Outstanding poet, powerful poetry – Heine's The Textile Workers of Silesia

Text/Ma Jiajun

The most prominent representative of German literature in the first half of the nineteenth century was the revolutionary democratic poet Heinrich Heine. Heine was born on November 13, 1797 in Düsseldorf to a Jewish merchant family. Germany, in the era of Heine's activities, was a backward country ruled by feudal aristocrats and divided into thirty-six states. The French Revolution and the invasion of Napoleon shocked the German feudal forces. Prussia and Austria (also the two largest states in Germany at the time) colluded with Tsarist Russia to organize the "Holy Alliance" to suppress the European revolutions; at the same time, the German feudal forces tightened their control and oppression internally. In the 1820s and 1830s, Germany's industry developed, the peasants began to proletarianize, and workers' struggles arose. The French July Revolution of 1830 overthrew the Bourbon Restoration. The German people are also more awakened, and the mass movement and the bourgeois-democratic movement are gradually rising. Under the influence of Marx and Engels, the communist movement in Germany also developed day by day, and in 1848, a revolution finally broke out. But because of the betrayal of the bourgeoisie, the revolution failed. The aristocratic landlords still held power, and Germany was still not unified. Heine lived and worked in such an era of divided and political turmoil.

As a teenager, Heine longed for a bourgeois revolution and was educated in folk literature. In 1819, when he was studying law at the University of Bonn, he participated in the progressive activities of the Association of Students and began to write literature. Heine's early lyric poems were mostly expressive of personal thought and feeling, rich in the fresh style of folk songs, in addition, he also wrote two tragedies, "Almonso" and "Ratcliffe". In 1842 he began a trek from Göttingen to the Harz Mountains. A year and a half later, he published the famous long poem "Travels in the Harz Mountains". The poem depicts german social life in the 1920s and exposes the brutal exploitation of miners by the reactionary class. From the graduate of Göttingen University in 1825 to 1830, Heine lived in a fisherman's shack on the island of Nordernay in order to live and search for truth, observed the corruption of the new British aristocracy and the bourgeois upper class in London, edited a magazine in Munich, and visited the scenery and ancient civilizations of southern Europe in Italy. During this period, he published poems such as "The North Sea Collection" and "Ideas - Le Grande's Collected Writings", and met and met Goethe, the Brothers Grimm, and Mendelssohn Baturdi. In 1830, when he heard the news of the July Revolution in France, he wrote the famous poem "I am the sword, I am the flame" ("Ode"), determined to throw himself into the revolutionary struggle. The following year, he settled in Paris.

During his stay in Paris, Heine followed the development of the revolutionary situation in Europe and embraced the idea of utopian socialism. He clearly understood the reactionary essence of the bourgeoisie after the July Revolution and was more concerned about the fate of the motherland. He wrote a series of treatises exposing the reactionary nature of negative romanticism, clarifying the revolutionary significance of classical German philosophy, and discussing the doomed demise of the landlord bourgeoisie. As a famous poet, Heine had close contacts with Balzac, Hugo, Georges San, Hans Christian Andersen, Chopin and Liszt. But the great influence on his creation was the acquaintance with Marx in 1943. From this point until the Revolution of 1848, Heine's most brilliant period of creation.

In the revolutionary preparations of the early 1840s, Marx and Engels were laying the foundations of scientific socialism. Heine worked with Marx, was well influenced by Marx, and wrote his masterpiece long poem "Germany, a Winter Fairy Tale". Marx published it in the newspaper Forward. This long poem profoundly criticizes the political, economic, and cultural perverse behavior of the reactionary ruling class in Germany, as well as the compromise of bourgeois liberalism and the reactionary delusions of bourgeois radicalism. Marx quoted Heine's verses many times for battle.

In June 1844, the weavers in Silesia revolted and fought against the reactionary military and police. Marx highly praised the uprising, pointing out that it was profoundly conscious and theoretical. Heine's view of the uprising was consistent with Marx's, and he wrote the poem "Textile Workers in Silesia", which expressed his profound understanding of the uprising. In September of that year, Engels went to Paris to meet Marx for the first time, read the manuscript of Heine's poem, and immediately quoted the poet as a comrade. In November, Engels translated and introduced the poem in his newsletter to England, The Rapid Progression of Communism in Germany, calling it a struggle against the Prussian royalists' clamor that "the king and the fatherland are with God," pointing out that "the original German text of this song is one of the most powerful poems I know of" and calling Heine "the most outstanding poet of contemporary Germany." (The Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. II, pp. 591-592)

The original German text of "The Textile Workers of Silesia", first published in the July 1844 issue of The Forward, played a great role in the revolution, and in nineteenth-century bourgeois literature, the works of the workers were written by very few stars, and even the workers were mostly written to be ugly and miserable. In his poems, Heine wrote about the thoughts and feelings of the workers who could not bear the heavy sharpness and rose up to rebel, and called for the overthrow of the decaying social system of Germany. Through the weaver's curse on God, the king, and the false fatherland, the poem shows the strong revolutionary indignation of the workers and reveals the inevitability of the workers' armed uprising.

The first two lines of the poem capture the main image in the life of the textile worker: sitting by the loom weaving day and night. The miserable situation of the textile workers in the mountains of Silesia under Prussian rule, exploited by the factory owners (contractors) and paying "textile taxes" to the local feudal lords, was as the German Marxist Merlin described at the time: "Their feet are still in the feudal quagmire, but their bodies have been caught in the whirlwind of capitalist competition." "Their tears have dried up, and only gritted teeth of hatred remain for this old world. From the third line onwards, the poet expresses his mind in the tone of a weaver: what the workers want to weave is nothing else, but a "corpse cloth" that covers the German corpse, and a "triple curse" is woven into this "corpse cloth". The first verse of the poem vividly depicts the workers who have been tempered in hunger and hardship, rather than the workers who are overwhelmed by hunger and hardship. Such a strong, resentful worker is also the image of the gravedigger of the decaying old society.

The second, third, and fourth verses of the poem, which write the content of the "Triple Ancestral View", powerfully expose the reactionary essence of Christian theocracy, feudal monarchical absolutism, and aristocratic national chauvinism. Like all religions, Christianity is the opium of the anesthetized people and the instrument of the reactionary ruling class. Despite the fact that the Christian Church is full of benevolence and morality, for working people, religion can only fool and deceive. Whether it was the king of Putus or other monarchs, he represented the interests of the exploiting class, and he was the king of the broad man. The supreme representative of monarchical absolutism has no pity or sympathy for the suffering of the people. He squeezed the last penny of the workers and arbitrarily suppressed and slaughtered the workers who dared to rise up and resist. The motherland is a good word, but everything in the country is heaven for the ruling class and hell for the ruled class. Germany is the paradise of the landlords and bourgeoisie, the hell of the broad masses of the working people, and this social system produces "evil and shame", and the talents and reasonable demands of the people are destroyed. The poem exposes the essence of the reactionaries in the middle three verses, showing the weaver's sober understanding of the social reality of the time and the hatred of the disobedient. The last verse of the poem uses the hurried labor day and night to compare the high mood of struggle, and the end is taken care of at the beginning, deepening the meaning of the poem.

Marx and Engels said: "Exquisite literature begins with Heine, and its mission is to temper the language that is in great need of refinement." This has been done in the poems", Marx and Engels on Art, vol. IV, p. 12). The language of "The Textile Worker of Silesia" is more refined and condensed. It writes about the weaver's appearance, grasps a hateful word, highlights the outline of "sad eyes" and "gritted teeth". In the "Triple Curse", it contrasts "hope" and "expectation" with "foolishness" and "deception", "suffering" with "squeezing" and "shooting", and "prospering with shame and sin" with "the flower is destroyed before it blooms", resulting in strong effects. It uses precise metaphors and borrowings, such as the king's "shooting like a dog" to the weavers, the people's intelligence and reasonable demands as "flowers", and the parasitic life of the exploiters on the basis of the old system as "carrion and dung raising maggots to live", all of which are very vivid and appropriate. It also says that weaving is corpse cloth and that curses are woven into the cloth, which is very elaborately conceived. Repeat "We weave, we weave!" after each verse!" Borrowing the repetition of folk songs, it expresses the rhythm of weaving and the weaver's oath to the old world. Combining a high degree of thought and a relatively perfect artistry, this poem supported the revolt of the Silesian weavers and propagated the justice, necessity and consciousness of the German workers' movement.

Such a poem is naturally regarded by the German reactionary ruling class as a flood beast. The Reactionary Government of Putoux, in collusion with the French authorities, demanded the expulsion of Marx and Heine, and the French reactionaries seized the Newspaper Forward, edited by Marx, and expelled Marx from France. Heine was seriously ill and his birthplace was brought under French jurisdiction, and his wife was French, allowing him to stay in Paris. Marx was saddened by his separation from Heine. Later, when Marx was in Brussels and Cologne, he was always concerned about Heine's health and creation. When Marx arrived in Paris in 1849, he also visited the poet who was seriously ill several times. In 1853, Heine praised Marx and Engels in Confessions: "They are undoubtedly the most intelligent and persevering figures in Germany. These two Revolutionary Doctors and their courageous and resolute students are unique men in Germany, who own their lives and whose future belongs to them. ”

In his later years, Heine was trapped in the "futon tomb", paralyzed and sick and almost blind in both eyes. But with astonishing perseverance, he completed most of the "story poems", revised "Lutitsya", and threw in "Memoirs".

Heine, a revolutionary democrat and a utopian socialist, did not reach the height of scientific socialism due to various limitations, nor did his poems write the revolutionary actions of the proletariat in the positive direction. He had a naïve misunderstanding of communism, and in his later years he sought rest in religion, and his later poems had a melancholy and sad tone. Heine died on 17 February 1856. In his manuscript, he found the Ode written during the Revolution of 1830:

I am the sword, I am the flame.

I shine on you in the darkness, and when the battle begins, I am at the forefront of the line.

I was surrounded by the bodies of my comrades, but we were victorious. We were victorious, but the bodies of my comrades were lying around. In the triumphant song of victory, the solemn song of the memorial service sounded. But we don't have time to rejoice or mourn. The horn blew again and a new battle began.

This prose poem, read in conjunction with one of his poems", "My heart is destroyed, the weapon is not destroyed, I fell, and did not fail", may reveal some of the spirit of the bourgeois revolutionary poet Heine.

Heine's time passed. He did not write and could not write about the classless revolutionary struggle. Of course, we cannot be harsh on what he cannot attain, and we should look at his contributions to history analytically. All reactionaries who go against the tide of history are afraid of Heine's legacy. The Emperor of Germany forbade Heine's poems to be published. Hitler ordered the burning of Heine's poems. After world war II, someone visited the Heine House in West Germany and mentioned Heine to the owner, who said, "This gentleman does not live here." Famous poets have been forgotten.

In accordance with the consistent teachings of Marxism-Leninism on cultural heritage, we should make a proper introduction and a proper analysis of Heine in an analytical and critical manner. Works such as "Textile Workers in Silesia" are obviously positive for our understanding of the exploitative oppression of the Old World and the resistance of the workers.

Published in Shaanxi Education, No. 6, 1977

(Note: The author of this article has authorized this headline)

(Ma Jiajun, a native of Qingyuan, Hebei, born on October 5, 1929, is currently a professor at the College of Literature of Shaanxi Normal University, a member of the Chinese Writers Association, a member of the Chinese Dramatists Association, a member of the Chinese Filmmakers Association, an honorary president (former president) of the Shaanxi Foreign Literature Society, a principle of the Chinese Foreign Literature Society, a principle of the Chinese Russian Literature Research Society, a former president of the Shaanxi Provincial Higher Education Drama Research Society, a former consultant of the Shaanxi Poetry Society, and a former executive director of the Shaanxi Provincial Federation of Social Science Societies. Shaanxi Province to build socialist spiritual civilization advanced individuals, Shaanxi Province to teach and educate advanced teachers, etc., enjoy special allowances from the State Council.

He is the author of 12 kinds of "Nineteenth Century Russian Literature", "The New Stage of Aesthetic History", "Poetry Exploration", "Exploration of World Literature", etc.; 4 kinds of "The Essence of World Literature" and "History of Western Drama" co-authored with his daughter Ma Xiaoyi; 9 kinds of "History of World Literature" (3 volumes) and "Research on Gorky's Creation"; edited 4 kinds of "30 Lectures on European and American Modernist Literature"; co-edited and co-authored "100 Topics of Marxism-Leninism", "Cultural Research Methods", "50 Lectures on Oriental Literature", "Western Literature in the Twentieth Century", etc. and more than 40 kinds.

It has been listed in more than 40 kinds, such as the Dictionary of Chinese Writers, the Dictionary of Chinese Poets, the Dictionary of Chinese Social Science Scholars, the Cambridge Dictionary of International Biographies (27th Edition in English), the Directory of Experts in Russian Studies Abroad (Russian Edition) of the Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Classics of Shaanxi Century of Literature and Art. ）