Biography of French Kafka. University years Sleeping Beauty cannot be a prince

Franz Kafka- a famous German-language writer, a representative of the Prague group, whose works, published mainly posthumously, became a completely unique phenomenon in world literature.

Kafka was born on July 3, 1883 in Prague, which was then an Austro-Hungarian city, into a Jewish family. German culture turned out to be closest to him: in 1789-1793. studied at a German elementary school, wrote all his essays in German, although he spoke excellent Czech. Franz also received his education at the gymnasium, which he graduated from in 1901, as well as at the Faculty of Law of Prague's Charles University, becoming a doctor of law as a result of his studies.

His father forced him to go to university, neglecting his son’s pronounced inclination towards literature. The influence of a despotic, assertive, practical father who measured everything by practicality, who suppressed Franz’s will all his life, on Kafka’s psyche and life is difficult to overestimate. He broke up with his parents early, so he often moved from one apartment to another and was in financial need; everything connected with his father and family suppressed him and made him feel guilty.

In 1908, his father sent him to serve in the insurance department, where he worked in the most modest positions until 1922, retiring early for health reasons. Kafka treated work as a heavy cross and hated everything connected with it. His pessimism was further intensified by constant exposure to human misfortunes (as part of his job, he investigated cases of industrial injuries). The only outlet, a matter of paramount importance for him, was literature. Kafka wrote in secret from his parents, terribly tormented by his double life. He even decided to commit suicide when his father wanted to force him to work in a shop after service. The parents changed their anger to mercy only thanks to the intervention of Franz's friend, Max Brod.

This man played a significant role in Kafka’s biography: seeing his strange friend as a real literary genius, he helped him publish his works and constantly encouraged him. Kafka made his debut as a writer in 1908; his two short stories were published by the magazine Hyperion. The bulk of what he wrote was published after his death, which is explained by a number of factors, including excessive self-criticism, self-doubt, and lack of connections with the literary environment. Kafka and his original work were known only to a narrow circle of professionals, however, in 1915 he received the Fontane Prize, considered one of the most prestigious German prizes in the field of literature.

One of the few who saw a brilliant writer in Kafka was Milena Yesenskaya, translator, journalist, most great love writer. In the early 20s. they had an affair, despite the fact that the woman was married. Relationships with the fair sex were always very difficult for Kafka, and this was also one of the consequences of difficult family relationships. In the man’s life there were three engagements that were dissolved on his initiative.

Franz Kafka constantly struggled with the chronic diseases that beset him, among which was tuberculosis, but at the same time he understood that their root cause was an illness of the spirit that had “gone beyond the shores.” The theme of voluntary departure from life was a common thread in his diaries. Assuming that he would not live to see 40, Kafka made a very small mistake: he died on June 3, 1924. Death found him near Vienna in a sanatorium; The body transported to Prague was buried in a family grave at the New Jewish Cemetery.

Milena Yesenskaya, having received from her lover the manuscripts of the novels “America”, “Castle”, diaries in 1921, contributed to their publication in 1927. In 1925, also posthumously, the novel “The Trial” was published - Max Brod, who spoke in role of executor, violated the last will of the dying Kafka, who imposed a ban on the publication of his remaining works. All these works, filled with a tragic, pessimistic, decadent worldview, absurdity, irrationality, feelings of anxiety, guilt, hopelessness, populated by strange characters, glorified their author throughout the world and influenced the work of many famous writers, in particular,. J.-P. Sartre, A. Camus, Thomas Mann.

Biography from Wikipedia

Franz Kafka(German Franz Kafka, July 3, 1883, Prague, Austria-Hungary - June 3, 1924, Klosterneuburg, First Austrian Republic) was a German-language writer of Jewish origin, most of whose works were published posthumously. His works, permeated with absurdity and fear of outside world and the highest authority, capable of awakening corresponding anxious feelings in the reader - a unique phenomenon in world literature.

Life

Kafka was born on July 3, 1883, into a Jewish family living in the Josefov district, the former Jewish ghetto of Prague (now the Czech Republic, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). His father, Hermann (Genich) Kafka (1852-1931), came from the Czech-speaking Jewish community in Southern Bohemia, and since 1882 he was a wholesale merchant of haberdashery goods. The surname "Kafka" is of Czech origin (kavka literally means "daw"). On Herman Kafka's signature envelopes, which Franz often used for letters, this bird is depicted as an emblem. The writer's mother, Julia Kafka (née Etl Levi) (1856-1934), the daughter of a wealthy brewer, preferred German. Kafka himself wrote in German, although he knew Czech just as well. He also spoke French quite well, and among the five people whom the writer, “without pretending to compare with them in strength and intelligence,” felt as “his blood brothers,” was the French writer Gustave Flaubert. The other four are: Franz Grillparzer, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Heinrich von Kleist and Nikolai Gogol. Being a Jew, Kafka nevertheless practically did not speak Yiddish and began to show interest in the traditional culture of Eastern European Jews only at the age of twenty under the influence of Jewish theater troupes touring in Prague; interest in learning Hebrew arose only towards the end of his life.

Kafka had two younger brothers and three younger sisters. Both brothers, before reaching the age of two, died before Franz turned 6 years old. The sisters' names were Ellie, Valli and Ottla. In the period from 1889 to 1893. Kafka visited primary school(Deutsche Knabenschule), and then a gymnasium, from which he graduated in 1901 by passing the matriculation exam. After graduating from Prague's Charles University in 1906, he received a doctorate in law (Kafka's dissertation supervisor was Professor Alfred Weber), and then entered the service as an official in the insurance department, where he worked until his premature retirement due to illness in 1922. He was involved in the insurance of industrial injuries and argued these cases in courts. Work for the writer was a secondary and burdensome occupation: in his diaries and letters, he admits to hating his boss, colleagues and clients. In the foreground there was always literature, “justifying his entire existence.” Nevertheless, Kafka contributed to the improvement of working conditions in production throughout Northern Bohemia. His superiors valued his work very highly, and therefore his request for retirement was not granted for five years after the discovery of tuberculosis in August 1917.

Asceticism, self-doubt, self-judgment and a painful perception of the world around him - all these qualities of the writer are well documented in his letters and diaries, and especially in “Letter to his Father” - a valuable introspection in the relationship between father and son - and in childhood experience. Due to an early break with his parents, Kafka was forced to lead a very modest lifestyle and often change housing, which left an imprint on his attitude towards Prague itself and its inhabitants. Chronic illnesses (whether of a psychosomatic nature is a controversial issue) plagued him; in addition to tuberculosis, he suffered from migraines, insomnia, constipation, impotence, abscesses and other diseases. He tried to counteract all this with naturopathic means such as a vegetarian diet, regular exercise and drinking large amounts of unpasteurized cow's milk.

As a schoolboy, he took an active part in organizing literary and social gatherings, and made efforts to organize and promote theatrical performances, despite the misgivings of even his closest friends, such as Max Brod, who usually supported him in everything else, and despite his own fear of being perceived as repulsive, both physically and mentally. Kafka impressed those around him with his boyish, neat, strict appearance, calm and calm behavior, his intelligence and unusual sense of humor.

Kafka's relationship with his oppressive father is an important component of his work, which was also refracted through the writer's failure as a family man. Between 1912 and 1917, he courted a Berlin girl, Felicia Bauer, to whom he was twice engaged and twice dissolved the engagement. Communicating with her mainly through letters, Kafka created an image of her that did not correspond to reality at all. And in fact they were very different people, as is clear from their correspondence. Kafka's second bride was Julia Vokhrytsek, but the engagement was again soon called off. In the early 1920s, he had a love relationship with a married Czech journalist, writer and translator of his works, Milena Jesenskaya.

In 1923, Kafka moved to Berlin with nineteen-year-old Dora Diamant for several months in the hope of moving away from family influence and concentrating on writing; then he returned to Prague. His health was deteriorating at this time: due to worsening tuberculosis of the larynx, he experienced severe pain and could not eat. On June 3, 1924, Kafka died in a sanatorium near Vienna. The cause of death was probably exhaustion. The body was transported to Prague, where it was buried on June 11, 1924 at the New Jewish Cemetery in the Strašnice district, Olšany, in a common family grave.

Creation

During his lifetime, Kafka published only a few short stories, which constituted a very small proportion of his work, and his work received little attention until his novels were published posthumously. Before his death, he instructed his friend and literary executor, Max Brod, to burn, without exception, everything he had written (except, perhaps, for some copies of the works, which the owners could keep for themselves, but not republish them). His beloved Dora Diamant did destroy the manuscripts that she possessed (although not all), but Max Brod did not obey the will of the deceased and published most of his works, which soon began to attract attention. All of his published work, except for a few Czech-language letters to Milena Jesenskaya, was written in German.

Kafka himself published four collections - "Contemplation", "Country Doctor", "Kara" And "Hunger", and "Fireman"- first chapter of the novel "America" ("Missing") and several others short essays. However, his main creations are novels "America" (1911-1916), "Process"(1914-1915) and "Lock"(1921-1922) - remained unfinished to varying degrees and saw the light of day after the author’s death and against his last will.

Novels and short prose

"Description of one struggle"(“Beschreibung eines Kampfes”, 1904-1905);
"Wedding Preparations in the Village"(“Hochzeitsvorbereitungen auf dem Lande”, 1906-1907);
"Conversation with a Prayer"(“Gespräch mit dem Beter”, 1909);
"Conversation with a Drunk Man"(“Gespräch mit dem Betrunkenen”, 1909);
"Airplanes in Brescia"(“Die Aeroplane in Brescia”, 1909), feuilleton;
"Women's Prayer Book"(“Ein Damenbrevier”, 1909);
"First long trip along railway» (“Die erste lange Eisenbahnfahrt”, 1911);
Co-authored with Max Brod: "Richard and Samuel: a short journey through Central Europe"(“Richard und Samuel - Eine kleine Reise durch mitteleuropäische Gegenden”);
"Big Noise"(“Großer Lärm”, 1912);
"Before the Law"(“Vor dem Gesetz”, 1914), the parable was subsequently included in the collection “The Country Doctor”, and was later included in the novel “The Trial” (Chapter 9, “In the Cathedral”);
“Erinnerungen an die Kaldabahn” (1914, fragment from a diary);
"School teacher" ("Giant Mole") (“Der Dorfschullehrer” (“Der Riesenmaulwurf”), 1914-1915);
"Blumfeld, the old bachelor"(“Blumfeld, ein älterer Junggeselle”, 1915);
"Crypt Keeper"("Der Gruftwächter", 1916-1917), the only play written by Kafka;
"Hunter Gracchus"(“Der Jäger Gracchus”, 1917);
"How the Chinese Wall was Built"(“Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer”, 1917);
"Murder"(“Der Mord”, 1918), the story was subsequently revised and included in the collection “The Country Doctor” under the title “Fratricide”;
"Riding on a Bucket"(“Der Kübelreiter”, 1921);
"In our synagogue"(“In unserer Synagoge”, 1922);
"Fireman"(“Der Heizer”), later the first chapter of the novel “America” (“The Missing”);
"In the attic"(“Auf dem Dachboden”);
"One Dog's Research"(“Forschungen eines Hundes”, 1922);
"Nora"(“Der Bau”, 1923-1924);
"He. Records of 1920"(“Er. Aufzeichnungen aus dem Jahre 1920”, 1931), fragments;
“To the series “He””(“Zu der Reihe “Er””, 1931);

Collection “Punishments” (“Strafen”, 1915)

"Sentence"(“Das Urteil”, September 22-23, 1912);
"Metamorphosis"(“Die Verwandlung”, November-December 1912);
"In the penal colony"(“In der Strafkolonie”, October 1914).

Collection “Contemplation” (“Betrachtung”, 1913)

"Children on the Road"(“Kinder auf der Landstrasse”, 1913), detailed draft notes for the short story “Description of a Struggle”;
"The Unmasked Rogue"(“Entlarvung eines Bauernfängers”, 1913);
"Sudden Walk"(“Der plötzliche Spaziergang”, 1913), version of a diary entry dated January 5, 1912;
"Solutions"(“Entschlüsse”, 1913), version of a diary entry dated February 5, 1912;
"Walk to the Mountains"(“Der Ausflug ins Gebirge”, 1913);
"Sorrow of a Bachelor"(“Das Unglück des Junggesellen”, 1913);
"Merchant"(“Der Kaufmann”, 1908);
"Looking Absently Out the Window"(“Zerstreutes Hinausschaun”, 1908);
"Way home"(“Der Nachhauseweg”, 1908);
"Running By"(“Die Vorüberlaufenden”, 1908);
"Passenger"(“Der Fahrgast”, 1908);
"Dresses"(“Kleider”, 1908), sketch for the short story “Description of a Struggle”;
"Refusal"(“Die Abweisung”, 1908);
"For riders to think about"(“Zum Nachdenken für Herrenreiter”, 1913);
"Window to the Street"(“Das Gassenfenster”, 1913);
"The desire to become an Indian"(“Wunsch, Indianer zu werden”, 1913);
"Trees"(“Die Bäume”, 1908); sketch for the short story “Description of a Struggle”;
"Yearning"(“Unglücklichsein”, 1913).

Collection “The Country Doctor” (“Ein Landarzt”, 1919)

"New Lawyer"(“Der Neue Advokat”, 1917);
"Country Doctor"(“Ein Landarzt”, 1917);
"On the gallery"(“Auf der Galerie”, 1917);
"Old Record"(“Ein altes Blatt”, 1917);
"Before the Law"(“Vor dem Gesetz”, 1914);
"Jackals and Arabs"(“Schakale und Araber”, 1917);
"Visit to the Mine"(“Ein Besuch im Bergwerk”, 1917);
"Neighboring Village"(“Das nächste Dorf”, 1917);
"Imperial Message"(“Eine kaiserliche Botschaft”, 1917), the story later became part of the short story “How the Chinese Wall was Built”;
"The care of the head of the family"(“Die Sorge des Hasvaters”, 1917);
"Eleven Sons"(“Elf Söhne”, 1917);
"Fratricide"(“Ein Brudermord”, 1919);
"Dream"(“Ein Traum”, 1914), a parallel with the novel “The Trial”;
"Report for the Academy"(“Ein Bericht für eine Akademie”, 1917).

Collection “The Hunger Man” (“Ein Hungerkünstler”, 1924)

"First Woe"(“Ersters Leid”, 1921);
"Small woman"(“Eine kleine Frau”, 1923);
"Hunger"(“Ein Hungerkünstler”, 1922);
"The Singer Josephine, or the Mouse People"(“Josephine, die Sängerin, oder Das Volk der Mäuse”, 1923-1924);

Short prose

"Bridge"(“Die Brücke”, 1916-1917)
"Knock on the Gate"(“Der Schlag ans Hoftor”, 1917);
"Neighbour"(“Der Nachbar”, 1917);
"Hybrid"(“Eine Kreuzung”, 1917);
"Appeal"(“Der Aufruf”, 1917);
"New lamps"(“Neue Lampen”, 1917);
"Railway Passengers"(“Im Tunnel”, 1917);
"An Ordinary Story"(“Eine alltägliche Verwirrung”, 1917);
"The Truth About Sancho Panza"(“Die Wahrheit über Sancho Pansa”, 1917);
"Silence of the Sirens"(“Das Schweigen der Sirenen”, 1917);
“Commonwealth of Scoundrels” (“Eine Gemeinschaft von Schurken”, 1917);
"Prometheus"(“Prometheus”, 1918);
"Homecoming"(“Heimkehr”, 1920);
"City coat of arms"(“Das Stadtwappen”, 1920);
"Poseidon"(“Poseidon”, 1920);
"Commonwealth"(“Gemeinschaft”, 1920);
“At Night” (“Nachts”, 1920);
"Rejected Petition"(“Die Abweisung”, 1920);
"On the issue of laws"(“Zur Frage der Gesetze”, 1920);
“Recruitment” (“Die Truppenaushebung”, 1920);
"Exam"(“Die Prüfung”, 1920);
“The Kite” (“Der Geier”, 1920);
“The Helmsman” (“Der Steuermann”, 1920);
"Top"(“Der Kreisel”, 1920);
"Fable"(“Kleine Fabel”, 1920);
"Departure"(“Der Aufbruch”, 1922);
"Defenders"(“Fürsprecher”, 1922);
"The Married Couple"(“Das Ehepaar”, 1922);
“Comment (don’t get your hopes up!)”(“Kommentar - Gibs auf!”, 1922);
"About Parables"(“Von den Gleichnissen”, 1922).

Novels

"America" ("Missing")(“Amerika” (“Der Verschollene”), 1911-1916), including the story “The Stoker” as the first chapter;
"Process"(“Der Prozeß”, 1914-1915), including the parable “Before the Law”;
"Lock"("Das Schloß", 1922).

Letters

Letters to Felice Bauer (Briefe an Felice, 1912-1916);
Letters to Greta Bloch (1913-1914);
Letters to Milena Jesenskaya (Briefe an Milena);
Letters to Max Brod (Briefe an Max Brod);
Letter to Father (November 1919);
Letters to Ottla and other family members (Briefe an Ottla und die Familie);
Letters to parents from 1922 to 1924. (Briefe an die Eltern aus den Jahren 1922-1924);
Other letters (including to Robert Klopstock, Oscar Pollack, etc.);

Diaries (Tagebücher)

1910. July - December;
1911. January - December;
1911-1912. Travel diaries written during a trip to Switzerland, France and Germany;
1912. January - September;
1913. February - December;
1914. January - December;
1915. January - May, September - December;
1916. April - October;
1917. July - October;
1919. June - December;
1920. January;
1921. October - December;
1922. January - December;
1923. June.

Notebooks in octavo

8 workbooks by Franz Kafka (1917-1919), containing rough sketches, stories and versions of stories, reflections and observations.

Editions

In Russian

Kafka F. Novel. Novels. Parables // Progress. - 1965. - 616 p.

Kafka F. Castle // Foreign literature. - 1988. - No. 1-3. (Translated from German by R. Ya. Wright-Kovalyova)
Kafka F. Castle // Neva. - 1988. - No. 1-4. (Translated from German by G. Notkin)
Kafka F. Favorites: Collection: Trans. with him. / Comp. E. Katseva; preface D. Zatonsky. - M.: Raduga, 1989. - 576 p. Circulation 100,000 copies. (Masters of Modern Prose)
Kafka F. Castle: novel; Novels and parables; Letter to Father; Letters to Milena. - M.: Politizdat, 1991. - 576 p. Circulation 150,000 copies.
Kafka F. Castle / Lane with him. R. Ya. Wright-Kovalevoy; The publication was prepared by A. V. Gulyga and R. Ya. Rait-Kovalyova. - M.: Nauka, 1990. - 222 p. Circulation 25,000 copies. (Literary monuments)
Kafka F. Process / Ill. A. Bisti. - St. Petersburg: Vita Nova, 2003. - 408 p.
Kafka F. Punishments: Stories / Trans. with German; Comp., preface, commentary. M. Rudnitsky. - M.: Text, 2006. - 336 p. (series “Bilingua”)
Kafka F. Diaries. Letters to Felicia. M.:, Eksmo, 2009, - 832 pp., 4000 copies,
Kafka F. Castle: Novel / Transl. with him. M. Rudnitsky. - St. Petersburg: Publishing Group “Azbuka-Classics”, 2009. - 480 p.

Criticism

The writer's grave at the New Jewish Cemetery in Prague. In Hebrew it says: Anshl son of Genykh Kafka and Etl; Below is the father: Genykh (genykh) son of Jacob Kafka and Fradl, mother: Etl, daughter of Jacob Levi and Guta

Many critics have tried to explain the meaning of Kafka's texts based on the provisions of certain literary schools- modernism, “magical realism”, etc. The hopelessness and absurdity that permeate his work are characteristic of existentialism. Some have tried to trace the influence of Marxism on his bureaucracy-bashing satire in works such as In the Penal Colony, The Trial and The Castle.

Others view his works through the lens of Judaism (since he was Jewish and had some interest in Jewish culture, which, however, developed only in later years life of a writer) - Jorge Luis Borges made some insightful comments on this matter. There were attempts to comprehend through Freudian psychoanalysis (in connection with the intense family life author), and through allegories of the metaphysical search for God (Thomas Mann was a champion of this approach), but the question remains open to this day.

About Kafka

Jorge Luis Borges. Kafka and his predecessors
Theodor Adorno. Notes on Kafka
Georges Bataille. Kafka (from 14-05-2013 - story)
Valery Belonozhko. Sad notes about the novel “The Trial”, Three sagas about the unfinished novels of Franz Kafka
Walter Benjamin. Franz Kafka
Maurice Blanchot. From Kafka to Kafka (two articles from the collection: Reading Kafka and Kafka and Literature)
Max Brod. Franz Kafka. Biography
Max Brod. Afterwords and notes to the novel “The Castle”
Max Brod. Franz Kafka. Prisoner of the Absolute
Max Brod. Kafka's personality
Katie Diamant. Kafka's Last Love: The Mystery of Dora Diamond / Trans. from English L. Volodarskaya, K. Lukyanenko. - M. Text, 2008. - 576 p.
Albert Camus. Hope and absurdity in the works of Franz Kafka
Elias Canetti. Another Process: Franz Kafka in Letters to Felicia / Trans. with him. M. Rudnitsky. - M.: Text, 2014. - 176 p.
Michael Kumpfmüller. The Splendor of Life: A Novel / Trans. with him. M. Rudnitsky. - M.: Text, 2014. - 256 p. (On the relationship between Kafka and Dora Diamant)
Yuri Mann. Meeting in the Labyrinth (Franz Kafka and Nikolai Gogol)
David Zane Mairowitz And Robert Crumb. Kafka for Beginners
Vladimir Nabokov. "Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka
Cynthia Ozick. Impossibility of being Kafka
Jacqueline Raoult-Duval. Kafka, the eternal groom / Trans. from fr. E. Klokova. - M.: Text, 2015. - 256 p.
Anatoly Ryasov. The Man with Too Much Shadow
Nathalie Sarraute. From Dostoevsky to Kafka
Eduard Goldstucker. Na téma Franz Kafka - články a studie, 1964.
Mark Bent. “I am all literature”: The life and books of Franz Kafka // Bent M. I. “I am all literature”: Articles on the history and theory of literature. - St. Petersburg: Sergei Khodov Publishing House; Kriga, 2013. - P. 436-458

Kafka in cinema

"This wonderful life Franz Kafka" ("Franz Kafka"s It"s a Wonderful Life", UK, 1993) Short biographical film. Directed by Peter Capaldi, starring Richard E. Grant as Kafka
"The Singer Josephine and the Mouse People"(Ukraine, 1994) Film based on Kafka's short story of the same name. Director Sergei Masloboishchikov
"Kafka" ("Kafka", USA, 1991) Semi-biographical film about Kafka. Directed by Steven Soderbergh, starring Jeremy Irons as Kafka.
"Lock" (Das Schloss, Austria, 1997) Directed by Michael Haneke, starring TO. Ulrich Muhe
"Lock"(Germany, 1968) Directed by Rudolf Noelte, in the role TO. Maximilian Schell
"Lock"(Georgia, 1990) Director Dato Janelidze, in the role TO. Karl-Heinz Becker
"Lock"(Russia-Germany-France, 1994) Director A. Balabanov, in the role TO. Nikolay Stotsky
"The Transformation of Mr. Franz Kafka" Directed by Carlos Atanes, 1993.
"Process" ("The Trial", Germany-Italy-France, 1963) Directed by Orson Welles, in the role of Joseph K. - Anthony Perkins
"Process" ("The Trial", Great Britain, 1993) Directed by David Hugh Jones, in the role of Joseph K. - Kyle MacLachlan, in the role of the priest - Anthony Hopkins, in the role of the artist Tittoreli - Alfred Molina.
"Process"(Russia, 2014) Director Konstantin Seliverstov film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BjsRpHzICM
"Class Relations"(Germany, 1983) Film adaptation of the novel “America (Missing).” Directors: Jean-Marie Straub and Daniel Huillet
"America"(Czech Republic, 1994) Director Vladimir Michalek
"The Country Doctor by Franz Kafka"(Japanese: カフカ田舎医者 Kafuka inaka isya) ("Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor"), Japan, 2007, animated) Directed by Koji Yamamura
"Human body" ("Menschenkörper", Germany, 2004) Short film, adaptation of a novella "Country Doctor". Directed by Tobias Frühmorgen
"Night Country" ("Nachtland", Germany, 1995) Short film, adaptation of a novella "Country Doctor". Directed by Cyril Tuschi
"Hunger" ("The hunger artist", USA, 2002) Directed by Tom Gibbons
"Man K."(Ukraine, 1992) Director Sergei Rakhmanin
"Crypt Keeper"(Belgium, 1965) Directed by Harry Kümel
"Lock"(Russia, 2016) Director Konstantin Seliverstov

The idea of the story "Metamorphosis" has been used in films many times

"Metamorphosis" Directed by Valery Fokin, 2002, starring Evgeny Mironov
"The Transformation of Mr. Samsa" ("The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa") - short film cartoon Directed by Carolyn Leaf, 1977

In this short biography of Franz Kafka. which you will find below, we tried to collect the main milestones in the life and work of this writer.

General information and the essence of Kafka's work

Kafka Franz (1883-1924) - Austrian modernist writer. Author of works: “Metamorphosis” (1915), “The Verdict” (1913), “The Country Doctor” (1919), “The Artist of Hunger” (1924), “The Trial” (published 1925), “Castle” (published 1926) . Kafka's artistic world and his biography are inextricably linked. The main goal of his works was the problem of loneliness, human alienation, which no one needs in this world. The author was convinced of this by the example of his own life. “I have no interest in literature,” wrote Kafka, “literature is myself.”

Having recreated himself on the pages of fiction, Kafka found the “pain point of humanity” and foresaw future catastrophes caused by totalitarian regimes. The biography of Franz Kafka is notable for the fact that his work contains signs different styles and directions: romanticism, realism, naturalism, surrealism, avant-garde. Life conflicts are decisive in Kafka's work.

Childhood, family and friends

The biography of Franz Kafka is interesting and filled with creative success. The future writer was born in Prague, Austria, into the family of a haberdasher. The parents did not understand their son, and the relationship with the sisters did not work out. “In my family I am more of a stranger than the most alien,” writes Kafka in “The Diaries.” His relationship with his father was especially difficult, which the writer would later write about in “Letter to his Father” (1919). Authoritarianism, strong will, moral pressure from his father suppressed Kafka from early childhood. Kafka studied at school, gymnasium, and then at the University of Prague. Years of study did not change his pessimistic outlook on life. There was always a “glass wall” between him and his peers, as his classmate Emil Utits wrote about. His only friend for life was Max Brod, a university friend from 1902. It was him who Kafka would appoint before his death as the executor of his will and instruct him to burn all his works. Max Brod will not carry out his friend’s orders and will make his name known to the whole world.

The marriage problem also became insurmountable for Kafka. Women always treated Franz favorably, and he dreamed of starting a family. There were brides, there was even an engagement, but Kafka never decided on marriage.

Another problem for the writer was his job, which he hated. After university, having received a doctorate in laws, Kafka served for 13 years in insurance companies, carefully fulfilling his duties. He loves literature, but does not consider himself a writer. He writes for himself and calls this activity “the struggle for self-preservation.”

Assessment of creativity in the biography of Franz Kafka

The heroes of Kafka's works are just as defenseless, lonely, smart and at the same time helpless, which is why they are doomed to death. Thus, the short story “The Verdict” tells about the problems of a young businessman with his own father. Kafka's artistic world is complex, tragic, symbolic. The heroes of his works cannot find a way out of life situations in a nightmarish, absurd, cruel world. Kafka's style can be called ascetic - without unnecessary artistic means and emotional arousal. The French philologist G. Barthes characterized this style as “zero degree of writing.”

The language of the works, according to N. Brod, is simple, cold, dark, “but deep inside the flame does not stop burning.” A unique symbol of Kafka’s own life and work can be his story “Reincarnation,” in which the leading idea is the powerlessness of the “little man” before life, its doom to loneliness and death.

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"It is not given to us to comprehend other people's shrines."

We reached 1901, Kafka was eighteen years old. He passed the matriculation exam, which he was so afraid of, without any difficulty; now he says that he achieved this only by cheating. Finally, the time had come for him to choose the path of further education and, therefore, partly lay the foundations of his future. In "Letter to Father" he does not blame him for influencing his choice, but his father's upbringing has made him so indifferent in this regard that he spontaneously chooses the easier path that leads him to jurisprudence. Having reached the age of eighteen, Kafka does not feel any calling in himself: “There was no real freedom in choosing professions for me, I knew: in comparison with the main thing, everything would be as indifferent to me as all the subjects of the gymnasium course, we are talking, therefore, about “To find a profession that would most easily allow me, without too much harm to vanity, to show the same indifference. This means that the most suitable one is jurisprudence.” At the gymnasium, he announced that he was going to enroll in the philosophy department, probably to continue his study of German studies there. But first, quite unexpectedly, he decides to take up chemistry: two of his classmates, Oscar Pollack and Hugo Bergmann - it is unknown why - also first chose this orientation. Perhaps there was something of a challenge in Kafka's choice; in any case, he interprets it in “Letter to Father” as a “test” caused by vanity, a moment of insane hope. But this riot, if it was a riot, did not last long; two weeks later, Kafka returned to the straight road. The same thing will happen again in the second semester, when he, fed up with jurisprudence, begins taking courses in German studies. He will have the feeling that he was knocked out of the rut and this was destined for him by fate. But he quickly becomes disillusioned: the “ordinary professor” August Sauer is a serious scientist (even now you can use his Grillparzer edition), but most importantly, he is a German nationalist who has a bad attitude towards Jews, which Kafka can hardly bear. One of his letters to Oscar Pollack contained caustic criticism of Sauer; Max Brod, when making a copy of the letter, removed this passage, probably because Sauer was still alive. The original will disappear in the course of historical cataclysms, and there is no longer a possibility of full publication of this letter. Consequently, we will never know for sure about the claims that Kafka had against August Sauer.

The most preferable solution for Kafka would have been to completely interrupt his university studies, in which he had so little interest. One day, when his uncle from Madrid was passing through Prague, he turned to him with a request to find him something to do somewhere, so that, as he said, he would be able to “get straight to work.” He was made to understand that it would be wiser to be a little more diligent in his studies.

So for some time he continues to follow his bumpy road, as Franz puts it, like “an old mail coach.” His comrade Paul Kisch leaves for Munich; Kafka follows him with the intention of continuing his studies there, but quickly returns. What happened? Was he disappointed by what he saw? Or perhaps his father denied him the funds necessary to study abroad? We don't know. We only know that because of this failed journey, he will talk about the claws of Mother Prague, who does not let go of her victim. We also know that a year later, in 1903, he returned to Munich for a short time, it is unknown for what purpose. When he talks about Munich, it will be only to mention the “sorry memories of his youth.”

So, he again takes up the familiar and disgusting study of jurisprudence.

He is forced, at least for the months preceding the exams, “to eat, as he says, wood flour, which, moreover, has already been chewed by thousands of mouths before me.” But in the end he almost acquired a taste for it, so much did it seem appropriate to his position. He did not expect salvation from his studies and profession: “In this sense, I gave up on everything a long time ago.”

There is no point in talking about his teachers at law school, since they had very little influence on him. Why tell him that he trembled before the terrible civil law teacher Krasnopolsky? He was undoubtedly trembling, but only to be immediately forgotten. The only name that deserves to be mentioned is that of Alfred Weber. But an outstanding specialist in political economy was invited to the University of Prague just at the time when Kafka was finishing his studies. He was appointed "trustee", that is, the referee or chairman of Kafka's doctoral examination, and only in this purely administrative field did they communicate.

Doctoral examinations took place from November 1905 to June 1906. Kafka passed them without much success, with a “satisfactory” mark. Thus ended one of the most colorless episodes of his life.

In passing, we note that it was probably during his university years that Kafka began taking English lessons. He knew Czech and French very well and planned to learn Italian a little later. This is the basis of one of the facets of his talent and his knowledge, which is sometimes forgotten.

* * *

Some of his biographers continue to attribute to Kafka Political Views and even addictions. We readily admit that in the gymnasium he expressed his sympathies for the Boers: the whole world, except England, was on their side. But what is this Altstadter Kollegentag - “Collegiate Association of the Old Town”, where Kafka, while still a lyceum student, allegedly refused to stand up when others sang “The Watch on the Rhine”?

We cannot imagine Kafka participating in public demonstrations of this kind, and besides, the Association was not intended for lyceum students. It was one of the University's many German nationalist groups; it is impossible that Kafka could ever enter it. It is also said that he wore a red anarchist carnation in his buttonhole. In fact, the question of red carnations once comes up in one of the letters to Oscar Pollack. Kafka writes: “Today is Sunday, the salesmen descend on Wenselsplatz, walk to the Graben and loudly shout for Sunday rest. I think there is a meaning in their red carnations, and in their stupid Jewish faces, and in the deafening noise that they create: this resembles the behavior of a child who wants to climb to heaven, cries and squeals because they don’t want to give him a ladder, but he has no desire to climb to heaven at all.” Those who decorate themselves with a red carnation are not anarchists, they are good German bourgeois (and Jewish) who do it to distinguish themselves from the Czechs, who chose the cornflower as their emblem. But mocking the festively dressed bourgeois does not mean becoming an anarchist.

Kafka is neither a socialist nor an anarchist, much less a “Brentanist.” All university philosophy in the countries of the Austrian Empire is inspired by the thought of Franz Brentano. He himself, having thrown off his Dominican monastic habit to marry, now lives in exile in Florence, deprived of his posts and almost blind. But his students continue to occupy all departments in the field of education, particularly in Prague. And the “Brentanists” regularly gather in one of the city’s cafes, the Louvre Café, to discuss ideas. In addition, the wife of one pharmacist from the Old Town, Berta Fant, under the guise of the “Unicorn”, organizes literary or philosophical conversations at her home, which the “Brentanists” diligently attend and in which Albert Einstein later takes part several times. We do not want to say that Kafka was an ordinary guest at meetings in the Café Louvre and Fanta evenings, we want to show that his thought was only a copy of Brentano's themes. And Max Brod is categorical on this score: Kafka was introduced to meetings at the Louvre Café, undoubtedly by his friends Utitz, Pollack or Bergmann, but he visited there very rarely and reluctantly. He also had to be begged very much to agree to go to Fante - a letter from 1914 to Max Brod confirms this once again. When he happened to go there, he usually intervened very little in the discussions. On the other hand, if several orthodox Brentanists sometimes took part in Fanta evenings, this does not mean that the teachings of Franz Brentan were at the center of the debate. The conversation was, says Max Brod, about Kant (disgraced by the Brentanists), about Fichte or Hegel. As for attempts to establish parallels between Kafka's aphorisms and Brentano's phrases, this is just an attempt to show off. As luck would have it, the only university exam in which Kafka received a bad mark was an exam in “descriptive psychology” proposed by Anton Marti, one of Brentano’s close students. Kafka did not exactly reject philosophical theories; later, for example, he would listen to lectures by Christian von Ehrenfels, one of the founders of “Gestaltism”, by the way, firmly associated with Brentano’s doctrine. But very inappropriately, many false keys were made that do not open a single door.

So, at the moment, Kafka, with already submissive passivity, slides wherever his environment, father, habit - everything except his own taste - takes him.

At the university, of course, he finds a wide variety of student corporations, many of them united in a community called "Germany", which included German nationalists and where dueling with rapiers was practiced in order to win scars on the cheeks. These were hotbeds of anti-Semitism, and there was nothing there that would have attracted Kafka; Jews, moreover, were not accepted there at all. Since 1893 there was also a corporation of Zionist students, which was first called "Maccabees", and then from 1899 received the name "Bar Kochba", whose active participants, when Kafka came to the university, were Hugo Bergmann, Robert Welch and also many other. Max Brod was still aloof at this time; he joined Bar Kochba only a few years later. Kafka was not interested in this either; he was spontaneously drawn to the association with the “liberal” trend - the “Gallery of Lectures and Readings of German Students,” which included the largest number of Jewish students at the university. The relationship between this “Gallery” and “Bar Kochba” was sometimes strained, since the tendency of conscious “assimilation” prevailed in it. The Association was governed by a Committee that managed the funds, where the main role belonged to Bruno Kafka, the converted cousin of the future celebrity of the city, towards whom Max Brod harbored some enmity. The "Gallery" wore the colors black, red and gold, as well as the number 1848, the date of its creation, which appeared on its emblems. "Gallery" and "Germany" competed with each other. The "Gallery", however, was mainly involved in supporting the library, one of the best in the city, and organizing lecture evenings. This was the concern of the “section of art and literature”, which acquired a certain autonomy in the “Gallery”, in which Kafka would later for some time perform modest administrative functions (responsible for art matters). Sometimes important people were invited - for example, the poet Detlev von Lilienkron, whose fame was already beginning to decline, was invited at great expense; sometimes they provided a platform for students. On October 23, 1902, one of them gave a lecture on “the fate and future of Schopenhauer’s philosophy.” Kafka came to listen to her, and this day became perhaps the most important in his life. The lecturer was Max Brod, who was a year younger than him, which is how they met. Kafka, who had read a little Nietzsche in the past, found that the lecturer treated the philosopher too harshly (some researchers, attaching too much importance to this meager information, wanted to make Kafka, and in vain, a Nietzschean). Brod and Kafka walked through the streets of the city, arguing with each other, and this was the beginning of a friendship that was never to be interrupted.

In his letters to Oscar Pollack - the earliest to survive - Kafka initially lamented the difficulties of communication between them: "When we talk together, the words are harsh, it is like walking on bad pavement. The most subtle questions suddenly become like the most difficult steps, and we can’t do anything about it /.../. When we talk, we are constrained by things that we want to express, but we cannot express them, then we express them in such a way that we have a false idea. We do not understand each other. we even mock each other /.../. And then there is a joke, an excellent joke that makes the Lord God cry bitterly and causes crazy, truly hellish laughter in hell: we can never have someone else’s God - only ours /.../ ". And another time again: “When you stand in front of me and look at me, what do you know about my pain and what do I know about yours?” And as if moving from one extreme to the other, in 1903 he asked in another letter to Pollack to be for him “a window onto the street.” Despite his high growth, as he puts it, he does not reach the windowsill. And this image seems so true to him that he made it his motive a short story, undoubtedly the earliest of those that we have and which he called "Window to the Street." To live, he needs someone stronger, more courageous than him. In essence, he is preparing to live by proxy. Kafka had already settled on the sidelines, away from life, or, as he would say later, in the desert that borders Canaan.

But Pollak leaves Prague, first he goes to a provincial castle, where he works as a teacher, then to Rome, where he will study Baroque art. And for more than twenty years, it was Max Brod who would become the “window to the street” that Kafka needed. There are few similarities between them. Brod, journalist, novelist, theatergoer (he will end his life in the position artistic director Habimah Theater in Tel Aviv), philosopher, orchestra leader, composer. He is as extroverted as Kafka is withdrawn, as active as Kafka is melancholy and slow, as prolific in his writing as Kafka is demanding and not abundant in his creativity. Having suffered from kyphosis in his early youth, Brod was slightly crooked, but compensated for his deficiency with exceptional liveliness. Noble, enthusiastic, easily ignited, he must always be busy with some kind of business, and during his life he will have many different things to do. He rightly titled his autobiography “A Stormy Life,” a Combat Life. At this period of his life - he was eighteen years old - he was a fanatical adherent of Schopenhauer and followed a philosophy that he called “indifferentism” - from the necessity of everything that happened, he derived a kind of universal excuse, which made it possible to ignore morality. He would soon regard this doctrine as a delusion of youth, but he professed it at the time he first met Kafka. And the argument that began that evening will never end again, because no matter how different they were, so close friends they will become; they complement each other perfectly. If it never occurs to anyone to rank Max Brod among the great people, we must admit that he has an extraordinary literary sense: from Kafka’s first writing experiments, still uncertain and awkward, he was able to recognize his genius. In this so deprived life, Max Brod's friendship was an endless blessing. Without Max Brod, Kafka's name might have remained unknown; who can say that without him Kafka would have continued to write?

* * *

The beginning of his friendship with Max Brod marked a period of entertainment for Kafka, or, as we would say, parties. To know how he behaved, it is enough to read the beginning of “Description of a Struggle,” since in these literary debuts a distance is maintained that separates experience and fiction. How can one not recognize a self-portrait or a self-caricature in this “swinging pole”, on which “a skull covered with yellow skin with black hair” is awkwardly impaled? It is he who remains sitting alone in front of a glass of Benedictine and a plate of cakes, while others, more daring, enjoy the favor of women and boast of their conquests. After the 1903 holidays, he could tell Oscar Pollack that he had gained courage. His health improved (in 1912 he wrote to Felitza Bauer that he had been feeling ill for ten years), he became stronger, he went out into society, he learned to talk to women. And what is especially important, he writes, he abandoned the life of a hermit." "Lay your eggs honestly in front of the whole world, the sun will hatch them; bite life rather than your tongue; You can respect the mole and his characteristics, but you don’t have to make him your saint.” True, he immediately adds, a certain voice from behind asks: “Is this so in the end?” He claims that girls are the only creatures capable of stopping us from going down to the bottom, but a little earlier he writes to Pollack: “I’m wonderfully happy that you’re dating this girl. It's your business, I don't care about her. But you talk to her often, and not just for the pleasure of talking. It may happen that you go with her here or there, to Rostock or somewhere else, while I am sitting at my desk. You are talking to her, and in the middle of the sentence someone appears, greeting you. This is me with my poorly chosen words and sour expression on my face. It lasts only a moment, and you resume the conversation /.../".

Ten years later, recalling these first years of his youth, he writes to Felice Bauer: “If I had already known you eight or ten years ago (after all, the past is as certain as it is lost), we could be happy today without all these pathetic subterfuges, sighs and without reliable silences. Instead, I got along with girls - now this is a distant past - with whom I fell in love easily, with whom I was fun and whom I abandoned even more easily than they abandoned me, without causing me the slightest suffering (. The plural does not indicate their number; it is used here only because I do not name names, because everything has long passed)."

After his matriculation examination, Kafka went alone on a short trip to the North Sea, to the North Frisian Islands and the island of Heligoland, spending his holidays with his family, often in Libosch on the Elbe. We find in the “Description of a Struggle” a short echo of that stay. In order not to look too unfriendly in front of his interlocutor, an enthusiastic lover, the narrator, in turn, tries to come up with gallant adventures: “One day I was sitting on a bench on the river bank in an uncomfortable position. With my head on my hand, I looked at the misty mountains of the other bank and heard the gentle a violin that someone was playing in a coastal hotel. Trains with sparkling smoke scurried along both banks.

So I said, frantically trying to imagine behind the words some love stories with interesting positions; A little rudeness, determination, and violence wouldn’t hurt.”

In these love stories, the real and the fictional are strangely mixed, by the way, both in life and in fiction, and all this love past seems to be unconvincing. When he talks about this in his first letters to Max Brod, he does it with an indifference that sounds unnatural: “The next day,” he writes, for example, “one girl changed into a white dress, then fell in love with me. She was very unhappy, and I was unable to console her, these things are so complicated" (the same episode is mentioned again in "Description of a Struggle"). The letter to Max Brod continues: “Then there was a week that dissipated into nothingness, or two, or even more, Then I fell in love with a woman. Then one day there was a dance in a restaurant, and I didn’t go there. Then I was melancholy and very stupid, to such an extent that I was ready to stumble on dirt roads." It can be said that the foggy veil deliberately hides a certain area in semi-fiction that one does not dare to look at openly.

Meanwhile, Kafka still experienced his first sensual experience with a woman. Seventeen years later, he tells Milena about this in detail after their meeting in Vienna, trying to explain to her how strach and touha, fear and melancholy coexist in him. The case takes place in 1903, four years after his ill-fated conversation with his father about sex problems. He is twenty years old and is busy preparing for his first law exam. He notices a saleswoman from a store on the sidewalk opposite ready-made dress. They make signs to each other, and one evening he follows her to the Kleinzeite Hotel. Just before entering, he is gripped by fear: “Everything was charming, exciting and disgusting”; he continues to experience the same feeling in the hotel: “When we were returning home across the Charles Bridge in the morning, I, of course, was happy, but this happiness consisted only in the fact that my eternally whining flesh had finally found peace, and most importantly The great happiness was that everything did not turn out to be even more disgusting, even more dirty.” He meets a young saleswoman for the second time, and everything happens the same as the first time. But then (here we must trace this central experience in all its details, which so few writers have conveyed so carefully and with such sincerity) he goes on vacation, meets other girls, and from that moment on he can no longer see this little saleswoman, although it’s good knows that she is naive and kind, he looks at her as his enemy. “I don’t want to say that the only reason probably wasn’t that at the hotel my girlfriend completely innocently allowed herself one little nasty thing (it’s not worth talking about) and even said one trivial dirty thing (and that’s also not worth talking about), but It was etched in my memory, I immediately realized that I would never be able to forget it, and I also realized (or imagined) that this abomination or greasyness, if not necessarily externally, then internally, was very definitely connected with everything that happened.” He knows that it was these “horrors” that attracted him to the hotel, that’s what he wanted and at the same time hated. Much time later, he again experiences an indomitable desire, “the desire for a small, completely definite abomination, something slightly dirty, shameful, dirty, and even in the best that I got my share of, there was still a piece of this, a certain bad odor, a bit of sulfur, a bit of hell. In this craving there is something of the Eternal Jew, senselessly drawn through a senselessly dirty world."

Even the pomposity of the language emphasizes the nature of the prohibition that now hangs over everything related to sex for him. A splinter pierced the flesh. For some time - in 1903, in 1904. - the wound remains tolerable; she still allowed the love affairs of her youth. But the pain will intensify every year, little by little it will paralyze his entire life.

At the end of “Description of a Struggle,” one of the characters in the story plunges the blade of a small penknife into his hand. Some commentators have interpreted this scene as a symbolic suicide. But psychoanalysts will undoubtedly be more willing to see in it an image of castration.

* * *

“I go into the sprawling brown and melancholy fields with abandoned plows, fields that, however, shimmer with silver when, in spite of everything, the belated sun appears and casts my large shadow /.../ on the furrows. Have you noticed how the shadows late autumn dancing on the dark plowed ground, dancing like real dancers? Have you noticed how the earth rises to meet the grazing cow and with what confidence it rises? Have you noticed how a heavy and fat lump of earth crumbles in too thin fingers and with what solemnity it crumbles?" It is undoubtedly difficult for an inexperienced reader to recognize Kafka as the author of this passage. However, this is a fragment from a letter to Pollack. Similarly, a year later a poem included in a letter intended for the same addressee describes a small snow-covered town, New Year's-like dimly lit houses, and in the midst of this landscape a lonely, thoughtful man leaning on the railing of a bridge. The style is overloaded with diminutive words and archaisms. This mannerism was not without reason attributed to. account of the influence of "Kunstwarda", a magazine of art and literature, which Pollack and Kafka read assiduously and of which, apparently, they were subscribers. Reading "Kunstward" ("Keeper of the Arts") in 1902 was no longer particularly original. years old, at first he typed good writers, but little by little he reoriented himself into the field of various movements of modernism, naturalism, as well as symbolism. He arrived at a type of poetry depicting local color, an example of which is offered by Kafka's letter.

Kafka continues to write. At this time, he also keeps, if not a “Diary,” then at least a notebook. He began writing early (“You see,” he writes to Pollack, “misfortune fell on my back too early”) and stopped, he says, only in 1903, when for six months he created almost nothing more. "God doesn't want this, but I have to write. Hence the constant tossing; in the end God takes over, and this brings greater misfortunes than you can imagine." All the texts from the period of his youth were destroyed, and there is no need to guess what they might have been. One can only assume that the strangely uneven poems, several examples of which he subsequently included in his letters, date back to this period. He also told Oscar Pollack that he was preparing a book to be called "The Child and the City." Do we have the right to guess what this plan might have been? Was the city intended to suppress the spontaneity of the child, consistent with Kafka's thoughts on pedagogy? Was there a connection between this missing book and the rough sketches that would be called "City World" or "Little Ruin Dweller"? We know nothing about this and it is better not to invent anything about this.

But two things are certain: first, Kafka will very soon abandon his disgusting mannerism; second ~ even these delusions of youth were not without meaning for him. “Return to the Earth” explains in its own way the persistent elements of his nature, which appear in different forms: naturalism, a taste for physical exercise and gardening, a penchant for moderation in food, a hostile attitude towards medicine and medicine, a preference for “natural” medicines (for example, the hero of "The Castle" will one day be called "bitter grass" for his inherent healing abilities). In the room that Kafka occupied with his parents, very simple, sparsely furnished, almost ascetic (like the one that will be presented in "The Metamorphosis"), the only decoration was an engraving by Hans Thom entitled "The Plowman", cut out from "Kunstward" - this was his environment.

An essential, truly fundamental part of Kafka’s personality is manifested primarily, however, precisely in the penchant for “simple life”, which appears in his first literary experiments. By the way, Kafka, who will so profoundly renew literature, in early work there is nothing in common with the avant-garde.

Ten years later, when he traveled to Weimar with Max Brod, he visited Paul Ernst and Johannes Schlaff, two writers who, having paid tribute to the naturalistic fashion in their time, became symbols of conservative literature. True, Kafka slightly mocks them, but at the same time shows them respect. When Max Brod, at the beginning of their friendship, gave him passages from Gustav Meyrink's The Violet Death to read, which deal with giant butterflies, poisonous gases, and magical formulas that turn strangers into purple jelly, Kafka reacted with a grimace. He did not like, Max Brod tells us, either violence or perversion; he had an aversion—we keep quoting Max Brod—for Oscar Wilde or Heinrich Mann. Among his preferences, reports the same Max Brod, along with the great models, Goethe, Flaubert or Tolstoy, there were names least expected, names of representatives of moderate, sometimes even shy literature, such as Hermann Hesse, Hans Carossa, Wilhelm Schaefer, Emil Strauss. But he had other aspirations that would not be slow to manifest themselves.

When we move from 1903 to 1904 and from Pollack to Max Brod, it feels like suddenly discovering a different writer. The soil mannerism disappeared, but it was replaced by another mannerism, perhaps even more disgusting. Let the reader be the judge: “It’s very easy to be joyful at the beginning of summer. The heart beats lightly, the step is light, and we look confidently into the future. We hope to meet oriental wonders and at the same time reject them with comic reverence and awkward words - this lively game sets us up for joyful harmony and causes trembling. We threw off the sheets and continue to lie in bed, not taking our eyes off the clock. They show the end of the morning. But we, we brush the evening with very faded colors and endless prospects and rub our hands with joy until they turn red. until we see how our shadow lengthens and becomes so graceful in the evening. We decorate ourselves in the secret hope that decoration will become our nature /.../.” Kafka clearly had not yet found his style; soon he won't write like that anymore. However, what he says here is simple and at the same time important. He wants to say that it is not allowed in the light of day to claim that night has come. Literature must tell the truth, otherwise it will become the most empty and at the same time the least permissible activity. False romanticism, which for the sake of pleasure mixes truth and lies and finds pleasure in contrived melancholy, is outrageous.

The coincidence between these thoughts of Kafka and the ideas of Hugo von Hofmannsthal at the same time has long been noted. In particular, in one of its best and most famous works, entitled "Letter", and generally called "Letter from Lord Shandos", Hofmannsthal in the image of an English nobleman of the 17th century. expressed his feelings in crucial moment century. It is oversaturated with the verbal excesses of those whose fate at one time he, it seems, could share - D'Annunzio, Barres, Oscar Wilde and others. Literature reveled in words, it became a sterile and irresponsible game. The young Lord Shandos lost the meaning of values (meanings) in this school ) and at the same time a taste for writing. He dreams of a new language, “in which silent things would speak to him and with which he could perhaps appear in the grave before an unknown judge.”

It is this crisis of literature that Kafka tries to convey with the help of his still undecided language. To explain the meaning of the expression “to tell the truth,” he readily quotes a fragment of a phrase from another text by Hofmannsthal: “The smell of wet tiles in the vestibule”; the real feeling is conveyed here with the greatest economy of means: everything is true and without exaggeration speaks of a receptive mind. Truthfulness, which at first glance is closest, is actually the most difficult to achieve, so hidden is it by abuses of language, haste, and conventions. Hofmannsthal, according to Kafka, succeeded, at least in this case, in achieving truthfulness. Kafka, in turn, comes up with a phrase of the same kind: a certain woman, when asked by another woman what she is doing, replies: “I’m having an afternoon snack at fresh air" (literally: “I am having an afternoon snack on the grass,” but the French expression sounds flat and distorts the meaning, and besides, the translation cannot convey the richness of the Austrian jausen, which means: I have a light snack). It's about about retrieving lost simplicity, rediscovering a “reality” that the symbolic flourishing and excesses of the end of the century had made us forget.

“We decorate ourselves in the secret hope that decoration will become our nature,” Kafka wrote to Max Brod. New literature must precisely cease to be decorative. The arabesque must give way to a straight line. Kafka does not think at all that in language there is the power of imagination, a magical power that can bring into being a previously unknown reality. There is nothing romantic in him; of all writers, he is undoubtedly the most consistently far from lyricism, the most decidedly prosaic. In one of the texts recent years he will repeat again that language remains a prisoner of its own metaphors, that it can only be expressed figuratively and never literally. What he nurtures in his mind until 1904 is much less ambitious: he wants to find, on this side of the new debauchery of literature, the right feeling, the exact gesture. In essence, he is in search of Flaubert, whom he is not yet familiar with, but whom he will follow as soon as he reads him. He knows in which direction he must go, he sees the goal he strives for, although he is not yet able to achieve it: the language he uses remains immersed in the past - almost in contradiction with the goal set.

The same analysis applies to the work that was conceived and written during these years - “Description of a Struggle.” It was thanks to Max Brod, to whom Kafka gave it to read and who kept it in a drawer of his desk, that it escaped the fire that destroyed all other works of this period. Its first version can be dated with quasi-accuracy to the last university years (1904 - 1905). Later, between 1907 and 1909, the text would be revised. Max Brod believed that the work was completed, but there is no certainty that he was right: in the Diary after 1909 we find fragments that seem to have been intended for inclusion in the Description of a Struggle. This small piece very complex: it even seems that it, with its deliberate incoherence, sudden changes in the depicted perspective, is intended to confuse the reader. This is a free rhapsody that, without worrying about logic, mixes genres and themes. First there is a “struggle,” a struggle between the timid and the brave, the thin and the fat, the dreamer and the doer.

We do not briefly wonder which of the two will prevail, even if in the end the introvert, the more cunning, compromises his partner, whose vitality is burdened with many stupidities, and makes him doubt himself. But along with this humorous “struggle”, which forms the frame of the story and in which autobiographical moments abound, there are many completely fictitious events, for example the story, as if taken from the symbolic story of the “fat man,” apparently an obese Chinese, who is carried in a palanquin and who drowns himself in the river. There is also satire on bad literature, which began in a 1904 letter to Max Brod. A bad writer is the one who calls the “Tower of Babel” or Noah when he was drunk the poplar of the fields, believing that words are enough to change the world and that the role of writing is to replace reality with imagination. It is not enough to call the moon an “old paper lantern” and call the column of the Virgin Mary “moon” for the world to obey the author’s imagination. “Description of a Struggle” opposes the frivolity, stupid coquetry, and lies that have taken over literature. But at the same time it is the most bizarre, the most mannered work, most marked by the taste of the era against which it is directed. Such is the paradox of this work of youth. Kafka would soon take other paths.

The strange, but undoubtedly brilliant writer Franz Kafka left a deep mark on world literature thanks to his unique style, permeated with fear and absurdity in front of external reality.

In honor of the birthday of the world famous Austrian writer Franz Kafka, LifeGuide prepared Interesting Facts about his life and work.

1. Franz Kafka is an Austrian writer of Jewish origin who was born in Prague and wrote primarily in German.

2. Kafka was a vegetarian and the grandson of a kosher butcher.

3. As a child, he was called strange and crazy because he acted outcast and closed.

“I hate everything not related to literature,” he wrote, “...it’s boring for me to visit, the suffering and joy of my relatives bores me immensely. Talking robs all my thoughts of importance, seriousness, authenticity.

4. Franz Kafka is one of the main mascots of Prague.

5. Young Franz suffered from indescribable loneliness and misunderstanding with his parents, in particular from his father’s despotism.

Because of you, I lost faith in myself, and in return I acquired an endless sense of guilt. , he writes in a “letter to his father.”

6. A writer in secret, he was for some time a simple boring office worker in the accident insurance department, which led him to complete despair and even greater pessimism.

7. Kafka was torn between feeling and duty - on the one hand, he considered himself “owed” to his parents, who were imposing jurisprudence on him, on the other, he was drawn to literature and writing.

For me this is terrible double life“,” he wrote in his diary, “from which, perhaps, there is only one way out - madness.”

8.In life, Kafka had many chronic diseases that undermined his life - tuberculosis, migraines, insomnia, constipation, abscesses and others.

9. Chief creative artistic technique writer, metametaphor *, gave his works greater grandeur, absurdity, depth and tragedy.

10. During a serious illness, Franz Kafka asked his friend Max Brod to destroy all his manuscripts, including novels previously unknown to anyone. However, he did not listen to him, but, on the contrary, contributed to their publication. Thanks to this man, Kafka became world famous.

11. Despite the posthumous fame of his novels, several unappreciated stories were published by Kafka during his lifetime.

12. Kafka himself believed that he would not live to see 40 due to poor health.

13. The writer's stories and reflections are a reflection of his own neuroses and experiences that helped him overcome his fears.

14. His three posthumous novels, America, The Trial and The Castle, remained unfinished.

15. The writer was born and died on the same date - 3.

16. Despite Franz’s melancholy, friends noted his unusual sense of humor and called him “the life of the party.” One of the German publications wrote about Kafka’s similarities with Charlie Chaplin.

I know how to have fun, don't doubt it. I'm even known for my penchant for fun. , - Kafka wrote to one of his friends.

17. Due to difficult family relationships, Kafka could not build his own family. He was often in love and repeatedly broke off engagements with his chosen ones.

*Meta-metaphor or “metaphorical realism” is a total, in-depth metaphor, where reality is comprehended in all its fullness and breadth. This is a kind of inversion of litotes with hyperbole. “Meta-metaphor differs from metaphor as meta-galaxy differs from galaxy.”

Franz Kafka- one of the outstanding German-speaking writers of the 20th century, most of whose works were published posthumously. His works, permeated with absurdity and fear of the outside world and higher authority, capable of awakening corresponding anxious feelings in the reader, are a unique phenomenon in world literature.

Kafka was born on July 3, 1883 into a Jewish family living in the ghetto of Prague (Bohemia, at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). His father, Hermann Kafka (1852-1931), came from the Czech-speaking Jewish community, and since 1882 he was a haberdashery merchant. The writer's mother, Julia Kafka (Löwy) (1856-1934), preferred the German language. Kafka himself wrote in German, although he also knew Czech perfectly. He also had some command of the French language, and among the four people whom the writer, “without pretending to compare with them in strength and intelligence,” felt as “his blood brothers,” was the French writer Gustave Flaubert. The other three are: Grillparzer, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Heinrich von Kleist.

Kafka had two younger brothers and three younger sisters. Both brothers, before reaching the age of two, died before Kafka turned 6 years old. The sisters' names were Ellie, Valli and Ottla. In the period from 1889 to 1893. Kafka attended primary school (Deutsche Knabenschule) and then gymnasium, from which he graduated in 1901 by passing the matriculation exam. After graduating from Charles University in Prague, he received a doctorate in law (Kafka’s work supervisor on his dissertation was Professor Alfred Weber), and then entered the service as an official in the insurance department, where he worked in modest positions until his premature retirement due to illness in 1922. Work for a writer was a secondary occupation. In the foreground there was always literature, “justifying his entire existence.” In 1917, after a pulmonary hemorrhage, long-term tuberculosis began, from which the writer died on June 3, 1924 in a sanatorium near Vienna.

Asceticism, self-doubt, self-judgment and a painful perception of the world around him - all these qualities of the writer are well documented in his letters and diaries, and especially in “Letter to Father” - a valuable introspection into the relationship between father and son and into childhood experience. Chronic illnesses (whether of a psychosomatic nature is a controversial issue) plagued him; in addition to tuberculosis, he suffered from migraines, insomnia, constipation, abscesses and other diseases. He tried to counteract all this with naturopathic means, such as a vegetarian diet, regular exercise, and drinking large quantities of unpasteurized cow's milk (the latter possibly being the cause of tuberculosis). As a schoolboy, he took an active part in organizing literary and social gatherings, and made efforts to organize and promote Yiddish theatrical performances, despite misgivings even from his closest friends, such as Max Brod, who usually supported him in everything else, and despite his own fear of being perceived as repulsive both physically and mentally. Kafka impressed those around him with his boyish, neat, strict appearance, calm and imperturbable behavior, as well as his intelligence and unusual sense of humor.

Kafka's relationship with his oppressive father is an important component of his work, which also resulted from the writer's failure as a family man. Between 1912 and 1917, he courted a Berlin girl, Felicia Bauer, to whom he was twice engaged and twice dissolved the engagement. Communicating with her mainly through letters, Kafka created an image of her that did not correspond to reality at all. And in fact they were very different people, as is clear from their correspondence. (Kafka’s second bride was Julia Vokhrytsek, but the engagement was again soon called off). In the early 1920s, he had a love relationship with a married Czech journalist, writer and translator of his works, Milena Jesenskaya. In 1923, Kafka, along with nineteen-year-old Dora Dimant, moved to Berlin for several months, hoping to distance himself from family influence and concentrate on writing; then he returned to Prague. Tuberculosis was getting worse at this time, and on June 3, 1924, Kafka died in a sanatorium near Vienna, probably from exhaustion. (A sore throat prevented him from eating, and in those days intravenous therapy was not developed to feed him artificially). The body was transported to Prague, where it was buried on June 11, 1924 at the New Jewish Cemetery.

During his lifetime, Kafka published only a few short stories, which constituted a very small proportion of his work, and his work attracted little attention until his novels were published posthumously. Before his death, he instructed his friend and literary executor, Max Brod, to burn, without exception, everything he had written (except, perhaps, for some copies of the works, which the owners could keep for themselves, but not republish them). His beloved Dora Dimant did destroy the manuscripts that she possessed (although not all), but Max Brod did not obey the will of the deceased and published most of his works, which soon began to attract attention. All of his published work, except for a few Czech-language letters to Milena Jesenskaya, was written in German.