The forest devil (Chekhov)

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Anton Chekhov

The forest devil , also Der Waldschrat ( Russian Леший , Leschi ), is a comedy in four acts by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov . Written in 1889, the play was performed on December 27 of the same year in Maria Abramova's Moscow private theater. In 1890 the text was in print in Sergei Fedorowitsch Rassochin's Moscow theater library. The German premiere took place in 1958 in the State Theater in Oldenburg . On the occasion of Anton Chekhov's 100th birthday, a translation by Valerian Tornius was successful in the Leipzig Theater in 1960 .

The comedy materially went down in Uncle Vanya .

overview

Anton Chekhov offers a happy ending in a double pack. The 18-year-old uneducated, wealthy Julja and the 35-year-old landowner's son Fyodor get together. Fjodor's future brother-in-law, the technologist Leonid Stepanowitsch Sheltuchin, achieved his fortune without a degree.

In addition, the 20-year-old professor's daughter Sonja and Mikhail Lwowitsch Khrustschow become a couple. The latter is called the forest devil. Because this eco-activist, a democrat with a medical degree, is fighting against the deforestation of the Russian forest; would like to keep it for future generations. Sonja is the daughter of the retired professor Alexander Vladimirovich Serebryakov from his first marriage, who was ill with rheumatism - or perhaps Podagra . Serebryakov is married to the 27-year-old noble Jelena for the second time. Sonja's relationship with her pretty young stepmother is and remains warm. Jelena admits that she does not love her husband and would like a younger, healthy man. Although she leaves the elderly professor once, she returns to him and remains loyal to her husband. When Fyodor became interested in Jelena before turning to Julja, he was slapped by the professor's wife.

The widow of the privy councilor Marja Wassiljewna Voinitskaja, mother of the professor's first wife, has a son - the 47-year-old Yegor Petrovich Voinitski, named George. The honest, deeply dissatisfied George's love for Jelena is unhappy. The professor, a city dweller, feels like an exile in the Russian provinces. When he tries to sell Sonja's estate, George feels betrayed; even more - he thinks the professor, his worst enemy, has destroyed his life. George shoots himself. The unfortunate man had devotedly administered this estate for twenty-five years for a "begging wage" during his lifetime.

There are enough differences in the piece. For example, Professor Serebryakov, who spent his life essentially in study rooms in Russia, Germany and France, considers the efforts of the environmentalist Khrushchev “for nonsense and psychopathy”.

Anton Chekhov, who wants to understand the abuse word forest devil in a double sense, lets Khrushchev pronounce: “You call me the forest devil, gentlemen, but that doesn't apply to me alone, there is such a forest devil in all of them, you are all wrong dark forest around and feel your way through life. "

reception

  • The FEB goes into more detail on reactions to the piece from 1890. For example
    • On January 1st, SW Flerow-Wassiljew finds the play boring in the Moskowskije Vedomosti . In addition, the title character is not the central figure of the comedy.
    • The journalist Nikolai Kitschejew wrote in the weekly Budilnik at the beginning of January that the play was certainly fresh and brilliantly written, but it lacks a plot. A game with such socially critical prose would not actually come about on stage.
    • In January, an anonymous reviewer addressed the problematic mixing of the above-mentioned serious social criticism with the easy and easy finding of the two young couples, culminating in two happy endings, in the theater and music section of the Novoje wremja .
    • In the February issue of Artist magazine, critic II Ivanov asks : Do two serious efforts in a comedy have to be laughed at, or can something like that be translated into acceptable stage action? What is meant are the lifelong work of Professor Serebryakov in the service of science and the selfless commitment of the title character Khrushchev against the rampant overexploitation of the forest.
  • Later statements from the same source mentioned above (FEB) are for example:
    • On July 18, 1904, Alexander Semenowitsch Lasarew wrote in the Kharkov newspaper Juschny krai that Anton Chekhov had left Moscow after the defeat of the forest devil .
    • Nikolai Efros admitted in his posthumously published Notes about the Moscow Artistic Theater in 1924 that the play would have moved him internally after five or six performances. However, the forest devil did not reach the public.
  • More recently, Düwel wrote in his foreword Anton Chekhov - Leben und Werk on pp. 65–66 in 1964 that the play was influenced by the reformer Tolstoy and thus weakened in its realistic message. In addition, towards the end of the 19th century, literary criticism would not have recognized Chekhov's pioneering work in the field of drama and would have dismissed the play as "extremely long and tiring" (see above).

literature

Used edition

  • The forest devil. Comedy in four acts. Translated from the Russian by Gudrun Düwel. Pp. 245–342 in: Wolf Düwel (ed.): Anton Chekhov: The cherry orchard. Dramas. 719 pages. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1964 (1st edition)

Secondary literature

  • Wolf Düwel: Anton Chekhov - life and work. P. 5–71 in: Gerhard Dick (Ed.): Anton Chekhov: From the rain to the eaves. Short stories. Translated from Russian by Ada Knipper and Gerhard Dick. With a foreword by Wolf Düwel. 630 pages. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1964 (1st edition)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian Marija Morizowna Abramowa (1865-1892)
  2. ↑ Russian Sergei Fedorowitsch Rassochin (1850–1929)
  3. ↑ postscript in the used Edition, pp 655-656
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 313, 13. Zvo
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 332, 1. Zvo
  6. ↑ Note under Der Waldteufel (Russian) in FEB, pp. 379–394
  7. ↑ Russian Sergei Wassiljewitsch Flerow
  8. ↑ Russian Nikolai Petrovich Kitschejew
  9. ^ Russian II Ivanov
  10. ↑ Russian artist
  11. ↑ Russian AS Lasarew (Grusinsky)
  12. ↑ Russian Juschny krai , for example: Southern border region
  13. ↑ Russian Nikolai Efimowitsch Efros