Local history rediscovered
Volker Griese from Wankendorf recalls the almost forgotten poet, Iven Kruse -– and brings out a new edition of his novel.

»Spring had come just before Whitsun, not like Easter, like a resurrection, but immediately whitsunny, like an outpouring – with a sudden change in the weather, a luxurious evolution, so that now in the second half of May it already absolutely equalled early summer.« With this homage to the beauty of the countryside in Holstein, the Ruhwinkel regional writer and editor, Johannes ›Iven‹ Kruse begins in 1924 his first and only novel, ›The third Bismarck‹. It is a political novel, with the action taking place in Holstein at the time of the Weimar Republic, and is full of local references. The scenes, estates and landscapes between Wankendorf and the Belau lake, or Perdoel and Bornhöved are still to be found to this day. Volker Griese from Wankendorf wishes now to reinstate the author and his work, and bring it once more into the public eye. "Iven Kruse's work must be revived", he says. This lover of regional history, researcher into local history and literature, hopes to meet this goal by means of a new edition of a book of poems and essays by Kruse (published under the title ›Brocken und Krumen‹ and his novel.

»A prophet is never revered in his own country«, says Volker Griese, who, while researching into his hometown, Wankendorf, fell by chance on Kruses's essays and poems in Low and High German. »The man Kruse is quite simply using a language that has been out of people's minds for too long«. But that can be changed, the thirty-three year old engineer thought to himself In the first flush of enthusiasm he advanced with great zeal, collecting Kruse's work scattered in various magazines. Long hours of meticulous work in the archives around Schleswig-Holstein, as well as in libraries in Kiel and Hamburg finally brought forth fruit in the form of a collection of stories entitled ›Salt and Bread. Holstein Stories and Poems‹. It was in 1998 that the Wachholtz publishing house brought out Volker Griese's first publication of a work by Kruse. The public's reaction to it was so positive that Griese decided to continue his research. With this brand-new edition of his novel ›The third Bismark‹, Iven Kruse should now finally be rescued from oblivion. Griese was particularly fascinated by Kruse's development, most exceptional at the turn of the century.
Iven Kruse was born in April 1865, son of the blacksmith of Ruhwinkel, a quiet village near Bornhöved. After being educated at the local single-classed school, the young man went on for a short time to a teacher's training college, before finding employment as an unskilled worker with a Kiel periodical. While there, he was already captured by the passion for writing, so he entered the Kiel News as a trainee. Different jobs as editor on various newspapers followed, including the Cuxhaven Daily News, the Hamburger News and the Schleswigsche Grenzpost. His epedaphic poems and ballads brought him recognition by contemporary poets. Thus the poet Detlev von Liliencron praised his friend as being the »resuscitator of the Low German ballad«, Theodor Fontane identified him as being the »Low German Dostoevsky« and Hermann Löns wrote of his colleague as one »standing with rough realism on the ground, a voice trembling in infinity, contemplating with silent humour the deficit between the credit and debit of man's existence«.
On its publication in 1925, Kruse's first and only novel received a broad welcome extending well beyond the local area. In this work he not only describes the social and political situation in his rural homeland, but also analyses the currents between the different political parties as well as those between Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark. However the poet was not to rejoice long in his success. Ten days after its publication, the book was censured and the entire takings were confiscated by the police. Since Kruse had not taken the trouble to camouflage his descriptions of certain characters in the book, some influential personalities of the area, who felt themselves targeted on seeing their mirror-image there brought a court-case against him. Even the revised version of the work was a long way from finding favour with them, so after his death the poet fell into oblivion.
Volker Griese has appended a small map to the edition to enable today's reader to make excursions in situ after reading the work. The shady avenues and long fields, the lakes, fens and endless dirt tracks still invite the reader to walk in Iven Kruse's steps. The nearby Perdoel and Schönböken estates, this last named »Bökenbrook« in the novel, can likewise still be found, as well as the circle of high maple trees above lake Schierensee, the secret meeting-place of the heroes of the book. And the localities Perdoel, Ruhwinkel, Altekoppel, Bornhöved, Wankendorf or Stolpe are still as real today as they were at that time. Perhaps the reader of the novel, too, will feel the same emotion as Kruse's hero, Austin, at the sight of the idyllic landscape: »An idler, an escapist, a poet, or anyone who longs for the call of nature and who takes pleasure in solitude would have found what he needed at this place«.

CAROLA JESCHKE (Kieler Nachrichten)

(translation by Arethusa Plouidy)