The packer
The Raffer (Russian Рвач , Rwatsch ) is a humorous novel by the Russian writer Ilya Ehrenburg , which - written in Paris in 1924 - was published in 1927 by the Odessa publishing house Swetotsch (Russian Светоч, Die Fackel ) with an edition of 7,000 copies. Also in 1927, Hans Ruoff's transmission came out in the Berlin Malik publishing house under the title Michail Lykow on the German-language book market. The author had already financed the printing of this bitterly angry burlesque in Paris in 1925 with his own funds. 1964 grotesque on the decline of the during the Civil War with the Red Banner decorated party member Mikhail Lykow during the NEP -time in Vol. 2, pp 5-352 of Ehrenburg's nine-volume work output in Moscow Publishing Artistic literature published.
Lenin did in 1921 after defeating the counter-revolution named one of the new enemies - "the small citizen Liche elemental power of the old Russia ". The greedy rogue Mikhail Lykow succumbs to exactly that .
shape
As a we-narrator, Ilja Ehrenburg reveals himself. He only wants to make known the "difficult and bitter" life of his hero Mikhail Jakowlewitsch Lykow "without make-up" and allows himself several freedoms. First and foremost, the cheerful, snappy narrative tone is unmistakable. Surprising - a deadly serious matter is reported - the case of an intrepid Komsomol in times of peace, that is, after the war has been won . Accordingly, there is a satire on the Soviet state at the beginning of the 1920s. Second, the narrative perspective is surprising. The omniscient narrator not only lets his protagonist think, but also his opponent.
Ilja Ehrenburg emphasizes that he does not want to play the role of judge Mikhail Lykows and also addresses "the critics", "who could face our true story with doubts".
content
When the red-haired Mikhail Lykov, the son of a Kiev waiter, joined the Social Revolutionaries and then their left wing under the influence of the revolution , he was 19 years old. Sentenced to ten years of strict imprisonment at the age of 25, he takes his own life. What will happen to him in the first six years of the revolution before he dies?
First, Mikhail flees the revolution to lively Moscow. He is wounded on Nikitsky Boulevard. Lucky in bad luck - the bullet can be surgically removed. Mikhail returns to his father in white Kiev. The father gets Mikhail a job as a cloakroom . Mikhail has viewed his older brother Artyom, a broad-shouldered fellow, as a rival since childhood. Artyom's going underground strengthens Mikhail's aversion to his party, the Bolsheviks .
The whites in Kiev are not squeamish about their opponents. Mikhail is beaten for hours at night by a "representative of the Astrakhan Army" and survives. When the Red , the Denikin - and Petljura have -People from Kiev sold and indenting, Mikhail is that no profession has learned, "employees of the Department of neglected children the subdivision child protection at the People's Commissariat of Social Welfare of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ". Although the young man interferes in the discussions of the educators and psychiatrists, and even studies a manual of psychology, the craft of the young people of those years in which arguments were made with cannons is the craft of weapons. So Mikhail joins the Red Army and its communist party . In Kiev, some people think Bolsheviks are robbers. His unit struggled with the Denikin, Petljura and Machno people in the vicinity of Kiev . The front between whites and reds sometimes runs along the Krestschatik . The hometown must be left to the enemy. Mikhail is deployed near Isjum and earns the above-mentioned Order of the Red Banner as a scout in the battles for Nikitowka . The seasoned Red Army soldier lived through November 1921 in starving Rostov on the Temernik . Mikhail falls ill with typhus . Olga Vladimirovna Galina, a 27-year-old who tears up food stamps, nurses the 21-year-old thin war hero to health. The daughter of the Polesian match maker Galin is taken with dogged severity by the coarse soldier . Olga, grateful for the loss of her virginity, turns away and breathes: “Dear!” The young woman waits in vain. Mikhail does not explain himself, but runs away with the cheeky saying “The night is enough”. Because he has no friends, he repeats his humiliating "attacks" on Olga before going back to the troops. She says goodbye to him with “My boy!” After two years at the front, Mikhail was surprised by the demobilization in southern Crimea .
"Communism - that is Soviet power plus electrification". Mikhail wants to become an engineer or a party leader and is trained by communists at Kharkov University . Olga - who runs into him - he snubs with "Sex is poison for the intellectual worker".
The father waited until the end in Kiev and died. Nothing will come of Mikhail's rapid rise in the party. He dreams an Indian dream; for his home country he would like to be in diplomatic service in Bombay .
Because university studies were too long and exhausting, Michail dropped out in 1922. At first he stayed as a sub-tenant in Saweljowski-Gasse and later with his conscientious brother Artyom in the “two-million village” of Moscow. The communist Artjom Lykow took part in the Polish campaign as political commissar of a regiment , worked in the administration of military schools and since then has dogged himself in studying war chemistry at a Moscow academy.
The NEP brings disillusionment. Mississippi who made brilliant plans sell filled pierogi in the market , citizens with a lot of money can be shot and poetry is replaced by prose. Mikhail does not understand what is going on around him and is suspicious of his party: “Why did Chicherin talk so amiably with the cardinals? Why did the ... gatekeepers ... ride around in automobiles? … Why did you see the sleeping cars full of made-up women traveling to Yalta ? ”Had Mikhail attacked the enemy with his bayonet attached, just so that others could buy salmon?
In short, Mikhail is involved with crooks who like to take someone with a party membership into their ranks. He gets involved in windy deals that sooner or later have to be busted. It comes, as it must. Mikhail does not go to the first summons before his party's city district committee. After he allowed the second summons to pass, he was expelled from the party "because of the 'improper conduct of life for a communist'".
Mikhail moves out of his brother's apartment, finds shelter with crooks, and tries to rehabilitate with the district committee. When that fails, he hates his country, the Soviet Union, and becomes more entangled in rip-offs. For example, in the barchent trade and cross-border shuffling with silk, Mikhail works under the direction of the perky snub-nosed Sonja, the 23-year-old enterprising daughter of Professor Petrjakov. Michail falls in love with Sonja. She is in a relationship with several muscle-packed top Moscow athletes and calls the new lover a milk beard.
Olga travels to Moscow in search of her dear Mikhail, finds shelter with Artyom and shares a bed with him. Both marry. The couple moves to Jakimanka .
Mikhail, now well fed and dressed in dandy style , visits his brother in his new apartment and meets his wife Olga.
A little later - Artyom's love for Olga has already cooled down - the brother-in-law attacks the sister-in-law in the usual manner. Artyom's wife considers the "attack" to be love. After all, she got pregnant. Mikhail recommends the scraping to Olga . Olga doesn't want to. Then Mikhail suggests that the expectant mother should make Artyom believe it is his child.
Artyom and Mikhail run into each other by chance on Pretschistensky Boulevard. During the conversation, Artyom scolds his brother as a ruffian. Michail immediately offers Artjom a financial stake in his current crook and receives a resounding slap in the face. In return, Artyom is poured pure wine. Mikhail reveals himself to be the father of the child in Olga's fat belly.
When Michail, the dealer in impaired silk, returned to Moscow months later from Berlin and delivered money, he failed in the bed of his beautiful client. Sonja's comment: "You are a rabbit and not a man!"
The foreign traveler is jailed for souped-up bills and is questioned at the provincial court. The little fish Mikhail does not betray his backers - that is, Sonja Dmitrijewna Petrjakowa. The delinquent becomes entangled in contradictions. Artyom, who in spite of all this still loves his brother, does not say exactly in Mikhail's favor, although Olga has worked on it intensively. According to party comrade Artyom Lykov, the brother had offended the state. Former employers do not hide Michail's brazen scams. The public prosecutor applies for the maximum sentence for the October hero. Because repentance was not shown and party membership was used for personal gain. However, out of consideration for his “services to the revolution”, he is, as I said, pardoned to ten years imprisonment in strict solitary confinement. In the prison yard, the packer climbed a fire escape and fell to his death from a height.
Olga gives birth to a boy. From the language of the eyes and hands of the newborn - the boy was called Kim - Olga wants to recognize her blessed Mikhail. Artyom's Comment: "We're going to raise Kim!"
reception
- Schröder wrote in Leipzig in autumn 1977 that in relation to Jeanne Ney's love (also 1924), Der Raffer meant overcoming the “romanticizing-simplistic” portrayal of the years of civil war. Schröder also emphasizes that Mikhail Lykov was not a real communist, if only because he was afraid of the old Bolsheviks. And regarding Mikhail Lykov's tragedy, he remarks that his fate was the NEP , also due to the lack of the German revolution.
Web links
- The full text
- Entry at fantlab.ru (Russian)
German-language editions
First edition
- Mikhail Lykov . Translator: Hans Ruoff. Malik-Verlag, Berlin 1927, 559 pages
expenditure
- The packer. Novel. Translated from the Russian by Harry Burck . With an afterword by Ralf Schröder . Verlag Volk und Welt, Berlin 1979 (1st edition, edition used)
Individual evidence
- ↑ in Russian: The Raffer . Soviet first edition
- ↑ in Russian: The Raffer Paris Edition 1925
- ↑ in Russian Илья Эренбург: Собрание сочинений в 9 томах. Том 2 , Ilja Ehrenburg: Collected Works in Nine Volumes, Volume 2
- ↑ Russian Художественная литература (издательство), Khudoschestvennaja literatura (isdatelstwo)
- ↑ Schröder in the afterword of the edition used, p. 393, 4th Zvu
- ↑ The narrator refers to his work The Unusual Adventures of Julio Jurenito (edition used, p. 181 below)
- ↑ Edition used, p. 84, 3rd Zvu
- ↑ Russian Никитский бульвар
- ↑ Russian Астраханская армия
- ↑ Edition used, p. 76, 17. Zvo
- ↑ Edition used, p. 94, 13. Zvo
- ↑ ukrain. Микитівка, in German Nikitowka
- ↑ Polesia: about the Pripetz
- ↑ Edition used, p. 111, 10. Zvo
- ↑ Lenin : Communism - that is Soviet power plus electrification
- ↑ Saweljowski-Gasse, Russian Пожарский переулок (Саве́льевский переулок, Савёловский переулок)
- ↑ Edition used, p. 183, 20. Zvo
- ↑ Edition used, p. 228, 16. Zvo
- ↑ Edition used, p. 244, 21. Zvo
- ↑ Pretschistenski-Boulevard, Russian Пречистенский бульвар (today Гоголевский бульвар)
- ↑ Edition used, p. 312, 15. Zvo
- ↑ Edition used, p. 341, 18. Zvu
- ↑ Edition used, p. 387, 3rd Zvo
- ↑ Schröder in the afterword of the edition used, pp. 389–409
- ↑ The love of Jeanne Ney., Russian Любовь Жанны Ней