The Orlov couple

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The Orlow couple ( Russian Супруги Орловы Suprugi Orlowy ) is a short story by the Russian writer Maxim Gorky that appeared in the October 1897 issue of the Narodniki monthly publication Russkaja Mysl ( The Russian Thought ).

Gorky addresses the positive effect of work on the character development of his protagonist Matrjona. The writer Maxim Sawwateitsch lets the two married couples tell the story of the separation of Ms. Matrjona Orlowas from her husband, the 30-year-old shoemaker Grigori Orlow - called Grischka, one after the other, and makes sense of it. Gorky classifies the young couple as “by no means bad people”.

Gorky in 1889

content

On Mokraja Street in an unnamed Russian city, the merchant Petunnikov rents out apartments in an old, dirty house to poor people. The nervous shoemaker Orlov lives in the poorly ventilated basement with his illiterate wife. During their three years of marriage, the couple had one child who died at the age of one and a half. Every Sunday evening Grischka gets drunk in the pub and every time she returns home, she ruthlessly beats Matryona to the blood. The woman endures the abuse patiently. The orphaned apprentice painter Senjka Tschishik then announces to the residents every time: "The Orlov shoemakers are wedging each other!"

When cholera broke out in the city , the authorities sent a white-coated medical student who inspected the Orlov's cellar hole unannounced, good-naturedly warned about hygienic deficiencies and threatened to return soon. The couple introduced cleanliness in the basement apartment overnight. In the house, the harmonica player Kislyakov falls ill from the rampant epidemic. The residents of the house, all hesitant, admire the drinker Orlov, as he, together with the equally intrepid apprentice painter Senjka Tschishik, helps the medical student transport the musician to the cholera barracks. The latter is outside the city.

Grischka and Matryona hire themselves out as paramedics in the barracks. Kislyakov dies.

Everything will finally be fine with the Orlov couple, the reader hopes from the following reading. Because the employed Grischka is praised by the superiors in the barrack over time - so much that a long-serving paramedic becomes jealous of him. Matryona does her work quietly; can hardly believe her luck and is cuddly towards her married half. All strife suddenly seems to be forgotten over the sacrificial service to the cholera sufferer. Senjka Tschishik is admitted and dies. The death of the boy is the reason for the serious arguments between the couple to break out again. At first there are only violent verbal blows, but now Matryona von Grischka can no longer get down - as she used to in the basement. Causes of resurgent marital quarrel are also Grishka drinking and Matrjonas firm belief their current conception is disability caused by the kicks in the abdomen that she had referred Saturdays regularly. When Matrjona's husband then starts the above-mentioned "fight" again - this time in the barracks - the head doctor, Dr. Waschtchenko in between. Grischka doesn't give in, but shouts back and of course loses out. Matrjona separates - as I said - from Grischka. The doctors around Dr. Waschtschenko make sure that the shoemaker's wife gets some rest in front of the drinker Grischka after the cholera barracks are closed. Matryona learns to read and write. She becomes the happy foster mother of two orphans. In the shoemaker's workshop of a school, Matrjona works as a teacher respected by her superiors.

filming

  • In 1978, on the occasion of Gorki's 110th birthday, Mark Donskoy brought the film The Orlov couple into Russian cinemas. Nina Ruslanowa played Matryona Orlowa, Anatoli Semjonow her husband Grigory Orlow, Juri Kamorny the accordion player Kislyakov, Sergei Tegin the Senjka Tschishik and Daniil Sagal the Doctor Vashchenko.

reception

  • The love of the skillful, hardworking cobbler Grigori for his wife Matrjona has turned into hate. He does not find fulfillment as a shoemaker, but as a medic: the cholera epidemic in the city leads the couple out of their basement hole.

German-language editions

  • The Orlov couple. German first edition 1901 in the translation by August Scholz , Bruno and Paul Cassirer Verla, Berlin
  • The Orlow couple in: The unrequited love and other stories (also contains: Sketches from the Crimea. The memorandum. Twenty-six and one . The Mordwinin ). Goldmann Verlag, Munich around 1960. Goldmann's yellow paperbacks No. 1790, 182 pages

Used edition

  • The Orlov couple. German by Irene Müller. P. 130–190 in: Maxim Gorki: Erzählungen. Third volume. 535 pages. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1954

literature

  • Nadeshda Ludwig: Maxim Gorki. Life and work . Series of Contemporary Writers. People and Knowledge, Berlin 1984.

Web links

Filming 1978

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edition used, p. 530, 3rd entry
  2. ↑ Ludwig, p. 41, 5. Zvo
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 145, 10. Zvo
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 130, 12. Zvu
  5. ↑ Russian Nina Ivanovna Ruslanowa
  6. ↑ Russian Анатолий Семёнов, * 1938
  7. ↑ Russian Juri Jurjewitsch Kamorny
  8. ↑ Russian Сергей Тегин
  9. ^ Russian Daniil Lwowitsch Sagal
  10. ↑ The Orlow couple IMDb entry
  11. ↑ Ludwig, p. 41, 3rd Zvo to p. 43, 2nd Zvo