An enigmatic man

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An Enigmatic Man , also An Enigmatic Man ( Russian Загадочный человек , Sagadotschny tschelowek ), is a short story by the Russian writer Nikolai Leskov that appeared in ten successive editions of the St. Petersburg daily Birschewyje vedomosti (stock exchange news) in 1870 .

This story can easily be read as a farce: At the beginning of the second half of the 19th century, a native Pole traveled to Russia as a naturalized Briton in order to “ bring about a social democratic overthrow” in the tsarist empire . The attempt fails. The young man is a couple of decades early.

Arthur Benni (left) and Nikolai Leskov in 1861

Overview

In the text about Arthur Benni (1839–1867) the author suppresses his talent for storytelling. Leskow writes: "I try to give a true picture of our recent past in this non-invented story ...". He means the years 1861–1865, when his friend, the enigmatic man - the subject of the British Crown Arthur Benni, who grew up in Poland - stayed in Russia.

Arthur Benni was slandered in Russia. Leskov does not hide his sympathy for the vilified when he emphasizes, in line with Turgenev , what an "honest man" Benni was.

It was only shortly before his expulsion from Russia - Benni was sitting in the Spassk prison, involved in the Nichiporenko criminal case - that when he read Gogol's Dead Souls , it dawned on him: The four years in Russia were in vain. Benni had as emissary his London contracting heart to the Russian socialists and revolutionaries talked past because he did not know Russia. That is understandable, says Leskow on the one hand, because "Benni ... was born in Poland, a country under Russian sovereignty that hated Russia ...". On the other hand, this is tragic, since Leskow describes Benni as a stubborn fanatic - a socialist to the point of self-sacrifice.

content

Russia

When Benni, coming from London, reaches St. Petersburg, this “revolutionary agent” is “willing to give life and limb for a democratic Russia.” The Russian Raskolnik , he was told, was the revolutionary per se in the world. Of course the "filthy official" Nichiporenko, who welcomed Benni with open arms on Russian soil, was a Narodnik . Thanks to Nitschiporenko's mediation, Benni soon had no shortage of new political friends in Saint Petersburg, mostly journalists, whom he guided with London theories “despite his young years” on the delicate question of how to start a revolution. Benny sensed that the Petersburg gentlemen did not want to be revolutionaries. So Benny went to Nizhny Novgorod with Nichiporenko . Although Benni realizes on the way that his “narrow-minded companion is babbling nonsense”, he has no choice - he wants to “unite with the people”. To Bennis’s disappointment, the contacts with the people didn’t result in anything that would have been somewhat worth communicating with regard to the subject of revolution - in the direction of London at heart’s address. The few receptions in the houses of the well-off Nizhny Novgorod middle class are also sobering. Nichiporenko misbehaves towards women and is thrown out. Benni, still without any experience in dealing with women, protests afterwards and is insulted by Nitschiporenko as a “liberal, philanthropist and coward”. But Nichiporenko acts like a coward during the first test. The Narodnik burns a pack of Herz's London newspapers in the inn when it is said that the two rascals who have traveled from Petersburg are to be visited. The onward journey to Astrakhan is canceled because of the empty travel budget. Nitschiporenko leaves Benni in Moscow and goes to his Petersburg.

Because Benni has become penniless, he enjoys Leskov's hospitality in Moscow. Benni wants to go back to Petersburg because he - who speaks several European languages ​​- could at least work there as a translator. When he then arrives in Petersburg, he is defamed as a spy. Nitschiporenko becomes even clearer: Benni is an "agent of the Russian secret police smuggled through England".

Benni is working on the editorial staff of the Severnaya pchela . After a serious illness, destitute and heavily in debt, two creditors - a Colonel Swertschkow and a master tailor Stepanow - take him to the guilty prison. From there, Benni was taken into political custody for a quarter of a year for the Nichiporenko case. Pastor Hermann Benni wants to buy his brother out of custody. Too late - Arthur Benni is already a political prisoner.

Italy

After being expelled from Russia, Benni married a Russian woman in Switzerland whom he had met in St. Petersburg's Znamensk Commune. As a correspondent for English newspapers, he left his wife in a small Swiss town, went to Italy , joined Garibaldi and fell at Mentana towards the end of 1867 . Leskow shares variants according to which Benni is said to have died. First, an opposing rider cut off the unarmed Benni's left hand with a sword cut. Second, as commander in Garibaldi's 9th Regiment, Benni was wounded in the left hand in battle and died as a result in St. Agatha's Hospital in Rome. And third, one of his arms was smashed during the fight. The associated hand was amputated.

Two friends

Leskow observed in his young friend Benni a “lively, overly receptive disposition, which lacked any stability.” Desperate, he occasionally burst into tears and felt “duped, betrayed, kicked, slandered”. Benni was "chaste"; I didn't have a wife until 1864.

Leskow is surprisingly aggressive for a prose writer; speaks plainly: Benni was called a spy by NS Kurotschkin and his friends.

In Leskov's view, his naive friend Benni could easily have escaped the abovementioned imprisonment in Spassk prison by traveling abroad in good time. Because his English passport would not have been taken from him.

reception

  • Russian contemporaries reacted negatively at the time:
  • 1959: Sechkareff thinks that Leskov's drawing of the figure of Nitschiporenko, i.e. his mockery of the nihilists , has evoked the contradiction of contemporaries indicated above.
  • 1988: Dieckmann addresses a text-transparent, translucent opinion of Leskov: Russia's path from monarchy to democracy appears difficult to walk.

literature

German-language editions

Output used:

  • An enigmatic man. A true story. German by Hilde Angarowa. P. 492–608 in Eberhard Dieckmann (Ed.): Nikolai Leskow: Collected works in individual volumes . Vol. 1: The Lady Macbeth from the Mtsensk district. Stories. 632 pages. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1988 (1st edition), ISBN 3-352-00252-5

Secondary literature

  • Vsevolod Sechkareff : NS Leskov. His life and his work. 170 pages. Verlag Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1959

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Leskow writes that through Nitschiporenko's excessive talkativeness during the interrogation, Turgenev and Benni also ended up in the dock (edition used, p. 566, 5. Zvo).
  2. ↑ Leskov writes, initially with a view to the situation in Moscow: “Benni had to… take note that there was no organized revolutionary movement in Russia at that time; the revolution had been invented in Petersburg ... because it was chic, moreover the people who carried it out had no idea how to make a revolution ”(edition used, p. 557, 3rd Zvu).
  3. ↑ Leskow protects his friend Benni in the text from the following "out of thin air" (edition used, p. 607, 10. Zvo), spread in Petersburg: First, Benni is said to be a "political spy", " which the Russian government smuggled in via London to Petersburg ”(edition used, p. 559, 14. Zvo). Second, in Garibaldi's Legion the Poles killed him from a Russian spy (edition used, p. 594, 2nd Zvu). Third, the Poles had sent Benni to incite foolish revolutionary Russians (edition used, p. 597, 8. Zvo).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian Биржевые ведомости
  2. ↑ Edition used, p. 576, 8. Zvu
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 608, 5th Zvo
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 607, 10th Zvu
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 600, 6th Zvu
  6. ↑ Russian Ничипоренко, Андрей Иванович ,
  7. ↑ Edition used, p. 499, 1. Zvu
  8. ↑ Edition used, p. 505, 9th Zvu
  9. ↑ Edition used, p. 561, 6. Zvo
  10. ↑ Russian Северная пчела , Nordic bee
  11. ↑ Russian Znamensk Commune
  12. ↑ Edition used, p. 573, 14th Zvu
  13. ↑ Edition used, p. 590 below
  14. ↑ Russian Nikolai Stepanowitsch Kurotschkin
  15. ↑ Edition used, pp. 559, 17. Zvo and p. 560, 13. Zvu
  16. ↑ Russian Загадочный человек
  17. ↑ Russian Буренин, Виктор Петрович
  18. ↑ Setschkareff, p. 81 below
  19. ↑ Dieckmann in the postscript output used, p 616, 7. ZVU to S. 619