Alyosha the Pot
"Alyosha the Pot" (Russian: Алеша Горшок [Alyosha Gorshok]) is a short story written by Leo Tolstoy (1905) about the life and death of a simple, uncomplaining worker. It was published after Tolstoy's death in 1911 and received high praise from Tolstoy's contemporaries. D. S. Mirsky considered it "a masterpiece of rare perfection."[1] Alyosha's simple life, soft-spoken manner, and calm acceptance of death epitomizes Tolstoyan principles.
History
The hero and namesake of the story was based on a real person. According to the memoirs of Tatyana Andreevna Kuzminskaya (Lev Tolstoy's sister-in-law), "the assistant to the cook and yard-keeper was the half idiot Alyosha the Pot, who was, for some reason, romanticized to the point that reading about him, I could not recognize our holy fool Alyosha. But, as far as I remember, he was quiet, inoffensive, and meekly did all that was ordered of him."[2]
Synopsis
Alyosha is a young child who lives in a village and obtained the nickname "the Pot" from an incident where he broke a pot in his youth. At 19, his father sends him to live with a merchant's family as a servant. As the family begins to assign him all of the housework and errands, he does everything without complaint. Alyosha's father collected his salary, but Alyosha got to keep the occasional tip. Alyosha spoke very little, was not educated, and did not know formal prayers—instead, he prayed with his hands, crossing himself. After a year and a half, Alyosha began to feel that the cook, Ustinia, took pity on him. "He felt for the first time in his life that he--not his services, but he himself--was necessary to another human being".[3] Alyosha falls in love with Ustinia and eventually asks her to marry him, but his father forbids it. Alyosha agrees and ceases to discuss marriage with Ustinia. For the first and only time in the story, Alyosha breaks his lighthearted, laughing demeanor and cries.
Later during Lent, Alyosha falls while he clears snow from the roof. On the third day, he died quietly, having calmly accepted his impending death. "He lay in wonderment, then stretched himself, and died."
References
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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
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