The appointment

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The appointment ( Russian Новое назначение / Novoje nasnatschenije ) is the last novel by the Soviet writer Alexander Bek , which appeared in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1971 and in 1986 - at the beginning of perestroika - in the Moscow magazine Snamja . Tatjana Bek had prepared the text for publication in the early 1960s.

As a model for the trained rolling mill engineer Alexander Leontjewitsch Onissimow, the hero of the book, the author took the Soviet statesman Ivan Fyodorowitsch Tewossjan in Russian Иван Фёдорович Тевосян . The politician's widow, who died in 1982, prevented the novel from being published in the Soviet Union during his lifetime.


overview

In February 1956, Stalin, who died in 1953, is seen on the XX. Party congress dethroned. Towards the end of 1956, Onissimow, born around 1903, was deposed as chairman of the State Committee for Metallurgy and Fuels and appointed Soviet ambassador to the northern European Kingdom of Friedland.

This chronicle, as Alexander Bek calls the novel in several places, gives insights into Stalin's leadership style. In flashbacks, the non-party academician Vasily Danilowitsch Tschelyschew, born in 1883, as a specialist in blast furnaces, formerly one of Onissimov's deputies, remembers the years of the Great Terror - i.e. 1937/1938 and then until 1943.

The reader is secretly brooding over the question: "Was Onissimov deposed because he was a Stalinist ?" The 21st century reader who closes the book has an easy answer: "Yes". The two main characters Tschelyschew and Pyotr Golownja - the latter is the blast furnace engineering and director of the Kurako - steel plant - avoid such condemnation.

Tschelyschew, who, unlike Onissimov, was able to keep his distance from Stalin, describes his work at Onissimov's side during the Stalin era in a speech on the occasion of his honor as a honored metallurgist on October 28, 1957: “I am grateful that I took part in the old man's march Russia was allowed to participate in a new Russia. ”At the end of the novel, Tschelyschew asks Golovna to visit the dying Onissimov in the sanatorium. The reader does not find out whether Golovna can forgive.

Ironically, the unequivocal title of Onissimov's disempowerment calls for an appointment - that of a meaningless figurehead in a small kingdom far from the Soviet Union. The title can also be taken as ambiguous. Appointed Onissimow was much earlier - in 1938 People's Commissar for the tank construction and 1940, People's Commissar for rolled steel and cast products made of steel .

There are two levels in the novel - the present (after 1953 ) and the past ( Stalin era from 1925). As a result, the respective level can be recognized by the tense of the same name under Content .

content

Leonti, Onissimow's grandfather, a carpenter on the banks of the Vyatka , had found happiness with Anna in Kharkov ... Onissimov himself had gone his way as a metallurgist; had earned his spurs in the English and German steel industry at a young age

In 1958 Onissimow died of lung cancer . He had only got used to smoking in 1938. However much Onissimov is involved in official matters, the loyal party member always takes time for calls from old comrades who returned to Moscow from one of the camps after Stalin's death and request modest living space . The “cup of reprisals” around 1938 had only passed him by a hair's breadth. Shortly after Ordshonikidses death, Stalin had appointed him head of the armored industry headquarters. Onissimov honors a document. In this, Stalin puts his trust in him.

His wife Jelena Antonovna works in the "Administration for the formation of labor reserves of the USSR " in a responsible position. In her 35 years of party membership, the now over 50-year-old woman and mother of 14-year-old son Andrej has not yet received any party punishment. Jelena is not going to Friedland. In Moscow she continues to work and brings up the teenage boy. Onissimow is surprised in Friedland with the encrypted "message of the dissolution of some industrial ministries". The new ambassador, a broken man, pours his heart out to Chelyshev, who happens to be in Friedland with a Soviet delegation, and tells of "the incomprehensible, terrible arrests of the years thirty-seven and thirty-eight"; tells of Jelena's uncle, the old Bolshevik Ufimzew, who had no mercy on people who “had even the slightest doubt about Stalin”. Onissimow is ready; he has to tell his guest everything - for example the answer to the question why Pyotr Golovna hates him so much. Tschelyschew had believed in young Pyotr and was right.

The aforementioned deadly smoking disease can no longer be overlooked. Jelena flies to Friedland with a doctor and brings her husband home to Moscow after a ten-month stay abroad. The wife cannot understand her husband's dismissal. On the outward flight, the worried Jelena suspects the doctor: "He [Onissimow] must have made a mistake and expressed the wrong view."

Quotes

  • Alexander Bek writes about Onissimov: “The motto of his life was: flawlessness.” “It was not for nothing that Onissimov was nicknamed the investigator by the metallurgists !” And: “The author wants to avoid banalities, but ... does not get around the truism around that there have never been people of this kind in history ... Their motto: Orders are orders! ”“ Onissimov did not tolerate contradictions. That was probably his greatest weakness. ”“ Onissimov forgave any mishap, but did not tolerate any dishonesty. ”“ The discipline ... towards Stalin, towards each of his words and instructions was more important to him than anything. ”
  • Towards the end of 1941: “... on that memorable evening ... when Hitler's bombers first flew to Moscow ... flak shots rang out. Bombs could be heard detonating. A close impact caused the building to tremble and the windows rattle. "
  • He writes about the 70-year-old Stalin: “Stalin stayed true to his habit of pacing up and down while listening ... His thick hair and also his brows and drooping mustache were gray. The sinewy hands and the pockmarked face showed age spots. His form ... was by no means weak, however. Despite his short stature and his low forehead, there was something majestic about him. "

shape

Sometimes bile-bitter humor shines through the text. When, for example, Lenin's works on the bookshelf in Onissimov's bedroom are mentioned, Stalin's works are also mentioned . The latter edition breaks off with volume 13. Death had taken the pen out of the author's hand, whom the reader can easily recognize in the text by the attribute HAUSHERR - in small caps .

The novel is full of side stories. In the opinion of the author, additional things are essential. He says, “Let's weave this story into here. We have to find a place for them somewhere in our novel anyway. ”The writer Pyshow, for example, appears. At the behest of the HOUSEHOLDER, he should write a text about the inventor Lesnych. Lesnych is a teacher from Siberia and a favorite of Stalin. In the novel, the Soviet "authorities in electrometallurgy" dismiss this inventor's "crazy idea" from the process of ore smelting without coke (i.e. steel production using only water power, which is abundantly available in Siberia). Shortly after Stalin's death, Beria was hit by the collar. Soon after, a metallurgy commission put an end to Lesnych's hustle and bustle. His furnace in Novosibirsk is destroyed. Or the story of Onissimov's brother Ivan, who perished like his wife Lisa; Ivan in prison and Lisa in a camp . Both were rehabilitated after Stalin's death.

Incidents are described that make Onissimow appear a coward. For example, after a dispute between the HOUSEMAN and Ordzhonikidze, whose ear witness Onissimov happened to be, Stalin wanted to know who was right. Onissimov doesn't understand Georgian and still takes Stalin's side.

filming

  • 1989 Канувшее время , feature film by Solomon Abramowitsch Schuster ( Russian Соломон Абрамович Шустер )

reception

German-language editions

  • Alexander Bek: The appointment. Novel. Translated from the Russian by Bernd and Nonna Nielsen-Stokkeby . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1972. 256 pages, ISBN 3-10-005701-5 (German first edition)
  • Alexander Bek: The appointment. Novel. Translated from the Russian by Helga Gutsche. With a preface by Grigory Baklanov . Volk und Welt, Berlin 1988. 244 pages. ISBN 3-353-00299-5 (edition used)

Web links

In Russian language

Remarks

  1. ↑ In the novel, Alexander Bek invented the names of the institutions. The same applies to agents whose real name is not mentioned in the text (footnote in the edition used, p. 9). With plain names are mentioned: Stalin, Kalinin , Molotow , Berija and Ordzonikidze.
  2. ↑ Denmark is omitted as the intended country, because on Onissimov's flight home to Moscow the plane is supposed to stop in Copenhagen . The meaningful name Friedland could perhaps refer to Sweden . It was spared from the last world war .
  3. ↑ Alexej Afanassjewitsch Golownja, Pyotr's father and head of a Russian metallurgic family, was Onissimov's first deputy during the war. Alexej was the only one who was allowed to contradict Onissimow at the time (edition used, p. 78 below).
  4. ↑ Onissimov joined the Bolshevik party at the age of sixteen (edition used, p. 24, 8th Zvu).
  5. ↑ This is Alexander Fadejew (see cover text of the edition used). Alexander Bek intended to write another work on Fadeev: "Perhaps we will meet Pyshow, one of the most interesting people of that time, in my next novel" (edition used, p. 118 middle).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Би-би-си | Россия | "Звезды" в стране "винтиков": "застой" BBC in Russian
  2. ↑ Edition used, p. 236, 15. Zvo
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 146 above
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 166 center
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 47, 9. Zvo
  6. ↑ Edition used, p. 71 middle
  7. ↑ Edition used, p. 74 below
  8. ↑ Edition used, p. 78 middle
  9. ↑ Edition used, p. 81 above
  10. ↑ Edition used, p. 107, 10. Zvo
  11. ↑ Edition used, p. 93, 14th Zvu
  12. ↑ Edition used, p. 50, 10. Zvo
  13. ↑ Edition used, p. 80 above
  14. ↑ Edition used, p. 127 center
  15. ↑ Канувшее время in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  16. ↑ Russian Григорий Яковлевич Бакланов