A boring story

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A Boring Story ( Russian Скучная история , Skuchnaja istorija) is a short story by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov , written in 1889 and published in the Russian monthly Severny Westnik in Saint Petersburg that same year .

Anton Chekhov

A terminally ill doctor sums up shortly before the end of his life: All learning is of no use.

action

The anatomist Nikolai Stepanytsch X. gives himself another six months - high time for the famous scholar to give the farewell lecture in the auditorium in front of his one hundred and fifty students. But the highly decorated privy councilor in the ranking table and deserving dean of the medical faculty of the university still captivates the audience in his lecture for a whopping hundred minutes.

Mikhail Fyodorovich, his colleague from the Philosophical Faculty, has long since noticed the disease and advises the patient to finally stop working after thirty years of lecturing. Professor Nikolai Stepanych does not think about it. This is impossible for financial reasons alone. His wife Varya scolds him because he has given up his medical practice and no longer writes textbooks. The son, who serves as an officer in Warsaw , has to be supported with fifty rubles a month . The 22-year-old daughter Lisa is completing an expensive course at the conservatory. The professor owes the servant Yegor ten rubles wages for five months.

Nikolai Stepanych had loved his Varya when she was young, beautiful and clever. Over the years, the two have long grown apart. The 62-year-old sick man is actually only fond of his 25-year-old adopted daughter Katja. Eighteen years ago the professor had taken the orphan, daughter of a widowed ophthalmologist, into his family. Katja's father had left his daughter a considerable fortune. Katja felt called to be an actress and invested part of her fortune in her theater career. Like her stepsister Lisa, Katja finally had to realize that she lacks the talent to be an artist. Katja had come home from abroad to the professor's place of residence after her illegitimate toddler died. While Varya and Lisa condemn the failed actress Katja, the professor stands by her. Varya doesn't understand her husband. How can a married person spend hours with such a single person every day?

Katja hooks up with the philosopher Mikhail Fyodorowitsch. The relationship breaks up.

Lisa has a groom. Aleksandr Adolfowitsch Gnecker, barely 30, is a piano dealer and established music critic. He also claims to own an estate in Kharkov .

Professor Nikolai Stepanytsch has had to give up his teaching activity and finally gives in to Varya's insistence: He travels to Kharkov and makes inquiries about Gnecker, the future son-in-law. The first research on site shows that there is no known wealthy Gnecker family in Kharkov. Further research is unnecessary. Lisa secretly married Gnecker. So the professor could start the return journey.

Katja found out the current whereabouts of the adoptive father from the daily newspaper. After the disappointment with Mikhail Fyodorowitsch, she hopes for a change on a trip to the Caucasus and comes to the professor in the Kharkov hotel for advice. She can't go on living like this. But Nikolai Stepanych can't tell her anything. He sums up: "I only noticed the absence of what my colleagues call philosophers, a general idea, at the end of my life ..." Katja leaves. The professor regrets that his darling will be absent for his funeral.

reception

  • March 23, 1950, Maurois admires how Chekhov has skillfully placed the banality of recent events alongside the imminent death of the protagonist - that is, against the tragic.
  • March 3, 2004, H.-Georg Lützenkirchen quotes in his contribution Lebenswahrheiten in literaturkritik.de Thomas Mann : "... a thoroughly extraordinary, fascinating work that has no equal in quiet, sad strangeness in any literature".

Adaptations

filming

  • In 1982 the film of the same name by Wojciech Has was released in Poland . Gustaw Holoubek played Professor Nikolai Stepanytsch, Anna Milewska played his wife Warja, Hanna Mikuć played the adopted daughter Katja, Elwira Romańczuk played his daughter Lisa and Janusz Gajos played Aleksandr Gnecker.

Spoken theater

German-language editions

Used edition

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Maurois cited in Urban, p. 220, 6. Zvo
  2. ↑ Polish. Nieciekawa historia
  3. ^ Polish Anna Milewska
  4. ^ Polish Hanna Mikuć
  5. ↑ A boring story in the IMDb