Konovalov (Gorky)

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Konovalov ( Russian Коновалов ) is a short story by the Russian writer Maxim Gorky , which - written in 1896 - appeared in the St. Petersburg magazine Novoje slowo in March of the following year . In 1930 Arthur Luther's translation into German was published in Leipzig .

The text can be read as a piece of autobiography. Among other things, Gorky picks out experiences from his work in the Kazan bakery Vasily Semyonov.

Gorky in 1889

content

The 40-year-old melancholic Alexander Ivanovich Konovalov from Murom was picked up as a tramp in Pskov and hanged himself in prison. That's what it says in the newspaper. The narrator Maxim had worked as Konovalov's henchman in a bread bakery when he was 18. At the time, the journeyman Konovalov had not really made friends with the poorly ventilated bakery in the basement of the master baker Vasily Semyonytsch. His last job had been an Astrakhan fishing trawler on the Caspian Sea .

Maxim takes care of the illiterate Konovalov's mail with his girlfriend, Kapitolina, a merchant's daughter from Vyatka . Kapitolina, a shameless whore , wants Konovalov to free her from the public house in which she is being held. Konovalov manages that. Capitolina, however, cannot do anything sensible with the regained freedom. In addition, she wants to be married to Konovalov. She is at the wrong address with the vagabond and tramp who, as a real drinking brother, says she has no home.

Konovalov is amazed. His assistant is a "book man". In hard-earned breaks, the journeyman receives the Podlipowzy from Reshetnikov and Kostomarov's Uprising from Stenka Razin read out by his handyman . Because Maxim has to read the Stenka over and over again, Konovalov can finally recite it by heart. Maxim's subsequent literary training attempts are all less successful. At the Stenka himself comes Taras Bulba not approach, and the characters from the poor people speak and act on Konovalov over.

Of course, the journeyman in the bakery won't last forever. After drinking the money he earned with his buddies, he disappears from the city, never to be seen again.

About five years later Maxim meets his comrade again in Feodosia on “a hike through holy Russia” . It is the second and last encounter. Konovalov does backbreaking work building harbor fortifications and lives in an uncomfortable cave with a rather sick little Russian . Famine has driven men looking for work from affected governorates to the southern port city.

Before his stopover at Feodosia, Konovalov had contracted typhus on the way and was locked up in Kishinev as a border violator.

Maxim ends his story thoughtfully: Konovalov would have remained the person he met in the bakery - a brooder who seeks his point of view, who has got around, has seen everything and has to sum up: “Nowhere is there anything satisfying for me! I haven't found a place for myself anywhere! "

reception

  • The censorship of the Tsar refused Gorky's portrayal of the eponymous Baker as "very tendentious and harmful," "provocative", "in many places of socialist tendency" and pulled the relevant Novoye-slowo -Heft ado complete one.
  • Konovalov thinks for himself. Although the narrator takes Maxim against Konovalov's fatalism , he ultimately turns out to be powerless.

German-language editions

  • Jemeljan Piljaj and other short stories (Konowalow. Malwa ). German by Fritz Steinthal. Max Fischer's VBH, Dresden. undated [1902]
  • Maxim Gorki: The wooden rafts and other stories. Only authorized translation from Russian by August Scholz . 507 pages. Malik-Verlag , Berlin 1926 ( Makar Tschudra. About the siskin who lied and the woodpecker who loved the truth. Jemeljan Piljaj. Grandfather Archip and Lenjka. Tschelkasch . Once in autumn. The song of the falcon. A mistake. The old one Isergil . The story with the silver lock. My traveling companion . The log rafts. Bolek. In Weltschmerz. Konovalov. The Khan and his son. The exit ).
  • Konovalov. Transferred from Arthur Luther. Insel-Verlag, Leipzig 1930. Insel book no. 127.
  • Konovalov. Translator Charles Andres. Scherz Verlag, Bern 1944 to 1947 and 1954, Parnass Library No. 91.
  • Konovalov. (Translator not mentioned). P. 42–66 in: Maxim Gorki: Selected Works: Stories. Fairy tale. Memories. SWA-Verlag, Berlin 1947.
  • My comrade Konovalov. Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart 1966.
  • Konovalov. German by Georg Schwarz. P. 165–226 in: Maxim Gorki: Stories. With a foreword by Edel Mirowa-Florin. Vol. 1 from: Eva Kosing, Edel Mirowa-Florin (Hrsg.): Maxim Gorki: Works in four volumes. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1977.
  • Konovalov and other stories. Translated from Russian by C. Berger and others. Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, Munich 1978.
  • Maxim Gorki: Master novels. Translation from Russian and epilogue by Anne Bock ( Konowalow. The discovery. The story of the silver castle. Fair in Goltwa. Out of boredom. Malwa . Bubbles. Christmas Eve. The tourist guide. The blue life. ) Manesse im dtv (dtv 24013), Munich / Zurich 1993, ISBN 3-423-24013-X .

Used edition

  • Konovalov. German by Felix Loesch. P. 7–61 in: Maxim Gorki: Stories. Third volume. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1954.

literature

  • Maxim Gorki: Stories. Fourth volume. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1954.
  • Nina Gourfinkel: Maxim Gorki. With testimonials and photo documents. Translated from the French by Rolf-Dietrich Keil . Rowohlt, Hamburg 1958 (1986 edition) ISBN 3-499-50009-4 .
  • Nadeshda Ludwig: Maxim Gorki. Life and work. Series of Contemporary Writers. People and Knowledge, Berlin 1984.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Russian Фёдор Михайлович Решетников : Подлиповцы in the Sovremennik (1864).
  2. ↑ Russian Н. И. Костомаров : Бунт Стеньки Разина , Чарли, Москва 1994. ISBN 5-86859-014-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edition used, p. 527, above
  2. ↑ Maxim Gorki: Stories. Fourth volume. P. 553, 6. Zvo
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 60, 2nd Zvu
  4. ↑ Gourfinkel, pp. 13, 11. Zvu and Ludwig, p. 35, center
  5. ↑ Ludwig, p. 35 below and p. 36