Petty bourgeois happiness
Petit bourgeois happiness ( Russian Мещанское счастье , Meschtschanskoje stschastje ) is a story of the Russian writer Nikolai Pomjalowski that emerged in 1860 and in February 1861 Sovremennik appeared.
Two-piece
The narrative forms, together with its continuation Molotov a Dilogie - something like a two- age novel : The petty bourgeois Egor Ivanych Molotov, a native of St. Petersburg with a university degree, the degrading employment shall at his aristocratic manors and factory owners in the province and emancipated; confidently starts a civil service career in his hometown. The protagonist is 22 years old in the first story and 33 years old in the second. Since the latter acts after the Crimean War and shortly before the abolition of serfdom in Russia , i.e. is settled in the late 1850s, the narrated time for the present first is the 1840s.
content
When Molotov lost his father, a hard-working but alcoholic locksmith, at the age of twelve, he was an orphan, and without any relatives. The boy is lucky in misfortune. A professor emeritus takes him in. The well-to-do, aged bachelor does not let the foster son learn a trade, but enables the bright boy to go to university. When the benefactor dies, Molotov is there again; this time, however, with four thousand pieces of paper in his pocket. The young man is graduating from university. When the cash has melted between his fingers and he cannot find a job, the now 22-year-old gives private lessons and finally takes a job with the aristocratic landlord and factory owner Arkady Ivanytsch Obrossimow in central European Russia on a tributary of the Volga whose village Obrossimowka. The Obrossimows resident there call around five hundred farmers their own.
The townsperson Molotov seems to have done well. In his spare time, which is not scarce, the strong young man gets to know and love the beauty of the Central Russian summer landscape of the Volga. The carefree, carefree, strong man had never kissed a woman. Jelena Ilyinischna, called Lenotschka, a godchild of the landowner from the neighboring village, approaches Molotov. The townspeople and the country lady kiss.
Obrosimov is always friendly and courteous to Molotov. The landowner can be satisfied with his employees. After a polite request, Molotov finds, for example, an important document sunk in the library of the estate after days of searching. In addition, the academic proves to be a reliable messenger boy and postman when business occasionally has to be done in the next town.
Molotov's high opinion of the Obrossimovs turns to hatred when he - unintentionally - overhears a conversation between the Obrossimov couple, in which the employee is characterized with all the disadvantages of a typical plebeian. The degraded only has the word "aristocratic pack" left for this greedy landed gentry. Then a letter from his fellow student Andrej Negodjastschew comes to him. He stayed in Petersburg and - like many other academics - became an official.
Molotov tells Lenotschka that he can no longer return her love and leaves. He is bid farewell in all honor by the Obrossimows.
The disappointed reader misses the petty bourgeois happiness promised in the title. Nikolai Pomjalowski wants to know not understood as ironic title apparently because he promises petty bourgeois happiness in the above-mentioned serial story Molotov .
German-language editions
Used edition
- Kleinbürgerglück , pp. 5–113 in Nikolai Pomjalowski: Kleinbürgerglück. Molotov. German by Wilhelm Plackmeyer. 310 pages. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1981 (1st edition)
Web links
- The text
- Entry at fantlab.ru (Russian)
annotation
Individual evidence
- ↑ Städtke in the afterword of the edition used, p. 307, 19. Zvo