The damned of the taiga
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The Damned of the Taiga is a love and adventure novel , with the typical style elements of a Robinsonade , by Heinz G. Konsalik from 1974 , when the well-known folk writer had already reached a world edition of 41 million copies. The story takes place in Siberia and deals with the fate of several people who have to fight for survival far from human civilization.
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Blurb
" Only those who know the taiga understand eternity ... "
“ Four men and two women survive a plane crash over Siberia - and are sentenced to a cruel fate in the taiga! "
action
An Antonov passenger plane crashes on the way from the Sukhana test field on the Olenek River to Irkutsk . All five passengers and the pilot survive the accident. You have strayed from the regular flight route and are in the middle of the wilderness, far from civilization . The next stopover would have been Vilyuisk . Nor is autumn dry and late summer. But winter is approaching and with it a race against time begins. The survivors know that when the frost breaks, their chances drop sharply. No body of water is in sight, so they initially cover their water needs from canned food that they found in the broken plane. Putkin, Herr, Morotzkij, Susskaja and Abramowa concentrate their energies on the elementary survival: food, fire and protection from wild animals. The people get the opportunity to get to know themselves and their history better. Benerian has lost his mind. He fantasizes and has to be tied up because in his madness he threatens to harm himself and the others. Morotsky once killed his wife out of jealousy . Her lover was then suspected of murder and transferred to the Vorkuta labor camp , while Morotsky tries to escape his fate in the vastness of Siberia. Andreas Herr is a German mining engineer who comes to Siberia at the invitation of the Soviet Central Mining Council to research methods of underground clearing. The patriotic Putkin had spied on him on the orders of the KGB , but was unable to find out anything political about him apart from numerous sex relationships that the attractive German womanizer had had with Russian women. Ekaterina A. Susskaya does not want to reveal anything about herself. Nadeshna Abramova states that she was visiting relatives in Siberia and distributed Bibles in a missionary zeal. Her severe fear of God draws the wrath of the irascible Putkin, who once lost his pious mother in a similar way. Putkin, for his part, wants to convert her with sex , but reacts so aggressively to her presence that there is a series of conflicts with the teacher, who is underestimated by everyone because of her petite figure. There is a fight between Andreas and Igor when the latter comes too close to Nadeshna. Semjon can still prevent a bloody outcome at the last moment by temporarily incapacitating Putkin.
The group collects all useful items such as blankets, tinned food , papyrossi - cigarettes , tools , ammunition for the rifle, tent sheets and malleable sheet metal that they can recover from the aircraft wreck into a pile in the windbreak . Including a rifle , which is not ready to fire without a butt piece. Katja, who ascribes herself to be a sniper , takes the weapon and Andreas carves a makeshift butt out of wood so that the weapon is finally operational. In the pilot's seat they discover a considerable supply of alcohol that the mad Benerian had hoarded. The main characters are missing the navigation skills of the pilot and they know that they are only 100 versts (about four days' walk) from the trapper station Faktorei Jakutarsska are. The group decides to escape the approaching winter by forced march south and hopes to meet people and civilization before they are snowed in. To be protected from the drop in temperature, they spend three days building a vehicle that is supposed to transport their equipment. Working together unites the victims and creates temporary harmony . Benerian is tied up on the cart and transported with it. He is completely insane and in his delirium keeps babbling about his father, the fighter pilot Wladen Kyrillowitsch Benerian, who was shot down over Berlin during the Second World War . The three men pull the cart and the two women push it from behind. The way through the undulating terrain becomes an almost unbearable physical strain that demands the last of your strength reserves. The raw Putkin cheers on the group ( blood and sweat ... Russia was built out of this ) that Siberia was conquered and opened up in a very similar way by Yermak Timofejewitsch in the 16th century .
The migration is becoming increasingly dangerous. This is how they have their first encounter with a brown bear , which they initially only observed. In addition, wolf howls heralds the approaching winter. Above all, Morotzkij, who already knows the Siberian winters from painful personal experience, urges the utmost haste. Despite the great tension and the dangerous moments, Andreas and Katja feel a strong erotic tension , which is released by the fact that they both unabashedly around the campfire one night and have unrestrained sex with each other. Nadja, who has only had sex with three men herself, becomes an eyewitness to sexual intercourse , feels a strong jealousy and is about to hit her rival, who exudes an inexplicable attraction to men, with a hammer . Putkin awakens through the scene and also feels jealous ( "Women hollow out not only the loins, but the whole body." ) Because a communist gets involved with a capitalist from the West. In addition, the extremely athletic and strong man claims all women for himself due to his masculine - dominant virility . However, he comes away empty-handed, as Nadeshna unexpectedly seeks physical closeness to Professor Morotzkij, who warms her with his weak body when they sleep together for the night.
The hike continues. Hope arises as cranes fly by. However, they are not an indicator of a nearby body of water, but are on the flight of birds to the south, so they are further harbingers of winter. Suddenly the hikers encounter a big reindeer deer , an aggressive loner who immediately attacks the group. The rifle, which still has no butt, cannot be used and so it puts the large animal in a life-threatening situation with its repeated attacks. Katja kills the reindeer with an ax at the last moment , before Putkin can impale him with his antlers. The fur is processed and the meat is celebrated with a kind of "feast". Then the first snow falls and temperatures drop continuously to -35 ° C. Putkin doubts that Benerian can still be transported, given the deteriorating environmental conditions, and suggests that he should be left to die. The group declines this out of humanity, however. Human footprints show that they are being watched.
The men share one of their last papyrossi. Putkin reveals to Andreas that he too once loved. His first love was a girl named Malika, but she dropped him and went to bed with Putkin's supervisor, a senior engineer. The second was called Pelagia ( She had breasts on which to wiggle vodka glass without, could stand ), but at a Sterlet - bone suffocated. Putkin made an incision in the larynx , but it could not save her either. At that moment Putkin snatches the gun from Andreas and shoots a man who was watching her in the leg. It is an escaped convict who is on the run from the addict groups of the militia . Katja operates the projectile out of him with primitive means and connects him. The man's name is Tichon Antonowitsch Priwalzew, comes from Schiganowa / Ukraine and lived for five years in camp V / 1492, about 20 werst south of Nizhny Popowska. Then he could flee. For three years he has lived like a wild animal in the forest, according to his own statements. Putkin mistrusts Priwaltsev and suspects that they could survive the harsh winters in Siberia. The refugee would have to have a forest hut as a permanent shelter and this would be the salvation for the group. He plans to torture him the next morning so that he can reveal his secret.
But it does not come to that, because the next morning Priwalzew disappeared despite his leg wound. He stole various items of equipment, including Morotzkij's pants. He is now forced to put on Priwalzew's bullet-proof, blood-smeared and frozen elk lederhosen. The mood has reached a low point because they have no shelter, no orientation and little hope. The cart has become an immovable object due to frost and snowfall. Everyone can therefore carry 15 kilograms of backpack luggage and the cart is used to build a much smaller and movable sled.
In the meantime the military in Irkutsk has given up looking for the propped up machine No. 14. The crash site cannot be found. Since Lake Baikal is already beginning to freeze over, any further efforts are pointless. General Waska Janisowitsch Serikow instructs his adjutant, Colonel Krendelew, to announce the names of the missing persons as “heroes of the conquest of Siberia”. The general feels pain because Katja had once been his lover.
The group spent nine days traveling through the taiga with their new vehicle. Benerian receives penicillin from Katja because he is already showing symptoms of pneumonia . Then they hear bells and snow geese lead them to a river. Deforestation and reindeer skins hung up to dry indicate the presence of people. You suspect Yakuts or Tungus . They discover a hot oven to warm up on. They meet the taiga priest Cyril Jegorowitsch Kirsta herein as hermit lives. The river has no official name. Kirsta calls him in his religious madness "blood of eternity". The priest's obsession with converting Putkin, too, repeatedly leads to sharp arguments between the two. For example, Igor Fillipowitsch spits on the image of Saint Stephen in his hatred of everything church .
Helicopters from Irkutsk finally discover the aircraft wreck, but no bodies. It is believed that they may have been eaten by predators . General Serikov discovers a handbag that he had once given Katja. In it he discovers a mysterious farewell message written in lipstick . By interviewing his adjutant Krendelew, he finds out that Katja had fallen in love with a German before she hastily left Suchana. Serikov, who was wounded in the Battle of Roslavl in 1941 , hates the Germans.
When Putkin and Kirsta fish for salmon in the river, there is an accident. Putkin can save the priest from drowning at the last moment. The two develop a strange relationship with each other. On another occasion, Kirsta Putkin can even elicit a prayer for a homemade blackberry brandy . The group is recovering from the hermit. Nadeshna cook blinis and Rosolniks while Katja in the taiga wolves and arctic hare hunts. Then it turns out that one of the wolves that was shot was a dog. This in turn is a clear indication of the presence of people.
The group decides that they have to go upriver, south, sooner or later to encounter civilization. Meanwhile Putkin combines that Katja must have fallen in love with Andreas before she boarded the plane. It was obviously her plan to conquer the foreigner and travel with him to Germany for a future together . He confronts her with his thoughts and she points the loaded gun at him and threatens him to give him an excruciating shot in the stomach should he divulge her secret. The group leaves Benerian, who is slowly getting better, with the hermit.
Meanwhile, General Serikov, who is very ill, has expanded his search for space. He has become addicted to a "search madness" for his Katja and is furious with jealousy, he requests a report on Andreas Herr from the KGB . Identification is made more difficult by an indistinct group photo with Mr, on whom one cannot see his face.
The group got some new winter equipment, some of which was stolen from Kirsta. You set off and a “hellish march” upstream and downstream begins. Katja is afraid that after she has been rescued and escaped the taiga, she will not be deported to a well-known prison camp such as Vorkuta or Magadan , but to an unknown place, where she would dissolve in the “infinity of Siberia”. Conversely, their love would end as soon as they came to civilization and a cruel fate would await them ( “God in heaven, let the taiga be as infinite as our love” ). The temperature drops to -37 ° C. The hardships are so unbearable that Morotsky goes mad and breaks both legs while trying to kill himself. Once again Putkin shows his ruthless side and wants to leave the companions in the wilderness to their fate. Katja and everyone else are strictly against it and leave Putkin free to move on alone. This finally complies with the common will and helps to set up a new emergency camp. Katja performs an extremely painful emergency operation on his legs at the professor's. Putkin then remembers the time with the priest, when they filmed papirossi from Machorka from historical issues of Pravda and that the old man reacted just as violently to political issues as he to religious people. One of these Pravda newspapers even dates from 1926 , a time when Russia was doing particularly badly. A fact that will become important later. A little later, Katja announced that Morotzkij's splinted legs would need at least three more months to heal and that they would have to stay here in the emergency camp for that time. You can initially survive with the help of a self-made “Siberian tree stove”. Putkin thinks this is life-threatening madness, as temperatures continue to drop and strong snowstorms would arise. The group again gives Putkin the freedom to get by on his own.
In Irkutsk, the search for the casualties is now officially stopped. Serikov can, however, secure another photo, which clearly shows his rival Andreas Herr. His traumatic war memories come back and all his hatred is projected onto this man. For example, he practices targeting the likeness of his rival and his unfaithful lover with his pistol .
While the group is looking for warmth at the "Siberian tree stove", Putkin reveals what he has since found out about the hermit. The said 1926 edition of Pravda speaks of a committee to combat the counterrevolution . Rittmeister Kyrill Jegorowitsch Kirsta belonged to the Tsarist Donets Cossacks and fought against the Bolsheviks . After all, he is supposed to be submerged somewhere. Putkin feels resentment towards everyone . Against Kirsta as an ideological opponent from back then, Morotzkij for the murder of his wife, Nadeshna for illegally smuggling priests and the Bible, Andrej for espionage and Katja for a crime he had never known before. As soon as they are back in civilization, they should all receive their just punishment. After everything they have already been through, this is a serious human disappointment. Katja therefore points the gun at him and throws him out of the shelter. He swears terrible revenge, but in the end he has to strap on his skis and disappear in the middle of the night. They are all aware that in the middle of the arctic cold he has no chance of survival.
The four survivors spend the following time in constant fear of Putkin's revenge. When they wake up on the fourth day, Putkin has surprisingly reappeared at the camp, preparing tea and telling them with mock friendliness that he has found a second river in a rocky area where they can set up a permanent winter camp. You arrive at the safe place where a dramatic debate between Igor Fillipovich and Ekaterina takes place. She reveals to him that she examined him shortly after the crash and found a private secret card about gold occurrences. He, the fanatical communist, who had always accused Katja of a lack of love for Mother Russia and the communist world order, now turns out to be a capitalist himself. Nadeshna gives the professor herbal tea from black press plates that the priest had given them. Katja also tries it and finds out that it works like a very strong natural pain reliever and sedative , a so-called analgesic semedium. After an initial dispute about who is allowed to dispose of the “miracle cure” and thus the “power over life and death” - Nadeshna initially claims the tea only for her injured professor - it is finally entrusted to Andrej.
General Serikov has suffered a nervous breakdown and is in the "love madness" in the Irkutsk Military Hospital. A KGB commission under General Lagutin and Colonel Bubnow is flown in from Moscow to conduct further investigations into the alleged spy Andreas Herr. He photographed the Jejorsk missile base. However, this happened with an unusable film and with the knowledge of the KGB. General Serikov is signed off. Privileges are withdrawn from him.
The group reaches another river and makes new camp near a strange rock barrier. The location is ideal and offers protection from the snow storms. At the campfire, Andreas decides that he wants to stay with his Katja in Russia forever and that they will build a hut here for a family they want to start. They don't care about the fate of the others when they start building the wooden hut, which everyone helps with. In the meantime, when there is brief harmony, they continue to feed on mountain hares and reindeer. Then Putkin assaults and touches Nadeshna immorally. While she gives him a severely bleeding laceration, he kicks her nastily in the abdomen. Putkins barely suppressed lust and stalking of the two women, massively disturb the peace of the group. Putkin is jealous and feels neglected because both Katja and Nadeshna have their sexual partner and he is the only one who goes empty-handed. The strong man struggles to overcome his sex drive , but it is only a matter of time before he attacks again. Now Morotsky sees a threat in Putkin and tries to stab him with a knife one night, which is unsuccessful and nobody notices.
After seven weeks the wooden hut is ready and the move is celebrated with the hermit's precious schnapps. Andrej carries Katja over the threshold as his bride. The stove becomes a symbol of life. The men pass the time spearing salmon, which provide them with fat and protein , and Nadeshna carves figures of saints and gives the “bride and groom” a self-painted picture of the Madonna with two unequal breasts, which creates great happiness. Winter is no longer a deadly threat, just a season to wait and see. Animals like a crow and a cow elk run to them and tame them. Putkin discovers gold-bearing sand while ice fishing , which causes a great sensation within the group. While the group wants to beat the staunch communist Putkin with his own weapons and demands that the gold treasure should be ceded to the people's property and to the socialist state, Putkin wants to keep everything to himself. The current state gold price is 1 gram of gold as a troy ounce with four rubles , i.e. one kilogram already at 4,000 rubles. Putkin wants to persuade Andrej to mine the gold industrially with a gold washing plant. But he still hesitates. You first want to conclude a contract on the joint mining rights.
Winter has not yet reached its peak. A blizzard lasting several days ties the group to the hut. This gives people more time to tell about their lives and their secrets. Putkin continues to desire the two women who lie naked under fur with their partners at night, and the thought drives him crazy. Katja's pregnancy changes everything. Putkin fears she might die from it. In the worst case, she could have an accident shortly before the birth, for example fall on the ice, and thus lose the child. Nothing at all unusual for Russian women.
In Irkutsk General Serikov wakes up from his healing sleep. The nervous man is offered further convalescence in a people's rest home on the Black Sea , but the latter refuses. In a few days he is due to be released from military service. Serikov once had a love nest with Katja in Irkutsk. He desperately wants to bring her back there, secretly assembles winter equipment and hijacks a small military machine with which he sets off to search. During the war he learned the basic skills of flying. Several MiG squadrons mount up to look for it, but do not find it because it flies low and in small jumps. Every time it lands, it camouflages the tracks of the runners in the snow. Serikov does not suspect that the survivors walked in large circles on their wrong track and settled down on the banks of the Tjung River some distance from the Jakuttorg factory .
In the meantime, every couple in the group has built their own log cabin. Putkin is still half insane with lust as he constantly overhears the others having noisy intercourse. Nadeshna overhears how he mistreats the mare mare Maruta, Semyon Pavlitsch's favorite animal, at night. When she tries to confront him in his log cabin, which he has named the “ Kremlin ”, he rapes her for hours. Then she escapes. Putkin waits in his hut for the revenge of the others. He expects at any moment that they will come to slay him in revenge. But only Nadeshna appears and even invites him to eat with the others. She tells him that she has not said anything to the others, but that one day he will have to answer for it.
Lagutin and Bubnov look in vain for General Serikov. Meanwhile he has discovered a standing cloud of smoke on the banks of the Tjung and decides to land nearby and ask the people, Yakut fur hunters as he suspects, about the survivors. The group discovers the plane and immediately a discussion breaks out as to whether or not to make yourself heard. After all, they have to hide the gold deposits and do not want to share them with anyone. A runner breaks on landing. Serikov recognizes Katja, his lover, and Putkin shoots the general in the chest. Katja takes care of the complicated lung shot. The projectile split a rib and flattened it, dangerously enlarging the wound canal and completely destroying the right lung. Andreas realizes that Susskaja also loves the general and he notices that Andreas is his much sought-after rival. There is an argument between Katja and Andreas. Putkin intervenes and separates the two. Serikov is washed and laid naked on a wooden table. He gets the pressed tea so that he no longer feels any pain. You cannot operate the way it should and Serikov's chances of survival are zero because there is an acute risk of pneumothorax , internal bleeding, or sepsis. Katja wants to make dying easier for him. Let him die happily. Serikov cannot speak because his mouth is filled with foam of blood. Then Katja wants to sew up the wound. The general still has a pistol in his hand, wants to shoot his great love with the last of his strength, but is killed by Katja with a shoe, when she smashes his brainshell in self-defense . After everyone has calmed down again, Katja insists that the general deserves a grave in Russian soil and can prevent the others from letting him disappear into an ice hole. Due to the permafrost , however, it is not possible to bury the soil until the next snowmelt. Katja tells Andreas that she also killed him because of her love for him.
The slightly damaged aircraft may now offer the group an escape route. You will discover lots of alcohol and delicacies there. Putkin claims that he is able to fly an airplane. But not all of them fit into the machine. They would also leave the gold resource unattended. There is again animosity in the group. Andreas discovers that Putkin has brought Serikov's frozen body into a military pose in order to make him look ridiculous.
Then a catastrophic blizzard breaks out unexpectedly, captivating the group inside a hut, where the old conflicts immediately break out again in a confined space. Putkin brings the cow moose Maruta inside the hut and Morotzkij, who idolizes the animal, is overjoyed. Putkin says in his shoddy way that the professor will probably sleep with the elk cow today and that he would like to make his potency available to Nadeshna. To his great surprise, the petite woman reacts far less dismissively than expected. She hands him vodka tea. Putkin notices that Nadeshna no longer sleeps with the professor, since he is solely dedicated to his animal. Katja understands that Putkin has apparently conquered Nadeshna and that it is only a matter of time before tragedy looms large . When everyone is asleep, Putkin and Nadeshna secretly meet.
The snow storm ends after three weeks. Everything is returning to normal and Nadshna is sleeping with her professor again. Only he feels more drawn to the elk than to the woman . Andreas and Putkin take care of the aircraft, which was slightly damaged. They wonder if they could perhaps use the airplane engine to panning for gold and then take the raft back downriver to civilization. But it is feared that there will be difficulties with their identities, IDs and unpleasant questions. In any case, the gold would be taken from them. Plan B is to take a flight with just three people, luggage and gold. Two people would then have to stay here for reasons of space. Then they go through the constellations. Nadshna would stay with Putkin now and Katja is pregnant. Putkin once again offers Katja the opportunity to lose the child. However, Andreas wants the entire group to be saved. According to your calculations, it is now mid- February and the snowmelt could not start until May . Katja's child is expected in July. In the evening, Andreas Katja announced that Putkin would be willing to kill two “superfluous people” so that the machine could take off. They fear that if he has Nadeshna to himself he will become a complete beast. The two swear that they will defend their unborn child against this monster in any case.
For a while they all lead a good life in their log cabins with good food thanks to freshly caught fish and game . Putkin completes the construction of his hut and the professor turns the elk cow into a mount, imitating animal sounds. Putkin confesses to Andreas that he loves Nadeshna. When he has become a millionaire through all that gold, he will marry her. He, the fanatical atheist, even wants to be converted by her. Putkin remembers his father, who was taken to a gulag by the NKVD . Then the solemn inauguration of the "Kremlin" is due. Putkin would like to marry Nadshna, one day have a priest marry him in church, but she just laughs at him cruelly . Putkin is terribly offended and is about to kill her. Then Katja appears with the rifle. He shows his unknown, sensitive side and asks her to put an end to his meaningless life. But Katja refuses. Putkin announces a surprise for the grand opening dinner. Katja roughly confronts Nadshna, insults her as a "whore" and finally demands the truth from her. Then she forces them to destroy their own carvings. Andreas lives in this scene and is appalled by Katja's inhuman behavior.
Despite this dramatic scene of spurned love, the banquet takes place in Putkin's "Kremlin" because one does not want to let the beautiful food go to waste. Putkin pretends to be a happy host. There is food, alcohol and dancing. Then Putkin is alone with Nadeshna. Nadeshna confesses to Putkin that she was a bitch. She feels living together without the mask of civilization as hell and, as soon as they have escaped the taiga, never wants to have anything to do with one of the group again. But Putkin would be willing to stick with Nadeshna even with a lie. Then she leaves the "Kremlin" and Putkin decides to become a different person. The next morning the monster presents himself well-groomed and shaved. He had discovered the slain general's razor and had ascertained from the mirror how ugly he was and how much disgust it must have cost Nadeshna to see him. Katja tells him that even a civilized appearance is not enough to get Nadeshna's love ( "Love is a riddle, Igor Filipovich. Eternally incomprehensible. You can't force a woman's soul or bribe or buy it - you just get her body with it. Sufficient that you? ").
Spring is coming and Katja is very pregnant. In Siberia nature awakens and creates almost paradisiacal conditions. The small group lives in abundance, can dig gold and get the seaplane afloat. Temperatures rise continuously and the Tjung ice breaks. However, a flood destroys the gold panning facility. The moor appears. Putkin and Andreas decide to bury Serikov's thawed body. To do this, the two have to jump over the ice floes of the river and put their lives in danger.
Putkin is of the opinion that it would be their misfortune if Andreas and Katja fly back to civilization by plane. The gold and his German nationality would certainly lead to complications, if not to camp detention. Nadesnha and Semjon decide to ride away with their moose and try their luck elsewhere. Before they leave, Nadeshna lies down with Putkin for a fiery night of love. Then the farewell comes and Nadeshna and Semjon ride away. Katja is in labor pains. Your pelvis is so narrow that childbirth is a major complication. Against the pain she takes the miracle tea plates. Outside it is pouring rain and the taiga is sinking into the swamp. Putkin and Andreas help with the birth of Amalja.
The summer comes. The gold panning system has been restored and is producing large quantities. The discussion keeps coming up that the gold doesn't belong to them, but to the USSR . In addition, with the light reconnaissance machine, they cannot take large amounts of gold with them.
Suddenly the cow moose Maruta appears and shows, next to a gunshot wound, traces of blood that can only come from humans. Putkin realizes that something must have happened to his beloved Nadeshna and Semjon. The strong man is furious and worried about her. They suspect that the two were attacked by Yakuts who stole their gold. They assume that the two were also tortured with "Asian cruelty" until they revealed the location of the other. Suddenly Yakut riders appear on the other bank of the river. Putkin, Andreas and Katja have to defend their lives. With firearms and hand grenades from the aircraft, they can repel multiple attacks. But the hostile superiority is too great. Putkin tries one last time to negotiate with the attackers. But the Yakuts absolutely want the gold and, moreover, that the group should mine gold for them as forced laborers. Andreas begs him to at least give them the gold. But then comes the certainty that they will be killed in any case.
The Yakuts ignite a large forest fire, to which the small settlement and the gold panning facility fell victim. At the last moment Putkin, Andreas, Katja and the baby can flee into the river. Putkin returns to the fire hell once more to save the cow moose Maruta. In doing so, he suffers life-threatening burns. By grace Katja relieves him from his torments with a stone. The three spend three days in the river under dire conditions. Katja, for example, stands in the cold water and breastfeeds her child. The forest fire does not dry up until the third day and allows the three to re-enter the country.
The major fire destroyed 5,000 square kilometers of forest and triggered an alarm in Viljuisk, Suchana, Schigansk an der Lena and Oleneg. The three of them take off the seaplane and fly south along the Tjung. Shortly before Viljuisk, they crash-land, are rescued and taken to the hospital. After all, as a special act of grace by the Soviet government towards the “damned of the taiga”, the family was allowed to travel to West Germany.
main characters
- Makar Lukanowitsch Benerian - the pilot, loses his mind
- Igor Fillipovich Putkin - the vigorous, vulgar and unscrupulous oil drilling engineer, patriot and communist. He is a demon and a sensitive person rolled into one
- "Andrej", "Andruscha" Andreas Herr - the good-looking and sincere German mining engineer from Essen-Steele
- Professor Semjon Pawlitsch Morotzkij - the behavioral scientist - rodents specialty
- "Katja", "Katjuschka / Katjenka" Jekaterina Alexandrovna Susskaja - the beautiful doctor with the dark secret
- Nadeshna Abramova - the petite and strongly religious teacher
linguistic style
“ He woke up because the sun was shining on his face. Igor Fillipowitsch Putkin found this uncomfortable and strange, it was a nasty hot sun that hit him completely, and in the memory, which was now slowly returning, he could not explain why he had got into the middle of this blazing heat. "
“ Half a year later, Andreas Herr, Katja Alexandrowna Sussaka and their child Amalja Andrejewna were allowed to travel to West Germany. It was a rare concession and bow from the Soviet government to the heroic damned of the taiga. "
Konsalik uses a realistic and very lively style of language that processes a successful mixture of puns, irony and sadness.
Reviews
The exciting adventure story contained 36 chapters takes place in an unspecified year after the Second World War in the USSR and uses numerous clichés . The endless expanse of the forests of Siberia becomes a reservoir for extreme individualists and their abysses who fight against themselves and others. In Konsalik's less demanding, but very entertaining ("A book like a volcano! The most Russian Konsalik!") Novel, six strong characters fight in the wilderness of the Siberian taiga (360,000 square kilometers of uninhabited and untouched natural landscape) against the "cruelty of nature" ( Konsalik describes this very aptly in the sentence, The forest took her in like mother and lover ... or like a Moloch that slowly and gleefully swallowed her. It depends on whether one sees life as romantic or realistic. ) naked survival. They are completely cut off from the outside world and have to live like people in primeval times. On their way to civilization, the masks fall and they reveal their true character to each other. On the other hand, apart from the sarcastic Putkin, who has a facade that is difficult to see through for the reader, the depth of character (according to the stereotype theory ) is little developed. By and large, the book reflects the thoughts of the generation of fathers and grandfathers. The same applies to Yekaterina A. Susskaya, whose true motives have remained in the dark for a long time. The main theme of The Damned of the Taiga is the great tension and the strongly sexually tinged mood that develops in the relationship between the male and female main characters. Emotions collide and living together within the group becomes unbearable hell . The novel takes a dramatic turn towards the end when Putkin finds gold on a river bank .
Historical context
Konsalik's The Damned of the Taiga joins a long series of his Russia novels such as Heaven over Kazakstan , Ninotschka , Natascha , Love Nights in the Taiga , Love in St. Petersburg , Love on the Don , Cossack Love and The Daughter of the Devil , which is a whole express a certain and romanticizing image of this country. The author alludes to the development or conquest of the Siberian natural landscape in all its various facets, including the prison camps . Other topics Konsalik addresses are the consequences of the Russian October Revolution , the resulting civil war and agent activities between East and West during the Cold War .
Text output
- Heinz Konsalik: The damned of the taiga . Hestia Verlag, Bayreuth 1974. ISBN 3-453-04781-8 . (Original edition)
- Heinz Konsalik: The damned of the taiga . Heyne Book, Volume No. 5304, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1974. ISBN 3-453-04781-8 .
literature
- Susanne Anneliese Schimetta: Consumer novels. The image of women in Heinz G. Konsalik's novels, and how these novels are read by women. Dissertation University of Salzburg, 1984
- Carola Beck: Foreign countries and the unknown in trivial literature: Using the example of selected novels by Heinz G. Konsalik ( The Secret of the Seven Palms , The Bay of Black Pearls and The Damned of the Taiga ) Master's thesis from 2011 in the Department of German Studies - Modern German Literature . GRIN Verlag, 2nd edition 2011. ISBN 978-3-640-96285-3 .
Web links
- Heinz Konsalik: The damned of the taiga . Hestia Verlag, Bayreuth 1974, ISBN 3-453-04781-8 . ( Full text on epdf.tips [PDF])
- Heinz Konsalik: The damned of the taiga . Hestia Verlag, Bayreuth 1974. ISBN 3-453-04781-8 . ( limited preview in Google Book search)
Notes and individual references
- ↑ Information according to the back cover on Heinz Konsalik: Die Verdammten der Taiga . Heyne Book, Volume No. 5304, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag. 1974. ISBN 3-453-04781-8 .
- ↑ Heinz Konsalik: The damned of the Taiga . Hestia Verlag, Bayreuth 1974. ISBN 3-453-04781-8 .
- ↑ Heinz Konsalik: The damned of the Taiga . Hestia Verlag, Bayreuth 1974. ISBN 3-453-04781-8 .
- ↑ in the Republic of Sakha / Yakutia
- ↑ However, he is said to have photographed military installations
- ↑ Equivalent to Ranger (North America)
- ↑ Heinz Konsalik: The damned of the Taiga . Heyne Book, Volume No. 5304, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag. 1974. p. 32. ISBN 3-453-04781-8 .
- ↑ Heinz Konsalik: The damned of the Taiga . Heyne Book, Volume No. 5304, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag. 1974, p. 45. ISBN 3-453-04781-8 .
- ↑ Heinz Konsalik: The damned of the Taiga . Heyne Book, Volume No. 5304, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag. 1974, p. 61. ISBN 3-453-04781-8 .
- ↑ Pictures of a typical Russian-Siberian peasant stove in an Isba wooden hut that serves as the family's sleeping place
- ↑ Who is sleeping on the stove? Why is there a knife in the door jamb? The Russian Isba, a wooden house, was once the most widespread form of living in Russia - and a world of its own, with its own laws and puzzles. Sacrifice, horse head and animal skins. Saints and spirits under one roof. Isba: home of the Russian soul on Russia Beyond
- ↑ Кровь вечности - Krow vechnosti
- ↑ in the case of Pacific salmon species: Ketal salmon ( Oncorhynchus keta ), sockeye salmon / blue-backed salmon ( Oncorhynchus nerka ), Mongolian / Siberian huchen ( Hucho taimen ) etc.
- ↑ Pate made from rabbit meat
- ↑ All rivers in Siberia flow from south to north into the Arctic Ocean due to their topography
- ↑ A certain death sentence in the case of rudimentary medical self-care
- ↑ Heinz Konsalik: The damned of the Taiga . Heyne Book, Volume No. 5304, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag. 1974, p. 109. ISBN 3-453-04781-8 .
- ↑ In the woodcutter stove (also Finnish stove, Swedish stove or Siberian stove), a log is provided with a central hole and side air slots. The furnace is burned up in an upright position
- ↑ he loses his entire family when the Germans attack Minsk
- ↑ Heinz Konsalik: The damned of the Taiga . Heyne Book, Volume No. 5304, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag. 1974. p. 270. ISBN 3-453-04781-8 .
- ↑ typical Russian diminutive of the first name Andrej
- ↑ typical Russian diminutive of the first name Ekaterina
- ↑ Heinz Konsalik: The damned of the Taiga . Heyne Book, Volume No. 5304, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag. 1974. p. 5. ISBN 3-453-04781-8 .
- ↑ Heinz Konsalik: The damned of the Taiga . Heyne Book, Volume No. 5304, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag. 1974. p. 333. ISBN 3-453-04781-8 .
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Reader reviews Die Verdammten der Taiga on amazon.de
- ↑ Heinz Konsalik: The damned of the Taiga . Heyne Book, Volume No. 5304, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag. 1974. p. 32. ISBN 3-453-04781-8 .
- ↑ a b Readers' reviews Die Damten der Taiga on Lovelybooks.de
- ↑ The jungle goddess is not allowed to cry. DER SPIEGEL 50/1976. Edition dated December 6, 1976