# Akim — The Village character guide

> Akim in The Village by Ivan Bunin.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0001-the-village

## Snapshot

A Durnovka peasant whose presence threads through the village's daily life, one of the figures against whom Kuzma measures his own rootlessness.

## Who they are

Akim belongs to the small circle of villagers — with Menshoff and Syery — whose faces and habits Kuzma studies with a stranger's amazement, trying to read the peasant world he came from but no longer fits. He is part of the fabric of Durnovka's talk, labour, and rumour, the ordinary life that Kuzma both longs for and cannot enter. Through figures like him, the novel builds its dense portrait of a village where everyone knows everyone and no one is content.

## Relationships

### [Kuzma](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_village_se/characters/kuzma)

_family_

Akim is Kuzma's father, and their relationship is strained by poverty, resentment, and differing worldviews.

### [Consumptive Mitrofan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_village_se/characters/consumptive_mitrofan)

_social_

Akim and Consumptive Mitrofan are fellow villagers who share a bond of suffering and illness.

### [Kuzma](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_village_se/characters/kuzma)

_family_

Akim is Kuzma's father, and their relationship is strained by poverty, resentment, and differing worldviews.

### [Consumptive Mitrofan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_village_se/characters/consumptive_mitrofan)

_social_

Akim and Consumptive Mitrofan are fellow villagers who share a bond of suffering and illness.

### [Kuzma](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_village_se/characters/kuzma)

_family_

Akim is Kuzma's father, and their relationship is strained by poverty, resentment, and differing worldviews.

## In the story

### [IX](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_village_se/chapters/part-ii-ix)

A night-blind watchman with a mocking, bitter demeanor; engages in sharp banter and complains about doctors.

### [X](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_village_se/chapters/part-ii-x)

A peasant who embodies a mechanical faith and crude pragmatism; he admits to selling his wife for fifteen kopeks and expresses violent desires.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_village_se/characters/akim
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_village_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_village_se/characters