The soft

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The gentle ( Russian Кроткая ) is a short story by Fyodor Dostoyevsky . It was first published in the November 1876 edition of Dostoyevsky's diary of a writer, which he himself published at the time .

background

Dostoevsky first published the poem Die Sanfte (subtitle: A fantastic story) in the year 1876 as the November number in his diary of a writer , whose entries from 1873 to 1881 appeared as contributions to the weekly Der Staatsbürger . The Jewish-Russian literary historian Alexander Eliasberg (1878–1924) published the entire text material of the almost 2,000-page Dostoevsk diary from 1921 to 1923 in full at the Musarion publishing house in Munich. In the main Dostoyevsky dealt in his diary of a writer with articles on political issues of the day and with essays on social, religious, literary and other problems. The exceptions that Dostoevsky included in the material of his diary for purely practical reasons are three smaller poems, the Bobók Dance of Death (1873) and the novella The Gentle . A Fantastic Tale (1876) and The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877).

shape

In the case of the story The Gentle , Dostoevsky found the inspiration for a short newspaper note that a young woman had thrown herself out of the window with an image of a saint. In the author's preliminary remarks that preceded the two chapters of the story, Dostoevsky apologizes for the fact that this time, instead of the “diary” in its usual form, he is only bringing a novella. He calls his novella a "fantastic" story, although he himself considers it to be extremely realistic. The naming of the fantastic in his realistic narrative relates solely to its form. The form of this poem, Dostoevsky explains in the preliminary remark, can neither be related to a pure narrative nor to mere recordings. Rather, his monological poetry represents a psychological investigation that aims exclusively at finding the truth. The revelation of the truth, says Dostoevsky, is the real theme of this gigantic monologue that the forty-one-year-old hypochondriac pawnbroker after the fatal fall of his young, sixteen-year-old wife, who lies in front of him in the guest room of his apartment on two l'hombre tables pushed together , leads with itself.

The monologue of the hypochondriac pawnbroker, aimed at establishing the truth, takes on, as Dostoyevsky writes, “in a slightly misleading form”, one time he speaks to himself, another time “he addresses himself to an invisible listener like a judge”. Without this second motive, in addition to the truth motif, of a judge committed to justice, Dostoyevsky's poetry would lack the emphatic pathos of reality that can only be found in people; everything else, laws, morals, life, state, faith are dead and to him died.

content

A pawnbroker tries to "get revenge on society" by making enough money from his business within three years that he can settle in the country. He has felt marginalized from society since he was dishonorably discharged from military service for cowardice. He is accused of avoiding a duel. His dismissal impoverishes him and makes him homeless for a while before inheriting 3000 rubles and opening the pawn shop.

In this situation he gets to know a 16-year-old woman (“the gentle one”), of whom the reader already knows from the introduction of the fictional author that she committed suicide before the time of the narration. She pledges her dear items to advertise in a newspaper seeking employment as a governess. The pawnbroker subtly humiliates her in these deals, especially one situation is mentioned in which she brings him an icon, which he finally places in his own reliquary. Through research, the pawnbroker learns that the young woman lives with her tyrannical aunts and is about to be married off to a disgusting shopkeeper. He takes advantage of the situation and asks for the young woman's hand. In her need she marries him.

After an initially quiet marriage, some sort of battle breaks out, triggered by disagreements over how to run the pawnbroking business. The gentle girl escapes from the shared apartment, although the pawnbroker has not yet allowed her to do so. She meets with an officer named Efimovich. The betrayed husband learns about it through the two aunts, and then he surprises his wife on a rendezvous with Efimowitsch. The next morning he wakes up and feels a gun on his head. He opens his eyes briefly, but closes them again, whereupon the gentle girl gives up the obvious decision to kill him after a while.

Then the pawnbroker buys a second bed and a partition. The gentle one gets sick, recovers and lives very isolated. One day she sings in the presence of the pawnbroker. He concludes that it seems to her that he is not there (she usually only sings in his absence), whereupon he makes her a declaration of love and offers her to close his business and go on a trip to Boulogne (France). The gentle one seems to be moved and apologizes, she promises to respect him from now on. He goes away for a moment to organize the passports for the trip - when he comes back she has thrown herself out of the window.

Interpretative approaches

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The duel that takes place at the end of the first chapter is the turning point of the narrative. The duel from the pawnbroker's history is repeated here. Again his cowardice prevails and he closes his eyes - which he perceives as victory, but is interpreted by the gentle one as cowardly surrender. So he fails again, and the different perceptions of the relationship (the gentle one seeks an autonomous, independent area while her husband tries to subjugate her) ultimately leads to suicide, which is a radicalization of the program of the gentle ones and ultimately a solution by creating one autonomous realm in death.

The icon she takes with her to death plays an essential role. Although it is an icon of Mary in the text, it is to be regarded as a reference to the icon of Saint Pelageja. Because according to many opinions, the story is an allusion to the legend of Saint Pelageja, who is said to have died a martyr's death because she did not want to marry a pagan on the grounds that her love was only for God and that she wanted to give him her purity, that is, virginity .

expenditure

First edition
  • Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Diary of a writer . 4 vols. Ed. And trans. by Alexander Eliasberg. Munich 1921–1923.
Vol. 3: October 1876 to June 1877. 1922. In it: The gentle one . [1876].
German translations
  • The soft. A fantastic story. German by Alexander Eliasberg . Leipzig: Insel-Verl. 1914. (Insel-Bücherei. 116.)
  • The soft. Novella. With 10 lithographs by Bruno Krauskopf . Berlin 1920.
  • The soft. A fantastic story . With 8 etchings by Dietz Edzard . German by Johannes von Guenther . Munich 1923.
  • The soft. A fantastic story . With 15 printed pen drawings by Marta Worringer . German translation by Alexander Eliasberg. Cologne 1925.
Also as an Anaconda 2010 edition .
  • The soft. A fantastic story . From the Russ. transfer by Johannes von Guenther. Leipzig: Reclam 1925. (Reclam's Universal Library. 6570.)
  • The gentle and other short stories. Translated into German from. Karl Notzel . Munich 1927.
  • The soft. A story . With 5 illustrations by M. Pino. Translated by Ilse Krämer . Zurich 1946. (On the Permanent in Time. 21.)
  • The soft. A fantastic story . Transferred by EK Rahsin . Munich: Piper 1948. (Piper library. 26.)
  • The soft. A fantastic story . From the Russ. transfer by Waldemar Jollos. Bern 1955. (Parnassus Library. 102.)
  • The gentle one . Translated into German by Karl Nötzel. Krefeld 1965.
  • The gentle one . With 8 original etchings by Boris Saborow. Translated from the Russ. by Werner Creutziger. Dresden 1978. (Printed by the Leipzig press. 7.)
  • The soft. A fantastic story . From the Russ. trans. by Wolfgang Kasack . Frankfurt am Main: Insel-Verrl. 1988. (Insel-Taschenbuch. 1138.)
  • The soft. Fantastic story . With 15 pen drawings by Marta Worringer . From the Russ. by Werner Creutziger. Berlin 1990.

Film adaptations

The 2017 film The Gentle by Sergei Loznitsa does not refer to the work dealt with here.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fyodor Michailowitsch Dostojewskij: Diary of a writer. 4 vols. Ed. U. transfer v. Alexander Eliasberg. Munich 1921–1923. Vol. 1: 1873. 1921. 408 pp. - Vol. 2: January to September 1876. 1921. 480 pp. - Vol. 3: October 1876 to June 1877. 1922. 464 pp. - Vol. 4: July 1877 to January 1881. 1923.