A Chinese Story (Bulgakov)

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Mikhail Bulgakov around 1935

A Chinese story ( Russian Китайская история , Kitaiskaja istorija ) is a short story by the Soviet writer Mikhail Bulgakov , which appeared on May 6, 1923 in the Petrograd edition of Pravda . The Moscow publishing cooperative Nedra published the text in book form in 1925 as part of the Teufeliaden collection .

content

Little Chinese Sen Sin Po - far from home - is around twenty-five and has no propusk . So at first he can only hope for the journey home, and meanwhile he looks at the outside of the Kremlin in Moscow . In the evening he stayed in one of the suburbs with an elderly compatriot, an opium smoker . "Big bold bugs" crawl in the opium den. In an opium rush, Sen Sin Po is personally guided through the Kremlin by Lenin . Both step onto the balcony. The Red Army is shown to the little Chinese . Two days later, Sen Sin Po calls himself a "red Chinese" and is accepted by the Red Army soldiers as a "one-year volunteer Chinese". Before the new soldier receives his Maxim machine gun from the comrades , only the war commissioner has to agree. Sen Sin Po - a virtuoso on the machine gun - is assigned to the International Regiment. His commander promises him a cash bonus. Sen Sin Po is looking forward to the paid trip home. The command to fire from its commander sounds. The machine-gunner Sen Sin Po thins the ranks of the running enemy in a "terrible rhapsody". It comes, as it must. The commander fights to the penultimate bullet and commits suicide. When Sen Sin Po is killed by one of the opponents in close combat with a bayonet, the hope of returning home to China dies last.

Remarks

  • Background: During the First World War , Russia made up for its emerging labor shortage by "importing" Chinese from Manchuria . Some of these workers had joined the Red Army towards the end of the war.
  • The drug addict Sen Sin Po was not dying for Lenin's big cause - the world revolution, but was hoping for the promised bonus to the end because he wanted to go home.
  • Ralf Schröter listed in March 1994
    • The little Chinese - also standing for that “Asiatic soul of Russia” - wants to be redeemed by Lenin, like all the poor. The key scene of this devil tale, the drug consumption in the old Chinese opium den, calls for a comparison with the witch's kitchen in Goethe's Faust . But the little Chinese did not leave the opium den - as there - rejuvenated, but aged by five years on the fifth day. However, the obligatory trip to hell follows immediately: The little Chinese moves to the hell of the civil war and dies in it.
    • Two fragments of thoughts on Lenin. The latter had sent the little Chinese as Red Army soldiers "to fight for world justice". Bulgakov, on the other hand, had hoped for an apartment allocation from Lenin and had been referred to the responsible Nadezhda Krupskaya . Lenin's wife had granted Bulgakov's wish.

German-language editions

Output used:

  • A Chinese story. Six pictures instead of a story. Translated from the Russian by Thomas Reschke . S. 19–31 in Ralf Schröder (Ed.): Bulgakow: Teufeliaden. Stories. Volk & Welt, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-353-00945-0 (= Vol. 6: Collected Works (13 Vols.))

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian Недра - the lap
  2. ↑ Russian Дьяволиада - Djawolijada
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 21, 14. Zvu
  4. ^ Note on literary history in the afterword of the edition used, p. 316, middle
  5. ^ Note on literary history in the afterword of the edition used, p. 304, 3rd Zvo
  6. ↑ Edition used, p. 29, 4th Zvu
  7. ↑ Notes in the 4th paragraph vo in the Bulgakov encyclopedia (Russian)
  8. ↑ Russian annotation
  9. ^ Note on literary history in the afterword of the edition used, p. 305, 5th Zvo
  10. ^ Note on literary history in the afterword of the edition used, p. 320, 6. Zvo