January 9th

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January 9 ( Russian 9-е января ) is a short story by the Russian writer Maxim Gorki , published in 1907 by J. Ladyschnikow Verlag in Berlin . In November of the previous year, the publisher asked Grschebin for the sketch. Gorky wrote it down in December 1906, but Grschebin refused to accept it. The distribution of all foreign editions of the text was prohibited in the empire of the Russian tsar . The first printing on Russian soil took place in 1920 in the Soviet Petrograd .

January 9, 1905 in Petersburg (scene recreated, 1925)

overview

The title refers to the St. Petersburg Bloody Sunday of 1905. Among other things - as a reaction to the famine during the Russo-Japanese War - the Petersburgers took to the streets and wanted to ask the Tsar to improve conditions. Infantry, cavalry and artillery - led by resolute officers - prevented the dialogue with bloody attacks on the unarmed demonstrators. The number of known murdered varies between one hundred and thirty and over a thousand. Gorky took part in the march. As an eyewitness, he wrote a letter to his wife on the same day about the events in Petersburg (see below: "Literature").

content

Gorky tells the story very differently than the scene in the photo from 1925 (in this article, top right) suggests. Gorky writes that the supplicants advance several times and are violently beaten back each time. The second and third advance of the unarmed, which is incomprehensible in retrospect, makes a man with blood-covered arms plausible. He rejects the offer of help from other survivors: "It's not my blood, people, it's the blood of those who believed".

The crowd swells, because the subjects believe that the state power must listen to their needs. "Back! I'll let the fire go! ”Shouts the officer. There is no question of going back, because one came with peaceful intent. The first rifle volley kills or injures unarmed persons. Cavalrymen pursue refugees; kill some with drawn sabers and wound others. The horses trample the lying people. Survivors are not frightened, they are surprised. Should the tsar not be a fountain of salvation and grace?

In spite of all this, the demonstrators reached the iron bars guarded by soldiers in front of the Tsar's palace. A sergeant from the Pskov 144th Infantry Regiment demands: “Go your way!” Nobody wants to hear. The soldiers are freezing. When the officer pulls the saber and orders “Move apart!”, One of the people asks him: “Well, Lieutenant, can the killing begin?” The foremost cannot escape the gun barrels of the soldiers. The crowd pushes from behind. Some soldiers aim almost at the winter sky, some “only” on their legs. Two volleys crack. Blood is spilled again. The crowd keeps pushing forward slowly. Dead and wounded are picked up by the demonstrators. Some speakers refused to convert the soldiers. One of the crowd shouts: “There is no justification for this!” Others shout: “Executioner! Dog! ”Two more volleys are followed by new bloodshed. Gorky speaks of "hundreds of dead and wounded".

One is hit by a drunken soldier and says, “What did I do? Bestie you! ”The wounded man is shot again by the grinning drunk. A "worthy, well-dressed gentleman" has mingled with the people and asks in horror: "Gentlemen, do you see that?"

Enjoyed

Demonstration in Saint Petersburg on January 9, 1905

Before the text was written towards the end of 1906, several books of Gorky's prose translated into German had already appeared in Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden in the previous years of the 20th century . The reader will search in vain for the word “comrade”. After Bloody Sunday everything is different. In the present text in particular - because "Comrades!" And close relatives are shouted several times - the demonstrators in the mind of the attentive reader from the 21st century split up first into those Petersburg workers who are close to the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and secondly into gullible, starving, freezing ones "Small traders and employees".

The comrades want to chase Father Gapon , the organizer of the star march to the Winter Palace , to the devil. The rest of the demonstrators believe in the clergy and march according to the slogan: "We're going to our father!" "He [the tsar] loves us!"

While the workers are carrying a petition asking the tsar for more democratic conditions and then erecting a barricade, the violence has no end. Nothing can be done with bare hands.

Some say: "It is not possible to forget this day!" The others despair, scold each other as "slave souls".

reception

  • The people marched on January 9th in the belief: "'He' [the tsar] will understand us - if we ask ..." Among the marching people there is one who sees through the cardinal error of this march concept from the start, if he calls out: “... one cannot ask for freedom!” and thus points to the long way to the goal.
  • In this case, Russian literary scholars do not speak of a narrative, but of an Otscherk - an outline or a sketch.

German-language editions

  • Maxim Gorky: January 9th. The events in Petersburg on January 9, 1905. With introduction, appendix and 7 pictures. Cover design by John Heartfield . Malik-Verlag , Berlin 1926. (Malik library, vol. 20)
  • January 9th. (Translator not mentioned). P. 73–84 in: Maxim Gorki: Selected Works: Stories. Fairy tale. Memories. SWA-Verlag, Berlin 1947.
  • Maxim Gorky: January 9th. The children's book publisher, Berlin 1951.

Used edition

  • January 9th. German by Felix Loesch. S. 375–401 in: Maxim Gorki: Erzählungen. Fourth volume. 564 pages. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1954.

literature

Web links

annotation

  1. ↑ Grschebin had published or co-edited two satirical magazines in Russia - 1905 das Schupel (German for example: Höllenfeuer , Russian Жупел ) and 1906 the Adskaja potschta (German for example: Höllen-Post , Russian Адская почта (1906) ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian Sinowi Issajewitsch Grschebin
  2. ↑ Edition used, p. 561, first entry
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 561, 13. Zvo
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 396, 12. Zvu
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 376, 10. Zvu and 7. Zvu
  6. ↑ Ludwig, p. 145, 10th Zvu
  7. ↑ Russian Очерк
  8. ↑ Russian Ekaterina Pavlovna Peschkowa