Der Gottsucher

Peter Rosegger (1843 - 1918), the son of a mountain farmer, writer, and poet, became widely known not only for his writings in the Styrian dialect but also for his stories and novels about Styria and his forest homeland, such as "Earth Blessing," "Jakob the Last," and many more. In many of his works, the rise and fall of a village and its community is a recurring motif, set against a backdrop of almost childlike naive religiosity as a guiding principle of life. This theme is present in Peter Rosegger's works. In "The God Seeker," the morally strict pastor of a mountain village is murdered by rebellious farmers. The story is based on a true event that took place in the Upper Styrian village of Tragöss in 1493, which serves as the framework for the actual theme of the novel: the awareness of guilt and entanglement in evil, the threat to goodness, longing for redemption, and the search for it.