November 20 (November 7, old style) marks exactly one hundred years since the death of the Russian writer Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy.
The great Russian writer, playwright, publicist, Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on September 9 (August 28, old style) 1828 on the estate Yasnaya Polyana Krapivensky district of the Tula province (now Shchekinsky district of the Tula region) in one of the most notable Russian noble families. He was the fourth child in the family. The future writer spent his childhood in Yasnaya Polyana. He was orphaned early, losing first his mother, who died when the boy was two years old, and then his father.
In 1837, the family moved from Yasnaya Polyana to Moscow. The guardian of the orphaned children was their aunt, their father’s sister Alexandra Ilyinichna Osten-Saken. In 1841, after her death, young Tolstoy with his sister and three brothers moved to Kazan, where another aunt lived, Pelageya Ilyinichna Yushkova, who became their guardian.
Tolstoy spent his youth in Kazan. In 1844, he entered Kazan University at the Department of Oriental Languages of the Faculty of Philosophy, then transferred to the Faculty of Law, where he studied for less than two years: his studies did not arouse his interest and he indulged in secular entertainment. In the spring of 1847, disappointed in his university education, he submitted a request for dismissal from the university “due to poor health and domestic circumstances” and left for Yasnaya Polyana, which he received as property under the division of his father’s inheritance.
In Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy engaged in self-education; tried to reorganize the life of the peasants, however, disappointed by the unsuccessful management experience, in the fall of 1847 he first went to Moscow, where he led a social life, and in the spring of 1849 he went to St. Petersburg to take exams at the university for the degree of candidate of law. His lifestyle during this period often changed: either he was preparing and passing exams, then he was passionately devoted to music, then he intended to begin an official career, having decided in the fall of 1849 to serve as a clerical employee in the Tula Noble Deputy Assembly, then he dreamed of joining a horse guards regiment as a cadet. Tolstoy's religious sentiments during this period, reaching the point of asceticism, alternated with revelry, cards, and trips to the gypsies. In the family he was considered “the most trifling fellow,” and he was able to repay the debts he incurred then only many years later. However, it was during these years that he developed a serious desire to write and his first unfinished artistic sketches appeared.
In the spring of 1851, on the advice of his older brother Nikolai, Lev Nikolaevich entered the military service in the Caucasus. In the fall of 1851, he became a cadet of the 4th battery of the 20th artillery brigade, and then, having passed the junior officer rank exam, became an officer.
In 1851-1853, Tolstoy took part in military operations in the Caucasus (first as a volunteer, then as an artillery officer), and in 1854 he went to the Danube Army. Soon after the start Crimean War he, at his personal request, is transferred to Sevastopol.
From November 1854 to August 1855 he participated in the defense of Sevastopol (in the besieged city he fought on the famous 4th bastion). He was awarded the Order of Anna and medals “For the Defense of Sevastopol” and “In Memory of the War of 1853-1856.” More than once he was nominated for the military Cross of St. George, but he never received the “St. George”.
The writer's impressions of the Caucasian War were reflected in the stories "Raid" (1853), "Cutting Wood" (1855), "Demoted" (1856), in the story "Cossacks" (1852 -1863), artistic essays "Sevastopol in December" (1855 ), "Sevastopol in May" (1855) and "Sevastopol in August 1855" (1856). These essays, called " Sevastopol stories"made a huge impression on Russian society. In the Caucasus, the story “Childhood” was completed, which was published under the title “The History of My Childhood” in the magazine “Sovremennik” in 1852 and brought Tolstoy great success and fame as one of the most talented Russian writers. Two years later, a continuation appeared in Sovremennik - the story "Adolescence", and in 1857 the story "Youth" was published.
In November 1855, Tolstoy arrived in St. Petersburg and immediately joined the Sovremennik circle (Nikolai Nekrasov, Ivan Turgenev, Alexei Ostrovsky, Ivan Goncharov, etc.).
In the fall of 1856, Leo Tolstoy, having retired with the rank of lieutenant, left for Yasnaya Polyana, and at the beginning of 1857 he went abroad. He visited France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany (Swiss impressions are reflected in the story “Lucerne”), in the fall he returned to Moscow, then to Yasnaya Polyana, where he began improving schools.
In 1859, he opened a school for peasant children in Yasnaya Polyana, and then helped open more than 20 schools in the surrounding villages. To direct their activities along the right path, from his point of view, he published the pedagogical magazine "Yasnaya Polyana" (1862). Tolstoy wrote eleven articles about school and pedagogy (“On Public Education”, “Upbringing and Education”, “On Social Activities in the Field of Public Education”, etc.).
In order to study the organization of school affairs in foreign countries, the writer went abroad for the second time in 1860.
In May 1861 (the year of the abolition of serfdom) he returned to Yasnaya Polyana, where, having accepted the position of peace mediator, he actively defended the interests of the peasants, resolving their disputes with the landowners about land. Soon the Tula nobility, dissatisfied with his actions, demanded his removal from office, and in 1862 the Senate issued a decree dismissing Tolstoy. Secret surveillance of him began from Section III.
In the summer of 1862, after a police search, Tolstoy had to close the Yasnaya Polyana school and stop publishing a pedagogical magazine. The reason was the authorities' suspicions that students teaching at the school were engaged in anti-government activities.
In September 1862, Tolstoy married the daughter of a Moscow doctor, Sofya Andreevna Bers, and immediately after the wedding, he took his wife from Moscow to Yasnaya Polyana, where he devoted himself entirely to family life and household concerns. For 17 years life together they had 13 children.
From the autumn of 1863 to 1869, Leo Tolstoy worked on the novel War and Peace.
In the early 1870s, the writer was again fascinated by pedagogy and he created “ABC” and “New ABC” and compiled a “Book for Reading”, where he included many of his stories.
In the spring of 1873, Tolstoy began and four years later finished work on a great novel about modernity, calling it after the name of the main character - Anna Karenina.
The spiritual crisis experienced by Tolstoy in the late 1870s and early 1880s culminated in a turning point in his worldview. In “Confession” (1879-1882), the writer talks about a revolution in his views, the meaning of which he saw in a break with the ideology of the noble class and a transition to the side of the “simple working people.”
In the early 1880s, the Tolstoy family moved to Moscow to educate their growing children. From this time on, Tolstoy spent winters in Moscow.
In the 1880s, Tolstoy's stories "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" and "Kholstomer" ("The Story of a Horse"), "The Kreutzer Sonata", the story "The Devil", the story "Father Sergius" appeared.
In 1882, he took part in the census of the Moscow population and became closely acquainted with the life of the inhabitants of the city slums, which he described in the treatise “So what should we do?” (1882-1886).
In simplification, in likening himself to people from the people, Tolstoy saw the purpose and duty of nobles, intellectuals - everyone who is part of the privileged classes. During this period, the writer comes to a complete denial of his previous literary activity, is engaged physical labor, plows, sews boots, switches to vegetarian food.
In the 1880s, a conflict arose between Tolstoy and Sofya Andreevna over property and income from publishing the writer’s works. On May 21, 1883, he granted his wife full power of attorney to conduct all property affairs, and two years later he divided all his property between his wife, sons and daughters. He wanted to distribute all his property to the needy, but he was stopped by his wife’s threat to declare him crazy and establish guardianship over him. Sofya Andreevna defended the interests and well-being of the family and children. Tolstoy granted all publishers the right to freely publish all his works published after 1881 (Tolstoy considered this year to be the year of his own moral turning point). But Sofya Andreevna demanded the privilege for herself to publish her husband’s collected works. In the relationship between Tolstoy and his wife and sons, mutual alienation is growing.
The writer’s new worldview is also reflected in his articles “On the census in Moscow”, “On hunger”, “What is art?”, “Slavery of our time”, “On Shakespeare and drama”, “I cannot remain silent”. In these and subsequent years, Tolstoy also wrote religious and philosophical works: “Criticism of Dogmatic Theology”, “What is My Faith?”, “Connection, Translation and Study of the Four Gospels”, “The Kingdom of God is Within You”. In them, the writer not only showed a change in his religious and moral views, but also subjected to a critical revision of the main dogmas and principles of the teaching of the official church.
Socially religious and philosophical quests led Tolstoy to the creation of his own religious philosophical system(Tolstoyanism). Tolstoy preached in his life and works of art the need for moral improvement, universal love, non-resistance to evil through violence, for which he was attacked both by revolutionary democratic figures and by the church. At the beginning of 1900, he wrote a series of articles exposing the entire system of public administration. The government of Nicholas II issues a resolution according to which the Holy Synod (the highest church institution in Russia) in February 1901 excommunicates Tolstoy from the Orthodox Church as a “heretic.”
In 1901, the writer lived in Crimea, recovering from a serious illness.
IN last decade During his life, he wrote the story "Hadji Murat", the plays "The Living Corpse", "The Power of Darkness", "The Fruits of Enlightenment", the stories "After the Ball", "For What?", and the novel "Sunday".
IN recent years In his life, Tolstoy found himself at the center of intrigue and contention between the “Tolstoyites,” on the one hand, and his wife, who defended the well-being of her family and children, on the other.
On July 22, 1910, Tolstoy drew up a will in which he granted all publishers the right to publish his works - both those written after 1881 and earlier. The new will strained relations with his wife.
On November 10 (October 28, old style), 1910, at five o’clock in the morning, Leo Tolstoy, accompanied only by his personal physician Dushan Makovitsky, left Yasnaya Polyana secretly from his family. On the way, Tolstoy fell ill, his temperature rose and he was forced to get off the train en route to Rostov-on-Don. At the small railway station Astapovo Ryazan-Uralskaya railway The writer spent the last seven days of his life in the station master's house. Doctors diagnosed pneumonia.
On November 20 (November 7, old style), 1910, at Astapovo station (now Lev Tolstoy station), Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy died. His funeral in Yasnaya Polyana became a nationwide event.
The material was prepared based on information from open sources
On September 9, 1828, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born - one of greatest writers of all times. When Tolstoy gained widespread recognition with such epic novels as War and Peace and Anna Karenina, he abandoned many of the external privileges of his aristocratic origins. And now Lev Nikolaevich’s attention was focused on spiritual issues and moral philosophy. By immersing himself in simple living and preaching pacifist ideas, Leo Tolstoy inspired thousands of followers, including Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
TOLSTOY WAS OBSESSED WITH SELF-IMPROVEMENT
Inspired in part by "Benjamin Franklin's 13 Virtues," as he wrote Leo Tolstoy in his diary, he created a seemingly endless list of rules by which he strived to live. While some seem quite clear even to modern man(go to bed no later than 22:00 and wake up later than 5:00, no more than 2 hours of daytime sleep, moderation in food and no sweets), others are more like Tolstoy’s eternal struggle with his personal demons. For example, limiting visits to brothels to twice a month, or self-reproach regarding your youthful love of cards. Starting from late adolescence, Leo Tolstoy kept a “Journal of Daily Activities”, in which he not only wrote down in detail how he spent the day, but also made a clear plan for the next one. Moreover, over the years he began to compile a long list of his moral failures. And later, for each trip, he created a manual that clearly regulated it free time on a trip: from listening to music to playing cards.
THE WRITER'S WIFE HELPED HIM COMPLETE "WAR AND PEACE"
In 1862, a 34-year-old Leo Tolstoy married 18-year-old Sophia Bers, the daughter of the court physician, just a few weeks after they met. In the same year, Tolstoy began work on his epic novel War and Peace (then called 1805, then All's Well That Ends Well and Three Seasons), completing its first draft in 1865. But the robot was not at all inspired by the writer, and he began rewriting, and rewriting again, and Sophia was responsible for rewriting each page by hand. She often used a magnifying glass to make out everything written by Lev Nikolaevich on every centimeter of paper and even in the margins. Over the next seven years, she rewrote the entire manuscript by hand eight times (and some parts as many as thirty). During this time, she gave birth to four of their thirteen children and managed their estate and all financial matters. By the way, Tolstoy himself did not really like War and Peace. In correspondence with the poet Afanasy Fet, the writer spoke about his book in the following way: “How happy I am... that I will never write verbose rubbish like “War” again.”
TOLSTOY WAS EXCLUDED FROM THE CHURCH
After the successful publication of Anna Karenina in the 1870s, Leo Tolstoy began to feel increasingly uncomfortable with his aristocratic origins and ever-increasing wealth. The writer overcame a series of emotional and spiritual crises that ultimately undermined his faith in the tenets of organized religion. The whole system seemed to him corrupt and in conflict with his interpretation of the teachings of Jesus Christ. Tolstoy's rejection of religious rituals and his attacks on the role of the state and the concept of property rights set him on a collision course with two of Russia's most powerful subjects. Despite his aristocratic origins, the tsarist government established police surveillance over him, and the Russian Orthodox Church excommunicated Lev Nikolaevich in 1901.
MENTOR GANDHI
While Russia's religious and royal leaders hoped to reduce Tolstoy's popularity, he quickly began to attract adherents to his new faith, which was a mixture of pacifism, Christian anarchism, and encouraged moral and physical asceticism in lifestyle. Dozens of “Tolstoyites” moved to the writer’s estate to be closer to their spiritual leader, while thousands of others set up colonies not only in Russia, but throughout the world. Although many of these communities were short-lived, some continue to operate to this day. However last fact the writer did not like it: he believed that a person can only find the truth himself, without outside help. In addition, the teachings of Lev Nikolaevich inspired Mahatma Gandhi, who created a cooperative colony named after Tolstoy in South Africa and corresponded with the writer, giving him credit for his own spiritual and philosophical evolution, especially in relation to Tolstoy’s teachings on non-violent resistance to evil.
TOLSTOY'S MARRIAGE WAS ONE OF THE WORST IN LITERARY HISTORY
Despite the initial mutual sympathy and Sofia's invaluable assistance in his work, Tolstoy's marriage was far from ideal. Things started to go downhill when he forced her to read his diaries, filled with his past sexual exploits, the day before the wedding. And as Tolstoy’s interest in spiritual issues flared up, his interest in his family faded. He left the entire burden of dealing with his ever-growing finances, coupled with the writer's ever-fluctuating mood, on Sophia. By 1880, when the writer’s students lived on the Tolstoy estate, and he himself Lev Nikolaevich walked around barefoot and in peasant clothes, Sofya Andreevna, who could not restrain her anger, demanded that he write down his literary heritage to her in order to avoid ruining the family in the future.
At 82, deeply unhappy Leo Tolstoy tired of everything. He fled his estate in the middle of the night with one of his daughters, intending to settle on a small plot of land belonging to his sister. His disappearance became a sensation, and when Lev Nikolaevich appeared at the railway station a few days later, a crowd of newspapermen, onlookers and his wife were already waiting for him. Seriously ill, Tolstoy refused to return home. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy died on November 20, 1910 after a week of painful illness.
The name of the writer, educator, Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy is known to every Russian person. During his lifetime, 78 were published works of art, another 96 are preserved in the archives. And in the first half of the 20th century, a complete collection of works was published, numbering 90 volumes and including, in addition to novels, stories, stories, essays, etc., numerous letters and diary entries of this great man, distinguished by his enormous talent and extraordinary personal qualities. In this article we will recall the most interesting facts from the life of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy.
Selling a house in Yasnaya Polyana
In his youth the count had a reputation a gambling person and liked, unfortunately, not very successfully, to play cards. It so happened that part of the house in Yasnaya Polyana, where the writer spent his childhood, was given away for debts. Subsequently, Tolstoy planted trees in the empty space. Ilya Lvovich, his son, recalled how he once asked his father to show him the room in the house where he was born. And Lev Nikolaevich pointed to the top of one of the larches, adding: “There.” And he described the leather sofa on which this happened in the novel “War and Peace.” These are interesting facts from the life of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy related to the family estate.
As for the house itself, its two two-story wings have been preserved and have grown over time. After marriage and the birth of children, the Tolstoy family grew larger, and at the same time new premises were added.
Thirteen children were born into the Tolstoy family, five of whom died in infancy. The Count never spared time for them, and before the crisis of the 80s he loved to play pranks. For example, if jelly was served during lunch, my father noticed that it was good for them to glue the boxes together. The children immediately brought table paper to the dining room, and the creative process began.
Another example. Someone in the family became sad or even cried. The count, who noticed this, immediately organized the “Numidian Cavalry”. He jumped up from his seat, raised his hand and rushed around the table, and the children rushed after him.
Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich has always been distinguished by his love of literature. He regularly held evening readings in his house. Somehow I picked up a Jules Verne book without pictures. Then he began to illustrate it himself. And although he was not a very good artist, the family was delighted with what they saw.
The children also remembered the humorous poems of Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich. He read them in the wrong German for the same purpose: home. By the way, few people know that the writer’s creative heritage includes several poetic works. For example, “Fool”, “Volga the Hero”. They were mainly written for children and were included in the well-known “ABC”.
Thoughts of suicide
The works of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy became for the writer a way to study human characters in their development. Psychologism in the image often required great emotional effort from the author. So, while working on Anna Karenina, trouble almost happened to the writer. He was in such a difficult situation state of mind, that he was afraid to repeat the fate of his hero Levin and commit suicide. Later, in “Confession,” Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy noted that the thought of this was so persistent that he even took a lace out of the room where he was changing clothes alone and gave up hunting with a gun.
Disappointment in the Church
Nikolaevich’s story has been well studied and contains many stories about how he was excommunicated from the church. Meanwhile, the writer always considered himself a believer, and from 1977, for several years, he strictly observed all fasts and attended every church service. However, after visiting Optina Pustyn in 1981, everything changed. Lev Nikolaevich went there with his lackey and school teacher. They walked, as expected, with a knapsack and bast shoes. When we finally found ourselves in the monastery, we discovered terrible dirt and strict discipline.
The arriving pilgrims were accommodated on a general basis, which outraged the footman, who always treated the owner as a gentleman. He turned to one of the monks and said that the old man was Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. The writer’s work was well known, and he was immediately transferred to best number hotels. After returning from Optina Hermitage, the count expressed his dissatisfaction with such veneration, and from that time on he changed his attitude towards church conventions and its employees. It all ended with him taking a cutlet for lunch during one of his posts.
By the way, in the last years of his life the writer became a vegetarian, completely giving up meat. But at the same time I ate scrambled eggs in different forms every day.
Physical labor
In the early 80s - this is reported in the biography of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy - the writer finally came to the conviction that an idle life and luxury do not make a person beautiful. For a long time he was tormented by the question of what to do: sell off all his property and leave his beloved wife and children, unaccustomed to hard work, without funds? Or transfer the entire fortune to Sofya Andreevna? Later, Tolstoy would divide everything between family members. During this difficult time for him - the family had already moved to Moscow - Lev Nikolaevich loved to go to the Sparrow Hills, where he helped the men cut wood. Then he learned the craft of shoemaking and even designed his own boots and summer shoes from canvas and leather, which he wore all summer. And every year he helped peasant families in which there was no one to plow, sow and harvest grain. Not everyone approved of Lev Nikolaevich’s life. Tolstoy was not understood even in his own family. But he remained adamant. And one summer all of Yasnaya Polyana broke up into artels and went out to mow. Among those working was even Sofya Andreevna, raking the grass.
Help for the hungry
Noting interesting facts from the life of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy, we can also recall the events of 1898. In Mtsensk and Chernen districts in once again famine broke out. The writer, dressed in an old retinue and props, with a knapsack on his shoulders, together with his son, who volunteered to help him, personally toured all the villages and found out where the situation was truly miserable. Within a week, they compiled lists and created approximately twelve canteens in each district, where they fed, first of all, children, the elderly and the sick. Food was brought from Yasnaya Polyana and two hot meals were prepared a day. Tolstoy's initiative caused negativity from the authorities, who established constant control over him, and local landowners. The latter considered that such actions of the count could lead to the fact that they themselves would soon have to plow the fields and milk the cows.
One day a police officer entered one of the dining rooms and started a conversation with the count. He complained that although he approved of the writer’s action, he was a forced person, and therefore did not know what to do - they were talking about permission for such activities from the governor. The writer’s answer turned out to be simple: “Do not serve where you are forced to act against your conscience.” And this was the whole life of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy.
Serious illness
In 1901, the writer fell ill with a severe fever and, on the advice of doctors, went to Crimea. There, instead of being cured, he also contracted inflammation and there was practically no hope that he would survive. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, whose work contains many works describing death, prepared mentally for it. He was not at all afraid of losing his life. The writer even said goodbye to his loved ones. And although he could only speak in a half-whisper, he gave each of his children valuable advice for the future, as it turned out, nine years before his death. This was very helpful, since nine years later, none of the family members - and almost all of them gathered at the Astapovo station - were not allowed to see the patient.
Writer's funeral
Back in the 90s, Lev Nikolaevich spoke in his diary about how he would like to see his funeral. Ten years later, in “Memoirs,” he tells the story of the famous “green stick,” buried in a ravine next to the oak trees. And already in 1908 he dictated a wish to the stenographer: to bury him in a wooden coffin in the place where they looked for the source in childhood eternal goodness brothers.
Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich, according to his will, was buried in the Yasnaya Polyana park. The funeral was attended by several thousand people, among whom were not only friends, admirers of creativity, writers, but also local peasants, whom he treated with care and understanding all his life.
History of the will
Interesting facts from the life of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy also concern his expression of will regarding his creative heritage. The writer drew up six wills: in 1895 (diary entries), 1904 (letter to Chertkov), 1908 (dictated to Gusev), twice in 1909 and in 1010. According to one of them, all his records and works came into general use. According to others, the right to them was transferred to Chertkov. Ultimately, Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy bequeathed his work and all his notes to his daughter Alexandra, who became her father’s assistant at the age of sixteen.
Number 28
According to his relatives, the writer always had an ironic attitude towards prejudice. But he considered the number twenty-eight special for himself and loved it. Was it just a coincidence or fate? Unknown, but many major events The life and first works of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy are connected precisely with it. Here is their list:
- August 28, 1828 is the date of birth of the writer himself.
- On May 28, 1856, censorship gave permission to publish the first book of stories, “Childhood and Adolescence.”
- On June 28, the first child, Sergei, was born.
- On February 28, the wedding of Ilya’s son took place.
- On October 28, the writer left Yasnaya Polyana forever.
Born on August 26 (September 9), 1828 in the Yasnaya Polyana estate, Tula province, (now a museum-estate in the Tula region) in one of the most distinguished Russian noble families. The distant ancestor of Lev Nikolaevich, Pyotr Alekseevich Tolstoy, an associate of Peter the Great, was a cruel, insidious and power-hungry nobleman, a man of great statesmanship and enormous power will. For his services to the king, he was awarded the title of count. On his mother's side, Lev Nikolaevich belonged to the ancient family of princes Volkonsky. Belonging to the aristocracy throughout his life largely determined Tolstoy’s behavior and thoughts. In his youth and mature years he thought a lot about the special calling of the old Russian nobility, preserving the ideals of naturalness, personal honor, independence and freedom. In his declining years, he began to be burdened by his privileged position and way of life, which was unlike the life of the working, common people.
The first years of Tolstoy's life were spent on his parents' estate Yasnaya Polyana near the city of Tula. Very early, at the age of one and a half years, he lost his mother Maria Nikolaevna, an emotional and decisive woman. Tolstoy knew many family stories about his mother. Her image was filled with the brightest feelings for him. Father, Nikolai Ilyich, a retired colonel, was friends with the Decembrists Islenyev and Koloshin. He was distinguished by pride and independence in relations with government officials. For Tolstoy the child, his father was the embodiment of beauty, strength, passionate, gambling love for the joys of life. From him he inherited a passion for hound hunting, the beauty and excitement of which, many years later, Tolstoy expressed on the pages of the novel War and Peace in the description of the persecution of a wolf by the hounds of the old Count of Rostov.
Tolstoy also had warm and touching memories of his childhood with his older brother Nikolenka. Nikolenka taught little Levushka unusual games, told him and his other brothers stories about universal human happiness.
In Tolstoy's first story Childhood her hero Nikolenka Irtenev, who is in many ways biographically and spiritually close to the author, speaks of early years of your life: “Happy, happy, irrevocable time of childhood! How not to love, not to cherish memories of her? These memories refresh, elevate my soul and serve as a source of the best pleasures for me.” The author of the story could have said these words about his childhood.
In 1837, Tolstoy's family moved from Yasnaya Polyana to Moscow. A serene, joyful childhood is over. In the summer of this year, the father unexpectedly dies, and their aunt, the father’s sister Alexandra Ilyinichna Osten-Saken, becomes the guardian of the orphaned children. Four years later she died. The Tolstoys moved to Kazan, where another aunt, Pelageya Ilyinichna Yushkovskaya, lived.
Tolstoy spent his youth in Kazan. Here in 1844 he entered the university's Faculty of Philosophy. He studied unsystematically, missed lectures and, as a result, was not allowed to take the transfer exams. Not having received permission to take the history exam, in 1845 he transferred to another faculty - law. But even at this faculty they taught history, the classes of which seemed boring and unpleasant to him. Starts skipping history lectures again. He indulged himself with all passion in secular amusements and revelry. At this time, he treated non-secular people and non-aristocrats with contempt. Brother Sergei called him “a trifling fellow.” But it was not only secular amusements that fascinated Tolstoy. He thought a lot about the fate of humanity, about the place of science in life. His dislike of history is not evidence of narrow-mindedness. Once Tolstoy the student remarked in a conversation with an interlocutor: “History... is nothing more than a collection of fables and useless trifles, interspersed with a mass of unnecessary numbers and proper names...”. In the sciences, young Tolstoy sought, first of all, practical meaning. He was not interested in knowledge that could not be applied in everyday life. This is precisely how history seems to him, “useless.” This view of science is generally characteristic of many people. new era, whose worldview was formed in the 1840s.
Tolstoy's sharpness and independence of judgment remained throughout his life. And the denial of traditional historical science appeared with renewed vigor in the 1860s in the novel War and Peace.
On April 12, 1847, Tolstoy, disillusioned with his university education, filed a petition for expulsion from the university. He went to Yasnaya Polyana, hoping to try himself in a new field - to improve the life of his serfs. Reality defeated his plans. The peasants did not understand the master and refused his advice and help. For the first time, Tolstoy acutely felt the huge, insurmountable gulf separating him - the landowner, the gentleman - and the common people. Social and cultural barriers between the educated class and the people became one of the constant themes of Tolstoy’s fiction and articles.
He described his first unsuccessful business experience several years later in the story Morning of the landowner(1856), whose hero Nekhlyudov is endowed with the features of Tolstoy himself.
Returning from Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy spent several years in St. Petersburg and Moscow. He analyzes in detail his actions and experiences in his diaries, strives to develop a program of behavior, to achieve success in various sciences and spheres of life, and in his career. From introspection in the diaries grows his fiction. In his diaries of 1847–1852, Tolstoy carefully records various experiences and thoughts in their complex and contradictory connections. He coldly analyzes the manifestation of selfish moods in high and pure feelings, traces the movement, the flow of one emotional state into another. Observations of oneself alternate with descriptions of the appearance, gestures and character of acquaintances, with reflections on how to create a literary work. Tolstoy focuses on experience psychological analysis sentimental writers of the 18th century. L. Stern and J.-J. Rousseau, learns the techniques of revealing experiences in the novel by M.Yu. Lermontov Hero of our time. In March 1851 Tolstoy writes The story of yesterday- a passage in which he describes his feelings in detail. This is no longer just a diary entry, but a work of art.
In April 1851 he travels to the Caucasus, where there was a war between Russian troops and Chechens. In January 1852 he entered military service in the artillery. Participates in battles and works on the story Childhood. Childhood was published under the title The story of my childhood(this name belonged to Nekrasov) in the 9th issue of the Sovremennik magazine for 1852 and brought Tolstoy great success and fame as one of the most talented Russian writers. Two years later, also in the 9th issue of Sovremennik, a continuation appears - the story Boyhood, and in the 1st issue of 1857 the story was published Youth, which completed the story about Nikolai Irtenyev - the hero childhood And Boyhood.
Originality childhood And Boyhood the writer and critic N. Chernyshevsky subtly noted in his article Childhood and adolescence. War stories gr. Tolstoy(1856). He called distinctive features Tolstoy's talent was “deep knowledge of the secret movements of mental life and immediate purity of moral feeling.” Tolstoy's three stories are a non-sequential story of the upbringing and growing up of the main character and narrator, Nikolenka Irtenyev. This is a description of a number of episodes of his life - childhood games, the first hunt and first love for Sonechka Valakhina, the death of his mother, relationships with friends, balls and studies. What to others seems petty and unworthy of attention, and what to others are actual events in Nikolenka’s life, occupy an equal place in the consciousness of the child hero himself. The hero feels no less acutely than first love or separation from family. Tolstoy describes in detail the feelings of the child. Depiction of feelings in Childhood, adolescence And Youth reminiscent of the analysis of one’s own experiences in Tolstoy’s diaries. The principles of depiction outlined in the diaries and embodied in these three stories inner world characters moved into novels War and Peace, Anna Karenina and in many other later works of Tolstoy.
The theme of simplicity and naturalness as the highest value of life and the “dispute” with the “ceremonial” beautiful image war is expressed in essays Sevastopol in December (1855), Sevastopol in May(1855) and Sevastopol in August 1855(1856). The essays describe episodes of the heroic defense of Sevastopol from the Anglo-French troops in 1855. Tolstoy himself participated in the defense of Sevastopol and spent many days and nights in the most dangerous place - on the fourth bastion, which was mercilessly fired upon by enemy artillery.
Tolstoy's Sevastopol stories are not a panoramic description of the entire months-long gigantic battle for the city, but sketches of several days in the life of its defenders. It is in the details: in the depiction of the everyday life of soldiers, sailors, nurses, officers, townspeople - that Tolstoy seeks the true truth of war.
The key motif of Sevastopol stories is the unnaturalness and madness of war. In the essay Sevastopol in December Tolstoy does not describe the impressive correctness of the battle, but the terrible scenes of the suffering of the wounded in the hospital. He uses the technique of contrast, sharply pitting the world of the living and beautiful nature against the world of the dead - victims of war. For example, it tells about a child picking wildflowers among decaying corpses and touching the outstretched hand of a headless dead man with his foot.
War and Peace.
November 19, 1855 arrives in St. Petersburg. His name is already covered in glory. Writers and journalists hoped to collaborate with Tolstoy different directions. But the literary environment, the spirit of literary circles and competition, pushed Tolstoy away from his new acquaintances. Their interests seem small and insignificant to him, life seems fussy and meaningless. Tolstoy spent his soul in carousing with gypsies and in unbridled card game. In May 1856 he left St. Petersburg and settled in Yasnaya Polyana.
In the fall of 1859 he opened a school for peasant children in Yasnaya Polyana. He taught the children history and gave them topics for essays. In 1862 the school was closed after a police search. The reason was the authorities' suspicions that the students teaching at the Yasnaya Polyana school were engaged in anti-government activities. The writer formulated the conclusions from his activities at the Yasnaya Polyana school in an article with a “scandalous” title: Who should learn to write from whom: the peasant children from us, or us from the peasant children? According to Tolstoy, folk art and culture is not inferior, but rather superior to the culture and art recognized in an educated society. Peasant children preserve spiritual purity and naturalness, lost in the educated classes. Their teaching of the values of “high” culture, Tolstoy believes, is hardly necessary. On the contrary, the writer himself, while studying with them, found himself in the role of not a teacher, but a student.
In 1862 he married the daughter of a Moscow doctor, Sofia Andreevna Bers. The wedding was preceded by Tolstoy’s doubts about the strength and depth of his feelings, about his ability to bring happiness. future wife and find peace and joy in your new family life. After the wedding, the young couple leave for Yasnaya Polyana. On September 25, Tolstoy writes in his diary: “Incredible happiness.” Mutual misunderstanding, serious quarrels, alienation from each other - all this is still in the distant future.
In 1863 Tolstoy published the story Cossacks, which he began working on in the mid-1850s. The story, like many of his other works, is autobiographical. It is based on Caucasian memories, first of all, the story of his unrequited love for a Cossack woman who lived in the Starogladkovskaya village. He chooses the traditional romantic literature plot: the love of a chilled hero-fugitive, disillusioned with life, from the disgusted world of civilization for a “natural” and passionate heroine. Poems by A.S. Pushkin were written on this plot Caucasian prisoner And Gypsies. Gypsy Tolstoy re-read while working on Cossacks. But Tolstoy gives this plot a new meaning. The young nobleman Dmitry Olenin only superficially resembles romantic hero: His weariness with life is shallow. He is drawn to the natural simplicity, spontaneous life of the Cossacks, but remains alien to them. Interests, education, social status Venison alienates him from the residents Cossack village. The beautiful Cossack Maryana prefers the reckless Cossack Lukashka to him. Olenin greedily absorbs simple and wise thoughts old Cossack, hunter and former thief Uncle Eroshka: happiness, the meaning of life is in the rapture of all its joys, in carnal pleasures. But he will never be able to become as simple, carefree, kind and evil, pure and cynical at the same time as Uncle Eroshka.
From 1856 to 1863 he worked on a novel about the Decembrists. He saw the roots of the events of December 14, 1825 in the events Patriotic War 1812 - the time of spiritual awakening of the Russian people, the unity of the nobility and ordinary people in the fight against a foreign enemy. This is how the idea for the novel arose War and Peace. The novel was written and revised during 1863–1869 (published in 1865–1869; some changes were made to the text in the 1873 and 1886 editions).
War and Peace bears little resemblance to a classic novel. There is no traditional love triangle, love or social conflict as the basis of the plot. Traditionally, the key elements of a novel—the climax or resolution—at that time tended to be a duel, marriage, or death of the characters. Meanwhile, the marriage of one of the main characters, Pierre Bezukhov, to the empty and immoral secular beauty Helen Kuragina has little effect on the subsequent events of his life. Pierre's duel with Helen Dolokhov's lover is not the spring of action. Another loved one dies Tolstoy's hero, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, and the story continues. Pierre marries Natasha Rostova. But the novel ends not with a description of their wedding, but with a seemingly random scene - an image of the dream of Nikolenka, the son of Prince Andrei. In this dream, two main characters - Prince Andrei and Pierre Bezukhov - united into one person, and the dream foreshadows the disasters of Pierre, the future Decembrist. This strange, unusual novel has open ending– the future of the family of Pierre and Natasha is unknown and only vaguely guessed. It is not the external changes in the destinies of the heroes, but their spiritual evolution, their moral quests that constitute the true content War and Peace.
Two main lines War and Peace- the story of two friends, Pierre Bezukhov and Andrei Bolkonsky. They are united by the image of the young Countess Natasha Rostova - the bride of Prince Andrei, and later, after his death - the wife of Pierre. Pierre and especially Prince Andrei go through a fascination with Napoleon. Prince Andrey dreams of great glory. During the battle with Napoleon's army at Austerlitz, picking up the falling banner, he rushed towards the enemy, wanting to drag the soldiers along with him. Suddenly he is seriously injured. He falls to the ground and sees high above him blue sky. For Prince Andrei, this sky becomes a symbol of the highest divine harmony and the true greatness of life. He begins to see clearly and is freed from spiritual blindness: “How quietly, calmly and solemnly, not at all like I was running... not at all like how the clouds crawl across this high endless sky. How come I haven’t seen this high sky before? And how happy I am that I finally found out. Yes! everything is empty, everything is deception, except this endless sky.” Andrei Bolkonsky at this moment comprehends all the lies of Napoleonic greatness and his vain aspirations. Images of nature in War and peace– symbols of the highest harmony, a revelation of the truth of the world. They are opposed to the vanity, selfishness, baseness of the false life of people (first of all, people high society), alien spiritual aspirations. The revival of the devastated Prince Andrei, who has lost the meaning of existence and lost his wife, is symbolized by an old withered oak tree, which sprouts fresh young shoots in the spring. Captured by the French and experiencing the horror of execution, Pierre Bezukhov realizes in captivity that his main value, beyond the control of anyone, is his immortal soul. This liberating feeling comes to Pierre when he contemplates the starry night sky. The beauty of existence is embodied for the heroes War and Peace– Pierre and Prince Andrei – and in the image of the truly poetic and sincere Natasha Rostova. Overheard by chance moonlit night in the Otradnoye estate, a conversation between the enthusiastic Natasha and cousin Sonya returns the happiness of youth and spontaneity of feelings to Prince Andrei.
A trait of Tolstoy’s favorite heroes is the ability for spiritual growth. Both Pierre and Prince Andrei are freed from false ideas through communication with ordinary Russian people. For Prince Andrei, this is Captain Tushin and the artillery soldiers subordinate to him, whom he met in the battle with Napoleon at Schöngraben. The highest value of simplicity is revealed to Pierre by the soldiers he sees on the Borodino field. Soldier Platon Karataev helps Pierre understand that the meaning of life is in itself, in its simple and natural joys, in intuitive trust in life, in humble acceptance of the troubles and joys that befall a person.
Naturalness in the novel is contrasted with false, superficial life. Natasha Rostova is simple and natural, a young “countess” who selflessly performs Russian folk dance. Russian soldiers are simple, alien to acting and falsehood, performing feats in an everyday manner, without thoughts of glory. The Russian commander Kutuzov is simple, personifying, like Platon Karataev, the fullness of the newfound meaning of life. Both Andrei and Pierre are moving towards liberation from petty and selfish feelings. Andrei, mortally wounded at Borodino, acquires endless love for all people, and then, on the eve of his death, complete detachment from all earthly worries and worries, supreme peace. Pierre finds peace and happiness in a quiet family life with Natasha.
These characters are contrasted with the poser Napoleon, who enthusiastically plays the role of a “great man.” He is reminiscent of numerous “Napoleons” and “Napoleons” - the Russian Emperor Alexander I, the dignitary Speransky, the maid of honor Anna Scherer, the Kuragin family, the careerist Boris Drubetskoy and the calculating Julie Karagina, playing for love, and many others. These characters are endowed with an exaggerated idea of own meaning, they are internally empty and insensitive, thirst for fame, purely carnal passion, care about their career, love to talk beautifully and a lot. But they do not know love for their neighbor, they do not feel the highest meaning of existence.
In the novel, historical scenes and scenes of private, family life are equal in their meaning. Tolstoy describes in equal detail the Battle of Austerlitz, the Battle of Borodino, the military council of the headquarters of the Russian army in Fili and Natasha Rostova’s first ball, the hunt of the old Count Rostov and the conversations of Pierre and Natasha about the health of children. "Historical" chapters in War and peace alternate with “family” ones. Tolstoy perceives what is happening precisely from the point of view of a private, “outsider” person, and not from the point of view of a commander or statesman. Thus, the Battle of Borodino was seen through the eyes of a civilian - Pierre Bezukhov, who knows nothing about military science. In Tolstoy’s view, the private, family life of ordinary people is the same historical event, worthy of the attention of a historian and writer no less than negotiations between kings and diplomats or military victories.
The combination of “family” chapters with a detailed description of historical events, the conjugation of several plot lines, and the inclusion of many dozens of characters in his text became features that were completely new to Tolstoy’s contemporary novel. Later researchers called War and Peace an epic novel.
In historical and philosophical chapters War and Peace Tolstoy reveals his understanding of the meaning and laws of history. In his opinion, historical events are determined by the coincidence of many reasons, and therefore people cannot understand the laws of history. Tolstoy fiercely and sarcastically polemicizes with the opinion of decisive role great people - kings, generals, diplomats - in history. The higher a person’s place in society and in the state, the more a large number circumstances must be taken into account,” he notes. A truly great man does not interfere with the mysterious, incomprehensible course of history. He only feels its laws in his heart and strives to promote the course of events. This is exactly what Kutuzov is like in Tolstoy’s portrayal, not caring about military plans, allegedly behaving passively and absent-mindedly the day before decisive battles. That is why, the writer convinces, the winner is Kutuzov, and not Napoleon, who carefully developed military plans, but did not sense the hidden course of events, having forgotten that moral correctness in the war of 1812 was on the side of the Russians. Tolstoy rejected historical science, considering it quackery. He admitted that the movement of history is determined not by the will of people, but by Providence, Fate.
Anna Karenina.
In 1877 Tolstoy finished his second novel - Anna Karenina(published 1876–1877). His main character, Anna Karenina, is a subtle and conscientious nature; she is connected with Count Vronsky by a real, strong feeling. Anna's husband, a high-ranking official Karenin, seems soulless and callous, although he is capable of high, truly human, kind feelings. Tolstoy creates circumstances that seem to justify Anna. She is open and honest, does not hide her relationship with Vronsky and strives to get a divorce from her husband. And yet Tolstoy apparently condemns Anna. The price for betraying her husband is the heroine’s suicide, while her death, according to the author’s plan, is a manifestation of divine judgment. It is not for nothing that Tolstoy chose the words of God from the biblical book of Deuteronomy in the Church Slavonic translation as the epigraph to the novel: “Vengeance is mine, and I will repay.” In addition, according to Tolstoy, not only Anna deserves the highest judgment, but also other characters who committed sins - first of all, Vronsky. For Tolstoy, Anna’s guilt lies in evading her destiny as a wife and mother. The connection with Vronsky is not only a violation of marital duty. It leads to the destruction of the Karenin family: their son Seryozha is now growing up without a mother, and Anna and her husband are fighting each other for their son. Anna's love for Vronsky, according to Tolstoy, is not high feeling, in which the spiritual principle prevails over physical attraction, but blind and destructive passion. Its symbol is a furious snowstorm, during which Anna and Vronsky explain themselves. The novel combines three storylines- stories of three families. They are both similar and different at the same time. Anna chooses love, destroying her family. Dolly, the wife of her brother Stiva Oblonsky, for the sake of the happiness and well-being of her children, reconciles with her husband who cheated on her. Konstantin Levin, having married Dolly’s young and charming sister, Kitty Shcherbatskaya, strives to create a spiritual and pure marriage in which husband and wife become a single, similarly feeling and thinking being. On this path he faces temptations and difficulties. The story of Levin's marriage to Kitty, their marriage and Levin's spiritual quest is autobiographical. She largely reproduces episodes of the marriage and family life of Lev Nikolaevich and Sofia Andreevna.
Distinctive artistic feature novel - repetitions of situations and images that serve as predictions and harbingers. Anna and Vronsky meet at the railway station. At the moment of the first meeting, when Anna accepted a sign of attention from a new acquaintance, the train coupler was crushed by the train. The explanation between Vronsky and Anna takes place at the railway station. The image of the railway is correlated in the novel with the motives of passion, mortal threat, with cold and soulless metal. Anna's death and Vronsky's wine are foreshadowed in the horse racing scene, when Vronsky, due to his awkwardness, breaks the back of the beautiful mare Frou-Frou. The death of the horse seems to foreshadow Anna's fate. Anna’s dreams are symbolic, in which she sees a man working with iron. His image echoes the images of railway employees and is shrouded in threat and death.
IN Anna Karenina Tolstoy repeatedly uses the technique of internal monologue, descriptions of chaotic, randomly changing observations, impressions of the world around him and the thoughts of the heroine.
Crisis. Late creativity.
In the second half of the 1860s and 1870s, Tolstoy experienced a painful spiritual crisis. In 1869 he went to look at an estate in the Penza province, which he expected to buy at a profit. On the way, I spent the night in an Arzamas hotel. He fell asleep, but suddenly woke up in horror: he imagined that he was about to die.
Tolstoy described his feelings in an unfinished story Notes of a Madman, on which he worked in 1885–1886. The fear of death, the feeling of emptiness and the meaninglessness of life haunted Tolstoy for several years. He tried to seek solace in philosophy, the Orthodox faith and other religions. But he did not receive from either philosophers or theologians an answer that was understandable and close to him about the meaning of life. Philosophy and existing religions seemed to Tolstoy empty and unnecessary. He repeatedly had thoughts of suicide.
The crisis was overcome at the turn of the 1870s–1880s. Tolstoy comes to recognize extra-rational, intuitive folk religiosity as the only answer to the question of the meaning of life. In simplification, in likening himself to people from the people, to peasants, he saw the purpose and duty of nobles, intellectuals - everyone who is part of the privileged classes. At the same time, he did not accept and did not understand the people's belief in the miraculous and otherworldly. The new faith, which Tolstoy taught in his religious and philosophical writings of the 1880s and later, was primarily a moral teaching. God for Tolstoy is the highest, pure beginning in the human soul, the embodiment moral principle. Tolstoy considered the existing Christian religions, in particular Orthodoxy, to pervert the spirit and essence of the commandments and the teachings of Christ. He could not accept the non-rational, super-reasonable in theology (church dogmas). He reproached the church for reconciling violence or even justifying violence. According to Tolstoy, any violence is unacceptable in human society. Overcoming evil, victory over it and the implementation of the Christian ideal of universal brotherhood are possible only through the moral improvement of each person. Tolstoy spoke about overcoming the spiritual crisis and about his new faith in Confessions(written 1879–1882, published 1884).
Tolstoy rethought his entire life. He comes to the conclusion that only the life of the common people is close to moral truths. In the article What is art?(1898) he rejects everything in world culture created by people from the ruling classes and classes. According to Tolstoy, the only true function of art is to give “knowledge of the difference between good and evil,” and this function is fully fulfilled only by art created common people. Poverty and the suffering of the disadvantaged were painfully experienced by Tolstoy. He was one of the organizers of public assistance to starving peasants in 1891. He considers personal labor, primarily physical, renunciation of wealth, property acquired through the work of others, necessary for wealthy people. He wrote about this in a journalistic work So what should we do?, on which he worked in 1882–1886. Tolstoy came to the idea that private ownership of land is unnatural, that a state resorting to violence cruel punishments, should not exist.
In 1908, I learned about the execution by hanging in the city of Kherson of twelve peasants who participated in actions against landowners and responded to the incident with an article I can't be silent.
The ideas of the late Tolstoy are reminiscent of socialist teaching. But unlike the socialists, he was a staunch opponent of the revolution. And he saw the path to human happiness primarily not in social and economic changes, but in the moral self-improvement of each person. Moderation of desires, a modest life, alien to luxury, liberation from passions, limitation or suppression of sexual desire - these, according to Tolstoy, should be moral guidelines.
The position of the late Tolstoy is that of a prophet, an exposer of social and state untruths, proclaiming the creed of universal brotherly love and labor. Tolstoy, a publicist and teacher of life, gained enormous fame not only in Russia, but throughout the world. Yasnaya Polyana becomes a place of pilgrimage: people from different classes and from many countries come to Tolstoy for advice. On February 22, 1901, the Synod - the highest church body in Russia at that time - issued a decision to excommunicate Tolstoy from the church, pointing out the anti-Orthodox spirit of Tolstoy's teachings. But the excommunication did not shake Tolstoy's exceptional influence on Russian society. In the south of Russia, his followers - the Tolstoyans - created agricultural communes and lived together cultivating the land.
In the works of late Tolstoy, the desire for simplicity of style and direct edification were clearly manifested. He created numerous works written in imitation of folk legends and fairy tales, in which he expressed his understanding of the teachings of Christ, ideas about a worthy and righteous life and an ideal society.
Perversity, the irregularity of people's lives, the structure of society is the main theme of the late Tolstoy's work. In the story Father Sergius(Tolstoy worked on it in the 1890s, published after his death in 1911) depicts the life story of Prince Stepan Kasatsky, who becomes the monk Sergius, an extremely proud man who comes through the temptation of fame to the simple humble life of a beggar wanderer. In the story Kreutzer Sonata(1887–1889) Tolstoy presented sexual love between a man and a woman as a base feeling, unworthy of a person. In the play Living corpse(1900, published posthumously, in 1911) the author focuses on the abnormality of laws and authorities that force spouses who have fallen out of love and are ready to part with each other to continue living together. Main character play, Fedya Protasov, feels the emptiness of the surrounding society and finds a way out in drunken revelry. The desire to untie the tangled knot of relationships with his abandoned wife Lisa and with the honest, but limited and not understanding Protasov, Viktor Karenin, who loves her, leads the main character to suicide.
In the story Canvas meter(1885, first version - 1864–1865) the ugliness of the relationships reigning among people is exposed thanks to special welcome: everything that happens is depicted in the perception of a horse - the gelding Kholstomer. The story is based on contrast: tragic life the wise Kholstomer - and the story of the meaningless existence of his former owner, the depraved and selfish Prince Serpukhovsky.
The hero's epiphany, moral, spiritual transformation on the verge of death - the plot of the stories Death of Ivan Ilyich(1881–1882, 1884–1886, published 1886) and Owner and worker(1894–1895). A terminally ill high-ranking official, Ivan Ilyich, becomes convinced of how empty his life was, in which he followed the same rules and habits as other people in his circle. The story is based on the contrast of Ivan Ilyich’s new ideas about life and the opinions characteristic of his family and colleagues. The hero of the second story, the owner of the inn, greedy and alien to reproaches of conscience, Brekhunov, unexpectedly saves himself at the cost of the life of his worker Nikita.
From 1889 to 1899 Tolstoy worked on his last novel - Resurrection. Based on the plot Sundays – the moral revival of the wealthy nobleman Dmitry Ivanovich Nekhlyudov and the prostitute Katyusha Maslova, whom Nekhlyudov once seduced. IN Resurrection Tolstoy abandons his favorite technique - depicting the experiences of the heroes - the “dialectics of the soul.” The description of the complex movement of contradictory experiences is replaced by Nekhlyudov’s direct judgments and assessments of himself and the people around him. Tolstoy describes a paradoxical, “inverted” situation: Nekhlyudov, guilty of the moral fall of Katyusha Maslova, turns out to be her legal judge. He is among the jurors who decide the question of Maslova’s guilt (Maslova is suspected of involvement in the poisoning of a merchant visitor to a brothel).
Tolstoy depicts a whole gallery of characters from different classes - dignitaries, criminals, revolutionaries. The author of the novel acts as a ruthless judge of the modern social and governmental system.
In 1896–1904 Tolstoy wrote the story Hadji Murad(first published posthumously, in 1912). Its plot is the story of the Chechen Hadji Murad going over to the side of Tsar Nicholas I, who was eager to take revenge on Imam Shamil, who fought against the Russian troops. Unlike others later works Tolstoy, in Hadji Murate there is no obvious author's morality. Therefore, it is no coincidence that Tolstoy did not want to publish this story. Hadji Murad is a type of “natural hero” who attracted the attention of the still young Tolstoy. The thirst for freedom is his main feature. Hadji Murad is no stranger to negative qualities. But he, for all his treachery, is simple-minded and in this respect is contrasted with two enemy rulers - the hypocritical Nicholas I and Shamil. Tolstoy resorts to the technique of exposing the abnormality, false life and morals of the Russian world and court, depicting them through the perception of Hadji Murad, who notices everything strange and unnatural. The story is built on the technique of semantic roll call of events. The morals at the court of Nicholas I and Shamil were similar. The story of Hadji Murat, a victim of deception by the Russian Tsar and his entourage, is correlated with the fate of the unfortunate Russian soldier Avdeev.
Since the early 1880s, mutual alienation has been growing in the relationship between Tolstoy and his wife and sons. Tolstoy felt torment and shame because of the wealth he possessed. The discord between the teaching, which called for the renunciation of wealth, and his own behavior was unbearably difficult for him. In the 1880s, a conflict arose between Tolstoy and Sofya Andreevna over property and income from publishing the writer’s works. On May 21, 1883, he granted his wife full power of attorney to conduct all property affairs, and two years later he divided all his property between his wife, sons and daughters. He wanted to distribute all his property to the needy, but he was stopped by his wife’s threat to declare him crazy and establish guardianship over him. Sofya Andreevna defended the interests and well-being of the family and children. Tolstoy granted all publishers the right to freely publish all his works published after 1881 (Tolstoy considered this year to be the year of his own moral turning point). But Sofya Andreevna demanded the privilege for herself to publish her husband’s collected works. On July 22, 1910, Tolstoy drew up a will in which he granted all publishers the right to publish his works - both those written after 1881 and earlier. The new will strained relations with his wife. Feeling the impossibility of maintaining peace in the family and wanting to fully follow the ideal of simplification and working life, Tolstoy left Yasnaya Polyana at five o’clock in the morning on October 28, 1910, together with his doctor D.P. Makovitsky. A few days later, Lev Nikolaevich’s daughter Alexandra Lvovna joined them. Tolstoy intended to go south, then, most likely, abroad. I thought about starting to become a peasant.
At six thirty-five minutes in the evening on October 31, the train en route to Rostov-on-Don arrived at the Astapovo station of the Ryazan-Ural Railway. Tolstoy, who had a fever, was forced to stay in the station master's house. Doctors diagnosed pneumonia. At six o'clock five minutes on November 7 (November 20), 1910, Tolstoy died.
Essays: Complete set of works. Anniversary edition: In 90 t. M., 1928–1958; Pointers to To the full meeting works of L.N. Tolstoy. M., 1964;
L.N. Tolstoy. Collected works: In 22 volumes. M., 1978–1985.
Andrey Ranchin
Literature:
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War over « War and Peace» : Roman L.N. Tolstoy in Russian criticism and literary criticism. Comp. I.N. Dry. St. Petersburg, 2002
Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on August 28, 1828 on his father's estate Yasnaya Polyana, in the Tula province. Thick - old Russian noble surname; one representative of this family, the head of Peter's secret police Peter Tolstoy, was promoted to count. Tolstoy's mother was born Princess Volkonskaya. His father and mother served as prototypes for Nikolai Rostov and Princess Marya in War and peace(see summary and analysis of this novel). They belonged to the highest Russian aristocracy, and family affiliation to the upper stratum of the ruling class sharply distinguishes Tolstoy from other writers of his time. He never forgot about her (even when this realization of his became completely negative), always remained an aristocrat and kept aloof from the intelligentsia.
Leo Tolstoy's childhood and adolescence passed between Moscow and Yasnaya Polyana, in big family, where there were several brothers. He left unusually vivid memories of his early environment, his relatives and servants, in wonderful autobiographical notes that he wrote for his biographer P. I. Biryukov. His mother died when he was two years old, his father when he was nine years old. His further upbringing was in charge of his aunt, Mademoiselle Ergolskaya, who presumably served as the prototype for Sonya in War and peace.
Leo Tolstoy in his youth. Photo from 1848
In 1844, Tolstoy entered Kazan University, where he first studied oriental languages and then law, but in 1847 he left the university without receiving a diploma. In 1849, he settled in Yasnaya Polyana, where he tried to become useful to his peasants, but soon realized that his efforts were of no use because he lacked knowledge. IN student years and after leaving the university, he, as was common among young people of his class, led a chaotic life, filled with the pursuit of pleasure - wine, cards, women - somewhat similar to the life that Pushkin led before his exile to the south. But Tolstoy was unable to accept life as it is with a light heart. From the very beginning, his diary (existing since 1847) testifies to an unquenchable thirst for mental and moral justification of life, a thirst that forever remained the guiding force of his thought. This same diary was the first experience in developing that technique of psychological analysis, which later became Tolstoy’s main literary weapon. His first attempt to try himself in a more purposeful and creative type of writing dates back to 1851.
The tragedy of Leo Tolstoy. Documentary
In the same year, disgusted with his empty and useless Moscow life, he went to the Caucasus to join the Terek Cossacks, where he joined the garrison artillery as a cadet (junker means a volunteer, a volunteer, but of noble birth). The next year (1852) he finished his first story ( Childhood) and sent it to Nekrasov for publication in Contemporary. Nekrasov immediately accepted it and wrote about it to Tolstoy in very encouraging tones. The story was an immediate success, and Tolstoy immediately rose to prominence in literature.
At the battery, Leo Tolstoy led a rather easy and unburdened life as a cadet with means; the place to stay was also nice. He had a lot of free time, most of which he spent hunting. In the few fights in which he had to participate, he performed very well. In 1854 he received an officer's rank and, at his request, was transferred to the army fighting the Turks in Wallachia (see Crimean War), where he took part in the siege of Silistria. In the autumn of the same year he joined the Sevastopol garrison. There Tolstoy saw real war. He took part in the defense of the famous Fourth Bastion and in the Battle of the Black River and ridiculed bad command in a satirical song - the only work of his in verse known to us. In Sevastopol he wrote famous Sevastopol stories that appeared in Contemporary, when the siege of Sevastopol was still ongoing, which greatly increased interest in their author. Soon after leaving Sevastopol, Tolstoy went on vacation to St. Petersburg and Moscow, and the next year he left the army.
Only in these years, after the Crimean War, did Tolstoy communicate with literary world. The writers of St. Petersburg and Moscow greeted him as an outstanding master and brother. As he later admitted, success greatly flattered his vanity and pride. But he did not get along with the writers. He was too much of an aristocrat for this semi-bohemian intelligentsia to please him. They were too awkward plebeians for him, and they were indignant that he clearly preferred the light to their company. On this occasion, he and Turgenev exchanged caustic epigrams. On the other hand, his very mentality was not to the heart of progressive Westerners. He did not believe in progress or culture. In addition, his dissatisfaction with the literary world intensified due to the fact that his new works disappointed them. Everything he wrote after childhood, did not show any movement towards innovation and development, and Tolstoy's critics failed to understand the experimental value of these imperfect works (see the article Tolstoy's Early Work for more details). All this contributed to his cessation of relations with the literary world. The culmination was a noisy quarrel with Turgenev (1861), whom he challenged to a duel, and then apologized for it. This whole story is very typical, and it revealed the character of Leo Tolstoy, with his hidden embarrassment and sensitivity to insults, with his intolerance for the imaginary superiority of other people. The only writers with whom he maintained friendly relations were the reactionary and “land lord” Fet (in whose house the quarrel with Turgenev broke out) and the Slavophile democrat Strakhov- people who were completely unsympathetic to the main trend of progressive thought of that time.
Tolstoy spent the years 1856–1861 between St. Petersburg, Moscow, Yasnaya Polyana and abroad. He traveled abroad in 1857 (and again in 1860–1861) and learned from there a disgust for the selfishness and materialism of the European bourgeois civilization. In 1859 he opened a school for peasant children in Yasnaya Polyana and in 1862 began publishing a pedagogical magazine Yasnaya Polyana, in which he surprised the progressive world with the assertion that it is not the intellectuals who should teach the peasants, but rather the peasants who should teach the intellectuals. In 1861 he accepted the post of mediator, a post created to oversee the implementation of the emancipation of the peasants. But the unsatisfied thirst for moral strength continued to torment him. He abandoned the revelry of his youth and began to think about marriage. In 1856 he made the first unsuccessful attempt marry (Arsenyeva). In 1860, he was deeply shocked by the death of his brother Nicholas - this was his first encounter with the inevitable reality of death. Finally, in 1862, after much hesitation (he was convinced that since he was old - thirty-four years old! - and ugly, no woman would love him), Tolstoy proposed to Sofya Andreevna Bers, and it was accepted. They got married in September of that year.
Marriage is one of the two main milestones in Tolstoy's life; the second milestone was his appeal. He was always haunted by one concern - how to justify his life before his conscience and achieve lasting moral well-being. When he was a bachelor, he oscillated between two opposing desires. The first was a passionate and hopeless striving for that integral and unreasoning, “natural” state that he found among the peasants and especially among the Cossacks, in whose village he lived in the Caucasus: this state does not strive for self-justification, for it is free from self-consciousness, this justification demanding. He tried to find such an unquestioning state in conscious submission to animal impulses, in the lives of his friends and (and here he was closest to achieving it) in his favorite pastime - hunting. But he was unable to be satisfied with this forever, and another equally passionate desire - to find a rational justification for life - led him astray every time it seemed to him that he had already achieved contentment with himself. Marriage was his gateway to a more stable and lasting “state of nature.” It was a self-justification of life and a solution to a painful problem. Family life, its unreasoning acceptance and submission to it, henceforth became his religion.
For the first fifteen years of his married life, Tolstoy lived in a blissful state of contented vegetation, with a pacified conscience and a hushed need for higher rational justification. The philosophy of this plant conservatism is expressed with enormous creative force in War and peace(see summary and analysis of this novel). He was extremely happy in his family life. Sofya Andreevna, almost still a girl when he married her, easily became what he wanted to make her; he explained his new philosophy, and she was her indestructible stronghold and constant guardian, which ultimately led to the breakup of the family. The writer's wife turned out to be an ideal wife, mother and mistress of the house. In addition, she became a devoted assistant to her husband in literary work - everyone knows that she rewrote seven times War and Peace from start to finish. She gave birth to Tolstoy many sons and daughters. She had no personal life: she was all lost in family life.
Thanks to Tolstoy's reasonable management of estates (Yasnaya Polyana was simply a place of residence; the large Trans-Volga estate brought in income) and the sale of his works, the family's fortune increased, as did the family itself. But Tolstoy, although absorbed and satisfied with his self-justifying life, although he glorified it with unsurpassed artistic power in his best novel, was still not able to completely dissolve in family life, as his wife dissolved. “Life in Art” also did not absorb him as much as his brothers. The worm of moral thirst, although reduced to a tiny size, never died. Tolstoy was constantly concerned with questions and demands of morality. In 1866 he defended (unsuccessfully) before a military court a soldier accused of striking an officer. In 1873 he published articles on public education, on the basis of which the astute critic Mikhailovsky was able to predict the further development of his ideas.