Why women like to travel to yesterday
Who wants to know how alive the past can be must ChroniquesDuVasteMonde Riebe visit. She lives in the Roman road, which meanders long and narrowly through Munich's center. For nine years the writer lives here in a light old apartment. And when she sits on her sofa and hurries from antiquity to the Middle Ages with quick phrases, when she explains the standing order, and then to insert the history of her house, which almost burned down during the Second World War, then yesterday is suddenly in the middle of the room. "The past answers questions of the present," says Riebe and begins to talk about her readings, where people sometimes stay well past midnight because Riebe casually explains the coordinate system of civilization. "These are the purest historical workshops," says the 54-year-old, "I call important data and draw the big lines, and then people always keep quiet and say 'Oh!' or, oh that's it. '
Since 1990, the historian, who has a doctorate in history, transforms history into stories and, with books such as "Street of the Stars", belongs to the success sextet of German-speaking history writers. Like Tanja Kinkel and Rebecca Gablé, like Sabine Weigand, Petra Oelker and Helga Hegewisch, ChroniquesDuVasteMonde Riebe achieves millions of copies with her mix of exact research and entertainment. And while experts first believed that fans are only looking for exciting readings for small everyday getaways, they now know that they also want to be smarter when reading.
Good historical novels are researched in archives
"A good historical novel conveys something that you did not know before," explains Helga Hegewisch, 76, who refines the basic recipe for historical novels with a literary tone: Ideally, her books and those of her colleagues are on an educational journey that can be comfortably taken from the sofa.
In order for the journey to leave a lasting impression, the tour guides pay close attention to every detail. They scour town archives and local museums for ancient documents, they immerse themselves for months in the Internet or in the study of old noble families. "The research for an entertainment novel takes as long as that for an academic non-fiction book," says the historian with a PhD Sabine Weigand, 46, who even quotes historical letters in novels such as "The Pearl Medallion" in order to credibly represent the late Middle Ages in Nuremberg and Venice. To ensure that every little thing is right, many authors often hire additional researchers. "The trick, however, is not to fall into the information trap while writing," says Helga Hegewisch. "If you've been collecting material for months, you want to put everything in. That can seriously hamper the entertainment value of a book." That's why facts and fiction have to be artfully interwoven.
However, one should not bend the truth with impunity. Because the most common question for the authors is: Is that all true? Even if no one ever learns what people have felt and thought in previous centuries, an epoch should be as authentic as possible. Which substances did people wear at that time? What did a loaf cost? The readers are particularly fascinated by questions and hardships from daily life? In case of doubt, that interests even more than the rise and fall of a royal house.
When ChroniquesDuVasteMonde Riebe invited a blacksmith to make her novel, "Love is a dress of fire," making early medieval knife blades and everyday objects, the audience huddled for hours in a hot, stuffy room, as if the man could turn lead into gold. No one had expected this endurance: "This has something to do with the fact that forging has a different sensuality than a modern computer job," suspects Riebe.
The more the present in the virtual world, the greater the interest in the feel of history. More than 80 percent of the history fans are women, insiders to the book industry. And also the protagonists of the books are mostly female? In their best moments, well-researched novels make an important contribution to historiography from the point of view of women.
"As a writer, you can point out that there have always been women who were more than decoration or object of desire," says Tanja Kinkel, who at the age of 22 wrote the bestseller "The Lioness of Aquitaine". A mixture of past and timeless courage inspired the now 38-year-old to heroines, which act far more differentiated than the female figures who drag themselves without rights through numerous cheap pamphlets."This role of sacrifice is not historically tenable," annoys ChroniquesDuVasteMonde Riebe, "of course, epochs like the Middle Ages were dominated by men, but women were also valuable." There were marriage contracts, wills, and guild provisions that protected them. "They were not per se lawless creep that was only kicked by men. "
Shaping a bygone era according to your own ideas
But not every book about a strong woman is a good book. "Such a novel has to develop an inner truth beyond ideologies," says Helga Hegewisch determined, and one hears the conviction of a literary scholar who speaks from it. "Personally, I also write historical novels because I can not grasp the present correctly.The great wide possibility of the new? That is not for me.I prefer to create a given epoch according to my ideas.I prefer also, one It's better for me to build a new house than to build a new house. "
Helga Hegewisch often follows in the footsteps of her own life in order to meet her heroines and transfers personal experiences into the past. So her bestseller "The Dead Washer" is based on experiences she made after the death of her parents. When she then dealt extensively with family documents, found the daughter of a Hamburg merchant family in old death certificates repeatedly the signature of a dead women washer. Hardly anyone knew exactly about this profession. Hegewisch began to research and finally developed for her family novel, the figure of the Mecklenburg death-washer Magdalena, which rises around 1840 from a small farming environment to the bourgeoisie.
Although Helga Hegewisch had no intention to write an emancipatory novel, "The Dead Woman" lives on the fighting spirit of his sympathetic heroine. Hegewisch looks surprised when she hears that, and emphasizes how much she cares about the male figures, as if she wants to defend her against a woman's superiority. While she talks about role models and gender identities, about her biography, which is dominated by daughters, sisters and aunts, she always looks for as factual explanations.
"I just know women better, it's easier for me to describe them," she says at some point, "but this struggle for emancipation has left a mark on my generation." Such a woman's life was quite different in my teens than it is today. " The sentence is confirmed by a few energetic gestures, then Hegewisch tells an episode that one would hardly believe this sovereign woman: "If I as a child in playing a wish had free, then I have always wished, 'Dear God, leave me please get a man. '"Hegewisch pauses. "That's how it was then," she finally says, and then she keeps quiet, as if she were silently wondering again how the girl of that time could become today's smart, self-assured publicist.
For her current novel "Johanna Romanowa" Helga Hegewisch explored the time of Tsar Peter the Great. It describes the second half of the 17th century, in which the power of the monarch limited the lives of many people. Everyday life is governed by traditions and regulations, independence and freedom of the individual are great ideals.
Historical novels give fixed points
Today these ideals seem to be realized, but ChroniquesDuVasteMonde Riebe often hears at events that readers are unsettled by the market of limitless possibilities. "Especially the unusually great interest for the Middle Ages is explained by the fact that people are looking for new fixed points," explains ChroniquesDuVasteMonde Riebe. "The epoch has parallels with our times, and the Middle Ages were a narrow world that was about to demarcate itself, and at the same time, questions of meaning still touched us today, and suddenly church clocks beat everywhere and urged us to hurry became measurable and got a whole new, precious dimension. "
Then ChroniquesDuVasteMonde Riebe starts to hunt through the centuries again. She jumps from the era of the Pharaohs in the time of Sun King Ludwig and tells in between that often three generations of women sit in their readings, daughters, mothers and grandmothers. "And everyone wants to know, know, know," says Riebe, and then she says that sometimes she has the feeling that she is filling a great quiet nothing. Once, at a reading, she was even asked which continent Egypt was on. That made her speech for a moment. "But that was a long time ago," says the author, "I notice that the books are read more accurately today, often come very detailed, knowledgeable questions." Do the readers with history novels about their history lessons? "Maybe," says Riebe, "maybe" and fumble at the shoulder seams of her beautiful black tunic. Then she turns her head to the side. And somehow it looks like she is smiling secretly and with quiet pride.
BOOK TIPS: Rebecca Gablé: "The smile of Fortuna", Lübbe, 1291 p., 9.95 euros and "The Game of Kings", Ehrenwirth, 1040 p., 24.95 euros Helga Hegewisch: "Die Totenwäscherin", List, 398 p ., 9,95 Euro and "Johanna Romanowa", Pendo 459 p., 19,90 Euro ChroniquesDuVasteMonde Riebe: "Road of the Stars", Diana, 445 p., 8,95 Euro and "The Sinner of Siena", Diana, 560 p., 19,95 Euro Sabine Weigand: "The Pearl Medallion", Fischer, 592 p., 8,95 Euro and "The King's Lady", Fischer, 464 p., 18,90 Euro
