Sergeant Prishibeev
Sergeant Prischibeev ( Russian Унтер Пришибеев , Unter Prischibejew ) is a short story by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov , which appeared on October 5, 1885 in the daily newspaper Peterburgskaja Gazeta . During the author's lifetime the text was translated into Bulgarian, German, Serbo-Croatian and Czech.
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Accused in front of the justice of the peace of insulting no less than eleven people in word and deed, Prishibeev, a "wrinkled" non-commissioned officer with a "spiky face", pleads not guilty.
When the sergeant, the former master-at-arms in Warsaw , was walking along the bank with his wife Anfissa, he - in his own words in court - wanted to disperse a crowd surrounding a body of water with three measures: First, by command Step away! When that didn't help, secondly, when the people nudged it and when that didn't work either, thirdly, through another command, this time addressed to the police superintendent who was present: Chase the people away with slaps in the neck!
The audience in the hall loudly approves the judge's reasonable objection and complains: Fifteen years ago Prishibeyev resigned due to illness. Since he became a firefighter in the village and then a caretaker at school, he has tortured the population to the point of blood.
The justice of the peace gets himself calm, because the NCO is supposed to motivate his offense. Prishibeev, not lazy, answers verbatim the self-formulated rhetorical question: "In which law is written that one should let the people do their thing?"
Yes, well, the NCO admits, he also hit, but "quite correctly and only gently". He would have been angry when everyone laughed at him. Stupid people would have to be beaten.
Prishibeev, not a fool, realizes that the justice of the peace is not one of his friends. The sergeant is imprisoned for a month. Incomprehensible. Prishibeev had also reported a number of residents - three farmers who left the lights on for long at night, a soldier widow living in fornication, a wizard and a witch.
The audience in the hall suppressed laughter after the verdict was announced. The NCO yells angrily at it: “Step away, men! Don't band together! Go home!"
Adaptation
- Performance (11 min) on YouTube (Russian)
Used edition
- Gerhard Dick (Hrsg.), Wolf Düwel (Hrsg.): Anton Chekhov: Collected works in individual volumes : Unteroffizier Prischibejew. P. 397–401 in: Gerhard Dick (Ed.): Anton Chekhov: From rain to eaves. Short stories. Translated from Russian by Ada Knipper and Gerhard Dick. With a foreword by Wolf Düwel. 630 pages. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1964 (1st edition)
Web links
- The text
- Wikisource: Унтер Пришибеев (Чехов) (Russian)
- online at Lib.ru (Russian)
- online in FEB (Russian)
- online in the Komarow library (Russian)
- online at chehov.niv.ru (Russian)
- July 3, 2014: Arkadi Buchmin: Reading (Russian, 13 min)
- Chekhov Bibliography, Entry Stories No. 305 (Russian)
- Reference to first appearance in the Laboratory of Fantastics (Russian)
annotation
- ↑ The publication under the original title Kljausnik (Russian Кляузник) - The Intriguer - was prohibited. Apparently the author had touched a hot iron. In response to an objection from the censors, Chekhov had to change his story about a village spy and find a new title. (see Notes (Russian примечания) reference Lib.ru (above)).