Thursday, August 25, 2022

Michael Kohlhaas, by Heinrich Von Kleist


 A wronged horse trader exacts revenge at a high cost.

Michael Kohlhaas is a 16th century horse trader. He is leading a group of his horses on his way to Saxony when he is stopped by an official representing the nobleman Junker Wenzel von Tronka. It is claimed that Michael Kohlhaas is crossing without legal transit papers. The official demands two horses as collateral until the business is fixed up. When he arrives at Dresden, the capital of Saxony, the horse trader learns that he didn't need transit papers after all and the taking of his two horses was totally unjustified. When he  demands his horses back, he finds they have been maltreated, overworked in the fields. Michael Kohlhaas sues Junker Tronka damages, but through the Junker's political connections, the case is dismissed.

Outraged at this turn of events, Kohlhaas raises a private army (consisting mostly of vagabonds and opportunists) and starts terrorising the countryside. He commits what could only be considered today as atrocities and summary executions. Having raged and caused utter mayhem, burning towns to the ground, Kohlhaas is captured and thrown into a dungeon. Ultimately, through utter persistence, he wins his case against the Junker, but pays what finally seems like a much higher price.

German author Heinrich Von Kleist first published Michael Kohlhaas in 1810. It has since found many famous admirers, among them Susan Sontag and Franz Kafka, the latter claiming to have read it in one sitting. Kafka is a good way to think about this strange, often loopy piece of fiction. While much of what it describes is a tooth and nail fight against corrupt authority, involving ruthless arson and murder, it's for the most part a farcical comedy. It echoes Kafka in its intricate descriptions of labyrinthine bureaucracy, but has the ironic and absurdist energy of Dostoevsky. The entitled world of the aristocracy, living a web of lies, of corrupted law courts and arbitrary powers, proves to be a savage joke in itself. As long as you're not caught up in it, of course. The great mystery at the centre of the book is why the horse trader goes to such extraordinary and ultimately self-defeating ends to recover his two horses. He is essentially a fundamentalist blowing everything up to attain a proportionally smaller victory.

Based on the real life 16th century horse trader Hans Kohlhase, it is believed Von Kleist wrote Michael Kohlhass to express his displeasure with the Prussian government, but in a covert way.

A vertiginous satire on the state, power and bureaucracy.

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