Poor Avrosimov

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Poor Avrosimov ( Russian Бедный Авросимов , Bedny Avrosimow ) is a historical novel by the Soviet writer Bulat Okudschawa , which was written from 1965 to 1969 and published in 1969 in issues 4 to 6 (April to June) of the Moscow monthly literature magazine Druzhba Narodow .

overview

Meeting of the committee of inquiry against the Decembrists, portrayed by Wladimir Adlerberg in 1826

A fictional first-person narrator who constantly addresses both the reader and the reader in “his report” as “my dearest gentleman” and is not identical with the author, approaches writing at the beginning of the 1860s, during the Great Reforms an event from January 1826 in Saint Petersburg : The Decembrists failed. One of their heads - the nobleman Colonel Pawel Pestel - is chaired by War Minister Count Alexander Tatishchev (2nd from left on the picture), the two military judges General Vasily Levaschow (4th from right on the picture) and Adjutant General Alexander Tschernyschow (3rd on the picture) . from the left) and interrogated by the process leader Alexander Borowkow (on the picture). The completely insignificant "Russian nobleman" Ivan Evdokimowitsch Avrosimov, a red-haired giant, owner of two hundred and twenty souls - the second fictional main character in the novel - busily writes the minutes of the interrogation. Although Awrossimow in the course of the novel's plot from zar entreuen recorder converts to a sympathizer of Pestel, who even wants to finally liberate in a cloak and dagger operation the incarcerated, he remains a poor little clerk, who can deny his temporary infidelity and sent back to his village becomes. The secret group Pestel, on the other hand, languished in the casemate for six months, like the other mutineers, and died a martyr's death at the beginning of July 1826 for his idea of ​​replacing the survived Russian monarchy with a Russian republic, based on the French Revolution .

The above-mentioned historical personalities about the case of the Freemason Pestel are joined by two storylines, which are held together by the very young Decembrist Nikolai Saikin and the traitor Arkadi Maiboroda - formerly Pestel's friend. Saikin is supposed to help in the search for Pestel's buried documents in Ukraine and Maiboroda, who believes himself to be the savior of the fatherland, appears to Okudschawa as a pitiful coward who is avoided by everyone - but not by the emperor . In addition to all such verifiable historicity , the text can also be taken as a representative of fantastic literature . The strong, red-faced Avrosimov is a foreign body that is difficult to overlook among the blasé appearing Petersburg courtiers. The single young man with the giant shoulders sometimes makes a mistake because he always has women in his head - even when logging - of whom he owns one and would like to return to his village with his mother forever and ever. The fantasy goes so far, apart from the ladies' problem mentioned, that the reader has to leaf back in confusion when keeping the difference between reality and dream.

Marginalia

Avrosimov, who allegedly has an excellent command of the art of writing, in practice a man with spelling weaknesses, records that the German “criminal” Pestel was of Lutheran faith and had fought against Bonaparte .

The Minister of War utterly to Avrosimov in private: “What a shame about Pestel. Was a good commander ”and asks:“ What may have thrown him off course? ”The recorder replies that Pestel is“ possessed by the devil ”.

Speaking alongside Pestel other Decembrists be mentioned: Bestuzhev , Prince Schtschepin , Lieutenant Colonel Jentalzew , Prince Volkonsky , Muraviev , Major Lohrer and Nikolai and Pavel Bobrishchev-Pushkin .

reception

Used edition

  • Bulat Okudshawa: Poor Avrosimov or the adventures of a secret writer. Novel. Translated from the Russian by Thomas Reschke . With an afterword by Ralf Schröder. Volk & Welt, Berlin 1971.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Бедный Авросимов was also published under Глоток свободы (Glotok swobody - about: A touch of freedom ).
  2. ^ "Souls" were called serfs in Russia before 1862 .
  3. ↑ In the sometimes extremely turbulent plot, the 22-year-old title character even falls head over heels in love with an unsightly, aged street girl and does not want to give up the "beautiful" girl until he is finally sobered up in the light of day.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Schröder in the afterword of the edition used, p. 386, 5th Zvu
  2. ↑ Russian ru: Дружба народов (журнал) - in German: Friendship of the Nations
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 4, above
  4. ↑ see for example the edition used, p. 157
  5. ^ Schröder in the afterword of the edition used, p. 386, 1st Zvo
  6. ↑ Edition used, p. 57, below
  7. ↑ Russian ru: Русская правда (Пестель) - The Russian truth . Author: Pestel
  8. ↑ Schröder in the afterword of the edition used, p. 387, middle
  9. ↑ Edition used, p. 27
  10. ↑ Schröder in the afterword of the edition used, pp. 385–404