfgang. What do you actually mean by this, Paula? Perhaps you don’t like the honors that the whole city shows him in abundance?

Paula Clotilde. Like it or not - what does it matter? What complaints could I, an impoverished noblewoman, have? After all, in thirty or forty years your students will hold a torchlight procession for you too. (She went out onto the balcony and looked through her lorgnette.) Who is son-in-law Klamroth circling with? What is this white-haired pole?

Wolfgang (approaches her). That lanky blonde? Don't know. I hardly know our employees.

Paula Clotilde. And I, Wolfgang, know who she is. Her mother is a widow. They live in Broich. Uncle is a gardener at the castle. Her name is Inken Peters or something like that. You need to have an eye for everything!..

Wolfgang. Where did you get this information from?

Paula Clotilde. They come from Counselor of Justice Ganefeldt. He manages an estate in Broich. By the way, they say your father is there sometimes.

Gergart Hauptmann

(Gerhart Hauptmann, 1862—1946)

Gergart Hauptmann is the largest playwright in Germany at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. A Nobel Prize winner and a recognized master of dramatic art, after Schiller he again brought German theater to the international stage. For several decades, Hauptmann was like an accurate seismograph, who sensitively felt the tremors of his turbulent era and managed, in his best dramas, to pose the questions raised by life itself. The main problem of his complex and contradictory work was the problem of dehumanization of the individual and the spiritual loneliness of man in bourgeois society. Deeply comprehend creative individuality Hauptmann, one can understand his greatness and limitations only in connection with his worldview and aesthetics, in connection with the ideological battles of that time.

One of the most important sources philosophical thought Hauptmann was inspired by the works of J. Boehme, whose work “Mysterium Magnum” became reference book author of "Weavers". Hauptmann's pantheism largely goes back to Boehme. Particularly consonant with Hauptmann was Boehme’s idea that man, like everything around him, is part of nature, and nothing exists outside of mother nature

From the vast circle of great thinkers to whose legacy Hauptmann turned, greatest influence Goethe influenced the formation of his philosophical and aesthetic views. The creator of Faust became Hauptmann's constant companion, who inherited Goethe's Renaissance-Enlightenment understanding of man. “Whoever rejects my dramas,” Hauptmann declared, “denies humanity.” And one of the writer’s aphorisms conveys his truly Renaissance admiration for man: “It is not given to us to know perfection higher than human.” The playwright is deeply convinced of the inexhaustible possibilities of man.

The materialistic traditions of Goethe and the German Darwinist biologist Haeckel, largely inherited by Hauptmann, inspired his work with humanistic pathos. Based on these traditions, Hauptmann comes to the most important conclusion that “only reality can provide material for creativity.” The expressed judgment became one of the fundamental principles of Hauptmann’s aesthetics, which gave him the opportunity to organically combine both pronounced realistic and symbolic-romantic elements in one artistic system.

Hauptmann constantly returned to the idea of ​​the indissoluble connection between art and life. Already at the end of the 80s. Hauptmann develops his concept realistic art. In contrast to Goltz's naturalistic doctrine, which required the artist to photographically copy life, Hauptmann proclaims the principle of realistic typification.

Hauptmann believed that the main purpose of a playwright is to depict the spiritual life of a person. “There is a mental act,” he wrote, “and the playwright must first of all be able to show this process.” The innovation of Hauptmann the playwright was that in his plays an accurate and detailed depiction of the external world was combined with a reproduction of the spiritual life of man. Hauptmann carries out in artistic practice his programmatic aesthetic thesis: “The object of art is a naked soul, a naked person.”

Hauptmann the playwright is primarily a character researcher. He refuses a love affair, a complicated plot, believing that the simpler the plot, the richer the character. Together with Ibsen and Shaw, Hauptmann creates an ideological, problematic drama of the new time.

Of course, Hauptmann the artist, who was formed in line with naturalism, used many discoveries and finds new school: expansion of social topics; depiction of society in its social contrasts; close attention to the most pressing issues of the day; the ability to vigilantly observe and draw everyday reality. However, the author of “The Weavers” went much further than the naturalists in depicting the people.

He formulated his understanding of nationality in the following words: “The people and art are inextricably linked, like soil and a tree, like a gardener and fruits.” The idea of ​​the nationality of theater was one of the leading ones in Hauptmann’s aesthetics. At the same time, Hauptmann was largely associated with naturalism. For example, he shared the idea of ​​human passivity and the inability to resist social evil. This position often led the writer to political neutrality at decisive moments in German history, to the creation of artistic images devoid of activity or heroism. Sometimes Hauptmann overestimates the importance of biological factors and tries to explain human actions and his psychology only by them.

Hauptmann was born in the Silesian resort town of Obersalzbrunie. His grandfather was a weaver and told his son about his bitter life and the struggle of weavers. Subsequently, the grandfather became the owner of the hotel, which was inherited by the father of the future writer. Since childhood, Hauptmann observed people of different social status in the hotel and outside its walls. He had sincere sympathy for the coal miners, cab drivers, and washerwomen, whose lives he knew well. Working as an apprentice on a farming farm, he learned firsthand the plight of rural workers. In Breslau Hauptmann studies at art school. His experience in sculpture left an undeniable mark on his artistic work. Important for Hauptmann's ideological formation was his studies at the University of Jena, where he attended a course of lectures by Ernst Haeckel. Since 1885, Hauptmann lived in Erkner, a suburb of Berlin. He meets the already famous young writers Heinrich and Julius Hart, Goltz, Schlaf - the founders and theorists of German naturalism.

Hauptmann was keenly interested in philosophical and social problems, read the socialist press, the works of Marx and Darwin. However, he did not become a conscious socialist, although he retained sympathy for the disadvantaged throughout his life. Hauptmann's favorite writers were Ibsen, Zola, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Georg Büchner. He was interested in theater and took acting lessons.

Hauptmann's writing talent immediately manifested itself in different genres. Before finding himself as a playwright, Hauptmann tried his hand as a lyricist and prose writer. He wrote poems, stories and novels throughout his long life. His dramatic work organically combines lyrical and epic principles, being one of characteristic features Hauptmann's plays.

Hauptmann made his debut in literature as a storyteller, writing in 1887 the short stories “Maslenitsa” (Fasching) and “The Railway Watchman Thiel” (Der Bahnwärter Thiel). They showed the writer’s skill in drawing characters from the people’s environment, accurately and accurately recreating pictures of the surrounding reality. It is important to emphasize that Hauptmai simultaneously reveals the inner world of his heroes, placed in crisis, turning-point situations. The image of Thiel is in many ways typical of Hauptmann's work and anticipates, for example, the image of the carter Henschel from the play of the same name.

The day of October 20, 1889 became significant not only in Hauptmann’s creative biography, but also in history German theater. On this day in Berlin, Hauptmann’s first-born drama “Before Sunrise” (Vor Sonnenaufgang) was staged for the theater association “Free Stage”. A fierce controversy unfolded around the play, which was not so much of a literary and aesthetic, but rather a socio-political nature. Bourgeois writers were not pleased with the anti-bourgeois, socially accusatory nature of the play. It really was a “social drama,” as the author described it. Like other naturalist writers, Hauptmann turns to burning social problems; he is deeply concerned about the situation of the working class, which in the late 80s. led an active social struggle against Bismarck's policies.

Hauptmann chose a plot in which, in the words of F. Mehring, “modern life really beats with a strong and hot pulse” 1 . The main conflict of the drama is of a social nature - it is the conflict between the bourgeois owner Hoffmann and the disinterested social reformer Lot. Their dialogue-disputes become a public debate on pressing issues of our time.

The drama has three main characters: Lot, Hoffmann and Elena. Elena, the daughter of the rich peasant Krause, immediately takes the side of Alfred Lot. She hates her environment and... her relatives, mired in debauchery, especially the engineer Hoffmann, who married her sister for the sake of wealth.

Hoffmann hates and despises the working people and those who think about improving their situation. He sees Lot as a dangerous enemy who threatens his well-being. “You need to hit your hands even harder, you who are corrupting the people! - he says with undisguised hatred. - What are you saying? You sow discontent among the miners, you teach them to demand and demand, you excite them, you embitter them, you teach them obstinacy and disobedience.”

The characters and ideals of the main characters are revealed during a discussion about the life of coal miners. Lot strives to make the lives of workers happier. It was not for nothing that he edited the “Workers’ Tribune”, was nominated as a candidate for the Reichstag from the “dearest mob” (as Hoffmann calls the workers) and was imprisoned for his ideas. And you believe him when he says: “My struggle is the struggle for universal happiness. In order for me to become happy, all the people around me must become happy. For this, poverty and disease, slavery and meanness must disappear.”

Some of Lot's remarks, which turn into monologues, are sharply accusatory, anti-bourgeois in nature. With indignation and pain, he talks, for example, about the tragic fate of a soap worker who was forced to work in a factory while completely ill in order to feed his children, and who died while working in front of Lot. Elena’s story about the death of two young miners who died in the mine, the mention of the rich man Shtrekman, “who makes the workers themselves starve and feed their dogs cakes,” complements Lot’s words.

Lot makes a social generalization: “Wherever you look, there is atrocity upon atrocity.”

However, Alfred Loth, who came to Witzdorf to write a study on the life of workers, is not a genuine social democrat. He rather resembles a belated utopian socialist, operating with general humanistic formulas; he is by no means a militant socialist or a class fighter. Hauptmann's limited and unclear social positions did not give him the opportunity to create the image of an active positive hero. The image of Lot turned out to be rational and schematic.

In contrast to the aesthetic doctrine of Goltz and Schlaf, the young playwright gives broad generalizations of the most important life phenomena, builds his work to a certain extent according to the type of discussion drama, and does not hide his likes and dislikes. The author resorts to a sharp and direct clash of ideas that will characterize many of his subsequent dramas.

IN critical literature The drama "Before Sunrise" is considered as purely naturalistic, without noticing its realistic beginning. M. Gorky believed that “this is the best of Hauptmann’s plays,” who managed to paint a surprisingly vivid picture. All the episodic faces, although outlined with a few rare features, are alive and clear” 2. Of course, the play also contains many naturalistic moments: exaggerated attention to the problem of heredity and family degradation. Drawing the drunkard Krause and his wife, Kaal, Hauptmann intensifies naturalistic details. Drama is oversaturated with dialectisms, which are not always a means of characterizing characters.

Hauptmann's second play, “The Feast of Reconciliation” (Das Friedenfest, 1890), is more closely associated with naturalism than any other. Written under the influence of Ibsen, it poses the problem of the bourgeois family, depicts its disintegration and decomposition. Unlike the first " social drama Hauptmann called the second a “family disaster” and focused on the psychological vicissitudes and mental anguish of Dr. Scholz’s family. The social theme sounds very subdued in the play, and the idea of ​​heredity is brought to the fore.

Like Zola, the Goncourts and their German followers, Hauptmann explores in detail the physical and moral illness of nervous, deeply suffering people. Decay family connections is depicted by him with merciless consistency; It shows in detail how persecution mania leads to the death of the head of the family.

However, in this play, through the naturalistic depiction of reality, the features of the era appear to some extent. The collapse of the bourgeois family testified to a broader crisis of the social and moral foundations of the capitalist world.

The play “The Lonely Ones” (Einsame Menschen, 1891) gave Hauptmann access to the stages of many European theaters, making him one of the most prominent playwrights in Germany. In this early drama, motifs and artistic features are outlined that will become characteristic of many subsequent works of the playwright. The author reveals one of the most revealing phenomena of the bourgeois world - the deep loneliness of man, the impossibility of finding ways of rapprochement between people in this society. The humanist writer Hauptmann, painfully aware of the crisis of moral and ethical standards, raises the question of the value of the human personality and passionately defends it from a humanistic position. It is in this, and not in family issues, that the basis of the philosophical and moral concept of the play lies.

The impetus for the creation of “Lonely” was, as usual with Hauptmann, live observations; in particular, the playwright was worried about the fate of his brother, Karl Hauptmann, a typical intellectual, misunderstood by his environment and people close to him. However, Hauptmann strives to give the conflict and images a generalizing character. The mood and spiritual drama of Johannes Fockerath are indicative of a whole generation of advanced German intelligentsia of that time.

“The Lonely Ones” is a realistic play built on an acute clash between the main character and the surrounding bourgeois environment. Iv. Franco writes: “The author adheres tenaciously to the soil of reality, draws living people, shows an outstanding gift of individualization, and at the same time, the basis of the drama is one of the great ideas of our century - the idea of ​​emancipation of human thought and human feeling from the shackles of outdated tradition” 3.

The main philosophical and moral conflict that underlies the play and determined its construction and the nature of the disputes is acutely relevant. In five acts of the play, a discussion unfolds between a person looking for new paths in life and supporters of religion, church and dilapidated morality. This is a clash between Ernst Haeckel's student Johannes Fockerath, who is proud of his materialist teacher, and the defenders of God and priesthood.

The moral and psychological duel between Johannes and his ideological antagonists (the pastor, the parents of Johannes Fokerat) increases with each act and imparts unity to the entire play. The arrival of Russian student Anna Map intensifies the dramatic struggle and leads to death passive hero Johannes, who could not find a way out. The image of a restless, searching intellectual, crushed by a cruel philistine environment, will become cross-cutting in Hauptmann’s work (in “The Sunken Bell”, “Michael Kramer”, “Before Sunset”).

Together with Anna Map, the play includes a Russian theme. The viewer of “Lonely” hears the famous Russian revolutionary song “Tortured by Heavy Captivity” and witnesses an argument between the characters about Garshn’s story “The Artists.” Fokerat (and through his mouth the author) proclaims the rejection of “pure art” and defends art that benefits society.

Devoid of intrigue and complexity plot twists Hauptmann's drama is remarkable for its masterful characterization of the characters, seen and captured by a keen observer-psychologist. He explores the mental life of a person with all its nuances; well-developed dialogue provides a subtle analysis of the characters’ moods; Subtext plays a big role in the play.

K. S. Stanislavsky and V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko brilliantly staged “The Lonely Ones” on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater in 1899, interpreting the drama as moral and philosophical, in tune with Chekhov’s plays.

“The Weavers” (Die Weber, 1892) was the pinnacle of Hauptmann’s dramatic creativity. He acted here as an innovative artist, who for the first time captured the most important social conflicts era. Friedrich Wolf noted that a play like The Weavers “highly justified the playwright’s calling: to be the conscience of the era!” 4.

Hauptmann achieved ideological and artistic heights primarily because, in the words of F. Mehring, “he began to draw from a living spring—true socialism.”

Hauptmann's appeal to a pressing social topic was dictated by reality itself, which brought this topic to the fore. M. Galbe, A. Goltz, M. Kretser and many others wrote about the need and suffering of the masses. The social issue was on the agenda. Having chosen the Silesian uprising of 1844 as the theme of his play, Hauptmann talks primarily about the problems of Germany in the 90s.

In order to more deeply feel the socio-psychological atmosphere of the June uprising, the playwrights of 1891 go to the places where the bloody events took place. Hauptmann carefully checked his personal impressions and his father’s story with historical documents and the works of historians. Most of all, he relied on the work written by the remarkable socialist, Marx’s comrade-in-arms, Wilhelm Wolf, “Need and Rebellion in Silesia.” At the same time, the author of “Weavers” not only used factual material, but largely accepted the concept of the uprising set forth by V. Wolf.

For the first time on the German stage, class conflict in a directly open form became the basis of the play, and the masses were not a background, but an active force. This demonstrated the innovation of Hauptmann the playwright.

On the one hand, in “The Weavers” there are the cruelly exploited people of the Silesian villages, on the other – the factory owners, the oppressors, personified by Dreisiger. The characters in the play are grouped around these two social poles.

Striving for a broad coverage of events, recreating the atmosphere of social relations and details of the social situation, Hauptmann introduces more than forty characters into the play, representing a variety of classes and professions. It is the weavers, the masses, who become the central hero. Hauptmann does not build the plot of The Weavers around one main character, as was the case in traditional drama, but creates accurately and vividly drawn crowd scenes that make it possible to comprehend the fundamental problems of the time.

This one is big overall plan the playwright combines with subtle psychological research mental life of the individual. The heroes of crowd scenes are not extras, but vividly drawn individuals. Hauptmann reveals a quality that I. Franko accurately designated “as an outstanding gift of individualization.” 5

The main character of the play - the people - consists of many characters, each of whom, with their individual traits, helps to create an overall collective portrait of Silesian workers. Hauptmann draws with true skill folk characters; his characters speak the language of the people (at first the play was written in the Silesian dialect).

The first act is essentially a broad exposition that paints a vivid picture social environment, in which a dramatic struggle will unfold. At the same time, the characters who enter into this struggle are sharply outlined. The young weaver Becker, possessing courage and a sense of human dignity, boldly challenges the manufacturer Dreisiger. In their clash, the main conflict reflected in the play is openly revealed. Here the initial situation is clearly outlined, which will then receive further resolution. Becker denounces the manufacturer who profits from the sweat and blood of weavers, and Dreisiger resorts to demagoguery, trying to show himself as almost a benefactor of the workers.

The playwright complements and strengthens the external conflict with an internal conflict. This also applies to such characters as Baumert and Gilze. It should also be noted that the image of the old man Baumert and others is given in dynamics, in evolution, which distinguishes “The Weavers” from the static naturalistic “Zustanddrama” (“state drama”, and it is to this type of drama that many researchers attribute the play, seeing in it five epic scenes devoid of internal connection and movement).

“In The Weavers,” Hauptmann declared, “the dramatic action from the 1st to the 4th act increases all the time, and in the 5th act it breaks off” 6. One can agree with the author. The first four acts vividly depict how the anger of the weavers matures, leading them to open rebellion, which is depicted in the finale. In each act, the leading theme is consistently developed and the central conflict is realized.

The plight of the weavers is especially strongly revealed in the second act, which takes place in the house of the weaver Ansorge. The role of stage directions is very significant here. It develops into an expressive, emotionally rich picture of the life of weavers. The remark serves not only to determine place and time. It gives in detailed form a characteristic, generalized portrait of disadvantaged, desperate weavers.

With the arrival of retired soldier Moritz Jäger, the dramatic tension increases. He introduces the weavers to the song “Bloody Judgment,” which captivates them. Full of anger and sorrow, this song becomes the ideological and compositional core of the work. It sounds in the most intense, turning points of the play, giving it integrity and internal unity. The song helped the weavers realize their situation, it calls for solidarity in the fight against the exploiters. Old man Anzorge, excited by her words, exclaims: “All this must be broken, I tell you. Immediately! We can't stand it any longer! Can't be tolerated! Come what may!"

In the 3rd act, new heroes appear. From their remarks we can conclude that the enemies of the working people are the bourgeoisie, the feudal lords, the clergy, and the bourgeois-junker state as a whole. Hauptmann thus emphasizes that the weavers' performance was not just a food riot, but an expression of social protest.

In Act 4 we see Dreisiger's luxurious house, contrasted with the weavers' miserable shack. In this bourgeois citadel, the playwright gathered all those who oppose the weavers. There is a pastor, a police chief, and a gendarme here.

The weavers destroyed Dreisiger's house. The manufacturer and his family flee cowardly. This is the climactic moment that predetermines the quick outcome. It comes uncontrollably in the 5th act.

The scene changes again. In front of us is the village of Langenbilau, where a stream of rebels will soon pour in. They did not flinch when a gun volley rang out and blood flowed. Outraged by the atrocities of the Prussian troops, the weavers go on the offensive. The play ends with the retreat of the soldiers and the victory of the workers. And yet the ending of The Weavers, like many other plays of Hauptmann, is unfinished, giving rise to different interpretations. And mainly because Hauptmann does not give a clear authorial assessment of the absurd death of the old man Gilse. The question arises, why does the author kill the weaver, who remained aloof from the battle and did not stand in solidarity with the rebels? Gilse's death cannot be interpreted (if the play is read correctly) as proof of the meaninglessness of revolutionary action or a preaching of religious humility (although many literary scholars make this conclusion). Quite the contrary. Hauptmap convinces of the rightness of the fraternal solidarity of the weavers who rebelled against capitalist slavery. The attitude of submission and religious humility preached by the devout Gilse is condemned by the old weaver Baumert, the fearless weaver Louise, and even the submissive Gottlieb. “Are we mad dogs? - he exclaims. Shouldn’t we eat bullets instead of bread?”

In addition to the will of the author, “The Weavers” became a bold social and moral act; they stirred the hearts of the worker spectators. The dramatic battle that unfolded in Germany around “The Weavers” clearly demonstrates the revolutionary meaning of Hauptmann’s work. The play became a document of sharp social criticism and was widely used by German Social Democrats. In Russia, “Weavers” was first translated by A. I. Elizarova-Ulyanova in 1895 and distributed illegally among workers.

In the play “The Beaver Coat” (Der Biberpelz, 1893), Hauptmann continues the social-critical line begun in “The Weavers”. In contrast to the light entertainment that distinguished German comedies of the 90s, Hauptmann creates a comedy with great ideological content. It features full-blooded characters with a bright, unique personality. The playwright refuses cliché techniques of depicting characters, elements of buffoonery, traditional love couple, motives of “recognition”, the effect of exposure and eavesdropping, which the creators of comedies so often used.

"Beaver coat" - satirical comedy characters, devoid of external interest and intrigue. Its plot develops simply; the secret of the stolen fur coat is known to the audience in advance.

The author's remark accurately indicates the location of the action - the outskirts of Berlin. The new chief of the police district, Baron von Verhan, has been ruling here for more than two months. While this stupid and smug official is busy chasing " state criminals“, theft occurs twice in the village: first two cubic meters of firewood were stolen from rentier Kruger, then a beaver coat. This is done by the clever washerwoman Frau Wolf almost in front of the police, who are not fulfilling their direct duties, but are chasing imaginary criminals. The audience's attention is focused not on who stole the fur coat (this is known from the very beginning), but on the course of the trial, during which the characters' characters and typical features of the depicted era are revealed. Hauptmann defined this era very precisely: “The time of action is the end. 80s of the 19th century." The clarification contained in parentheses - “struggle for the septennate” 7 - in highest degree meaningfully: with this Hauptmai emphasized the socio-political specificity of the play. The object of the playwright's scourging was the police-state apparatus of Wilhelmine Germany, which in those years attacked the socialist movement with renewed vigor.

The comedy has a clearly thought-out structure, due to ideological plan author. The play centers on two main characters: the chief of the police district, von Wergan, and the washerwoman Mother Wolf. Four parallel acts take the viewer twice into Mother Wolf's house and twice into Vergan's office. This unique construction allows Hauptmann to draw the characters of the main and secondary characters with extraordinary clarity, to show the remarkable features of their appearance and features inner world. Frau Wolf captivates the viewer with her kindness and energy, resourcefulness and common sense. She has unshakable optimism, a sense of humor and an extraordinary mind.

The laundress Wolf, a woman of the people, is contrasted with the typical Prussian official Vergan. When creating this satirical image, the playwright uses the grotesque and sharpens the features, but the image does not turn out to be caricatured at all. It was on such vergans that Wilhelmine Germany rested. Hauptmann's satire takes on a broad and sharp character 8 .

The image of Vergan, growing into a symbol of the police system of the empire, is built on the contrast between appearance and essence. This image, which, like a mirror, captured the most typical features of Prussianism, largely anticipated the individual features of Heinrich Mann’s heroes.

The play “Florian Geyer” (1896) again centers on the fate of the masses. Hauptmann addressed the topic here Peasant War in Germany. In contrast to chauvinistic historical works Wildenbruck and Dahn, who idealized the Hohenzollern regime, Hauptmann strives to paint a true picture of the peasant uprising of 1525.

With exceptional care and diligence, Hauptmann studies archival sources, historical works, and various artistic monuments XVI century. He makes a trip to Franconia, the site of the peasant uprising. In the play, Hauptmann reproduces the color and atmosphere with great skill dramatic events XVI century; depicts a motley crowd of a peasant camp, cruel knights and clergy led by a bishop. The playwright accurately captured the complex and contradictory position of the burghers who betrayed the cause of the peasants.

However, all the characters are, essentially, a background against which the tragic figure of the courageous and honest knight Florian Geyer stands out. The scion of an old noble family, he selflessly and honestly serves the cause of the peasant uprising, leading the “black detachment” - the most valiant in the peasant army. This image obscures the masses in the play. (It should be noted that it is not given in action and not at the decisive moments of the uprising.) If in “The Weavers” Hauptmann depicted the people’s fate, creating the image of a collective hero, then in “Florian Geyer” he tries to solve the same problem by putting forward the first shot of the lone hero knight Geyer. But the fate of this knight could not reveal the “tragedy of the Peasant War” (this is the subtitle of the play). This reflected the lack of genuine historicism in Hauptmann, who did not see the social meaning and tragedy of the Peasant War. Popular masses appear in the play as an inert, passive force.

The play was a failure on stage. “Florian Geyer” was too drawn out, overloaded with many characters, and the principle of editing individual episodes prevailed in it.

Hauptmann was acutely upset by the failure and abandoned the historical trilogy he had planned about Florian Geyer.

The drama-fairy tale “The Sunken Bell” (Die versunkene Glocke, 1896) does not at all break with the realistic line of Hauptmann’s work. The author rejected the opinion of numerous critics who argued that the playwright had become a symbolist and neo-romantic. “Writing a fairy tale,” said Hauptmann, “does not mean saying goodbye to realism.”

The Sunken Bell contains the central motifs of Hauptmann's work. This is the problem of the artist and his attitude to morality; the clash of humanistic thought with severe church asceticism; denunciation of philistine, petty-bourgeois morality.

Hauptmann with great skill recreates the spirit of German mythology, Silesian sagas and builds the work in accordance with the characteristics of the genre he conceived, indicated in the subtitle “Ein deutsches Märchendrama” (German fairy tale drama).

The main character of the drama, Master Heinrich, resembles a Nietzschean hero in some of his features. However, the play does not glorify Nietzsche at all, as some researchers claim. On the contrary, it shows the downfall of such a hero and is essentially a polemic with the philosophy of Nietzsche.

In the first scene, the golden-haired fairy Rautendelein, personifying the enchanting world of poetry, beauty, and naturalness, heals the wounded Henry, who fell from the mountain along with the bell he cast.

The plot of the drama contrasts sharply with the ending: the joyful meeting of Heinrich and Rautendelein in the first act will give way to a cruel farewell in the fifth: the love of the beautiful fairy will be ruined, the master will die before the sun rises. The change of acts and individual scenes within acts and the appearance of heroes are built on the principle of antithesis.

Hauptmann with great art combines two levels in the play - realistic, concrete and conditionally symbolic.

The remarks and exclamations of the inhabitants of the valley - the pastor, the teacher and the barber - vividly recreate individual features of their personalities: the stern faith of the pastor, the ignorance of the barber, the primitive skepticism of the teacher, who knows well that “twice two is four and certainly not five.” Henry's uncontrollable desire to create a new creation - a new bell - collides with their philistine-philistine worldview. This collision of the artist's dream with society, the tragic discord between them constitutes the main conflict of the play. The most ideologically acute is the dialogue-dispute between the pastor, who defends the harsh dogmas of the church, and Henry, who passionately defends humanistic ideals. However, Master Heinrich, who does not have sufficient willpower, cannot withstand the stress of the struggle and dies.

The last two acts are the tragic story of the defeated Henry, the “knight of the sun.”

The play “Carrier Henschel” (Fuhrmann Henschel, 1898) clearly demonstrates that Hauptmann’s theater is fundamentally a tragic theater, capturing the crisis phenomena of bourgeois society. A. M. Gorky at one time noted as one of the main features of Hauptmann that he “feels the tragedy of life.”

"Carrier Henschel" - bright realistic work about Silesian life in the 60s. last century and at the same time a drama about conscience, about human dignity. The play reveals one of the essential sides of Hauptmann the artist - the fusion of high drama and everyday authenticity.

The playwright with amazing skill depicts the setting of the hotel, the inhabitants of which make up different social strata of society. We see the process of ruin of the petty bourgeoisie, whose bitter life is shown with genuine sympathy. The fate of the old groom Gauff, who worked all his life and was then thrown out onto the street as an unnecessary thing, is filled with tragedy. Equally dramatic is the fate of the former actor Wermelskirch, who became an innkeeper at the Old Swan Hotel and went bankrupt. The life plans and dreams of the good Ziebengar, the owner of the “Old Swan,” collapse.

Unlike naturalists, Hauptmann does not strive to copy details, to capture moments of everyday life. Rejecting the “drama of state,” devoid of movement and psychological depth, he creates a character in which he explores, first of all, the movements of mental life that determine the development of the plot, the meaning of the conflict and the tragic ending. The external outline of the plot is simple. After the death of his wife, it is difficult for Henschel to conduct business alone; his child was left homeless. It is necessary to introduce a new mistress into the house. But this is hampered by Henschel’s oath to his dying wife, to whom he promised not to marry the worker Hanna. After painful hesitation, he nevertheless marries a selfish, rude servant. With marriage comes misfortune. Henschel is unable to bear the consciousness of his guilt, the existing relationship, and in a fit of despair he commits suicide.

However, these external events are not the essence of the work. The tragedy of everyday life, the tragedy of the human spirit become the main subject artistic research. Henschel's internal struggle, the torment of his conscience, is the main force leading the action to a tragic denouement.

Drawing the hidden depths of Henschel's nature and the reasons for his tragic end, Hauptmann portrays him in contrast to Hanna Schel. This antithesis largely determines the compositional features of the drama. The development of the play's action is not so much the result of a change in the situation as the internal reaction of the main characters to it. Henschel eventually saw through Hanna's cruel, selfish nature. But most of all he was broken by the terrible thought that he himself had lost his human dignity. “I have become a bad person,” he exclaims. But Henschel does not want to live like this and cannot live. The circle is closed: a “crystal honest man” (as those around him called Henschel) must die.

The catastrophe was prepared by the internal changes of Henschel and external conflicts, the main one being the conflict with Ganna. Henschel cannot accept moral principles possessive world and make a deal with your conscience. Henschel's intransigence reveals his moral basis, and his uncompromisingness, for which he pays with his life, makes him a truly tragic hero.

The humanistic meaning of the tragic ending is that you can and should always remain human. With this thought, Henschel dies, and the author convinces us of the greatness of the soul of a commoner who challenged the possessive world.

A. M. Gorky highly valued “Henshel the Carrier.”

A kind of continuation of “Hanshel the Carrier” is “Rose Bernd” (Rose Bernd, 1903). Again with amazing art Using the example of the fate of the peasant girl Rosa, the playwright shows how the tragic comes into the ordinary, everyday world. The drama of a man from the people is deeply psychological and social. Honest and hardworking Rosa is humiliated by the landowner Flamm and the mechanic Streckmann, who seduces her, taking advantage of her hopeless situation. Pursued by Strekman and cursed by her father, Rosa, in a state of passion, commits a crime: she strangles a newborn child. In despair, Rose curses the social order in which human dignity is trampled, where there is no right to love. uh, for motherhood. Having experienced the bitter fate of the poor worker, Rosa comes to the thought: “The whole world stands on lies and deception.”

“Rose Bernd” continues the tradition of ideological German drama, which depicted the tragedy of a girl from the lower classes as a consequence of the social injustice of society (from Margaret in “Faust” to Clara in Hebbel’s “Mary Magdalene”).

In "Rose Bernd" Hauptmann created realistic picture Silesian village life and colorful folk characters. The drama sounded like a socially critical work. No wonder Brecht called it a “revolutionary play.”

The last socially critical play written by Hauptmann before the First World War was the tragicomedy “The Rats” (Die Ratten, 1911). The play takes place in a Berlin barracks and in the attic of a house where “need, hunger, poverty and vice reign.”

The bestial nature and abomination of bourgeois society are depicted here by Hauptmann with extraordinary sharpness. The title itself has a largely symbolic meaning.

The mason Ion says: “Everything is rotten, everything here is falling apart. Everything threatens to fall apart, everything is undermined by rats and mice. Everything is swinging and could collapse at any moment, starting from the attic itself.” These words can be applied not only to the Berlin slums, where the poor live, but also to the whole of Wilhelmine Germany, the social ills of which the playwright saw.

In the play "Rats" there are two storylines: one is connected with the tragic fate of Frau Ion, whom the thirst for motherhood drives to madness, the other - with her career former director Gassenreiter Theater. The playwright creates convincing truthfulness of the scenes and lively, unique characters when he portrays the family of the mason Ion, the maid Piperkarka, who enters into a desperate struggle for their baby (she gave him to the childless Frau Ion, who does not want to return him).

However, in this play, dedicated to the description of the outskirts of Berlin, there is not a single genuine proletarian. Ion resembles a representative of the labor aristocracy rather than a class-conscious worker. Great place The work is occupied by debates about art, about the essence of the dramatic, about the tragic.

The theme of art and the artist was one of the main ones in Hauptmann's dramaturgy. Already in his first comedy, “College Crarnpton” (1892), he paints the story of the greatness and fall of an artist who despises the bourgeois-philistine world. In a tragic sense, Hauptmann revealed the fate of the talented artist in “Michael Kramer” (Michael Kramer, 1900). The main idea of ​​the play is the incompatibility of true art with stupid bourgeois morality. Talented artist Arnold Kramer becomes a victim of evil townsfolk who drove him to suicide. The death of his son forces the stern and unyielding Michael Kramer to look at the world and people differently.

In the play "Rats", as in some plays by Pirandello and Brecht, aesthetic problems are set and resolved as the action progresses. Erich Spitta, reflecting the views of the author, rejects pomposity, empty rhetoric, focus on the aristocratic viewer - everything that the loyal subject of the Kaiser, director Gassenreiter, preaches. Spitta demands from art above all truth and is convinced that the object of tragedy can be the most ordinary person, and not just Lady Macbeth win King Lear. And the example of Mother Ion is evidence of a truly human tragedy occurring among the people.

A year after the production of the play “Rats,” Hauptmann published the novel “Atlantis” (Atlantis, 1912). Based on personal impressions, he creates a narrative about the death of the transatlantic steamer Roland, on which the doctor Friedrich Kammacher travels from Europe to America. The hero encounters representatives of various social classes on the ship. The entire work is permeated by a feeling of impending disaster. The death of a sinking ship and its passengers in the ocean takes on a broad social meaning - it is a symbol of the approaching collapse of the Kaiser's Germany on the eve of the First World War. This crisis was felt and reflected in their works by many German writers. It was shown especially clearly, for example, by Heinrich Mann in The Loyal Subject, created around the same time. True, Hauptmann does not have the sharpness of social criticism that was inherent in G. Mann's novel. But there is no doubt that the novel “Atlantis” will be imbued with critical, anti-bourgeois tendencies. Selfishness and animal fear are shown during a disaster by first class passengers. They are opposed simple people, maintaining courage and human dignity at the most critical moments. Hauptmann devoted many accusatory pages to bourgeois America, where he ended up main character after the sinking of the ship.

At the beginning of the First World War, Hauptmann, like some other German writers, did not escape the chauvinistic frenzy. However, he soon freed himself from it and called the war “the bitterest tragedy of humanity.” In the play “Magnus Harbe” (Magnus Harbe, 1914), the humanist writer condemned the medieval inquisitors who appealed to base instincts and speculated on the dark prejudices of the crowd, resolutely opposed the bullying and persecution of people, and sharply condemned fanaticism and barbarism. Written two decades before the Nazis came to power, the tragedy sounded like a prophecy. And the Nazis understood this well when in 1939 they banned the production of the play.

After the First World War, Gergart Hauptmann lost his position as Germany's leading playwright. He is being replaced by expressionist playwrights; The revolutionary dramaturgy of F. Wolf and B. Brecht opens a new page in the history of German theater. But even in the future, Hauptmann remains faithful to humanistic, democratic ideals, although he becomes increasingly pessimistic. He increasingly turns to historical and mythological themes. Thus, in the dramas “The White Savior” (Der weisse Heiland, 1920) and “Indipohdi” (1920), Hauptmann, using the material of Indian legends, tragically solves the problem of humanism. At the same time, he denounces the colonial invaders.

Evidence of Hauptmann's humanistic position was his quick and effective response to the call of A. M. Gorky in 1921 to organize assistance to the starving people of the Volga region.

Hauptmann returns to the pressing problems of our time in the play “Herbert Engelmann,” which he began in 1924 and completed in 1941. The author accurately indicates the time of the play: “Germany, the height of inflation, 1923.” Drawing tragic fate Herbert Engelmann, traumatized by the war, Hauptmann expresses his angry protest against the emerging ideology of fascism.

The accusatory pathos is expressed even more clearly in the drama “Dorothea Angermann” (Dorothea Angermann, 1926). Death main character, who became a victim of her relatives, is perceived as a merciless verdict on bourgeois morality and the pharisaism of the clergy.

Hauptmann reaches the pinnacle of realistic mastery in the play “Before Sunset” (Vor Sonnenuntergang, 1932). The conflict that broke out in the family of 70-year-old Privy Councilor Clausen develops into a significant social conflict, revealing the political and moral atmosphere of Germany on the eve of the advent of fascism. The dramatic conflict of the play is sharp and irreconcilable. Matthias Clausen and his beloved Inken Peters, embodying the moral beauty and greatness of man, enter into battle with the immoral, cruel people, nurtured by the world of capitalism. The Clausen family reveals their predatory nature when their material well-being is threatened. In order not to part with money and family jewelry in the event of Clausen’s second marriage (and even to the simple girl Inken), they seek a guardianship order over their old father. The children and relatives of the Privy Councilor are ready to put him in an insane asylum, destroy him, just to preserve his property. All this persecution is led by Clausen’s son-in-law Erich Klamroth, whose behavior reveals the traits of a future fascist. It is no coincidence that Clausen says: “Whenever I even briefly think about my son-in-law, I see a weapon pointed at me.”

The camp of opponents of the humanist Clausen is depicted by the playwright in individualization, subtly psychologically. The author tears off the mask from the prude-saint Bettina, who has fallen into religious ecstasy, but does not forget about purely material matters; Before us appears Clausen's eldest son, Professor Wolfgang, a typical German philistine and pedant, a cowardly opportunist: his wife, distinguished by her stupidity and noble arrogance, matches him.

Matthias Clausen, brought up in the traditions of Goethe and Lessing, in respect for the human person, must yield to the uncontrollable desire for power of new businessmen. We see the tragedy of a humanist who must die because life has been taken over by soulless, self-interested bourgeois.

Hauptmann masterfully combines socially revealing characteristics with deep psychological revelation of the inner world of the characters. The playwright was able to convincingly show the symptoms of the decay of the bourgeois world and expose it. But like most late bourgeois writers, Hauptmann was unable to indicate a way out of the crisis.

Before Sunset is Hauptmann's most popular play. Soviet scene. Talented actors M. Astangov, N. Simonov gave brilliant examples of stage interpretation of the image of the main character of the play.

During the dark years of fascism, Hauptmann found himself in deep spiritual loneliness. He did not openly express his attitude towards Hitler's barbarism, but it disgusted him.

Hauptmann moves away from modern themes and goes deeper into history, turning to the processing of traditional literary plots(“The Golden Harp”, 1933, “Hamlet in Wittenberg”, etc.).

In 1937 Hauptmann creates dramatic work"Darkness", published after the collapse of Nazism. Full of symbols and internal tension, this play is imbued with a humanistic spirit and expresses a passionate protest against the racial policies of the Nazis.

Hauptmann's final creation was the tetralogy of the Atrids. The ancient plot, which has long been processed by many writers, receives a new interpretation from Hauptmann. In “Iphigenia at Delphi” (1941), “Iphigenia at Aulis” (1943), “The Death of Agamemnon” (1944) and “Electra” (1944), the author draws gloomy pictures bloody murders, predatory wars, human sacrifices. Each of the plays in the tetralogy represents a complete whole, but they are all united by cross-cutting themes. One of them is the test of humanity that the heroes go through. The rulers and fanatic priests who commit countless crimes cannot stand it. Through the mouth of the ancient Greeks, Hauptmann condemns war:

We don't want war!
We want bread!

In indirect form, the tetralogy contains a protest against the atrocities of fascism. There is a parallel felt between the bloody events taking place in the Atrides’ house and the gloomy atmosphere that prevailed in Hitler’s Germany. Hauptmap fills the ancient Greek myth with topical content. And the largest German director Piscator, staging the tetralogy about the Atrids, had the right to interpret it as an anti-fascist work.

After the defeat of fascism, in October 1945, Hauptmann was visited by Johannes Becher, who headed the Kulturbund. The 83-year-old writer readily responded to the offer to participate in the democratic renewal of Germany. He handed Becher a statement in which he expressed his firm belief in the rebirth of a new Germany.

Hauptmann died at the age of 84 and was buried, as he had willed, before sunrise on the island of Hiddensee.

Notes

1 Mering F. Literary critical articles, vol. 2, p. 322.

2 Gorky M. Collection. soch., vol. 23, p. 332.

3. Franco Iv. Create in 20 volumes, vol. 18. Kiev, 1955, p. 459.

4. Wolf Fr. Art is a weapon. M., 1967, p. 159.

5 Franco Iv. Create, vol. 18, p. 459. .

6 Behl S. Zwiesprache mit G. Hauptmann. Miinchen, 1948, S. 76.

7 In 1887, a struggle began to extend the law on the septennate, that is, the approval of military spending for seven years in advance.

8. It is significant that the social meaning of the play was immediately grasped by the tsarist censor Vereshchagin, who motivated the ban as follows: “The essence of the play is to mock the police power” (TsGIA, f. 776, op, 26, case 22, l, 257),