Sick room No. 6

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Anton Chekhov

Sick Room No. 6 , also A Divine Asylum and Hospital ( Russian Палата № 6 ), is a short story by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov that appeared in the November 1892 issue of the moderately liberal Moscow monthly Russkaya Mysl (“The Russian Thought”).

C. Berger's translation into German was published in 1902 by J. Gnadenfeld & Co. in Leipzig. Other translations:

  • 1894 into Serbo-Croatian ( Палата бр. 6 ), into Danish ( Sjette Afdeling ) and into Norwegian ( Sygestue no. 6 ),
  • 1895 into Swedish ( Sjuksalen no.6 ),
  • 1896 into Bulgarian ( Палата № 6 ),
  • 1898 into French ( La salle nr. 6 ),
  • 1900 into Polish ( Oddział nr. 6 ) and Finnish ( Lääkärin kohtalo eli sairaalan no. 6 ) and
  • 1903 into English ( Ward no. 6 ) and into Czech ( Na šestce ).

content

The reserved, indulgent Dr. Andrei Jefimytsch Ragin is about to retire. In 1863, after attending grammar school, he had become a doctor at his father's behest. Actually, he had wanted to become a clergyman. “The godly institution”, that is, the hospital in the province where Andrei starts work after graduation, is in a desolate state. Disgusted by the dirt and stench, Andrei simply stays away from the hospital on some days. He comes to terms with the conditions. For example, the psychiatric department in room 6 is guarded by veteran Nikita. The old soldier occasionally beats patients in it. Dr. Andrei Yefimytsch Ragin knows about it, but does not intervene, but prefers to pass the time at home with his books. Andrei prefers works on history and philosophy. He only takes note of the content of a medical journal in passing. Darjuschka does the housework for her master, serves him a warm meal every day and takes care of little things. Beer and cigarettes are in stock. Sometimes Andrei is visited by his friend, the postmaster Mikhail Averyanytsch. The reticent officer quietly admires the doctor's reading.

Sick room No. 6, edition 1894, Moscow

Once, on a spring evening, Andrei went for a walk and passed the psychiatric ward No. 6. The doctor gently gives the guard Nikita an instruction. "At your command, Your Highly Born", Nikita replies devotedly. During the evening visit, Andrei made the acquaintance of the aristocratic patient Ivan Dmitritsch Gromov, a 33-year-old who had dropped out of college and lost his next of kin as a result of a stroke of fate, in the hospital room No. 6. The former bailiff and government secretary suffers from paranoia . You get into conversation with each other. The mentally ill person is harshly judged by the attending physician. Andrei keeps looking for number 6. He sits down on the bed with Ivan and exchanges philosophical questions with him. The disputes do not go unnoticed and are well registered.

Andrei is summoned before a committee. Before he realizes that officials are testing his sanity with simple questions during the meeting, it is too late. Dr. Andrei Yefimytsch Ragin, labeled as a mentally ill person, ends up as a patient in hospital room No. 6.

When Andrei feels an appetite for beer and cigarettes, he wants to leave the closed facility by using force and is brought to reason by Nikita with fists in the face. Andrei lies down on his bed and dies of a stroke the following day, afraid of further beatings . Only Mikhail Averyanytsch and Daryushka come to the funeral.

reception

  • After reading it, Lenin writes: “When I finished reading this, I immediately felt uncanny; I couldn't stay in my room anymore, I got up and went out. I felt as if I were locked in ward 6 myself. "
  • April 1955, Hermann Hesse : "Masterpieces like the one from hospital room No. 6 ... I read again every few years."
  • In allusion to Chekhov's story, Valerij Tarsis named the autobiographical novel about his forcible placement in a Soviet psychiatric clinic Palata № 7 (1965).

Adaptations

Movie

  • 3rd December 1974, FRG , Krankensaal 6 , TV movie by Karl Fruchtmann with Helmut Qualtinger as Dr. Ragin.
  • June 1st 1978, Yugoslavia , Paviljon VI , TV movie by Lucian Pintilie with Slobodan Perovic as Dr. Ragin.
  • 28 October 1987, Poland , Sala nr 6 , TV film by Krzysztof Gruber with Jerzy Bińczycki in the leading role.
  • September 3, 2009, Russia , Mosfilm , hospital room No. 6 , feature film by Karen Schachnasarow with Wladimir Adolfowitsch Ilyin as Dr. Ragin.

theatre

German-language editions

Used edition

Secondary literature

  • Peter Urban (Ed.): About Čechov . 487 pages. Diogenes, Zurich 1988 (Diogenes-Taschenbuch 21244). ISBN 3-257-21244-5

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Anton Chekhov wrote: "... in this dirty little nest, two hundred versts from the railroad station." (Used edition, page 15, 7 ZVO)
  2. ↑ Andrei says: "My illness consists solely in the fact that in the course of twenty years I found only one reasonable person in the whole city, and he is a mentally ill person." (Edition used, p. 67, 7th Zvu)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian Русская мысль
  2. ↑ Peter Urban in the edition used, p. 184 above
  3. ↑ Russian references to translations
  4. ↑ Lenin, quoted on the back cover of the edition used
  5. ↑ Hesse in Urban anno 1988, p. 224, 6. Zvo
  6. ↑ Sick room 6 in the IMDb
  7. ↑ Serbian Павиљон 6
  8. ↑ Serbian Слободан Перовић
  9. ↑ Paviljon VI in the IMDb
  10. ↑ Polish Sala no 6
  11. ^ Polish Krzysztof Gruber
  12. ↑ Polish Jerzy Bińczycki
  13. ↑ Sala nr 6 in the IMDb
  14. ↑ Russian Палата № 6 (фильм)
  15. ↑ Russian Шахназаров, Карен Георгиевич
  16. ↑ Russian Ильин, Владимир Адольфович
  17. ↑ Sick room No. 6 in the IMDb