Sergeant Prishibeyev

Short story by Anton Chekhov

"Sergeant Prishibeyev"
Short story by Anton Chekhov
Illustration by Kukryniksy
Original title	Унтер Пришибеев
Country	Russia
Language	Russian
Publication
Published in	Peterbugskaya Gazeta
Publication date	5 (old style) October 1885

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

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

^ 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".

References

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

External links

Унтер Пришибеев. Original Russian text
Sergeant Prishibeyev, the English translation by Constance Garnett

Anton Chekhov

Bibliography

Plays

Platonov (1881)
On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco (1886, 1902)
Swansong (1887)
Ivanov (1887)
The Bear (1888)
A Tragedian in Spite of Himself (1889)
The Wedding (1889)
Tatiana Repina (1889)
The Wood Demon (1889)
A Marriage Proposal (1890)
The Festivities (1891)
The Seagull (1896)
Uncle Vanya (1897)
Three Sisters (1901)
The Cherry Orchard (1904)

Novel

The Shooting Party (1884)

Novellas

The Steppe (1888)
The Duel (1891)
The Story of an Unknown Man (1893)
Three Years (1895)
My Life (1896)

Short stories

Motley Stories (1886)	"An Enigmatic Nature" (1883) "The Death of a Government Clerk" (1883) "Fat and Thin" (1883) "Surgery" (1884) "The Chameleon (1884) "Oysters" (1884) "A Living Chronology" (1885) "Small Fry" (1885) "The Fish" (1885) "The Huntsman" (1885) "A Malefactor" (1885) "Children" (1886) "Misery" (1886) "Anyuta" (1886) "Ivan Matveyich" (1886)
In the Twilight (1887)	"The Requiem" (1886) "The Witch" (1886) "Agafya" (1886) "Easter Eve" (1886) "A Misfortune" (1886) "Home" (1887)
Stories (1888)	"The Privy Councillor" (1886) "Mire" (1886) "Vanka" (1886) "Happiness" (1887)
Gloomy People (1890)	"The Cattle-Dealers" (1887) "Sleepy" (1888) "A Dreary Story" (1889) "A Nervous Breakdown" (1889)
Ward No. 6 (1893)	"Gusev" (1890) "Peasant Wives" (1891) "Ward No. 6" (1892)
Novellas and Stories (1894)	"The Grasshopper" (1892) "In Exile" (1892) "The Black Monk" (1894) "Rothschild's Violin" (1894) "The Student" (1894) "The Teacher of Literature" (1894)
Little Trilogy (1898)	"The Man in the Case" (1898) "Gooseberries" (1898) "About Love" (1898)
Stories (1901)	"Anna on the Neck" (1895) "Ariadne" (1895) "The House with the Mezzanine" (1895) "Peasants" (1897) "The Petcheneg" (1897) "At Home" (1897) "In the Cart" (1897) "Ionych" (1898) "A Doctor's Visit" (1898) "On Official Duty" (1899) "The Darling" (1899)
Other stories	"The Complaints Book" (1884) "A Horsey Name" (1885) "Sergeant Prishibeyev" (1885) "Grisha" (1886) "A Gentleman Friend" (1886) "The Chorus Girl" (1886) "Shrove Tuesday" (1886) "First Aid" (1887) "The Runaway" (1887) "The Siren" (1887) "Boys" (1887) "Kashtanka" (1887) "A Story Without a Title" (1888) "The Bet" (1889) "Whitebrow" (1895) "The Lady with the Dog" (1899) "In the Ravine" (1900) "The Bishop" (1902) "Betrothed" (1903)