Chelkash

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Chelkash.
Watercolor by Arkady Alexandrovich Plastov , 1928, Gorky Museum Moscow

Tschelkasch ( Russian Челкаш ) is a short story by the Russian writer Maxim Gorky , which was published in 1895 in No. 6 of the magazine Russian Wealth . This first text by Gorky, which was published in a magazine, was written in the summer of 1894 - also thanks to the encouragement and approval of Korolenko . Gorky got the material from a tramp from Odessa , his bed neighbor in the Nikolayev hospital . In 1903 a translation into German came out in Berlin.

content

The narrator looks contemptuously at the crowd of busy dock workers: “Their own work has made them slaves and humiliated them.” Finally they take time for a lunch break.

Grischka Tschelkasch roams the port area. Like most thieves, Chelkash works at night. The "passionate drunkard" has slept through the morning and is looking for his "colleague" Mishka. He needs it for the next robbery the coming night. But Mishka lies in the hospital with a shattered leg. Tschelkasch is looking for a strong young replacement and finds the loitering farmer Gavrila. This is supposed to row the boat with the booty on the "fishing trip". Tschelkasch makes Gavrila drunk and promises him a quarter of the booty. Stolen property that will be sold for around five hundred rubles is up for debate. Gavrila could use the 125 rubles. For example, he could buy a sturdy farm horse for his “poor peasant economy”. Gavrila wants to remain a farmer and by no means hire himself out as a servant. Chelkash can understand Gavrila. After all, he was a farmer himself - that is, a "sedentary everyday person" - before he left the floe and chose the life of the "cheeky adventurer". An "eleven years of electricity experience" lies behind the derailed, lonely Tschelkasch after military service.

The stolen bale actually brings in 540 rubles. Tschelkash immediately gave Gavrila forty rubles. Then there is a heated physical argument on the beach. Tschelkasch gives Gavrila the promised money. When he took it from him again and marched off towards the harbor, Gawrila threw a stone at his employer. The victim, injured, with anger, keeps only one ticket and throws the rest to the "greedy" Gavrila. Gavrila, who had previously waved for mercy after a lost battle, takes off with a firm, broad step with almost all of the money.

reception

  • Ludwig about Gorki's mentor Korolenko: “When Gorky brought him [Korolenko] the story Tschelkasch , he emphasized the ability to draw characters, to let the characters speak for themselves, not to get caught up in their thoughts and feelings and people, like that how they really are. "
  • Tschelkasch is one of Gorky's barefoot stories. Tolstoy wrote in his diary on May 11, 1901: “We all know that barefoot people are people and our brothers, but we know it theoretically; he [Gorki], on the other hand, showed us them concretely, full of love and infected us with this love. "
  • “Tschelkash, who is indifferent to the norms of society, property and money”, proves to be the morally superior.
  • At the time, Marxist contemporaries would have accused Gorky of an inaccurate drawing of the Russian peasantry.

German-language editions

  • Maxim Gorky: Chelkash. Bolesy. Song of the hawk. German by P. Jakofleff and C. Berger. With book decorations by FO Behringer. Gnadenfeld & Co., Berlin 1903, 95 pages.
  • Maxim Gorki: The wooden rafts and other stories. Only authorized translation from Russian by August Scholz . 507 pages. Malik-Verlag , Berlin 1926 ( Makar Tschudra. About the siskin who lied and the woodpecker who loved the truth. Jemeljan Piljaj. Grandfather Archip and Lenjka. Tschelkasch. Once in autumn. The song of the falcon. A mistake. The old one Isergil . The story of the silver lock. My traveling companion . The wood rafts. Bolek. In Weltschmerz. Konovalov . The Khan and his son. The exit ).
  • Chelkash. P. 13–29 in: Maxim Gorki: Selected works: Stories. Fairy tale. Memories. SWA-Verlag, Berlin 1947 (typesetting: Dr. Karl Meyer GmbH, Leipzig. Printing: Leipziger Buchdruckerei GmbH, Leipzig).
  • Chelkash. German by Georg Schwarz. S. 114–154 in: Maxim Gorki: Stories. With a foreword by Edel Mirowa-Florin. Vol. 1 from: Eva Kosing, Edel Mirowa-Florin (Hrsg.): Maxim Gorki: Works in four volumes. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1977.
Used edition
  • Chelkash. German by August Scholz. P. 343–376 in: Maxim Gorki: Erzählungen. First volume. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1953.

literature

  • Nadeshda Ludwig: Maxim Gorki. Life and work. Series of Contemporary Writers. People and Knowledge, Berlin 1984.
  • Henri Troyat : Gorky. Petrel of the Revolution. German adaptation by Antoinette Gittinger. Casimir Katz Verlag, Gernsbach 1987, ISBN 3-925825-08-8 .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Korolenko criticized Gorky's style. It was also Korolenko who persuaded Gorky to write a story that could be published not only in a newspaper but in a magazine. The result of the effort was Chelkash . (Troyat, p. 61, 7. Zvo)
  2. ↑ Translator not mentioned.
  3. ^ The SWA publishing house in Berlin was a publishing house of the Soviet military administration in Germany .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tschelkasch (4th picture from above)
  2. ↑ Edition used, p. 490, last entry
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 491, 1. Zvo
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 344, 5th Zvo
  5. ↑ Ludwig, p. 28, 14th Zvu
  6. ↑ Tolstoy, quoted in Ludwig, p. 33, 14. Zvu
  7. ↑ Ludwig, p. 35, 2. Zvo
  8. ↑ Ludwig, p. 35, 5. Zvo
  9. ^ NDB entry by August Scholz