The other life (Trifonow)

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The other life ( Russian Другая жизнь Drugaja schisn ) is a novel by the Soviet writer Yuri Trifonov , which appeared in 1975 in the August issue of the Moscow literary magazine Nowy Mir and in 1979 on pp. 7–157 of the collection of the same name, also in Moscow by Izvestia .

title

In 1973, a year after the death of her husband, the historian Sergei Troitsky, the 41-year-old Moscow biochemist - to be more precise an immunologist - was searching for the meaning of his futile efforts during his lifetime. Yuri Trifonov does not disclose details of the death of the protagonist. Towards the end of the novel, Olga asks when the other life will finally begin in her case. Sergej had uttered the eponymous term shortly before his death when he wanted to start with the other - more precisely: the right - life. In a brief epilogue, Olga announces the good news to the eager reader: "... suddenly and quickly the other life began!" She has found a husband. By the way, the other life is mentioned in various places in the novel. For example, Olga's widowed mother cannot find a different life at the side of her partner, the painter Georgi Maximowitsch, who is seventeen years older than her . And when Olga gave herself to Sergej during the first summer together on the Black Sea , "all other life stopped" for her - when she gave birth to Irina seven months later.

In this context, the counterpart, i.e. life together , should not go unmentioned. A lot was involved, Olga admits. Sergei's flirtation with Olga's enemy Sika, the “wife of the painter Valeri Wassin”, a “murderous woman with long legs and mighty hips”, had to be overlooked by Olga after three years of marriage. Sergei "had a blow with women". Even then, Olga had hated their life together . She wanted revenge on Sika. In the end, says Olga, this life together was "... suddenly extinguished ... like a blown lightbulb".

Olga's analepsis

Olga's almost bridegroom, the doctor Vlad, had once brought his acquaintance, the historian Sergei, with him. Olga fell in love with Sergej, the son of a mathematics professor and a "homely" lawyer. Vlad's attempt at abortion - a syringe into the womb of the pregnant Olga - had no effect . The elderly painter Georgi Maximowitsch mentioned above had forbidden abortion in his four walls. So - as indicated above - Irina was born as a seven-month-old. At the beginning of their seventeen-year marriage, Sergej had worked in the museum and Olga as a teacher. Over the years, Olga had risen as a biologist in a research institute to laboratory manager.

Sergei had friends everywhere in Moscow, the scene of the action, during his lifetime. So when the seven years in the museum had proven to be “for the cat”, Praskuchin brought him to his institute and was allowed to do his doctorate there. When the topic of the dissertation no longer suited Sergej, he started a new project with the active support of his friend Fedja. The list of secret employees of the Moscow Okhrana from the 1910s to the eve of the February Revolution had become Sergei's new and final subject of research. Sergei had followed in the footsteps of his late father. In 1917 he had searched the archives of the Moscow gendarmerie administration for secret Okhrana employees. Olga had thought Sergej's "striving" was "nonsense". Yuri Trifonov writes: “But she loved him in spite of everything, forgave him and asked nothing of him.” But one thing was certain - Sergei “did what he liked and refrained from doing what he didn't like ... this was the reason for his eternal life Mistakes. ”Olga had sought the conversation, asked Sergej for his all-encompassing idea. Sergej had refused such an offer of help.

The chatty Sergei had made his superior Gena Klimuk an enemy by making thoughtless statements in public. During his studies, Sergej had occasionally given the cumbersome Gena a helping hand. Then Gena had passed his helper on the corporate ladder. Gena had dismissed Sergej's dissertation on the ochrana as a “self-bluff”. In any case, the defense of Sergei's dissertation fell through. Gena had rejected Sergej's methodical approach, which he had derided as "digging up graves". The lists of the Ochrana employees could also have been a fantasy. After all, Sergei had bought the explosive material from a drunkard for thirty rubles. Sergej had denied Gena's accusations and even found the Okhrana spy Yevgeny Alexejewitsch Koschelkow, born in 1891, in Gorodets near Moscow. Olga went with me. Unfortunately, the old man, who at the time had worked for the Okhrana under the two aliases Tamara and Filipchuk, was no longer in possession of his mental powers.

The end: Sergej appeared to Olga to be a loner. Yuri Trifonov writes about the couple: "Their life together fell apart." Sergej had shelved his dissertation and had himself instructed by the science candidate Darja Mamedowma, a philosopher and psychologist, in the beginnings of parapsychology , because he was using this science the real names of three Ochrana informers who had been active in 1916 but wanted to find out.

A fortnight after Sergei's funeral, two employees from his last job with Olga in the apartment express their condolences. As a representative of the trade union committee, one of them is demanding back a chunk of money that Sergej had borrowed from the mutual aid fund during his lifetime. Olga is sorry. She gives the vile visitor to understand that she is unable to repay.

reception

  • Reinhard Baumgart wrote in Die Zeit on December 17, 1976 : “What a jungle of facts, names, allusions, how much narrative material in a small space. Trifonov's latest Moscow novella, this time called a novel, also spans an arc from the fifties to the seventies, with brief references to the revolutionary and Stalin times . "
  • In 1979, Willi Beitz considers The Other Life to be the most complicated work of the writer compared to Durst , Der Tausch , Zwischenbilanz and Langer Abschied . It also marks a new beginning in Trifonov's work. As a result, the reviewer avoids making concise judgments and expects discussion. In spite of all this - both the monologizing meditation of the widow, who wants to understand her husband, who died too early, in retrospect, as well as the revealed life of the deceased, allow the reviewer to conclude that both spouses had the other life oriented towards the future, even more: optimistically .

literature

German-language editions

  • Jurij Trifonow: The other life. Novel. Translated from the Russian by Alexander Kaempfe . C. Bertelsmann Verlag, Munich 1976
  • Yuri Trifonow: The other life. Novel. From the Russian by Eckhard Thiele . Verlag Volk und Welt, Berlin 1978
  • Yuri Trifonow: The other life. From the Russian by Eckhard Thiele. P. 5–165 in Juri Trifonow: Selected works. Volume 3 . (1st edition, edition used)

Secondary literature

  • Ralf Schröder (Ed.): Juri Trifonow: Selected works. Volume 4. Verlag Volk und Welt, Berlin 1983 (1st edition)

Web links

  • The text
    • online at e-reading.club (Russian)
    • online at litmir.me (Russian)
  • Entry at fantlab.ru (Russian)

Remarks

  1. ↑ Olga tells a year after Sergei's death. He died at the age of 42. Olga is two years younger than her husband.
  2. ↑ Two years before his death, Sergei visited the Okhrana spy Yevgeny Koschelkow in Gorodets near Moscow. At the time of this visit, 53 years have passed since February 1917. So the visit took place in 1970.
  3. ↑ Yuri Trifonov gives extremely sparse information about the man. It can hardly be the dead Sergei from Olga's nightmares . Because in the short epilogue the narrator appears quite lively, almost happy; tells about her daughter Irina, who wants to get married. As Olga relates in 1973, Irina is sixteen (edition used, p. 8, 4th Zvu). So the epilogue takes place in 1974 at the earliest; if not in the first half of 1975. Incidentally: more direct, but less helpful dates can be found, for example, on p. 56, 3rd Zvo and on p. 59, 13th Zvu of the edition used.
  4. ↑ When Olga was six years old, her father died (edition used, p. 18, 24. Zvo).
  5. ↑ Sergei's father died as a war volunteer off Moscow in 1941 (edition used, p. 11).
  6. ↑ Sergej's friend Fedja dies in a car accident in the Ukraine . Sergej's friend Gena - as a passenger in the vehicle involved in the accident - holds on tight and survives.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Schröder, Juri Trifonow: Selected works. Volume 4 , p. 402, third entry
  2. ↑ Russian. The other life reference at fantlab.ru
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 94, 22. Zvo
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 160, 4th Zvu
  5. ↑ Edition used, from p. 164, 18. Zvu
  6. ↑ Edition used, p. 165, 6. Zvo
  7. ↑ Edition used, p. 19, 2nd Zvu
  8. ↑ Edition used, p. 22, 17. Zvo
  9. ↑ Edition used, p. 45, 13. Zvu
  10. ↑ Edition used, p. 49, 12. Zvo
  11. ↑ Edition used, p. 97, 7th Zvu
  12. ↑ Edition used, p. 154, 9. Zvo
  13. ↑ Edition used, pp. 53, 25. Zvo
  14. ↑ Edition used, p. 8, 1. Zvu
  15. ↑ Edition used, p. 96, 1. Zvu
  16. ↑ Russian Городец (Московская область), Gorodets near Moscow
  17. ↑ Edition used, p. 148, 23. Zvo
  18. ↑ Reinhard Baumgart: The other life. Mourning work in Moscow
  19. ↑ Willi Beitz: Juri Trifonow: The other life. In Weimar Contributions 1979 (Vol. 25), Issue 4, pp. 117–123