The Wurdalak family

The Wurdalak family - unpublished fragment of a stranger is a gruesomely romantic story by the Russian writer Alexeï Konstantinowitsch Tolstoï , in which the fateful business trip of a French diplomat to Moldova is reported. Looking for refuge in a family home, he is embroiled in mysterious events. The story is also known as The Vampire's Family and was published in 1840 in French under the title La Famille du Vourdalak. Fragment inédit des mémoires d'un inconnu written. The story was first published after the author's death in 1884 in Russian translation in the magazine Russki Westnik (Russischer Bote). The original French version did not appear until 1950.

action

Tolstoy on a painting by Karl Brjullow , 1836

Driven by lovesickness on a diplomatic trip to Moldova , the young French diplomat Marquis d'Urfé makes a stopover in a small village in a family home. The sudden onset of winter then prevents him from setting out again early and he has to stay there for some time.

As soon as he arrives at the hostel, he immediately notices the tension that weighs on all family members, but especially on the head of the family, Georges. Although the Marquis wants to withdraw on arrival so as not to be a burden to the downcast family, Georges explains to him what the cause of the depressed mood is. Gorcha, George's father, suddenly went out one day to hunt down the Turkish robber Ali Bek, who is said to be in the mountains. Georges, his brother Pierre and his sister Sdenka are now waiting for their father to return. Shortly before his departure, Gorcha had instructed his children to wait for him up to and including the tenth day, but then to lock the doors to him forever, because, according to Gorcha, then it would no longer be about the father of Georges, Pierre and Act Sdenka, but he would be a completely different being - a Wurdalak.

A Wurdalak, explains the narrator, is basically just like a vampire, with the exception that he only attacks family members and close friends. The day the Marquis d'Urfé arrives is the day on which the ten-day period expires, and shortly after his arrival, the residents of the house notice an approaching figure who actually turns out to be Gorcha. Pierre, Sdenka, Georges' wife and his sons are delighted to see the old man safely again. Georges, however, remains suspicious because he is not sure whether his father has returned a few minutes late. Old Gorcha seems changed to him and Pierre and Sdenka cannot help but notice that their father is different. He is extremely unfriendly and does not take his dinner. Nevertheless, they manage to provisionally convince their brother that everything is okay with their father and that he just needs a little rest.

The following night the narrator has the strange feeling that Gorcha is in his room and is slowly moving towards him. Frozen with fear, he doesn't dare move at first, but when he smells the old man's corpse-like breath, he wakes up and realizes that it could only have been a dream. Nobody is in his room. In front of his window, however, is old Gorcha, who stares at him without blinking and then disappears again. After a few moments the marquis hears the old man persuading Georges' older child, who is sleeping in the next room, to come outside with him. Although he does not believe the strange stories that have been told to him, he tries to prevent Gorcha from taking the child with him - in vain because the door to his room is locked. He calls and wakes Georges, who immediately storms to get his child back. After a while, Georges returns with his son in his arms. There is no trace of Gorcha, however.

The following night, the narrator feels he is being watched by Gorcha again, but this time he cannot move a muscle. Again the old man goes to the window in the neighboring room and persuades his grandson to give him a kiss. This time too, d'Urfé manages to wake the child's father. The little boy is passed out and very weak, he also cannot remember the reason for his faint . However, he knows that his grandpa visited him. Gorcha has disappeared again without a trace. Although the whole family lovingly cares for the boy for the rest of the night, he dies at dawn.

Meanwhile it is thawing and d'Urfé knows that the time to say goodbye is getting closer and closer. This is not quite right for him, because he has fallen in love with the pretty young Sdenka, the sister of Georges and Pierre. One night he can no longer contain his passion for her, goes into her room and asks her to spend only one hour with him. Sdenka is shy and refers to her brother, who would never agree to a connection. All of this only makes him more passionate. Suddenly both of them notice Gorcha's ashen face, who is watching them from outside. To heighten the horror, d'Urfé feels a heavy hand on his shoulder: it is Georges who harshly asks him what he is doing in Sdenka's room. D'Urfé can only refer to Gorcha to save himself from this depressing situation.

When Gorcha suddenly appears again for dinner the following day, Georges asks him to say grace, and because his father refuses, he curses him and accuses him of the death of his child. He grabs the stake he had prepared and lunges at Gorcha with the intention of piercing it through his heart, but the old man gets up and takes flight into the forest. Georges pursues him and when he returns that evening he is pale and taciturn. Shortly afterwards he approaches the narrator and kindly informs him that his stay in the hostel is over, that he has to leave early the next morning and that it is not necessary to personally say goodbye to the rest of the family. With a heavy heart, d'Urfé actually leaves the next morning and vows to return to this village when he returns home.

After some time, after his diplomatic dealings are over, the protagonist returns to the region where Georges' village is located. He no longer thinks about Sdenka and her family. Because of this, he decides to spend the night in an old monastery. From the old hermit who runs the old monastery as a hostel, d'Urfé learns what has recently happened in the village. Georges had impaled and buried old Gorcha, but the older child had already been suckled by Gorcha. It had climbed out of its grave and knocked on the door of its mother's house. Although she was present at his funeral, the mother took pity on her son and opened the door to him. The child fell upon the mother and drank her blood; she also rose from her grave and drank the blood of her youngest child, then that of her husband and finally the blood of her brother-in-law Pierre. So step by step the entire village was transformed into Wurdalaks.

The narrator dismisses the entire story as a pipe dream and nevertheless makes his way to Georges' house in the village. Once there, he finds it abandoned. Except for Sdenka, none of the family members are present. Sdenka initially tries to persuade d'Urfé to leave as quickly as possible, but suddenly her behavior changes and, like the narrator months ago, she asks him for a single hour with him. They caress each other, and when they hug, the small cross that he wears around his neck sticks into his chest. The woman, whom he just considered the most beautiful being on earth, shows herself to him at this moment for what she really is: a corpse, which, marked by death, is only controlled by the same. Her smile is nothing more than a gruesome grimace that the grave has written on her lifeless face. Only then does the protagonist notice that the house is surrounded by vampires, who are obviously waiting for Sdenka to stun the narrator and release them for everyone to eat. Under the pretext of wanting to look after his horse, he leaves the room with the promise that he will come back soon. But determined to jump on his horse and, pursued by multitudes of the undead, he finally manages to escape.

meaning

The unique story The Wurdalak family is considered to be one of the most important and - despite the low level of awareness in Western countries - most influential vampire stories . The fine construction of the plot, the slow uncovering of the terrifying truth, the therefore continuously sustained atmosphere of primitive terror, as well as the integration of some elements that are now considered paradigmatic for the representation of the vampire, raise this short story to the rank of high literature. The story also introduces the special vampire type of Wurdalak into literature. This vampire prefers to suck the blood of people who were close to him in life, e.g. B. from family members or close friends. Similar to Joseph Sheridan Le Fanus Carmilla , the vampire here focuses on a certain person or on a certain group of people.

Influences

It can be assumed that Tolstoy was well read. It is very likely that he knew the cases of vampire epidemics and hysteria at the beginning of the 18th century ( Plogojowitz in Kisolova; Paole in Medvedga) and also used them as a model. Furthermore, one can assume that he works like Heinrich August Ossenfelder The Vampire , Gottfried August Bürgers Lenore , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's The Bride of Corinth and John William Polidoris The Vampire. Knew a story . The parallels to Goethe's Die Braut von Corinth are particularly striking . The love story between the Marquis d'Urfé and Sdenka is structured similarly to that of the lovers in Goethe's poem. Furthermore, one can speculate whether Tolstoï derived the idea for his vampire, the Wurdalak, from the introduction of Polidoris The Vampire .

Characteristics of the Wurdalaks

As indicated above, The Wurdalak family - like many stories of their time - lays the groundwork for the typical representation of the vampire in literature and culture:

• The time when the Wurdalak is most active is night. But he can also act during the day without any problems (see Polidoris Der Vampyr ; LeFanus Carmilla ; Stoker's Dracula ).
• The main food of the vampire is blood.
• The Wurdalak has a hypnotizing power over the living, as evidenced by the fact that d'Urfé cannot move as long as Gorcha is staring at him.
• The Wurdalak has an aversion to everything (Christian) sacred: Gorcha does not want to say grace and Sdenka's true countenance is revealed by the small cross.
• The Wurdalak only attacks family members or people close to them. The Wurdalak Gorcha initially only bites members of his family and Sdenka is the first to attack the Marquis directly. She loves him and so, by definition, he becomes a potential Wurdalak meal.
• The Wurdalak is neither beautiful nor erotic. Sdenka is an exception, but this may be the case because the Marquis d'Urfé idealized her and did not initially see or want to see her as a monster.
• The female Wurdalak is surrounded by an erotic aura and sexually attractive, which is reflected in the extraordinary beauty of Sdenka after her transformation.

filming

The Wurdalak family was filmed in 1963 by Mario Bava as an episode Der Wurdelak ( I Wurdalak ) of his film The Three Faces of Fear ( I tre volti della paura , Italy 1963, with Boris Karloff in the role of Gorcha). In contrast to Tolstoï's story, d'Urfé in Bava's film bears the first name Vladimir and at the end is bitten by the vampirized Sdenka. In contrast to the Italian ( I Wurdalak ), English ( The Wurdalak ) or French ( Les Wurdalaks ) title, the German title of the film episode Der Wurdelak is written with an e instead of an a .

The Italian horror film "La notte dei diavoli" by director Giorgio Ferroni from 1972 is a slightly more modern version with slight modifications and an additional framework. The special effects in this film come from ET creator Carlo Rambaldi.

radio play

The Wurdalak family appeared in 2004 under the title Die Familie des Vampirs as part 3 of the radio play series Horror Cabinet in the audio book publisher Titania Medien (written and directed by Marc Gruppe, ISBN 978-3-7857-3242-7 ). The radio play precedes and follows the story of d'Urfé with a framework story : the aged d'Urfé is at an evening party as part of the Congress of Vienna and is persuaded - with some flattery about his narrative art - to share a memory from his younger years. Then d'Urfé begins his story. At the end of his report, his audience thanked them for the extraordinary entertainment and went to sleep. Suddenly the Marquis notices that - contrary to what was assumed - he is not alone in the salon of the Vienna Palace: Suddenly Sdenka is at his side. This ends the radio play.

Audio book

The Wurdalak family was published in 2012 as an MP3 download by Theodor Boder Verlag, Mumpf, Switzerland (speaker: Rainer Maria Ehrhardt ) ISBN 978-3-905802-25-2 and in 2013 as a CD edition by the same publisher ISBN 978-3-905802 -24-5

literature

• Alexei K. Tolstoy: The Wurdalak Family: An Old Vampire Story . Narrative. Translated from Russian by Herbert von Hoebner, revised and adapted by Uwe Siebert. Illustrations by Daniel Brandt. Pandämonium Verlag, Söhrewald, May 2018, ISBN 978-3-944893-17-4
• Alexeï Konstantinowitsch Tolstoï: The Wurdalak family. Unpublished fragment of an unknown person . Narrative. Edition bilingual. Translated from the French by Stéphanie Queyrol. Theodor Boder Verlag, Mumpf, Switzerland 2012, print edition ISBN 978-3-905802-21-4 , e-book edition ISBN 978-3-905802-23-8 , with explanations by the translator about the author and work, e-book Edition ISBN 978-3-905802-27-6 , only new German translation by Stéphanie Queyrol.
• Alexej K. Tolstoy: The Wurdalak family. Unpublished fragment from the MEMOIRS OF AN UNKNOWN . Translated from the French and provided with an afterword by Ulrich Klappstein. JMB Verlag , Hannover 2014 (= Cabinet of Fantastics 53) ISBN 978-3-944342-49-8
• Alexei Tolstoy: The Vampire. The Wurdalak family. 2 ore. From the Russian or French by Werner Creutziger. Construction, Berlin 1972; as well as (only The Vampire ) in Vampires. Anthology. Ed. Helmut Degner ; Translator of this ore. Eva Luther. Fackelverlag, Olten 1969, without ISBN, pp. 174–207
• Alexej K. Tolstoy: The Curse of the Vourdalak . In: David Stuart Davies (ed.): Children of the Night. Classic Vampire Stories . Wordsworth Editions Limited, Ware 2007
• Claude Lecouteux: The History of the Vampires. Metamorphosis of a Myth. Translated from the French by Harald Ehrhardt. Albatros, Düsseldorf 2008

Source

• Lequesne, Paul: Préface. Les vampires du Comte Alexeï Tolstoï. In Tolstoï, La Famille du Vourdalak. Précédé de Le Rendez-vous dans Trois Cents Ans et suivi de Oupires. Traduction et préface de Paul Lequesne . Classiques slaves. Lausanne: Editions l'Age d'Homme, 1993. (pp. 7–19)
• Queyrol, Stéphanie: Explanations on Alexeï Konstantinowitsch Tolstoïs “The Wurdalak family”. In Tolstoï the Wurdalak family. Unpublished fragment of an unknown person . Narrative. Edition bilingual. Translated from the French by Stéphanie Queyrol. Mumpf: Theodor Boder Verlag, 2012. (pp. 55–90)

Web links

• Alexei Konstantinowitsch Tolstoy: The Wurdalaken family in the Gutenberg-DE project
• Ossenfelder's poem The Vampire
• Theodor Boder Verlag

References and comments

1. ↑ Lequesne: Préface . 1993, p. 18.
2. ↑ Lequesne: Préface . 1993, p. 10.
3. ↑ Queyrol: Explanations on Alexeï Konstantinowitsch Tolstoïs “The Wurdalak family” . 2012, pp. 68-71.
4. ↑ Queyrol: Explanations on Alexeï Konstantinowitsch Tolstoïs “The Wurdalak family” . 2012, pp. 71-73.
5. ↑ titania-medien.de , vampire-world.com - Black Sabbath (film) in the English language Wikipedia
6. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from January 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from January 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.