The gravel pit
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The gravel pit ( Belarusian Кар'ер, Russian Карьер ) is a novel by the Belarusian writer Wassil Bykau , which was written in 1985 and translated into Russian by the author two years later . The text was printed in 1987 in issue 19 of the Roman newspaper, which appears twice a month in Moscow .
content
- Ahejeu
Pawel Petrovich Ahejeu, son of a collective farm farmer, was introduced to the arms trade by an uncle. After attending military school, the 22-year-old joined the army and in four years had served up to lieutenant. When the war broke out , the 26-year-old party candidate was chief of ammunition for a rifle regiment , commanded by the stern Major Papou. Having broken out of the encirclement, Ahejeu worked in the resistance and joined the partisans.
After the war, Ahejeu studied, worked in economics and finally taught at a university in Minsk . The widower Ahejeu retires in the early summer of 1980. His late wife came from the area around the Volga . The common 28-year-old son Arkads works as a designer .
- action
The action alternates between the summer of 1980 and the early autumn of 1941. The action takes place in an unnamed small town in northwest Belarus. This city, occupied by the Wehrmacht in 1941 , is not a district town. The small town of Waukawysk can be reached on foot twelve werts from Dünaburg .
- Summer 1980
Ahejeu camps on the edge of that small town between the cemetery and an old gravel pit where he survived his execution in 1941. The senior civil servants in charge do not understand the senior's private digs in this pit. Ahejeu is looking for her remains. Who is she? The first lieutenant met two women in the small town in 1941. One was the priest's wife and former elementary school teacher Warwara Mikalajeuna Baranouskaja, who had housed him for almost three months and who had been shot by the Germans at the train station. The other was his lover Maria. Was Maria deported to a concentration camp ? Nobody knows. Maria is missing. Ahejeu is looking for Maria.
- Late summer 1941
All of Belarus is occupied by the Wehrmacht. Ahejeu breaks out of the cauldron near Lida with 56 men . Two get through - he and Lieutenant Malakovich. The latter had taken over a news train three days before the start of the war as a graduate of a military school in Ahejeu's regiment . Malakowitsch takes Ahejeu, who was wounded above the knee during the outbreak, back to his hometown - the small town mentioned above -, disguises himself as a civilian and places Ahejeu with Ms. Baranouskaja. With the best will in the world, the wounded man cannot run further than the 120 kilometers covered. The lieutenant can no longer even wield a weapon. The priest's wife brings a midwife, the Jew Jausejeuna. Ahejeu operates an elongated splinter from the festering wound.
The "civilian" Lieutenant Malakowitsch visits the first lieutenant at Frau Baranouskaja's and introduces him to his classmate, the student Kisljakou, as a liaison man. Malakowitsch and Kisljakou are in front of the local police chief Drasdsenka, a former battalion chief of staff in the Armored Corps , on guard.
The police and Germans transport the Jewish residents of the small town away. Everyone is shot in the old peat quarry. The midwife Jausejeuna is among the fatalities.
Lieutenant Malakovich comes to the disabled Ahejeu with a new visitor - a certain Anton Szjapanawitsch Woukau. That is the party secretary of the district. Woukau, who was also hidden by Mrs. Baranouskaja, does not have to recruit Ahejeu to join the resistance fight. Since the latter cannot make his way to the distant front on foot because of his leg wound, he wants to participate on site. Ahejeu has assumed the identity of the fallen son of his landlady and is now called Alej Kirylawitsch Baranouski. He was a non-party railroad engineer born in 1915. According to Woukau, Ms. Baranouskaja enjoys the trust of the police as a priest's wife. Woukau informed Ahejeu that he had used Malakowitsch at the station. Woukau will send people to Ahejeu who can be recognized by the slogan "Woukau Ihnazii".
For Mrs. Baranouskaja's missing husband, as priest after the revolution, there had been no mercy . For a while, the clergyman kept himself and his small family afloat as a cobbler. Ahejeu alias Alej Baranouski takes over the priest's shoemaker's chest. One of his first customers is a German colonel. The German recognizes the wounded “cobbler” - instinctively, so to speak - as an enemy officer and wants to put him in the prisoner of war camp. Drasdsenka - following the colonel's entourage - prevents that; vouches for Alej Baranouski. In return, Ahejeu is blackmailed by Drasdsenka; undertakes in writing to collaborate with the police and the SD .
As a customer, the “shoemaker” met the 21-year-old pedagogy student Maria, who was born in Minsk. The young girl had visited her cousin and is now stuck in the small town due to the war.
A stranger brings a sack full of army shoes for repair on behalf of Woukau. Ahejeu's landlady, who wanted to stay away for three days, is not coming back. A certain Kaweschka visits Ahejeu and demands that the "shoemaker" should report a farmer from Berasjanka to the police as soon as he appears and asks about the priest's wife.
Maria desperately asks Ahejeu for help. Drasdsenka is after her. Ahejeu hides and takes care of the girl in the living area of his missing landlady. Maria and Ahejeu find each other. Maria feels pregnant and takes the "guilt" on herself. Wassil Bykau writes, “that he [Ahejeu] loved her against all intention and reason and commandments of war. Surely he should have told her that, but it was clear to both of them without any words. "
Ahejeu has lost contact with Kisljakou and goes to Malakowitsch - contrary to the regulations. The lieutenant perks up when Ahajeu confesses his signature in Drasdsenka's notebook - concerning the readiness for spy services - and also tells him about the opaque Kaweschka. Ahejeu wants to see the partisans and wants to speak to Woukau.
Drasdsenka visits Ahejeu in his accommodation. The lieutenant is supposed to assist the police chief in arresting Ms. Baranouskaja.
A stranger brings Ahejeu a rather heavy bag full of explosives. Maria offers herself; wants to bring the package to Malakovich at the station. The young woman is caught by the police at the train station.
Drasdsenka appears again and arrests Ahejeu. The prisoner doesn't want to know anything about explosives. When confronting them, Ahejeu does not want to know the battered Maria, but Maria remembers the shoemaker whom she once visited with Frau Baranouskaja. One thing is certain for Ahejeu - Maria did not betray him. Drasdsenka hits Maria in the face in the presence of Ahejeu. Then the beloved is taken away. Wassil Bykau writes: "After two steps she was ... disappeared from his life ...". Ahejeu is tortured.
In the police prison, Malakowitsch settles accounts with the resistance fighters. Kisljakou betrayed him under the torture. Ahejeu sent Maria off unprepared.
After the execution in the gravel pit, Ahejeu survived being shot through the chest. A coach driver driving by brings the almost bled to safety. Ahejeu is ill for the winter of 1942.
filming
- 1990, Soviet Union , Mosfilm : The gravel pit by Nikolai Vladimirovich Skuibin
German-language editions
- Wassil Bykau: The gravel pit. Novel. Translated from the Russian by Harry Burck . Publishing house Volk und Welt. Berlin 1988 (1st edition, edition used), ISBN 3-353-00300-2
Web links
- Full text
- Entry at fantlab.ru (Russian)
Remarks
- ↑ Wassil Bykau mentions a very long walk, because the straight line between Dünaburg and Waukawysk alone is 332 kilometers long. The path leads over Lida .
- ↑ There are quite a few indirect references to the approximate location of the unnamed place of the action in the text of the novel. For example, Ahejeu's landlady taught mostly in the Dryssa district before her time as a pope woman .
- ↑ Woukau 1943 falls at Mohilov (used Edition, pp 20, 20 ZVO).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Russian: Роман-газета
- ↑ Russian: Двинск
- ↑ Edition used, p. 110, 10. Zvu
- ↑ Russian: Волковыск
- ↑ Edition used, p. 140, 3rd Zvu
- ↑ Edition used, pp. 20 to 21 and p. 371, 4th Zvo
- ↑ Edition used, p. 96, 12. Zvo and p. 97, 11. Zvo
- ↑ Belarusian: Беразянка
- ↑ Edition used, p. 271, 4th Zvo
- ↑ Edition used, p. 329, 9th Zvu
- ↑ Russian: Николай Владимирович Скуйбин, geb. July 31, 1954 in Moscow
- ↑ Entry in the IMDb