Grateful ground
Grateful soil ( Russian Благодарная почва , Blagodarnaja potschwa ) is a short story by Lev Tolstoy from the summer of 1910. The author noted the short story in his diary on June 21 while staying with his friend and publisher Vladimir Cherkov in Meshcherskoye. On July 9, the text was presented Yasnaya Polyana typewritten fixed and published on July 14 in the newspaper Rech , Russkiye Vedomosti and Utro Rossii . It was also published by the Posrednik publishing house in 1910 . In 1983 the text in Vol. 14 Powesti and Tales of the 22-volume Tolstoy edition was published by Verlag für Künstlerische Literatur in Moscow .
content
Tolstoy reveals himself as a first-person narrator via the narrative frame, i.e. by mentioning the above-mentioned visit to Chertkow in Meshcherskoye. He agitated with brochures and his persuasive skills against the drunkenness among the Russian peasants. Tolstoy meets the 18-year-old plowing farmer Alexander in the field. The boy has been his own master since the age of fourteen, runs a small farm with his mother, but also has to work with farmers with larger property because his land cannot feed him and his mother. The soil in the title of the short story does not mean the fertile Russian homeland, but a characteristic of the Russian peasant: his good nature. This moves old Tolstoy to tears in the year he died. Alexander agrees with the agitator in everything. Even after the work is done in the field of the large farmer, the young lad accepts a several werst long walk. Alexander can read. He obtained educational literature on the subject of anti-alcoholism from Tolstoy.
Used edition
- Grateful ground. From the diary. Translated from Russian by Dieter Pommerenke . S. 484–491 in: Eberhard Dieckmann (Ed.): Lew Tolstoi. Haji Murat. Late narratives . Vol. 13 by Eberhard Dieckmann (ed.), Gerhard Dudek (ed.): Lew Tolstoi. Collected works in twenty volumes . Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1986
Web links
- The text
- Wikisource Благодарная почва (Толстой) (Russian)
- online at tolstoy-lit.ru (Russian)
- online at RVB.ru (Russian)
- Marietta Boiko : Commentary on the text (Russian)