At the end of the world (Nikolai Leskov)

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Nikolai Leskov in 1872

At the end of the world ( Russian На краю света , Na kraiu sweta ) is a short story by the Russian writer Nikolai Leskov , which appeared in the St. Petersburg newspaper Graschdanin in 1875 .

content

The aged, decrepit archbishop tells seven guests - all educated people - about his missionary attempts among the pagans. A sprightly man he had been appointed bishop of a distant Siberian eparchy . First he inspects his missionaries. Few pagans were converted to Christianity . A number of the baptized had also revoked and accepted their lamaism or shamanism again. The locals in the eparchy mostly speak Yakut . Of the young bishop's subordinates, only the aged Father Kiriak speaks this language. Before being baptized out in the wilderness, Kiriak had previously taught Christianity to the Gentiles.

Kiriak teaches the bishop Tungus and Yakut. The bishop must act, because Petersburg has given the lamas permission to build more Buddhist temples on Siberian soil. For reasons of age, Kiriak has long since stopped going out of the city into the wilderness to the Yakuts and Tungus people , but lets them come to him. The bishop wants to drive out such nonsense from old Kiriak. A missionary has to go out to the foreigners.

When the bishop learns that north of the episcopal city his missionary Pyotr - a Syrian - baptizes the heathen en masse , he goes there on two reindeer sleighs on a winter inspection trip. Kiriak has to go with him. The old man gives in.

After the travelers have to switch to two dog sleds, they get caught in a snow storm and lose themselves. The bishop's sleigh driver, an unbaptized local, saves his passenger's life. The dogs finally fail under the adverse weather conditions. We continue on foot. Kiriak is found and dies of frostbite in the next dwelling. Kiriak's sleigh driver, a baptized local, had abandoned the old man in the wilderness. The bishop buries the deceased under clods of earth by an icy stream. The inspection in the northern area still shows that the Syrian Pyotr achieved his missionary success through catering; previously infused the baptized with schnapps.

The bishop, having returned to his residence, stops attempting to convert, studies Buddhism and is denounced by Russians as a secret Buddhist. Such insinuation ricochets off the man of the Church because he is "patient and peaceful".

reception

  • Marx cites the "human brother who helps without a word in the snowstorm" - that is, the unbaptized native named above who saves the bishop's life - as living evidence against Augustine 's claim that "the virtues of the heathen are brilliant vices" ( Virtutes paganorum splendida vitia ).
  • The material is based on facts. Tolstoy and Gorky would have appreciated the text. Leskov had challenged the Russian Church with one detail: The conversion of the Gentiles was being questioned because the Christian failed during the struggle for survival in the above-mentioned snowstorm and the Gentile performed the act of Christian neighborly love as a matter of course.

German-language editions

  • At the end of the world. German by Ena von Baer . P. 101–195 in Nikolai S. Leskow: At the end of the world and other master stories. 391 pages. Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Leipzig 1968 (2nd edition)
  • At the end of the world. German by Dieter Pommerenke. P. 429–512 in Eberhard Reissner (Ed.): Nikolai Leskow: Collected works in individual volumes. The enchanted pilgrim. 771 pages. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1969 (1st edition)

Output used:

  • At the end of the world. German by Dieter Pommerenke . P. 103-183 in Eberhard Dieckmann (Ed.): Nikolai Leskow: Collected works in individual volumes. 4. The unbaptized priest. Stories. With a comment from the editor. 728 pages. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1984 (1st edition)
Nile, Archbishop of the Yaroslavl and Rostov eparchy from December 24, 1853 until his death .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Edition used, p. 708, footnote 103: Nikolai Leskow means Archbishop Nil (Russian Нил (Исакович) ) - secular name Nikolai Fjodorowitsch Issakowitsch (* 1799; † June 21, 1874).
  2. ↑ Nil was bishop of Irkutsk from 1838-1853 (Russian Иркутская епархия ).
  3. ↑ North of Irkutsk this would be the area around the Angara .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dieckmann on p. 702, 9. Zvu in the follow-up to the edition used
  2. ↑ De civitate Dei 19.25 ( True Virtues )
  3. ↑ Rudolf Marx in the afterword of the 1968 Leskow edition, p. 373, 4th line vu
  4. ^ Reissner, 1969 edition, p. 754 middle