Wider den "Hauffen junger Schnautzhahnen" : Grimmelshausens Versuch, die Erinnerung an den Dreißigjährigen Krieg in der Gegenwart festzuhalten

Abstract

This paper retraces the specific conception of the 'present' as manifested in Satyrischer Pilgram, Grimmelshausen's first published work. In the face of progressively vanishing consciousness of the past terrors of the Thirty Years' War, the Pilgram devises a program for bringing the experience of a whole generation to the present, thereby saving it for the future. Instead of delivering a general reflection on the nature of war, it suggests to narrate individually experienced "particularities." It is crucial that all of these experiences are negative, not meant to prompt imitation, but instead rather to build and keep up a stronghold against attitudes and actions of the past.