In the snowstorm

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Lev Tolstoy in 1856

In the snowstorm , also Der Schneesturm ( Russian Метель , Metel ), is a story by Lev Tolstoy , which was completed on February 12, 1856 and was published in the St. Petersburg Sovremennik in the March issue of the same year . The story is based on a true story. On January 24, 1854, Tolstoy was caught in a snowstorm on his way home from the Caucasus near Novocherkassk .

content

The sleigh, a troika in which the narrator sits down with a certain Aljoschka that evening, glides into the snow-covered Cossack steppe. As to the wasteland a blizzard rearing and no versts pile more can be seen, the narrator does not want to turn back. However, he has little confidence in the driver because he is not a local, but comes from the Tula area. In addition, the narrator has already traveled over five hundred wererst without a night's rest. He is in a hurry. The coachman is noticeably revived when the narrator orders a return in the face of the storm. When courier sleighs approach the travelers at a brisk trot, the narrator orders another turn around according to the motto: Just follow the fresh traces of these troikas! The loud bells will probably indicate the direction of travel. The clumsy coachman drives into one of the three-carriage vehicles when turning. Horses torn loose from the mail car concerned must be caught in the snow mist. The driver persuades the narrator to change the sleigh. After midnight, the cold adds to the storm. The postilion advises the narrator to take a short walk behind the sled to warm up. The travelers lose their bearings a couple of times. Unsettled, they keep an eye out for haystacks, Kalmyks camping or a Cossack village. The starry sky is not available for orientation. Where is the post office - the goal of this stage? The narrator falls asleep several times; dreams of his freezing death while falling asleep and then changes each time to his favorite dreamland, shimmering hot July summer at home on his estate deep in Russia. When he woke up in the night - towards morning - the exhausted horses snort and stumble. The wind is still howling and it is snowing; more precisely, it pours snow as if it had been thrown with shovels. In the morning the snowfall is over. Only wind drives snow over the barren steppe. Although the post office is only half a werst away, the postilion is allowed to stop at the first inn. You treat yourself to a quarter measure of brandy.

reception

In contrast to other Tolstoy publications of the time - for example, the morning of a landlord - the text was well received by contemporary Russian literary criticism. Turgenev is said to have been carried away. Aksakov called the short story the most realistic he had ever read about this natural event. She is said to have found hearts wonderful. Druzhinin, full of praise for Tolstoy's description of the force of nature, thought the little story was the best that had been written since Pushkin and Gogol .

The remarks of the critics in recent times were less favorable for Tolstoy. Sydney Schultze ( University of Louisville ) wrote in Modern Language Studies in 1987 : Although the wonderful description of the freezing snowstorm included the even more vivid description of a hot July day on the narrator's estate, a message from the juxtaposition cannot be read. Ernest J. Simmons (1903–1972) missed the plot in the snowstorm . Repetitions to describe the snow and wind strengths were not enough. Boris Eichenbaum, on the other hand, finds the interweaving of real winter storms and summer dreams remarkable despite the lack of fable.

German-language editions

  • The Cossacks, in the snowstorm, family happiness. German by August Scholz . B. Cassirer, 1923, Berlin
  • The blizzard. German by Alexander Eliasberg . P. 5–43 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)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian comments on Metel at tolstoy-lit.ru
  2. ↑ Russian Александр Васильевич Дружинин, Alexander Wassiljewitsch Druschinin (1824–1864)
  3. ↑ eng. About the Author Ernest J. Simmons
  4. ^ Simmons: Lev Tolstoy . New York 1960, Vol. 1, p. 149
  5. ^ Eichenbaum: Lew Tolstoy . Munich 1968, part 1, p. 243
  6. ↑ Source: en: The Snowstorm
  7. ↑ Russian Бурнашева Н.В.