The Swedish match

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Anton Chekhov

The Swedish match ( Russian Шведская спичка , Schwedskaja spitschka) is a short story by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov , which appeared on December 5, 1883 in the St. Petersburg humorous magazine Strekosa ( The Dragonfly ).

In September 1883, Anton Chekhov wrote to the Libelle employee Nikolai Leikin that he wanted this “crime story” to be understood as a parody of the crime stories that were so popular in Russia at the time.

Vladimir Czumikov's translation into German was published in the Neue Zeit in 1900 and in 1901 by Diederichs in Leipzig . Other translations: 1893 into Serbo-Croatian ( Švedska šibica ), 1899 into Danish ( Den svenske taedenstik ) and Norwegian ( Den svenske Tændstik ), 1901 into Polish ( Szwedzka zapałka ), 1902 into Romanian ( Chibritul suedez ), 1903 into Czech ( Švédská sirka ) and in 1922 into English (The Swedish Match).

Overview

According to Anton Chekhov's narrative intention mentioned above, there is no concrete criminal case at all. The allegedly murdered guard kornett a. D. Mark Ivanovich Kljausow is tracked down by the two investigators - the examining magistrate Nikolai Yermolajitsch Tschubikow and the 26-year-old legal assistant and secretary Djukowski - and is still alive. There are three “perpetrators” - 23-year-old Olga Petrovna, wife of the elderly police chief Yevgraf Kuzmich and two subordinates of the “murdered man”. The latter are Klyausov's valet Nikolai Tetechow, called Nikolaschka, and Klyausov's administrator - the agronomist and mechanic Psekow.

Right at the beginning, said Psekow went to the police chief's office on October 6, 1885 and reported the "murder" of his master. The chief of police, Evgraf Kuzmich, who receives the report in person, is the horned husband in this farce . His wife Olga Petrovna had the drunken guard cornet from Psekow and Nikolaschka transported to their bathhouse at night and in fog. Olga's husband does not enter this love nest. Kljausow let his playmate pamper him for two weeks.

The story thrives on the arguments between the two investigators. The established examining magistrate Tschubikow portrays his assistant Djukowski as a greenhorn who cheerfully fantasizes past the investigative truth, who is completely out of place in the two-person investigative commission. Over time, the reader accepts the examining judge's disparaging value judgments as correct. But that only goes on until Tschubikow admits that there is something to the drivel of the young fellow at his side. And indeed - the young Djukowski solves the case and thus degrades his superior examining magistrate to an extra. Djukowski is looking for a shop in the vicinity of the "crime scene" in which the very Swedish matches are offered for sale, one of which was found that had burned down at the "crime scene". The trail turns out to be hot and leads directly to the kidnapper Olga Petrovna.

The chief of police, Yevgrave Kuzmich, does not understand anything, because the two-person investigative commission listens to Olga Petrovna's pleading and remains silent.

Adaptations

filming

theatre

Radio plays and audio book

And Eberhard Wechselberg .

German-language editions

  • Anton Chekhov: The Swedish match in: Ursula Krause (Hrsg.): The mysterious traveler. Crime stories. With illustrations by Uwe Häntsch . 539 pages. New Life Publishing House, Berlin 1981.

Used edition

  • The Swedish match. A crime story. P. 5–29 in Gerhard Dick (ed.) And Wolf Düwel (ed.): Anton Chekhov: Das Schwedische Zündholz. Short stories and early narratives. German by Wolf Düwel. 668 pages. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1965 (1st edition)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian Стрекоза (журнал)
  2. ↑ Russian reference to first publication
  3. ↑ Russian Лейкин, Николай Александрович
  4. ↑ Mentioned in Wolf Düwel, p. 646, 18. Zvo
  5. ↑ norw. Den svenske Tændstik
  6. ↑ Russian references to translations
  7. ↑ eng. The Swedish Match , translator Constance Garnett
  8. ↑ Edition used, pp. 18, 15. Zvu
  9. ↑ Russian Шведская спичка (фильм)
  10. ↑ Russian Юдин, Константин Константинович
  11. ↑ Russian Грибов, Алексей Николаевич
  12. ↑ Russian Попов, Андрей Алексеевич
  13. ↑ Russian Theater of Nations
  14. ^ Russian. The play in the Theater of Nations

annotation

  1. ↑ Chekhov's humor: the author deals with a criminal case from the future (the “crime” will occur two years after publication). In this light, the subtitle A crime story also appears as a joke for the author.