Sleep well, my little son

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Sleep calmly, my son ( Russian Спи спокойно, сынок / Spi spokojno, sinok ) is a story by the Russian writer Tatjana Tolstaja from 1986, which was published in 1987 in На золотом крыльце сидели… (German: “Saßen auf goldenem .. . “) - an anthology of shorter works by the author - was published by the Moscow publishing house Junge Garde ( Russian Молодая гвардия / Molodaja gwardija ).

Two stories are presented - that of a double theft and that of a desperate search for identity.

content

Serjosha married into the family of the late Pavel Antonych. Together with his wife Lenotschka, he has a son who is still in diapers. The father - or also the mother; It is not that clear with Tatjana Tolstaja's indefinite narration - at the end of the text she says to the baby: "Sleep well, my son, you are not to blame." It is about the guilt of Pavel Antonytsch and above all about the guilt of the Germans. Because with the war the German-Soviet is meant: Serjosha's mother-in-law Marja Maximovna was stolen from the Persian flea market in 1948 . The mother-in-law blames the domestic servant Panja. This had to hold the fur on the market and suddenly it was gone. In 1945, Pawel Antonytsch, “an important man of many stars ... took this showpiece off a German hook” - stolen from Germany with the reason, alluding to the years of destruction of the Wehrmacht in western European Russia: “For our cities and Villages". The story with the Persian, which Serjosha, told by her mother-in-law, soon can no longer hear, is a minor matter. The reader would like to know why the late landlord Pawel Antonytsch, a deserving military doctor and respected infection specialist, was "slandered, insulted, suspended and forced retirement" after the war, but unfortunately he does not find out.

There is also a second main point that the reader cannot figure out: Who is Serjosha? During the war of aggression of the Germans, he was played badly. Serjosha was about four years old during the fighting. The former home child doesn't even know his name. The memories of the war still haunt Serjosha in the mid-1970s. During the ongoing storyline he is still looking for mother and father. But he can't find her. So he has to invent it: For Serjosha Panya is the mother and Pawel Antonytsch the father.

shape

The secondary is described in a crystal clear manner and the two main things mentioned above remain in the dark.

Some of Serjosha's assumptions are almost egregious. For example, according to Serjosha's father statement, Lenotschka, the baby's mother, would be his sister.

Here and there surrealisms are presented staccato . The narrator changes and cannot always be clearly identified. Traditional punctuation rules apply little.

reception

  • Bodo Zelinsky discusses the text.

German-language editions

  • Tatjana Tolstaja: Sleep peacefully, my little son , pp. 112-131 in: Tryst with a bird. Stories. German by Sylvia List and Hilde Angarowa. Luchterhand, Hamburg and Zurich 1989 (Luchterhand collection 1010). 153 pages, ISBN 3-630-71010-7
  • Tatjana Tolstaja: Sleep peacefully, my little son , pp. 57–71 in: Rendezvous with a bird. Stories. From the Russian by Ilse Tschörtner (still contains love Schura. Peters. The river Okkerwil. Sonja. The poet and the muse. "Sitting on a golden podium in the courtyard ...". The fakir. Fire and dust ). Volk und Welt, Berlin 1989 (Spektrum series, vol. 253). 172 pages, ISBN 3-353-00504-8
  • Tatjana Tolstaja: Sleep quietly, my little son , translator Sylvia List, pp. 157–169 in: Russian stories of the present. Edited by Bodo Zelinsky , Reclam, Stuttgart 1992, RUB 8829. ISBN 3-15-008829-1 (edition used)

Web links

in Russian language

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edition used, p. 4 (Russian Молодая гвардия )
  2. ↑ Edition used, p. 340 middle as well as entry in fantlab.ru
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 169, 5th Zvu
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 164, 19. Zvo
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 162, 3rd Zvu
  6. ↑ Edition used, p. 163, 1. Zvo
  7. ↑ Edition used, p. 163, 17th Zvu
  8. ↑ Edition used, p. 166, 1. Zvo
  9. ↑ for example the edition used, p. 165 below
  10. ^ Afterword of the edition used, p. 350 middle to p. 352 middle