The Assault (Tolstoy)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lev Tolstoy in 1851

The raid , including a raid ( Russian Набег , Nabeg ), the first novel by Leo Tolstoy , which was created in 1852 and 1853 in Issue 3 of Nikolai Nekrasov Petersburg Sovremennik as second prose work of the author of the autobiography childhood appeared. Eugen Diederichs brought Raphael Löwenfeld's translation onto the German-language book market in Leipzig in 1901 . Thematically, the text is also assigned to the Sevastopol cycle .

An episode from the Caucasus War is told . In mid-July 1851 a Russian troop unit moved into the apron around the Aul Dargo against Shamil . The advance against the East Caucasian mountain peoples of Dagestan and Chechnya ends in the case with the withdrawal of the Russians. The first-person narrator, that is the war volunteer Lev Tolstoy, rides as an observer with a Russian battalion in the war. The daring ensign Anatoly Ivanytsch Alanin recently joined Captain Chlopov's company . When the Russians withdraw, they are harassed by enemy riders. Alanin makes - against the will of his company commander - with his men a careless sortie against the enemy, who is keeping a low profile despite all aggressiveness, is wounded and dies.

What is bravery in war? This basic question is answered by Tolstoy in the text as follows: Brave is not the daring ensign Alanin, but the thoughtful, because experienced company commander Chlopov.

The theater of war is framed by snow-capped Caucasus peaks in midsummer. In the midst of such a sublime backdrop, Tolstoy only shakes his head for what, in his opinion, is pointless war drama. Even more: war is condemned on the basis of a few memorable scenes. Just two examples. First, a mountain village of the rebellious Jigites is shot ready to storm, occupied, devastated and looted. The residents have long sought the distance. Only one toothless old tartar remained. The Russians tie up the "enemy" who is useful for exchanging prisoners and are surprised because the old man shows no fear, but looks around apathetically. Second, the narrator knows Maria Ivanovna Khlopova. This is the mother of Captain Khlopov. She runs a small estate in the neighborhood of the narrator at home in the Russian lowlands. The grizzled captain has served for eighteen years and supports his mother with his meager pay. He did not tell his mother any of his four previous severe wounds. Marja Chlopowa constantly prays to God that you dear "boy" Paschenka may stay safe and return.

Even this prose firstling gives an idea of ​​the author's talent. On the one hand, there is the ambiguous title, which leads the reader to ask at the end of the reading: What was the attack now? The Russian cannonade on the mountain village in response to the shots of the enemy Tatars? Or the failure of the daredevil Ensign Alanine? And on the other hand, the reader is left with characteristic secondary things: It is the war that the narrator observes carefully. On the evening of the departure of the Russians, the narrator witnessed the exalted conversation between the commanding general of the fighting force and a noble lady. The narrator's comment on this: “... before the battle, which only God knows how it will end, this man jokes with a pretty woman and promises to come to her for tea the next day as if he were her at a ball met! ” Alexander Baryatinsky took Tolstoy as a model for the general who went to war with twenty officers. After its appearance, the young Tolstoy's text was praised by Alexander Wassiljewitsch Druschinin, Konstantin Aksakow and Stepan Semjonowitsch Dudyshkin for its lively and memorable imagery.

German-language editions

  • The raid. Based on the translation by Hermann Röhl . P. 29–63 in: Gisela Drohla (Ed.): Leo N. Tolstoj. All the stories. First volume. Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1961 (2nd edition of the edition in eight volumes 1982)
  • The raid. Narration of a volunteer. From the Russian. Translation by Hermann Asemissen . Pp. 5-34 in: Lev Nikolajewitsch Tolstoi. Early narratives. 459 pages, Verlag Philipp Reclam jun. Leipzig 1986 ( RUB 735, 3rd edition, licensor: Rütten and Loening, Berlin, edition used)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian Дарго
  2. ↑ Edition used, p. 18, 7th Zvu
  3. ↑ Russian Александр Васильевич Дружинин (1824–1864)
  4. ↑ Russian Степан Семёнович Дудышкин (1821–1866)
  5. ↑ Source: Russian Набег - criticism and recognition of the story The attack
  6. ↑ Russian Бурнашева Н.В.