"Esarhaddon, King of Assyria" (''"Ассирийский царь Асархадон"'') is a short story by
Leo Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution re ...
written in 1903. Tolstoy wrote it as part of an anthology dedicated to the victims of the
Kishinev pogrom in Russia, with all of the proceeds going to a relief fund. It is the story of a king who oppresses his subjects.
Plot
According to book reviewers in 1903, the story is about the king
Esarhaddon
Esarhaddon, also spelled Essarhaddon, Assarhaddon and Ashurhaddon (, also , meaning " Ashur has given me a brother"; Biblical Hebrew: ''ʾĒsar-Ḥaddōn'') was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 681 to 669 BC. The third king of the S ...
, who abuses his subjects and beheads the warriors of his enemies. Then a prophet visits him, and is able to force him to live through the entire life of one of the subjects that the king has oppressed. Certainly inspired by the biblical Esarhaddon, this story diverts from that one, in which Esarhaddon is contemplating how to kill Lailie, the rival king he has just captured, when the prophet interrupts him, and miraculously tells Esarhaddon what he was thinking. According to the
Francis Gribble, literary critic writing for
Fortnightly Review, this work was in the same theme as many others of Tolstoy, in which he believed that "all men are brothers because all men are manifestations of the divine."
Kishinev Pogrom
It was translated to English in 1903 or 1904 by
Louise Maude and
Aylmer Maude, and the proceeds of this edition went to the Kishinev Relief Fund, a charity to support those who suffered during the Kishinev pogrom in Kishinev, Bessarabia (modern day Chişinǎu, Moldova), where an estimated 120 were killed and 500 wounded. All of the publisher's and the writer's profits went to this fund.
In 1903, Tolstoy received a letter from
Sholem Aleichem
Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich (; May 13, 1916), better known under his pen name Sholem Aleichem (Yiddish language, Yiddish and , also spelled in Yiddish orthography#Reform and standardization, Soviet Yiddish, ; Russian language, Russian and ), ...
, who detailed the atrocities of the pogroms in Russia and requested Tolstoy's help in making an anthology to benefit the victims. Tolstoy responded with numerous letters, contributing three new stories to the final anthology. Tolstoy was clearly inspired by these events, as the story of Esarhaddon begins with a king who "had conquered the kingdom of King Lailie,
ndhad destroyed and burnt the towns..." Sholem Aleichem would afterwards write the material that formed the basis of
Fiddler on the Roof
''Fiddler on the Roof'' is a musical theatre, musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and musical theatre#Book musicals, book by Joseph Stein, set in the Pale of Settlement of Russian Empire, Imperial Russia in or around 19 ...
.
Reception
The
St. Louis Globe-Democrat said in 1905 that this story "shows the Russian writer at his very best."
See also
*
Bibliography of Leo Tolstoy
*
Twenty-Three Tales
References
External links
* Original text:
*
''Esarhaddon, King of Assyria'' from RevoltLib.com
*
from
Marxists.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Esarhaddon, King of Assyria
Short stories by Leo Tolstoy
1903 short stories
Kishinev pogrom