How the Steel Was Tempered

How the Steel Was Tempered (Russian Как закалялась сталь; Kak sakaljalas stal; scientific transliteration Kak zakaljalas ' stal ') is a novel by the Soviet writer Nikolai Alexeyevich Ostrovsky. He is one of the most famous examples of the literature of socialist realism and has been estimated by the lexicon of world literature " played a significant role in the socialist education in the Soviet Union and the socialist awareness of the progressive youth around the world. "

Content and changes

The life story of Pawel " Pawka " Korchagin based on the biography of the author. Korchagin fighting in the Red Army, the Communist Youth League and the Communist Party. He is blind and confined to bed. But never the hero loses his confidence and his fighting prowess. Resistant to Pawka seeks the way back to " rank and file " (or " battle lines ", depending on which translation is based on the output ).

Ostrowski worked in the years 1930 and 1933 his main work. The first publication was in 1932 and 1934. The book learned over the years repeatedly changes. While Pawka example in the first edition is still a member of the Workers' Opposition, Ostrowski revised to allow the young revolutionary appear spotless in the third edition. The book is now exposed to many reviews, as it is very colored by the then political line. The most obvious case is the representation of Machnowschtschina as a criminal gang and the generally pejorative tone with intra-party, oppositional currents of the Workers' Opposition and Trotskyism.

The famous quote

In the third chapter of the second part Pavel Korchagin is still weak from typhus and has for the fourth time " stood on the threshold of death, and had returned to life. " The sick leave he spends with his family of origin in a small town, where he - disgusted with the " petty-bourgeois milieu" - after " the huge stone buildings, according to the sooty workshops of its operation, the machine and the soft hum of the belt " longs. When walking him take a "strange dejection ." In the suburbs he comes to the place where comrades were hanged, and their graves: "Here the brave comrades who lost their lives so that the lives of those 'll nicer, who were born in misery and poverty, and for which alone the birth already meant the beginning of slavery. ... Sadness, deep sadness filled his heart " He takes off his cap and thinks.:

" The most precious thing man has is life. It is only once given him, and he must use it so that pointless spent his years not painful regret, the shame of a petty, meaningless past not oppressed him, and that he dying can say: All my life, all my strength, I have the most magnificent in the world - the struggle for the liberation of humanity - dedicated. And he needs to hurry to live. For a stupid disease or any tragic accident can suddenly put an end to life. "

No longer " sounded in his music now the irrepressible audacity of that great rejoicing full of exuberance, that drunken high spirits that had made the young harmonica player Pawka famous throughout the town: In parting, he plays accordion for his mother, who marvels. His music sounded melodic, was, however, without losing their power, become more serious and profound. "

Filmography

The book was made ​​into a film three times by Soviet directors: As the steel hardened 1942 ( Mark Donskoi ), Pavel Korchagin 1956 ( Aleksandr and Vladimir Naumov Alow ), How the Steel Was Tempered 1975 ( Nikolai Mastschenko ).

Comments on the work

The French writer Romain Rolland was cured in the preface of How the Steel, 1936:

" All in Ostrowski flame of action and struggle - and this flame grew and stretched itself, the narrower night and death surrounded him. He poured from tireless courage and optimism about. And this joy connected him with all the fighting and forward -border peoples of the earth. "

Publisher of Advertising 1950:

" The author tells the story with great truthfulness of a young generation that was educated and steeled in the storm of historical events. [ ... ] The fight between good and evil, filth and Pure, high and low, beautiful and the ugly, human and barbaric that rages within man himself, but the people also fight with each other, found in this poet living true expression. "

Expenditure

• First edition in two volumes, Moscow 1932-1934

• Translation: Anonymous. State Publishing House of the national minorities of the USSR, Kiev 1937 (first German edition )
• Translation: Anonymous. New Life, Berlin 1947
• Translation re-edited by Nelly Drechsler With drawings by Kurt Zimmermann. Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin, 1954 ( 13th edition)
• Reclam, Leipzig 1957

• Drawings of Kurt Zimmermann. Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin, 1961 ( 20th edition )
• Reclam, Leipzig, 1969 ( 13th edition)
• Drawings of Kurt Zimmermann. World Circle Publishing Company, Dortmund 1973

• Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin 1977 ( 36th edition ); World Circle -Verlag, Dortmund 1977, ISBN 3-88142-018-5; Reclam, Leipzig 1981 ( 22 Edition)
• Illustrated by Eberhard Binder. Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin 1985 ( 43rd edition ); World Circle -Verlag, Dortmund 1985 ( 6th edition ), ISBN 3-88142-018-5

Setting

• How the Steel Was Tempered. Pavel's teaching years. For the record set by Jürgen Schmidt. Litera, 1973