Biography
Born on August 28, 1828 in the Krapivensky district of the Tula province, on his mother’s hereditary estate - Yasnaya Polyana. Was the 4th child; his three older brothers: Nikolai (1823-1860), Sergei (1826-1904) and Dmitry (1827-1856). In 1830, Sister Maria (1830-1912) was born. His mother died when he was not yet 2 years old.
A distant relative, T. A. Ergolskaya, took up the task of raising orphaned children. In 1837, the family moved to Moscow, settling on Plyushchikha, because the eldest son had to prepare to enter university, but soon his father suddenly died, leaving affairs (including some litigation related to the family’s property) in an unfinished state, and the three younger ones The children again settled in Yasnaya Polyana under the supervision of Ergolskaya and their paternal aunt, Countess A. M. Osten-Sacken, who was appointed guardian of the children. Here Lev Nikolaevich remained until 1840, when Countess Osten-Sacken died and the children moved to Kazan, to a new guardian - their father's sister P. I. Yushkova.
The Yushkov house, somewhat provincial in style, but typically secular, was one of the most cheerful in Kazan; All family members highly valued external shine. “My good aunt,” says Tolstoy, “the purest being, always said that she would want nothing more for me than for me to have a connection with married woman: rien ne forme un jeune homme comme une liaison avec une femme comme il faut” (“Confession”).
He wanted to shine in society, to earn a reputation young man; but he did not have the external qualities for this: he was ugly, it seemed to him awkward, and, in addition, he was hampered by natural shyness. Everything that is told in “Adolescence” and “Youth” about the aspirations of Irtenyev and Nekhlyudov for self-improvement was taken by Tolstoy from the history of his own ascetic attempts. The most varied, as Tolstoy himself defines them, “philosophies” about the most important questions of our existence - happiness, death, God, love, eternity - painfully tormented him in that era of life when his peers and brothers were completely devoted to the cheerful, easy and carefree pastime of the rich and noble people. All this led to the fact that Tolstoy developed a “habit of constant moral analysis,” which, as it seemed to him, “destroyed the freshness of feeling and clarity of reason” (“Youth”).
Education
His education was first carried out under the guidance of the French tutor Saint-Thomas (Mr. Jerome in Boyhood), who replaced the good-natured German Reselman, whom he portrayed in Childhood under the name Karl Ivanovich.
At the age of 15, in 1843, following his brother Dmitry, he became a student at Kazan University, where Lobachevsky and Kovalevsky were professors at the Faculty of Mathematics. Until 1847, he was preparing here to enter the only Oriental Faculty in Russia at that time in the category of Arabic-Turkish literature. In the entrance exams, in particular, he showed excellent results in the compulsory “Turkish-Tatar language” for admission.
Because of a conflict between his family and his teacher Russian history and German, a certain Ivanov, based on the results of the year, had poor performance in the relevant subjects and had to re-take the first-year program. To avoid repeating the course completely, he transferred to the Faculty of Law, where his problems with grades in Russian history and German continued. The latter was attended by the outstanding civil scientist Meyer; Tolstoy at one time became very interested in his lectures and even took on a special topic for development - a comparison of Montesquieu’s “Esprit des lois” and Catherine’s “Order”. However, nothing came of this. Leo Tolstoy spent less than two years at the Faculty of Law: “It was always difficult for him to have any education imposed by others, and everything that he learned in life, he learned himself, suddenly, quickly, with intense work,” writes Tolstaya in her “Materials for biography of L.N. Tolstoy."
It was at this time, while in a Kazan hospital, that he began to keep a diary, where, imitating Franklin, he sets goals and rules for self-improvement and notes successes and failures in completing these tasks, analyzes his shortcomings and train of thoughts and motives for his actions. In 1904 he recalled: “... for the first year... I did nothing. In the second year I started studying. .. there was Professor Meyer, who ... gave me a work - a comparison of Catherine’s “Order” with Montesquieu’s “Esprit des lois”. ... this work fascinated me, I went to the village, began to read Montesquieu, this reading opened up endless horizons for me; I started reading Rousseau and dropped out of university precisely because I wanted to study.”
Beginning of literary activity
Having dropped out of the university, Tolstoy settled in Yasnaya Polyana in the spring of 1847; his activities there are partly described in “The Morning of the Landowner”: Tolstoy tried to establish a new relationship with the peasants.
I followed journalism very little; although his attempt to somehow attenuate the guilt of the nobility before the people dates back to the same year when Grigorovich’s “Anton the Miserable” and the beginning of Turgenev’s “Notes of a Hunter” appeared, but this is a simple accident. If you were here literary influences, then of much older origin: Tolstoy was very fond of Rousseau, a hater of civilization and a preacher of a return to primitive simplicity.
In his diary, Tolstoy sets himself huge amount goals and rules; Only a small number of them were able to follow. Among the successful ones are serious studies English, music, law. In addition, neither the diary nor the letters reflected the beginning of Tolstoy's studies in pedagogy and charity - in 1849 he first opened a school for peasant children. The main teacher was Foka Demidych, a serf, but L.N. himself often conducted classes.
Having left for St. Petersburg, in the spring of 1848 he began to take the exam for a candidate of rights; He passed two exams, from criminal law and criminal proceedings, successfully, but he did not take the third exam and went to the village.
Later he came to Moscow, where he often succumbed to his passion for gambling, greatly upsetting his financial affairs. During this period of his life, Tolstoy was especially passionately interested in music (he played the piano quite well and was very fond of classical composers). The author of the “Kreutzer Sonata” drew an exaggerated description in relation to most people of the effect that “passionate” music produces from the sensations excited by the world of sounds in his own soul.
Tolstoy's favorite composers were Bach, Handel and Chopin. In the late 1840s, Tolstoy, in collaboration with his acquaintance, composed a waltz, which in the early 1900s he performed with the composer Taneev, who made a musical notation of this piece of music(the only one composed by Tolstoy).
The development of Tolstoy’s love for music was also facilitated by the fact that during a trip to St. Petersburg in 1848, he met in a very unsuitable dance class setting with a gifted but lost German musician, whom he later described in Alberta. Tolstoy came up with the idea of saving him: he took him to Yasnaya Polyana and played a lot with him. A lot of time was also spent on carousing, gaming and hunting.
In the winter of 1850-1851. started writing "Childhood". In March 1851 he wrote “The History of Yesterday.”
This is how 4 years passed after leaving the university, when Tolstoy’s brother Nikolai, who served in the Caucasus, came to Yasnaya Polyana and began inviting him there. Tolstoy did not give in to his brother’s call for a long time, until a major loss in Moscow helped the decision. In order to pay off, it was necessary to reduce his expenses to a minimum - and in the spring of 1851, Tolstoy hastily left Moscow for the Caucasus, at first without any specific purpose. Soon he decided to enroll in military service, but obstacles arose in the form of a lack of necessary papers, which were difficult to obtain, and Tolstoy lived for about 5 months in complete solitude in Pyatigorsk, in a simple hut. He spent a significant part of his time hunting, in the company of the Cossack Epishka, the prototype of one of the heroes of the story “Cossacks”, who appears there under the name Eroshka.
In the fall of 1851, Tolstoy, having passed the exam in Tiflis, entered the 4th battery of the 20th artillery brigade, stationed in the Cossack village of Starogladov, on the banks of the Terek, near Kizlyar, as a cadet. With a slight change in details, she is depicted in all her semi-wild originality in “Cossacks”. The same “Cossacks” will give us a picture inner life Tolstoy, who fled from the capital's whirlpool. The moods that Tolstoy-Olenin experienced were of a dual nature: here is a deep need to shake off the dust and soot of civilization and live in the refreshing, clear bosom of nature, outside the empty conventions of urban and, especially, high society life, here and the desire to heal the wounds of pride, brought out of the pursuit of success in this “empty” life, there is also a grave consciousness of transgressions against the strict requirements of true morality.
In a remote village, Tolstoy began to write and in 1852 he sent the first part of the future trilogy: “Childhood” to the editors of Sovremennik.
The relatively late start of his career is very characteristic of Tolstoy: he was never a professional writer, understanding professionalism not in the sense of a profession that provides a means of living, but in the less narrow sense of the predominance of literary interests. Purely literary interests always stood in the background for Tolstoy: he wrote when he wanted to write and the need to speak out was ripe, and in usual time He socialite, officer, landowner, teacher, world mediator, preacher, teacher of life, etc. He never took the interests of literary parties to heart, he is far from willing to talk about literature, preferring to talk about issues of faith, morals, public relations. Not a single work of his, in the words of Turgenev, “stinks of literature,” that is, did not come out of a bookish mood, out of literary isolation.
Military career
Having received the manuscript of “Childhood”, the editor of Sovremennik Nekrasov immediately recognized its literary value and wrote a kind letter to the author, which had a very encouraging effect on him. He sets about continuing the trilogy, and plans for “The Morning of the Landowner,” “The Raid,” and “The Cossacks” are swarming in his head. “Childhood,” published in Sovremennik in 1852, signed with the modest initials L.N.T., was extremely successful; the author immediately began to be ranked among the luminaries of the young literary school along with Turgenev, Goncharov, Grigorovich, Ostrovsky, who already enjoyed great literary fame. Criticism - Apollo Grigoriev, Annenkov, Druzhinin, Chernyshevsky - also appreciated the depth psychological analysis, and the seriousness of the author's intentions, and the bright salience of realism with all the truthfulness of the vividly captured details of real life, alien to any vulgarity.
Tolstoy remained in the Caucasus for two years, participating in many skirmishes with the mountaineers and being exposed to all the dangers of combat life in the Caucasus. He had rights and claims to the St. George Cross, but did not receive it, which apparently upset him. When the Crimean War broke out at the end of 1853, Tolstoy transferred to the Danube Army, participated in the battle of Oltenitsa and the siege of Silistria, and from November 1854 to the end of August 1855 he was in Sevastopol.
Tolstoy lived for a long time on the terrible 4th bastion, commanded a battery in the battle of Chernaya, and was during the hellish bombardment during the assault on Malakhov Kurgan. Despite all the horrors of the siege, Tolstoy at this time wrote a battle story from Caucasian life, “Cutting Wood,” and the first of three “Sevastopol stories,” “Sevastopol in December 1854.” This last story he sent it to Sovremennik. Immediately printed, the story was eagerly read throughout Russia and made a stunning impression with its picture of the horrors that befell the defenders of Sevastopol. The story was noticed by Emperor Nicholas; he ordered to take care of the gifted officer, which, however, was impossible for Tolstoy, who did not want to go into the category of the “staff” he hated.
Stele in memory of a participant in the defense of Sevastopol in 1854-1855. L. N. Tolstoy at the fourth bastion
For the defense of Sevastopol, Tolstoy was awarded the Order of St. Anne with the inscription “For bravery” and the medals “For the defense of Sevastopol 1854-1855” and “In memory of the war of 1853-1856.” Surrounded by the brilliance of fame and enjoying the reputation of a very brave officer, Tolstoy had every chance of a career, but he “ruined” it for himself. Almost the only time in my life (except for the “Connection” made for children different options epics in one" in his pedagogical works) he dabbled in poetry: he wrote a satirical song, in the manner of soldiers, about the unfortunate case of August 4 (16), 1855, when General Read, misunderstanding the order of the commander-in-chief, unwisely attacked the Fedyukhinsky heights. The song (Like the fourth, we had a hard time taking away mountains), which touched a whole series important generals, was a huge success and, of course, harmed the author. Immediately after the assault on August 27 (September 8), Tolstoy was sent by courier to St. Petersburg, where he completed “Sevastopol in May 1855.” and wrote “Sevastopol in August 1855.”
“Sevastopol Stories” finally strengthened his reputation as a representative of a new literary generation.
Traveling around Europe
In St. Petersburg he was warmly welcomed both in high society salons and in literary circles; He became especially close friends with Turgenev, with whom he lived in the same apartment for a while. The latter introduced him to the circle of Sovremennik and other literary luminaries: he became on friendly terms with Nekrasov, Goncharov, Panaev, Grigorovich, Druzhinin, Sollogub.
“After the hardships of Sevastopol, life in the capital had a double charm for a rich, cheerful, impressionable and sociable young man. Tolstoy spent whole days and even nights on drinking and gambling, carousing with gypsies” (Levenfeld).
At this time, “Blizzard”, “Two Hussars” were written, “Sevastopol in August” and “Youth” were completed, and the writing of the future “Cossacks” continued.
The cheerful life was not slow to leave a bitter aftertaste in Tolstoy’s soul, especially since he began to have a strong discord with the circle of writers close to him. As a result, “people became disgusted with him and he became disgusted with himself” - and at the beginning of 1857, Tolstoy left St. Petersburg without any regret and went abroad.
On his first trip abroad, he visited Paris, where he was horrified by the cult of Napoleon I (“The idolization of a villain, terrible”), at the same time he attends balls, museums, and is fascinated by the “sense of social freedom.” However, his presence at the guillotine made such a grave impression that Tolstoy left Paris and went to places associated with Rousseau - to Lake Geneva. At this time, Albert was writing a story and a story by Lucerne.
In the interval between the first and second trips, he continued to work on “Cossacks”, wrote Three Deaths and Family Happiness. It was at this time that Tolstoy almost died while on a bear hunt (December 22, 1858). He has an affair with the peasant woman Aksinya, and at the same time the need for marriage matures.
On his next trip, he was mainly interested in public education and institutions aimed at raising the educational level of the working population. He closely studied issues of public education in Germany and France, both theoretically and practically, and through conversations with specialists. Of the outstanding people in Germany, he was most interested in Auerbach, as the author of the “Black Forest Stories” dedicated to folk life and the publisher of folk calendars. Tolstoy paid him a visit and tried to get closer to him. During his stay in Brussels, Tolstoy met Proudhon and Lelewell. In London he visited Herzen and attended a lecture by Dickens.
Tolstoy’s serious mood during his second trip to the south of France was also facilitated by the fact that his beloved brother Nikolai died of tuberculosis in his arms. The death of his brother made a huge impression on Tolstoy.
He returned to Russia soon after the liberation of the peasants and became a peace mediator. At that time they looked at the people as a younger brother who needed to be lifted up; Tolstoy thought, on the contrary, that the people are infinitely higher than the cultural classes and that the gentlemen need to borrow the heights of spirit from the peasants. He actively began setting up schools in his Yasnaya Polyana and throughout the Krapivensky district.
The Yasnaya Polyana school is one of the original pedagogical attempts: in the era of boundless admiration for the latest German pedagogy, Tolstoy resolutely rebelled against any regulation and discipline in school; the only method of teaching and education that he recognized was that no method was needed. Everything in teaching should be individual - both the teacher and the student, and their mutual relationships. At the Yasnaya Polyana school, the children sat where they wanted, as much as they wanted, and as they wanted. There was no specific teaching program. The teacher's only job was to get the class interested. The classes were going great. They were led by Tolstoy himself with the help of several regular teachers and several random ones, from his closest acquaintances and visitors.
Since 1862, he began publishing the pedagogical magazine “Yasnaya Polyana”, where he, again, was the main employee. In addition to theoretical articles, Tolstoy also wrote a number of stories, fables and adaptations. Combined together, Tolstoy's pedagogical articles made up an entire volume of his collected works. Hidden away in a very rarely circulated special magazine, they remained little noticed at the time. On the sociological basis of Tolstoy’s ideas about education, on the fact that Tolstoy saw only simplified and improved ways of exploiting the people in education, science, art and technological success upper classes, no one paid attention. Moreover, from Tolstoy’s attacks on European education and on the concept of “progress” that was favorite at that time, many seriously concluded that Tolstoy was a “conservative.”
This curious misunderstanding lasted for about 15 years, bringing closer to Tolstoy such a writer as organically opposed to him as N. N. Strakhov. Only in 1875, N.K. Mikhailovsky, in the article “The Hand and Shuyts of Count Tolstoy,” striking with the brilliance of his analysis and prediction of Tolstoy’s future activities, outlined the spiritual appearance of the most original of Russian writers in the present light. The little attention that was paid to Tolstoy's pedagogical articles is partly due to the fact that little attention was paid to it at that time.
Apollo Grigoriev had the right to title his article about Tolstoy (Time, 1862) “Phenomena modern literature, missed by our criticism." Having extremely cordially greeted Tolstoy’s debits and credits and “Sevastopol Tales”, recognizing in him the great hope of Russian literature (Druzhinin even used the epithet “genius” in relation to him), critics then 10-12 years before the appearance of “War and Peace” not only ceases to recognize him as a very important writer, but somehow grows cold towards him.
The stories and essays he wrote in the late 1850s include “Lucerne” and “Three Deaths.”
Family and offspring
At the end of the 1850s, he met Sofia Andreevna Bers (1844-1919), the daughter of a Moscow doctor from the Baltic Germans. He was already in his fourth decade, Sofya Andreevna was only 17 years old. On September 23, 1862, he married her, and complete family happiness fell to his lot. In his wife, he found not only his most faithful and devoted friend, but also an irreplaceable assistant in all matters, practical and literary. For Tolstoy, the brightest period of his life begins - the rapture of personal happiness, very significant thanks to the practicality of Sofia Andreevna, material well-being, outstanding, easily given tension literary creativity and in connection with him unprecedented all-Russian and then worldwide glory.
However, Tolstoy's relationship with his wife was not cloudless. Quarrels often arose between them, including in connection with the lifestyle that Tolstoy chose for himself.
* Sergei (July 10, 1863 - December 23, 1947)
* Tatiana (October 4, 1864 - September 21, 1950). Since 1899 she has been married to Mikhail Sergeevich Sukhotin. In 1917-1923 she was the curator of the Yasnaya Polyana museum-estate. In 1925 she emigrated with her daughter. Daughter Tatyana Mikhailovna Sukhotina-Albertini 1905-1996
* Ilya (May 22, 1866 - December 11, 1933)
* Leo (1869-1945)
* Maria (1871-1906) Buried in the village. Kochety, Krapivensky district. Since 1897 married to Nikolai Leonidovich Obolensky (1872-1934)
* Peter (1872-1873)
* Nicholas (1874-1875)
* Varvara (1875-1875)
* Andrey (1877-1916)
* Mikhail (1879-1944)
* Alexey (1881-1886)
* Alexandra (1884-1979)
* Ivan (1888-1895)
Creativity flourishes
During the first 10-12 years after his marriage, he created War and Peace and Anna Karenina. At the turn of this second era literary life Tolstoy are conceived back in 1852 and completed in 1861-1862. "Cossacks", the first of the works in which Tolstoy's great talent reached the proportions of a genius. For the first time in world literature, the difference between brokenness and cultured person, the absence of strong, clear moods in it - and the spontaneity of people close to nature.
Tolstoy showed that the peculiarity of people close to nature is not that they are good or bad. Can't be named good heroes the works of Tolstoy, the dashing horse thief Lukashka, a kind of dissolute girl Maryanka, and the drunkard Eroshka. But they cannot be called bad either, because they do not have the consciousness of evil; Eroshka is directly convinced that “there is no sin in anything.” Tolstoy's Cossacks are simply living people, in whom not a single mental movement is clouded by reflection. "Cossacks" were not assessed in a timely manner. At that time, everyone was too proud of “progress” and the success of civilization to be interested in how a representative of culture gave in to the force of the immediate spiritual movements of some semi-savages.
Unprecedented success befell War and Peace. Excerpt from a novel entitled "1805" appeared in the Russian Messenger of 1865; in 1868 three of its parts were published, which were soon followed by the remaining two.
Recognized by critics all over the world as the greatest epic work of new European literature, War and Peace amazes from a purely technical point of view with the size of its fictional canvas. Only in painting can one find some parallel in the huge paintings of Paolo Veronese in the Venetian Doge's Palace, where hundreds of faces are also painted with amazing clarity and individual expression. In Tolstoy's novel all classes of society are represented, from emperors and kings to the last soldier, all ages, all temperaments and throughout the entire reign of Alexander I.
"Anna Karenina"
The endlessly joyful rapture of the bliss of existence is no longer present in Anna Karenina, dating back to 1873-1876. There are still many gratifying experiences in almost autobiographical novel Levin and Kitty, but there is already so much bitterness in the depiction of Dolly’s family life, in the unhappy ending of the love of Anna Karenina and Vronsky, so much anxiety in Levin’s mental life that in general this novel is already a transition to the third period of Tolstoy’s literary activity.
In January 1871, Tolstoy sent a letter to A. A. Fet: “How happy I am... that I will never write verbose rubbish like “War” again.”
Russian writers from the Sovremennik magazine circle. I. A. Goncharov, I. S. Turgenev, L. N. Tolstoy, D. V. Grigorovich, A. V. Druzhinin and A. N. Ostrovsky (1856)
On December 6, 1908, Tolstoy wrote in his diary: “People love me for those trifles - “War and Peace”, etc., which seem very important to them.”
In the summer of 1909, one of the visitors to Yasnaya Polyana expressed his delight and gratitude for the creation of War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Tolstoy replied: “It’s the same as if someone came to Edison and said: “I really respect you because you dance the mazurka well.” I attribute meaning to completely different books of mine (religious ones!).”
In the sphere of material interests, he began to say to himself: “Well, okay, you will have 6,000 dessiatines in the Samara province - 300 heads of horses, and then?”; in the literary sphere: “Well, okay, you will be more famous than Gogol, Pushkin, Shakespeare, Moliere, all the writers in the world - so what!” Starting to think about raising children, he asked himself: “why?”; discussing “how the people can achieve prosperity,” he “suddenly said to himself: what does it matter to me?” In general, he “felt that what he stood on had given way, that what he had lived on was no longer there.” The natural result was thoughts of suicide.
"I, happy man, hid the cord from myself so as not to hang myself on the crossbar between the closets in my room, where I was alone every day, undressing, and stopped going hunting with a gun so as not to be tempted by too easy a way to rid myself of life. I myself didn’t know what I wanted: I was afraid of life, I wanted to get away from it and, meanwhile, I hoped for something else from it.”
Religious quest
To find an answer to the questions and doubts that tormented him, Tolstoy first of all took up the study of theology and wrote and published in 1891 in Geneva his “Study of Dogmatic Theology,” in which he criticized the “Orthodox Dogmatic Theology” of Metropolitan Macarius (Bulgakov). He had conversations with priests and monks, went to the elders in Optina Pustyn, read theological treatises. To know the original sources in the original Christian teaching studied ancient Greek and ancient Hebrew (the Moscow rabbi Shlomo Minor helped him in studying the latter). At the same time, he looked closely at the schismatics, became close to the thoughtful peasant Syutaev, and talked with the Molokans and Stundists. Tolstoy also sought the meaning of life in the study of philosophy and in becoming familiar with the results of the exact sciences. He made a number of attempts at greater and greater simplification, striving to live a life close to nature and agricultural life.
Gradually he gives up whims and conveniences rich life, does a lot physical labor, dresses in simple clothes, becomes a vegetarian, gives his entire large fortune to his family, and renounces literary property rights. On this basis of unalloyed pure impulse and desire for moral improvement, the third period of Tolstoy’s literary activity is created, the distinctive feature of which is the denial of all established forms of state, social and religious life. A significant part of Tolstoy’s views could not receive open expression in Russia and were presented in full only in foreign editions of his religious and social treatises.
No unanimous attitude was established even in relation to Tolstoy’s fictional works written during this period. Thus, in a long series of short stories and legends, intended primarily for folk reading(“How people live”, etc.), Tolstoy, in the opinion of his unconditional admirers, reached the pinnacle of artistic power - that elemental mastery that is given only to folk tales, because they embody the creativity of an entire people. On the contrary, according to people who are indignant at Tolstoy for turning from an artist into a preacher, these artistic teachings, written for a specific purpose, are grossly tendentious. High and terrible truth"The Death of Ivan Ilyich", according to fans, placing this work along with the main works of the genius of Tolstoy, according to others, is deliberately harsh, deliberately sharply emphasizes callousness upper strata society to show the moral superiority of the simple “kitchen man” Gerasim. Explosion of the most opposite feelings caused by analysis marital relations and the indirect demand for abstinence from married life, in the “Kreutzer Sonata,” made me forget about the amazing brightness and passion with which this story was written. Folk drama“The Power of Darkness,” according to Tolstoy’s admirers, is a great manifestation of his artistic power: within the tight framework of the ethnographic reproduction of Russian peasant life Tolstoy managed to contain so many universal human traits that the drama went around all the stages of the world with tremendous success.
In his last major work, the novel “Resurrection,” he condemned judicial practice and high society life, caricatured the clergy and worship.
Critics of the last phase of Tolstoy’s literary and preaching activity find that artistic power he certainly suffered from the predominance of theoretical interests and that creativity is now only needed by Tolstoy in order to propagate his socio-religious views in a publicly accessible form. In his aesthetic treatise (“On Art”) one can find enough material to declare Tolstoy an enemy of art: in addition to the fact that Tolstoy here in part completely denies, in part significantly belittles artistic value Dante, Raphael, Goethe, Shakespeare (at the performance of Hamlet he experienced “special suffering” for this “false likeness of works of art”), Beethoven and others, he directly comes to the conclusion that “the more we surrender to beauty, the more The more we move away from good.”
Excommunication
Belonging by birth and baptism to the Orthodox Church, he, like most representatives of the educated society of his time, was indifferent to religious issues in his youth and youth. In the mid-1870s he showed increased interest in the teaching and worship of the Orthodox Church; The second half of 1879 became a turning point for him, away from the teachings of the Church and from participation in its sacraments. In the 1880s, he took a position of unambiguously critical attitude towards church doctrine, the clergy, and official churchism. The publication of some of Tolstoy's works was prohibited by spiritual and secular censorship. In 1899, Tolstoy’s novel “Resurrection” was published, in which the author showed the life of various social strata contemporary Russia; the clergy were depicted mechanically and hastily performing rituals, and some took the cold and cynical Toporov for a caricature of K. P. Pobedonostsev, Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod.
In February 1901, the Synod finally decided to publicly condemn Tolstoy and declare him outside the church. Metropolitan Anthony (Vadkovsky) played an active role in this. As it appears in the Chamber-Fourier journals, on February 22, Pobedonostsev visited Nicholas II in the Winter Palace and talked with him for about an hour. Some historians believe that Pobedonostsev came to the Tsar directly from the Synod with a ready-made definition.
On February 24 (Old Art.), 1901, in the official organ of the Synod, “Church News, published under the Holy Governing Synod,” the “Definition of the Holy Synod of February 20-22, 1901 No. 557, with a message to the faithful children of the Greek Orthodox Church about Count Lev Tolstoy":
A world-famous writer, Russian by birth, Orthodox by baptism and upbringing, Count Tolstoy, in the seduction of his proud mind, boldly rebelled against the Lord and against His Christ and against His holy property, clearly before everyone renounced the Mother who fed and raised him, the Church. Orthodox, and dedicated his literary activity and the talent given to him from God to spread among the people teachings contrary to Christ and the Church, and to destroy in the minds and hearts of people the fatherly faith, the Orthodox faith, which established the universe, by which our ancestors lived and were saved, and by which Holy Rus' has hitherto held on and was strong .
In his writings and letters, in the multitude scattered by him and his disciples all over the world, especially within the borders of our dear Fatherland, he preaches, with the zeal of a fanatic, the overthrow of all dogmas Orthodox Church and the very essence of the Christian faith; denies the personal living God, glorified in the Holy Trinity, the Creator and Provider of the universe, denies the Lord Jesus Christ - the God-man, Redeemer and Savior of the world, who suffered for us for the sake of men and ours for the sake of salvation and rose from the dead, denies the seedless conception of Christ the Lord for humanity and virginity until Christmas and after the Nativity of the Most Pure Theotokos, Ever-Virgin Mary, does not recognize the afterlife and reward, rejects all the sacraments of the Church and the grace-filled action of the Holy Spirit in them and, swearing at the most sacred objects of faith Orthodox people, did not shudder to mock the greatest of sacraments, the holy Eucharist. Count Tolstoy preaches all this continuously, in word and in writing, to the temptation and horror of the entire Orthodox world, and thus undisguisedly, but clearly before everyone, he consciously and intentionally rejected himself from all communication with the Orthodox Church.
The previous attempts, to his understanding, were not crowned with success. Therefore, the Church does not consider him a member and cannot consider him until he repents and restores his communion with her. Therefore, testifying to his falling away from the Church, we pray together that the Lord will grant him repentance into the mind of truth (2 Tim. 2:25). We pray, merciful Lord, do not want the death of sinners, hear and have mercy and turn him to Your holy Church. Amen.
In his “Response to the Synod,” Leo Tolstoy confirmed his break with the Church: “I really renounced the church, stopped performing its rituals and wrote in my will to my loved ones so that when I die, they will not allow church ministers to see me, and my dead the body would have been removed quickly, without any spells or prayers over it.”
The Synodal definition caused outrage among a certain part of society; Letters and telegrams with expressions of sympathy were sent to Tolstoy, and greetings came from the workers.
At the end of February 2001, the count's great-grandson Vladimir Tolstoy, manager of the writer's museum-estate in Yasnaya Polyana, sent a letter to Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus' with a request to revise the synodal definition; in an unofficial interview on television, the Patriarch said: “We cannot reconsider now, because after all, it is possible to reconsider if a person changes his position.” In March 2009, Vl. Tolstoy expressed his opinion about the significance of the synodal act: “I studied documents, read newspapers of that time, and became acquainted with the materials of public discussions around excommunication. And I had the feeling that this act gave a signal for a total split in Russian society. The reigning family, the highest aristocracy, and landed nobility, and the intelligentsia, and the common strata, and ordinary people. A crack has passed through the body of the entire Russian, Russian people.”
Last years of life. Death and funeral
In October 1910, fulfilling his decision to live his last years in accordance with his views, he secretly left Yasnaya Polyana. Yours last trip he started at Kozlova Zaseka station; On the way, he fell ill with pneumonia and was forced to make a stop at the small station of Astapovo (now Lev Tolstoy, Lipetsk region), where he died on November 7 (20).
On November 10 (23), 1910, he was buried in Yasnaya Polyana, on the edge of a ravine in the forest, where as a child he and his brother were looking for a “green stick” that held the “secret” of how to make all people happy.
In January 1913, a letter from Countess Sophia Tolstoy dated December 22, 1912 was published, in which she confirms the news in the press that his funeral service was performed at the grave of her husband by a certain priest (she refutes rumors that he was not real) in her presence. In particular, the countess wrote: “I also declare that Lev Nikolaevich never once before his death expressed a desire not to be buried, and earlier he wrote in his diary in 1895, as if a will: “If possible, then (bury) without priests and funeral services. But if this will be unpleasant for those who will bury, then let them bury as usual, but as cheaply and simply as possible."
There is also an unofficial version of the death of Leo Tolstoy, stated in emigration by I.K. Sursky from the words of a Russian police official. According to it, the writer, before his death, wanted to reconcile with the church and came to Optina Pustyn for this. Here he awaited the order of the Synod, but, feeling unwell, was taken away by his arriving daughter and died at the Astapovo post station.
The great Russian writer Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828–1910) loved children very much, and even more he loved talking to them.
He knew many fables, fairy tales, stories and stories that he enthusiastically told to children. Both his own grandchildren and peasant children listened to him with interest.
Having opened a school for peasant children in Yasnaya Polyana, Lev Nikolaevich himself taught there.
He wrote a textbook for the little ones and called it "ABC". The author's work, consisting of four volumes, was “beautiful, short, simple and, most importantly, clear” for children to understand.
Lion and mouse
The lion was sleeping. The mouse ran over his body. He woke up and caught her. The mouse began to ask him to let her in; She said:
If you let me in, I will do you good.
The lion laughed that the mouse promised to do good to him, and let it go.
Then the hunters caught the lion and tied it to a tree with a rope. The mouse heard the lion's roar, came running, chewed the rope and said:
Remember, you laughed, you didn’t think that I could do you any good, but now you see, sometimes good comes from a mouse.
How a thunderstorm caught me in the forest
When I was little, I was sent to the forest to pick mushrooms.
I reached the forest, picked mushrooms and wanted to go home. Suddenly it became dark, it began to rain and there was thunder.
I got scared and sat down under a large oak tree. Lightning flashed so brightly that it hurt my eyes and I closed my eyes.
Something crackled and rattled above my head; then something hit me in the head.
I fell and lay there until the rain stopped.
When I woke up, trees were dripping all over the forest, birds were singing and the sun was playing. A large oak tree broke and smoke came out of the stump. Oak secrets lay around me.
My dress was all wet and sticking to my body; there was a bump on my head and it hurt a little.
I found my hat, took the mushrooms and ran home.
There was no one at home, I took out some bread from the table and climbed onto the stove.
When I woke up, I saw from the stove that my mushrooms had been fried, put on the table and were already ready to eat.
I shouted: “What are you eating without me?” They say: “Why are you sleeping? Go quickly and eat.”
Sparrow and swallows
Once I stood in the yard and looked at a nest of swallows under the roof. Both swallows flew away in front of me, and the nest was left empty.
While they were away, a sparrow flew from the roof, jumped onto the nest, looked around, flapped its wings and darted into the nest; then he stuck his head out and chirped.
Soon after that, a swallow flew to the nest. She poked her head into the nest, but as soon as she saw the guest, she squeaked, beat her wings in place and flew away.
Sparrow sat and chirped.
Suddenly a herd of swallows flew in: all the swallows flew up to the nest - as if to look at the sparrow, and flew away again.
The sparrow was not shy, he turned his head and chirped.
The swallows again flew up to the nest, did something, and flew away again.
It was not for nothing that the swallows flew up: they each brought dirt in their beaks and little by little covered the hole in the nest.
Again the swallows flew away and came again, and covered the nest more and more, and the hole became tighter and tighter.
At first the sparrow's neck was visible, then only its head, then its nose, and then nothing became visible; The swallows completely covered him in the nest, flew away and began circling around the house whistling.
Two comrades
Two comrades were walking through the forest, and a bear jumped out at them.
One ran, climbed a tree and hid, while the other stayed on the road. He had nothing to do - he fell to the ground and pretended to be dead.
The bear came up to him and began to sniff: he stopped breathing.
The bear sniffed his face, thought he was dead, and walked away.
When the bear left, he climbed down from the tree and laughed.
Well, he says, did the bear speak into your ear?
And he told me that bad people those who run away from their comrades in danger.
Liar
The boy was guarding the sheep and, as if he saw a wolf, began to call:
Help, wolf! Wolf!
The men came running and saw: it’s not true. As he did this two and three times, it happened that a wolf actually came running. The boy began to shout:
Come here, come quickly, wolf!
The men thought that he was deceiving again as always - they did not listen to him. The wolf sees that there is nothing to be afraid of: he has slaughtered the entire herd in the open.
Hunter and Quail
A quail got caught in a hunter's net and began to ask the hunter to let him go.
Just let me go,” he says, “I’ll serve you.” I'll lure other quails into your net.
Well, the quail,” said the hunter, “wouldn’t have let you in anyway, and now even more so.” I’ll turn my head for wanting to hand over your own people.
Girl and mushrooms
Two girls were walking home with mushrooms.
They had to cross the railway.
They thought the car was far away, so they climbed up the embankment and walked across the rails.
Suddenly a car made noise. The older girl ran back, and the younger girl ran across the road.
The older girl shouted to her sister: “Don’t go back!”
But the car was so close and made such a loud noise that the smaller girl did not hear; she thought that she was being told to run back. She ran back across the rails, tripped, dropped the mushrooms and began to pick them up.
The car was already close, and the driver whistled as hard as he could.
The older girl shouted: “Throw away the mushrooms!”, and the little girl thought that she was being told to pick mushrooms, and crawled along the road.
The driver could not hold the cars. She whistled as hard as she could and ran into the girl.
The older girl screamed and cried. All the passengers looked from the windows of the cars, and the conductor ran to the end of the train to see what had happened to the girl.
When the train passed, everyone saw that the girl was lying head down between the rails and not moving.
Then, when the train had already moved far, the girl raised her head, jumped on her knees, picked mushrooms and ran to her sister.
Old grandfather and grandson
(Fable)
Grandfather became very old. His legs did not walk, his eyes did not see, his ears did not hear, he had no teeth. And when he ate, it flowed backwards from his mouth.
His son and daughter-in-law stopped sitting him at the table and let him dine at the stove. They brought him lunch in a cup. He wanted to move it, but he dropped it and broke it.
The daughter-in-law began to scold the old man for ruining everything in the house and breaking cups, and said that now she would give him dinner in a basin.
The old man just sighed and said nothing.
One day a husband and wife are sitting at home and watching - their son is playing on the floor with planks - he is working on something.
The father asked: “What are you doing this, Misha?” And Misha said: “It’s me, father, who’s making the tub. When you and your mother are too old to feed you from this tub.”
The husband and wife looked at each other and began to cry.
They felt ashamed that they had offended the old man so much; and from then on they began to sit him at the table and look after him.
Little mouse
The mouse went out for a walk. She walked around the yard and came back to her mother.
Well, mother, I saw two animals. One is scary and the other is kind.
Mother asked:
Tell me, what kind of animals are these?
The mouse said:
One is scary - his legs are black, his crest is red, his eyes are protruding, and his nose is hooked. When I walked past, he opened his mouth, raised his leg and began screaming so loudly that out of fear I did not know where to go.
This is a rooster, said the old mouse, he does no harm to anyone, don’t be afraid of him. Well, what about the other animal?
The other was lying in the sun and warming himself. His neck was white, his legs were gray and smooth. He was licking his white chest and moving his tail slightly, looking at me.
The old mouse said:
Stupid, you are stupid. After all, it's the cat itself.
Two guys
Two men were driving: one to the city, the other from the city.
They hit each other with the sleigh. One shouts:
Give me the way, I need to get to the city quickly.
And the other shouts:
Give me the way. I need to go home soon.
And the third man saw and said:
Whoever needs it quickly, put it back.
Poor man and rich man
In one house they lived: upstairs was a rich gentleman, and downstairs was a poor tailor.
The tailor kept singing songs while working and disturbed the master's sleep.
The master gave the tailor a bag of money so that he would not sing.
The tailor became rich and kept his money safe, but he no longer began to sing.
And he became bored. He took the money and brought it back to the master and said:
Take your money back, and let me sing the songs. And then melancholy came over me.
Biography of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy
1828, August 28 (September 9) - Birth Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy in the Yasnaya Polyana estate, Krapivensky district, Tula province.
1830 - death of Tolstoy's mother Maria Nikolaevna (nee Volkonskaya).
1837 - The Tolstoy family moved from Yasnaya Polyana to Moscow. Death of Tolstoy's father Nikolai Ilyich.
1840 - First literary work Tolstoy— congratulatory poems by T.A. Ergolskaya: “Dear auntie.”
1841 - Death in Optina Pustyn of the guardian of the children of Tolstykh A.I. Osten-Sacken. The Tolstoys move from Moscow to Kazan, to a new guardian - P.I. Yushkova.
1844 — Tolstoy admitted to Kazan University at the Faculty of Oriental Studies in the category of Arabic-Turkish literature, having passed exams in mathematics, Russian literature, French, German, English, Arabic, Turkish and Tatar languages.
1845 — Tolstoy transfers to the Faculty of Law.
1847 — Tolstoy leaves the university and leaves Kazan for Yasnaya Polyana.
1848, October - 1849, January - lives in Moscow, “very carelessly, without service, without classes, without purpose.”
1849 - Examinations for the candidate's degree at St. Petersburg University. (Discontinued after successful passing in two subjects). Tolstoy starts keeping a diary.
1850 — The idea of “Tales from Gypsy Life.”
1851 - The story “The History of Yesterday” was written. The story “Childhood” began (finished in July 1852). Departure for the Caucasus.
1852 - Examination for the rank of cadet, order to enlist in military service as a 4th class fireworksman. The story “The Raid” was written. In No. 9 of Sovremennik, “Childhood” was published - the first published work Tolstoy. “The Novel of a Russian Landowner” began (the work continued until 1856, remaining unfinished. A fragment of the novel, selected for printing, was published in 1856 under the title “Morning of the Landowner”).
1853 - Participation in the campaign against the Chechens. Start of work on "Cossacks" (completed in 1862). The story “Notes of a Marker” has been written.
1854 - Tolstoy was promoted to ensign. Departure from the Caucasus. Report on transfer to the Crimean Army. Project of the magazine “Soldier's Bulletin” (“Military leaflet”). The stories “Uncle Zhdanov and Cavalier Chernov” and “How Russian Soldiers Die” were written for the soldiers’ magazine. Arrival in Sevastopol.
1855 - Work began on “Youth” (finished in September 1856). The stories “Sevastopol in December”, “Sevastopol in May” and “Sevastopol in August 1855” were written. Arrival in St. Petersburg. Acquaintance with Turgenev, Nekrasov, Goncharov, Fet, Tyutchev, Chernyshevsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Ostrovsky and other writers.
1856 - The stories “Blizzard”, “Demoted”, and the story “Two Hussars” were written. Tolstoy promoted to lieutenant. Resignation. In Yasnaya Polyana, an attempt to free the peasants from serfdom. The story “The Departing Field” was begun (the work continued until 1865, remaining unfinished). The magazine Sovremennik published an article by Chernyshevsky about “Childhood” and “Adolescence” and “War Stories” by Tolstoy.
1857 - The story "Albert" began (finished in March 1858). First trip abroad in France, Switzerland, Germany. Story "Lucerne".
1858 - The story “Three Deaths” was written.
1859 - Work on the story “Family Happiness.”
1859 - 1862 - Classes at the Yasnaya Polyana school with peasant children (“lovely, poetic feast”). Tolstoy outlined his pedagogical ideas in articles in the Yasnaya Polyana magazine he created in 1862.
1860 - Work on stories from peasant life - “Idyll”, “Tikhon and Malanya” (remained unfinished).
1860 - 1861 - Second trip abroad - through Germany, Switzerland, France, England, Belgium. Meeting Herzen in London. Listening to lectures on the history of art at the Sorbonne. Presence at death penalty in Paris. The beginning of the novel “The Decembrists” (remained unfinished) and the story “Polikushka” (finished in December 1862). Quarrel with Turgenev.
1860 - 1863 - Work on the story “Kholstomer” (completed in 1885).
1861 - 1862 - Activities Tolstoy mediator of the 4th section of Krapivensky district. Publication of the pedagogical magazine "Yasnaya Polyana".
1862 - Gendarmerie search in YP. Marriage to Sofya Andreevna Bers, daughter of a doctor in the court department.
1863 - Work began on War and Peace (finished in 1869).
1864 - 1865 - The first Collected Works of L.N. is published. Tolstoy in two volumes (from F. Stellovsky, St. Petersburg).
1865 - 1866 - The first two parts of the future “War and Peace” under the title “1805” were published in the “Russian Bulletin”.
1866 - Meeting the artist M.S. Bashilov, to whom Tolstoy commissions the illustration of War and Peace.
1867 - Trip to Borodino in connection with work on War and Peace.
1867 - 1869 - Publication of two separate editions of War and Peace.
1868 - An article was published in the Russian Archive magazine Tolstoy“A few words about the book “War and Peace.”
1870 - The idea of "Anna Karenina".
1870 - 1872 - Work on a novel about the time of Peter I (remained unfinished).
1871 - 1872 - Publication of "ABC".
1873 - The novel Anna Karenina began (completed in 1877). Letter to Moskovskie Vedomosti about the Samara famine. I.N. Kramskoy paints a portrait in Yasnaya Polyana Tolstoy.
1874 - Pedagogical activity, article “On public education”, compilation of the “New ABC” and “Russian books for reading” (published in 1875).
1875 - Start of printing “Anna Karenina” in the magazine “Russian Messenger”. The French magazine Le temps published a translation of the story “The Two Hussars” with a preface by Turgenev. Turgenev wrote that upon the release of War and Peace Tolstoy"decidedly takes first place in the public's favor."
1876 - Meeting P.I. Tchaikovsky.
1877 - A separate publication of the last, 8th part of “Anna Karenina” - due to disagreements that arose with the publisher of the “Russian Messenger” M.N. Katkov on the issue of the Serbian war.
1878 - Separate edition of the novel “Anna Karenina”.
1878 - 1879 -Work on historical novel about the time of Nicholas I and the Decembrists
1878 - Meeting the Decembrists P.N. Svistunov, M.I. Muravyov Apostol, A.P. Belyaev. "First Memories" written.
1879 — Tolstoy collects historical materials and tries to write a novel from the era of the late 17th century - early XIX century. Visited Tolstoy N.I. Strakhov found him in a “new phase” - anti-state and anti-church. In Yasnaya Polyana the guest is the storyteller V.P. Dapper. Tolstoy writes down folk legends from his words.
1879 - 1880 - Work on the “Confession” and “A Study of Dogmatic Theology.” Meeting V.M. Garshin and I.E. Repin.
1881 - The story “How People Live” was written. A letter to Alexander III with an admonition not to execute the revolutionaries who killed Alexander II. Moving of the Tolstoy family to Moscow.
1882 - Participation in the three-day Moscow census. The article "So what should we do?" has begun. (finished in 1886). Buying a house in Dolgo-Khamovnichesky Lane in Moscow (now the House-Museum of L.N. Tolstoy). The story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” began (completed in 1886).
1883 - Meeting V.G. Chertkov.
1883 - 1884 - Tolstoy writes the treatise “What is my faith?”
1884 — Portrait Tolstoy works by N.N. Ge. “Notes of a Madman” started (remained unfinished). The first attempt to leave Yasnaya Polyana. A publishing house of books for public reading, “Posrednik”, was founded.
1885 - 1886 - Written for “The Mediator” folk stories: “Two brothers and gold”, “Ilyas”, “Where there is love, there is God”, If you let the fire go, you won’t put it out”, “Candle”, “Two old men”, “The Tale of Ivan the Fool”, “How much land does a man have necessary”, etc.
1886 - Meeting V.G. Korolnko. Drama started for folk theater— “The Power of Darkness” (prohibited from production). The comedy “Fruits of Enlightenment” began (finished in 1890).
1887 - Meeting N.S. Leskov. The Kreutzer Sonata began (finished in 1889).
1888 - The story “The False Coupon” began (work was discontinued in 1904).
1889 - Work on the story “The Devil” (the second version of the ending of the story dates back to 1890). The “Konevskaya Tale” (based on the story of the judicial figure A.F. Koni) was begun - the future “Resurrection” (finished in 1899).
1890 - Censorship prohibition of the “Kreutzer Sonata” (in 1891 Alexander III allowed printing only in the Collected Works). In a letter to V.G. Chertkov, the first version of the story “Father Sergius” (finished in 1898).
1891 - Letter to the editors of Russkie Vedomosti and Novoye Vremya with a waiver of copyright for works written after 1881.
1891 - 1893 - Organization of assistance to starving peasants of the Ryazan province. Articles about hunger.
1892 - Production of “The Fruits of Enlightenment” at the Maly Theater.
1893 - A preface to the works of Guy de Maupassant was written. Meeting K.S. Stanislavsky.
1894 - 1895 - The story “The Master and the Worker” was written.
1895 - Meeting A.P. Chekhov. Performance of "The Power of Darkness" at the Maly Theater. The article “Shame” was written - a protest against corporal punishment peasants
1896 - The story “Hadji Murat” began (work continued until 1904; during his lifetime Tolstoy the story was not published).
1897 - 1898 - Organization of assistance to starving peasants of the Tula province. Article “Hunger or not hunger?” The decision to print “Father Sergius” and “Resurrection” was in favor of the Doukhobors moving to Canada. In Yasnaya Polyana L.O. Pasternak illustrating "Resurrection".
1898 - 1899 - Inspection of prisons, conversations with prison guards in connection with work on “Resurrection”.
1899 - The novel “Resurrection” is published in the Niva magazine.
1899 - 1900 - The article “Slavery of Our Time” was written.
1900 - acquaintance with A.M. Gorky. Work on the drama “The Living Corpse” (after watching the play “Uncle Vanya” at the Art Theater).
1901 - “Definition of the Holy Synod of February 20 - 22, 1901 ... about Count Leo Tolstoy” is published in the newspapers “Tserkovnye Vedomosti”, “Russkiy Vestnik”, etc. The definition spoke of the writer’s “falling away” from Orthodoxy. In his “Response to the Synod,” Tolstoy stated: “I began by loving my Orthodox faith more than my peace of mind, then I loved Christianity more than my church, and now I love the truth more than anything in the world. And to this day the truth coincides for me with Christianity, as I understand it.” Due to illness, departure to Crimea, to Gaspra.
1901 - 1902 - Letter to Nicholas II calling for the abolition of private ownership of land and the destruction of “that oppression that prevents the people from expressing their desires and needs.”
1902 - return to Yasnaya Polyana.
1903 - “Memoirs” began (work continued until 1906). The story “After the Ball” was written.
1903 - 1904 - Work on the article “About Shakespeare and the Lady.”
1904 — Article about Russian-Japanese war“Come to your senses!”
1905 - An afterword to Chekhov’s story “Darling” and articles “About social movement in Russia" and Green Stick", stories "Korney Vasiliev", "Alyosha Pot", "Berry", story " Posthumous notes Elder Fyodor Kuzmich." Reading the notes of the Decembrists and the works of Herzen. Entry about the October 17 manifesto: “There is nothing in it for the people.”
1906 - The story “For What?” and the article “The Significance of the Russian Revolution” were written, the story “Divine and Human”, begun in 1903, was completed.
1907 — Letter to P.A. Stolypin about the situation of the Russian people and the need to destroy private ownership of land. In Yasnaya Polyana M.V. Neterov paints a portrait Tolstoy.
1908 - Tolstoy’s article against the death penalty - “I can’t remain silent!” No. 35 of the Proletary newspaper published an article by V.I. Lenin "Leo Tolstoy, as a mirror of the Russian revolution."
1908 - 1910 - Work on the story “There are no guilty people in the world.”
1909 — Tolstoy writes the story “Who are the killers? Pavel Kudryash”, a sharply critical article about the cadet collection “Milestones”, essays “Conversation with a passer-by” and “Songs in the Village”.
1900 - 1910 - Work on the essays “Three days in the countryside”.
1910 - The story “Khodynka” was written.
In a letter to V.G. Korolenko received an enthusiastic review of his article against the death penalty - “The Change House Phenomenon.”
Tolstoy preparing a report for the Peace Congress in Stockholm.
Work on the last article - “A valid remedy” (against the death penalty).
Years of life: from 09.09.1828 to 20.11.1910
Great Russian writer. Graph. Educator, publicist, religious thinker, whose authoritative opinion provoked the emergence of a new religious and moral movement - Tolstoyism.
Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on September 9 (August 28), 1828 in the Krapivensky district of the Tula province, on his mother’s hereditary estate - Yasnaya Polyana. Leo was the fourth child in a large noble family. His mother, nee Princess Volkonskaya, died when Tolstoy was not yet two years old. A distant relative, T. A. Ergolskaya, took up the task of raising orphaned children. In 1837, the family moved to Moscow, settling on Plyushchikha, because the eldest son had to prepare to enter university, but soon his father suddenly died, leaving affairs (including some litigation related to the family’s property) in an unfinished state, and the three younger ones The children again settled in Yasnaya Polyana under the supervision of Ergolskaya and their paternal aunt, Countess A. M. Osten-Sacken, who was appointed guardian of the children. Here Lev Nikolaevich remained until 1840, when Countess Osten-Sacken died and the children moved to Kazan, to a new guardian - their father's sister P. I. Yushkova.
Tolstoy's education first proceeded under the guidance of a rude French tutor, Saint-Thomas. From the age of 15, Tolstoy became a student at Kazan University, one of the leading universities of that time.
Having dropped out of the university, Tolstoy lived in Yasnaya Polyana from the spring of 1847. In 1851, realizing the purposelessness of his existence and, deeply despising himself, he went to the Caucasus to join the active army. In Crimea, Tolstoy was captured by new impressions and literary plans. There he began working on his first novel, “Childhood. Adolescence. Youth". Tolstoy's literary debut immediately brought real recognition.
In 1854, Tolstoy was assigned to the Danube Army in Bucharest. Boring life at the headquarters soon forced him to transfer to the Crimean Army, to besieged Sevastopol, where he commanded a battery on the 4th bastion, showing rare personal courage (awarded the Order of St. Anne and medals). In Crimea, Tolstoy was captured by new impressions and literary plans, here he began to write the cycle " Sevastopol stories", which was soon published and became a huge success.
In November 1855, Tolstoy arrived in St. Petersburg and immediately entered the Sovremennik circle (N. A. Nekrasov, I. S. Turgenev, A. N. Ostrovsky, I. A. Goncharov, etc.), where he was greeted as a “great hope of Russian literature."
In the fall of 1856, Tolstoy, having retired, went to Yasnaya Polyana, and at the beginning of 1857 he went abroad. He visited France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and returned to Moscow in the fall, then to Yasnaya Polyana. In 1859, Tolstoy opened a school for peasant children in the village, helped to establish more than 20 schools in the vicinity of Yasnaya Polyana, and this activity fascinated Tolstoy so much that in 1860 he traveled abroad for the second time to get acquainted with the schools of Europe.
In 1862, Tolstoy married Sofya Andreevna Bers. During the first 10-12 years after his marriage, he created War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Although a widely known, recognized and beloved writer for these works, Leo Tolstoy himself did not attach fundamental importance to them. More important to him was his philosophical system.
Leo Tolstoy was the founder of the Tolstoyanism movement, one of the fundamental theses of which is the Gospel “non-resistance to evil by force.” In 1925, around this topic among the Russian émigré community, a still ongoing debate flared up, in which many Russian philosophers of that time took part.
In the late autumn of 1910, at night, secretly from his family, 82-year-old Tolstoy, accompanied only by his personal doctor D.P. Makovitsky, left Yasnaya Polyana. The road turned out to be too much for him: on the way, Tolstoy fell ill and was forced to get off the train in a small railway station Astapovo (now Leo Tolstoy, Lipetsk region). Here, in the station master's house, he spent the last seven days of his life. November 7 (20) Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy died.
Information about the works:
The former Yasnaya Polyana estate now houses a museum dedicated to the life and work of L. N. Tolstoy. In addition to this museum, the main exhibition about his life and work can be seen in State Museum L. N. Tolstoy, in former house Lopukhinykh-Stanitskaya (Moscow, Prechistenka 11). Its branches are also: at the Lev Tolstoy station (former Astapovo station), the memorial museum-estate of L. N. Tolstoy “Khamovniki” (Lva Tolstoy Street, 21), an exhibition hall on Pyatnitskaya.
Many writers and critics were surprised that the first Nobel Prize in Literature was not awarded to Leo Tolstoy, because at that time he was already famous not only in Russia, but also abroad. Numerous publications were published throughout Europe. But Tolstoy responded with the following address: “Dear and respected brothers! I was very pleased that the Nobel Prize was not awarded to me. Firstly, it saved me from a great difficulty - managing this money, which, like any money, in my conviction, can only bring evil; and secondly, it gave me the honor and great pleasure to receive expressions of sympathy from so many people, although unfamiliar to me, but still deeply respected by me. Please accept, dear brothers, my sincere gratitude and best feelings. Leo Tolstoy."
But the story of the Nobel Prize in the life of the writer did not end there. In 1905, Tolstoy's new work, The Great Sin, was published. This, now almost forgotten, acutely journalistic book talked about the difficult lot of the Russian peasantry. The Russian Academy of Sciences came up with the idea of nominating Leo Tolstoy for the Nobel Prize. Having learned about this, Leo Tolstoy sent a letter to the Finnish writer and translator Arvid Järnefelt. In it, Tolstoy asked his acquaintance through his Swedish colleagues to “try to make sure that I am not awarded this prize,” because “if this happened, it would be very unpleasant for me to refuse.” Järnefelt carried out this delicate task, and the prize was awarded to the Italian poet Giosué Carducci.
Lev Nikolaevich was, among other things, musically gifted. He loved music, felt it subtly, and played music himself. So, in his youth, he picked up a waltz on the piano, which Alexander Goldenweiser later recorded by ear one evening in Yasnaya Polyana. Now this waltz in F major is often performed at events associated with Tolstoy, both in a piano version and orchestrated for a small string ensemble.
Bibliography
Stories:
List of stories -
Educational literature and teaching aids:
ABC (1872)
New ABC (1875)
Arithmetic (1875)
The first Russian book for reading (1875)
Second Russian book for reading (1875)
The third Russian book for reading (1875)
The fourth Russian book for reading (1875)
Plays:
The Infected Family (1864)
Nihilist (1866)
Power of Darkness (1886)
Dramatic Treatment of the Legend of Haggai (1886)
The first distiller, or How the little devil earned the edge (1886)
(1890)
Peter Khlebnik (1894)
Living Corpse (1900)
And the light shines in the darkness (1900)
All the qualities come from her (1910)
Religious and philosophical works:
, 1880-1881
, 1882
The Kingdom of God is within you - a treatise, 1890-1893.
Film adaptations of works, theatrical productions
“Resurrection” (English: Resurrection, 1909, UK). 12 minute silent film novel of the same name(filmed during the writer’s lifetime).
“The Power of Darkness” (1909, Russia). Silent film.
"Anna Karenina" (1910, Germany). Silent film.
"Anna Karenina" (1911, Russia). Silent film. Dir. - Maurice Maitre
“Living Corpse” (1911, Russia). Silent film.
“War and Peace” (1913, Russia). Silent film.
"Anna Karenina" (1914, Russia). Silent film. Dir. - V. Gardin
"Anna Karenina" (1915, USA). Silent film.
“The Power of Darkness” (1915, Russia). Silent film.
“War and Peace” (1915, Russia). Silent film. Dir. - Y. Protazanov, V. Gardin
“Natasha Rostova” (1915, Russia). Silent film. Producer - A. Khanzhonkov. Starring: V. Polonsky, I. Mozzhukhin
"Living Corpse" (1916). Silent film.
"Anna Karenina" (1918, Hungary). Silent film.
“The Power of Darkness” (1918, Russia). Silent film.
"Living Corpse" (1918). Silent film.
“Father Sergius” (1918, RSFSR). Silent film film by Yakov Protazanov, in leading role Ivan Mozzhukhin
"Anna Karenina" (1919, Germany). Silent film.
“Polikushka” (1919, USSR). Silent film.
“Love” (1927, USA. Based on the novel “Anna Karenina”). Silent film. As Anna - Greta Garbo
“Living Corpse” (1929, USSR). Starring: V. Pudovkin
"Anna Karenina" (Anna Karenina, 1935, USA). Sound film. As Anna - Greta Garbo
"Anna Karenina" (Anna Karenina, 1948, UK). As Anna - Vivien Leigh
“War and Peace” (War & Peace, 1956, USA, Italy). As Natasha Rostova - Audrey Hepburn
“Agi Murad il diavolo bianco” (1959, Italy, Yugoslavia). As Hadji Murat - Steve Reeves
“Also People” (1959, USSR, based on a fragment from “War and Peace”). Dir. G. Danelia, starring V. Sanaev, L. Durov
“Resurrection” (1960, USSR). Dir. - M. Schweitzer
"Anna Karenina" (Anna Karenina, 1961, USA). As Vronsky - Sean Connery
“Cossacks” (1961, USSR). Dir. - V. Pronin
"Anna Karenina" (1967, USSR). In the role of Anna - Tatiana Samoilova
“War and Peace” (1968, USSR). Dir. - S. Bondarchuk
“Living Corpse” (1968, USSR). In ch. roles - A. Batalov
"War and Peace" (War & Peace, 1972, UK). Series. As Pierre - Anthony Hopkins
“Father Sergius” (1978, USSR). Feature film Igor Talankin, starring Sergei Bondarchuk
« Caucasian story"(1978, USSR, based on the story "Cossacks"). In ch. roles - V. Konkin
“Money” (1983, France-Switzerland, based on the story “False Coupon”). Dir. - Robert Bresson
“Two Hussars” (1984, USSR). Dir. - Vyacheslav Krishtofovich
"Anna Karenina" (Anna Karenina, 1985, USA). As Anna - Jacqueline Bisset
“Simple Death” (1985, USSR, based on the story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”). Dir. - A. Kaidanovsky
“The Kreutzer Sonata” (1987, USSR). Starring: Oleg Yankovsky
"For what?" (Za co?, 1996, Poland / Russia). Dir. - Jerzy Kawalerowicz
"Anna Karenina" (Anna Karenina, 1997, USA). In the role of Anna - Sophie Marceau, Vronsky - Sean Bean
"Anna Karenina" (2007, Russia). In the role of Anna - Tatiana Drubich
For more details, see also: List of film adaptations of “Anna Karenina” 1910-2007.
“War and Peace” (2007, Germany, Russia, Poland, France, Italy). Series. In the role of Andrei Bolkonsky - Alessio Boni.
Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy - Russian writer and thinker, count. His homeland is his mother's estate Yasnaya Polyana in the Tula province.
The writer was the fourth child in a noble family. His mother died when he was one year old. Lev Nikolaevich's father was remembered by him for his good-natured character, affection for hunting and books; he also died very early. A distant relative, Ergolskaya, who had a great influence on Tolstoy, took charge of raising the children of the Tolstoy family. As the writer said, she taught him the spiritual pleasure of a great feeling - love. Memories famous writer about childhood were always joyful. And the first impressions of noble life were reflected in the autobiographical story “Childhood”.
In 1844, Leo Tolstoy began his studies at Kazan University: first at the Faculty of Philosophy of Oriental Languages, then at the Department of Law. He studied for 2 years in each of these areas and submitted his resignation from the university due to poor health and family circumstances Tolstoy did not like this kind of study; his dreams were of a career in painting and music. Then the writer returned to his native estate.
The summer spent in the village disappointed Tolstoy with his failures in farming on updated terms that were beneficial only for serfs. Afterwards, based on this experience, the story “The Morning of the Landowner” was written. In the fall of 1847, the writer went to St. Petersburg with the goal of passing candidate exams. At that time, his lifestyle was very variable: he could spend days preparing for exams, or he could devote himself entirely only to music; his ascetic religious moods alternated with revelry and cards. It was during this period that Tolstoy realized his purpose: he had an irresistible desire to write.
Since 1855, the writer was a member of the Sovremennik circle, which included Nekrasov, Turgenev, Goncharov, Ostrovsky and others famous personalities. He took part in dinners and readings, was involved in conflicts between writers, but feeling like a stranger here, he left this society, as his “Confession” tells.
Tolstoy traveled a lot, he was in France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland. Impressions of the trip to last country became the basis for writing the story "Lucerne". Then the writer returned to Moscow, and then to Yasnaya Polyana. Thanks to him, more than 20 schools were established in the vicinity of his native estate and one school was opened for peasant children.
The most famous works- these are the novels "War and Peace", "Resurrection", "Anna Karenina", the trilogy-autobiography "Childhood" - "Adolescence" - "Youth", the dramas "The Power of Darkness" and "The Living Corpse", the stories "Cossacks" and " Hadji Murat" and many others.
The writer died at the age of 82 in 1910. His funeral became an event on a nationwide scale.