Father Sergius
"Father Sergius" | |
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Short story by Leo Tolstoy | |
Ivan Mozzhukhin as the title character in Yakov Protazanov's 1918 film, Father Sergius | |
Original title | Отец Сергий |
Country | Russia |
Language | Russian |
Publication | |
Publication date | 1911 |
"Father Sergius" (Russian: Отец Сергий, romanized: Otets Sergiy) is a short story written by Leo Tolstoy between 1890 and 1898 and first published (posthumously) in 1911.[1]
Plot
The story begins with the childhood and exceptional and accomplished youth of Prince Stepan Kasatsky. The young man is destined for great things. He discovers on the eve of his wedding that his fiancée Countess Mary Korotkova has had an affair with his beloved Tsar Nicholas I. The blow to his pride is massive, and he retreats to the arms of Russian Orthodoxy and becomes a monk. Many years of humility and doubt follow. He is ordered to become a hermit. Despite his being removed from the world, he is still remembered for having so remarkably transformed his life. One winter night, a group of merry-makers decide to visit him, and one of them, a divorced woman named Makovkina, spends the night in his cell, with the intention to seduce him. Father Sergius discovers he is still weak and in order to protect himself, cuts off his own finger. Makovkina is stunned by this act, and leaves the next morning, having vowed to change her life. A year later she has joined a convent. Father Sergius' reputation for holiness grows. He becomes known as a healer, and pilgrims come from far and wide. Yet Father Sergius is profoundly aware of his inability to attain a true faith. He is still tortured by boredom, pride, and lust. He fails a new test, when the young daughter of a merchant successfully beds him. The morning after, he leaves the monastery and seeks out Pashenka (Praskovya Mikhaylovna), whom he, with a group of other boys, had tormented many years ago. He finds her, now in all the conventional senses a failure in life, yet imbued with a sense of service towards her family. His path is now clearer. He begins to wander, until eight months later he is arrested in the company of a blind beggar who makes him feel closer to God. He is sent to Siberia, where he now works as the hired man of a well-to-do peasant, teaching the gentleman's young children and working in the gardens.
Film adaptations
- Father Sergius (1918)
- Father Serge (1945)
- Father Sergius (1978)
- The Sun Also Shines at Night (1990)
See also
- Leo Tolstoy bibliography
References
- ^ Julian Connolly in Charles A. Moser (ed.), The Cambridge History of Russian Literature (Cambridge University Press, 1992; ISBN 0521425670), p. 344.
External links
- "Father Sergius", full text in various formats
- Full text of "Father Sergius" in the original Russian
- Translation of "Father Sergius" in OnlineLiterature.com
- Father Sergius public domain audiobook at LibriVox
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- Bibliography
- Childhood (1852)
- Boyhood (1854)
- Youth (1856)
- The Cossacks (1863)
- War and Peace (1869)
- Anna Karenina (1878)
- Resurrection (1899)
- Hadji Murat (1912)
- A Landowner's Morning (1856)
- Two Hussars (1856)
- Family Happiness (1859)
- Polikúshka (1860)
- The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886)
- Walk in the Light While There is Light (1888)
- The Kreutzer Sonata (1889)
- The Devil (1889)
- Master and Man (1895)
- Father Sergius (1898)
- The Forged Coupon (1904)
- "The Raid" (1852)
- "The Cutting of the Forest" (1855)
- "Sevastopol Sketches" (1855)
- "Recollections of a Billiard-marker" (1855)
- "The Snowstorm" (1856)
- "Lucerne" (1857)
- "Albert" (1858)
- "Three Deaths" (1859)
- "The Porcelain Doll" (1863)
- "God Sees the Truth, But Waits" (1872)
- "The Prisoner of the Caucasus" (1872)
- "The Bear Hunt" (1872)
- "What Men Live By" (1881)
- "Diary of a Lunatic" (1884)
- "Quench the Spark" (1885)
- "An Old Acquaintance" (1885)
- "Where Love Is, God Is" (1885)
- "Ivan the Fool" (1885)
- "Evil Allures, But Good Endures" (1885)
- "Wisdom of Children" (1885)
- "The Three Hermits" (1886)
- "Promoting a Devil" (1886)
- "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" (1886)
- "The Grain" (1886)
- "Repentance" (1886)
- "Croesus and Fate" (1886)
- "Kholstomer" (1886)
- "The Two Brothers and the Gold" (1886)
- "A Lost Opportunity" (1889)
- "A Dialogue Among Clever People" (1892)
- "The Coffee-House of Surat" (1893)
- "The Young Tsar" (1894)
- "Too Dear!" (1897)
- "Work, Death, and Sickness" (1903)
- "Three Questions" (1903)
- "Alyosha the Pot" (1905)
- "After the Ball" (1911)
- The Power of Darkness (1886)
- The First Distiller (1886)
- The Light Shines in the Darkness (1890)
- The Fruits of Enlightenment (1891)
- The Living Corpse (1900)
- The Cause of It All (1910)
- A History of Yesterday (1851)
- Confession (1882)
- The Gospel in Brief (1883)
- What I Believe (1884)
- What Is to Be Done? (1886)
- The Kingdom of God Is Within You (1894)
- What Is Art? (1897)
- "A Letter to a Hindu" (1908)
- The Inevitable Revolution (1909)
- A Calendar of Wisdom (1910)
- The Decembrists (1884)
- "Posthumous Notes of the Hermit Fëdor Kuzmich" (1905)
- Sophia (wife)
- Alexandra (daughter)
- Ilya (son)
- Lev Lvovich (son)
- Tatyana (daughter)
- Yasnaya Polyana
- Tolstoyan movement
- Christian anarchism
- Departure of a Grand Old Man (1912 film)
- Lev Tolstoy and the Russia of Nicholas II (1928 documentary)
- Lev Tolstoy (1984 film)
- The Last Station (1990 novel)
- 2009 film)
- Story of One Appointment (2018 film)
- A Couple (2022 film)
- Tolstoy Farm
- Tolstoj quadrangle
- crater
- The Triumph of the Farmer or Industry and Parasitism (1888)
- Vladimir Chertkov
- Aylmer and Louise Maude
- Translators of Tolstoy
- Tolstoy scholars
- Category
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