The stranger and the farmer

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Lev Tolstoy speaks to a farmer in 1909

The Stranger and the Farmer , also The Transient and the Farmer ( Russian: Проезжий и крестьянин , Projesschi i krestjanin ), is a dialogue that Lev Tolstoy recorded on September 11, 1909, completed on October 22, and completed on May 10 1917 appeared posthumously in the daily newspaper Utro Rossii . In 1983 the text in Vol. 14 Powesti and Tales of the 22-volume Tolstoy edition was published by Verlag für Künstlerische Literatur in Moscow .

content

A stranger old man has missed the last train into town and a farmer allows him to spend the night in his house. After dinner, which the stranger refuses with thanks, the two of them have a conversation in which they openly debate the "dog life" of the Muschik . In particular, famine and oppression by the landlord, the priesthood and the local police chief are discussed. There is also talk of the burden of all kinds of taxes and alcohol abuse.

The host farmer does not take the harsh criticism of the peasantry against the passing townspeople and can only agree with him when the latter complains: "... there come the strikers and say ... the big-bellied rich, who are to blame for all our misfortune, have to be killed then we will have a good life. And then they start killing ... but it hasn't worked yet. And it is the same with the authorities, it is said, ... we will smear a few thousand people ... to death, then there will be a better life. In reality, however, life is getting worse and worse. "

Used edition

  • The stranger and the farmer. Translated from the Russian by Hermann Asemissen . S. 403-412 in: Eberhard Dieckmann (Ed.): Lew Tolstoi. Haji Murat. Late narratives . Vol. 13 by Eberhard Dieckmann (ed.), Gerhard Dudek (ed.): Lew Tolstoi. Collected works in twenty volumes . Rütten and Loening, Berlin 1986

Web links

annotation

  1. ↑ The text is based on allegedly real conversations between the author and farmers that took place in Krjokschino (ru: Крёкшино (Москва), farming village near Moscow). However, Tolstoy deleted all autobiographical references during the subsequent review mentioned (Russian comments on the dialogue).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian Утро России, Russischer Morgen , founded before 1917 by the old-believing family Rjabuschinski (Рябушинский)
  2. ↑ Entry at tolstoy.ru (Russian)
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 411, 1. Zvo