Father Vasily

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Lev Tolstoy in 1908

Father Wassili ( Russian Отец Василий , Otez Wassili ) is a short story by Lev Tolstoy from the autumn of 1906, which was published posthumously in 1911 in Moscow in Volume 3 of L. N. Tolstoy's Posthumous Artistic Works . In 1983 the text came out in vol. 14 of the 22-volume Tolstoy edition in the Verlag für Künstlerische Literatur under Fragments , also in Moscow.

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The 42-year-old Vasily Dawydowitsch Moshaiski actually wanted to attend university after completing the seminar in 1840 with the best grades. The career aspiration - professor or bishop - remained a dream for the son of a financially weak sexton widow. When a village priest position became vacant, Vasily had to act on the spur of the moment and was henceforth father Vasily. Admittedly, entering the service was tied to a condition. Vasily had to marry Anna Tikhonova, the resolute daughter of his predecessor. The marriage had lasted for twenty-two years, even after Anna had intervened with a student. The one or the other quarrel was of course not absent. For example, the son who attended the seminar outside of the school occasionally had almost impossible financial demands on his dear parents.

The still quite young wife of the poor farmer Mitri, mother of three children, is dying after a stillbirth. Mitri from Wosdrjom picks up the priest with his cart. A fifty-kopeck piece recently given to Father Vasily after the evening mass by the rich landowner Molchanov jingles in the clergyman's pocket. After his arrival in Wosdrjom, father Vasily can just say the prayers and give the young mother the Lord's Supper, then she dies. The old peasant woman wails. The oldest child, a girl of about ten, laments along with the two little ones. Father Vasily feel sorry for the children. When saying goodbye, he puts the fifty-kopeck piece on the window sill, accompanied by a meaningful wink.

At home, father Vasily gets into trouble with Anna, who has been counting on the money.

German-language editions

  • Father Vasily. Translated from the Russian by Hermann Asemissen . P. 360–368 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

annotation

  1. ↑ The clergyman who baptized Tolstoy in 1828 was called Vasily Moshaiski (Russian Василий Можайский) ( Marietta Boiko : Commentary on the text at RVB.ru (Russian)).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Notes (Russian Примечания)
  2. ↑ Fragments (Russian Незаконченное. Наброски, Unfinished. Sketches ), pp. 436–442