A question of guilt
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A question of guilt ( Russian Чья вина (По поводу Крейцеровой Сонаты Льва Толстого) Написано женой Льва Толстого?. - Whose fault (On the occasion of the Kreutzer Sonata Tolstoy) Written by the wife of Leo Tolstoy.. ) Is a novel by Sophia Tolstoy . It was written in 1893, but first published in Russia in 1994.
Sofja Tolstaja wrote the novel as an alternative to the novella Die Kreutzersonata by her husband Lev Nikolajewitsch Tolstoy . The full German title, which is not translated literally, is Whose Miss? A woman's story. (On the occasion of Lev Tolstoy's Kreutzer sonata). Written down by Lev Tolstoy's wife in the years 1892/1893 . The subject of her literary replica corresponds to that of the Kreutzer Sonata , a fateful married drama that ends with the jealous husband's murder of his wife, whom he suspects of infidelity. While in Tolstoy's story the events are presented from the perspective of the male protagonist, Sofja Tolstaya tells the story from the point of view of the woman.
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Anna, the main character, was 18 years old when Prince Prosorsky, a friend of her mother's, proposed marriage to her. On the one hand she is shocked by the request of the man who is many years older, but on the other hand she also feels flattered. The rude awakening, however, already comes on the wedding night, when Anna gets close to a man for the first time in her life, which the experienced Prince Prosorsky takes little care of.
Anna moves in with her husband on his estate and meets a former lover of the prince, a day laborer on the estate. When Anna had her first child, the prince was only moderately interested in it; he leaves her to look after the household and family and is largely concerned with his own interests. There are more and more arguments between spouses. The dreamy young Anna misses understanding and appreciation; Prosorsky watches over his beautiful wife with exaggerated jealousy.
One day the Prince's childhood friend, Dmitri Bechmetew, comes to visit the estate. He and Anna are immediately drawn to each other; In contrast to Prosorsky, Bechmetew is a sensitive and art-loving person. In spite of the prince's pathological jealousy, the two always find opportunities to spend time together; they read to each other, paint and go horse riding. However, Bechmetev has a weak constitution and has to leave Russia. On the evening before his departure for Greece, Anna visits Bechmetev one last time after a terrible argument with her husband. When she returns home, the prince kills her in a fit of rage with a paperweight .
Autobiographical background
The analogies between Sofja Tolstaja and her protagonist Anna are numerous and obvious: the marriage of a young girl to a much older man, the absolutely not at all romantic experience of the wedding night, the disenchantment on the honeymoon, the serf, former lover of the husband who the to encounter a young wife is afraid of the husband's lack of interest in the birth of the first child and later in family life as a whole, the constant search for recognition by the husband, the conflicts and reconciliations in living together with Tolstoy.
Edition history
Sofja Tolstaja's novel was not published during her lifetime. Perhaps she herself shied away from comparison with her world-famous husband; but perhaps no one dared to expect the great writer Lev Tolstoy to vote against his wife. In her novel, Tolstaja is also one of the first women writers in Russia to deal with the taboo subject of sexuality. Again, this is one of the possible reasons for the late release. In 1994 the novel was printed in a magazine in Russia, translated for the first time in 2008 and published in German.
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- A question of guilt . Translated by Alfred Frank. Manesse Verlag, Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-7175-2150-1
- therein: Short autobiography of Countess Sofja Andrejewna Tolstaja dated October 28, 1913, translated by Ursula Keller , pp. 217–286.
- therein: Afterword by the editor Ursula Keller, pp. 299–315.