Heinrich Belle short biography. Heinrich Böll: the most Russian German writer

Heinrich Mann Heinrich Mann (1871–1950) came from an influential family of grain merchants, whose company was founded at the end of the 18th century. in Lubeck - a northern German city, an ancient trading center. G. Mann's father was not only the owner of a reputable company, but also held a prominent

Grigory Dashevsky, “Henry and Semyon” The OGI Project club has released another book in its “poetry series”. This is the third book for the club, and the second for Grigory Dashevsky. Or also the third, depending on how you count. (The fact is that Dashevsky’s collection “Change of Poses”,

The Frog King, or Iron Henry In the old days, when you just had to wish for something and the wish would come true, there lived a king; all his daughters were one more beautiful than the other, and the youngest princess was so beautiful that even the sun itself, which had seen so many different things,

Friend Heinrich “What might happen to a Russian or a Czech does not interest me at all. Whether they live or die of hunger like cattle - for me it matters only in the sense that we will need persons belonging to these nationalities as slaves.

King Henry VIII (1491–1547) Educated under John Skelton, who instilled in him an interest in poetry. After becoming king, he supported the fine arts, inviting artists, poets and musicians from all over Europe to London. He loved to play music on the lute and composed his own

“The Silence of Doctor Murke” is a story that became for me the first work I read from the pen of Heinrich Böll. Now, some time after becoming familiar with this work, I have already studied some other works of this German writer, and it seems very favorable to me that of all his works, “The Silence of Doctor Murke” was the first for me.
Why is this so? Because most of Böll’s other works, as for me, are much more specific in their philosophy. If I had started studying the work of this writer with them, it is unlikely that I would have become as interested in him as I am now.

Many people note that Böll’s “Silence...” should be read only according to the mood or lack thereof. To be honest, I prefer the second option. “The Silence of Dr. Murke” is ironic but restrained. In general, a distinctive feature of many German writers is precisely this restraint. However, at the same time, the stinginess of words and their brevity do not at all deprive the work of the proper atmosphere, and in this case they even, on the contrary, emphasize the meaning invested by the author in the work. Böll does an excellent job of immersing the reader in the events in question; he basically describes the whole, but does not leave out the details. It is also impossible not to note with what interest the reader discovers the world of radio broadcasting described by the author. His narration is measured, but very lively and fast. Böll's characters also seem alive.

Murke, a man probably known to quite a few people, is reserved and patient, works hard at a job that he likes, but sometimes he is not averse to slightly annoying those around him with an ironic joke. He is also not afraid to speak his mind. Böll talks about Murke as a worker, describing him as a “predator with an intellect,” and then notes that any boss - quite obviously - likes the most flexible employees, which Murke is not, which is why he gets such a boring and a thankless job around which the plot of the work unfolds. However, Murke copes with the duties of the operator excellently, leaving no reason for his superiors to find fault.

The life of a radio station employee teaches the doctor to value silence, and then he puts it into uniform, creates from it a certain character, close only to him. He collects pauses between the words of people speaking in the studio and glues them into complete silence, which he then passes through himself. And this, silence, is necessary for Murka, just as he needs a few seconds of fear before the start of the working day. Silence and slight fear are for Dr. Murke a lifeline in a world often filled with empty chatter; they sober him up, not allowing him to go crazy in the daily sickening rapid cycle of the same absurd events.

In this short story, in the simple words of an ordinary person, a whole everyday life is contained, but in this everyday life, the author once again reminds us of a simple truth known to all of us: in the transience of human life, everyone needs to learn to appreciate the moments of their precious peace. It’s not for nothing that they say that “silence is golden.” And it is in “The Silence of Dr. Murke,” completely permeated with satire, irony and existential philosophy of the post-war period of the last century, that, in my opinion, Böll’s talent in creating a psychological portrait of characters is most clearly revealed.
And if anyone suddenly wants to get to know the work of Heinrich Böll, then I think it’s worth starting with this story.

Heinrich Böll was born on December 21, 1917 in Cologne, into a liberal Catholic family of a craftsman. From 1924 to 1928 he studied at a Catholic school, then continued his studies at the Kaiser Wilhelm Gymnasium in Cologne. He worked as a carpenter and worked in a bookstore.

In the summer of 1939, Böll entered the University of Cologne, but in the fall he was drafted into the Wehrmacht. During World War II, Böll is captured by the Americans. After the war, he returned to the University of Cologne and studied philology.

Böll began publishing in 1947. The first works were the story “The Train Arrives on Time” (1949), the collection of short stories “Wanderer, When You Come to Spa...” (1950) and the novel “Where Have You Been, Adam?” (1951, Russian translation 1962).

In 1971, Böll was elected president of the German PEN Club, and then headed the international PEN Club. He held this post until 1974.

Heinrich Böll tried to appear in the press demanding an investigation into the deaths of RAF members.

The writer visited the USSR several times, but was also known as a critic of the Soviet regime. Hosted A. Solzhenitsyn and Lev Kopelev, expelled from the USSR.

Belle Heinrich (December 21, 1917, Cologne - July 16, 1985, ibid.), German writer. Born on December 21, 1917, into a liberal Catholic family of a cabinetmaker, craftsman, and sculptor. From 1924 to 1928 he studied at a Catholic school, then continued his studies at the Kaiser Wilhelm Gymnasium in Cologne. After graduating from high school in Cologne, Böll, who had been writing poetry and stories since early childhood, was one of the few students in his class who did not join the Hitler Youth. However, a year after graduating from school, he is forced into forced labor. He worked in a bookstore. After graduating from classical gymnasium (1936), he worked as an apprentice salesman in a second-hand bookstore. In April 1939, he enrolled at the University of Cologne, where he planned to study literature, but a few months later he received a draft notice from the Wehrmacht. In 1939-1945, he fought as an infantryman in France and took part in battles in Ukraine and Crimea. In 1942, Böll married Anna Marie Cech, who bore him two sons. Together with his wife, Böll translated such American writers as Bernard Malamud and Salinger into German. At the beginning of 1945, he deserted and ended up in an American prisoner of war camp. After his release, he worked as a carpenter, and then continued his education at the university, studying philology. Böll's literary debut took place in 1947, when his story “The Message” was published in one of the Cologne magazines. Two years later, the aspiring writer’s story “The Train Came on Time” (1949), which told about a soldier who, like Belle himself, deserted from the army, was published as a separate book. In 1950 Belle became a member of Group 47. In 1952, in the programmatic article “Recognition of the Literature of Ruins,” a kind of manifesto of this literary association, Bell called for the creation of a “new” German language - simple and truthful, associated with concrete reality. In accordance with the proclaimed principles, Bell's early stories are distinguished by stylistic simplicity, they are filled with vital concreteness. Bell's collections of stories “Not Just for Christmas” (1952), “The Silence of Doctor Murke” (1958), “City of Familiar Faces” (1959), “When the War Began” (1961), “When the War Ended” (1962) found a response not only among the general reading public and critics. In 1951, the writer received the Group 47 Prize for the story “Black Sheep” about a young man who does not want to live according to the laws of his family (this theme would later become one of the leading ones in Bell’s work). From stories with simple plots, Belle gradually moved on to more voluminous things: in 1953 he published the story “And He Didn’t Say a Single Word,” a year later - the novel “The House without a Master.” They were written about recent experiences, they recognized the realities of the first very difficult post-war years, and touched upon the problems of the social and moral consequences of the war. The fame of one of the leading prose writers in Germany brought Bell the novel “Billiards at half past nine” (1959). Technically, it takes place over the course of one day, September 6, 1958, when the hero named Heinrich Fehmel, a famous architect, celebrates his eightieth birthday. In fact, the action of the novel contains not only events from the life of three generations of the Femel family, but also half a century of German history. “Billiards at Half Nine” consists of internal monologues of eleven characters, the same events are presented to the reader from different points of view, so that a more or less objective picture of the historical life of Germany in the first half of the 20th century emerges. Böll's novels are characterized by a simple and clear style of writing, focused on the revival of the German language after the pompous style of the Nazi regime. A unique embodiment of Germany is the grandiose Abbey of St. Anthony, in a design competition for the construction of which Heinrich Femel once won and which was blown up by his son Robert, who went into the anti-fascist underground after the death of his wife. Post-war Germany, in which the heroes of the novel live, turns out, in Böll’s opinion, not much better than pre-war: lies and money reign here too, with which you can buy off the past. A notable phenomenon in German literature was the following pain

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Bell's best work is “Through the Eyes of a Clown” (1963). Böll's uneventful novel is, in fact, an internal monologue of the main character, circus performer Hans Schnier, the son of a millionaire industrialist, who recalls the years of his childhood during the war, his post-war youth, and reflects on art. After the hero was abandoned by his beloved Marie, whom Shnir considers “his wife before God,” he begins to fall out of the rhythm of life, his “two congenital diseases - melancholy and migraine” worsen. For Hans, alcohol becomes the cure for failure in life. As a result, Shnir cannot enter the circus arena and is forced to temporarily interrupt his performances. Returning to his apartment in Bonn, he calls his friends to find Marie, who became the wife of the Catholic figure Züpfner, but to no avail. From the hero’s memoirs, the reader understands that he fell out of life long before he lost his beloved - even in adolescence, when he refused to participate in the Hitler Youth exercises with his classmates and, later, at the age of twenty, when he rejected his father’s offer to continue his work, choosing the path of a free artist. The hero does not find support in anything: neither in love, nor in an established life, nor in religion. “A Catholic by intuition,” he sees how churchmen violate the letter and spirit of Christian commandments at every step, and those who sincerely follow them in modern society can turn into an outcast. In 1967, Böll received the prestigious German Georg Büchner Prize. The pinnacle of international recognition was the election of Böll in 1971 as president of the International PEN Club, before which he had already been president of the German PEN Club. He held this post until 1974. In 1967, Böll received the prestigious German Georg Büchner Prize. And in 1972 he was the first of the German writers of the post-war generation to be awarded the Nobel Prize. The decision of the Nobel Committee was largely influenced by the release of the writer’s new novel, “Group Portrait with a Lady” (1971), in which the writer tried to create a grandiose panorama of the history of Germany in the 20th century. At the center of the novel, described through the eyes of many people, is the life of Leni Gruiten-Pfeiffer, whose personal fate turned out to be closely intertwined with the history of her homeland. In the early 1970s, after a series of terrorist attacks carried out by West German ultra-left youth groups, Bell spoke in their defense, justifying the horrific actions by the unreasonable internal policies of the West German authorities and the impossibility of individual freedom in modern German society. Heinrich Böll tried to appear in the press demanding an investigation into the deaths of RAF members. His story “The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, or how violence arises and what it can lead to” (1974) was written by Bell under the influence of attacks on the writer in the West German press, which, not without reason, dubbed him the “mastermind” of terrorists. The central problem of “The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum,” like the problem of all of Böll’s later works, is the intrusion of the state and the press into the personal life of the common man. Böll’s last works, “The Careful Siege” (1979) and “Image, Bonn, Bonn” (1981), also speak about the danger of state surveillance of its citizens and the “violence of sensational headlines.” In 1979, the novel “Under the Escort of Care” (Fursorgliche Belagerung), written back in 1972, when the press was filled with materials about Baader’s terrorist group Meinhof, was published. The novel describes the devastating social consequences that arise from the need to increase security measures during mass violence. Bell was the first and, perhaps, the most popular West German writer of the young post-war generation in the USSR, whose books became available thanks to the “thaw” of the late 1950s - 1960s. From 1952 to 1973, more than 80 stories, novels and articles by the writer were published in Russian, and his books were published in much larger print runs than in his homeland, Germany. Belle was a frequent visitor to the USSR. In 1974, contrary to the protest of the Soviet authorities, he granted A.I. Solzhenitsyn, who was expelled by the Soviet authorities from the USSR, times

a shelter in his house in Cologne (in the previous period, Belle illegally exported the dissident writer’s manuscripts to the West, where they were published). As a result, Böll's works were banned from publication in the Soviet Union. The ban was lifted only in the mid-1980s. with the beginning of perestroika. In 1981, the novel “What will happen to the boy, or Some business regarding the book part” (Was soll aus dem Jungen bloss werden, oder: Irgend was mit Buchern) was published - memories of his early youth in Cologne. In 1987, the Heinrich Böll Foundation was created in Cologne, a non-governmental organization that works closely with the Green Party (its branches exist in many countries, including Russia). The Foundation supports projects in the field of development of civil society, ecology, and human rights. Böll died on July 16, 1985 in Langenbroich. Also in 1985. The writer’s very first novel is published, “The Soldier’s Inheritance” (Das Vermachtnis), which was written in 1947, but was published for the first time.

Biography

Heinrich Böll was born on December 21, 1917 in Cologne, into a liberal Catholic family of a craftsman. He studied at a Catholic school from year to year, then continued his studies at the Kaiser Wilhelm Gymnasium in Cologne. He worked as a carpenter and worked in a bookstore. After graduating from high school in Cologne, Böll, who had been writing poetry and stories since early childhood, was one of the few students in his class who did not join the Hitler Youth. After graduating from classical gymnasium (1936), he worked as an apprentice salesman in a second-hand bookstore. A year after finishing school, he is sent to work in a labor camp under the Imperial Labor Service.

In 1967, Böll received the prestigious German Georg Büchner Prize. In Böll he was elected president of the German PEN Club, and then headed the international PEN Club. He held this post until Mr.

In 1969, the premiere of the documentary film “The Writer and His City: Dostoevsky and St. Petersburg” filmed by Heinrich Böll took place on television. In 1967, Böll traveled to Moscow, Tbilisi and Leningrad, where he collected material for him. Another trip took place a year later, in 1968, but only to Leningrad.

In 1972, he was the first of the German writers of the post-war generation to be awarded the Nobel Prize. The decision of the Nobel Committee was largely influenced by the release of the writer’s new novel, “Group Portrait with a Lady” (1971), in which the writer tried to create a grandiose panorama of the history of Germany in the 20th century.

Heinrich Böll tried to appear in the press demanding an investigation into the deaths of members of the RAF. His story “The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, or how violence arises and what it can lead to” (1974) was written by Böll under the influence of attacks on the writer in the West German press, which, not without reason, dubbed him the “mastermind” of terrorists. The central problem of “The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum,” like the problem of all of Böll’s later works, is the invasion of the state and the press into the personal life of the common man. Böll’s last works, “The Careful Siege” (1979) and “Image, Bonn, Bonn” (1981), also speak about the danger of state surveillance of its citizens and the “violence of sensational headlines.” In 1979, the novel “Under the Escort of Care” (Fursorgliche Belagerung), written back in 1972, when the press was filled with materials about the terrorist group Baader and Meinhof, was published. The novel describes the devastating social consequences that arise from the need to increase security measures during mass violence.

In 1981, the novel “What will happen to the boy, or Some business regarding the book part” (Was soll aus dem Jungen bloss werden, oder: Irgend was mit Buchern) was published - memories of his early youth in Cologne.

Böll was the first and, perhaps, the most popular West German writer of the young post-war generation in the USSR, whose books were published in Russian translation. From 1952 to 1973, more than 80 stories, novels and articles by the writer were published in Russian, and his books were published in much larger print runs than in his homeland, Germany. The writer visited the USSR several times, but was also known as a critic of the Soviet regime. Hosted A. Solzhenitsyn and Lev Kopelev, expelled from the USSR. In the previous period, Böll illegally exported Solzhenitsyn's manuscripts to the West, where they were published. As a result, Böll's works were banned from publication in the Soviet Union. The ban was lifted only in the mid-1980s. with the beginning of perestroika.

In the same 1985, a previously unknown novel by the writer was published - “A Soldier’s Inheritance” (Das Vermachtnis), which was written in 1947, but was published for the first time.

In the early 1990s, manuscripts were found in the attic of Böll’s house, which contained the text of the writer’s very first novel, “The Angel Was Silent.” This novel, after its creation, was the author himself, burdened with a family and in need of money, “disassembled” into many separate stories in order to receive a larger fee.

He was buried on July 19, 1985 in Bornheim-Merten near Cologne with a large crowd of people, with the participation of fellow writers and political figures.

In 1987, the Heinrich Böll Foundation was created in Cologne, a non-governmental organization that works closely with the Green Party (its branches exist in many countries, including Russia). The Foundation supports projects in the field of development of civil society, ecology, and human rights.

Essays

• Aus der "Vorzeit".
• Die Botschaft. (Message; 1957)
• Der Mann mit den Messern. (The Knives Man; 1957)
• So ein Rummel.
• Der Zug war pünktlich. (The Train Arrives on Time; 1971)
• Mein teures Bein. (My Dear Foot; 1952)
• Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa…. (Traveler, when will you come to Spa...; 1957)
• Die schwarzen Schafe. (Black Sheep; 1964)
• Wo warst du, Adam?. (Where Have You Been, Adam?; 1963)
• Nicht nur zur Weihnachtszeit. (Not Just for Christmas; 1959)
• Die Waage der Baleks. (Balekov Scales; 1956)
• Abenteuer eines Brotbeutels. (The Story of a Soldier's Bag; 1957)
• Die Postkarte. (Postcard; 1956)
• Und sagte kein einziges Wort. (And Never Said a Word; 1957)
• Haus ohne Huter. (House Without a Master; 1960)
• Das Brot der fruhen Jahre. (Bread of the Early Years; 1958)
• Der Lacher. (The Laughter Provider; 1957)
• Zum Tee bei Dr. Borsig. (At a cup of tea with Dr. Borzig; 1968)
• Wie in Schlechten Romanen. (Like Bad Novels; 1962)
• Irisches Tagebuch. (Irish Diary; 1963)
• Die Spurlosen. (Elusive; 1968)
• Doktor Murkes gesammeltes Schweigen. (The Silence of Dr. Murke; 1956)
• Billard um halb zehn. (Billiards at half past nine; 1961)
• Ein Schluck Erde.
• Ansichten eines Clowns. (Through the Eyes of a Clown; 1964)
• Entfernung von der Truppe. (Absent without leave; 1965)
• Ende einer Dienstfahrt. (How one business trip ended; 1966)
• Gruppenbild mit Dame. (Group portrait with a lady; 1973)
• "Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum . The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum
• Berichte zur Gesinnungslage der Nation.
• Fursorgliche Belagerung.
• Was soll aus dem Jungen bloß werden?.
• Das Vermächtnis. Entstanden 1948/49; Druck 1981
• Vermintes Gelande. (Mined area)
• Die Verwundung. Frühe Erzählungen; Druck (Wound)
• Bild-Bonn-Boenisch.
• Frauen vor Flusslandschaft.
• Der Engel schwieg. Entstanden 1949-51; Druck (Angel was silent)
• Der blasse Hund. Frühe Erzählungen; Druck
• Kreuz ohne Liebe. 1946/47 (Cross Without Love; 2002)

• Heinrich Bell Collected works in five volumes Moscow: 1989-1996
  • Volume 1: Novels / Tale / Stories / Essays; 1946-1954(1989), 704 pp.
  • Volume 2: Novel / Stories / Travel diary / Radio plays / Stories / Essays; 1954-1958(1990), 720 pp.
  • Volume 3: Novels / Tale / Radio plays / Stories / Essays / Speeches / Interviews; 1959-1964(1996), 720 pp.
  • Volume 4: Tale / Novel / Stories / Essays / Speeches / Lectures / Interviews; 1964-1971(1996), 784 pp.
  • Volume 5: Tale / Novel / Stories / Essays / Interviews; 1971-1985(1996), 704 pp.

Heinrich Böll became a full-fledged writer at the age of 30. His first story, The Train Arrives on Time, was published in 1949. This was followed by many other novels, short stories, radio broadcasts and collections of essays, and in 1972 the Nobel Prize in Literature "for a work that combines wide-ranging reality with high skill in character creation and which has made a significant contribution to the revival of German literature." Heinrich Böll was the first German-language author to receive this award since Hermann Hesse, who received it in 1946. His works have been translated into more than 30 languages, and he is one of the most widely read authors in Germany.

THROUGH THE EYES OF A CLOWN (1963)

Still from the film “Through the Eyes of a Clown” (1976)

The career of famous artist Hans Schnier begins to crumble after his beloved Maria refuses to marry him. This tragedy forces him to reconsider his past. He returns to his hometown of Bonn, where he reminisces about the death of his sister, the demands of his millionaire father and the hypocrisy of his mother, who first fought to “save” Germany from the Jews, then worked to make peace.

GROUP PORTRAIT WITH A LADY (1971)

Still from the film “Group Portrait with a Lady” (1977)

For this resourceful and caustic novel about the impact of the Nazi regime on ordinary citizens, Heinrich Böll was awarded the 1972 Nobel Prize for Literature. By collecting the stories of completely different people in this work, the author shows us the largely strange, but very “human” paths chosen by people trying to survive in a world marked by political madness, absurdity and destruction. The plot centers on a German woman, Leni Pfeiffer, whose affair with a Soviet prisoner of war both supports and destroys her life. The narrator talks with those who knew Pfeiffer, and their stories are combined into a dazzling mosaic, rich in satire, but also hope for a normal life.

UNDER THE ESCORT OF CARE (1979)

Fritz Tolme managed to occupy a powerful place in Germany. But with fame comes fear and vulnerability. And with the advent of a threat, his life is shrouded in an all-consuming “protection network” of police protection and surveillance. Trapped in his home, unable to leave, where every visitor is a potential suspect and every object a possible bomb, Tholme and his family spend their days waiting to see when and how the threat will strike them.

THE LOST HONOR OF KATARINA BLUM, OR HOW VIOLENCE ARISES AND WHAT IT CAN LEAD TO (1974)

Still from the film “The Desecrated Honor of Katharina Blum” (1975)

In an era when journalists will stop at nothing to get a big story, Heinrich Böll's novel is more relevant than ever. German woman Katharina Blum's relationship with a young man who becomes embroiled in terrorist activities makes her the target of a journalist willing to tarnish a person's honor for the sake of a loud headline. As the woman's attacks escalate and she becomes the victim of various anonymous threats, Katrina realizes there is only one way out of this situation. The author turns to the detective genre, starting the novel with a confession of a crime, involving the reader in a web of sensations, murder and an inevitable wave of violence.

BILLIARDS AT HALF NINE (1959)

Another work by the author, which established him in the forefront of fierce opposition to war and fascism. The story follows Robert Fahmel, who is sent to the front of World War II to command the retreating German forces. And, despite his anti-Nazi feelings, the hero fights to restore normal life at the very end of the war. Being a meticulous person, Fahmel maintains a strict schedule, including a daily game of billiards. But when an old friend, and now an important person in the Nazi rule, suddenly appears in his life, Fachmel is forced to control not only his public but also his private life.

...AND BONUS

This is a novel that Heinrich Böll wrote one of the first in his work, but the book was published only in 1985.

A SOLDIER'S LEGACY (1947)

1943 A young German soldier, Wenk, guarding the coast of Normandy, finds himself drawn into a war in which loneliness and suffering are the main enemies. At the top of the command, corruption is rampant: while ordinary soldiers are forced to cross mined fields to steal potatoes from neighboring French farms, commanders profit from stolen rations. Contrary to army rank and protocol, Wenk strikes up a friendship with Lieutenant Schelling, who has incurred the wrath of his commanders by protecting his soldiers. All this hatred, lies and dishonor leads to unexpected consequences when the heroes are sent to the Russian front.