I will not let you defame war for me. They say it annihilates the weak, but they go to hell even in peace. "In 1939, self-exiled in Sweden, Bertolt Brecht began writing 'Mother Courage' with the subtitle 'A Chronicle from the Thirty Years' War,' inspired by Hans Jakob von Grimmelshausen's novel 'The Life of the Arch-Swindler and Vagabond Courasche,' published in 1670, and based on an example of a gypsy describing how the scourge of the Thirty Years' War led to the moral and material degradation of peoples. However, Brecht does not create a historical tableau, but chooses the form of the peddler Anna Fierling, the so-called 'Mother Courage,' only as an example to satirize and expose the causes of the dreadful Thirty Years' War and every other war. With this work, Bertolt Brecht presents a classic example of his theory of Epic Theatre, where the viewer does not identify or empathize with the heroes but is awakened, troubled, and becomes an observer and critic of the events. In November 1939, the work was ready, and Brecht sent it to theater people and friends, but no one staged it immediately. He later writes disappointedly: 'I imagined, when I wrote it, that from the stages of some major cities, the author's warning would be heard that you must have a big spoon when you want to dine with the Devil. I may have seemed naive, but I do not find it shameful to be naive - after all, writers cannot write at the same speed with which governments wage wars: because writing requires intellectual work. The theaters fell very quickly into the hands of the great "robber." "Mother Courage" therefore came too late.' The premiere took place on April 19, 1941, at the Schauspielhaus in Zurich, but because some important principles of Epic Theatre were not adhered to in the performance, Brecht was displeased. In 1946, Paul Dessau composed the music, and the play was staged for the first time in Germany at the Berliner Ensemble with Helene Weigel starring. "Mother Courage" found great resonance with the German reading public and internationally, as it was soon translated into all European languages, and for several years it held a steady place in the repertoires of most major European stages. After a decline in the frequency of Brecht's performances, a significant new rise has been observed in the last five years, as his works are again considered relevant and, some, even prophetic." Giorgos Depastas (from the translator's note in the edition)