Molotov (Pomjalowski)
Molotov ( Russian Молотов ) is a story of the Russian writer Nikolai Pomjalowski that emerged in 1861 and in October of the same year in Sovremennik appeared.
Two-piece
The plot of the story is set in the late 1850s - after the Crimean War - in the European part of Russia and, together with its predecessor, Kleinbürgerglück, forms a dilogy - something like a two-part development novel . There are eleven years between the two parts. The protagonist - the now 33-year-old petty bourgeois Jegor Ivanytsch Molotov, a native Petersburg bachelor with a university degree - sums up how things went for him in that decade between the two parts: After a year and a half as a civil servant in the Central Russian province, he wanted to meanwhile almost 24-year-olds make their fortune in their hometown. However, he had an accident on the carriage ride to Petersburg and was ill for five months in a district town, six hundred versts from Petersburg. Then he dragged himself - meanwhile penniless - to the nearest governorate capital, gave private lessons to children of wealthy people and finally arrived in Petersburg after another nine months. After being employed again as a private tutor, working in a merchant's office until bankruptcy, an accountant in a stock corporation, proofreader for a magazine and working as a translator and writer, Molotov realized that survival as a civil servant should be most likely. Within just under eight years he had then - wearing the hated official's uniform - served himself up to the position of archivist at an authority, saved over fifteen thousand rubles and gradually furnished himself a small apartment with collectibles.
content
The self-confident Molotov frees the 20-year-old, very pretty, serious Nadeshda Ignatjewna - called Nadja - the eldest daughter of the Petersburg official Ignat Vasiljewitsch Dorogow and his 40-year-old wife, the petty bourgeois Anna Andreevna Dorogowa. Moving in and out of the Dorogow family casually like a relative since his early Petersburg years, Molotov had given Nadja private lessons during his student years.
The civil servant's daughter Nadja has already given several suitors - all of them pretty good games - a basket, to the displeasure of the sorely tortured parents. Ignat Dorogow has now promised General Podtjashin - an unsympathetic gentleman with a "smoky face", several years older than Molotov - his unwilling to marry daughter Nadja. Nadja was given three days to think about it. The terrified girl turns to Molotov for advice. The archivist confesses his love to the young girl. Her father is strictly against the marriage. Even more: he considers a marriage of the two to be a threat to their existence. A letter from the formerly happy bridegroom, General Podtjashin, to Dorogov's superiors should be enough and the official Dorogov would be left without a job overnight.
What should I do? The painter Michail Michailych Tscherevarin, related to the Dorogow family and an old fellow student of Molotov, helps the young couple; advises stubbornly sitting out the problem. Molotov can't stand this, boldly goes to General Podtjashin and demands that the groom renounce the bride Nadja. All's well that ends well. The busy general just wants to marry some handsome young girl and have children with her. An acceptable bride substitute is found. Molotov prevails over the future father-in-law Ignat Dorogow. Nadja's mother, who in twenty-two years of marriage purposefully “re-educated” her father according to her premises, takes the side of the happy couple.
German-language editions
Used edition
- Molotow , pp. 115-302 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)