The clock (Turgenev)

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Alexei Kharlamov 1875:
Ivan Turgenev

The clock ( Russian Часы , Tschassy) is a novella by the Russian writer Ivan Turgenew , which was written in Paris in 1875 and published in the Deutsche Rundschau in February 1876 . Eugen Marx published the text in book form - also in 1876 - in Leipzig . This commemoration of the dead appeared in Russian in 1891.

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The narrator Alexei, an old man, remembers his cousin David in 1850, who died as an artillery lieutenant in 1812 during the Battle of Borodino while defending the Schevardino entrenchments.

Old Alexei works out David's “strong personality” on the basis of a bizarre incident that happened in 1801 in his father's Ryazan wooden house on the banks of the Oka : Alexei will be the darned French pocket watch that his godfather Nastassei Putschkow gave him on his 15th name day March 7th, despite the energetic help of one year older David, did not go.

Both boys attend the Ryazan high school; so belong to the Ryazan rulers. Alexei sees it differently. He describes his father Prokofi Petrovich a little disrespectfully as a corner lawyer , i.e. a man who barely keeps his family afloat with unfair practice. Alexei also calls his godfather Nastassei Putschkow and the former civil servant Latkin, a former employee of his father, an angle lawyer. The father had fallen out with Latkin well over two years before the start of the plot and fired him from the business. When Latkin's wife died in 1799, Latkin had suffered a stroke and has been stammering ever since. Latkin's eldest daughter, Raissa, runs the extremely poor household after her mother's death. In all of this, Latkin even had a serf.

The text can be read as a love story. David stays with his one year older friend Raissa. The couple married in 1806. The novella is actually much more than just a love story. Alexei's father has a brother Yegor. He had learned French because he wanted to read Voltaire in the original. That was bad for him under Paul I. In 1797 Yegor was deported to Siberia “because of outrageous excesses and Jacobin thoughts” . After Paul I died in the early spring of 1801, it was rumored that when Alexander I came to power , the exile could soon return to Ryazan. Alexei’s father had taken Jegor’s son David into his home in 1797 for a reason. It was said behind closed doors that the “notary” was responsible for the exile of brother Yegor with a careless remark. Alexei believes the rumor because he closely observes his father's behavior towards David and describes his father's diligence towards David's father when he actually arrives from Siberia in Ryazan towards the end of the text. But Yegor doesn't hold back against his brother. He is leaving Ryazan; goes to Moscow with David and Raissa .

Social criticism

The narrator Alexei paints the picture of his father ambiguously. On the one hand, the son considers his father to be at least complicit in Uncle Jegor's deportation. On the other hand, Alexei cannot hide the fact that his father who takes care of the family, the angular lawyer, has a "good heart". One of the father's weaknesses: he teaches Alexei and David on almost every opportunity. When David committed something stupid and fell ill, his father lectured at his sick bed: "... in Siberia ... live and die in forced labor and in underground dungeons who are less guilty ... than you." David, not lazy, immediately has a suitable answer ready: "... better people come to Siberia than the two of us ... you should know that best."

literature

Output used:

  • The clock. German by Ena von Baer , pp. 452–508 in: Iwan Turgenew: First love and other short stories. With an afterword by Friedrich Schwarz. Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Leipzig 1968 (3rd edition).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian Харламов, Алексей Алексеевич
  2. ↑ Note on the Russian edition (Russian)
  3. ↑ Memory of an old man in 1850 (Russian)
  4. ↑ Russian Shevardino
  5. ↑ Zwiebeluhr in uhrenlexikon.de
  6. ↑ Edition used, p. 497, 12. Zvo