Merci or the adventures of Schipow

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Merci or The Adventures Schipows ( Russian Похождения Шипова, или Старинный водевиль , Pochoschdenija Schipowa, ili Starinny wodewil ) is a satirical, historical novel of the Soviet writer Bulat Okudzhava , who from September 1969 in Dubulty to June 1970 (the district of Jurmala was) in the Moscow monthly literary journal Druzhba Narodov was preprinted and published in 1975 by Moscow publishing house Sovetsky pissatel .

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January to August 1862 in Moscow, Saint Petersburg , but mostly in Tula and the surrounding area: the secret police, founded by Nicholas I after December 14, 1825 and since then on the search for state criminals, wants to know that Count Tolstoy is busy on his estate Yasnaya Polyana in the Krapivna district to the ten exiled students as teachers for his peasants who were released from serfdom . The secret service machinery starts up. Major General Potapov informs the Tula police officer Muratov that Count Tolstoy is said to be the author of the prose texts Childhood , Youth and Sevastopol Tales . Adjutant General Tutschkow, military governor general of Moscow and member of the State Council, calls on his Lieutenant Colonel Shenschin to act immediately. Schenschin, who is responsible for special orders, turns to the city supervisor Schljachtin in a Moscow police station: Prince Dolgorukov wishes that a certain Mikhail Ivanovich Schipow, alias Galician honorary citizen Mikhail Simin, now Schljachtin's assistant in tracking down pickpockets and formerly the court servants of the Prince, would be Dolgorukov but the suitable person for reconnaissance, spying on “various crimes of a political nature” and could perhaps even uncover “a possible conspiracy” in Yasnaya Polyana.

No sooner said than done, the 36-year-old scoundrel Schipow, who lives with the shoemaker's widow Matrjona in Moscow, is pictured by Schljachtin, hired, financially poor and sent out as an informant. He is the 30-year-old Greek Amadej Giros, a "small police staff" of the Tambov occurs petty bourgeoisie added. Both go to Tula and stay in that city. Giros pulls part of the modest cash out of Schipov's pocket and fakes meetings with Count Tolstoy. Schipow is also not interested in taking a carriage ride to Yasnaya Polyana. Instead, he writes reports of success, peppered with lies, to his client about a secret printing press in the Count's cellar. Schipov's masterpiece: he licks a thousand rubles in cash from his client to set up a second secret printing plant in Tula. The count is said to be lured into the trap with the even more convenient reproduction of his allegedly anti-subversive writings.

Schipow squandered the thousand rubles and marched back to Moscow, sleeping in haystacks, eating bread and spring water. Schipow calls himself a relative of Tolstoy on his mother's side and is so grateful to the count, who is constantly on the move and who is constantly curing his ailing health with kumys on the way . Without him, the useless Schipow would not have attained the wealth that he had junked over night with several strangers who had taken the handle in a Tula hotel room. But Schipov couldn't help it that night. A stranger had put him under so much pressure with anonymous letters, which were shorter each time, that he had to distract himself with guests.

Meanwhile in Moscow, Matryona has another husband. Schipow finds no shelter, is chased, arrested and imprisoned by the city supervisor Schljachtin with an arrest warrant. Prince Dolgorukov wrote to General Potapov: “I remember Shipov as a devoted servant and now regret my temporary doubts. If we had more people like that, we could guarantee complete peace in our fatherland. ”The overzealous Muratov then got a rebuke from Potapov for his unjustified persecution of poor Schipow.

Almost nothing escapes the Petersburg Third Department. Potapov teaches the Moscow Tutschkow: everything wrong. Political manhunt should not be entrusted to villainous drunkards and lying guys. Yet it was the Tula gendarme Muratow who, thanks to his flexibility - that is, constant disguise in various costumes - succeeded in unmasking Schipov in months of police work on the spot. The police won't let up; sends Colonel Durnowo with more than a hundred policemen to look for the illegal printer in Yasnaya Polyana. Secret agent Schipow, who has to take part in the expedition, sees the Count's residence for the first time. The host is away. Tolstoy's sister and aunt are beside themselves. Of course nothing is found. All nine students can show a residence permit.

In this parody of the picaresque novel , Shipov is sent to Siberia as punishment . On the journey eastwards he is guarded by the police officer Giros, who finally reveals his true identity: Amadej Wassiljewitsch Giros, Real State Councilor . The rogue Schipow does not reach the destination. At the end of the text, which as a whole can be assigned to Fantastic Literature, Schipow gets rid of the chains; dissolves into air floating upwards.

history

Okudschawa's inventions are based on historical facts: the criticism of war in Tolstoy's Sevastopol tales was a thorn in the side of the tsar's secret police. The corresponding secret documents from 1861/62, published in 1906 in the Petersburg Wsemirny Westnik , are evidence of this. The path taken by the former serf Schipow from Prince Dolgorukov's servant to become an informer can also be proven.

Tolstoy wrote in July 1861 about the school he set up in Yasnaya Polyana for peasant children: “In our condition I have never seen such children… Never laziness or rudeness or stupid jokes or an indecent word… I have such a quiet, so peaceful one, me found a completely fulfilling thing. "

After a police house search on July 6th and 7th, 1862, Tolstoy had to close his school. All students present were arrested immediately. Tolstoy had been denounced: he allowed revolutionary proclamations to be reproduced in a secret printing press.

reception

  • In June 1975 Schröder sees the novel Merci as the successor to poor Avrosimov . The "colorful, puzzlingly interesting" Schipow longs for a comfortable life and takes his masters as a model, parroting their French; lies and feigns along the lines of the nobles. In contrast to the nobleman Avrosimov, who is allowed to return to his estate, there is no equivalent happy ending for Schipow. The tragicomic hero fails because of Muratow and Giros.
  • In July 1980, Schröder alludes to the subtitle An old vaudeville in the Russian original when he sums up on the subject of “the emancipation of the little man ” that Schipov would continue to withhold his human right after the reforms at the beginning of the 1860s. The authorities have only staged a historical vaudeville in which Schipow, as a fellow player, remains the stupid.

literature

Used edition

  • Bulat Okudshawa: Merci or The Adventures of Schipow. Historical novel. Translated from the Russian by Thomas Reschke . With an afterword by Ralf Schröder . Volk & Welt, Berlin 1981 (1st edition)

Secondary literature

  • Bulat Okudshawa: The Journey of the Dilettantes . From the notes of retired lieutenant Amiran Amilachwari. Historical novel. Translated from the Russian by Thomas Reschke. With an afterword by Ralf Schröder . Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1981 (1st edition)

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Incidentally, not only the secret service agents or security policemen and their informers communicate cheerfully with one another in the text. Tolstoy also exchanged letters with his aunt, Jergolskaja, with WP Botkin (Russian Василий Петрович Боткин, Wassili Petrovich Botkin), with MA Markowitsch (Marija Alexandrowna Markowitsch, née Velinskaya (1829–1907), Russian Tolstoy letter from 1929-1907) . May 1862), mentions Mikhail Katkow and writes to the same.
  2. ↑ On the title of the novel: Schipow, a poor “little agent” (edition used, p. 30), gets through life right and wrong. As the prince's servant, he memorized a few phrases in French that he incessantly wove into his speech. Schipow had to quit his service with the old prince because the young prince had impregnated a maid and Schipow had taken on paternity. By admitting his sin, Shipov, Prince Dolgorokov's darling, had deeply disappointed his master.
  3. ↑ Some subplots have a comedic touch: For example, Schipow and Giros stayed with the desirable captain's widow Darja Sergejewna Kasparitsch, called Dassja, in Tula (there is always a plate with fragrant quark cake on the table). When Schipov tries to enter the hospitable lady's bedroom, something comes up. And when he does reach his destination, he accidentally caught the stout old pilgrim, a visitor of Dassja, who later turns out to be Muratov in disguise. That is not enough. Muratov sees the Tula police overlooked by the Petersburg Third Department and its Moscow branch. In his zeal for service, he celebrates an unparalleled dress-up game. The chief of the gendarmerie imitates Schipow once as a coachman, another time as a pastry seller, and so on. It comes to light that Muratow is the third man, next to Schipow and Giros, who Dassja desires. The local Muratow, "a bald-headed wreck", ultimately wins the race with the widow. The very poor Schipow Dassja had pretended that as a landowner he had an estate with five hundred farmers.
  4. ↑ Later it turns out: This is Muratow, his rival at Dassja.
  5. ↑ On the form: The plane of Schipov's dream is always inserted into the plane of Schipov's reality . For example, Schipow is talking in private in Tula and the surrounding area with Count Tolstoy, who is traveling somewhere in Russia. Or, even an angel speaks to Schipow.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian Дубулты
  2. ↑ Russian Дружба народов (журнал) - in German: Friendship of the people
  3. ↑ Russian Советский писатель - The Soviet writer
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 4 above
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 6, p. 32 and p. 270
  6. ↑ Russian Александр Львович Потапов
  7. ↑ Nikolai Serafimowitsch Muratow, Russian Николай Серафимович Муратов
  8. ↑ Russian Павел Алексеевич Тучков (* 1803)
  9. ↑ Edition used, p. 24, 3rd Zvu
  10. ↑ Edition used, p. 37, 5th Zvu
  11. ↑ Edition used, p. 233, 16. Zvo
  12. ↑ Edition used, p. 195, 11. Zvo
  13. ↑ Countess Maria Nikolajewna Tolstaja, Russian Мария Николаевна Толстая (* 1830)
  14. ↑ Tatiana Alexandrovna Jergolskaja, Russian Татьяна Александровна Ергольская (1792–1874)
  15. ↑ Parody of the picaresque novel: Schröder in the afterword of the edition used, p. 282, 13th Zvu
  16. ↑ Fantastic literature: Schröder in the afterword of the edition used, p. 282, 18. Zvo
  17. ↑ Russian Всемирный вестник
  18. ↑ Schröder in the afterword of the edition used, p. 278
  19. ↑ Tolstoy, quoted in Schröder in the afterword of the edition used, pp. 273–284
  20. ↑ from Witkops Tolstoi biography, quoted in Schröder in the afterword of the edition used, p. 277 above
  21. ↑ Igor Iljinski (Russian Игорь Владимирович Ильинский (литературовед), Igor Wladimirowitsch Iljinski (1880–1937)), quoted by Schröder in the afterword of the edition used, p. 279 below
  22. ↑ Schröder in the afterword of the edition used, pp. 280–281
  23. ↑ Schröder in the epilogue to Die Reise der Dilettanten , p. 665, 11. Zvo