An Everyday Story (novel)

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Ivan Goncharov.
Painting by Kirill Gorbunow from 1847

An everyday story ( Russian история Обыкновенная , Obyknowennaja istorija ) is the first novel by the Russian writer Ivan Goncharov , who was from 1844 and in March and April number 1847 at Sovremennik appeared. The book edition came on the market in 1848. Additional editions during the author's lifetime were published in 1858, 1862, 1863 and 1883.

action

The storyline of the educational novel runs for about fifteen years. The location of the action is mostly St. Petersburg .

1

The widowed landowner Anna Pavlovna Adujewa in the village of Gratschi owns around a hundred souls . The 20-year-old only son Alexander Fedorych Adujew no longer wants to be mothered and wants to make his fortune in St. Petersburg, 1,500 werst away.

The bachelor Pyotr Ivanovich Adujew - Alexander's 37-year-old uncle on his father's side - has lived and worked as a civil servant and factory owner in the metropolis on the Neva for seventeen years . The uncle, who was always entrepreneurial, was not inspired by Alexander's poems and prose and handed over the poetic work of the nephew who had traveled to the fire. On the other hand, Alexander's foreign language skills and his acceptable Russian in language and writing appear useful to the uncle. He puts the boy in the civil service.

Alexander is praised by his department head. At the same time, the talented young man is allowed to translate agricultural texts from German.

After two years in Petersburg, the uncle broke the nephew's "heart effusions". The now 23-year-old Alexander no longer writes poetry, but surprises his uncle with news. Alexander wants to marry 18-year-old Nadjeshda Alexandrovna - called Nadjenka.

Alexander writes poems again, some of which seem powerless, but are still printed. The uncle, who has meanwhile married Lisavyeta Alexandrovna, avoids the poet. The connection with Nadjenka is not established. The young lady dumped Alexander and rode out with her neighbor, Count Platon Nowinski. The jealous Alexander wants to fight the count. Uncle Pyotr, a friend of the count, laughs at the foolish nephew when he is asked to second.

2

Alexander has been in Petersburg for six years. The uncle complains to his wife Lisavyeta: He has been comforting the young man for six years. The aunt feels sorry for the young man and asks about the status of his writing. Alexander has recently started writing prose again and has now relocated the plot from America to Tambov . The sentimental scribe still considers himself a poet and despises his uncle, the official and factory owner.

A publisher certifies Alexander's lack of talent. The “poet” finally breathes a sigh of relief.

Uncle Pyotr asks Alexander a favor. One of his two partners in the factory is squandering part of the working capital with the 23-year-old widow Julija Pavlovna Tafajewa. Alexander should relax this woman to that partner. The nephew feels unable. Since the fiasco with Nadeshda, he has no longer been able to love. Nevertheless he wants to help the uncle. The Tafayeva and Alexander recognize that they are essentially related. Again Alexander is in love with a woman. He wants to marry her. This marriage does not happen. After two years of idleness in Petersburg, Alexander's love for Julija has cooled down.

Disgusted by the St. Petersburg society, in which Uncle Pyotr climbed the career ladder, Alexander strives to be a hermit; fishing with old Kostjakov. Lisa, the old man's daughter, falls in love with Alexander. This love is not returned.

After eight years in Petersburg, Alexander returned to Grachi on the advice of his uncle. The son confesses his bad luck with women to his mother.

After a year and a half stay in Gratschi, Alexander wants to go back to Petersburg and do everything right there on the second attempt.

Alexander's mother dies. The 30-year-old has lost all illusions.

epilogue

After Alexander spent another four years in Petersburg, Pyotr Adujew fell ill. The uncle renounces his career, wants to sell his factory and go abroad with his wife Lisavyeta.

Alexander is going to marry a wealthy young girl. There is no longer any talk of the feelings evoked in the past. Alexander comes to an agreement with the bride's father. The groom does not speak to the bride at all. The girl will simply be married: Alexander follows in the uncle's footsteps. The no longer very young man has changed.

For the first time in his life, the groom borrows a large sum of money from his uncle.

reception

What has been handed down by contemporaries

  • April 1846: Goncharov asks Yasykov's verdict on the manuscript. Jasykow puts it aside, bored of reading it, but passes it on to Nekrasov a few months later . The latter presented it to Belinski . Eyewitness Panayev remembers that the critic - whether the discovery of the new talent - jumped from his chair.
  • April 1, 1846, Dostoyevsky writes to his brother: Two new names, presumably future competitors, are on the rise - Herzen and Goncharov.
  • March 17, 1847, Belinsky writes to Vasily Botkin about the great success of Goncharov's debut novel in Petersburg.
  • In the memoirs published posthumously in 1928, the critic Alexander Skabitschewski recalls the year of publication. As he read it, he recognized himself - as a likeness of Alexander Adujew, as it were - how, as a sentimental youth, he smugly kept tufts of hair and flowers.

Recent judgments

  • Lokys wrote in 1965: There is a time novel from the 1840s. In 1845, Belinsky asked for that romantic type à la Alexander Adujew to be portrayed, and Goncharov followed suit. Following on from Pushkin's Eugene Onegin , the duel catastrophe will be taken up, but overcome in a timely manner. Belinsky could not understand the final transformation of the romantic Alexander Adujew into a cynic. The uncle, on the other hand, is the more balanced of the two characters and stands for contemporary "energy and education". However, Pyotr Adujew's practical philosophy of life fails in the private - that is, marital - sector. The end of the two-part novel with an epilogue is more like a comedy than a tragedy. Goncharov's fine humor, the comic dialogue and the presentation of an extensive gallery of Russian originals from that time are to be commended. This socio-psychological novel can be assigned to critical realism . Work is used as a means against the decline of the landed aristocracy. Gorky admired Goncharov's three-dimensional penmanship.

Used edition

  • IA Goncharov: An everyday story. Novel. From the Russian by Ruth Fritze-Hanschmann. With an afterword by Dietrich Lokys. 494 pages. Dieterich'sche Verlagbuchhandlung, Leipzig 1965 (1st edition)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ eng. A common story. background
  2. ↑ Russian Botkin, Vasily Petrovich
  3. ↑ Russian Skabitschewski, Alexander Michailowitsch
  4. ↑ Lokys in the afterword of the edition used, pp. 474–484