Voices (stories)

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Voices ( Russian Голоса / Golossa ) brings together three stories by the Russian writer Wladimir Makanin from 1973, 1980 and 1984. The translation into German by Aljonna Möckel and Wilhelm Plackmeyer was brought out by the Aufbau-Verlag in 1989.

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Valetschka Chekina. One from the province

Story from 1973. Russian title: Вaлечкa Чекинa. German by Aljonna Möckel

The plot runs for decades. Valetschka, born in 1936 - Valja for short - and her brother Serjosha, born in 1943, grew up as half- orphans in the small town of Tichije Baraki in the Urals . The father Ivan Tschekin was killed in 1944 while the Red Army was advancing while crossing a Polish river. The mother Tossja Tschekina was lucky in misery. Because she was forced to work a 16-hour day, she found shelter in the bread factory.

In the ninth grade, Valja falls in love with her teacher. Together with the first-person narrator, the girl successfully applies to a Moscow technical college. In her third year of studies, Valya marries her fellow student Pavel Grebennikow. From the fifth year of study, the couple can move into a shared room in the student residence at Pawel's instigation. Surprising - in spite of her moderate talent, Valja receives an apprenticeship from her elderly professor. Pavel catches his wife cheating with the gray-headed doctoral supervisor. Valja exchanges the mentor for a "harmless" ancient professor. Valja divorces Pavel and marries Yuri Strepetov. Years go by. Valja lives again with Pavel and betrays him again; this time with the 40-year-old poet-linguist Ivan Pawlowitsch Kornejew. Pavel, who lives outside Moscow, is staying with the first-person narrator. The latter is supposed to look for the missing woman and grumbles: “Of course she is charming, but basically a superficial person. Absolutely hollow. Live happily ... “When Valja is found, shows remorse, so from now on wants to stay with Pawel, he no longer wants to. To make matters worse, Valya comes across the relentless mentor Chernikov at her university - the woman is still doing her doctorate years later. In a two-hour conversation, the newcomer proves her total lack of talent and a lack of basic knowledge. It was only because of her beautiful eyes that Valya was able to hold onto the many years as an aspirant at the Moscow Technical University.

Valya goes back to the provinces, this time to the Volga . In a village that sounds like Vorobyosk, she marries the railroad worker Vasily Panin. Both work as conductors on the same train. Valja likes working in uniform very much. Vasily loves his wife, who has given him two children, dearly. Only sometimes does the husband have attacks of rage. Because the wagon in which the couple is on duty is the only one on the train from which public property always disappears, never to be seen again. Valja is the thief, it turns out. The young woman who has entrusted her mother Tossja Tschekina with looking after the two children cannot help it. Always once she has to give something to a complete stranger; For example, a "pretty sugar bowl" for this handsome major. Vladimir Makanin writes that every man "felt that this woman emanated an extraordinary strength."

Citizen Fugitive

Story from 1984. Russian title: Гражданин убегающий. German by Aljonna Möckel

Even in the deepest taiga everything has to be in order. When the approximately 50-year-old construction brigadier Pawel Alexejewitsch Kostjukow refuses to give the helicopter pilot his name for the mandatory entry in the passenger list when boarding, the pilot calls him “Citizen Fugitive” for good reason. The former civil engineer Pawel and his buddies Vitjurka and Tomilin are building a settlement out of the ground in the taiga, drying up this or that swamp and disappearing in the helicopter to the next construction site according to the motto: “Go on, guys, go on. As far away as possible ... “It takes several months to build a settlement for the three die-hard bachelors who are training other Russians as construction workers on site. In each settlement, Pavel , who had been nomadic through Siberia for years, left behind another devoted woman. What's more - his now grown-up, work-shy biological sons pursue him. On the run from the two most stubborn persecutors - these are his sons Vasili and Georgi, who come from different mothers - he even changes his profession; lets himself fly to the end of the world in one of those helicopters and takes soil samples there in the taiga together with the seventy-year-old work-hungry geologist Apollinarjitsch in preparation for the exploitation of the rich Siberian mineral resources. The place is so remote that it is only approached once a year by two supply helicopters. Wassili and Georgi - very hard drinking and always broke - still find their father. Andrejka, a third son of Pavel, asserts that he does not come like his two brothers for the money, but also has no desire to work. When it became clear that Pawel, who had dysentery after drinking swamp water , was dying - no longer able to be transported - all three sons quickly got up and away in the penultimate helicopter. Only Tomilin remains behind and after Pavel's death and the departure of the last helicopter for the old geologist Apollinarjitsch, he has to dig for a year down to the mineral resources. Tomilin just wanted to pick up the friend. In a larger Russian city in Europe he wanted to rest with him from the Siberian construction work. Vitjurka had gotten around to it; was captured for life by a determined loving woman in a Siberian village.

be right

Story from 1980. German by Wilhelm Plackmeyer

Following in the footsteps of Gogol and Chekhov as a writer, Vladimir Makanin acquaints the reader with his narrative theory . In any true prose text there is always a voice that rises from the chorus of secondary characters and speaks to the reader. For this conception of art, the author gives several small, mostly not related examples. These play both in the big city and in the country. In Moscow - the world of office workers - the talkative "dumbass" Shustikov puts the story of his marriage and divorce on the nose of his colleagues. What's in it for him? The informed women thread his expulsion in the next round of dismissals. Or in the middle of the night, the 26-year-old Regina's life track is lost at the locked gate of a metro station . The author complains that he is unable to grasp the life and death of these people - however lightning-fast he runs after them. “Because voices cannot be heard in a hurry.” In addition to voices that keep ringing up in the writer and that are still usable, the author has his cemetery with dead, no longer usable voices.

In addition, Vladimir Makanin goes to his native Ural region and brings out sketches from village life at the time when the twenty-year-old potential writer was brooding over the question: What can you write how?

For example, the dying of half a child, thirteen-year-old Kolka, is discussed. The boy dies of a swollen spleen . Vladimir Makanin's beautiful theory is not entirely correct here. Not only the utterances of poor Kolka remain in the mind of the reader, but also those of his grandmother and mother. The author describes the mother's suffering with a haunting image: "... so that the heart would not hurt so much, she thought of approaching death from the other side of time - she would come to him at his grave ..." Or there is the story of the church robber Severjan Sery. The blasphemer's first sin: while breaking into the church, Sery accidentally stepped on an icon. He has to die for that.

Finally, in his kaleidoscope, Wladimir Makanin allows the reader a glimpse of two old men who abuse the younger ones. “... to hell!” Shouts the old coffin maker Saweli to those who seem to have more than enough years of life ahead of them. And the voice of an anonymous old man only emerges for a moment - as he turns to face the boys - from the crowd of peaceful old men: "Lousy gang, you!"

environment

Even in view of the Siberian expanses, Vladimir Makanin writes that Pawel is destroying nature in Citizens Fleeting with the construction of these few settlements and the trial prospecting for natural resources.

reception

In the appendix of the edition used, under the title “Small anecdotes and eternal subjects”, you will find conversations that Oksana Bulgakowa (Russian Оксана Булгакова) and Dietmar Hochmuth had with the author.

German-language editions

  • Vladimir Makanin: Voices. Three prose texts. German by Aljonna Möckel and Wilhelm Plackmeyer . With the afterword Small anecdotes and eternal subjects by Oksana Bulgakowa and Dietmar Hochmuth. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1989, 344 pages, ISBN 3-351-01195-4 (edition used)

See also

Ingeborg Kolinko has translated the story Гражданин убегающий ( discussed above under the title Citizen Fleeting ) under the title The Runaway :

Web links

In Russian language

Individual evidence

  1. Edition used, p. 344
  2. Edition used, p. 62, 7. Zvo
  3. Edition used, p. 117, 4th Zvu
  4. Edition used, p. 174, 2nd line vu
  5. Edition used, p. 292 below to p. 293
  6. Edition used, p. 225, 16. Zvo
  7. Edition used, p. 313, 11. Zvu
  8. Edition used, p. 193, 12. Zvu
  9. Edition used, p. 312 middle
  10. Edition used, p. 322, 2nd Zvu
  11. Edition used, p. 153, 9. Zvu