The Bishop (Chekhov)

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Anton Chekhov

The Bishop ( Russian Архиерей , Archijerei) is the penultimate story by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov , which appeared in the April 1902 issue of the magazine Schurnal dlja wsech .

His Eminence Bishop Pyotr dies shortly before the "loud, joyful" spring festival Easter .

The text was translated into Polish ( Archierej ) during the author's lifetime in 1904 .

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Bishop Pyotr's ancestors were deacons . He had previously taught Greek for three years at the seminary and then became a monk and inspector. At the age of thirty-two he received his doctorate and became archimandrite . Pyotr had lived carefree abroad for eight years.

Bishop Pyotr already felt uncomfortable during mass in the Staro Petrowski Monastery on the evening before Palm Sunday . It is difficult for him to breathe and his legs are shaking. One of the women who takes the palm branch from him seems to him just like his birth mother Marija Timofejewna. But he's unsure. He had last seen his mother nine years ago. When the bishop can finally relax in his apartment from the strenuous conduct of the service, he is informed that his mother has come with her granddaughter Katja and is staying in a hostel. The bishop laughs happily. After he has gone to sleep, the images of childhood - all from his home village Lessopolje - rise in his mind's eye. Pavluscha had been called to Bishop Pyotr in those happy days that had fallen down.

Bishop Pyotr has one more visitor - the 70-year-old monk priest Sissoi. With this former administrator at the Eparchial Bishop he talks about matters of the monastery administration. Bishop Pyotr has to represent the sick Eparchial Bishop. Pjotr ​​himself feels miserable and feverish. Father Sissoi knows how to deal with superiors; has already survived eleven bishops. He rubs sebum into Bishop Pyotr with candles .

As Bishop Pyotr on Holy Thursday , the Mass in the Cathedral celebrated, the symptoms become unbearable. Even niece Katja, who breaks a coffee cup, cannot cheer the clergyman later in his apartment. He even has to be annoyed with his mother. Marija Timofejewna sucks him while being natural to strangers.

When Bishop Pyotr had an intestinal bleeding , the monastery doctor who had hurried up diagnosed typhus in the abdomen .

The mother comes to her deathbed and gives up her reserve; no longer sees the bishop, but her Pavluscha. Anton Chekhov writes: "... she kissed him like a child that was particularly dear and close to her ... Katja ... didn't understand what was going on with her uncle ..."

Bishop Pyotr dies on Easter Sunday .

A time later - the bishop has long been forgotten - the mother lives with her son-in-law. When she talks about her children to other women there, she sometimes tentatively mentions that her late son was a bishop. Not all women believe her.

Adaptation

reception

  • With the bishop's death in Holy Week , Anton Chekhov described the eve of his own death.
  • October 13, 1961, Ludolf Müller in Die Zeit : Sophie Laffitte says in her monograph that Anton Chekhov avoided self-portrayal as much as possible, but in the late text he “communicated himself completely”.

German-language editions

Used edition

  • The bishop. German by Gerhard Dick. Pp. 225–241 in: Chekhov. A reader for our time. Selection and introduction by Wolf Düwel. 376 pages. Aufbau-Verlag Berlin and Weimar 1987, ISBN 3-351-00577-6

Secondary literature

  • Sophie Laffitte: Anton Chekhov in self-testimonies and photo documents. rowohlt's monographs Volume 38 , Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek 1960

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ The bride appeared in 1903.
  2. ↑ There is a Petrovsky monastery (Russian Высоко-Петровский монастырь ) in Moscow .
  3. ↑ For example, in the Ukraine between Lemberg and Zhitomir there is a village Lessopol (Russian Лесополь ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian entry at fantlab.ru
  2. ↑ Russian reference to translation
  3. ↑ Russian Лесополье
  4. ↑ Russian отец Си-сой, иеромонах
  5. ^ German-language world premiere of the cantata by the Taganroger Chamber Choir. Choir director: Alexej Loginow
  6. ↑ Notes on the text, 13th paragraph above
  7. ^ Ludolf Müller: Fruits of the Chekhov Jubilee
  8. ↑ Table of contents for the edition used (pdf)