Posthumous records of the monk Fyodor Kuzmich

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Lev Tolstoy in 1901
portrayed by Ilya Repin
Alexander I in 1817 portrayed by George Dawe
Fyodor Kuzmich

Posthumous records of the monk Fyodor Kuzmich , even posthumous records of the old man, Fyodor Kuzmich and the posthumous notes of the elder Fyodor Kuzmich ( Russian Посмертные записки старца Федора Кузьмича , Posmertnyje Zapiski Starza Fedora Kusmitscha), a tale of is Leo Tolstoy , which was created in 1905 and 1912 Tolstoy's artistic estate was published in Berlin . In the Soviet Union , the fragment came out in volume 14 of the 22-volume Tolstoy edition in 1983 by the Verlag für Künstlerische Literatur in Moscow .

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In his imaginative story, Tolstoy lets Alexander I , who died in 1825 at the age of 48 in Taganrog in southern Russia , live on as a monk Fyodor Kuzmich for a good 38 years in Tomsk in Siberia - more precisely, in the middle of the taiga near Krasnorechinsk - and 24 years tell about his early childhood at court in Saint Petersburg after his death .

Before the tsar's vita is told, Tolstoy makes plausibility tests: Even the imperial family had during the reign of Alexander III. the thought of Alexander I's continued life and his biographer, the historian Schilder, was also unable to free himself from that thought. In addition, the Tsar was not seriously ill before his death; died in the remote town of Taganrog. Above all, the eyewitnesses of the coffin noticed the monarch's strange appearance - not to mention the blue-red back and thighs. At the end of his life, Alexander I had repeatedly expressed orally and in writing requests to withdraw from his position as tsarist. Living on as a monk Fyodor Kuzmich is based on a number of things in common, such as the same age, the amazingly similar stature, the command of foreign languages ​​and the aversion to confession . With the above-mentioned Vita written by Fyodor Kuzmich in December 1849, the author wants to dispel any final doubts about the validity of his assertion about the identity of the tsar with the monk.

First, however, the narrator - that is, the double Alexander I / Fyodor Kuzmich - shares how he managed to escape from the office of the tsar. To do this, the Tsar used Sergeant Strumenski, a guardsman from the Semyonov regiment who had been tortured to death after trying to escape while running the gauntlet . Strumensky had also looked so much like the ruler during his lifetime, which is why he was sometimes jokingly called Alexander II. Alexander was able to appoint a young assistant to his personal physician Dr. Bribe Villier. The dead man was placed in the coffin as the tsar and Alexander I, on his way to the Crimea , was free and turned east to Siberia.

In his biography, the narrator admits that his mother, Tsarina Maria Feodorovna , loved him, who longed not for the crown but for love, as little as he loved her. The father Paul I even hated him. Because he feared before November 1796 that Alexander's grandmother Catherine II could appoint her grandson Alexander in his place as heir to the throne. After all, the father's thirst for power infected the son and "ruined both physically and mentally". The narrator emphasizes the false upbringing he and his brother Constantine received from their grandmother when she preached to them 'all people are equal', although she 'least of all believed it'. Alexander really loved his wet nurse Avdotja Petrowa.

In the autobiography of the 72-year-old writer, the focus on imminent death plays a major role. So he no longer prays to God 'Father, my will', but 'Your will be done'. In general, he had withdrawn into the Siberian wasteland because "the gradual approach to death is really the only sensible thing". It is about "the liberation from passions".

German-language editions

  • Posthumous records of the old man Fyodor Kuzmich. German by Arthur Luther . S. 191–216 in: Gisela Drohla (Ed.): Leo N. Tolstoj. All the stories. Eighth volume. Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1961 (2nd edition of the edition in eight volumes 1982)
  • Postponed records of the monk Fyodor Kuzmich, who died on January 20, 1864 in Siberia, near Tomsk, on the property of the merchant Chromov. Translated from the Russian by Hermann Asemissen . P. 511-537 in: Eberhard Dieckmann (Ed.): Lew Tolstoi. Haji Murat. Late narratives . Vol. 13 by Eberhard Dieckmann (ed.), Gerhard Dudek (ed.): Lew Tolstoi. Collected works in twenty volumes . Rütten and Loening, Berlin 1986 (edition used)

Web links

Remarks

  1. The explosive topic was not subject to Russian censorship in Berlin. Fragment: Tolstoy abandoned this larger project in 1906 due to the abundance of material (source: it: Memorie postume dello starets Fëdor Kuzmič # Genesi dell'opera).
  2. Krasnorechinsk (Russian Красноречинск) is located in the district of Mariinsk .
  3. Russian Шильдер, Николай Карлович # Основные труды: Император Александр Первый. Его жизнь и царствование. - В 4 томах. In German: Emperor Alexander the First. His life and reign. In 4 volumes. Published 1897/1898.
  4. In the text, the narrator Alexander I mentions Alexander Newski and in addition to his wife the Princess Naryschkina , the French émigré Madame Staël , the archimandrite Photios (ru: Фотий (Спасский) (1792-1838)), the Dorpater physics professor Parrot , the baroness von Krüdener , Count Araktschejew , Court Minister Volkonsky , Chief of Staff Diebitsch , Count Witt (ru: Иван Осипович Витт, Iwan Ossipowitsch Witt (1781-1840)), the Decembrists - traitor Sergeant Sherwood-Верун Весун Верун Верун Весун Верун Верун Верун Верун Весун Верун Верун Ivan Vasilyevich Sherwood fidelity (1798-1867)), the Prince Czartoryski , Prince Potemkin , the favorite grandmother Count Alexander Lanskoi (ru: Александр Дмитриевич Ланской, Alexander Dmitrievich Lanskoi (1754-1884)), his tutor Nikolai Saltykov (1736 -1816), Prince Golitsyn Sascha (ru: Александр Николаевич Голицын, Alexander Nikolayevich Golitsyn (1773-1844)) and at the strangulation of his grandfather's involved Alexei Orlov .

Individual evidence

  1. ru: Фёдор Кузьмич (1777–1864)
  2. Russian. Посмертные художественные произведения Л. Н. Толстого, Posmertnye chudozhestvennyye proisvedeniya LN Tolstovo
  3. Russian vol. 14 of the 22-volume Tolstoy edition, Moscow 1983
  4. Russian Шильдер, Николай Карлович (1842–1902)
  5. Edition used, p. 527, 16. Zvo
  6. Edition used, p. 532, 1. Zvu
  7. Russian Авдотья Петрова
  8. Edition used, p. 534, 14. Zvo
  9. Edition used, p. 534, 13. Zvu