The clergy

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nikolai Leskov in 1872

The clergy , also The Canons , The Priests of Stargorod ( Russian Соборяне , Soborjane ) is a novel by the Russian writer Nikolai Leskow , which was written from 1866 to 1871 and was published in Katkows literary magazine Russki Westnik in 1872 . Gorky called the chronicle, in which the clergy's conflict with the state power is thematized, a “splendid book”.

action

The five books of the novel deal from the summer of 1867 to the spring of 1868. They tell the story of three clergy friends from the cathedral parish of Stargorod on the Turiza:

The more than 70-year-old childless Saveli Tuberosow is the hero of the novel. The unrestrained warrior Achilla Desnitsyn, around 50 years old, surprises with one carelessness after the other. The lean, tiny, reserved, child-rich Zechariya Benefaktow appears less prominent.

1

Deacon Achilla, intolerant of unbelief, persecutes the teacher Warnawka Prepotensky, the son of the sacrificial bread baker Prepotenskaya, in his righteous anger. Prepotensky would like a human skeleton for teaching purposes . So, with the permission of the district judge, he cooked up a body of water that had been washed ashore by the fast Turiza on the Stargorod bank during the last flood. Achilla does not get to the provost Saweli with his latest problem, because Natalja Nikolajewna shields her husband Saweli from the annoying deacon. Saweli uses the quiet of the night to make a new entry in his diary. Before doing this, he flips through the notes. These range from February 4, 1831 to June 9, 1865. On May 9, 1836, the Chapel of the Old Believers was destroyed. In the early summer of the same year, Saweli had been reported by the city governor about dealing with the Raskolniki and had to answer to the bishop in the provincial capital. In April 1837 Saweli again had to respond to a complaint against him with the same subject. A little later the Stargorod police chief reported him because he had spoken to the Raskolniki. August 10, 1839 - a happy date - Saweli had been promoted to provost. In the early summer of 1841, Saweli almost was expelled from the clergy because he had campaigned against the landlords for the impoverished fron peasants. From 1846 Poles were banished to the district town of Stargorod. In retrospect, while reading through his entries, Saweli deeply regrets a complaint he - the Russian - had written on February 5, 1849 against the two Poles who mocked the Russians. Thereupon the chief of the gendarmerie deported two Poles to the provincial capital. In late 1849, Saweli was almost beaten by the bishop for his “intrigues”. Seven years later, one of the Poles reported by Saweli, who had meanwhile married a Russian woman, had been elected district judge by the nobility. Saweli had made up with the new district judge. After the brotherly kiss - only a little later - there was another falling out. On July 18, 1859 Deacon Achilla was caught as a repeat offender blessing . There had always been trouble with Achilla. On September 9, 1860, the deacon flogged the sexton Sergej, because Sergej had informed the provost of Achillas' passion for hunting.

In his new diary entry, Saweli reflects on the incident with the corpse of water washed up on the urban bank of Turiza. Did the dead have to be buried in church?

Achilla - as Saweli muses - never gets tired; continually wants to eradicate the pernicious free-thinking.

One of these free thinkers, the teacher Prepotensky, considers Saweli and Achilla to be informers of the secret police.

Achilla, relying on his brute strength against the unbelievers when it comes to the skeleton, can only be brought to reason by Saweli with great difficulty. Achilla had pursued the teacher Prepotensky. The latter, with a few skeleton parts under his arm, was just about able to hand the precious bones over to his like-minded Darya Nikolajewna Bisjukina, the wife of the liberal excise taker Bisjukin, through the open apartment window.

2

Achilla is happy. After the supplication service, it finally rained. The deacon pulls the petty bourgeois Danilka by the ear because this heretic loudly trumpets that nature has made it rain.

State power from Petersburg arrives in Stargorod in the form of the auditor, Prince Afanassi Fedosejitsch Bornovolokow . The civil servant prince stays in the house of his old student friend Bisjukin. The secretary, accompanied by the auditor, a certain Ismail Petrov Termossessow, centaur-shaped and also one of Bisjukin's former fellow students, approaches the desirable Darja Bisjukina so possessively that this attractive woman only wants to submit to the uninvited guest. Termosessow asks the Bisjukina about their enemies. The woman promptly names the deacon Achilla and the provost Tuberosow. Termossessow wants to kill the provost - at least socially. As a reward, Bisjukina kisses the secretary.

The secretary Termossessow recommends the auditor Bornovolokow as the first victim, the "free-spirited Popen Tuberosow": "Get to the church: That's where the main evil lies!" The superior auditor asks his subordinate secretary why he - with such hyperactivity - is not in Petersburg Spy is active. Termossessow replied that all positions in the residence were currently filled.

Darja Bisjukina wants to get rid of the teacher Prepotensky, but Termosessow befriends him. The teacher brings in the petty bourgeois Danilka. The extremely strong Termossessow forces the petty bourgeoisie to sign a complaint against Achilla sent to the auditor's address. The ear plucking should not be forgotten. Termossessow formulates alleged misconduct of the provost in the advertisement.

3

During a dinner with the district judge, Termossessow befriends deacon Achilla and the humble pastor Zecharija. The secretary will soon be on two terms with Achilla. Termossessow tries in vain to persuade the teacher Prepotensky, who is present at the evening party, to denounce. Under no circumstances does the teacher want to record the intrusive speeches of the “priests and aristocrats”. On the way home from the evening at the district judge, the postmaster's wife is impressed by Termossessov's male appearance.

The next day Termossessow asks the provost in his office language in writing to the auditor Bornowolokow. It is about "pernicious and indecent acts of the deacon Achilla Desnitsyn". Saweli does not respond to the official summons.

The postmaster's wife secretly opens strangers' letters. She lets her new friend Termossessow read a letter from his superior Bornowolokow to his Petersburg cousin Nina. In this the prince burdens himself and his secretary. Termossessow blackmailed his superiors with this letter. The prince has to sign a letter in which truths and lies about the provost are "reported". With all this, the auditor cannot understand why Termossessow is slandering. The slanderer replies that relatives take care of aristocrats, but that as a bourgeoisie he has to do everything himself. Bornovolokov knows that Termosessov is a thief. But he doesn't know that the diamonds Termossessow stole from Bisjukina at the last evening party are in the lining of his coat, sewn in by the thief Termossessow. The two gentlemen from Petersburg are leaving.

A gendarme and a consistorial officer come to the provost Saweli and take him to the bishop in the provincial capital under supervision.

4th

Achilla uses herself desperately for Saweli in Stargorod. The city leaders shrugged their shoulders and regretted one of the provost's “incitatory sermons”. Even in the governorate capital, Achilla cannot do anything for his friend Saweli. Saweli says to Achilla: “Stop this wandering around, my friend; for us clergy there are no defenders. ”When Achilla returns to Stargorod, discouraged, he is received by his friend, Pastor Sacharija Benefaktow. The bishop, Achilla reports to him, is secretly on Saweli's side. As sexton at the bishopric, he only demoted the provost "so that he would not come into contradiction with the officials of secular power." Since Saweli neither pleads guilty to the governor nor asks for forgiveness, the bishop cannot do otherwise: the penitent Saweli must Sawing firewood every day in the cloister courtyard. Natalja Nikolajewna helps her husband; goes to the provincial capital and has to do unusual physical work there - like his husband. The woman dies of a cold and overwork. Contrary to expectations, the postmaster's wife spoke out on behalf of the exiled provost. She wants to take revenge on Termossessow and show it to the Stargoroders.

The teacher Prepotensky flees the city. Nobody knows the cause of the escape

5

Saweli buried, left alone, his dear wife. The bishop suspends the stubborn old man, who does not want to give in, for another six months. Finally Saweli is allowed to go home and takes Achilla into his apartment. Saweli is at home and Achilla is on duty in the cathedral.

Achilla is transferred to Petersburg and meets the teacher Prepotensky there. The latter has become an editor and has married a lady who beats him up many times. The editor reports that Termossessow initially made good money as a secret service agent monitoring decent people, but then ended up behind bars as a banknote counterfeiter.

Achilla returns to Stargorod. Saweli, still suspended, catches a cold. The provost dies in the presence of his two friends Achilla and Sacharija Benefaktow. The subsequent lifting of Saweli's suspension comes too late.

A new provost begins his service.

Achilla gets typhoid . Zechariah is sitting on her friend's hospital bed. Achilla dies. Not long after that, Zechariah dies.

The clergy. A Stargorod Chronicle , 1921 edition by Ladyschnikow , Berlin

Adaptation

Testimonials

Reissner notes:

  • In 1877 Leskow wrote: In fifty years nobody will read the novel again.
  • 1886: The author is surprised by a translation of his work. Publishers from London and Baden are also asking for permission to print.

reception

  • Contemporaries: Dostoyevsky and Saltykov-Shchedrin did not agree with the drawing of the nihilists . Tolstoy had characterized the novel as slightly eccentric.
  • 1945: L. Grossman sees this work as "an epic painting that is not based on 'a subject core or a fable'".
  • 1959: Sechkareff writes, Saweli "... is an example of how people with large investments in the petty Russian bureaucratic state perish ...". "The Clergy" is the third version of the novel. The first, dating from 1867, is called “Those who wait for the movement of water”. Saweli a Harrender - that fits the character of this clergyman perfectly. Version two - "The House of God" - addresses the three acting clergy in a picture in the title. Setschkareff now claims: “Leskov obviously lost track of his work due to the many revisions: this explains the many inconsistencies in the chronology of the diary of“ Saweli. Setschkareff calls Achilla a great, good boy "... with the real simplicity of the mind and also of the mind ...".
  • 1968: For D. Tschižewskij the provost Saweli stands in the novel as “a fixed axis” for the scenes, episodes, insertions, stories, anecdotes, newspaper notes, diary entries and dreams.
  • 1970: Zelinsky names Goldsmith's pastor of Wakefield as well as Balzac's pastor of Tours and the country pastor as novel models (1839). Two objections to the text had persisted over the decades: First, the loose, jagged fable was criticized and, second, the overdrawing of the characters (for example, with the appearance of the coarse, gripping Termossessow in the second book, all the sedate narrative comfort of the first book has its abruptness End reached). The first objection is a matter of definition (What is a novel?) And Setschkareff does not accept the second at all. Because the exaggeration is Leskovian humor; more precisely - one of the unmistakable elements constituting the novel or "plastic law" of the poetic imagination ". Zelinsky generalized: "The conflict between church and state and the subject of nihilism are just two problems of an infinite number of problems ... The complex whole that stands before us in this chronicle ... is the nature of the world ...".
  • 1975: Reissner makes it clear that Saweli, who is leafing through his diary at the beginning of the novel, is presented to the reader as a failure. Leskow presents complex characters like Saweli by not only letting the chronicler tell the story, but by occasionally changing the narrative perspective. Leskow use meaningful names - for example Saweli Tuberosow, based on the tuberose .

literature

German-language editions

Output used:

  • The clergy. A chronicle. Translated from the Russian by Günter Dalitz. P. 5–401 in Eberhard Reissner (Ed.): Nikolai Leskow: Collected works in individual volumes. The clergy. 807 pages. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1975 (1st edition)

Secondary literature

  • Vsevolod Sechkareff : NS Leskov. His life and his work. 170 pages. Verlag Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1959
  • The clergy. P. 170–250 in Bodo Zelinsky : Roman and Romanchronik. Structural studies on Nikolaj Leskov's storytelling. 310 pages. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 1970

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ The clergy stands for the clergy .
  2. ↑ Title with biblical background ( "In Jerusalem there are the Sheep Gate a pool ... as soon as the water wells up ..." ( John 5.7  EU )) was intended as a nod to a hope Leskov: The living conditions in Russia should change; more precisely: improve (Reissner in the follow-up to the edition used, p. 771, 13th issue). Leskow published an episode from the first variant of the novel under Kotin the breadwinner and Platonida (Reissner in the follow-up to the edition used, p. 771, 6th supplement).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Reissner in the follow-up to the edition used, p. 770 middle
  2. ^ Gorki, quoted in Reissner in the follow-up to the edition used, p. 772, 5th Zvo
  3. ^ Reissner in the follow-up to the edition used, p. 775, 2nd Zvu
  4. ↑ Russian старый город - Stary Gorod - Old Town
  5. ↑ Russian Турица (Turiza) in Peretschyn Rajon
  6. ↑ Russian протоиерей Савелий Туберозов
  7. ↑ Russian священник Захария Бенефактов
  8. ↑ Russian диакон Ахилла Десницын
  9. ↑ Edition used, p. 136 below
  10. ↑ Edition used, p. 208, 7. Zvo, p. 210 below, p. 211, 9. Zvo
  11. ↑ Edition used, p. 217, 8th Zvu
  12. ↑ Edition used, p. 302, 16. Zvu
  13. ↑ russ. Садур, Нина Николаевна , source: russ. Соборяне
  14. ^ Reissner in the follow-up to the edition used, p. 776, 11th Zvu
  15. ^ Reissner in the follow-up to the edition used, p. 776
  16. ↑ Grossman, quoted in Zelinsky, p. 170, 11. Zvu (see also p. 299 under Bibliographies, 5th entry)
  17. ↑ Setschkareff, p. 77, 1. Zvo
  18. ↑ Setschkareff, p. 75.6. Zvu
  19. ↑ Setschkareff, p. 76, 15. Zvo
  20. ↑ Setschkareff, p. 76, 20. Zvo
  21. ↑ Tschižewskij, quoted in Zelinsky, p. 189, 9. Zvo (see also p. 304, first entry)
  22. ↑ Zelinsky, p. 170, 6th Zvu
  23. ↑ W. Preisendanz , quoted in Zelinsky, p. 171 (see also p. 307, 12th entry)
  24. ↑ Zelinsky, p. 199, 4th Zvu
  25. ↑ Reißner in the postscript output used, S. 770, 19. ZVO to page 777, 5. ZVO