Eve (Turgenev)
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Vorabend , also Am Vorabend ( Russian Накануне , Nakanune ), is a novel by the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev , which was completed in 1859 and published in 1860 in Russki Westnik in Moscow .
overview
Turgenev addresses a chapter from the Crimean War . The 26-year-old Bulgarian Dmitri Insarow, a merchant's son from Tirnowo , wants to free his homeland from the yoke of the Ottomans in 1853/1854 . Turgenev used Nikolai Katranov as a model for Insarov. As Rasnotschinze, Insarov does not belong to the nobility.
The central character in the novel is not the Bulgarian Insarow, but his Russian wife Jelena Stachowa. While Jelena shows a strong character, i.e. will actively support the fighters in the Balkans, her husband dies before on the way to the combat area in Venice .
prehistory
- Russia
In 1812 Ensign Nikolai Artemjewitsch Stachow, son of a captain a. D., wounded and resigned to a lucrative post in Petersburg . At the age of 25 he married the wealthy Anna Wassiljewna Schubina. Orphaned at the age of seven, Anna had become rich on her mother's side through inheritance. Stachow was therefore able to say goodbye as a military man and withdraw to his estate. After the birth of their only daughter Jelena, Anna was not allowed to have a child on urgent medical advice. Stachow began - to the chagrin of his wife - a relationship with Avgustina Christianowna, a Russian-German widow. Ever since Stachow grew tired of country life, the family has lived in Anna's Moscow house.
- Bulgaria
In 1835 Insarov's mother was slit her throat by a Turkish aga . Insarov's father wanted to avenge the bloodshed and was shot by the Turks . Insarov came to Odessa . Then his aunt took the eight-year-old orphan in Kiev . In 1848 Insarow went back to Bulgaria, roamed his homeland, was persecuted by the Turks, was almost killed in the process and returned to Russia in 1850.
title
Turgenev wrote around 1860 that Russia urgently needed people like Insarov. However, one would still be on the eve of their publication.
action
In the summer of 1853, two young men who were friends of each other frequented Anna's Kunzowoer summer house on the Moskva - the budding sculptor Pavel Jakowlewitsch Schubin, a distant relative of Anna and the budding philosopher Andrei Petrovich Bersenew. Pavel Schubin confesses to Bersenew in private that he is in love with the 20-year-old Jelena, but the young lady loves Bersenew. That's true. At least the narrator tells the reader that Jelena takes a liking to Bersenev.
Bersenev would like to introduce an interesting Moscow student, a certain Insarov, to the Stachovs. The next time Bersenev has business in Moscow, he brings the Bulgarian, who is studying history, law and political economy at the university , with him to Kunzowo.
Insarow and Jelena are talking. The Bulgarian comes to the conclusion that the Russian is a splendid young lady; not a conceited aristocrat. Both find common themes; exchange ideas about love for their homeland and the transition from the above-mentioned vengeance to the struggle for the liberation of the Bulgarians from the Turks. Jelena recognizes that Insarow dedicated himself body and soul to this fight.
When a drunk German officer verbally harassed Jelena during an excursion to the Tsaritsyno ponds, neither Pavel Schubin nor Bersenew intervened, but Insarow threw the intrusive German into the water. Jelena shakes Insarov's hand afterwards.
In the end, Jelena confides in her diary that she will not be smart about Insarow, has never loved, but is in love with the Bulgarian and realizes: "He loves me!" Jelena writes to him.
Jelena's father finds a bridegroom for the daughter - the 33-year-old councilor senior secretary Yegor Andrejewitsch Kurnatowski. The self-confident, arrogant official is not to the taste of the “bride”. To Jelena's delight, her mother left Kunzowo in the autumn of 1853 and moved into her winter quarters - the town house near Moscow's Pretschistenka Street. Insarov comes. The greeting of the lovers is stormy. This is followed by disillusionment. Insarov is called to Bulgaria by his friends. He is looking forward to the war and wants to quit his Moscow studies. The Russians have already occupied the principalities . Jelena wants to stay by Insarov's side. She does not tolerate objections such as “women do not go to war”. Nonetheless, Insarov insists that he get her lover's passport. That is proving difficult. Jelena has only modest resources. While running around to get a passport, Insarow contracted severe pneumonia, was terminally ill for a long time and was cared for by his friend Bersenew. Bersenev, who once loved Jelena, can only keep her away from the sickbed with great difficulty. “If he dies, that's my death too,” Jelena insists.
Insarov does not die. Sinope , November 30, 1853, is not far away. Insarow and Jelena are secretly married. Jelena's mother Anna Wassiljewna Stachowa fainted when the news that the young woman wanted to follow her husband to the Bulgarian war zone. Anna Vasilievna thinks that the Bulgarians live in huts like in Siberia. Insarov is not really healthy yet. They say he spits blood. Jelena's father Nikolai Artemjewitsch does not want to meet the Montenegrin , as he calls the Bulgarian son-in-law. The mother wins in the parental marital dispute. The father gives in. The young couple, financially supported by Anna Wassiljewna, can travel. On the outward journey, Insarow succumbed to the lung disease mentioned above in Venice in spring 1854.
Jelena travels alone to the Balkans and takes care of the sick and wounded as a merciful sister . Your trail is lost. Jelena is considered missing. She is said to have been seen last in Herzegovina with the fighting troops.
shape
The narrator reproduces the thoughts of various protagonists almost omnisciently. The reluctance of the narrator appears as a contrast to such psychological penetration, for example when conjectures about Jelena's fate in the Balkans theater of war are discussed.
Turgenew's situational comedy that is ready for the stage should not be missing in this novel either. For example, when Jelena secretly marries her Insarow, Jelena's father Nikolai Artemjewitsch Stachow is playing the terrified moral apostle at the same time, of all times, when his mistress Avgustina Christianovna demands him.
reception
- January 1860: Dobroljubov in the Sovremennik under the heading When will the day finally come? : “In her [Jelena] there was that vague longing for something, that almost unconscious but inevitable need for a new life, for new people, which is now gripping all of Russian society. Jelena reflects the best emotions of our life today so brightly. "
- Turgenev not only kept an eye on the first Divisions of Sisters of Mercy that were formed in Sevastopol in 1854 , but also the last steps Anita Garibaldi took on her life. It could be possible that Turgenev let Insarov die quite profanely from his illness before his arrival in the war zone, because he wanted to relativize the heroic nature of the process.
literature
Output used:
- Eve. Translated from the Russian by Dieter Pommerenke , pp. 5–212 in: Iwan Turgenew: Vorabend. Fathers and sons . Afterword by Klaus Dornacher. 484 pages. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1973 (1st edition).
Web links
- The text
- Entries in WorldCat
- Entry in the Laboratory of Fantastics (Russian)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Nikolai Katranow ( Bulgarian Николай Димитров Катранов)
- ↑ Rasnotschinzen , see also Russian Разночинцы
- ↑ Dornacher on Turgenew in the afterword of the edition used, p. 460, 3rd Zvo
- ↑ Russian Кунцево (город)
- ↑ Edition used, p. 111, 15. Zvo
- ↑ Russian Пречистенка
- ↑ Edition used, p. 141, 18. Zvo
- ↑ Edition used, p. 152, 7th Zvu
- ↑ Russian Когда же придет настоящий день?
- ↑ Dornacher quotes Dobroljubow in the afterword of the edition used, p. 463, 12. Zvo
- ↑ Dornacher, p. 461, 8. Zvu and p. 463, 7. Zvu