The Beast (Nikolai Leskov)

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Nikolai Leskov in 1872

Das Tier ( Russian Зверь , Swer ) is a Christmas story by the Russian writer Nikolai Leskow , which appeared in the Christmas supplement of the Moscow A. Gatzuk newspaper - a liberal illustrated weekly newspaper for politics, literature, art and trade - in 1883 .

content

The mother of the first-person narrator, who was five years old at the time, traveled in the run-up to Christmas to the father, an examining magistrate, who was indispensable for work in distant Jelez , and had previously brought the little one with her sister on an estate in the Oryol district . The uncle, a vicious, cruel landowner, occasionally had a young bear caught in the nearby forest wilderness and trained by the 25-year-old hunter and bear leader Chraposchka - also Chrapon or Ferapont.

At the time, a skilled bear named Sganarel was kept on the estate. After five years of dressage, Sganarel was able to run along Khraposhka's side effortlessly on his back legs, beat the drum, walk on a stick, drag a heavy sack to the mill and put on a cap with a peacock feather. In all these years the bear had done nothing wrong. And now, before Christmas, one thing had happened to another. First Sganarel had damaged the wing of a goose, then with one swipe of the hand smashed the spine of a foal and, to make matters worse, maltreated a blind old man in the snow. Chraposchka therefore had to lure Sganarel into the bear pit at the behest of the squire. At Christmas, the bear was supposed to be chased by dogs as an afternoon entertainment and eventually shot by two hunters. The hard-hearted landlord had ordered Khraposchka to be the first to shoot at Sganarel.

The bear, chased out of the bear pit by Chraposchka that afternoon, manages to escape into the snow-covered forest wilderness. In the early dusk, hunting is impossible.

Chraposchka had neither shot at Sganarel nor stabbed the animal in the chest with the hunting knife. The landlord - under the impression of the chant Christ is born - surprisingly forgives his subordinate the following morning and releases him from bondage. Sganarel is no longer pursued.

Chraposchka stays on the estate and, years later, buries his master in Moscow's Vagankovo ​​cemetery . Until his end, the landlord Chraposchka had called the animal tamer for fun.

reception

Reissner wrote in 1971: The text is a piece of autobiography. Leskow spent some time of his childhood on the estate of his uncle Strachow. While the landlord's sudden change in character under the influence of the Christmas carol is due to the Christmas story genre and can hardly be convincing, the portrayal of the friendship between man and bear (i.e. Chraposchka - Sganarel) is successful.

German-language editions

  • The animal. German by Ruth Hanschmann. P. 271–299 in Nikolai Leskow: The way out of the dark. Stories. 467 pages. Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Leipzig 1972 (Dieterich Collection, Vol. 142, 3rd edition)
  • The animal. Translated from the Russian by Ruth Fritze-Hanschmann. P. 141–164 in: Nikolai Leskow: Das Schreckgespenst. Stories. With book decorations by Heinrich Vogeler . 272 pages. Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag, Leipzig and Weimar 1982 (1st edition, series: Die Bücherkiepe )

Output used:

  • The animal. German by Wilhelm Plackmeyer. P. 194–217 in Eberhard Reissner (Ed.): Nikolai Leskow: Collected works in individual volumes. The juggler pamphalon. 616 pages. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1971 (1st edition)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian Gatzuk newspaper
  2. ^ Reissner in the follow-up to the edition used, p. 600, 6. Zvo
  3. ^ Reissner in the follow-up to the edition used, p. 600, 10. Zvo