We cuckoo children
We cuckoo children ( Russian Кукушата, или Жалобная песнь для успокоения сердца , transliteration : Kukuschata, ili schalobnaja PESN dlja uspokojenija serdza ) is a novel by the Russian writer Anatoly Pristavkin .
In the novel published in 1989, Pristavkin, like in Schlef a golden cloud, devotes himself to the life of Russian orphanage children during the Second World War . This book deals specifically with the fate of the children of so-called enemies of the people who lost their parents during the time of the Great Terror or the Stalinist purges .
The book was awarded the German Youth Literature Prize in 1991 .
action
The Kukushkins live in a small rural settlement in the “Spez”, an orphanage with a special regime for difficult-to-educate children and the children of so-called enemies of the people who were killed during the time of the great purges or who disappeared in labor camps in the Gulag archipelago . The children don't know anything about their parents and have all received the same surname at the collection point: Kukushkin. In the “Spec” they are treated like lepers and have to do any kind of work that is assigned to them by the director of the home, called proboscis, or the other residents of the settlement. In addition to Rüssel, the head of the Napoleonchen settlement militia, the school director Natter and the station master Koslow, who is primarily after the girls, stand out when distributing the work.
There are nine Kukushkins in this “spec”: the justice-loving peaceful Motja, Senka, who since the wrong answer about what to eat from a salad is only called “root”, a miner who has already cut off and then goes underground Mining worked, the quick-tempered Wissarion ("Bissig"), Sergej's best friend, Engel, a blond, curly-haired boy who looks like an angel and speaks a few words in Bulgarian without knowing where from, Grille, her best singer, Sandra, die, ever since Her parents were picked up, can no longer speak, can only babble, Sergej, the main character, and Tail, the youngest cuckoo child. Actually, Christik still belongs to them, but he has since run away from the home. None of the children can remember their parents, relatives or their previous home.
“Yes, we are afraid of the dark, although not all of them as angels show, and that probably stems from that night in which the same cops came into our house, which we no longer remember, rumbling with their boots and furniture crazy. They came to our house. In our life. And in our soul.
We don't remember it, but our soul certainly remembers it.
It spits out, like miner his sputum, bit by bit the blackness that has accumulated in it. "
One day the Kukushkins get a visit. Maria Ivanovna is looking for a Sergei Kukushkin. She recognizes him among the Kukushkins and tells him privately about his father, an aircraft designer who was accused of working with the fascists and therefore disappeared in prison. She doesn't know where he is or whether he's still alive. Maria Ivanovna promises to come back to Sergei and then tell him more. Mascha, as Sergej calls her in her mind, tells how, while looking for him, she met the woman from the children's collection point, who had given them all their own surname - Kukushkina - so that it would be easier for them in the future and not so easily to be found. At their last meeting, Masha gives Sergej his birth certificate and a savings account with the sum of 100,000 rubles that his father has kept in Sergei's name . His father received the money as a bonus for successfully completing a project that was important to the war effort.
The Kukushkins decide to go to Moscow and pay a visit to Stalin , the “best friend of the Soviet children”, in the Kremlin . Only he can help them find their parents. Sandra is supposed to accompany Sergej. Since little tail can no longer jump out of the train in time during the diversionary maneuver that is used to board the train, he also goes with it. The train attendant Dunja, with whom they stay during the train journey, is one of the few adults who helps them and also arranges a meeting point for their return journey with them.
The children cannot get past the Kremlin guard and barely save their documents, which they presented in order to be admitted. They finally understand that they will not be admitted to see Stalin. Now all they have left is the Kukushkina whose address they knew from Mascha. She can no longer remember the children in detail, but knows from Mascha that Sergei's relatives don't live far from her. It turns out that both his uncle and mother have broken away from his father and, for fear of persecution, do not want to have anything to do with Sergei. Even the attempt to withdraw some money from his savings book is unsuccessful because he is not old enough. So all that remains for them is the return journey to the “Spec”. Another train attendant is now looking after the third car and they find out that Dunja, whom Sandra would have liked to have taken, obviously had an accident. So their journey ends in disaster; they return with no hope and empty hands.
“We told the cuckoo children little about Moscow. That the Kremlin was locked and that cops were watching Comrade Stalin.
And from Mrs. Kukuschkina, who said we shouldn't look for anyone. Nobody is alive anymore. "
Sergej got the idea of celebrating his birthday while he was driving back from Moscow. He is ready to use his savings account and negotiates a party with Fillipok, the waiter and the cook of the restaurant at the train station, with food, drink and music for the 100 or so inmates of the "Spez". From Sergei's point of view, the festival will be a success. But when Fillipok and the cook realize that they are not getting any cash and that the savings book is worthless in their hands, they lock Senka as a pledge and only want to release him when Sergej has paid. In their distress, the children now tell their supervisor, called Tussi, the story and ask her to collect the money for them. She immediately tells the director the story. Rüssel then actually goes to Moscow the next day. As it turns out later, he is donating the money to a defense fund on behalf of the entire settlement. Senka is now dying of thirst in the basement where he is being held by Fillipok and the cook, is taken to the hospital and is finally buried somewhere.
In the evening the film Battleship Potemkin is shown in the home and the pent-up anger leads - as in the film - to a riot. Rüssels office is devastated and all documents are burned in the courtyard. Then, one after the other, they pay a visit to the director, Napoleon and Kozlov, devastating their facilities and thus taking revenge for the injustice done to them and for Senka's death. Sandra is supposed to shoot Koslow, who has offended her, but she fails and lets the rifle captured from the militia chief, which is already aimed at him, sink again. After this outbreak of violence, the children are tired and go back to the home. Shortly before they can be caught by the local militia, they flee the home. Their first port of call is the post office, where they send a telegram to Stalin, asking them to come to the settlement and help. When asked by the Kukushkins whether the telegram was actually being delivered, the well-meaning postwoman just sighed. They then entrench themselves in a shed, spend their last night there together and are mercilessly shot down the next day by the local militia under the direction of Napoleon.
Years later, in the epilogue, the head of the settlement militia Anatoly Kutscherenko (Napoleon) receives a telegram on his 60th birthday with his family:
"The cuckoo children are waiting for congratulations."
It remains open who actually sent the telegram. Napoleon, who now lives elsewhere, drives back to the settlement and asks the post office. Children had sent the telegram, there was also a girl there and one of them had a strange name, Little Tail. Napoleon turns pale and goes into the field in the hollow where the shed used to be. He dies of a heart attack while waiting for the cuckoo children .
stylistics
The story is told from Sergej's point of view, who, in his childish naivete, believes until the end that Stalin is the only one who is not to blame for their situation.
Pristavkin lets Sergej tell from the end - from the shed where the children are holed up - in flashbacks.
Web links
- Laudation by Thomas Reschke on the occasion of the awarding of the Alexandr Men Prize 2002 to Anatoli Pristawkin with a summary of the contents "We cuckoo children"
Individual evidence
- ↑ We cuckoo children. Berlin: Volk & Welt, 1990, ISBN 3-353-00765-2 , page 9
- ↑ We cuckoo children. Berlin: Volk & Welt, 1990, ISBN 3-353-00765-2 , page 153
- ↑ We cuckoo children. Berlin: Volk & Welt, 1990, ISBN 3-353-00765-2 , page 230