“A distinctive feature of Tolstoy's work. Interesting facts from the life of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

TOLSTOY LEV NIKOLAEVICH (BIOGRAPHY)

TOLSTOY Lev Nikolaevich, Count, Russian writer.

TOLSTOY Lev Nikolaevich - Count, Russian writer, Corresponding Member (1873), Honorary Academician (1900) of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Beginning with autobiographical trilogy"Childhood" (1852), "Adolescence" (1852-54), "Youth" (1855-57), the study of the "fluidity" of the inner world, the moral foundations of the personality became the main theme of Tolstoy's works. A painful search for the meaning of life moral ideal, hidden general laws of being, spiritual and social criticism, revealing the "untruth" of class relations, pass through all of his work. In the story "Cossacks" (1863), the hero, a young nobleman, seeks a way out in familiarizing himself with nature, with the natural and integral life of a common man. The epic "War and Peace" (1863-69) recreates the life of various strata of Russian society during the Patriotic War of 1812, the patriotic impulse of the people that united all estates and led to victory in the war with Napoleon. Historical events and personal interests, the ways of spiritual self-determination of the reflecting personality and the element of the Russian folk life with its "swarm" consciousness are shown as equivalent components of natural-historical being. In the novel "Anna Karenina" (1873-77) - about the tragedy of a woman in the grip of a destructive "criminal" passion - Tolstoy reveals false foundations secular society, shows the collapse of the patriarchal order, the destruction of family foundations. He opposes the perception of the world by an individualistic and rationalistic consciousness with the intrinsic value of life as such in its infinity, uncontrollable changeability and material concreteness (“the seer of the flesh” - DS Merezhkovsky). From the end. 1870s experiencing a spiritual crisis, later captured by the idea of ​​moral improvement and "simplification" (which gave rise to the "Tolstoyism" movement), Tolstoy comes to increasingly irreconcilable criticism of the social structure - modern bureaucratic institutions, the state, the church (excommunicated from the Orthodox Church in 1901), civilization and culture , the entire way of life of the "educated classes": the novel "Resurrection" (1889-99), the story "The Kreutzer Sonata" (1887-89), the dramas "The Living Corpse" (1900, published in 1911) and "The Power of Darkness" (1887) ... At the same time, attention is increasing to the themes of death, sin, repentance and moral revival (the story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”, 1884-86, “Father Sergius”, 1890-98, published in 1912, “Hadji Murad”, 1896-1904, published in 1912). Publicistic works of a moralizing nature, incl. "Confession" (1879-82), "What is my faith?" (1884), where Christian teachings about love and forgiveness are transformed into a preaching of non-resistance to evil by violence. The desire to reconcile the way of thinking and life leads to Tolstoy's departure from Yasnaya Polyana; died at the Astapovo station.

"Joyful period of childhood"

Tolstoy was the fourth child in a large noble family. His mother, nee Princess Volkonskaya, died when Tolstoy was not yet two years old, but according to the stories of family members, he had a good idea of ​​“her spiritual appearance”, some of the mother's features (brilliant education, sensitivity to art, a tendency to reflection) and even portrait resemblance Tolstoy gave Princess Marya Nikolaevna Bolkonskaya ("War and Peace"). Tolstoy's father, participant Patriotic War, remembered by the writer for his good-natured, mocking character, love for reading, for hunting (served as a prototype for Nikolai Rostov), ​​also died early (1837). A distant relative T.A. Ergolskaya, who had a huge influence on Tolstoy: "she taught me the spiritual pleasure of love." Childhood memories have always remained the most joyful for Tolstoy: family legends, the first impressions of the life of a noble estate served as rich material for his works, and were reflected in the autobiographical story Childhood. Kazan University. When Tolstoy was 13 years old, the family moved to Kazan, to the house of P.I. Yushkova. In 1844, Tolstoy entered Kazan University at the department oriental languages Faculty of Philosophy, then transferred to the Faculty of Law, where he studied for less than two years: the classes did not arouse his keen interest and he passionately devoted himself to secular entertainment. In the spring of 1847, having filed a letter of resignation from the university “for health and domestic reasons,” Tolstoy left for Yasnaya Polyana with the firm intention to study the entire course of legal sciences (to pass the exam as an external student), “practical medicine,” languages, Agriculture, history, geographic statistics, write a dissertation and “achieve the highest degree perfection in music and painting ”.

"Fast paced life adolescence"After a summer in the countryside, disappointed with the unsuccessful experience of managing on new, favorable conditions for serfdom (this attempt is captured in the story" Morning of the Landowner ", 1857), in the fall of 1847, Tolstoy went first to Moscow, then to St. Petersburg to take his candidate exams at the university. His lifestyle during this period often changed: he spent days preparing and taking exams, then passionately devoted himself to music, then he intended to start an official career, then he dreamed of joining a cavalry regiment as a cadet. Religious moods, reaching asceticism, alternated with carousing, cards, trips to the gypsies. In the family he was considered “the most trifling guy”, and he managed to pay off the debts he made then only many years later. However, it was these years that were colored by intense self-analysis and struggle with oneself, which is reflected in the diary that Tolstoy kept throughout his life. It was then that he developed a serious desire to write, and the first unfinished art sketches appeared.

"War and Freedom"

In 1851, Nikolai's elder brother, an officer in the active army, persuaded Tolstoy to go to the Caucasus together. For almost three years Tolstoy lived in a Cossack village on the banks of the Terek, leaving for Kizlyar, Tiflis, Vladikavkaz and participating in hostilities (first voluntarily, then he was recruited). The Caucasian nature and the patriarchal simplicity of the Cossack life, which amazed Tolstoy in contrast with the life of the noble circle and with the painful reflection of a person in an educated society, provided material for the autobiographical story "Cossacks" (1852-63). Caucasian impressions were reflected in the stories "Raid" (1853), "Cutting the forest" (1855), as well as in the later story "Hadji Murad" (1896-1904, published in 1912). Returning to Russia, Tolstoy wrote in his diary that he fell in love with this "wild land, in which so strangely and poetically two most opposite things are combined - war and freedom." In the Caucasus, Tolstoy wrote the story "Childhood" and sent it to the journal "Sovremennik" without disclosing his name (published in 1852 under the initials L.N .; together with the later stories "Boyhood", 1852-54, and "Youth", 1855 -57, compiled an autobiographical trilogy). His literary debut immediately brought real recognition to Tolstoy.

Crimean campaign

In 1854 Tolstoy was assigned to the Danube Army in Bucharest. Boring staff life 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. Anna and medals). In Crimea, Tolstoy was captured by new impressions and literary plans (he was going to publish a magazine for soldiers, among other things), here he began to write a series of “Sevastopol stories”, which were soon published and had great success (even Alexander II read the essay “Sevastopol in December” ). The first works of Tolstoy amazed literary critics the courage of psychological analysis and the detailed picture of the “dialectic of the soul” (NG Chernyshevsky). Some of the ideas that emerged during these years make it possible to guess in the young artillery officer of the late Tolstoy the preacher: he dreamed of “founding new religion"-" the religion of Christ, but purified from faith and mystery, a practical religion. "

In the circle of writers and abroad

In November 1855, Tolstoy arrived in St. Petersburg and immediately entered the "Contemporary" circle (N.A. Nekrasov, I.S. Turgenev, A.N. Ostrovsky, I.A. the hope of Russian literature ”(Nekrasov). Tolstoy took part in dinners and readings, in the establishment of the Literary Fund, became involved in the disputes and conflicts of writers, but he felt like a stranger in this environment, which he described in detail later in Confession (1879-82): “These people are sick of me, and I am disgusted with myself. " In the fall of 1856, Tolstoy, having retired, left for Yasnaya Polyana, and at the beginning of 1857 - 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.

Folk school

In 1859, Tolstoy opened a school for peasant children in the village, helped to set up more than 20 schools in the vicinity of Yasnaya Polyana, and this occupation so fascinated Tolstoy that in 1860 he went abroad a second time to get acquainted with European schools. Tolstoy traveled a lot, spent a month and a half in London (where he often saw AI Herzen), was in Germany, France, Switzerland, Belgium, studied popular pedagogical systems, which basically did not satisfy the writer. Tolstoy outlined his own ideas in special articles, arguing that the basis of education should be “the freedom of the student” and the refusal of violence in teaching. In 1862 he published the pedagogical journal "Yasnaya Polyana" with books for reading as an appendix, which have become the same in Russia classic designs children's and folk literature, as well as compiled by him in the early 1870s. "ABC" and "New ABC". In 1862, in the absence of Tolstoy, a search was carried out in Yasnaya Polyana (they were looking for a secret printing house).

“War and Peace” (1863-69) In September 1862, Tolstoy married the doctor's eighteen-year-old daughter Sofya Andreevna Bers and immediately after the wedding took his wife from Moscow to Yasnaya Polyana, where he completely devoted himself to family life and household chores. However, already in the fall of 1863 he was captured by a new literary concept, which for a long time was called "The Eighteen Hundred and Five Years." The time of the creation of the novel was a period of elation, family happiness and quiet solitary work. Tolstoy read the memoirs and correspondence of people of the Alexander era (including materials of the Tolstoy and Volkonskys), worked in archives, studied Masonic manuscripts, traveled to the Borodino field, moving slowly through many editions (his wife helped him a lot in copying manuscripts, refuting the topics most jokes of friends that she is still so young, as if playing with dolls), and only at the beginning of 1865 published the first part of "War and Peace" in the "Russian Bulletin". The novel was read avidly, evoked many responses, amazed by the combination of a wide epic canvas with a subtle psychological analysis, with a vivid picture of private life, organically inscribed in history. Heated controversy provoked subsequent parts of the novel, in which Tolstoy developed a fatalistic philosophy of history. There were reproaches that the writer “entrusted” the people of the beginning of the century with the intellectual needs of his era: the idea of ​​the novel about the Patriotic War was indeed a response to the problems that worried the Russian post-reform society. Tolstoy himself characterized his plan as an attempt to “write the history of the people” and considered it impossible to define its genre nature (“will not fit any form, no novel, no story, no poem, no history”).

on the topic: "The life and work of Leo Tolstoy"

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on the estate of Yasnaya Polyana, Tula province, into an aristocratic family. On his father's side, he belonged to an ancient family, numbering six hundred years and giving Russia famous political and statesmen, and on the mother's side - to the Volkonsky family, who also became famous in serving the Fatherland. Tolstoy's father, Nikolai Ilyich, as a seventeen-year-old boy in 1812, decided to military service and fought with Napoleon. He retired after World War II and married Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya. The life of Yasnaya Polyana was shrouded in numerous family traditions and legends, which are rich in the stories of both clans. These legends will later find a place in the works of Tolstoy, especially in the epic novel War and Peace. Leo Tolstoy had three brothers - Nikolai, Sergey, Dmitry, as well as his sister Maria. The girl was only two years old when her mother died, and in 1837 Nikolai Ilyich died and the children were orphaned. In 1841, their father's sister, Pelageya Ilyinichna Yushkova, who lived in Kazan, took them to her.

In 1844, Tolstoy entered the Faculty of Oriental Languages ​​at Kazan University, but he was not serious about his studies and failed his first year exams. Thanks to the patronage of his aunt, he was transferred to the Faculty of Law, but soon left the university and went to Yasnaya Polyana. There he passionately reads the works of Rousseau and comes to the idea of ​​correcting the world through the moral self-improvement of each person. Inspired by this idea, he starts a diary where he analyzes the negative aspects of his character. This was the beginning of the spiritual work that Tolstoy will do all his life. He believes that comprehending one's own weaknesses and shortcomings leads to their overcoming, liberation from them.

In the summer of 1851, Tolstoy's life changed dramatically. On leave from officer service, the elder brother Nikolai comes and takes Lev with him to the Caucasus. In the Cossack village of Starogladkovskaya, Tolstoy first encountered the world of free Cossacks who had never known serfdom. This freeman charmed Tolstoy, he felt a desire to leave everything and live the same simple and natural life as the Cossacks. Subsequently, he will write the story "Cossacks" (1863), in which he will tell about how difficult it is for a man of civilization to return to patriarchal simplicity, and the very opposition of the natural, natural way of life of ordinary people to civilization, borrowed from Rousseau, will pass through almost all of Tolstoy's works.

In the Caucasus, Tolstoy begins to work on an autobiography and writes the story "Childhood", which he sent to St. Petersburg to the then most popular magazine "Sovremennik", where it was enthusiastically greeted by Nekrasov himself and published in 1852. "Childhood" was the first part of the planned tetralogy. " Four epochs of development ". Two more parts were carried out - the stories "Adolescence" and "Youth", and the idea of ​​the fourth was only incompletely realized in the story "The Morning of the Landowner". The story "Boyhood" was published in 1854, and "Youth" - in 1857. Tolstoy's name was on a par with the names of the best Russian writers of that time. In his trilogy, Tolstoy displayed a new artistic view of the world. His hero looks at the environment not through the eyes of an adult who evaluates his childhood and children's emotional experience, but through the eyes of a child with his unclouded consciousness, free from the prejudices of the adult world and therefore capable of impeccable moral assessments. Tolstoy asserts that this childhood experience always lives in a person and is not canceled by the everyday experience of an adult. This view of the development of man, his spiritual world was a genuine discovery and brought Tolstoy the glory of an artist-psychologist. Tolstoy made the subject of his psychological research not the formed character of the hero, but the most complex combination in the soul of a person of various time cuts, reflecting the stages of the formation of his personality and creating a unique appearance of each person. The child's experience present in the soul of an adult can sometimes serve as an unmistakable criterion for him in choosing the exact behavior and even contribute to a person's self-improvement. A child's soul has the dear for Tolstoy property to restore harmony with the world around it due to its purity and immediacy, but the adult world cloudes the child's perception of the world and extinguishes this ability, thereby leading a person to discord with the world and himself. This disorder is especially painful in adolescence, the most difficult period of personality development. Having lost the direct purity of moral feeling, the soul of a youth becomes open only for perception negative sides life and bad emotions. Having lost confidence in the world, a person focuses on himself, and therefore his emotional ties with others are broken.

But even in these circumstances, the moral feeling does not fade away in a person at all. The awakening of the soul is facilitated by the emergence of friendship and the ability for it. Youth, from the point of view of Tolstoy, is like spring with its awakening, and therefore a person has a desire to restore lost ties with the world, a feeling of unity with it. But this is by no means a cloudless path. On the contrary, walking along it, a person is forced to overcome various obstacles, primarily associated with mental contradictions.

In 1853 the Russian-Turkish war began, and in 1854 Tolstoy, at his request, was transferred to the active army. While in besieged Sevastopol, Tolstoy observes the behavior of ordinary soldiers and sailors and becomes convinced of the colossal spiritual strength of the people, in their high patriotic feelings. Tolstoy tries to look at events through the eyes of a simple soldier. The experience gained at that time gave him a lot of material for the epic novel "War and Peace", in addition, he wrote three stories, which reflected his aesthetic and ethical ideal: "Sevastopol in the month of December", "Sevastopol in May", "Sevastopol in August 1855" (1855, 1856). In the finale of the story "Sevastopol in May," Tolstoy formulates his artistic credo: "The hero of my story, whom I love with all the strength of my soul, whom I tried to reproduce in all his beauty and who has always been, is and will be beautiful, is true."

At the end of 1855, Tolstoy arrived in St. Petersburg, being already famous writer... His creative manner developed in the works of the 50s. "The peculiarity of Count Tolstoy's talent," wrote N. G. Chernyshevsky, "is that he is not limited to depicting the results of the mental process: he is interested in the process itself, its forms, laws, the dialectic of the soul, in order to express himself in a definitive term." Tolstoy sought to show the process of the birth of a feeling or thought, their modification as a result of coupling with other feelings and thoughts, the whole difficult path their formation and design. At the same time, he constantly emphasizes the inaccuracy and approximation of any final definitions. This portrayal of mental life also led to a new understanding of character. The finest psychological analysis leads Tolstoy to the idea that man is a much more complex phenomenon than it seems at first glance, and that he always harbors the possibility of spiritual renewal. This ability for renewal and self-development is always at the center of the artist's attention. In the movement of a person to moral height, and not in changes in social or political systems, he saw opportunities for the development and renewal of the world. The ability of a person to moral self-improvement, according to Tolstoy, is life, and the task of literature is to teach "to love life", as he wrote in one of his letters.

Epic novel "War and Peace" (1863-1869). In the early 60s. Tolstoy conceives a novel about the Decembrist, who returns after an amnesty from Siberia to Russia, renewed by the reform of 1861. The idea is gradually expanding. Tolstoy wrote: “Unwittingly, I passed from the present to 1825, the era of delusions and misfortunes of my hero, and left what I had begun. But in 1825 my hero was already a mature, family man. To understand him, I had to travel back to his youth, and his youth coincided with the glorious epoch for Russia in 1812. Another time I gave up what I had begun and began to write from the time of 1812, which smell and sound are still audible and dear to us ... , it seems strange ... I was ashamed to write about our triumph in the struggle against Bonaparte France, without describing our failures and our shame ... If the reason for our triumph was not accidental, but lay in the essence of the character of the Russian people and troops, then this character should have expressed itself even more vividly in the era of failures and defeats.So, returning from 1856 to 1805, from that time I intend to lead not one, but many of my heroines and heroes through historical events 1805, 1807, 1812, 1825 and 1856 ".

Plunging into history, Tolstoy came closer and closer to modernity. He was looking in the historical past of Russia for a moment similar to what the country was going through after 1861. The Patriotic War of 1812 caused an unprecedented unity of the entire people, which was so necessary in the post-reform era - the era of breaking the foundations of life. Artistic research this unity and the ways to achieve it, and is occupied by Tolstoy in "War and Peace". History became the instrument with which modernity was explored. Work on the novel lasted six years, and in the process the time frame of the work was limited to 1812-1824.

The book, printed in parts in the "Russian Bulletin", was a huge success. It immediately became obvious that the work did not fit into the usual forms of the genre. The traditional novel, with its storyline based on the fate of the hero, could not accommodate the life of the whole country, which was what Tolstoy was striving for. It was necessary to overcome the main distinction that seemed eternal and unshakable - the distinction between private and historical life... Tolstoy shows that the life of people is one and proceeds according to general laws in any sphere, be it family or state, private or historical. The everyday life of people is entangled in a whole network of conventions that subjugate a person, forcing him to be guided in his actions not by principles or feelings, but by generally accepted norms; man is dependent on these conventions, which overshadow and even replace the absolute and genuine values ​​of life. The most main value, from the point of view of Tolstoy, is a universal human connection, undermined in the modern world by enmity between people.

The composition was as unusual as the genre of the work. The lack of a single storyline forced Tolstoy to look for new methods of fastening the colossal edifice of the epic into a single whole. He changed the role of the episode. In the traditional novel, the episode was one of the links in a chain of events, united by cause-and-effect relationships; being the result of previous events, it simultaneously became a prerequisite for subsequent ones. Keeping this role of the episode in the autonomous plot lines of his novel, Tolstoy endowed it with a new quality. The episodes in "War and Peace" were held together not only by a plot, cause-and-effect relationship, but also entered into a special relationship, which Tolstoy himself, speaking of the novel “Anna Karenina,” called the “coupling” relationship. The artistic fabric of "War and Peace" consists of endless links. She ties together episodes not only from different parts, but even from different volumes, episodes in which completely different characters take part (for example, an episode from the first volume, which tells about the meeting of General Mack at the headquarters of Kutuzov's army, and an episode from the third volumes - about the meeting of the envoy Alexander I, General Balashov, with Marshal Murat). And there are a huge number of such episodes, united not by a plot, but by another connection, a connection of "clutches", in "War and Peace", which provides a work with several hundred actors and many, completely autonomous storylines, artistic unity and integrity.

In addition, in addition to the usual characters, which are full-fledged realistic characters, Tolstoy created images of two characters who, also being realistic characters, bear a special load on themselves, becoming almost symbolic images. These are the images of Kutuzov and Napoleon, personifying two opposite principles of life - the beginning that unites and the beginning that separates. And to these images, to one degree or another, almost all the characters in "War and Peace" are drawn, thus divided into people of "war" and people of "peace." Thus, Tolstoy's "War" and "peace" are two universal states of human existence, the life of society.

Napoleon, according to Tolstoy, embodies the essence modern civilization, expressed in the cult of personal initiative and a strong personality. It is this cult that brings into modern life disunity and general hostility. He is opposed by Tolstoy's beginning, embodied in the image of Kutuzov, a man who has renounced everything personal, does not pursue any personal goal and, by virtue of this, is able to guess the historical necessity and by his activity contributes to the course of history, while it only seems to Napoleon that he is in control historical process. But history develops according to its own laws, regardless of the will of people.

Tolstoy's Kutuzov personifies the principle of the people, while the people represent a spiritual integrity, poeticized by the author of War and Peace. This integrity arises only on the basis of cultural legends and traditions. The loss of them turns the people into a vicious and aggressive crowd, the unity of which rests not on a common principle, but on an individualistic one. Such a crowd is the Napoleonic army, marching on Russia, as well as the people who tore Vereshchagin to pieces, whom Rostopchin condemns to death.

A society in which the beginning of the "war" has triumphed, disintegrates, loses its unity, its representatives live with selfish interests. This is exactly how Tolstoy portrays the high society of St. Petersburg, the embodiment of the essence of which is the Kuragin family. The general chaos is painful for the heroes of the novel. The situation of "peace", on the contrary, brings meaning and unity to life, bringing personal interest into agreement with the general interest. This situation arises in Russia in 1812.

This universal unity will be sought after for Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov. Their life paths testify to the search for overcoming personal and social discord, the desire for a reasonable and harmonious life... Nevertheless, this does not remove the most important differences between them.

At the beginning of his life, Prince Andrew, finding an idol in Napoleon, separates himself from other people. His dream of the glory of a hero corresponds to the spirit of the Russian culture XVIII century, when the hero was thought of without fail on a pedestal. Gradually Tolstoy is preparing that revolution in the soul of Prince Andrei, which will take place on the Austerlitz field. Lofty dreams will clash in hostilities with real life and the way of life of the war, and Andrey will discover a heroic beginning in the nondescript captain Tushin. Locked in a limited family world, Bolkonsky will be brought out of a state of mental apathy by Pierre Bezukhov, who will visit his friend at a happy time in his life. Pierre, at the zenith of his passion for Masonic ideas, is confident that he has found the meaning of life. His enthusiasm will be passed on to Andrey, who will again feel the taste for vigorous activity(two meetings of Prince Andrey with an old oak tree on the way to Otradnoye and back are symbolic). However, Andrey's new life, taking place in the highest spheres of the state bureaucracy, is artificial. This will be revealed to Andrey thanks to his meeting with Natasha Rostova at the ball. Natasha, as it were, brings the prince closer to earthly life, but Tolstoy immediately makes the reader feel that they are not intended for each other, that simple happiness is not for Bolkonsky.

The year 1812 will turn out to be a turning point in the life of both Natasha and Andrei Bolkonsky. During the Patriotic War, the prince will feel and understand the legitimacy of the existence of the interests of other people. This understanding will manifest itself in his vision of the reasons for success in the war, which, he believes, is determined not by the number of troops and its location, not by the number of guns, but by the feeling that will be in every soldier. This is how Andrei Bolkonsky's ideas about driving forces stories. But Prince Andrei is still unable to fully comprehend the world outlook of ordinary soldiers. At the moment of mortal injury, he experiences a passionate outburst of love for life. It is significant that on the Austerlitz field the sky becomes the symbol of universal unity for him, and on the Borodino field - the earth. But the land was never given to Andrey. Heaven triumphed with its universal love, and not the earth, which manifested itself in a concrete love for Natasha.

V life quests Pierre Bezukhov will also mark a turning point in 1812. But Pierre, in his desire to live common life overstep the line at which Prince Andrew stopped. The soldiers will take him into their family, and he will feel like one of them. Pierre's spiritual rebirth is completed by captivity and acquaintance with Platon Karataev. In Karataev, Pierre will conquer the love of the world without the slightest admixture of selfish feelings. Karataev will become for Tolstoy a symbol of the "peaceful" properties of the Russian peasant character, the personification of simplicity and truth. Communication with him will give Pierre a deeper understanding of the meaning of life based on love for God, who is life, and life is God.

Having gone through the deprivation of captivity and adopting the Karataev view of the world, Pierre concludes that misfortunes on earth come not from lack, but from excess, including the overwhelming predominance of the intellectual principle in modern civilization, as a result of which a person loses his immediacy in the perception of earthly existence.

Natasha Rostova has a renewing influence on the intellectual heroes of War and Peace. Natasha never thinks about the meaning of life and does not try to comprehend it in a rationalistic way. For her, this meaning is hidden in the very process of life and does not exist outside of it. Her image embodies the best properties of female nature, harmony of the spiritual and physical. Natasha's moral sense is natural, not abstract, she has the gift of intuition. Natasha's liveliness and spontaneity, her intuitive understanding of the true values ​​of life attracts people to her. Countess Natasha has a truly Russian soul, which helps her to naturally feel in the most different situations(remember her Russian dance in her uncle's house and her desire to help the wounded in the battle of Borodino, which was passed on to all Rostovs).

At the same time, Natasha's spontaneity is fraught with danger and can push her to rash actions. Free from external conventions, she turns out to be able to transcend moral boundaries - this is the reason for her rapprochement with Kuragin. Both an excess of intellect, which muffles the direct sense of life in a person, and an elemental life force not controlled by reason are harmful. In the union of Natasha and Pierre, Tolstoy tries to find a harmonious combination of these qualities.

The epilogue of "War and Peace" is a connection under the roof of the Lysogorsk house in one family of previously scattered beginnings, personified in the families of the Rostovs, Bolkonsky and Bezukhovs. The epilogue sounds like a hymn to the family, which, according to Tolstoy, is the highest form of unity between people.

The novel War and Peace was Tolstoy's response to the cultural and spiritual situation that had developed in post-reform Russia, which, as in 1812, required the unification of all the forces of the people to overcome the crisis in which the country found itself.

The novel "Anna Karenina", on which Tolstoy worked in 1873-1877, is devoted to the study of the loss of spiritual ties between family members and, as a consequence, the disintegration of the family itself. Two storylines lie at the heart of this work: the story of the disintegrated family of Anna Karenina and the born family of Konstantin Levin. Anna's marriage with a spiritually alien dignitary Karenin is not built on the basis of love and is inevitably doomed to ruin. Tolstoy condemns public morality that forgives adultery, but does not forgive free and sincere love. The life of a family without love is dramatic, but the disintegration of the family is no less dramatic.

The disintegration of the Karenin family, which, according to Tolstoy, marks a spiritual crisis of modern civilization, the disintegration of spiritual values, as well as the dramatic nature of Anna's love for Vronsky are shown against the background of the relationship between Kitya Shtcherbatskaya and Levin, built on the basis of spiritual unity. Konstantin Levin is an autobiographical hero. For him, the fundamental principle of life is agricultural labor, to which he is devoted. He sees salvation from the lies of modern civilization in the moral regeneration of mankind.

Tolstoy outlined his views on the foundations of the modern social and state system in Russia and criticism of this system in a number of philosophical and religious works of the 80-90s: "Confession", "So what should we do?", "The Kingdom of God is within us", "What is my faith?" and others. In these works, he subjected to crushing criticism all the official social institutions including the church. He created his own religious and ethical teaching, which found followers who were called "Tolstoyans". They left the cities, organized agricultural colonies and spread Tolstoy's teachings. Followers of Tolstoy appeared in many countries.

In 1899 the novel "Resurrection" was published - one of major works world realistic literature, reflecting the broadest social and moral issues. Through the image of Prince Nekhlyudov, who broke with his class, the author shows the conflict of two worlds - the haves and the have-nots, raises the topic of a person's moral responsibility for their actions. History spiritual fall Nekhlyudov, associated with the rejection of the feeling of shame and the transformation of a person into an impersonal, rude and selfish being, as well as his slow and painful "resurrection", that is, finding a truly human essence, constitutes the plot basis of the novel. Nekhlyudov's feeling of guilt before Katyusha Maslova gradually develops into a feeling of guilt before a disadvantaged and suffering people, shame for himself into shame for all people in his circle. His own guilt seems to him to be part of the common guilt of the entire nobility. Tolstoy advocates the inevitability of a radical transformation of all Russian life, but he sees this transformation only as non-violent.

Genius L.N. Tolstoy, an artist and thinker, reflected the life processes of universal importance in all their complexity and contradictions. And he himself was not an outside observer of them, trying to combine his own teaching with a way of life. The spiritual drama he was experiencing prompted him to secretly leave Yasnaya Polyana at the end of his days. On the way, he fell ill with pneumonia and died. The death of Tolstoy was an event that shocked not only Russia, but the whole world.

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Leo Tolstoy: The Beginning of the Path. Early prose

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on August 28 (September 9, new style), 1828 in the Yasnaya Polyana estate in the Tula province in one of the most distinguished Russian noble families. "Counts Tolstoy - old noble family, descended, according to the legends of the genealogists, from her husband honest Indrik, who left “from the Germans, from the Caesar lands” [from the Holy Roman Empire, from Austria. - AR] to Chernigov in 1353, with two sons and with a retinue of three thousand people; he was baptized, received the name Leonty and was the ancestor of several noble families. His great-grandson, Andrei Kharitonovich, who moved from Chernigov to Moscow and received from the chief.<икого>book<язя>Vasily the Dark, nicknamed Tolstoy, was the ancestor of the Tolstoy (in the count branch of the Tolstoy clan, Count Lev Nikolaevich is listed from the ancestor of Indris in the 20th generation) "(PI Biryukov Biography of Leo Tolstoy. 3rd ed., Rev. And add. M .; Pg., 1923. T. 1. S. 3.) On the maternal side, Lev Nikolaevich belonged to the ancient family of the Volkonsky princes. Belonging to the aristocracy will determine Tolstoy's behavior and thoughts throughout his life. In youth and in mature years he will think a lot about the special vocation of the old Russian nobility, who preserves the ideals of naturalness, personal honor, independence and freedom. (The "archaism" of the public, as well as literary position Tolstoy in the 1850s. detailed by B. M. Eikhenbaum: B. M. Eikhenbaum Lev Tolstoy. L., 1928. Book. 1.550s. S. 261-291).

Tolstoy very early, at the age of one and a half, lost his mother Maria Nikolaevna, a very emotional and decisive woman. Father, Nikolai Ilyich, a retired colonel, was distinguished by pride and independence in relations with government officials. For Tolstoy the child, the father was the embodiment of beauty, strength, passionate, gambling love for the joys of life. From him, Lev Nikolaevich inherited a passion for hunting with dogs. Many years later, Tolstoy will express the beauty and excitement of hunting in the pages of the novel “War and Peace” in describing the persecution of a wolf by the hounds of the old Count Rostov.

In 1844 he entered the Faculty of Philosophy of Kazan University. He studied unsystematically, missed lectures and, as a result, was not admitted to the transfer exams. Having not received admission to the exam in history, Tolstoy in 1845 transferred to another faculty - law. But even at this faculty they taught history, the lessons of which were boring and unpleasant for him. Tolstoy again begins to miss lectures on history. He was even punished for missing classes: a careless student was placed in a punishment cell. But he indulged with all the passion of secular amusements and revelry. His seeming laziness, dislike of history is not evidence of limitation. Once, a student Tolstoy remarked in a conversation with an interlocutor: "History ... is nothing more than a collection of fables and useless trifles, strewn with a mass of unnecessary numbers and proper names ...". As if this phrase of Tolstoy is a manifestation of militant ignorance. It seems that he was only trying to shock his acquaintance. However, in reality, everything is much more complicated. In the sciences, young Tolstoy was looking primarily for practical meaning. He was not interested in knowledge that could not be applied in Everyday life... And it is precisely this, “useless” that Tolstoy's story appears to be. This view of science is generally characteristic of many people. new era formed in the 1840s. It is no coincidence that in the 1860s. Russian youth will survive the fascination with "nihilism." “Nihilists” saw practical value as the main value modern culture and despised abstract knowledge not directly related to the daily needs of people. Tolstoy did not like “nihilism”, first of all, he rejected the idea of ​​revolution inherent in “nihilists”. But he grew up in the same atmosphere of change, disillusionment with old cultural values, as the ideologues of "nihilism." The rejection of traditional historical science by Tolstoy the student with renewed vigor manifested itself in the 1860s. in the novel War and Peace.

During his studies at Kazan University, Tolstoy carefully reads the works of French philosophers, especially the works of the thinker and writer of the 18th century. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau saw in the achievements of civilization: in the development of sciences, technology, arts - decline, destruction of the original simplicity, naturalness human life... Rousseau's ideas strongly influenced the young Tolstoy.

Russo for Tolstoy is not only a subtle artist-psychologist, but also a thinker, whose ideas about the primordial good nature man and the corrupting influence of civilization, contrasted with the integrity of “the natural state of a savage or commoner, remained dear to Tolstoy throughout his life.

Another favorite writer of Tolstoy was Stendhal. The poetics of battle scenes in Tolstoy's works - from the early Caucasian stories("Raid", etc.) and a cycle about the defense of Sevastopol to "War and Peace" (a look at what is happening from the point of view of "a hero who does not understand anything") - recalls the description of the battle at Waterloo in Stendhal's novel "Parma Abode".

Already in his youthful diaries and in Tolstoy's early letters, one can feel a living contradiction between attachment, a passionate attraction to "natural" life, the rapture of the fullness of being and the joys of the flesh, on the one hand, and moral rigor and exactingness, on the other. "Religion of the flesh" and "religion of the spirit" (expressions of D. S. Merezhkovsky - Merezhkovsky D. S. L. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky: Life and work // Merezhkovsky D. S. L. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Eternal companions. M., 1995, pp. 7-350) will form two poles of Tolstoy's creativity in the future. Tolstoy's path is to a large extent precisely the movement from one pole to another. But the writer did not completely renounce the "religion of the flesh" even in the last years of his life.

On April 12, 1847, Tolstoy, disenchanted with 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 shattered his designs. The peasants did not understand the master, refused his advice and help. For the first time, Tolstoy acutely felt the huge, insurmountable abyss separating him - the landowner, the master - and the common people. Social and cultural barriers between the educated class and the people will become one of the constant themes of Tolstoy's fiction and articles. He will describe his first unsuccessful management experience a few years later in the story "The Morning of the Landowner" (1856), whose hero Nekhlyudov is endowed with the features of Tolstoy himself.

Returning from Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy spends 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, in a career. From introspection in Tolstoy's diaries, his fiction grows. Tolstoy in his diaries 1847-1852 carefully captures various experiences and thoughts in their complex and contradictory linkages. He coldly analyzes the manifestation of selfish moods in high and pure feelings, traces the movement, the flow of one emotional state into another. Self-observation alternates with descriptions of the appearance, gestures and character of acquaintances, with reflections on how to create literary work... Tolstoy focuses on the experience of psychological analysis of the writers of the 18th century. Lawrence Stern and Rousseau, learns the techniques of disclosing experiences in the novel by M. Yu. Lermontov “A Hero of Our Time”. In March 1851, Tolstoy wrote The History of Yesterday, an excerpt in which he described his feelings in detail. It's not easy anymore diary entry, but a work of art.

In April 1851 he went to the Caucasus and in January 1852 entered the military service in the artillery. In the Caucasus, there was a war between Russian troops and Chechens. Tolstoy takes part in battles and works on the story "Childhood". Dissatisfied with the story, he revised its text four times. In July 1852 it was sent to the Petersburg magazine Sovremennik to its editor, poet N. A. Nekrasov. Nekrasov praised the author's talent. “Childhood” was published under the title “The Story of My Childhood” (this name belonged to Nekrasov) in the 9th issue of Sovremennik in 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 sequel appears - the story of Adolescence, and in the 1st issue of 1857, the novel Youth was published, which completed the story about Nikolai Irtenev, the hero of Childhood and Adolescence ”.

Three stories by Tolstoy are not a consistent story of the upbringing and maturation of the main character and storyteller, Nikolenka Irteniev. This is a description of a number of episodes in his life. B. M. Eikhenbaum drew attention to the fact that the events described in the story fit into two days, and a large period of time passes between these days (B. M. , 1987.S. 75-77). What others think is shallow, unworthy of attention, and what others see as actual events in Nikolenka's life, occupy an equal place in the consciousness of the child hero himself. Tolstoy carefully captures the conflicting, opposite feelings of the hero. Immediate mental movements Nikolenki Irtenyeva are combined with detached introspection, with observations of their own experiences. In Childhood, Tolstoy discovers a multi-layered consciousness in which opposite feelings, aspirations and thoughts coexist, sincerity coexists with features of a certain self-admiration, and sometimes pretense (The features of Tolstoy's psychologism are traced in detail by L. Ya. On psychological prose. 3rd ed. M., 1999. pp. 267-293, 301-334, 372-394).

The portrayal of the hero's feelings in Childhood, Adolescence and Youth is reminiscent of the analysis of his own experiences in Tolstoy's diaries. The principles of depicting the inner world of the characters outlined in the diaries and embodied in these three stories will be transferred to the novels War and Peace, Anna Karenina and many other later works of Tolstoy.

At the same time as he was working on Childhood, from May to December 1852, Tolstoy wrote the story “Raid” about one of the minor episodes of the war in the Caucasus. Later, based on his impressions of the military events in the Caucasus, Tolstoy created two more stories - "The felling of the forest" and "How Russian soldiers die" (the first version of this story was called "Anxiety"). In these stories, for the first time, a theme is expressed, which will henceforth be unchanged, constant for Tolstoy. This theme: simplicity, naturalness as the highest value of true human life. “Always young, and the older, the more, I value one quality<...>above all - simplicity, ”Tolstoy wrote in 1872. In his“ Caucasian ”stories, Tolstoy contrasted his mundane depiction of hostilities, the confusion of battle and senseless deaths to a romantic, poetic description of battle as a majestic spectacle. Before Tolstoy, it was precisely this romanticized perception of war and military exploits that prevailed in Russian literature. This is how A.A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, a writer whose works in the 1830s and early 1840s, portrayed the battles in the Caucasus. enjoyed great fame. The simple, "everyday" depiction of war in Tolstoy's stories is the opposite of the romance of battles and exploits. It resembles the description of one of the battles of the Caucasian War in the poem "Valerik" by M. Yu. Lermontov. Genuine heroism in Tolstoy's portrayal is devoid of any romantic theatricality or artificiality. A true hero never thinks that he is performing a feat. The thirst for glory is alien to him. Calm acceptance own death for Tolstoy - the trait of a truly wise and worthy person.

The theme of simplicity and naturalness as the highest value of life and the dispute with the "ceremonial", beautiful image of the war, Tolstoy continued in the 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 took part in the defense of Sevastopol and spent many days and nights in the most dangerous place - on the fourth bastion, which was mercilessly fired 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, sisters of mercy, officers, townspeople - Tolstoy seeks the true truth of the war.

The key motive of the Sevastopol stories is the unnaturalness and madness of war. Tolstoy shows the war with a distant, "detached" glance. In his essay “Sevastopol in December,” Tolstoy describes not the beautiful correctness of the battle, but the terrible scenes of the suffering of the wounded in the hospital. The writer uses the technique of contrast, sharply confronting the world of the living and beautiful nature with the world of the dead, victims of war. He describes a child picking wildflowers between decaying corpses and kicking the outstretched arm of a headless dead man. Tolstoy acts as an accuser of people who break the covenants of God, in self-blinding and in a frenzy, shedding blood of each other. Tolstoy's Sevastopol stories are the seed of the future novel "War and Peace".

In the fall of 1859, Tolstoy opened a school for peasant children in Yasnaya Polyana. He studied history with children, gave them themes for essays. In 1862 the school was closed after a police search. The reason for the search was the authorities' suspicions that the students who taught at the Yasnaya Polyana school were engaged in anti-government activities. The writer formulated the conclusions from his activities in the Yasnaya Polyana school in an article with a "scandalous" title: "Who should learn to write from, our peasant children or we peasant children?" According to Tolstoy, folk art and culture is not lower, but rather higher than the culture and art recognized in an educated society. Peasant children preserve the spiritual purity and naturalness lost in the educated estates. Teaching them the values ​​of "high" culture, Tolstoy believes, is hardly necessary. On the contrary, the writer himself, studying with them, turned out to be not a teacher, but a student.

September 24 (old style) 1862 Tolstoy marries the daughter of a Moscow doctor, Sofia Andreevna Bers. On September 25, Tolstoy writes in his diary: "Incredible happiness." Mutual misunderstanding, difficult quarrels, alienation from each other - all this is still in the distant future.

In 1863, Tolstoy published the story "The Cossacks", on which he began to work in the mid-1850s. The tale, like many other works of Tolstoy, is autobiographical. It is based on the Caucasian memoirs of the writer, first of all - the history of his unrequited love to a Cossack woman who lived in Starogladkovskaya stanitsa. Tolstoy chooses a plot traditional for romantic literature: the love of a chilled, disillusioned hero-fugitive from the disgusting world of civilization for a “natural” and passionate heroine. On this subject were written poems of A. S. Pushkin “ Prisoner of the Caucasus”And“ Gypsies ”. Tolstoy reread the Gypsy while working on the Cossacks. But Tolstoy gives this plot a completely new meaning... The young nobleman Dmitry Olenin only outwardly resembles a romantic hero: his fatigue from life is shallow. He reaches for natural simplicity, the spontaneous life of the Cossacks, but remains alien to them. Interests, upbringing, social status of Olenin alienate him from the inhabitants Cossack village... Olenin eagerly absorbs the simple and wise thoughts of an old Cossack, a hunter and former thief Uncle Eroshka: happiness, the meaning of life is in rapture with all its joys, in carnal pleasures. But he can never become so simple, carefree, kind and evil, pure and cynical at the same time, like Uncle Eroshka.

Count Leo Tolstoy, a classic of Russian and world literature, is called a master of psychology, creator of the epic novel genre, an original thinker and teacher of life. The works of the genius writer are the greatest treasure of Russia.

In August 1828, a classic of Russian literature was born on the Yasnaya Polyana estate in the Tula province. The future author of War and Peace became the fourth child in a family of eminent nobles. On the paternal side, he belonged to the old family of the Tolstoy counts, who served and. On the maternal side, Lev Nikolaevich is a descendant of the Ruriks. It is noteworthy that Leo Tolstoy has a common ancestor - Admiral Ivan Mikhailovich Golovin.

Lev Nikolaevich's mother - nee Princess Volkonskaya - died of a fever after the birth of her daughter. At that time, Leo was not even two years old. Seven years later, the head of the family, Count Nikolai Tolstoy, died.

Caring for the children fell on the shoulders of the writer's aunt, T. A. Ergolskaya. Later, the second aunt, Countess A.M. Osten-Saken, became the guardian of the orphaned children. After her death in 1840, the children moved to Kazan, to a new guardian - father's sister P.I. Yushkova. The aunt influenced her nephew, and the writer called her childhood in her house, which was considered the most cheerful and hospitable in the city, happy. Later, Lev Tolstoy described his impressions of life in the Yushkovs' estate in the story "Childhood".

The classic received his primary education at home from German and French teachers. In 1843, Leo Tolstoy entered Kazan University, choosing the Faculty of Oriental Languages. Soon, due to low academic performance, he moved to another faculty - law. But he did not succeed here either: two years later he left the university without receiving a degree.

Lev Nikolayevich returned to Yasnaya Polyana, wishing to improve relations with the peasants in a new way. The idea failed, but the young man regularly kept a diary, loved secular entertainment and became interested in music. Tolstoy listened for hours, and.

Disappointed with the life of a landowner after a summer spent in the village, 20-year-old Leo Tolstoy left the estate and moved to Moscow, and from there to St. Petersburg. The young man rushed between preparing for the candidate exams at the university, music lessons, carousing with cards and gypsies, and dreams of becoming either an official or a cadet of the Horse Guards regiment. Relatives called Leo "the most trifling fellow", and it took years to distribute the debts that he had endowed.

Literature

In 1851, the writer's brother, officer Nikolai Tolstoy, persuaded Lev to go to the Caucasus. For three years Lev Nikolayevich lived in a village on the banks of the Terek. The nature of the Caucasus and the patriarchal life of the Cossack village were later reflected in the stories "Cossacks" and "Hadji Murad", stories "Raid" and "Cutting the forest".

In the Caucasus, Leo Tolstoy composed the story "Childhood", which he published in the journal "Sovremennik" under the initials L. N. Soon he wrote the sequels "Adolescence" and "Youth", combining the stories into a trilogy. His literary debut turned out to be brilliant and brought Lev Nikolaevich his first recognition.

The creative biography of Leo Tolstoy is developing rapidly: the appointment to Bucharest, the transfer to the besieged Sevastopol, the command of the battery enriched the writer with impressions. From the pen of Lev Nikolaevich came the series of "Sevastopol Stories". The works of the young writer amazed critics with a bold psychological analysis. Nikolai Chernyshevsky found in them "the dialectic of the soul", and the emperor read the essay "Sevastopol in December" and expressed admiration for Tolstoy's talent.

In the winter of 1855, 28-year-old Leo Tolstoy arrived in St. Petersburg and entered the Sovremennik circle, where he was warmly greeted, calling him “the great hope of Russian literature”. But over the course of a year, the writers' environment with its disputes and conflicts, readings and literary dinners got bored. Later in the "Confession" Tolstoy admitted:

"These people are disgusted with me, and I am disgusted with myself."

In the fall of 1856, the young writer left for the Yasnaya Polyana estate, and in January 1857 - abroad. For half a year, Leo Tolstoy traveled around Europe. Visited Germany, Italy, France and Switzerland. He returned to Moscow, and from there - to Yasnaya Polyana. In the family estate, he took up the arrangement of schools for peasant children. In the vicinity of Yasnaya Polyana, twenty educational institutions... In 1860, the writer traveled a lot: in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, he studied the pedagogical systems of European countries in order to apply what he saw in Russia.

A special niche in the work of Leo Tolstoy is occupied by fairy tales and compositions for children and adolescents. The writer has created hundreds of works for young readers, including the kind and instructive fairy tales "Kitten", "Two Brothers", "Hedgehog and Hare", "Lion and Dog".

Leo Tolstoy wrote the school manual "ABC" for teaching children to write, read and arithmetic. Literary and pedagogical work consists of four books. The writer included instructive stories, epics, fables, as well as methodological advice to teachers. The third book includes the story "Prisoner of the Caucasus".

In 1870, Leo Tolstoy, continuing to teach peasant children, wrote the novel Anna Karenina, in which he contrasted two plot lines: the Karenins family drama and the homely idyll of the young landowner Levin, with whom he identified himself. The novel only at first glance seemed amorous: the classic raised the problem of the meaning of the existence of the "educated class", opposing it with the truth of peasant life. I highly appreciated Anna Karenina.

The turning point in the mind of the writer was reflected in the works written in the 1880s. Life-changing spiritual insight is central to stories and novellas. The Death of Ivan Ilyich, The Kreutzer Sonata, Father Sergius and the story After the Ball appear. The classic of Russian literature paints pictures of social inequality, castigates the idleness of the nobles.

In search of an answer to the question about the meaning of life, Leo Tolstoy turned to the Russian Orthodox Church, but he did not find satisfaction there either. The writer became convinced that Christian church corrupt, and under the guise of religion, priests promote false doctrine. In 1883, Lev Nikolaevich founded the publication Posrednik, where he outlined spiritual beliefs with criticism of the Russian Orthodox Church. For this, Tolstoy was excommunicated, the secret police watched the writer.

In 1898, Leo Tolstoy wrote the novel Resurrection, which received critical acclaim. But the success of the work was inferior to Anna Karenina and War and Peace.

For the last 30 years of his life, Leo Tolstoy was recognized as the spiritual and religious leader of Russia with the doctrine of non-violent resistance to evil.

"War and Peace"

Leo Tolstoy disliked his novel War and Peace, calling the epic “ verbose rubbish". The classic wrote the work in the 1860s, living with his family in Yasnaya Polyana. The first two chapters, entitled "Year 1805", were published by the "Russian Bulletin" in 1865. Three years later, Leo Tolstoy wrote three more chapters and completed the novel, which caused heated controversy among critics.

The novelist took the features of the heroes of the work, written during the years of family happiness and elation. In Princess Marya Bolkonskaya, there are recognizable features of Lev Nikolaevich's mother, her inclination to reflection, brilliant education and love of art. The traits of his father - mockery, love of reading and hunting - the writer awarded Nikolai Rostov.

When writing the novel, Leo Tolstoy worked in the archives, studied the correspondence between the Tolstoys and Volkonskys, Masonic manuscripts, and visited the Borodino field. The young wife helped him by rewriting the rough drafts.

The novel was read avidly, striking readers with the breadth of the epic canvas and subtle psychological analysis. Leo Tolstoy characterized the work as an attempt to "write the history of the people."

According to the calculations of the literary critic Lev Anninsky, by the end of the 1970s, only abroad works Russian classic filmed 40 times. Until 1980, the epic "War and Peace" was filmed four times. Directors from Europe, America and Russia have shot 16 films based on the novel "Anna Karenina", "Resurrection" has been filmed 22 times.

For the first time "War and Peace" was filmed by director Pyotr Chardinin in 1913. Best known is the film made by a Soviet director in 1965.

Personal life

Leo Tolstoy married 18 years old in 1862, when he was 34 years old. The count lived with his wife for 48 years, but the life of the couple can hardly be called cloudless.

Sophia Bers is the second of three daughters of Andrei Bers, a doctor at the Moscow Palace Office. The family lived in the capital, but in the summer they rested on a Tula estate near Yasnaya Polyana. For the first time, Leo Tolstoy saw his future wife as a child. Sophia received home education, read a lot, understood art and graduated from Moscow University. The diary kept by Bers-Tolstaya is recognized as an example of the memoir genre.

At the beginning of his married life, Leo Tolstoy, wishing that there were no secrets between him and his wife, gave Sophia a diary to read. The shocked wife found out about her husband's stormy youth, hobby gambling, a riotous life and a peasant girl Aksinya, who was expecting a child from Lev Nikolaevich.

The firstborn Sergey was born in 1863. In the early 1860s, Tolstoy took up writing the novel War and Peace. Sofya Andreevna helped her husband, despite the pregnancy. The woman taught and raised all the children at home. Five out of 13 children died in infancy or early childhood.

Family problems began after Leo Tolstoy finished his work on Anna Karenina. The writer plunged into depression, expressed dissatisfaction with life, which Sofya Andreevna so diligently arranged in the family nest. The count's moral throws led to the fact that Lev Nikolaevich demanded that his relatives give up meat, alcohol and smoking. Tolstoy forced his wife and children to dress in peasant clothes, which he made himself, and wished to give the acquired property to the peasants.

Sofya Andreevna made great efforts to dissuade her husband from the idea of ​​distributing goodness. But the quarrel that occurred split the family: Leo Tolstoy left home. When he returned, the writer assigned the responsibility to rewrite the drafts on his daughters.

The death of the last child - seven-year-old Vanya - briefly brought the spouses together. But soon mutual grievances and misunderstandings alienated them completely. Sofya Andreevna found solace in music. In Moscow, a woman took lessons from a teacher for whom romantic feelings appeared. Their relationship remained friendly, but the count did not forgive his wife for "half-betrayal".

The fatal quarrel between the spouses happened at the end of October 1910. Leo Tolstoy left home, leaving Sophia a farewell letter. He wrote that he loved her, but could not act otherwise.

Death

82-year-old Leo Tolstoy, accompanied by his personal doctor D.P. Makovitsky, left Yasnaya Polyana. On the way, the writer fell ill and got off the train at the Astapovo railway station. Lev Nikolayevich spent the last 7 days of his life in a house station superintendent... The whole country followed the news about Tolstoy's state of health.

The children and wife arrived at the Astapovo station, but Leo Tolstoy did not want to see anyone. The classic died on November 7, 1910: he died of pneumonia. His wife survived him by 9 years. Tolstoy was buried in Yasnaya Polyana.

Leo Tolstoy Quotes

• Everyone wants to change humanity, but no one thinks about how to change themselves.
• Everything comes to the one who knows how to wait.
• All happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
• Let everyone sweep in front of his door. If everyone does this, the whole street will be clean.
• It's easier to live without love. But there is no point without it.
• I don't have everything I love. But I love everything I have.
• The world is moving forward thanks to those who suffer.
• The greatest truths are the simplest.
• Everyone is making plans, and no one knows if he will live until the evening.

Bibliography

• 1869 - "War and Peace"
• 1877 - Anna Karenina
• 1899 - "Resurrection"
• 1852-1857 - "Childhood". "Adolescence". "Youth"
• 1856 - "Two Hussars"
• 1856 - "Morning of the Landowner"
• 1863 - "Cossacks"
• 1886 - "The Death of Ivan Ilyich"
• 1903 - "Diary of a Madman"
• 1889 - "The Kreutzer Sonata"
• 1898 - "Father Sergius"
• 1904 - "Hadji Murad"

Love the book, it will make your life easier, will help you in a friendly way to understand the colorful and stormy confusion of thoughts, feelings, events, it will teach you to respect a person and yourself, it inspires the mind and heart with a feeling of love for the world, for a person.

Maxim gorky

Literary began in 1850 with a move to Moscow from the parental Yasnaya Polyana. It was then that the writer began his first work - autobiographical tale Childhood is an unfinished work about the life of gypsies.
And in the same year, "The Story of Yesterday" was written - a story about experiences in one day.

In 1851, Tolstoy went to serve as a cadet in the Caucasus. This happened under the influence of one of the most authoritative men for the young Lev Nikolayevich - brother Nikolai, who then served as an artillery officer. In the Caucasus, Tolstoy completed his novel Childhood, his literary debut, which in 1852 was published in the Sovremennik magazine. This story, together with the next "Adolescence" and "Youth", became part of the famous autobiographical trilogy about the inner world child, teenager and youth Irteniev.

In the years 1851-1853. once a student, and now an aspiring writer, he took part in the Crimean War. Army life and participation in hostilities left in the memory of the writer indelible impressions and provided a huge amount of material for the military stories of 1852-1855: "Logging", "Raid" and "Sevastopol stories".

Here, for the first time, the reverse side of the war was described - the complex life and experiences of a person in war. Participation in the bloodiest war of the 19th century. and the artistic experience gained in the war stories of 1852-1855, the writer used a decade later in the work on his main work - the novel “