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Biography. Biography Active political position

Biography. Biography Active political position

01.07.2020

Heinrich Böll

West German writers, who came to literature shortly after the Second World War with their own (in most cases) experience of participating in it on the side of the Wehrmacht, were well aware of the difficult and responsible tasks assigned to them by history itself: to deeply and uncompromisingly comprehend the recent tragic past of their nation, show the socio-economic roots and psychological origins of fascism, convey to readers, first of all, their compatriots, the truth about the crimes of the Nazis, make every effort for the spiritual and moral revival of their homeland. Among the artists who never separated their creative aspirations from the pressing concerns of society, and who invariably understood the post-war reality in the light of a national catastrophe, in the same ranks as Hans Werner Richter, Alfred Andersch, Wolfgang Köppen, Hans Erich Nossack, Siegfried Lenz, Günther Grass, it is necessary to name one of the most talented writers in Germany and Europe - Heinrich Böll (1917–1985).

Heinrich Böll was born on December 21, 1917 in Cologne into a Catholic family, Victor and Maria Böll. The family was quite wealthy, but during the economic crisis in the late 1920s they went bankrupt and were forced to settle in the Cologne suburb of Radertal, where Heinrich attended a public school (1924–1928). Upon his family's return to Cologne, he studied at the humanitarian Greek-Latin gymnasium (graduated in 1937). Böll later recalled his gymnasium childhood: “There were about two hundred of us students... Only four or five did not belong to the Hitler Jugend before graduation.” Among these few teenagers whose minds the Nazi ideologists failed to poison was Heinrich Böll.

Having received a matriculation certificate, he works as an apprentice seller in a second-hand bookstore and tries his hand at literature. In 1938, Böhl was mobilized to perform compulsory labor service, after which, in the summer of 1939, he entered the University of Cologne, but just a few months later he ended up in Hitler’s army. In 1961, at one of the meetings with Soviet readers in Moscow, Böll answered a question about his own participation in the war as follows: “I participated from 1939 to 1945. He was in France and the Soviet Union (as well as in Romania, Hungary, Poland. – E.L.). Was an infantryman. Others answer this question: I was in the war, but I didn’t shoot and I don’t even know how a gun works. I consider such answers to be hypocrisy. I am just as guilty and just as not guilty as anyone else who shot in this war” (1, 561). Meanwhile, it is known that Böll avoided the front as best he could; wounded three times, each time he tried to prolong his stay in the hospital as much as possible. At the end of the war he deserted, was captured by the Americans, and after his release and return home he entered university again. He earned his living as a carpenter's assistant, and later served in the statistical department.

Böll's literary debut took place in 1947, when his story “The Message” was published. The first significant work was the story “The Train Arrived on Time” (1949) - about German soldiers returning to their units at the front after a short leave to face death. Böll’s real fame came from the novel “Where Have You Been, Adam?” (1951), the main character of which, having gone through the entire war, deserts shortly before the surrender and is killed by a German shell on the threshold of his home. After the publication of this novel, Böll devoted himself entirely to literary activities.

The writer left a large and, in terms of genre, very diverse legacy: the novels “And He Didn’t Say a Single Word” (1953), “The House Without a Master” (1954), “Billiards at Half Nine” (1959), “Through the Eyes of a Clown” (1963) , “Group portrait with a lady” (1971), “The violated honor of Katharina Blum, or How violence arises and what it can lead to” (1974), “A caring siege” (1979), “Women against the backdrop of a river landscape” (publ. in 1985), “The Angel Was Silent” (1992), etc.; collections of stories (including “Traveler, when you come to Spa...”, 1950; “City of Familiar Faces”, 1955), novellas (“Bread of Early Years”, 1955; “Unauthorized Absence”, 1964, etc.); plays and radio plays, journalistic and literary critical articles, essays, travel notes and diaries, translations. In 1972, Böll was awarded the Nobel Prize “for his work, which combines a wide scope of reality with the high art of creating characters and which made a significant contribution to the revival of German literature.”

Böll visited the Soviet Union several times, he was readily translated, but around the mid-1970s they stopped publishing him; this kind of boycott of the German writer continued until the mid-1980s and was associated with his speeches in defense of Andrei Sakharov, Soviet dissident writers V. Nekrasov, V. Grossman, V. Aksenov, I. Brodsky, A. Solzhenitsyn and others. Social Böll generally attached great importance to the function of the word. In the article “Language as a stronghold of freedom,” he, in particular, draws readers’ attention to the fact that “the word is effective, we know this, we have experienced it in our own skin. A word can prepare a war... A word given to an unscrupulous demagogue can cause the death of millions of people; opinion-making machines can spit out words like a machine gun spitting bullets. The word can kill, and it is a matter of our conscience not to allow language to go into areas where it becomes murderous.” It is no coincidence, the writer warns, that whenever and wherever a free spirit poses a danger, books are first banned, as was the case in Nazi Germany. “In all states where terror reigns, words are feared almost more than armed uprisings, and often it is the word that causes them. Language can become the last refuge of freedom."

Böll's speech “Images of Enemies,” delivered in 1983 in Cologne at the International Peace Congress, and “Letter to My Sons,” published shortly before his death, in connection with the 40th anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany, received great resonance. In the “Letter,” he noted, in particular: “You can always distinguish the Germans by how they call May 8: the day of defeat or the day of liberation.” It was necessary to have considerable civic courage in order to remind compatriots for decades: many of them “did not understand that no one called them to Stalingrad, that as victors they were inhuman and only gained human form as vanquished.”

Heinrich Böll died on July 16, 1985. Death was preceded by a serious illness, which resulted in partial amputation of his right leg. Böll was buried near Cologne, in Bornheim-Merten. In his hometown, a square and several schools are named after the writer.

At the very beginning of his literary activity, Böll warned that “man does not exist only to be controlled, and destruction in our world is not only external; the nature of the latter is not always so harmless as to delude yourself that they can be corrected in just a few years.” In this, writers from other countries were and remain his like-minded people. Ales Adamovich, who, as you know, fought in a partisan detachment as a teenager, and later put a lot of mental and physical effort into creating reminder books about fascism and war, wrote in perfect unison with the above words of Böll: “... it is necessary that as many people as possible finally realized the mortal threat of pollution not only of the natural environment, but also of the human soul” (2, 138).

Böll as an artist was very popular among our intelligentsia of the Soviet and post-Soviet period. Thus, the famous Belarusian prose writer Vasil Bykov, who was present as part of the Soviet writing delegation at the mentioned congress in Cologne, recalled in his last lifetime book, “The Long Road Home” (2002), that “Heinrich Böll gave the most vivid speech at it.” To listen to the famous compatriot, many people gathered on the square in front of the library where the congress was held, who, together with the listeners in the hall, applauded the writer. V. Bykov, then already familiar with Böll’s biography, knew that during the war fate brought them together in the same places, in Moldova and near Yasy, and that, most likely, they took part in the same battles. “There,” writes V. Bykov, “shell-shocked, I returned to my battalion, and Böll, feigning illness, managed to be sent to the rear - such was the difference in our positions in that war!” (3, 362). There was also a conversation between Bykov and Böll about the experience. According to the Belarusian writer, Böll “looked at the world of God differently - broadly and independently” and had a lasting and undeniable influence on the consciousness of Europeans. Bykov also recalls Böll’s statement about language as “the last refuge of freedom” (3, 538).

Some of the works of Böll and other West German writers of the late 1940s and 1950s were called “literature of ruins.” These works also include Böll's novel "A house without an owner." The authors themselves considered the definition of “literature of ruins” to be quite justified. Böll, in the article “In Defense of the Literature of Ruins” (1952), wrote: “We did not protest against such a name, it was appropriate: the people we wrote about really lived in the ruins, equally crippled by the war, men, women, even children ... And we, the writers, felt our closeness to them so much that we could not distinguish ourselves from them - from the black market speculators and from their victims, from refugees, from everyone who in one way or another lost their homeland, and above all, of course, from a generation to which we ourselves belonged and which, for the most part, was in an unusual and memorable situation: they returned home... So we wrote about the war, about the return, about what we saw in the war and what we found when we returned - about the ruins.” . Of course, Böll did not only mean literal ruins (although those too); fascism mutilated and destroyed the German people in a spiritual sense, and overcoming this state was much more difficult than erecting new buildings.

The action of the novel (like many other works of Böll) takes place in the author’s hometown, ancient Cologne above the Rhine. “Cologne is my material,” said the writer. “I show the bitterness and despair that accumulated in this city, as well as throughout post-war Germany.” At the center of the story are two families, each of which was left without an owner as a result of the war. Accordingly, the main characters of the novel are eleven-year-old boys who grew up without fathers, Martin and Heinrich, and their mothers, Nella and Wilma. In terms of their social status, these are different families: while Wilma and her children barely make ends meet, Nella does not have to think about a piece of bread: the marmalade factory, which previously belonged to her father, did not stop production during the war (on the contrary, because of this insatiable new consumer, like the war, things went just brilliantly) and after it continues to bring considerable profit. Meanwhile, in a spiritual and moral sense, the existence of both families is equally unsettled, destroyed by the recent war.

Nella’s normal life ended with the death of her husband, the young talented poet Raymund Bach, at the front. Nella at one time also succumbed to fascist propaganda and joined the Hitler Jugend, but a meeting with Raymund changed her views. His death, in essence, broke Nella; she lives as if half asleep, floating with the flow, cherishing her “tormenting dream” of love, which is no longer destined to become a reality. Reality is the “ground on which she least liked to tread” (the novel is quoted in the translation by S. Fridlyand and N. Portugalov); again and again she “glues a film together from fragments that have become dreams,” plays it through her memory, trying to “turn back time.” The very idea that life goes on and the living should think about the living is unbearable for her. She is afraid of a new serious relationship, a possible new marriage, because she is convinced that none of the attributes of the latter - neither a wedding, nor civil registration - will save anyone or anything, as soon as another “nonentity appears, endowed with the power to send to death.”

Nella’s son, Martin, orphaned before birth, one of the “first-graders of 1947,” never leaves thoughts of his father. Raymond gave him a vivid imagination, and during the long nights the boy mentally travels along the roads of “this dirty war” traversed by his father - across France and Poland, Ukraine and Russia, in order to eventually end up “somewhere near Kalinovka”, where in 1942 Raymund Bach died.

Even eleven-year-old Martin realizes that “a private and a poet” are something completely incompatible. Bach is one of those who are commonly called the “unwitting culprits” of the war. An anti-fascist by his convictions, following a denunciation even before the front, he and his friend, artist Albert Muchov, end up in a “private concentration camp” equipped with stormtroopers in an old casemate. Here they were beaten, trampled under boots, here they were mocked “by the Germans to the core.” Hating Hitler and the military, not wanting to join the army, even having the opportunity to avoid conscription and emigrate, he nevertheless does nothing to free himself from service in the Wehrmacht. It seems to Nella that Raymund “himself wanted to die”: Albert, in essence, is of the same opinion: “They killed the soul in him, devastated him; for four years he did not write anything that could please him.” Thirty-seven poems are all that is left from him to his widow, son and German poetry.

The fate of Wilma Brilah turned out differently, but in many ways it resembles the story of Nella. Her current reality is hard physical labor, poverty, half-starved children, but all this does not prevent her from living, like Nella, a ghostly, illusory life, on the verge of sleep and reality, mentally transporting herself to the time when her husband Heinrich Brilach, a mechanic's assistant , has not yet burned out, has not turned into a “black mummy” in his “victorious” tank “somewhere between Zaporozhye and Dnepropetrovsk.” “The difference between his mother and Martin’s mother, in fact, is not so great,” Heinrich concludes, “perhaps it is only in money.”

Vilma’s son, in essence, does not know childhood: having been born on the dirty bunks of an air-raid shelter at the moment when bombs rained down on the house, he was orphaned at three months, and barely having time to grow up, he took care of his mother and little sister onto his childhood shoulders. their daily bread. The “uncles” who alternately appeared in her mother’s life were in no hurry to take responsibility for her and the children, and Vilma herself, unsure of the future, was afraid of losing the meager state benefit for the deceased breadwinner, and therefore was not too keen on official marriage. Smart and prudent beyond his years, Heinrich learns about life not so much at school as on the black market, profiting from every pfennig. Like Martin, he is not at all attracted to the world of adults, in which there is so much injustice and dirt. It seems to the boy that everything alive and good is buried under impenetrable ice, and even saints are not able to break through it to a person.

Without relying on adults, but at the same time closely watching them, children themselves try to find answers to questions that are not at all simple even for people with everyday experience: what is morality and immorality, sin and guilt, hope and doom, what kind of people are they talking about, that they are “desperate” and what it means to “break a person”... It is with the images of the boys that the narrator (and with him the reader) connects hope for a future in which there will be no place for the ugly manifestations of the past.

Albert Muchov, one of the most attractive characters in the novel, plays a significant role in shaping the consciousness of children. A talented artist, before the war Albert worked as a London correspondent for a German newspaper, which hastened to get rid of him, most likely because of his anti-fascist beliefs. Having the opportunity to stay abroad, he returns to Germany after the death of his wife. Nella's father got Albert a job at his marmalade factory, where he and Raymund worked in advertising.

The death of his wife, a “private concentration camp”, the front, the death of a friend, a German military prison in Odessa because of the slap in the face that he gave to Lieutenant Geseler, who sent Raymund Bach to his inevitable death - all this broke Albert. The world of his soul is destroyed, he is not able to be an artist, and besides, he is haunted by the consciousness of his own belonging to the “former”, albeit “involuntary” ones, for he also fought and even before the front he managed to work in a certain sense for the war: “The victorious path of the German army was strewn not only with shells, not only with ruins and carrion, but also with tin cans of jam and marmalade...”; “...it was not sweet for us to come across this stuff everywhere, it just tormented us...”

Nevertheless, he believes that “it is possible and necessary to start a new life.” Albert managed to retain humanity and compassion in himself, helps Nella, takes care of Martin as if he were his own son, and is not indifferent to the fate of Henry. He is convinced that the monstrous past should not disappear from the memory of descendants, because this is the only way to avoid its repetition. For the sake of preserving filial and historical memory, he brings Martin to the place of his father’s torture: “Remember, here they beat your father, trampled him with their boots, and they beat me here: remember this forever!” Albert understands well that a return to normal life is the only way out for the nation and for every German, but not through forgetting the tragic past.

Ales Adamovich once wrote: “The hangover can be severe, and then “supermen”, as the highest recognition, most of all crave to be forgotten who they wanted to become, and to be looked at simply as people, ordinary. It turns out that this is so much, this is the greatest blessing and recognition - to be ordinary, to be considered ordinary!.. It turns out that you still have to deserve to be accepted into the category of “just people”. After the Pied Piper has taken you away from them, luring you into becoming a “superhuman,” returning is not easy. And not through oblivion of the past, but through self-purification with truth, through judgment of the past” (4, 177–178).

In relation to Böll’s novel, his characters really strive to become “just people,” but many do not do so “through judgment of the past,” not “through self-purification with truth,” but precisely “through oblivion of the past.” These “formers” are not too tormented by their conscience because of their connections with fascism, and in such cases we are talking, as a rule, not about indirect, but about real accomplices in fascist atrocities. Geseler, until recently the most devoted Nazi, is confident that the war must be banished from memory; he does it very well himself. Once upon a time, he deliberately sent Raymund Bach to certain death, and now he is “working on an anthology of lyric poetry,” which he “cannot imagine” without his poems. “You can’t talk about lyrics these days without talking about your husband!” - without a shadow of embarrassment (after all, he “forgot, forgot everything”) he declares to Raymond’s widow.

The same can be said about Schurbiegel, who in 1934, after Hitler came to power, defended his doctoral dissertation on the topic “The Image of the Fuhrer in Modern Lyrics,” and, having taken the position of editor-in-chief of a major Nazi newspaper, fervently encouraged German youth to join the ranks of stormtroopers. After the war, when the unfortunate need arose to hide his Nazi views as far as possible, he suddenly “recognized the boundless charm of religion,” became “a Christian and a discoverer of Christian talents,” and “discovered” Raymund Bach, beginning to publish him during Nazi times. After the war, he became “a specialist in modern painting, modern music, modern lyricism,” “an incorruptible critic,” the author of “the most courageous thoughts” and “the most risky concepts,” and a researcher on the topic “The attitude of creative individuals to the church and to the state in our technical age.” He begins each of his speeches with criticism of “pessimists” and “heretics” who “are unable to comprehend the progressive development of a spiritually mature personality.” The son of a hairdresser, he has fully mastered the art of “anointing and massaging”, only, unlike his father, he does this not with the heads, but with the souls of people.

There are other similar characters in the novel, such as a Catholic priest, who during the war offered “solemn prayers for the fatherland,” instilled “patriotic enthusiasm in souls” and “begged for victory,” poeticizing fascism and feeding more than one generation with false pathos fellow citizens; or a school teacher who, even after defeat, never tires of convincing children that “they are not so terrible Nazi, how scary the Russians are.” There were many such “eternally yesterdays” in West Germany in the 1950s, and Böll, as a courageous and conscientious man, sought to show that fascism still remained (according to a common definition in German literary criticism) “the unresolved past,” “a reality not only of yesterday, but and today's." In his Frankfurt Lectures (1964), Böll was even more categorical: “Too many murderers are walking around this country openly and brazenly, and no one can prove that they are murderers. Guilt, repentance, and insight never became social categories, much less political ones.”

The novel “A House Without a Master” is quite complex in its artistic structure. Its composition is marked by fragmentation, external disorder, individual episodes are linked together according to the principle of film editing, and these qualities in themselves are carriers of meaning, corresponding to the atmosphere of spiritual disorder and material devastation that reigned in West German society in the first post-war years and even decades. The characters live in several time dimensions, the past and the present are layered, sometimes almost merging and demonstrating the conditioning of the current state of affairs by yesterday's catastrophic events.

The perspectives of the narrative change every now and then, the novel is characterized by the so-called plurality of points of view (probably not without the influence of the American writer William Faulkner): the reader looks at everything that happens through the eyes of Nella, then Wilma, then Albert, then one boy, then another. Reality for them is common, but for each it is somewhat different; As a result, the stories of the heroes lose their individuality, intimacy, and form an objective panorama of life in post-war Germany.

The title of the novel is also multidimensional, carrying, in addition to specific content, also a deeply symbolic meaning: Germany, first divided by the Allies into “zones” and soon split into two states, was also presented as a “house without a master.”

The characters’ immersion in the past or in certain problems is conveyed through words and expressions, highlighted in italics in order to activate the reader’s thoughts. The novel is full of symbolic leitmotifs; the monologue story prevails over the dialogic story. Importance is attached to precise and expressive details (this could be the title of a book or a street inscription, a movie poster or advertising poster, a description of a label or nuances of pronunciation, etc.), as well as the poetics of color (for example, the appearance of Nella is always accompanied by a mention of the color green, which In general, it is often found in Böll’s works; it is known that it was his wife’s favorite color).

An essential function in creating the artistic world of the novel is performed by biblical motifs, images, quotes, and words of prayer that permeate the narrative. An unforgettable impression is left by Böll's urban landscapes - descriptions of Cologne, in which the air of the city gives off either a salty smell, or the bitter smell of freshly tarred barges; it is filled with the lingering whistles of steamships floating over clumps of coastal trees.

Böll brilliantly mastered the art of subtle insight into the psychology of characters, including children. It is no coincidence that Ales Adamovich, admitting that he appreciates those authors whose mind is directed “to the depths of human psychology” (5, 323), named the name of Heinrich along with the names of F. Dostoevsky, L. Tolstoy, I. Bunin, W. Faulkner Byolya.

Sources

1. Motyleva T.L. Heinrich Böll: Prose of different years // G. Böll. Unauthorized absence: Novels, stories. Minsk, 1989.

2. Adamovich A. Khatyn story. Punishers. M., 1984.

3. Vykau V. A lot of money for dad. Mshsk, 2002.

4. Adamovich A. About modern military prose. M., 1981.

5. Adamovich A. Thinking through to the end: Literature and the anxieties of the century. M., 1988.

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Camilla Belle's childhood

Camilla or Belle, as the girl’s family and close friends call her, was born in Los Angeles. Her father owned a large construction company, and her mother was a fashion designer and clothing designer. Camilla's mother is from Brazil, thanks to which the girl was from birth endowed with a peculiar appearance that is characteristic of all Latin women.

When the girl was not even a year old, she starred for the first time, it was an advertisement. Thanks to her cute little face, she was often invited to act in film, and her childhood was spent mostly on the set. She had a hard time balancing filming and school.

She played her first film role in 1993 in the film “The Empty Cradle,” followed by filming in other films. Despite the fact that all these were only cameo roles, the films gained worldwide fame. The most famous project with Camille's participation was Jurassic Park, filmed by Steven Spielberg. It was released in 1997 and became the favorite film of a large number of viewers.

The girl was definitely noticed. These were qualified directors who subsequently collaborated with her. Camilla was invited to television, where she starred in TV series and was a participant in several television shows.

Participation in the filming of the film “Practical Magic” in 1998 was important for the young actress. This film starred Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock. For the role she played there, Camilla received an Oscar in the category “Best Young Actor”. She played Sally. According to the script, it was Sandra Bullock's character as a child.

She studied at an elite school for girls. After graduating from school, Belle went to London, where she received an acting education, studying at the Academy of Dramatic Art. It was 2002. But even during her studies, she continued to act, taking part in the filming of the films “The Crucible” and “12 Evil Men.”

Career of actress Camilla Belle, filmography

After finishing her studies in London, Camilla, already a professional actress, returned to Los Angeles. She played the main role in “The Ballad of Jack and Rose” in 2005. These shootings can be considered the starting point in Belle’s film career.

Camilla Belle in the list of 20 most beautiful women in the world according to Google

Her talent was noticed by critics and directors, and even then many Camilla fans appeared. The film forced the producers to take a fresh look at the actress, thanks to which offers for filming came one after another. She played in "The Soul of Silence" directed by Jamie Babbitt and in "Chumscrubber" directed by Arie Posin. Filming in both films turned out to be successful.

Among other films in which Belle played minor or leading roles, a special production should be noted. Thus, “When a Stranger Calls” is a remake that made Camilla an even more sought-after and popular Hollywood actress.

Camilla Belle now

In 2008, a film was released that caused a lot of noise - “10,000 BC”, directed by Roland Emmerich. In it, Camille played alongside Cliff Curtis and Steven Strait.

Camilla Belle, photo selection

In 2009, Belle appeared in the Brazilian film “Abandoned” and in the American film “The Fifth Dimension”. She played a role with Kevin Spacey in the film “Dad of a Brilliant,” and a year later she took part in the creation of a film called “Prada and Feelings.”

Her latest works were roles in the films “Game of Attack” and “Open Road”. Camilla's image is usually associated with blockbusters and thrillers. These genres are most often present in director's proposals, however, Belle is not offended.

Camilla is not yet thirty, she continues to actively act in film and has many interesting offers and roles ahead of her. Most likely, her career will be very impressive.

Personal life of Camilla Belle

Belle is involved in charity work, like many Hollywood actors. She is a member of the Kids with a Cause project.

The actress plays the piano well and knows seven languages, including Spanish and Portuguese. She considers Portuguese to be her native language. In one of her films, the girl starred in this language.

Belle does not like to talk about her personal life. However, it is known that she had an affair with Joe Jonas, one of the leaders of the musical group “Lovebug”. The actress took part in the filming of their video and fell in love with Joe. They spent a romantic vacation together in Cuba. Inspired by feelings, the young actress played superbly in the films “Mary, Mother of Christ” and “Lorelai”. Today they are no longer a couple.

Naturally, the “yellow press” closely follows the actress and even attributes her to an affair with Robert Pattinson. But these are only assumptions; officially, Camilla is free and is an enviable Hollywood bride.

Belle is a passionate fashion lover. Everyone knows about this. Her mother, as a professional stylist and fashion designer, always helps her daughter look perfect. Her toilets definitely delight the public. At one of the social ceremonies in 2006, she wore a dress that was recognized as the most elegant and sophisticated outfit of that year. Belle and Kim Basinger were the face of the Miu-Miu spring collection in 2006, in addition, Camilla represented the Princess perfume line.

The actress often travels to Brazil, which she loves very much, and where she is considered theirs, and besides, this is the homeland of her mother.

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.

For the sincerity of his works and political activity, Heinrich Böll was called “the conscience of the nation.” “He was the advocate of the weak and the enemy of those who are always confident in their own infallibility. He stood for freedom of spirit wherever it was threatened,” is how former German President Richard von Weizsäcker described Böll in a letter of condolence to the writer’s widow.

Böll was the first German writer since Thomas Mann to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. He always felt German, but at the same time sharply criticized the government's "public hypocrisy" and the "selective amnesia" of his countrymen.

Life on the border of eras

Böll's house in the Eifel

Böll's life spanned several periods of German history. He was born a subject of Emperor Wilhelm II, grew up in the Weimar Republic, survived Hitler's times, World War II, occupation, and finally actively participated in the formation of West German society.

Heinrich Böll was born in 1917 in Cologne into the family of a sculptor and cabinetmaker. Böll's parents were very religious people, however, it was they who taught their son to make a clear distinction between the Christian faith and the organized church. At the age of six, Böll began attending Catholic school and then continued her studies at the gymnasium. After the Nazis came to power, Böll, unlike most of his classmates, refused to join the Hitler Youth.

After graduating from high school in 1937, Böll intended to continue his studies at the university, but he was denied this. For several months he studied bookselling in Bonn, and then for six months he had to perform labor duty digging trenches. Böll again tried to enter the University of Cologne, but was drafted into the army. Böll spent six years at the front - in France and Russia; He was wounded four times and tried several times to evade service by feigning illness. In 1945, he finds himself in American captivity. For Böll, it was truly a day of liberation, so he always maintained a feeling of gratitude towards the Allies who saved Germany from Nazism.

On the way to professionalism

After the war, Böll returned to Cologne. And already in 1947 he began to publish his stories. In 1949, his first book was published - the novel “The Train Arrived on Time.” In his first works, which can be classified as the genre of so-called “ruin literature,” Böll talked about soldiers and their beloved women, about the cruelties of war, and about death. The heroes of Böll's works remained, as a rule, nameless; they symbolized suffering humanity; they did what they were ordered and died. These people hated war, but not enemy soldiers.

The books immediately attracted the interest of critics, but circulation sold poorly. Böll, however, continued to write. By the end of the 50s, Böll moved away from the topic of war. At this time, his writing style also improved. In Billiards at Half Nine, often considered his best novel, Böll uses complex narrative techniques to condense into a single day the entire experience of three generations of a wealthy German family. The novel "Through the Eyes of a Clown" reveals the morals of the Catholic establishment. Group Portrait with a Lady, Böll's longest and most innovative novel, takes the form of a detailed bureaucratic report in which some sixty people characterize a certain person, thereby creating a mosaic panorama of German life after the First World War. “The Lost Honor of Katharina Bloom” is an ironic sketch on the topic of tabloid gossip.

Unloved for the truth

Heinrich Böll with Alexander Solzhenitsyn

A separate chapter in the life of Heinrich Böll is his love for Russia and active support of the dissident movement.

Böll knew a lot about Russia and had a clear position on many aspects of Russian reality. This position is reflected in many of the writer’s works. Böll's relations with the Soviet leadership were never cloudless. The actual ban on Böll's Russian publications lasted from mid-1973 until the last days of his life. The “culprit” for this was the writer’s social and human rights activities, his angry protests against the entry of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia, and his active support of the dissident movement.

It all started with Böll’s incredible success in the Soviet Union. The first publication was published back in 1952, when the only international magazine at that time, “In Defense of Peace,” published a story by a young West German author, “A Very Expensive Foot.”

Since 1956, Russian editions of Böll have appeared regularly, in enormous circulations. Perhaps nowhere in the world have his translations enjoyed such popularity as among the Russian audience. Böll’s close friend Lev Kopelev once remarked: “If they said about Turgenev that he is the most German of Russian writers, then one could say about Böll that he is the most Russian of German writers, although he is a very “German” writer.

On the role of literature in the life of society

The writer was convinced that literature is extremely important in the formation of society. In his opinion, literature in the usual sense of the word is capable of destroying authoritarian structures - religious, political, ideological. Böll was confident that a writer, to one degree or another, was capable of changing the world with the help of his creativity.

Böll did not like being called “the conscience of the nation.” In his opinion, the conscience of a nation is the parliament, the code of laws and the legal system, and the writer is called only to awaken this conscience, and not to be its embodiment.

Active political position

Heinrich Böll, Nobel Prize laureate

Böll always actively intervened in politics. Thus, he decisively spoke out in defense of such Soviet dissident writers as Lev Kopelev and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

He was also critical of the capitalist system. When asked whether humane capitalism exists, he once replied: “In fact, there cannot be such a thing. The way the capitalist economy functions and should function does not allow for any humanism.”

By the mid-1970s, Böll's assessment of German society became extremely critical, and his political views became “sharpened.” He does not accept the ideology of mature capitalism with its double morality, and sympathizes with socialist ideas about justice.

The writer does this so decisively and publicly that at some point he turns out to be almost an “enemy of the state” - at least, a figure of official censure. Until his death, Heinrich Böll participated in public life as a dissident, representing views unacceptable from an official point of view.

Fame is a means to do something for others

Böll was a very popular writer. He commented on his attitude to fame as follows: “Fame is also a means to do something, to achieve something for others, and it is a very good tool.”

The writer died in 1985. At the funeral ceremony, Böll’s friend, priest Herbert Falken, concluded his sermon with these words: “On behalf of the deceased, we pray for peace and disarmament, readiness for dialogue, fair distribution of benefits, reconciliation of peoples and forgiveness of the guilt that weighs heavily especially on us , Germans."

Anastasia Rakhmanova, brow

Heinrich Theodor Boll (German: Heinrich Theodor Boll, December 21, 1917, Cologne - July 16, 1985, Langenbroich) - German writer (Germany), translator, Nobel Prize laureate in literature (1972). 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.

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.

After graduating from classical gymnasium (1936), he worked as an apprentice salesman in a second-hand bookstore. A year after graduating from school, he is sent to work in a labor camp under the Imperial Labor Service.

In the summer of 1939, Böll entered the University of Cologne, but in the fall he was drafted into the Wehrmacht. During the Second World War of 1939-1945, he fought as an infantryman in France and participated in battles in Ukraine and Crimea. In 1942, Böll married Anna Marie Cech, who bore him two sons. In April 1945, Böll surrenders to the Americans.

After captivity, he worked as a carpenter, and then 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 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). A notable phenomenon in German literature was Böll’s next great work, “Through the Eyes of a Clown” (1963).

Together with his wife, Böll translated such American writers as Bernard Malamud and Salinger into German.

In 1967, Böll received the prestigious German Georg Büchner Prize. In 1971, Böll was elected president of the German PEN Club, and then headed the international PEN Club. He held this post until 1974.

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 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, Belle 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.

Böll died on July 16, 1985 in Langenbroich. In the same 1985, the writer’s very first novel was published - “A Soldier’s Inheritance” (Das Vermachtnis), which was written in 1947, but was published for the first time.