From a collection of three plays by E. Jelinek, winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature, “The Staff, the Stick and the Executioner.” The style of this play is aesthetic and philosophical. The author shocks the reader with a mixture of rough and refined techniques, makes him shudder and think about human nature - a bizarre mixture of animal instincts and lofty thoughts. On the pages of Jelinek’s play, in twenty-three scenes (separated from one another by a line omission), the story of the development of self-awareness of the German people with the beginning of the 19th to the end of the 20th century. It is told as if seen through the eyes of Friedrich Hölderlin, “the most German of German poets.” The play is provided with a preface and extensive comments by translator T.A. Baskakova.