Summary of “The Life of Alexy the Man of God”
Alesha Karamazov is the hero of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov (1878-1880), the third son of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, the brother of Ivan Karamazov, Dmitry Karamazov and Smerdyakov. At the beginning of the events of the novel AK turned twenty years old. It was “handsome, red-cheeked, with a bright gaze, full of health.” At that time he was even very handsome, slender, of medium height, dark-Russian, with a regular, though somewhat elongated oval face, with shiny dark gray broad set eyes, very thoughtful and apparently very calm. ” Mother AK Sofya Ivanovna, died when he was four years old. The first three months after her death AK spent under the supervision of the servant Gregory, then together with his brother, Ivan was taken to education by the former benefactress of Sofia Ivanovna, the general’s son Vorokhov, and after her death came to the house of the leader of the nobility Efim Petrovich Polenov, where “he was firmly considered
Declared in the foreword “From the author” as the protagonist, AK nevertheless plays a very modest role in the intrigue of the novel, being mainly a confidant of the main characters embodied in the human face by their conscience. Such a position of his hero Dostoevsky explains by the fact that his intention involves two novels: “The main novel of the second is the activity of my hero already in our time. The first novel happened thirteen years ago, and there is almost not even a novel, but only one moment from the first youth of my hero. ” But if in the plot of the novel AK is involved weakly, the emotional life of the hero is literally full of events. Within a few days AK falls through the death of his spiritual mentor Elder Zosima, the murder of his
Judging by the rough drafts, AK was originally conceived by the same philosopher as Ivan. But in the final version, Dostoevsky preferred to make the main dominant of the image not high intellectualism, but wisdom of the heart. Among the main features of the character AK – openness, sincerity, lack of self-love, unselfishness and chastity. At the same time, the writer gave AK such personality traits as fearlessness, purposefulness and will. It is the combination of these features that allows AK to occupy a completely unique place in the novel: “All this was loved by a young man, and this is from the very childhood even of his years.” The presence of AK raises others from the turbulence of ordinary life, ennobles and cleanses them, together with AK in the gloomy and vain world of Skoto-prigonievsk enters the light of the highest Truth. It is no accident that others call it “angel”, then “cherub”. Despite all the complexity and dramatic nature of Dostoevsky’s trials that fall to the lot of AK, he gives his image an exceptional integrity and certainty, giving him not only depth and completeness, but also an extraordinary “scale” (R. Guardini). AK belongs to the text of the life of the elder Zosima, which is the main content of the sixth book of the novel “Russian monk,” according to Dostoevsky’s plan, which is the answer to the most extreme arguments of atheism, exhibited in the poem “The Grand Inquisitor” and in the chapter “The Rebellion”.
An important point in understanding the image of AK is the fact that the action of the second “main” novel was to unfold in the year of the hero’s 33rd anniversary. This unambiguous parallel with the life of Christ is sufficiently clearly outlined and held in the Brothers Karamazov. In this sense, AK stands in the series of the so-called. Christ-like heroes of Dostoevsky, such as Ivan Petrovich, the narrator of “The Humiliated and Injured”, and “Prince of Christ” Leo Nikolayevich Myshkin (“The Idiot”), and expresses the writer’s dream of the coming of the “Russian Christ.” In the light of the evangelical events, “the moment from the first youth of the hero” should obviously be associated with the theme of temptation of faith. The same theme is also accentuated by another Christian parallel, which is consistently held in the novel, the life of Alexis, the man of God.
A possible literary prototype of AK LP Grossman called the character of the novel Georges Sand “Spiridon” the monk Alexei. And among real people, contemporaries noted similar features in Aleksey Khrapovitsky (later Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky), with whom Dostoevsky was well acquainted. The revolutionary populist, terrorist D. V. Karakozov, who is also occasionally mentioned in connection with AK’s image, could most likely have been a prototype of the originally conceived genius, but not the one that was finalized.
According to Suvorin, Dostoevsky planned to write a novel later, “where Alyosha Karamazov will be the hero, he wanted to lead him through the monastery and make him a revolutionary, he would have committed a political crime, he would have been executed, and he would have sought the truth in these searches, naturally, would have become a revolutionary “(Suvorin, AS Diarynik, pg. 1923, p. 16). However, the logic of the artistic development of the “Brothers Karamazov”, the image of AK, derived in the novel, and the unambiguous author’s remarks in the text exclude such a development of events.
Despite all the significance for the novel and Dostoevsky’s own image of the AK, the critic treated him without due attention. “The younger of the Karamazov brothers, Alyosha, is depicted more pale than others,” wrote K. V. Mochulsky, reflecting the opinion of many of his colleagues. “His personal theme is drowned out by Dmitry’s passionate pathos and Ivan’s ideological dialectics.” This perception of the image also affected the subsequent reception of it in the work of other writers. Among the heroes of the world literature of the XX century, the most typologically close ones can be considered Joseph from T. Mann’s novel “Joseph and his brothers” and Avdiya Kallistratova – the character of the novel by Ch. Aitmatov “The Plough”. The most consonant picturesque image is a painting by MV Nesterov “Philosophers” – a double portrait of PA Florensky and SN Bulgakov, in the features of which many viewers recognized the similarity with their ideas about the heroes of the last novel of Dostoevsky – AK and Ivan. Repeated attempts to translate the image of AK into theater and cinema did not lead to any significant artistic discoveries.
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