The Murder (Chekhov)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Anton Chekhov

The murder ( Russian Убийство , Ubistwo) is a story by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov , which appeared in the November 1895 issue of the Moscow magazine Russkaya Mysl .

Translations: 1896 into Serbo-Croatian ( Ubojstvo ), 1902 into French ( Un meurtre ) and 1903 into Czech ( Zločin ).

prehistory

The scene in which case an inn on the Post Road to Odessa had Avdotya Terekhova at times I. Alexander let built. At the time of the story, the hostel is near the Progonnaja train station. Avdotia's son had two sons. The latter were the fathers of Matwej and Jakow Terechow. The hostel is owned equally by the 55-year-old Matvej and the 45-year-old Jakow. The merchant Jakow runs the hostel together with his sister Aglaya. Both hate their cousin Matwej and do not want to share with him, because for a businessman sharing is synonymous with ruin. In addition, Matvej had wandered around the world, was employed as a worker in a tile factory and had given his money to the mother of his illegitimate child. The child was dead.

action

The destitute Matwej lives in a room in the hostel mentioned.

The widowed Yakov and his daughter Daschutka - an ugly, 18-year-old girl - are present when Aglaya cracks the skull of her cousin Matvej with an iron in the kitchen for a trivial reason. The buffet man Sergei Nikanorych, who happened to be an eyewitness to the manslaughter, is silenced by Yakov with money. All four go to Siberia for this - Jakow for twenty years as a slave labor , Aglaya for thirteen and a half years, Sergei Nikanorych for ten and Daschutka for six years. The girl and her father had carted the body into the woods. A gatekeeper had met them on the way back.

After three months in Siberia, Yakov fails to try to escape. For this he receives life imprisonment and forty lashes. Two punishments followed with the rod for allegedly embezzling convict clothing. In both cases they had been stolen from him. Aglaja's whereabouts in Siberia is unknown to the brother. Daschutka is forcibly married to a settler in a remote Sakhalin area. Years later, a prison inmate told Jakow that his daughter already had three children. Sergei Nikanorych hits it best. He is staying with an officer in Dui as a lackey. He does not want to have anything to do with Jakow, who is imprisoned in Dui prison together with " Russians , Ukrainians , Tatars , Grusinians , Chinese , Finns , Gypsies and Jews " and through them finds a simple faith.

reception

  • The sectarian Yakov is called the prayer brother by the people. His cousin Matvej was not much different from a religious point of view during his lifetime. Anton Chekhov gives deep insights into the Orthodox liturgy over large parts of the story . Gudrun Düwel alludes to this in the afterword of the edition used.
  • The most detailed information is given following the reproduction of the source text of the story in the Russian Chekhov portal chekhov.velchel.ru (within velchel.ru - Великие Люди (celebrities - especially writers)) on the history of its genesis and the extremely numerous negative ones and received positive reviews. It mentions, for example, the praise of the French Slavist Paul Boyer.

German-language editions

Used edition

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian entry at fantlab.ru
  2. ↑ Entries on translations
  3. ↑ Russian Дуэ (Сахалинская область) - Due (Sakhalinskaya oblast)
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 260, 8th Zvu
  5. ↑ Gudrun Düwel in the edition used, p. 426 middle
  6. ↑ Russian notes
  7. ↑ French Paul Boyer