On the move (Chekhov)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

On the way , also in the passenger lounge ( Russian На пути , Na puti), is a short story by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov , which appeared on December 25, 1886 as a Christmas story in the St. Petersburg newspaper Novoje wremja .

J. Treumann's translation into German came onto the German-language book market at Reclam in Leipzig in 1891 . It was also translated into Hungarian ( Utközben ) in 1891, into Serbo-Croatian ( Уз пут ) in 1893 and into English ( On the Way ) in 1903 .

Anton Chekhov

overview

A snowstorm forces a halt. Slender Miss Marja Mikhailovna Ilovaiskaya, around 20, and homeless widower Grigory Petrovich Licharew, 42, spend the night with Licharev's eight-year-old daughter Sascha in the passenger lounge, a room in an inn on Poststrasse where travelers wait for their onward journey .

Anton Chekhov sums it up: “… it suddenly seemed to him [Licharev] that only two or three good, strong steps were missing, and this girl would have failed him all, had forgiven her age and misery and had followed him without giving up ask ... “What does that mean? Well - Licharew can talk, or better said, influence the other person - especially if it is a woman. He has already done this to many women. At least it impressed Marja strongly: “For the first time in her life she saw an enthusiastic, passionately believing person before her ...” Licharew explains axiomatically : “But I tell you that woman was and will always be the slave of man . "

The next morning, Marja goes on her way alone and without saying goodbye. The two did not become a couple. It is up to the reader to guess the sequel. Because Licharev is on the trip to Marja's uncle, the mine owner General Shashkowskij. Licharev wants to work under the general as administrator of the coal mines.

Character of the main characters

Marja's mother has died. Because her father is insane and the brother drinks, which must Marja Vorwerk Ilowaiskoje including the vast country estate of her father manage independently.

Before Marja, Licharev calls himself a crazy landowner who has lived half his life among atheists and nihilists , who turned a nun into a nihilist who later shot a gendarme who corresponded with the Slavophile Aksakov , worked as an archaeologist , collected folk poetry and himself wanted to profile as Ukrainophile. He sums up his university visit to Marja as follows: "... that every science has a beginning, but no end, just like a chain break ." So he turned his back on schools and mingled with the people; “Worked in factories, became a greaser and haulier ”. Licharev has wandered through the Arkhangelsk and Tobolsk governorates and served five times in prison. He confesses to the death of his wife: “... my wife did not leave me for a moment on my hiking trips and changed her faith like a weather vane, depending on how my raptures changed ... the woman I was dying before my eyes because of my unsteady nature tortured to death. "

Licharew left his sons Stjopa and Kolja with a relative. Sascha wants to go back to the brothers. Because there is a Christmas tree there. Licharev has to talk his daughter out of such repentance.

Self-testimony

  • On December 24th, 1886 in a letter to Nikolai Leikin: “For three weeks I wrested a Christmas story for Novoye vremja , five times I started from the beginning, just as many times I crossed it out, spat on, tore it up, threw it aside and cursed it . "

Contemporary reception

  • Anton Chekhov's brother Alexander wrote on December 26, 1886 that the story caused a sensation "in Petersburg".
  • The children's book author Marija Kisselewa said in early 1887: “... that's how a story must be! Warm, friendly and excellent written! "
  • Korolenko emphasizes the text several times:
    • On September 24th, 1888: "On the whole, Chekhov met the old Rudin type in a new skin, so to speak."
    • In the second half of 1904 in an obituary : “... Chekhov appeared to me like a young oak whose shoots shoot in all directions, which is still crooked and somehow without shape, but in which one already has the strength and unadulterated beauty of future powerful growth. "
  • Rachmaninoff writes on the score of his symphonic poem Der Fels : "To the author of the story Unterwegs , whose content, under the same motto, served as the program for this musical work."

German-language editions

  • On the way . Pp. 306-324 in Gerhard Dick (ed.) And Wolf Düwel (ed.): Anton Chekhov: The Swedish match . Short stories and early narratives. German by Gerhard Dick. 668 pages. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1965 (1st edition)

Used edition

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian reference to first publication
  2. ↑ Russian references to translations
  3. ↑ Edition used, pp. 25, 14. Zvo
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 18, 8. Zvo
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 16, 6th Zvu
  6. ↑ Russian Украинофильство (Ukrainophilia)
  7. ↑ Edition used, pp. 13, 13. Zvu
  8. ^ Job description Schmierer in mechanical engineering
  9. ↑ Edition used, pp. 17, 10. Zvo and pp. 16, 12. Zvo
  10. ↑ Russian Лейкин, Николай Александрович
  11. ↑ Quoted in Wolf Düwel, p. 650, 4th Zvu
  12. ↑ Quoted in Wolf Düwel, p. 651, 10. Zvo
  13. ↑ Quoted in Wolf Düwel, p. 651, 14. Zvo
  14. ↑ Quoted in Wolf Düwel, p. 651, 22. Zvo
  15. ↑ Quoted in Wolf Düwel, p. 651, 2nd Zvu
  16. ↑ Quoted in Wolf Düwel, p. 652, 4. Zvo
  17. ↑ Russian Журавлёв, Дмитрий Николаевич

Remarks

  1. ↑ Anton Chekhov does not mention a first name. Ivan's brother, the Slavophile Konstantin Sergejewitsch Aksakow , died in 1860.
  2. ↑ Marija Kisselewa was Alexei Sergejewitsch Kisselev's wife. Kisselew was the owner of the Babkino estate (Russian Бабкино ) west of Moscow. Anton Chekhov lived there from 1885 to 1887 (Russian Киселёвы ).
  3. ↑ Rudin is the hero of the novel of the same name (Russian Рудин ) by Turgenev from 1856.
  4. ↑ Rachmaninoff also used Lermontov's poem The Rock as a material source . Anton Chekhov quotes from it: "Rested a golden cloud / At the breast of the rock giant" (Edition used, p. 1; see also Russian Утёс (симфоническая поэма) ).