Remarque on the western front without change. "All Quiet on the Western Front", an artistic analysis of Remarque's novel

All Quiet on the Western Front

Year and place of first publication: 1928, Germany; 1929, USA

Publishers: Impropilaen-Verlag; Little, Brown & Company

Literary form: novel

He was killed in October 1918, on one of those days when it was so quiet and calm on the entire front that military reports consisted of only one phrase: "All Quiet on the Western Front."

He fell face forward and lay in a sleeping position. When they turned him over, it became clear that he must have suffered for a short time - he had such a calm expression on his face, as if he was even pleased that everything ended that way. (Hereinafter, the lane “All Quiet on the Western Front” - Y. Afonkina.)

The final passage of Remarque's popular novel not only conveys the absurdity of the death of this unknown soldier, but also sneers at the reports of official wartime sources that there were no changes at the front, while thousands of people continued to die from wounds every day (the German title of the novel " Im Western Nicht Neues" translates as "nothing new in the West"). The last paragraph emphasizes the ambiguity of the title, it is the quintessence of bitterness that fills the entire work.

Many nameless soldiers are on both sides of the trenches. They are just bodies dumped in shell craters, mutilated, scattered at random: “A naked soldier got stuck between the trunk and one branch. He still has a helmet on his head, but there is nothing else on him. Up there, only half a soldier is sitting, the upper part of the body, without legs. The young Frenchman lagged behind during the retreat: "The blow of a shovel cuts his face."

Unknown soldiers - background, background. The main characters of the novel are Paul Bäumer, the narrator, and his comrades in the second company, mainly Albert Kropp, his close friend, and the leader of the group, Stanislaus Katchinsky (Kat). Katchinsky is forty years old, the rest are eighteen or nineteen. These are simple guys: Muller, dreaming of passing exams; Tjaden, locksmith; Haie Westhus, peat worker; Detering, peasant.

The action of the novel begins nine kilometers from the front line. Soldiers "rest" after two weeks on the front lines. Of the one hundred and fifty people who went on the attack, only eighty returned. Former idealists, now they are filled with anger and disappointment; the catalyst is a letter from Kantorek, their old school teacher. It was he who convinced everyone to go to the front as volunteers, saying that otherwise they would turn out to be cowards.

“They should have helped us, eighteen years old, to enter the time of maturity, into the world of work, duty, culture and progress, to become intermediaries between us and our future. […]…in the depths of our hearts we believed them. Recognizing their authority, we mentally associated knowledge of life and foresight with this concept. But as soon as we saw the first person killed, this belief was shattered into dust. […] The very first artillery shelling revealed to us our delusion, and under this fire the worldview that they instilled in us collapsed.”

This motif is repeated in Paul's conversation with his parents before his departure. They demonstrate complete ignorance of military realities, living conditions at the front and the routine of death. “Here food, of course, is worse, this is quite understandable, but of course, but how could it be otherwise, the best is for our soldiers ...” They argue about which territories should be annexed and how combat operations should be conducted. Paul is unable to tell them the truth.

Brief sketches of soldier life are given in the first few chapters: the inhumane treatment of recruits by corporals; the terrible death of his classmate after amputation of his leg; bread and cheese; terrible living conditions; flashes of fear and horror, explosions and screams. Experience makes them grow up, and not only military trenches cause suffering to naive, unprepared recruits for such tests. Lost "idealized and romantic" ideas about the war. They understand that "... the classical ideal of the fatherland, which our teachers painted for us, has so far found real embodiment here in such a complete renunciation of one's personality ..." They have been cut off from their youth and the opportunity to grow up normally, they do not think about the future.

After the main battle, Paul says: “Today we would wander around our native places like visiting tourists. A curse hangs over us - the cult of facts. We discern things like shopkeepers and understand necessity like butchers. We have ceased to be careless, we have become terribly indifferent. Let us suppose that we remain alive; but will we live?

Paul experiences the full depth of this alienation during his leave. Despite the recognition of his merits and an acute desire to join the rear life, he understands that he is a stranger. He cannot get close to his family; of course, he is unable to reveal the truth about his horrific experience, he only asks for their comfort. Sitting in an armchair in his room, with his books, he tries to grasp the past and imagine the future. His front-line comrades are his only reality.

The terrible rumors turn out to be true. They are accompanied by stacks of brand new yellow coffins and extra rations of food. They come under enemy bombardment. Shells shatter fortifications, crash into embankments and destroy concrete pavements. The fields are pitted with funnels. Recruits lose control of themselves, they are held by force. Going on the attack covers machine-gun fire and grenades. Fear is replaced by anger.

“We are no longer powerless victims, waiting for our fate, lying on the scaffold; now we can destroy and kill in order to save ourselves, in order to save ourselves and avenge ourselves ... Having huddled into a ball, like cats, we run, picked up by this wave that irresistibly captivates us, which makes us cruel, turns us into bandits, murderers, I would say - into devils, and, instilling in us fear, rage and a thirst for life, it multiplies our strength tenfold, - a wave that helps us find the way to salvation and defeat death. If your father were among the attackers, you would not hesitate to throw a grenade at him too!

Attacks alternate with counterattacks, and "in the cratered field between the two lines of trenches, more and more dead are gradually accumulating." When everything is over and the company gets a break, only thirty-two people remain from it.

In another situation, the “anonymity” of trench warfare is violated. In reconnaissance of enemy positions, Paul is separated from his group and finds himself on French territory. He hides in a crater from the explosion, surrounded by exploding shells and the sounds of advance. He is exhausted to the extreme, armed only with fear and a knife. When a body falls on him, he automatically plunges a knife into him and after that shares a funnel with a dying Frenchman, he begins to perceive him not as an enemy, but as just a person. Tries to bandage his wounds. He is tormented by guilt:

"Comrade, I didn't mean to kill you. If you had jumped down here again, I wouldn't have done what I did - of course, if you behaved sensibly too. But before, you were just an abstract concept for me, a combination of ideas that lived in my brain and prompted my decision. This is the combination I killed. Now only I see that you are the same person as me. I remembered only that you have a weapon: grenades, a bayonet; now I look at your face, think of your wife, and see what we both have in common. Forgive me, comrade! We always see too late."

There is a respite in the battle, and then they are led out of the village. During the march, Paul and Albert Kropp are wounded, Albert seriously. They are sent to the hospital, they are afraid of amputation; Kropp loses a leg; he does not want to live "invalid". Recovering, Paul limps around the hospital, enters the wards, looking at the crippled bodies:

“But this is only one infirmary, only one of its departments! There are hundreds of thousands of them in Germany, hundreds of thousands in France, hundreds of thousands in Russia. How senseless everything that is written, done and rethought by people, if such things are possible in the world! To what extent our thousand-year-old civilization is false and worthless, if it could not even prevent these flows of blood, if it allowed hundreds of thousands of such dungeons to exist in the world. Only in the infirmary you see with your own eyes what war is.

He returns to the front, the war continues, death continues. Friends are dying one by one. Detering, who is crazy about the house, longing to see the cherry tree in bloom, tries to desert, but is caught. Only Paul, Kat and Tjaden remain alive. At the end of the summer of 1918, Kata is wounded in the leg, Paul tries to drag him to the medical unit. In a semi-conscious state, stumbling and falling, he reaches the dressing station. He comes to his senses and learns that Kat died while they were walking, he was hit in the head by a shrapnel.

In autumn, talks about a truce begin. Paul reflects on the future:

“Yes, they won’t understand us, because before us is the older generation, which, although it spent all these years with us at the front, already had its own family hearth and profession and now will again take its place in society and forget about the war, and they are followed by a generation that resembles us as we used to be; and for him we will be strangers, it will push us astray. We do not need ourselves, we will live and grow old - some will adapt, others will submit to fate, and many will not find a place for themselves. Years will pass, and we will leave the stage.

CENSORED HISTORY

The novel All Quiet on the Western Front was published in Germany in 1928, by which time the National Socialists had already become a powerful political force. In the socio-political context of the post-war decade, the novel is extremely popular: 600,000 copies were sold before it was published in the United States. But it also aroused considerable resentment. The National Socialists considered it an insult to their ideals of home and fatherland. The outrage resulted in political pamphlets directed against the book. In 1930 it was banned in Germany. In 1933, all the works of Remarque went to the infamous bonfires. On May 10, the first large-scale demonstration took place in front of the University of Berlin, students collected 25,000 volumes of Jewish authors; 40,000 "unenthusiastic" watched the action. Similar demonstrations took place at other universities. In Munich, 5,000 children took part in a demonstration during which books branded as Marxist and anti-German were burned.

Remarque, not afraid of vicious speeches against his books, published in 1930 the continuation of the novel - "Return". In 1932, he fled Nazi persecution to Switzerland and then to the United States.

Prohibitions also took place in other European countries. In 1929, Austrian soldiers were forbidden to read the book, and in Czechoslovakia it was confiscated from military libraries. In 1933, the translation of the novel was banned in Italy for anti-war propaganda.

In 1929, in the United States, the publishers of Little, Brown and Company agreed with the recommendations of the jury of the Book of the Month Club, who chose the novel as the book of June, to make some changes to the text, they crossed out three words, five phrases and two whole episodes: one about a temporary bathroom and the scene in the hospital where a couple who haven't seen each other for two years are making love. The publishers argued that "some of the words and expressions are too rude for our American edition" and without these changes, there could be problems with federal and Massachusetts laws. A decade later, another case of text censorship was made public by Remarque himself. Putnam refused to publish the book in 1929, despite its huge success in Europe. As the author says, "some idiot said that he would not publish the book "Hun"".

Nevertheless, All Quiet on the Western Front was banned in 1929 in Boston on grounds of obscenity. That same year in Chicago, U.S. Customs seized copies of an English translation of the book that had not been "edited". In addition, the novel is listed as banned in the People for the American Way study of school censorship, Attacks on Educational Freedom, 1987-1988; the motive here was "obscene language". The censors are encouraged to change tactics and use these protests instead of traditional accusations like "globalism" or "far-right scare talk". Jonathan Greene, in his Encyclopedia of Censorship, lists All Quiet on the Western Front as one of the "particularly frequently" banned books.

This is a adaptation of the novel that Erich Maria Remarque published in 1929. The First World War appears before the viewer through the perception of a young soldier Paul Bäumer. While still schoolchildren, Boymer and his friends eagerly listened to the patriotic speeches of their teacher and, as soon as the opportunity arose, signed up as volunteers for the front. Everything that happens next is obvious: the severity of training and the rudeness of commanders, trench mud, protracted battles, deaths and severe injuries - Bäumer and his friends hate war more and more. Returning to his native school during the holidays, Boymer tries to convince the teacher and peers that there is nothing more disgusting than war, but they consider him a defeatist and a traitor. Beumer remains to return to the front and die.

Remarque's novel became a notable event even before it was printed in full, it was published in parts in the German newspaper Vossische Zeitung. The rights to publish the translation were immediately bought by many countries, and Hollywood immediately responded to the most anti-war work of its era with a large-scale film production in the format of a still poorly mastered sound film. However, for cinemas that were not yet equipped for sound reproduction, a silent version with intertitles was created.

The battle scenes were filmed in California, with more than 2,000 extras, and a camera attached to a huge mobile crane flew over the "field". Director Lewis Milestone, who made this the first sound film in his career, tried not only to convey all the cruelty and depressiveness of the novel, but also intensified Remarque's pacifist pathos to the maximum. He fundamentally abandoned the musical accompaniment to the film and the happy ending that the producers insisted on: not only "killed" Bäumer, but also staged a scene at the end of the film with a vast cemetery and the faces of dead soldiers. Universal Studios agreed with the director reluctantly: the financial crisis had already begun, and the release of an expensive film was a risk.

Frame from the film. Photo: Nnm.me

Frame from the film. Photo: Nnm.me

Milestone, specifically for this filming, sought out veterans of the great war, German immigrants, in California. At first it was assumed that they would perform the function of experts and become the guarantor of the authenticity of uniforms, weapons, etc. But there were so many veterans that Milestone not only took many of them as extras, but also invited them to seriously prepare actors as recruits. Therefore, some training scenes can be considered almost documentary. Milestone even considered calling Remarque himself for the lead role, but in the end it was played by Lew Ayres. The actor was so imbued with the pacifist spirit of the picture that he subsequently refused to go to the front during the Second World War and was subjected to the most severe harassment - up to the ban in the United States of films with his participation.

In the US, the film won two Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director. But in Germany, the Nazi Party rioted in cinemas where the picture was shown, a process personally led by Goebbels. As a result, the German government was forced to ban the film's distribution in Germany, and this ban was lifted only in 1956. However, the picture was shown with great success in France, Holland and Switzerland, and a special bus and railway service was established so that the Germans could go specifically to view the picture directly to the right cinema.

The original version of the film is over two hours long, but has since been released in abbreviated versions more than once. For its 100th anniversary, Universal Studios released a restored full edition of the picture on Blu-Ray.

Erich Maria Remarque

All Quiet on the Western Front

This book is neither an accusation nor a confession. This is just an attempt to tell about the generation that was destroyed by the war, about those who became its victims, even if they escaped the shells.

Erich Maria Remarque

IM WESTEN NICHTS NEUES

Translation from German Yu.N. Afonkina

Serial design by A.A. Kudryavtseva

Computer design A.V. Vinogradova

Reprinted with permission from The Estate of the Late Paulette Remarque and Mohrbooks AG Literary Agency and Synopsis.

Exclusive rights to publish the book in Russian belong to AST Publishers. Any use of the material in this book, in whole or in part, without the permission of the copyright holder is prohibited.

© The Estate of the Late Paulette Remarque, 1929

© Translation. Yu.N. Afonkin, heirs, 2014

© Russian edition AST Publishers, 2014

We are standing nine kilometers from the front line. Yesterday we were replaced; now our stomachs are full of beans and meat, and we all go around full and satisfied. Even for supper each got a full bowler hat; in addition, we get a double portion of bread and sausages - in a word, we live well. This has not happened to us for a long time: our kitchen god with his purple, like a tomato, bald head himself offers us to eat more; he waves the scoop, calling the passers-by, and gives them hefty portions. He still won't empty his squeaker, and this drives him to despair. Tjaden and Müller got hold of several cans from somewhere and filled them to the brim - in reserve. Tjaden did it out of gluttony, Muller out of caution. Where everything Tjaden eats goes is a mystery to all of us. He still remains as skinny as a herring.

But most importantly, the smoke was also given out in double portions. For each, ten cigars, twenty cigarettes, and two sticks of chewing tobacco. In general, pretty decent. I traded Katchinsky's cigarettes for my tobacco, now I have forty pieces in total. One day can be extended.

But, in fact, we are not supposed to do all this at all. The authorities are not capable of such generosity. We're just lucky.

Two weeks ago we were sent to the front line to replace another unit. It was quite calm on our site, so by the day of our return, the captain received allowances according to the usual layout and ordered to cook for a company of one hundred and fifty people. But just on the last day, the British suddenly threw in their heavy "meat grinders", unpleasant contraption, and for so long they hit our trenches with them that we suffered heavy losses, and only eighty people returned from the front line.

We arrived at the rear at night and immediately stretched ourselves out on the bunk beds in order to get a good night's sleep first; Katchinsky is right: it would not be so bad in the war if only you could get more sleep. You never really get enough sleep on the front line, and two weeks drag on for a long time.

By the time the first of us began to crawl out of the barracks, it was already noon. Half an hour later, we grabbed our bowlers and gathered at the "squeaker" dear to our hearts, which smelled of something rich and tasty. Of course, the first in line were those who always have the biggest appetite: shorty Albert Kropp, the brightest head in our company and, probably, for this reason only recently promoted to corporal; Muller the Fifth, who still carries textbooks with him and dreams of passing preferential exams: under hurricane fire he crammed the laws of physics; Leer, who wears a bushy beard and has a weakness for girls from brothels for officers: he swears that there is an order in the army obliging these girls to wear silk underwear, and before receiving visitors with the rank of captain and above - to take a bath; the fourth is me, Paul Bäumer. All four were nineteen years old, all four went to the front from the same class.

Immediately behind us are our friends: Tjaden, a locksmith, a frail young man of the same age as us, the most voracious soldier in the company - he sits down thin and slender for food, and after eating, gets up pot-bellied like a sucked bug; Haye Westhus, also our age, a peat worker, who can freely take a loaf of bread in his hand and ask: “Well, guess what is in my fist?”; Detering, a peasant who thinks only of his household and his wife; and, finally, Stanislav Katchinsky, the soul of our squad, a man of character, clever and cunning - he is forty years old, he has a sallow face, blue eyes, sloping shoulders and an unusual scent about when the shelling will start, where you can get hold of food and how It's best to hide from the authorities.

Our squad led the queue that formed at the kitchen. We got impatient as the unsuspecting cook was still waiting for something.

Finally Katchinsky called out to him:

- Well, open your glutton, Heinrich! And you can see that the beans are cooked!

The cook shook his head sleepily.

"Let's get everyone together first."

Tjaden smirked.

– And we are all here!

The chef still didn't notice.

- Hold your pocket wider! Where are the rest?

“They are not at your mercy today!” Who is in the infirmary, and who is in the ground!

Upon learning of what had happened, the kitchen god was smitten. He was even shaken:

- And I cooked for a hundred and fifty people!

Kropp poked him in the side with his fist.

“So we’ll eat our fill for once.” Come on, let's start sharing!

At that moment, Tjaden had a sudden thought. His face, sharp as a mouse's muzzle, lit up, his eyes squinted slyly, his cheekbones began to play, and he came closer:

“Heinrich, my friend, so you got bread for a hundred and fifty people?”

The bewildered cook nodded absently.

Tjaden grabbed his chest.

And sausage too?

The cook again nodded his purple head like a tomato. Tjaden's jaw dropped.

And tobacco?

- Well, yes, everything.

Tjaden turned to us, his face beaming.

"Damn it, that's lucky!" After all, now we will get everything! It will be - wait! - so it is, exactly two servings per nose!

But then the Pomodoro came to life again and said:

- It won't work that way.

Now we, too, shook off the dream and squeezed closer.

- Hey you, carrot, why won't it come out? asked Katchinsky.

- Yes, because eighty is not one hundred and fifty!

“We’ll show you how to do it,” Muller grumbled.

“You will get the soup, so be it, but I will give out bread and sausage only for eighty,” Tomato continued to persist.

Katchinsky lost his temper:

- Send you to the front line once! You received food not for eighty people, but for the second company, that's it. And you will release them! The second company is us.

We took the Tomato into circulation. Everyone disliked him: more than once, through his fault, lunch or dinner got to us in the trenches cooled down, with a great delay, because at the most trifling fire he did not dare to drive closer with his cauldron and our food carriers had to crawl much further than their brothers. from other companies. Here is Bulke from the first company, he was much better. Although he was fat as a hamster, if necessary, he dragged his kitchen almost to the very front.

We were in a very belligerent mood, and, probably, things would have come to a fight if the company commander had not appeared at the scene. When he found out what we were arguing about, he only said:

- Yes, yesterday we had big losses ...

Then he looked into the cauldron:

And the beans look good.

Tomato nodded.

- With lard and beef.

The lieutenant looked at us. He understood what we were thinking. In general, he understood a lot - after all, he himself came out of our environment: he came to the company as a non-commissioned officer. He lifted the lid of the cauldron again and sniffed. As he left, he said:

- Bring me a plate. Distribute portions to everyone. Why good should disappear.

Tomato's face took on a stupid expression. Tjaden danced around him:

"Nothing, you won't be hurt by this!" He imagines that he is in charge of the entire commissary service. And now start, old rat, but don’t miscalculate! ..

- Get down, hangman! hissed Tomato. He was ready to burst with anger; everything that happened did not fit in his head, he did not understand what was happening in the world. And as if wanting to show that now everything is one for him, he himself distributed another half a pound of artificial honey per brother.

Today has been a really good day. Even the mail came; almost everyone received several letters and newspapers. Now we are slowly wandering into the meadow behind the barracks. Kropp carries a round margarine barrel lid under his arm.

On the right edge of the meadow a large soldier's latrine was built - a well-cut building under a roof. However, it is of interest only to recruits who have not yet learned how to benefit from everything. For ourselves, we are looking for something better. The fact is that in the meadow there are single cabins here and there, designed for the same purpose. These are square boxes, neat, made entirely of boards, closed on all sides, with a magnificent, very comfortable seat. They have handles on the side so that the cabins can be carried.

"All Quiet on the Western Front"(German Im Westen nichts Neues) - the famous novel by Erich Maria Remarque, published in 1929. In the preface, the author says: “This book is neither an accusation nor a confession. This is just an attempt to tell about the generation that was destroyed by the war, about those who became its victims, even if they escaped the shells.

The anti-war novel recounts all the experiences seen at the front by the young soldier Paul Bäumer as well as his front-line comrades in the First World War. Like Ernest Hemingway, Remarque used the term "lost generation" to describe young people who, due to the trauma they received in the war, were unable to settle in civilian life. Remarque's work thus stood in sharp contrast to the right-wing conservative military literature that prevailed in the era of the Weimar Republic, which, as a rule, tried to justify the war lost by Germany and glorify its soldiers.

Remarque describes the events of the war from the perspective of a simple soldier.

History of creation

The writer offered his manuscript "All Quiet on the Western Front" to the most authoritative and well-known publisher in the Weimar Republic, Samuel Fischer. Fischer acknowledged the high literary quality of the text, but withdrew from publication on the grounds that in 1928 no one would want to read a book about the First World War. Fischer later admitted that this was one of the biggest mistakes of his career.

Following the advice of his friend, Remarque brought the text of the novel to the Haus Ullstein publishing house, where it was accepted for publication by order of the company's management. On August 29, 1928, a contract was signed. But the publisher was also not entirely sure that such a specific novel about the First World War would be a success. The contract contained a clause according to which, in the event of the failure of the novel, the author must work off the costs of publication as a journalist. For reinsurance, the publisher provided advance copies of the novel to various categories of readers, including veterans of the First World War. As a result of criticism from readers and literary scholars, Remarque is urged to revise the text, especially some particularly critical statements about the war. About the serious adjustments to the novel made by the author, says a copy of the manuscript, which was in the New Yorker. For example, the latest edition is missing the following text:

We killed people and waged war; we should not forget about it, because we are at an age when thoughts and actions had the strongest connection with each other. We are not hypocrites, we are not timid, we are not burghers, we look both ways and do not close our eyes. We do not justify anything by necessity, by the idea, by the Motherland - we fought with people and killed them, people whom we did not know and who did nothing to us; what will happen when we return to the old relationship and confront the people who hinder us, hinder us?<…>What should we do with the goals that are offered to us? Only memories and my vacation days convinced me that the dual, artificial, invented order called "society" cannot calm us and will not give us anything. We will stay isolated and grow, we will try; someone will be quiet, and someone will not want to part with their weapons.

original text(German)

Wir haben Menschen getötet und Krieg geführt; das ist für uns nicht zu vergessen, denn wir sind in dem Alter, wo Gedanke und Tat wohl die stärkste Beziehung zueinander haben. Wir sind nicht verlogen, nicht ängstlich, nicht bürgerglich, wir sehen mit beiden Augen und schließen sie nicht. Wir entschuldigen nichts mit Notwendigkeit, mit Ideen, mit Staatsgründen, wir haben Menschen bekämpft und getötet, die wir nicht kannten, die uns nichts taten; was wird geschehen, wenn wir zurückkommen in frühere Verhältnisse und Menschen gegenüberstehen, die uns hemmen, hinder und stützen wollen?<…>Was wollen wir mit diesen Zielen anfangen, die man uns bietet? Nur die Erinnerung und meine Urlaubstage haben mich schon überzeugt, daß die halbe, geflickte, künstliche Ordnung, die man Gesellschaft nennt, uns nicht beschwichtigen und umgreifen kann. Wir werden isoliert bleiben und aufwachsen, wir werden uns Mühe geben, manche werden still werden und manche die Waffen nicht weglegen wollen.

Translation by Mikhail Matveev

Finally, in the fall of 1928, the final version of the manuscript appears. November 8, 1928, on the eve of the tenth anniversary of the armistice, Berlin newspaper "Vossische Zeitung", part of the Haus Ullstein concern, publishes a "preliminary text" of the novel. The author of “All Quiet on the Western Front” appears to the reader as an ordinary soldier, without any literary experience, who describes his experiences of the war in order to “speak out”, free himself from mental trauma. The introductory remarks for the publication were as follows:

Vossische Zeitung feels "obliged" to discover this "authentic", free and thus "authentic" documentary account of the war.

original text(German)

Die Vossische Zeitung fühle sich „verpflichtet“, diesen „authentischen“, tendenzlosen und damit „wahren“ dokumentarischen über den Krieg zu veröffentlichen.

Translation by Mikhail Matveev

So there was a legend about the origin of the text of the novel and its author. On November 10, 1928, excerpts from the novel began to appear in the newspaper. The success exceeded the boldest expectations of the Haus Ullstein concern - the circulation of the newspaper increased several times, the editorial office received a huge number of letters from readers admiring such a "bare image of the war."

At the time of the book's release on January 29, 1929, there were approximately 30,000 pre-orders, which forced the concern to print the novel in several printing houses at once. All Quiet on the Western Front became Germany's best-selling book of all time. On May 7, 1929, 500 thousand copies of the book were published. The book version of the novel was published in 1929, after which it was translated into 26 languages ​​the same year, including Russian. The most famous translation into Russian is by Yuri Afonkin.

Main characters

Paul Bäumer- the main character on whose behalf the story is being told. At the age of 19, Paul was voluntarily (like his entire class) drafted into the German army and sent to the western front, where he had to face the harsh reality of military life. Killed in October 1918.

Albert Kropp- Paul's classmate, who served with him in the same company. At the beginning of the novel, Paul describes him as follows: "short Albert Kropp is the brightest head in our company." Lost a leg. Was sent to the rear.

Muller Fifth- Paul's classmate, who served with him in the same company. At the beginning of the novel, Paul describes him as follows: “... still carries textbooks with him and dreams of passing preferential exams; under hurricane fire he crams the laws of physics. He was killed by a flare that hit him in the stomach.

Leer- Paul's classmate, who served with him in the same company. At the beginning of the novel, Paul describes him as follows: "he wears a bushy beard and has a weakness for girls." The same fragment that tore off Bertinka's chin rips open Leer's thigh. Dies from blood loss.

Franz Kemmerich- Paul's classmate, who served with him in the same company. At the very beginning of the novel, he is seriously injured, leading to the amputation of his leg. A few days after the operation, Kemmerich dies.

Joseph Bem- Boimer's classmate. Bem was the only one in the class who did not want to volunteer for the army, despite Kantorek's patriotic speeches. However, under the influence of the class teacher and relatives, he enlisted in the army. Bem was one of the first to die, two months before the official call-up date.

Stanislav Katchinsky (Kat)- served with Boymer in the same company. At the beginning of the novel, Paul describes him as follows: “the soul of our squad, a man of character, clever and cunning, he is forty years old, he has a sallow face, blue eyes, sloping shoulders and an unusual sense of smell when the shelling starts, where you can get hold of food and how best to hide from the authorities. The example of Katchinsky clearly shows the difference between adult soldiers, who have a lot of life experience behind them, and young soldiers, for whom war is their whole life. He was wounded in the leg, crushing the tibia. Paul managed to take him to the orderlies, but along the way Kat was wounded in the head and died.

Tjaden- one of Beumer's non-school friends, who served with him in the same company. At the beginning of the novel, Paul describes him as follows: “a locksmith, a frail young man of the same age as us, the most voracious soldier in the company, he sits thin and slender for food, and after eating, gets up pot-bellied like a sucked bug.” It has urinary system disorders, which is why it is sometimes written in a dream. His fate is not exactly known. Most likely, he survived the war and married the daughter of the owner of a horse meat shop. But perhaps he died shortly before the end of the war.

Haye Westhus- one of Boymer's friends, who served with him in the same company. At the beginning of the novel, Paul describes him as follows: "our peer, a peat worker, who can freely take a loaf of bread in his hand and ask, "Well, guess what's in my fist?" Tall, strong, not very smart, but a young man with a good sense of humor, was carried out from under the fire with a torn back.

Detering- one of Beumer's non-school friends, who served with him in the same company. At the beginning of the novel, Paul describes him as follows: "a peasant who thinks only of his household and his wife." Deserted to Germany. Was caught. Further fate is unknown.

Kantorek- the class teacher of Paul, Leer, Müller, Kropp, Kemmerich and Boehm. At the beginning of the novel, Paul describes him as follows: "a strict little man in a gray frock coat, like a mouse face, with a little face." Kantorek was an ardent supporter of the war and agitated all his students to go to war as volunteers. Later he volunteered. Further fate is unknown.

Bertinck- Company Commander Paul. He treats his subordinates well and is loved by them. Paul describes him as follows: "a real front-line soldier, one of those officers who, with any obstacle, is always ahead." Saving the company from a flamethrower, he received a through wound in the chest. The chin was torn off by a shrapnel. Dies in the same battle.

Himmelstoss- the commander of the department in which Boymer and his friends underwent military training. Paul describes him as follows: “He was known as the most ferocious tyrant in our barracks and was proud of it. A small, stocky man who served twelve years, with a bright red, curled up mustache, was a postman in the past. He was especially cruel to Kropp, Tjaden, Bäumer and Westhus. Later he was sent to the front in the company of Paul, where he tried to make amends.

Josef Hamacher- one of the patients of the Catholic hospital in which Paul Bäumer and Albert Kropp were temporarily placed. He is well versed in the work of the hospital, and, in addition, has a "remission of sins." This certificate, issued to him after being shot in the head, confirms that at times he is insane. However, Hamacher is psychologically completely healthy and uses the evidence to his advantage.

Screen adaptations

• The work has been filmed several times.
• American film All Quiet on the Western Front() directed by Lewis Milestone received an Oscar.
• In 1979, director Delbert Mann made a television version of the film. All Quiet on the Western Front.
• In 1983, famed singer Elton John wrote an anti-war song of the same name referring to the film.
• Film .

Soviet writer Nikolai Brykin wrote a novel about the First World War (1975) titled " Change on the Eastern Front».

Links

• Im Westen nichts Neues in German at the Philologist's Library E-Lingvo.net
• All Quiet on the Western Front in Maxim Moshkov's Library

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010 .

See what "All Quiet on the Western Front" is in other dictionaries:

From German: Im Westen nichts Neues. Russian translation (translator Yu. N. Lfonkina) of the title of the novel by the German writer Erich Maria Remarque (1898 1970) about the First World War. This phrase was often found in German reports from the theater of operations ... Dictionary of winged words and expressions

Erich Maria Remarque is not just a name, it is a whole generation of writers of the 20th century. Recorded in the ranks of "", the writer, probably like no other in the world, drew a line of unprecedented breadth between peaceful life and war. The sadness and hopelessness caused by the war run like a red thread through all Remarque's works, and each of his new books is like a continuation of the previous one, thereby blurring the line between them, but there is one work on which I would like to place special emphasis. This is the great novel All Quiet on the Western Front.

The monstrous and shocking events that took place in the first half of the 20th century became a tangible impetus for the appearance of a number of works devoted to anti-war movements and calls to lay down arms. Along with such high-profile novels as "" by Ernest Hemingway, "Death of a Hero" by Richard Aldington and many others, we have no right to bypass "All Quiet on the Western Front."

The history of the creation of the novel is very interesting. Being one of the first works of Remarque "All Quiet on the Western Front" largely predetermined the future, including the creative, fate of the writer. The fact is that Remarque published his anti-war novel in 1929 in Germany - in a country that was in a certain transitional stage between the two world wars. On the one hand, the country that lost the First World War was defeated, was in a severe crisis, but on the other hand, revanchist ideas glimmered in the minds of the population, and therefore pro-war sentiments revived with renewed vigor. Before the Nazis came to power, Remarque's novel won universal recognition for its author, which, to a certain extent, became a real revelation. After the establishment of the Nazi regime, the writer's work was banned, his book was publicly burned, and the writer himself was forced to leave the aisles of his beloved and once native land. The departure of the writer allowed him some free-thinking, which cannot be said about his sister, who remained in Germany. In 1943, she was sentenced to death for "anti-patriotic remarks".

Remarque said about his novel that this is not an attempt to justify himself to the public, that his book does not act as a confession to the millions of victims who died during the conflict. Thus, he is only trying to show the situation from the inside, as an eyewitness and a direct participant in the hostilities. Everyone knows that the writer participated in the hostilities, so he was familiar with all the horrors firsthand. Perhaps that is why his book is filled with such realistic and sad events. Remarque's hero does not look like a typical American savior, worn to holes in the image of Superman. His hero does not kill enemies in droves, he is not the first to get into battle with a naked saber, on the contrary, he is a completely down-to-earth person with an instinct for self-preservation, who is essentially no different from hundreds and thousands of other similar soldiers. Realism also lies in the fact that we do not see pictures that are pleasant to the eye with a happy ending or a miraculous salvation of acting characters. This is the usual story of ordinary soldiers who got into the meat grinder of war; there is no need to think of anything in it, it is enough just to tell without embellishment how everything really happened. And in this regard, for a reader who historically adheres to political views that are different from the Germans, it will be doubly interesting to observe what the soldiers felt and how they lived on the other side of the barricades.

All Quiet on the Western Front is largely an autobiographical novel. The main character, on behalf of whom the narration is being conducted, is called Paul. It is noteworthy that the name of the writer at birth was Erich Paul Remarque, later he took the pseudonym Erich Maria Remarque. It is safe to say that Paul in All Quiet on the Western Front is Remarque himself, with the only difference being that the writer managed to return from the front alive. While still a schoolboy, Paul, along with his classmates, was overtaken by wartime, and as mentioned above, pro-war moods reigned in the country and it was not appropriate for a young man to sit at home in the prime of his life, so everyone was supposed to go to the front along with other volunteers , otherwise constant sidelong glances from the side would have been provided. Paul, side by side with his schoolmates, volunteers to join the army and sees with his own eyes all the fear and horror that is happening. Arriving at the front as a yellow-mouthed chick after a short time, the surviving comrades meet new arrivals already in the rank of experienced fighters who have seen the death of brothers and the deprivation of war. One by one, the war, like a sickle cuts off young ears of corn, mowed down former comrades. A real feast during the plague looks like a dinner scene in a village burning from shelling, and the top of all the recklessness and senselessness of the war was the episode in which Paul takes his wounded comrade out of the shelling, but when he reaches a protected place, he turns out to be dead. Fate did not spare Paul himself!

We can debate for a very long time about who is right and who is wrong in that war; and whether we could have avoided it altogether. But it is worthwhile to understand that each of the parties fought for their own beliefs, even though it will be difficult for us to understand, and most importantly, to accept the ideals of the other side. But in that war, the same ordinary soldiers fought, driven forward by obese generals. One of the characters in All Quiet on the Western Front, Kropp, said: "Let the generals fight themselves, and the victor will declare his country the winner." And it's true, it would be fun if kings, kings or generals fought on their own, risking life and health. Such wars would hardly have lasted long, if they had lasted even one day at all!