(1684-1754)
Ludvig Holberg. That name belonged to one of the brightest minds of the Scandinavian Enlightenment. Norwegian-born
Ludvig Baron von
Holberg was born in the Danish city of Bergen, the son of an officer. Long-tion was his second homeland, and Norway, where he attended and then on short visits. Despite the haughty prefix 'von' Ludwig
Holberg quickly absorbed the democratic traditions of the homeland first (Norwegian farmers, for example, did not know the horrors of serfdom). And although all his life, Baron
Holberg defended the idea of an enlightened monarchy, the fact that he wrote and proclaimed publicly, then in Denmark, was sufficient for attaching a dangerous shortcut 'rebel'.
Main profession
Holberg was science. In 1704, immediately after the University of Copenhagen, a young man goes on a journey through Europe, living in England and Germany, attended lectures at the universities of Oxford and Leipzig. After just a decade
Holberg (he just turned 30) takes a professorship in the same university, who graduated. He started with a professor of philosophy, then became a professor of metaphysics and the Latin-American rhetoric, and at the end of life more and historian. Only the lines stingy academic career can be concluded, however deep and versatile knowledge of it. However, the highly learned professors seized a new passion - literature. In a variety of its forms: poetry, Ro-man, satire, drama. Continuing the traditions of Moliere and the Italian comedy of masks,
Holberg wrote and directed more than three dozen comedies, which brought him success on the stage of European capitals. Activity-based theater of 'Danish scene' (as the content of the repertoire) outraged homegrown Tartuffe - and the theater closed. The ban was lifted only in 1748, six years before the death of
Holberg.
Not surprisingly, the famous all over Europe
ï?ï¡ï?ï?ïªï?ï¡ï¨ÿˆï°ÿ? preferred to produce many works under a pseudonym, is better - in Latin (and trust to all overseas). At the age of 57 he published in Leipzig, its new 'comedy' - biting satire of manners, entitled "Journey of Niels Climate system in the underground world, which contains a new theory of the Earth, as well as the history of the fifth monarchy was not known until now."
.
Holberg knew the customs of their society, and the decision to publish the book for the first time abroad was in all respects reasonable and in addition it was published anonymously
. Danish clerics initially had tried to ban blasphemous writing (the secret of authorship was not sustained for a long time), but then this thought refused. Whether realized that the king still did not read Latin, or fear of the international resonance - after all, a European celebrity!
. Something edakogo - the exciting, sensational from the brilliant satirist, in general, waiting for his talent has bloomed in full, but still succeeded beyond all expectations.
. In basic bibliography of works
Holberg (it is already 30-th years of the century) recorded 59 editions of the novel in 11 languages (34 of them released before the start of the nineteenth century)
. But in truth there is no prophet in his own country. The first translation into the native language of the writer saw the light only after two triumphant editions in German, one French and one in Latin ... In Russia, where creativity
Holberg particularly popular (his fables translated DI. Fonvizin, and play with success to play in all more or less decent theaters), the book was published first in 1762. Fat - more than 400 pages - the novel '
Ludvig Holberg' was entitled to the fashion of the time florid: 'underground journey, . representing the diverse history with the amazing and unprecedented properties of animals, . Sjö? einnig of patterns and homebuilding plaguing the add, . which is a marvelous and raznoprevratnymi adventures through the years dvenattsat send, . Finally, in Copenhagen at the Latin language in the light drew Nicholas Klim Bergen student, . underground hero, and after the former Bergen same cross church sexton ',
. With the subtitle: 'A language of Russia moved Stephen Sawicki. Spb. Type. Gentry Infantry Cadet Corps, 1762 '... Beautiful old title - and a book to read is not necessary!
. What also struck the imagination of the writer's contemporaries, certainly leaned in his work on the great forerunners - Thomas More, Swift and Montesquieu in his "Persian Letters"?
. Events in the novel begins with the fact that Bergen student Nils Klim accidentally falls into a deep cave
. So deep that it is a long time just falling, falling ... just like kerrollovskaya Alice - until it finally reaches the center of the Earth. And there is an entire solar system in miniature, with our hero at first revolves around the central luminary, such as satellite (dropped out of the pocket pieces of sponge cake, too, revolve, but around most Clim ...). Three days later, with the help of a giant bird hero can get down on the surface of 'luminaries' who turned out on closer examination is not any star, a planet Nazar.
Niels Klim travels, observes and comments on what he saw, he suffers many adventures, and then safely to the surface in the familiar terrestrial world. Guided tours and lectures - two faithful companion of all utopian novel - honestly serve the author and in the underground world, where everything seemed deliberately placed upside down, to permit the launching of Satire
. Take the inhabitants of this strange world! In the collision with absurd Homo arborealis (Man wood), the hero, . in which contemporaries
Holberg, . certainly, . beheld themselves, . Gulliver's Lilliputians reminded to, . giants Brobdingnega or guigngnmami: everything is flying upside down in the reader's perception of the normal and the absurd,
.
The author makes the hero's parade to take a mini-utopias' (in each country has its own underground world utopia, one more absurd than the other) and deftly doses at the same time light and shadows. On the one hand,
Holberg was brought up on the utopian tradition, he was a major figure of the Enlightenment - and so serious, when it comes to the ideal social structure. On the other - makes itself felt the irony of the grace of God as a satirist: to build another utopia, by the mouth Climate not hesitate to spread its own building to smithereens. One of the first, he instinctively felt the original internal defectiveness of any utopia: to live in a perfect state unbearably boring. And sometimes scary.
Here, for example, Klim gets in on-kir - The reasonable. The limit of perfection in terms of exemplary utopian eighteenth century: all the people as a selection of smart, insightful, serious and highly. However, initial enthusiasm Climate disappears without a trace, as soon as he comes to the conclusion: in this world reigns deadly boredom. Reflecting on the causes of 'disease', . struck Nakeer, . Neal comes to an unexpected guess (not himself a great Swift, . sarcastic smile, . prompted her ear
Holberg?): 'I assumed, . that stupid - is the lack of, . error nature, . but now I do not seem too reasonable to completely eliminate stupidity from the structure of the State ',
. For the successful functioning of Utopia, concludes
Holberg, - if it is feasible - is required to settle its half-fools ...
Does not this unusual mixture trudnosoedinimaya utopia and satire to make books a success? Reader appreciated the talent and the narrator. After all, why not just undergoing Bergen student! His trial birds, . pursue wild monkeys, . refer to the galleys, . He gets in a shipwreck, . wins wars, . becomes Emperor - Niels Great, . managed to escape in order to immediately gryanuvshey for revolution, . and after all the vicissitudes ..,
. reappears on the surface of the earth not far from the ill-fated cave, which collapsed 12 years ago!
. In contrast to the exotic hypothesis 'hollow earth', in which the author himself can hardly believe, a talent as a satirist and civilian pathos of utopian social withstood the test of time
. However, many of his colleagues of the pen later took up this hypothesis, unlike the more serious.
. The theory (note, it became the theory!) 'Hollow earth' discussed in academic circles and in the fashionable salons, and, of course, faster than any of its authors have adopted a science fiction
.
What are the objectives are not only descended into manivshee unknown Dungeon! Searched for the spirits of the dead, the keepers of the mysterious wisdom of the ancient Atlanteans, just surviving from ancient times, dinosaurs ... Remembered by the way, about the 'hollow earth' and in Nazi Germany. Mysticism and obscurantism in the Third Reich not only flourished, but were adequately ideologically enshrined. As there was no grab
Holberg - still own, Nordic ...
However this time washed away and the historic scale. Old follies replaced buzzword, and
Holberg's book continues to occupy a place alongside the other vertices of European literature of the eighteenth century.
...
Holberg Memorial set in Copenhagen, near the Royal Theater. However, the Norwegian tradition for graduates of high schools each spring are sent to the capital of neighboring Denmark to restore historic, as it seems unfair. And regularly, from year to year the word 'Danish' someone fills, and instead there is another - 'Norwegian'. Soon, however, order is restored.
Why not compete for the right of Greek cities known as the birthplace of the great Homer!
