Volodja the great and Volodja the small

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Anton Chekhov

Volodja the Great and Volodja the Little , also A Woman's Life ( Russian Володя большой и Володя маленький , Volodja bolschoi i Volodja malenki), is a short story by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov , which appeared in the Moscow newspaper Russedomosti on December 28, 1893 .

Luise Flachs-Fokschaneanu's translation into German was published by August Schupp in Munich in 1897 . In the same year a German-language version appeared under the title Ein Frauenleben . Other translations: 1894 into Serbo-Croatian ( Volodja veliki i Volodja mali ), 1897 into Hungarian ( A nagy Volodja és a kis Volodja ) and Slovak ( Vlado vel'ký a Vlado maličký ), 1903 into Swedish ( Volodja den store och Volodja den lille ) and into English ( The Two Volodyas ).

action

23-year-old Sofja Lvovna made a good financial match with the marriage of 54-year-old Colonel Vladimir Nikitych Jagitsch - known as the great Volodya. After a long year of marriage at the side of an unloved man, Sofja regrets her step. But it's too late now. Big Volodya is two years older than Sofja's father. Until she got married, Sofja had passionately loved her childhood friend Wladimir Michailytsch - little Volodja. The two Volodjas - the old and the 33-year-old - are friends. On a trip together with the Troika , the three of them, together with a cousin of Sofja's, pass the convent that Olya entered voluntarily.

Olya couldn't help it. Her brother was sent to do forced labor and the mother died of grief. The "lush and red-cheeked" Olja was then raised in Sofja's family.

Sofja enters the monastery alone and meets Olya. The nun appears "cold, pale and transparent". After Sofja's request, Olya goes with the troika for a while, is treated with respect by the two Volodjas and soon returns to her monastery.

Sofja complains of her grief to little Volodja in private. How can she avoid the great Volodya? Should Sofja also enter the monastery? Little Volodja, who started a career as a scholar, makes fun of his girlfriend: an unbeliever wants to become a nun.

Sofja throws herself on little Volodya's neck. The new relationship only lasts a week. Then little Volodya dumps her lover. Sofja desperately complains of her suffering in the Olja monastery. Anton Chekhov concludes: "Olya ... felt ... that ... something unclean, pathetic, shabby was coming into the cell , and Olya told her mechanically ... all of this had nothing to say, everything would pass, and God forgive everything."

Self-testimony

On December 28, 1893 to Viktor Golzew: "My story in the Russkije vedomosti was so zealously shorn that you cut off your head with your hair."

Adaptations

  • October 15, 1987, DFF 2 : Volodja the Great and Volodja the Small . TV play (55 min) by Vyacheslav Krishtofovich with Olga Melichowa as Sofja Lvowna, Rostislaw Jankowski as the great Volodja and Oleg Menshikov as the little Volodja.

German-language editions

Used edition

  • Volodja the great and Volodja the small. Translated from the Russian by Ada Knipper and Gerhard Dick , pp. 294–307 in: Anton Chekhov: Weiberwirtschaft. Master stories , volume from: Gerhard Dick (Ed.), Wolf Düwel (Ed.): Anton Chekhov: Collected works in individual volumes. 582 pages. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1966 (1st edition)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerhard Dick (ed.) In the edition used, p. 566, 11. Zvo and Russian reference to first publication
  2. ↑ Notes on translations
  3. ↑ engl. The Two Volodyas
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 307, 6th Zvu
  5. ↑ Russian Гольцев, Виктор Александрович
  6. ^ Anton Chekhov quoted in Gerhard Dick (ed.), P. 566, 14. Zvo
  7. ↑ Russian Володя большой, Володя маленький
  8. ↑ Russian Криштофович, Вячеслав Сигизмундович
  9. ↑ Russian Мелихова, Ольга Вильгельмовна
  10. ↑ Russian Янковский, Ростислав Иванович
  11. ^ Achim Klünder: Lexicon of the television games 1978-1987. Vol. 1, p. 704. KG Saur Verlag , Munich 1991, ISBN 3-598-10836-2
  12. ↑ Entry in the IMDb