KOLONIALE GEOGRAFIE BEI DÖBLIN: DIE GRÜNDUNG DES BUNDES DER WAHRHAFT SCHWACHEN IM ZEICHEN DER KOHLE IM CHINESISCHEN ROMAN DIE DREI SPRÜNGE DES WANG-LUN

Abstract

The article examines Döblin's novelistic treatment of geographical information with regard to China. By means of sketches and choice quotations, proof was found that Döblin not only adopted findings by Ferdinand Baron von Richthofen, but implicitly stressed the German geographer's intention to utilise China's large coal deposits for colonial interests. The example of the Nan-ku mountains, where in the novel the political/religious movement of the ‘Truly Weak’ alliance first formed itself, serves to examine how Döblin makes use of geological and historical facts from von Richthofen's scientific studies. This reveals itself, for instance, in his only slightly differing description of the Nan-ku mountain range from what von Richthofen had noted. In its attempted exactitude, the former notion can be considered a typical feat of literary Realism. We also further examine the crucial role this much sought-after Chinese mineral wealth – coal – plays in the later rebellious upheaval. Our results contradict the current notion that Döblin depicted a historically divested, contrapuntal view of China as compared to the Western Hemisphere. Instead, the novel markedly deals with real geographical, social and political facts about China in the colonial era. A merely expressionist view on Döblin's novel does not seem to hold.