The case of Cornet Yelagin
The case of Kornet Jelagin ( Russian Дело корнета Елагина , Delo korneta Jelagin a) is a story by the Russian Nobel Prize winner for literature Ivan Bunin , which was completed on September 11, 1925 in the Alpine Alps and on March 6, 1926 in the Paris emigrant daily newspaper Wosroschdenijeij (The rebirth) appeared.
The 22-year-old cornet Alexander Mikhailovich Jelagin - known as Saschka - throws the epaulettes to his captain . His career as an officer with the hussars in the Russian army is over, because Yelagin frankly admits that he alone has the beautiful, 28-year-old Polish actress Maria Josefovna Sosnowskaja - known as Manja - in her love nest in Starogradskaya 14 of the garrison town shot from close up with a revolver on the night of June 19 . Battle traces were not found. The doctor stated that Sosnovskaya had sexual intercourse with a man that night.
The anonymous first-person narrator reconstructs what happened from statements in court and previous interrogations. In the above-mentioned love nest, several pieces of paper with contradicting content were found scribbled by the dead woman during her lifetime: On the one hand, Yelagin had demanded his and her death; she “does not die of free will” and on the other hand she did not want to live any longer.
Yelagin, who comes from an old, rich Russian family and was kept strictly by her father, is condemned by the public prosecutor in court to be a “crazy bon vivant”. The regimental comrades, on the other hand, are unanimously friendly about the accused.
During the trial, the diary of the consumptive Maria Sosnowskaja became known: At sixteen she found easy access to the stage in Lemberg . Everyone wanted her body. As a pure young girl, she was spoiled by a woman. An elderly landowner from Galicia violated her dignity in his Constantinople harem in the midst of naked slaves. Maria Sosnowskaja wanted to die, but let her stay out of consideration for her unhappy Catholic mother, who was widowed several times.
Witnesses appear in court with whom Maria Sosnowskaya wanted to die together in Lviv back then. Both stabbing , strangling and strychnine swallow had been prepared. In any case, according to a testimony, Yelagin, who had known Maria Sosnowskaya for a year and a half, had to go through a constant rollercoaster of emotions. A marriage as sought by Jelagin appeared to be illusory. Even the love affair in the love nest mentioned above was not allowed to leak to the Polish public. The Poles did not tolerate this relationship with a Russian officer. And Yelagin's father would not allow the son to marry an actress. Badly treated by the fiancé, the jealous Jelagin asked for the ring back.
The extremely capricious Maria Sosnowskaja, who read and even understood Schopenhauer , who thought she was a second Marija Bashkirzewa or Marija Vechera, was fed up with Jelagin's jealousy that July evening and wanted to leave the cornet; had in mind a trip abroad to escape. Maria wanted to return the engagement ring to Jelagin on the aforementioned June night. In a change of heart during that night, she snuggled up against the cornet and made serious about their common intention to kill. He shot. Your last word in Polish: "Alexander, my beloved!"
When it came to the suicide, Yelagin was paralyzed by profound indifference.
German-language editions
- Used edition
- The case of Cornet Yelagin. German by Ilse Tschörtner . S. 204–249 in: Karlheinz Kasper (Ed.): Iwan Bunin: Dunkle Alleen. Stories 1920–1953 . 580 pages. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1985
Web links
- The text
- online at Lib.ru (Russian)
- online at bunin.niv.ru (Russian)
- online in the Komarow library (Russian)
- Reference to first appearance in the Laboratory of Fantastics (Russian)