From the memories of common Ivanov
From the memories of Commons Ivanov ( Russian Из воспоминаний рядового Иванова , Is wospominani rjadowowo Ivanova ) is a story of the Russian writer Vsevolod Garshin , which was created in 1882 and 1883 in the January issue of Otetschestwennye Zapiski in Saint Petersburg appeared. The translation into German came out in 1889 by Eupel in Sondershausen .
overview
Russo-Ottoman War : The first-person narrator, that is the student Vladimir Mikhailovich Ivanov from the Vladimir Governorate, breaks off his studies, leaves his mother and friends in Petersburg, goes to Kishinev , joins a twelve thousand strong man there at the beginning of May 1877 Russian division, marches in their ranks hundreds of kilometers through Romania and in mid-July, after crossing the Danube, meets the Turkish enemy near a Bulgarian village .
conflict
Some officers of the 222nd Infantry Regiment call the common Ivanov into their tent and offer the former student a place to sleep. He was well educated and didn't have to spend the night with the soldiers - all of them Russian farmers, mostly from the vicinity of Wjatka and Kostroma . Ivanov refuses. He wants to befriend the soldiers.
Staff captain Pyotr Nikolayevich Wenzel, commander of the second rifle company, who disdains officers who play cards and drink at the same time, takes Ivanov aside outside and wants to know why he voluntarily goes to war. Ivanov replied that he wanted to experience something.
Back in his team tent, Ivanov is approached by his comrades before going to sleep, what he had discussed with Wenzel, this "animal". In the lively conversation Ivanov had got the impression that Wenceslaus was educated and amiable. During the next march, Ivanov met the staff captain as a people flayer the next day. Wenceslaus wants to hit a soldier with the saber. Ivanov intervenes. Wenzel controls himself and teaches the common Ivanov: If a soldier grabs an officer's hand in a situation like this, he can easily be shot for such an offense on a campaign.
Days later, Wenzel was punished by the division commander, a brigadier general, for having hesitated and not marched through a flooded stretch of road with his company. The saber is taken from Wenceslaus. Ivanov watched, his comrades exulted. The general is not resentful. Wenzel gets his cutting weapon back.
Again days later: On the march, Wenceslas beats the soldier Matyushkin bloody because he caught him marching with a cigar. The comrades are outraged, but do not interfere because they fear their execution. But, so the team oracles, once, in the battle, the "bloodhound" will be rewarded.
In anticipation of the Turks in Bulgaria, near the town of Svistov , in view of the first Russian casualties, Ivanov is again confronted by Wenceslaus with the above-mentioned question: What is a student doing on the battlefield? For the second time, Ivanov disapproves of Wenceslas' excessive drill in the ensuing dialogue; this time, however, only in bitter words. Again Wenceslas controls himself and agrees with Ivanov.
Shortly before the first battle against the Turks, the comrades asked themselves: will Wenceslaus stay alive?
During the first battle against the Turks, after five consecutive Russian advances, half of Wenceslas' riflemen were killed. The leader Wenzel, who remained alive in all five attempts, sobs.
Social criticism
Although Garschin lets his Ivanov claim that he wanted to experience something in the war, there is an anti-war text:
- While marching past a cemetery, it seems to Ivanov as if the dead field asked: "Why do you march thousands of weres to die in foreign fields, since you can die here, die quietly and lie under my wooden crosses and stone slabs?"
- Before reaching Ploesti, the division passed the Kaiser . “He [the emperor] knew that we were ready to die. He saw the terrible, tightly knit rows of people who almost ran past him, people from his poor country, poorly dressed, rough soldiers. He felt that they were all going to their death, calm ... He was sitting on a gray horse that was standing motionless ... A splendid entourage surrounded him ... "
- Hunger and brackish drinking water decimate Russian teams even before the first battle: “The regimental hospitals were overcrowded; Every day, weakened people plagued by fever and dysentery were transported to the division hospital. In the companies only half or two thirds of the full inventory were still operational. "
- At the beginning of the first battle, the Turks fire a grenade . A shrapnel ripped off a Russian sergeant's leg.
- Garschin writes about the further course of the battle, among other things: “A rifleman whose wrist was shattered ... rolled his eyes in his face, which was bluish from blood loss and pain ... They untied his arm and put it on a coat. He was shaking with a fever; his lips trembled, he gasped for breath and sobbed nervously and convulsively. "
German-language editions
Output used:
- From the memories of common Ivanov . S. 215-278 in Vsevolod M. Garschin: The stories. Transferred and with afterword by Valerian Tornius . 464 pages. Dieterich'sche Verlagbuchhandlung, Leipzig 1956 (Dieterich Collection, Vol. 177)
Web links
- The text
- Entry in WorldCat for edition by Georg Müller , Munich 1923
- Entry in the Laboratory of Fantastics (Russian)
Remarks
- ^ Since Garschin took part in the march from Moldova to Bulgaria in 1877 as a simple soldier, the author is behind the protagonist Ivanov.
- ↑ Ivanov marched from Kishinev on Gaureni , Tecuci , Barlad , Focsani , Ploesti, Alexandria , Svistow past Tirnovo and Plevna in the first battle.
- ↑ The much more direct question could be read from the context: Do the subordinates want to take revenge on Leuteschinder Wenzel at the earliest opportunity?