Records from a house of the dead

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Notes from a House of the Dead or Notes from a Dead House ( Russian Записки из Мёртвого дома , German transcription Sapiski is Mjortwogo doma ) is a prose work by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky , on which he had worked from the fall of 1862 to the end of 1861 published in his magazine Vremya . The work is not a novel because, conceptually, a novel requires action. Nothing happens in the “house of the dead”, everything is dead.

action

In it, Dostoyevsky describes life in a Siberian prison camp precisely and authentically in scenes and descriptions based on his own experiences during the time of his exile ( Katorga ) from 1849 to 1853.

The recordings are made by the fictional inmate Alexánder Petrówitsch Gorjántschikow, who was deported for the murder of his wife and sentenced to ten years of forced labor . Due to his aristocratic origins, he was initially harassed not only by the prison staff but also by his fellow prisoners from lower classes, but during his detention he settled more and more into the community.

In the book, Dostoyevsky portrays around 90 of the 150 prisoners and guards in the camp. From the sometimes cruel officers to the Poles who are deep down in the prison hierarchy, to the smugglers and even to the dogs, he depicts all types of the camp and confronts their characters in the isolated camp situation almost like in an experimental setup. His criticism applies to senseless and degrading measures such as the shackling of the seriously ill and denied hygiene, but also the stigmatization of convicts and their indiscriminate treatment, which affects softer and more mentally needy prisoners much more difficult.

“Money is shaped freedom” writes Dostoevsky and it is particularly valuable in the parallel world of prisoners. Although forbidden in spanking, there is a brisk trade in brandy, tea, tobacco and all kinds of goods and services. However, due to the constant risk of theft or confiscation, the kopecks and silver rubles do not have the usual store-of-value character of money, but have to be spent quickly, as is known in extreme inflation.

Translations into German

  • From a dead house. Dresden 1866.
  • From a house of the dead. Translated by EK Rahsin (pseudonym of Elisabeth "Less" Kaerrick), Munich 1908 (Volume 18 of 22 of the Complete Works , with the collaboration of D. Mereschkowski, edited by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck ). Munich 1906–1919
  • Memoirs from a House of the Dead. Translated by H. Moser, Leipzig o. J.
  • The dead house. Translated by A. Scholz, Berlin 1921
  • Memories from a dead house. Translated by F. Scharfenberg, Munich 1922
  • Records from a house of the dead. Translated by Alexander Eliasberg . o. O. 1923
  • Notes from a dead house. Translated by Ruth Elisabeth Ried, Munich 1966
  • Notes from a house of the dead. Translated by Hermann Röhl. Reclam, Stuttgart 1999
  • Notes from a House of the Dead (1860). Translated by Dieter Pommerenke , Berlin 2005
  • Records from a dead house. Translated and edited by Barbara Conrad. Hanser, Munich 2020

reception

Leoš Janáček used the material as a template for his last opera From a House of the Dead (original title: Z mrtvého domu ), which premiered posthumously in 1930.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ on the literary / genre poetic classification see Jacques Catteau: De la structure de la maison des morts . In: Revue des études slaves . 1982, ISSN  0080-2557 , pp. 63 - 72 . ; Horst-Jürgen Gerigk: Dostoevskij's "Notes from a House of the Dead": perpetrator literature with a four-fold sense of writing . In: Ulrike Jekutsch, Walter Kroll (ed.): Slavic literatures in dialogue . Festschrift for Reinhard Lauer on his 65th birthday. Wiesbaden 2000, p. 247-254 .