Erich Mühsam: o el compormiso del intelectual

Abstract

At the dawn of the 20th century, Erich Mühsam, a politically-committed writer, strongly identified with those on the margins of society -the bohemia and the proletariat-, in no small part due to the rebelliousness which accompanied their state of desperation caused by a capitalistic society controlled by the bourgeoisie. In his works, Bourgeois life is then shown in opposition to the bohemian world, the only context which allows for artistic creation due to its intrinsic inclination to freedom. The bohemian - the artist - together with the proletariat - all those outcasts and victims of the bourgeois society - builds a free community founded on a solid anarchistic foundation, from which a new society will grow. The writer is at the service of this new society and he - Mühsam in this case - then shares his duty with the revolutionaries. Erich Mühsam did just this and he devoted his entire life and work to fulfilling this duty. By doing so, he not only restored in the written word a lost ethical dimension, but also enabled utopia to become a possibility.