Galician stories

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Galician stories is a book of short stories by the Polish writer Andrzej Stasiuk . It appeared in 1995 under the original title Opowieści galicyjskie and was published in 2002 by Suhrkamp Verlag . The work consists of fifteen short stories written in poetic prose . The individual stories are mostly named after the respective protagonists and describe their life in an area around south-eastern Poland, on the border with Slovakia . In addition to the main characters, the characteristic landscapes and locations also play an important role. They are presented in detail and vividly. The narrator takes the first-person perspective and comes into contact with the protagonists, but also acts as a silent observer.

content

Stasiuk describes in a dry but poetic way the desolate, melancholy and monotonous everyday life of a self-contained cosmos. The workers of the dying LPGs (Agricultural Production Cooperatives ), as remnants of the collapsed communism, who despite shaking hands, as they did a week ago, occasionally go to work, only to drown the money in the ubiquitous pubs, form the framework of a hopeless world . The grandmother and Maryska be that the only female protagonists, first as a resolute, courageous and desirable being shown to an abrupt end. After the grandmother's husband drowns drunk in the not even knee-deep brook and six of her seven daughters go out into the world, her house is struck by lightning and her seventh, initially fairy daughter, Maryska , ends up as a boozy village whore. and dies a mysterious death. Only one player who is emphasized as a mediocre drinker experiences a rise and, after forty years of poverty, becomes the messenger and herald of a new global religion within two years through his kiosk with colorful products that are compared with saints and their properties .

The sometimes erratic and mosaic-like representations, which typically show the thought processes of a drunk, end more in death, in prison or in the exchange of erotic cassettes for a living. It is not without reason that the stories end in a mass that has returned especially for you as a ghost , Murderer is held off; After all, sin is followed by compulsory confession, or, as Józek says, that the church is legitimized by the chaos that surrounds it. Although all stories are independent and mainly describe a protagonist, individual actors and events can be found in other narratives and thus form a cycle.

Overview of the short stories

Józek

The first story is about the tractor driver Józek , a pragmatic drunkard and uncomplicated spirit who becomes a great speaker while drinking and can describe the whole existence in a few hundred words . The narrator reports on Józek's existence in the LPG, common bar walks and conversations. He illuminates his personality and behavior and thus justifies his existence. Józek comes to a tragic end after he drinks from a standing pond on a hot summer's day and dies shortly afterwards.

Władek

Władek , who is around forty, is a mediocre drinker and financially poor, has twelve children whom he occasionally sends to the neighbors to ask for food when money is tight. While his wife goes to work in the forest, it is his greatest happiness when he is surrounded from head to toe by his crowd of children . One day a wind blows in Władek and he sells all of his belongings in order to rent a kiosk in the village, with which he can achieve social advancement. This makes him an exception in the story volume, alongside Janek .

Kruk the blacksmith

Despite his retirement, the main character of this story is busy sitting on a bench and tells our narrator how he travels by bus and train to his son in Silesia. They drink plenty of beer and smoke cigarettes, which means that the narrative takes on extravagant features, but leaves no detail out. Kruk, the blacksmith , has not even reached his son in his detailed report on the trip, when his wife calls him over and he says goodbye until the next time.

Janek

The protagonist of this short story, whose hands are shaking, no different than a week ago , does not go to his local pub for a beer, a stinking purgatory, the antechamber of tomorrow , as he usually does , but sets off on his decrepit tractor Forest to remove felled trees. Just as it is getting dark he reaches the workers' settlement, which consists of three barracks . The next day he starts his work when enough wood has been collected from the felling and transports it through ravines and steep slopes, which is on the border between risk and suicide . Once a month he turns up briefly in his village to leave a few groschen. He takes the rest with him to the pub, which after work is no longer an attribute of everyday life, but rather something festive . One day he no longer shows up at work, but takes the ferry to Sweden . After half a year he comes back in denim suits with prints and shiny decorations, with white Adidas on his feet , and he sells one in the pub. In the forest he just wants to walk , he explains.

The place

A man with a backpack, a map in his hand and a camera around his neck, speaks to the narrator and inquires about a well- worn place where they are both standing.The narrator explains to him that an Orthodox church once stood here and then ponders in one inner monologue, about the history of the square and the church. In a figurative language he describes the structure, the inner workings and the disintegration of the church.

Kościejny

Semen Wasylczuk visits Kościejny to have him slaughter a pig for him. He himself doesn't like killing , while Kościejny definitely likes it. Then they drink schnapps together. One day when Kościejny is at work, Semen W. visits Kościejny's wife to help her, he says. Kościejny then visits his old friend and tells him to leave his wife alone. In the next scene, Kościejny appears in the pub and kills Semen W. with his knife. He is sentenced to twelve years in prison, but is given an exit after three years because he is quiet, taciturn and orderly . He then visits the pub, has a drink and smokes one cigarette after the other , before finally going out into the night. His body is found a week later.

Lewandowski

In this story, the narrator visits Lewandowski at his house while they drink schnapps together. Lewandowski tells about his life, about his four-year prison sentence and shows him a picture of his wife. The narrator sketches the scenery in a poetic and very detailed language. In the end they meet again on a bus when Lewandowski is on his way to exchange erotic tapes for a little money.

The pub

Here the narrator acts as a silent observer and describes the local pub, with the barmaid and the waitress. The waitress sees the ghost of Kościejny and sees the murder of Semen W. in her mind's eye. She then drinks a glass of vodka and distracts herself with Edek . The men of the village drink and fight together.

The grandmother

In the first scene, grandma tries to scare the wild boars away from her potato field with a body that was subject to gravity, or perhaps the burden of heaven , with a deaf and blind dog. She also has to do all the other work on the farm alone while her son-in-law Czesiek sleeps off his intoxication. Six of her seven daughters went out into the world and her husband drowned in a knee-deep stream after drinking around the area with two other men . Accordingly, she has a negative image of men. When lightning strikes her house and it burns, she mumbles: The Lord God is a man, yes, the Lord God is a man .

The red-blond sergeant

The red-blonde sergeant is sitting in his office and is bored. He lets his mind wander and assigns the places in the village to the clock face, where the church means noon and the pub six o'clock, where the shop is at three and the bus leaves at nine . As Jan Zalatywój drives past in his vehicle, he thinks that he might be the decent one here, even if he doesn't have a driver's license and the vehicle is not registered . Suddenly the ghost of Kościejny appears in his office and complains that no one except the sergeant can see him, not even the priest. The ghost of Kościejny asks the sergeant where a pig is slaughtered because it is what he misses most.

The night

Kościejny's ghost roams the village. He goes to church where the sexton cannot see him and dips his hand into the holy water font, leaving the water untouched. He watches Lewandowski in his house and smells the slow drunkenness . Finally he comes to a house where Edek and Gacek are drinking and dancing with Maryska . When the vodka is empty, the drunken Gacek drives without noticing it with the spirit of Kościejny to the nearest shop and worries about new ones.

Maryska

The young, sixteen-year-old Maryska is described, in a white dress, self-confident and adorable, desired by all boys. But she prefers to be alone. Finally, when she was in her early twenties, she met a man in a dark suit and dark glasses who owned a car and was using it to leave the village. When it comes back after five or six years, it looks like it's fifteen. In the meantime it has expanded, painted, even the voice was different . She gets involved with different men from the village and if you called her, she went with you, if you invited her, she came, if you offered her something, she didn't refuse . After a binge of drinking with Edek and Gacek , Maryska is taken away by an ambulance, but her fate is hidden from the reader.

The confession

The red-blonde sergeant marches across the market square to the pub and speaks briefly with Jan Zalatywój and the bartender. Finally he goes to church, where he meets the pastor and asks him to talk to him. He tells him about Kościejny , who claims that Gacek is innocent and did not kill Maryska . Kościejny wants to confess everything to him when a mass is held for him.

The second night

In a transcendent language ( where is the light that falls like a night watchman's lantern on the sleeping, exhausted, unconscious and closes their hearts in a golden circle so that they get strength to get up in the morning and start over? ) Becomes a Monologue about the absence of light, in which almost all protagonists are mentioned. The dreams escape from Lewandowski's nostrils and Jan Zalatywój remembers how he found a hanged corpse in an abandoned house. The pastor is thinking of his sleep in the confessional when the grandfather clock woke him and he didn't know who and where he was. He tries in vain to repeat this. The grandmother is in a strange house, thirsty and without water, they can not sleep. She remembers three Russian riders who asked her if she was German. She remembers Fedor Fećko , who long ago pounded madly on her door and silently asked for Maryska . Gacek stands in his cell and thinks about the interrogation in which he could not say anything because he had forgotten everything.

The End

The sergeant and Kościejny go arm in arm to the church, where a mass for Kościejny is to be held. He complains that there are not enough people and that there is no music. Thereupon the sergeant rushes into the full bar and "arrests" all those present who can play an instrument in order to send them to mass. When Kościejny is finally satisfied and smiles, he nods to the sergeant that he should come to him before it is too late.

Adaptation

Based on Galician Stories , the film Wino truskawkowe , (German strawberry wine) was made in 2008 , directed by Dariusz Jabłoński. The scenes were filmed in the same places that Stasiuk used to inspire his work.

literature

  • Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician Stories. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-518-45620-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 30 .
  2. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 38 .
  3. ^ A b Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 73 ff .
  4. ^ A b Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 97 ff .
  5. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 77 .
  6. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 78 ff .
  7. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 101 ff .
  8. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 104, 113 .
  9. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 17 .
  10. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 18th ff .
  11. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 21 .
  12. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 63 .
  13. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 128 ff .
  14. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 15 .
  15. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 9 .
  16. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 11 .
  17. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 10 .
  18. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 15 .
  19. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 16 ff .
  20. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 20 .
  21. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 23 ff .
  22. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 26th ff .
  23. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 29 .
  24. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 30th ff .
  25. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 35 ff .
  26. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 40 .
  27. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 40 ff .
  28. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 50 ff .
  29. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 53 ff .
  30. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 54 ff .
  31. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 57 ff .
  32. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 64 ff .
  33. ^ A b Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . First edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 73 ff .
  34. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 76 ff .
  35. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 78 ff .
  36. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . First edition 2002 edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 80 ff .
  37. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 82 ff .
  38. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 84 ff .
  39. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 88 ff .
  40. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 97 ff .
  41. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 101 ff .
  42. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 106 ff .
  43. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 114 ff .
  44. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 115 ff .
  45. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 118 ff .
  46. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 122 ff .
  47. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 126 ff .
  48. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk: Galician stories . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 128 ff .
  49. ↑ Andrzej Stasiuk: on czarne> com. Retrieved March 20, 2017 (Polish).