"Posthumous Notes of the Hermit Fëdor Kuzmich" ("Посмертные записки старца Федора Кузьмича") (AKA: "Posthumous Notes of the Elder Fëdor Kuzmich") is a short story by Leo Tolstoy written in December, 1905,[1] and then only published in 1912, over the ferocious objections of the tsarist censors and two years after Tolstoy's death.[2] It was never completed.[3]
The preface of the work indicates that it is the fictional notes of the real hermit Feodor Kuzmich.[4] Its translators were Louise Maude and Nigel J. Cooper.[4] It is narrated from the point of view of Alexander I, who suddenly has a religious awakening and discovers that living the lavish, decadent lifestyle of an emperor was wrong and that it was time to live among the common people.[2] According to Solomon Volkov, the theme here is a fictional death (the religious conversion) as a means of escaping one's former life.[2]
