Anna Zegers - criticism from foreign literature - essay - materials for the test coursework. Essay “The Work of Anna Zegers

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- by the name of her beloved Dutch artist 17th century 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 cheerful emotional person, sharp-tongued, the direct opposite of 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 the Soviet Union to participate in the conference “International Cooperation 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 widely read works of 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.

In the year of finishing work on the novel 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. After being hospitalized 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, the creation 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, under no circumstances did she openly criticize 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” (“ Fair Judge") about a regime that he 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 Segers was the most popular writer in the GDR. Streets and squares were named in her honor, and there was not a single literary prize that she did not receive. 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.

The work of Anna Zegers

(1900-1983) - one of the most significant phenomena of literature 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 of her creative career.

Anna Zegers

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 it’s primarily about the embodiment developing life, changes in the social atmosphere, the 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.

Manner Zegers

often close to the stage: she is more willing to show than to tell, life in her novels exists as if independently, develops 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.

Novels by Anna Zegers

A chronicle of the history of Germany 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 life, about their difficult, indirect road 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 the “little ones,” 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 big interest to Dostoevsky. L. 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) - a novel about the communist struggle different countries against the fascist reaction in the 20s. - one of the first attempts to create an anti-fascist epic novel in European literature. 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 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, saving herself and her family, until 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 plot core of the novel is the story of Georg Geisler's escape from fascist hell, Anna Seghers painted a broad picture of life in 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 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.

Special meaning acquires a theme 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. Endless stream consciousness (facts, events, people), enriched by the flow 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' Walk,” Anna Zegers uses artistic means to lead the reader to the conclusion that every person must go through his own life. life path so as to remain worthy of the high title of man. It was a worthy position of talent, not silted up 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.

The best works of world literature ( total- 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. New ways artistic comprehension Both realists and avant-garde artists sought 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 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 feels another, deeper - modern reality in her crisis state. 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. 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. Isn’t that why in the works of James Joyce and Franz Kafka inner world human beings is not always structured rationally, is not always subject to logic, and an irrational, illogical world cannot generate harmony?

Almost highest value For further development 20th-century literature had a “stream of consciousness school,” which some equate 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 artistic style William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway.

In the period between the two world wars, prose, drama, and poetry actively developed. Fiction creates a portrait of its 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. " Epic Theater"Brecht 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. Lyrics are increasingly gravitating towards a philosophical understanding of existence, towards unusual forms of embodiment of poetic thought, towards original ways of identifying the poet’s “I” in lyrical works.

Anna Seghers Anna Seghers Birth name: Netty Reiling Date of birth: November 19, 1900 Place of birth: Mainz, German Empire Date of death: June 3 ... Wikipedia

Seghers Anna [pseudonym; real name and surname Nettie Radványi, née Reiling] (b. 11/19/1900, Mainz), German writer (GDR). Member of the Communist Party of Germany since 1928 (member of the SED since 1947). Antique dealer's daughter...

Surname. Notable speakers Anna Seghers (1900 1983) German writer. Kevin Zegers (b. 1984) Canadian actor ... Wikipedia

I Seghers Anna [pseudonym; real name and surname Nettie Radványi, née Reiling] (b. 11/19/1900, Mainz), German writer (GDR). Member of the Communist Party of Germany since 1928 (member of the SED since 1947). Daughter … Great Soviet Encyclopedia

- (Seghers), Anna (real name and last name Nettie Radvanyi, née Reiling) (p. 19.11.1900) German. writer and society activist From the very first book of Z.’s novel The Fishermen’s Revolt (1928, Russian translation, 1929), her work is closely connected with the struggle... ... Soviet historical encyclopedia

- (1900 83) German writer. In 1933, 47 emigrated. The novel The Seventh Cross (1942) affirms the moral victory of anti-fascist fighters and faith in the future German people. Cycle socially psychological novels The Dead Stay Young (1949), ... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Zegers, Anna- Anna Seghers (1900 83), German writer. In 1933, 47 emigrated. In graphically clear descriptions of the life of ordinary workers (the story The Fishermen's Revolt, 1928; the novels The Seventh Cross, 1942 on English language, 1946 on German;… … Illustrated encyclopedic Dictionary

Books

Anna Zegers. Collected works in 6 volumes (set of 6 books), Anna Zegers. The name of the talented GDR writer Anna Segers is widely known to Soviet readers. Her novels and stories enjoy constant success in our country. The collected works are published here...
Anna Zegers. Novels and stories, Anna Zegers. Lifetime edition. Moscow, 1957. State Publishing House fiction. Publisher's binding. The condition is good. This publication is a collection…

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 had big success and received literary prize named after Kley-sta. 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 watched with great excitement and interest Soviet life, still known 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 art Zegers shows the “tragedy of darkness” of the village. Zillich thinks that the rich peasant for whom he works will not leave Hard time his farmhand, 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 the story of the difficult and heroic journey of a communist who escaped from the Westhofen concentration camp. 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 Valau, dies, betrayed by his friend, who had previously been released from the camp on the condition of handing over his friends. Younger brother Georg, whom he carried on his shoulders as a boy at a demonstration, became a stormtrooper and is ready to immediately inform on sibling. The methods by which the fascists achieve this universal fear and destroy humanity in people are shown. Depicted concisely and simply, without naturalistic details everyday life in a concentration camp. 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 people, intimidated by fascism, there are often heroes, people big heart. 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 merit. 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 between nations. In 1956, Anna Zegers became chairman of the Union German writers.

"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 traits Hitlerism. 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. Large passages pass before the reader historical events 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 revealed public role bourgeoisie during the years of the establishment of fascism. 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 in the novel are truthfully drawn, embodying Seghers’ faith in the German people, 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 her 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, big influence influenced him old friend his father, the communist Martin. 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 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 on a historical theme in them, 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 life after the 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” shows well 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 the moment of devastation, in difficult post-war years. WITH with great difficulty workers are trying to restart a plant damaged by the bombing; they are repairing many machines and parts themselves, sometimes without even having the right tools. The workers live in poorly equipped, bomb-damaged buildings, receiving meager rations on food 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 from secret lists The Nazis who fell into her hands found out about this and blackmailed 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 about 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.