The minor W.
The minor W. ( Russian Малолетный Витушишников , Maloletny Wituschischnikow ) is a historical novella by the Soviet writer Yuri Tynyanow , which was published in 1933 in issue 7 of the Leningrad magazine Literaturny sovremennik .
Emergence
Tynyanov comes from an anecdote from the life of Nicholas I made. According to this, the ruler himself is said to have rescued a young girl who had fallen into the Neva and a minor, who had also drowned during the rescue attempt, from the floods. The author opposes the maudlin incident with an unproven, but more believable version: The affectionate Faddei Bulgarin models the failure of the tsar in the hopeless fight against alcohol abuse in his paper Northern Bee in favor of the emperor. In the vicinity of the action - at the town guard's house - a plaque reminds of the confusion of history. In gold letters it is remembered how Nicholas I saved a girl from drowning.
content
Saint Petersburg in the winter of the 1840s: the tsar is pretty happy with himself. He has made his mistress Fraulein Varvara Arkadjewna Nelidowa pregnant and is convinced that the child will be a boy. The ruler also likes to deal with little things in other ways. His specialty are inspections all over the Neva metropolis. On one of these unannounced trips - on the way alone with the coachman on the Petersburg side - Nicholas I caught sight of two soldiers of the life guards of the hunter regiment, who were forbidden to enter a pub near the Newan. The lawbreakers manage to escape. A 15-year-old boy passing by, living on Vasilyevsky Island - the eponymous minor Wituschischnikow - unsolicited helps the ruler in the pursuit of the two fugitives. The tsar has the owner of the pub, the Vinnitsa Greek Konaki, now a liquor tax tenant on Great Morskaya Street, imprisoned and his tax income blocked. That boils down to a test of strength with the Greek Kommerzienrat Rodokanaki, main tax farmer in Petersburg, which Nicholas I loses. The private man Rodokanaki has Nelidowa handed over two hundred thousand rubles with an oral plea for mercy for the incarcerated compatriot Konaki. The helpless pregnant lady consults with the adjutant general Count Pyotr Andrejewitsch Kleinmichel, who has fallen out of favor with the ruler, and is the chief of the road construction and public transport department. He advises: Konaki should definitely be released, otherwise an accident will happen. The tsar obeys his mistress. The young Vituschischnikow, who did not leave Nicholas I during the persecution on the Neva, is given a clean little house for his old father and himself on Krestovsky Island and later becomes a "brisk officer" of the 5th Apsheronsk Regiment who is always listed as the "minor" in the official lists.
Other things
Nicholas I communicates with his mistress and also with the ministers via the electromagnetic telegraph .
Official channels are respected in the imperial bureaucracy. In such ways, Tynyanov portrayed the chief of the gendarmerie Count Alexej Fyodorowitsch Orlov and the finance minister Privy Councilor Vrontschenko from among the civil servants in the mid-19th century .
A swear word is uttered several times: In the absence of the other, one high-ranking official usually calls his equally high-ranking opponent "cattle".
In addition, Martin Luther , Friedrich Wilhelm IV. , Arthur Wellesley , Wassili Lewaschow , Wiktor Panin , Michail Murawjow-Wilenski , Marija Naryschkina , the chambermaid Marja Perekussichina, the personal physician Mandt , Karl Brüllow , Kleinmichel's representative Destrem, Konstantin Thon , Robert Fulton , Wrontschenkos Predecessors Georg Cancrin , Fjodor Bruni , Wladimir Sollogub , Wladimir Benediktow, Giacomo Meyerbeer , Varwara Assenkowa, Marie Taglioni , Ann Radcliffe and Pierre Rode mentioned.
reception
- 1970, Krempien: In the "biting satire" a limited, "vain and pedantic monarch" is presented in the midst of his submissive court.
- 1975, Mierau takes Tynjanov's novella as a finger exercise between his two novels Küchelbecker and Puschkin .
- 1977, Levin makes two comments - one on the mechanism of the Russian bureaucracy in the 18th and 19th centuries and the other on the character of the authenticity of Tynyanov's historical novels .
literature
Used edition
- The minor W. From the Russian by Hartmut Herboth. Pp. 205–279 in Juri Tynjanow: Second Lieutenant Saber. The guard. The minor W. With an afterword by Herbert Krempien . 292 pages. Publishing house culture and progress, Berlin 1970 (1st edition)
Secondary literature
- Fritz Mierau (Ed.): Juri Tynjanow: The monkey and the bell. Stories. Drama. Essays. 624 pages. Verlag Volk und Welt, Berlin 1975 (1st edition)
- Wladimir Lewin: Scientist and Artist , pp. 358–382 in Juri Tynjanow: Wilhelm Küchelbecker, poet and rebel. A historical novel. Translated from the Russian by Maria Einstein . 400 pages. Verlag Volk und Welt, Berlin 1977 (2nd edition)
Web links
- The text online in Lib.ru (Russian)
- Reference in the laboratory of fantasy (Russian)