Sergeant Prishibeyev

"Sergeant Prishibeyev" (Russian: Унтер Пришибеев, romanized: Unter Prishibeyev) is an 1885 short story by Anton Chekhov.

"Sergeant Prishibeyev"
Illustration by Kukryniksy
AuthorAnton Chekhov
Original title"Унтер Пришибеев"
CountryRussia
LanguageRussian
Published inPeterbugskaya Gazeta
Publication date5 (old style) October 1885

Publication

The story was first published in the 18 (5 o.s.) October 1885, No. 273 issue of Peterburgskaya Gazeta originally under the title "Muckrake" (Кляузник), and signed A. Chekhonte (А. Чехонте). Under the new title it was included by Chekhov into Volume 2 of his Collected Works published in 1899–1901 by Adolf Marks.[1]

Background

Sergeant Prishibeyev was written originally for the Oskolki magazine, but its editor Nikolai Leykin found it 'too dry' and 'overdrawn'. Leykin prepared his own, abridged version of the story, but even that one was rejected by the censor Svyatkovsky. Following Leykin's advice, Chekhov sent it to the St Petersburg Gazette where it had no problems with censorship and was published as "Muckrake".[1]

Synopsis

Sergeant Prishibeyev[note 1] gets himself into trouble with the police, due to his old army habit of restoring what he perceives as 'order', wherever he happens to be.

Notes
  1. A 'speaking surname', typical to the early Chekhov stories and the 19th century Russian satirical literature as a whole. Prishibeyev comes from the verb prishibit (пришибить), meaning "to crash down, strike dead".
gollark: Since if something doesn't work, and it has been repeatedly shown to not really work, it is now a "bad idea".
gollark: See, I think "communism is a good idea but it doesn't work" is a cached thought, and a wrong one.
gollark: There is a vast incomprehensible system devoted to giving me and other people slightly faster computers and cheaper food and generally slightly nicer things, and it's great.
gollark: That would be a "bad idea", then.
gollark: I like having the kind of high-level coordination which lets me have things like computers exist.

References
  1. Shub, E. M. Commentaries to Унтер Пришибеев. The Works by A.P. Chekhov in 12 volumes. Khudozhestvennaya Literatura. Moscow, 1960. Vol. 3, p. 517
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