Father Sergei

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Illustration to the story
Father Sergei .
Illustrator: Charles Hapberg

Father Sergej , also Father Sergius , P. Ssergij and Father Sergius ( Russian Отец Сергий , Otez Sergi ), is a story by Lev Tolstoy , which was written in 1890 and in 1911 posthumously in the 2nd volume on pages 3 to 1911, edited by Vladimir Chertkow 48 appeared. Admittedly, in this first print, on instructions from the Russian censors, the mention of the love affair of Nicholas I had to be hushed up by means of three points. But the full Tolstoic text was already available in the Berlin edition of 1912. The story was in 1918 by Yakov Protasanow with Ivan Mosschuchin in the title role filmed . In 1978 Igor Talankin's film was made with Sergei Bondarchuk as the protagonist Stepan Kassatsky. Paolo and Vittorio Taviani took the subject of Tolstoy in 1990 for their free film adaptation Il sole anche di notte .

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An unheard-of incident occurred in Saint Petersburg in the late 1840s . All his admirers had already seen the handsome, glorious Prince Stepan Kassatski, commander of the body squadron in the cuirassier regiment, as the future adjutant of the Tsar. Hard to believe - Kassatski resigns and becomes a monk. What happened? He had learned what all Petersburgers had known for a long time: his bride, the maid of honor, Countess Korotkowa, had been the imperial mistress .

The abbot of the monastery promotes the novice. After three years in the monastery, he was ordained a priest monk named Sergei. After the death of the hermit Illarion Sergei allowed in the Tambinoer after nine years monastery hermitage life of the deceased. After six more years of being a hermit, the now 49-year-old is paid by a lustful lady: When the pretty divorced woman Makowkina tries to try the priest monk, he takes his ax in his right hand and chops off his left index finger. After the tormenting experience, this woman goes to the monastery and after a year receives the minor nuns as sister Agnia. During the next seven years, Sergei became better known. The people in the Tambino area want to be cured by Sergej. He prays with the sick. Some get well afterwards. Tolstoy writes that from then on, "Sergy had felt more and more clearly with every month, with every week and with every day how his inner life was being destroyed and replaced by an outer one." It remains unsatisfactory that everything that Sergei does now happens for the selfish sick Peasants, but not for God. Although the sick are a burden to him, he likes to be praised by them. But Sergei quietly thinks that far from Tambino he must start a more godly life. When a widowed merchant brings his only daughter Marja, the disaster takes its course. The 22-year-old sensual, feeble-minded girl is "blonde, extremely white, pale ... with a frightened child's face and strongly developed female forms". The father leaves the couple alone. Sergej spends a night with Marja in his hermitage. "And she hugged him and sat down with him on the bed." He fetches his ax, but the next bloody act does not happen because the servant intervenes and takes the tools from him. Sergej puts on peasant clothes and leaves the Tambino area. He wants to lay hands on himself because, in his experience, there may be no God after all. Desperate, Sergej goes in search of his childhood friend - little Paschenka - from childhood. He finds this. After twenty years she became a grown-up Praskowja Mikhailovna and supports her family with work. Sergei realizes, “There is no God for someone who has lived like me for the sake of fame among people.” So he has to change. First of all, he does what he has done all his hermit life. Moving from village to village, Sergej embarks on a search for a god who may exist after all. After half a year of wandering he was picked up by the police as a vagabond without a passport. The judge sends him to Siberia . There he finds work as a vegetable gardener for a farmer. Sergej also teaches school children.

German-language editions

  • Father Sergius. German by Arthur Luther . Pp. 193-251 in: Gisela Drohla (Ed.): Leo N. Tolstoj. All the stories. Sixth volume. Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1961 (2nd edition of the edition in eight volumes 1982)

Web links

annotation

  1. ↑ The abbot was a student of Starez Amwrossij in the Optina monastery . In connection with the monastery and the abbot, there is also talk of the Starzen Makari , Leonid and Paissi Velitschkowski (Russian Паисий Величковский).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian Владимир Григорьевич Чертков (1854–1936)
  2. ↑ Russian. Посмертные художественные произведения Льва Николаевича Толстого - about: Lev Nikolajewitsch Tolstoy: Post-trafficked artistic works
  3. ↑ Source: Russian comments on the story Father Sergej at tolstoy-lit.ru
  4. ↑ Russian Отец Сергий (фильм, 1978)
  5. ↑ Ital. Paolo e Vittorio Taviani
  6. ↑ Ital. Il sole anche di notte - about: night sun
  7. ↑ Russian Иеромонах, Ijeromonach
  8. ↑ Tambino: Russian Тамбино
  9. ↑ Russian В. Я. Линков