A difficult case

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Anton Chekhov

A difficult case ( Russian Канитель , Kanitel ) is a short story by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov , which appeared on April 27, 1885 in the magazine Oskolki . The author described an incident from his youth. At that time he sang in the Taganrog church choir. Tolstoy appreciated the little story. The censor SA Vereshchagin, however, suspected on February 13, 1904: Was Anton Chekhov mocking the Orthodox liturgy ?

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The sick old Fedosja has made a pilgrimage to the church and pays the sexton Otlukawin a few kopecks for a small favor. Half the village is to be included in the intercession of the deacon . How is that to be done? Quite simply - the sexton scratches two pieces of paper with his goose quill. One, the List of the Living, is headed For Health . On the other - with the headline for the soul - are the names of the dead from Fedosjas seemingly endless clan. When Fedosja gets tangled up with the classification of her relatives in the appropriate list and also accidentally puts his own name on the soul mess , even the smart sexton gets confused. However, he knows a way out. He quickly writes all those named by Fedosja on a new sheet of paper. Fedosja pays - as I said - and hands the new sheet of paper in front of the altar to Father Deacon.

The sexton had made it clear to Fedosja: “Let the deacon find out who lives from it and who is dead; he studied in the seminar ... "

Used edition

  • Gerhard Dick (Ed.), Wolf Düwel (Ed.): Anton Chekhov: Collected Works in Individual Volumes : A Difficult Case. P. 285–288 in: Gerhard Dick (ed.): Anton Chekhov: From rain to eaves. Short stories. Translated from Russian by Ada Knipper and Gerhard Dick. With a foreword by Wolf Düwel. 630 pages. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1964 (1st edition)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian С. А. Верещагин
  2. ↑ Notes under A Difficult Case (Russian) in the FEB on pp. 587-588
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 288, 6th Zvu
  4. ↑ Entry in WorldCat