An encounter in the field with a Moscow friend

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lev Tolstoy in 1856.
Photographer: Sergei Levitsky

An encounter in the field with a Moscow friend , even the Degraded and acquaintances from Moscow at the detachment ( Russian Разжалованный , Rasschalowanny , Degraded ), a story by Leo Tolstoy , who - was completed on 15 November 1856 and in the December issue 1856 - started in 1853 the Saint Petersburg Biblioteka dlja chtenija appeared. During his military service in the Caucasus, Tolstoy met several officers who had been demoted to simple soldiers - for example the two Petraschewzen Nikolai Sergejewitsch Kaschkin and Alexander Ivanovich Europäus, who were serving their sentences there in line battalions . In 1901, in a conversation with Alexander Goldenweiser , the author regretted his choice of material: the protagonist - called Guskov in the story, in reality a brother of the Petersburg university professor Mikhail Matveevich Stasjulewitsch, editor of Westnik Jewropy - behaved pathetically during the war under enemy fire . This is how Vasily Petrovich Botkin's letter of January 3, 1857 to Turgenev becomes understandable, in which he notes that Tolstoy's new story was not liked by the reading public.

content

The detachment to which the first-person narrator - a certain Prince Nekhludov - is assigned, has cut a hole in the forest on the raging Caucasian mountain river Metschik on orders and spent the night at his place of work before returning to the regiment. The staff captain Scha. addresses a 30-year-old as Guscantini and means the carelessly dressed soldier Guskow. The soldier looks familiar to the narrator. Guskow helps him on the jumps. They met in Moscow in 1848 at Guskov's sister wife Uwaschina. The narrator remembers. He had often visited his friend Uwashin, with whom he had grown up. At that time in Moscow the mostly French-speaking Guskow, aristocratic son of a strict Petersburg rich man, appeared youthful, witty and elegant. Guskov had received ten thousand rubles a year from his father and had been promised a post in the Turin embassy for 1849 . But it was a "stupid story" with a Petersburg man named Metenin. After three years of arrest, Guskov was sent to the Caucasus and has been serving as a soldier for three years. The father had disinherited him and renounced him. Guskow, who had not got along with the officers in his new Caucasian regiment, had, with the help of an influential uncle, arranged for the transfer to the regiment in which the prince is serving. However, the officers are apparently the same everywhere in the Caucasus. The narrator, who much prefers these officers to Guskov's former disgusting company in Russia, feels uncomfortable with the stories of the wretched Guskow and wants to cheer him up: Guskow could serve himself up to ensign through the sergeant. That's what Guskow wanted at first, but he wasn't born a hero. Although he wishes for death, he is scared to death in every battle. With the lost nobility, he also lost energy and pride and sank into the dirt as a ragged beggar.

When the good-for-nothing asks the prince, who has lost at a card game, for money, he disturbs the captain's sleep and borrows ten rubles for Guskov. When an opposing cannonball hisses over the heads of the Russians, Guskov can no longer babble, he can only stammer shivering. Suddenly the coward is gone.

When the narrator later passes the barracks of the Junkers and Sergeants, he hears Guskov inside, cheerfully and vividly boasting that he is related to his old friend, the prince. The braggart gives a round; ten rubles are enough for two bottles of kachetiner.

German-language editions

  • The degraded. German by Hermann Röhl . Pp. 121–152 in: Gisela Drohla (Ed.): Leo N. Tolstoj. All the stories. Second volume. Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1961 (2nd edition of the edition in eight volumes 1982)
  • The degraded in Tolstoj, Lev Nikolaevič: The stories. Vol. 1., Early Stories. 1853-1872. Artemis and Winkler, Düsseldorf and Zurich 2001, ISBN 978-3-538-06905-3

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian Николай Сергеевич Кашкин (1829–1914)
  2. ↑ Russian Александр Иванович Европеус (1827–1885)
  3. ↑ Russian Михаил Матвеевич Стасюлевич (1826–1911)
  4. ↑ Russ. Comments to Demoted at tolstoy-lit.ru
  5. ↑ Russian Василий Петрович Боткин (1812–1869)
  6. ↑ Source: ru: Разжалованный (рассказ)
  7. ↑ Kachetiner = Georgian type of wine
  8. ↑ Russian Бурнашева Н.В.