Lev Tolstoy- the most famous Russian writer, famous throughout the world for his works.

short biography

Born in 1828 in the Tula province into a noble family. He spent his childhood in the Yasnaya Polyana estate, where he received his primary education at home. He had three brothers and a sister. He was brought up by his guardians, so in early childhood, at the birth of his sister, his mother died, and later, in 1840, his father, which is why the whole family moved to relatives in Kazan. There he studied at Kazan University in two faculties, but decided to quit his studies and return to his native places.

Tolstoy spent two years in the army in the Caucasus. He bravely participated in several battles and was even awarded an order for the defense of Sevastopol. He could have had a good military career, but he wrote several songs ridiculing the military command, as a result of which he had to leave the army.

At the end of the 50s, Lev Nikolayevich went to travel across Europe and returned to Russia after the abolition of serfdom. During his travels, he was disappointed with the European way of life, as he saw a very large contrast between the rich and the poor. That is why, returning to Russia, he was glad that the peasants were now uplifted.

He got married, 13 children were born in marriage, 5 of whom died in childhood. His wife, Sophia, helped her husband by copying all her husband's creations in neat handwriting.

He opened several schools in which he furnished everything as he wanted. He himself made up the school curriculum - or rather, the absence of such. Discipline did not play a key role for him, he wanted the children to strive for knowledge themselves, so the main task of the teacher was to interest the students so that they would want to learn.

He was excommunicated for the fact that Tolstoy put forward his theories about what the church should be. Just a month before his death, he decided to secretly leave his native estate. As a result of the trip, he became very ill and died on November 7, 1910. The writer was buried in Yasnaya Polyana near the ravine, where he loved to play with his brothers as a child.

Literary contributions

Lev Nikolayevich began to write while studying at the University - mostly homework assignments compared to various literary works. It is believed that it was because of literature that he dropped out of school - he wanted to devote all his free time to reading.

In the army, he worked on his "Sevastopol Stories", and also, as already mentioned, composed songs for his colleagues. Upon his return from the army, he took part in a literary circle in St. Petersburg, from where he went to Europe. He noticed the peculiarities of people well and tried to reflect this in his works.

Tolstoy wrote many different works, but gained worldwide fame thanks to two novels - "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina", in which he accurately reflected the life of people of those times.

The contribution of this great writer to world culture is enormous - it was thanks to him that many people learned about Russia. His works are published to this day, they are used for performances and films.

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"The world, perhaps, did not know another artist in whom the eternally epic, Homeric principle would be as strong as that of Tolstoy. The element of the epic lives in his creations, its majestic monotony and rhythm, like the measured breath of the sea, its tart, powerful freshness , its searing spice, indestructible health, indestructible realism "

Thomas Mann

Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828 in the Yasnaya Polyana estate in the Tula province in the family of a landowner. Tolstoy's parents belonged to the highest nobility, even under Peter I, Tolstoy's paternal ancestors received the title of count. Lev Nikolayevich's parents died early, he only had a sister and three brothers. Tolstoy's aunt, who lived in Kazan, took over the custody of the children. The whole family moved in with her.

In 1844, Lev Nikolaevich entered the university at the oriental faculty, and then studied law. Tolstoy knew more than fifteen foreign languages ​​at the age of 19. He seriously studied history and literature. Studying at the university did not last long, Lev Nikolaevich left the university and returned home to Yasnaya Polyana. Soon he decides to leave for Moscow and devote himself to literary activity. His older brother, Nikolai Nikolaevich, leaves for the Caucasus, where the war was going on, as an artillery officer. Following the example of his brother, Lev Nikolayevich enters the army, receives an officer's rank and goes to the Caucasus. During the Crimean War, L. Tolstoy was transferred to the active Danube army, fought in besieged Sevastopol, commanding a battery. Tolstoy was awarded the Order of Anna ("For Bravery"), medals "For the Defense of Sevastopol", "In Memory of the War of 1853-1856".

In 1856, Lev Nikolaevich retired. After a while, he travels abroad (France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany).

Since 1859, Lev Nikolaevich has been actively involved in educational activities, opening a school for children of peasants in Yasnaya Polyana, and then promoting the opening of schools throughout the district, publishing the pedagogical journal Yasnaya Polyana. Tolstoy became seriously interested in pedagogy, studied foreign teaching methods. In order to deepen his knowledge in pedagogy, in 1860 he went abroad again.

After the abolition of serfdom, Tolstoy took an active part in resolving disputes between landowners and peasants, acting as a world mediator. For his activities, Lev Nikolaevich gains a reputation as an unreliable person, as a result of which a search was made in Yasnaya Polyana in order to find a secret printing house. Tolstoy's school is closed, the continuation of pedagogical activity becomes almost impossible. By this time, Lev Nikolaevich had already written the famous trilogy "Childhood. Adolescence. Youth.", The story "Cossacks", as well as many stories and articles. A special place in his work was occupied by "Sevastopol Stories", in which the author conveyed his impressions of the Crimean War.

In 1862, Lev Nikolaevich married Sofya Andreevna Bers, the daughter of a doctor, who became his faithful friend and assistant for many years. Sofya Andreevna took upon herself all the household chores, and besides, she became her husband's editor and his first reader. Tolstoy's wife rewrote all his novels by hand before sending them to the editorial office. It is enough to imagine how difficult it was to prepare "War and Peace" for publication in order to appreciate the dedication of this woman.

In 1873, Lev Nikolaevich finished work on Anna Karenina. By this time, Count Lev Tolstoy became a famous writer who received recognition, corresponded with many literary critics and authors, actively participating in public life.

In the late 70s - early 80s, Lev Nikolaevich was going through a serious spiritual crisis, trying to rethink the changes taking place in society and determine his position as a citizen. Tolstoy decides that it is necessary to take care of the well-being and enlightenment of the common people, that the nobleman has no right to be happy when the peasants are in distress. He is trying to start changes from his own estate, from the restructuring of his attitude towards the peasants. Tolstoy's wife insists on moving to Moscow, since the children need to get a good education. From that moment, conflicts in the family begin, since Sofya Andreevna tried to ensure the future of her children, and Lev Nikolaevich believed that the nobility was over and the time had come to live modestly, like the entire Russian people.

During these years, Tolstoy wrote philosophical works, articles, participated in the creation of the publishing house "Posrednik", which dealt with books for the common people, wrote the stories "The Death of Ivan Ilyich", "The History of a Horse", "The Kreutzer Sonata".

In 1889 - 1899 Tolstoy finished his novel "Resurrection".

At the end of his life, Lev Nikolaevich finally decides to break off the connection with a wealthy noble life, is engaged in charity work, education, changes the order on his estate, giving freedom to the peasants. Such a life position of Lev Nikolaevich became the cause of serious domestic conflicts and quarrels with his wife, who looked at life differently. Sofya Andreevna worried about the future of her children, was against the unreasonable, from her point of view, spending of Lev Nikolaevich. The quarrels became more and more serious, Tolstoy more than once made an attempt to leave home for good, the children experienced conflicts very hard. The former understanding in the family has disappeared. Sofya Andreevna tried to stop her husband, but then the conflicts escalated into attempts to divide property, as well as property rights to the works of Lev Nikolaevich.

Finally, on November 10, 1910, Tolstoy leaves his home in Yasnaya Polyana and leaves. Soon he falls ill with pneumonia, is forced to stop at Astapovo station (now Lev Tolstoy station) and dies there on November 23.

Test questions:
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2. Explain what is the relationship between the biography of the writer and his work.
3. Summarize the biographical data and determine the features of his
creative heritage.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy(August 28 (September 9) 1828, Yasnaya Polyana, Tula province, Russian Empire - November 7 (20) 1910, Astapovo station, Ryazan province, Russian Empire) - one of the most widely known Russian writers and thinkers, revered as one of the greatest writers of the world.

Born in the Yasnaya Polyana estate. Among the ancestors of the writer on the paternal side is an associate of Peter I - P.A.Tolstoy, who was one of the first in Russia to receive the title of count. A participant in the Patriotic War of 1812 was the father of the writer gr. N.I. Tolstoy. On the maternal side, Tolstoy belonged to the family of the Bolkonsky princes, related by kinship with the Trubetskoy, Golitsyn, Odoevsky, Lykov and other noble families. On his mother's side, Tolstoy was a relative of A.S. Pushkin.
When Tolstoy was nine years old, his father took him to Moscow for the first time, the impressions of his meeting with which were vividly conveyed by the future writer in the children's essay "The Kremlin". Moscow is here called "the greatest and most populous city in Europe", the walls of which "saw the shame and defeat of the invincible Napoleonic regiments." The first period of the Moscow life of young Tolstoy lasted less than four years. He was orphaned early, losing first his mother and then his father. With his sister and three brothers, young Tolstoy moved to Kazan. Here lived one of my father's sisters, who became their guardian.
Living in Kazan, Tolstoy spent two and a half years preparing to enter the university, where he studied from 1844, first at the oriental, and then at the law faculty. He studied Turkish and Tatar languages ​​with the famous Turkologist Professor Kazembek. In his mature period, the writer was fluent in English, French and German; read in Italian, Polish, Czech and Serbian; knew Greek, Latin, Ukrainian, Tatar, Church Slavonic; studied Hebrew, Turkish, Dutch, Bulgarian and other languages.
Classes in government programs and textbooks burdened Tolstoy the student. He was carried away by independent work on a historical theme and, leaving the university, left Kazan for Yasnaya Polyana, which he received through the division of his father's inheritance. Then he went to Moscow, where at the end of 1850 he began his writing career: an unfinished story from a gypsy life (the manuscript has not survived) and a description of one day he lived ("The Story of Yesterday"). At the same time, the story "Childhood" was started. Soon Tolstoy decided to go to the Caucasus, where his older brother, Nikolai Nikolaevich, an artillery officer, served in the active army. Enlisting in the army as a cadet, he later passed the exam for a junior officer's rank. The writer's impressions of the Caucasian War were reflected in the stories "Raid" (1853), "Cutting the Forest" (1855), "Demoted" (1856), in the story "Cossacks" (1852-1863). In the Caucasus, the story "Childhood" was completed, in 1852 published in the journal "Sovremennik".

When the Crimean War began, Tolstoy transferred from the Caucasus to the Danube Army, which was operating against the Turks, and then to Sevastopol, besieged by the combined forces of England, France and Turkey. Commanding a battery on the 4th bastion, Tolstoy was awarded the Order of Anna and medals "For the Defense of Sevastopol" and "In Memory of the War of 1853-1856." More than once Tolstoy was presented for the award with the battle of St. George's Cross, but he never received the "George". In the army, Tolstoy wrote a number of projects - on the reorganization of artillery batteries and the creation of rifled battalions, on the reorganization of the entire Russian army. Together with a group of officers of the Crimean Army, Tolstoy intended to publish the journal Soldiersky Vestnik (Military Leaflet), but its publication was not authorized by Emperor Nicholas I.
In the fall of 1856 he retired and soon went on a six-month trip abroad, visiting France, Switzerland, Italy and Germany. In 1859, Tolstoy opened a school for peasant children in Yasnaya Polyana, and then helped open more than 20 schools in the surrounding villages. To direct their activities along the right, from his point of view, path, he published the pedagogical journal "Yasnaya Polyana" (1862). In order to study the organization of school affairs in foreign countries, the writer went abroad for the second time in 1860.
After the manifesto of 1861, Tolstoy became one of the first call world mediators who sought to help the peasants resolve their disputes with the landlords about land. Soon in Yasnaya Polyana, when Tolstoy was away, the gendarmes searched in search of a secret printing house, which the writer allegedly started after communicating with A.I. Herzen in London. Tolstoy had to close the school and stop publishing a pedagogical journal. In total, he penned eleven articles on school and pedagogy ("On public education", "Upbringing and education", "On social activities in the field of public education" and others). In them, he described in detail the experience of his work with students ("Yasnaya Polyanskaya school for the months of November and December", "On methods of teaching literacy", "Who should learn to write from, our peasant children or we peasant children"). Tolstoy the teacher demanded a rapprochement between school and life, sought to place it at the service of the people's needs, and for this to intensify the processes of education and upbringing, to develop the creative abilities of children.
At the same time, already at the beginning of his career, Tolstoy becomes a supervised writer. One of the first works of the writer were the stories "Childhood", "Adolescence" and "Youth", "Youth" (which, however, was not written). As conceived by the author, they were to compose the novel "Four Epochs of Development".
In the early 1860s. the order of life of Tolstoy, his way of life, is established for decades. In 1862 he married the daughter of a Moscow doctor, Sofya Andreevna Bers.
The writer is working on the novel War and Peace (1863-1869). After completing War and Peace, Tolstoy spent several years studying materials about Peter I and his time. However, having written several chapters of the "Peter's" novel, Tolstoy abandoned his plan. In the early 1870s. the writer was again carried away by pedagogy. He put a lot of work into the creation of "ABC", and then "New ABC". At the same time he compiled "Books for Reading", where he included many of his stories.
In the spring of 1873, Tolstoy began and four years later finished work on a large novel about modernity, naming it after the main character - "Anna Karenina".
The spiritual crisis experienced by Tolstoy at the end of 1870 - early. 1880, ended with a turning point in his worldview. In Confessions (1879-1882), the writer speaks of a revolution in his views, the meaning of which he saw in a break with the ideology of the noble class and going over to the side of the “common working people”.
At the beginning of 1880. Tolstoy moved with his family from Yasnaya Polyana to Moscow, taking care of educating his growing children. In 1882, a census of the Moscow population took place, in which the writer took part. He saw the inhabitants of the city slums up close and described their terrible life in an article on the census and in the treatise "So What Should We Do?" (1882-1886). In them, the writer made the main conclusion: "... You can't live like that, you can't live like that, you can't!" "Confession" and "So what should we do?" represented works in which Tolstoy acted simultaneously as an artist and as a publicist, as a deep psychologist and a daring sociologist-analyst. Later, this kind of works - according to the genre of journalistic, but including artistic scenes and paintings saturated with elements of imagery - will take a large place in his work.
In these and subsequent years, Tolstoy also wrote religious and philosophical works: "Criticism of dogmatic theology", "What is my faith?" In them, the writer not only showed a change in his religious and moral views, but also subjected to a critical revision the main dogmas and principles of the teaching of the official church. In the middle of 1880. Tolstoy and his associates founded the Posrednik publishing house in Moscow, which printed books and pictures for the people. The first of Tolstoy's works, printed for the "common" people, was the story "How People Live". In it, as in many other works of this cycle, the writer made extensive use of not only folklore subjects, but also expressive means of oral creativity. Tolstoy's folk stories are thematically and stylistically related to his plays for folk theaters and, most of all, the drama The Power of Darkness (1886), which captures the tragedy of the post-reform village, where age-old patriarchal orders were crumbling under the rule of money.
In the 1880s. Tolstoy's novels The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Kholstomer (The History of the Horse) and The Kreutzer Sonata (1887-1889) appeared. In it, as well as in the story "The Devil" (1889-1890) and the story "Father Sergius" (1890-1898), the problems of love and marriage, the purity of family relations are posed.
On the basis of social and psychological contrast, Tolstoy's story "The Boss and the Worker" (1895) is built, stylistically connected with the cycle of his folk stories written in the 80s. Five years earlier, Tolstoy had written the comedy Fruits of Enlightenment for a "home play". It also shows "owners" and "workers": noble landowners living in the city and peasants who came from a hungry village, deprived of land. The images of the first are given satirically, the second is portrayed by the author as intelligent and positive people, but in some scenes they are also "presented" in an ironic light.
All these works of the writer are united by the idea of ​​an inevitable and close in time "denouement" of social contradictions, about replacing the obsolete social "order". “I don’t know what the denouement will be,” wrote Tolstoy in 1892, “but that the matter is approaching it and that life cannot continue in such forms, I am sure.” This idea inspired the largest work of the entire work of "late" Tolstoy - the novel "Resurrection" (1889-1899).
Less than ten years separate "Anna Karenina" from "War and Peace". "Resurrection" is separated from "Anna Karenina" by two decades. And although much distinguishes the third novel from the two previous ones, they are united by a truly epic scale in the depiction of life, the ability to "match" individual human destinies with the fate of the people in the narrative. Tolstoy himself pointed out the unity that exists between his novels: he said that "Resurrection" was written in the "old manner", meaning, first of all, the epic "manner" in which "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina ". "Resurrection" was the last novel in the writer's work.
At the beginning of 1900. The Holy Synod of Tolstoy excommunicated him from the Orthodox Church.
In the last decade of his life, the writer worked on the novella "Hadji Murad" (1896-1904), in which he sought to compare "the two poles of imperious absolutism" - the European, personified by Nicholas I, and the Asian, personified by Shamil. At the same time, Tolstoy creates one of his best plays - "The Living Corpse". Her hero - a kind-hearted, gentle, conscientious Fedya Protasov leaves the family, breaks off relations with his familiar environment, falls to the "bottom" and in the courthouse, unable to bear the lies, pretense, and pharisaism of "respectable" people, with a pistol shot at himself suicide. The article "I Can't Be Silent" written in 1908, in which he protested against the repressions against the participants in the events of 1905–1907, sounded sharp. The stories of the writer "After the ball", "For what?" Belong to the same period.
Weighed down by the way of life in Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy more than once planned and did not dare to leave her for a long time. But he could no longer live according to the principle "together-apart" and on the night of October 28 (November 10) secretly left Yasnaya Polyana. On the way, he fell ill with pneumonia and had to stop at the small station Astapovo (now Lev Tolstoy), where he died. On November 10 (23), 1910, the writer was buried in Yasnaya Polyana, in the forest, on the edge of a ravine, where, as a child, he and his brother were looking for a "green stick" that kept the "secret" of how to make all people happy.

Biography

Origin

Education

Military career

Traveling in Europe

Pedagogical activity

Family and offspring

The flowering of creativity

"War and Peace"

Anna Karenina

Other works

Religious quest

Excommunication

Philosophy

Bibliography

Tolstoy's translators

Worldwide recognition. Memory

Screen adaptations of his works

Documentary

Movies about Leo Tolstoy

Gallery of portraits

Tolstoy's translators

Graph Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy(August 28 (September 9) 1828 - November 7 (20), 1910) - one of the most widely known Russian writers and thinkers. Member of the defense of Sevastopol. Enlightener, publicist, religious thinker, whose authoritative opinion provoked the emergence of a new religious and moral trend - Tolstoyism.

The ideas of nonviolent resistance, which Leo Tolstoy expressed in his work "The Kingdom of God is within you," influenced Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

Biography

Origin

Descended from a noble family known, according to legendary sources, since 1353. His paternal ancestor, Count Pyotr Andreevich Tolstoy, is known for his role in the investigation of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, for which he was placed at the head of the Secret Chancellery. The features of Pyotr Andreevich's great-grandson, Ilya Andreevich, are given in War and Peace to the good-natured, impractical old Count Rostov. The son of Ilya Andreevich, Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy (1794-1837), was the father of Lev Nikolaevich. With some character traits and biographical facts, he looked like Nikolenka's father in Childhood and Adolescence, and partly on Nikolai Rostov in War and Peace. However, in real life, Nikolai Ilyich differed from Nikolai Rostov not only in his good education, but also in his convictions that did not allow him to serve under Nikolai. A participant in the foreign campaign of the Russian army, including participated in the "Battle of the Nations" near Leipzig and was captured by the French, after the conclusion of peace he retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel of the Pavlograd hussar regiment. Soon after his resignation, he was forced to join the civil service, so as not to end up in a debt prison due to the debts of his father, the Kazan governor, who died under investigation for official abuse. For several years Nikolai Ilyich had to save money. The negative example of his father helped Nikolai Ilyich develop his life ideal - a private, independent life with family joys. To put his upset affairs in order, Nikolai Ilyich, like Nikolai Rostov, married an ugly and no longer very young princess from the Volkonsky clan; the marriage was happy. They had four sons: Nikolai, Sergey, Dmitry and Lev and a daughter, Maria.

Tolstoy's maternal grandfather, Catherine's general, Nikolai Sergeevich Volkonsky, had some resemblance to the stern rigorist - the old prince Bolkonsky in War and Peace, but the version that he served as the prototype for the hero of War and Peace is rejected by many researchers of Tolstoy's work. Lev Nikolayevich's mother, similar in some respects to the Princess Marya depicted in War and Peace, had a wonderful gift of storytelling, for which, with her shyness passed on to her son, she had to lock herself up with a large number of listeners gathered around her in a dark room.

In addition to the Volkonskys, L.N. Tolstoy was closely related to some other aristocratic families: the princes Gorchakov, Trubetskoy and others.

Childhood

Born on August 28, 1828 in the Krapivensky district of the Tula province, in the hereditary estate of his mother - Yasnaya Polyana. Was the 4th child; his three older brothers: Nikolai (1823-1860), Sergei (1826-1904) and Dmitry (1827-1856). Sister Maria (1830-1912) was born in 1830. His mother died when he was not yet 2 years old.

A distant relative T.A.Yergolskaya took up the upbringing of orphaned children. In 1837, the family moved to Moscow, settling on Plyushchikha, because the eldest son had to prepare for entering the university, but his father suddenly died, leaving affairs (including some litigation related to the family's property) unfinished, and three younger ones children again settled in Yasnaya Polyana under the supervision of Ergolskaya and her paternal aunt, Countess A.M. Osten-Saken, who was appointed guardian of the children. Lev Nikolayevich stayed here until 1840, when Countess Osten-Saken died and the children moved to Kazan, to a new guardian - father's sister PI Yushkova.

The Yushkovs' house, somewhat provincial, but typically secular, was one of the funniest in Kazan; all family members highly appreciated the external shine. "My good aunt, - says Tolstoy, - pure being, she always said that she would not want anything more for me than for me to have a relationship with a 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 as a young man; but he did not have external data for that: he was ugly, as it seemed to him, awkward, and, moreover, his natural shyness hindered him. Everything that is told in " Adolescence" and " Adolescence"About the aspirations of Irteniev and Nekhlyudov for self-improvement, taken by Tolstoy from the history of his own ascetic attempts. The most diverse, as Tolstoy himself defines them, "speculations" about the main issues of our life - happiness, death, God, love, eternity - painfully tormented him in that era of life when his peers and brothers completely devoted themselves 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”, as it seemed to him, “destroying the freshness of feeling and clarity of reason” (“ Youth»).

Education

His education went first under the guidance of the French governor Saint-Thomas? (M-r Jerome "Boyhood"), replacing the good-natured German Reselman, whom he portrayed in "Childhood" under the name of Karl Ivanovich.

At the age of 15, in 1843, following his brother Dmitry, he entered the number of students of Kazan University, where Lobachevsky was a professor at the Faculty of Mathematics, and Kovalevsky at the East Faculty. Until 1847, he was preparing here for admission to the only Faculty of Oriental Studies in Russia at that time in the category of Arabic-Turkish literature. At the entrance exams, in particular, he showed excellent results in the "Turkish-Tatar language" compulsory for admission.

Due to the conflict between his family members and a teacher of Russian history and German, a certain Ivanov, according to the results of the year, he had a failure in the relevant subjects and had to re-pass the first year program. To avoid a complete repetition of the course, he transferred to the Faculty of Law, where his problems with grades in Russian history and German continued. The last was the eminent civil scientist Meyer; Tolstoy at one time became very interested in his lectures and even took a special topic for development - a comparison of "Esprit des lois" by Montesquieu and Catherine's "Order". From this, however, nothing came of it. Lev Tolstoy stayed at the Faculty of Law for less than two years: "Any education imposed by others was always difficult for him, and everything that he learned in life - he learned himself, suddenly, quickly, with hard work," Tolstaya writes in his "Materials for biographies of L. N. Tolstoy ".

It was at this time, being in the Kazan hospital, that he began to keep a diary, where, imitating Franklin, he sets himself goals and rules for self-improvement and notes successes and failures in completing these tasks, analyzes his shortcomings and train of thought and motives of his actions. In 1904 he recalled: “… for the first year… I did nothing. In the second year I began to study. .. there was professor Meyer who… gave me a job - comparing Catherine's Order with Montesquieu's Esprit des lois. … I was carried away by this work, 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. "

The beginning of literary activity

Leaving 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 new relations with the peasants.

I followed journalism very little; although his attempt to somehow smooth over the guilt of the nobility before the people dates back to the same year when Grigorovich's "Anton Goremyka" and the beginning of Turgenev's "Notes of a Hunter" appeared, but this is a simple coincidence. If there were literary influences here, it was of a 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 a huge number of goals and rules; it was possible to follow only a small number of them. Among those who succeeded are serious classes in English, music, and jurisprudence. 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 taught classes.

Having left for St. Petersburg, in the spring of 1848 he began to take an examination 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 visited Moscow, where he often succumbed to a passion for the game, frustrating his financial affairs a lot. During this period of his life, Tolstoy was especially passionately interested in music (he played the piano well and was very fond of classical composers). Exaggerated in relation to most people description of the action that "passionate" music produces, the author of the "Kreutzer Sonata" drew from the sensations excited by the world of sounds in his own soul.

Favorite composers of Tolstoy were Bach, Handel and Chopin. In the late 1840s, Tolstoy, in collaboration with his acquaintance, composed a waltz, which he performed in the early 1900s under the composer Taneyev, who made the 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 disoriented German musician, whom he later described in Albert. Tolstoy got the idea to save him: he took him to Yasnaya Polyana and played with him a lot. Much time was also spent on revelry, play and hunting.

In the winter of 1850-1851. began to write "Childhood". In March 1851 he wrote The History of Yesterday.

This happened after leaving the university for 4 years, when Tolstoy's brother Nikolai, who served in the Caucasus, came to Yasnaya Polyana and began to call him there. Tolstoy did not give up on his brother's call for a long time, until a major loss in Moscow helped the decision. To pay off, he had to cut his expenses to a minimum - and in the spring of 1851, Tolstoy hastily left Moscow for the Caucasus, at first without any definite purpose. Soon he decided to enter the military service, but there were obstacles in the form of a lack of necessary papers, which were difficult to obtain, and Tolstoy lived for about 5 months in complete seclusion 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 of Eroshka.

In the fall of 1851, Tolstoy, having passed an 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 of the inner life of Tolstoy, who fled from the capital's pool. The moods that Tolstoy-Olenin experienced are of a dual nature: here is a deep need to shake off the dust and soot of civilization and to live in a refreshing, clear bosom of nature, outside the empty conventions of urban and, especially, high society life, here is the desire to heal the wounds of pride, taken out of the pursuit of success in this "empty" life, there is a heavy consciousness of wrongdoing against the strict requirements of true morality.

In a remote village, Tolstoy began to write and in 1852 sent the first part of the future trilogy, Childhood, to the Sovremennik editorial office.

Comparatively later, the beginning of the 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 a less narrow sense of the predominance of literary interests. Purely literary interests always stood in the background of Tolstoy: he wrote when he wanted to write and the need to speak out was quite ripe, but in ordinary times he is a secular person, an officer, a landowner, a teacher, a world mediator, a preacher, a teacher of life, etc. never took the interests of literary parties to heart, he was far from willing to talk about literature, preferring to talk about questions of faith, morality, and social relations. Not a single work of him, in the words of Turgenev, "stinks of literature," that is, it 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 the author a kind letter, which had a very encouraging effect on him. He takes up the continuation of the trilogy, and plans for "Morning of the Landowner", "Raid", "Cossacks" are swarming in his head. Published in Sovremennik in 1852, Childhood, signed with the modest initials of L. N. T., was extremely successful; the author was immediately ranked among the luminaries of the young literary school, along with the already loud literary fame of Turgenev, Goncharov, Grigorovich, Ostrovsky. Criticism - Apollon Grigoriev, Annenkov, Druzhinin, Chernyshevsky - appreciated the depth of psychological analysis, and the seriousness of the author's intentions, and the bright convexity of realism, with all the veracity of the vividly captured details of the real life of someone alien to any vulgarity.

In the Caucasus, Tolstoy remained for two years, participating in many skirmishes with the mountaineers and being exposed to all the dangers of military life in the Caucasus. He had rights and claims to the St. George Cross, but did not receive it, which, apparently, was upset. When the Crimean War broke out at the end of 1853, Tolstoy transferred to the Danube army, took part in the battle at Oltenitsa and in 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 at Chornaya, was under a hell of a bombardment during the assault on Malakhov Kurgan. Despite all the horrors of the siege, Tolstoy wrote at this time a combat story from the life of the Caucasus "Cutting the forest" and the first of three "Sevastopol stories" "Sevastopol in December 1854". He sent this last story to Sovremennik. Immediately printed, the story was eagerly read by all of Russia and made a stunning impression with a picture of the horrors that fell to the lot of the defenders of Sevastopol. The story was noticed by Emperor Nicholas; he ordered the talented officer to be protected, which, however, was impracticable for Tolstoy, who did not want to go into the category of the "staff" he hated.

For the defense of Sevastopol, Tolstoy was awarded the Order of St. Anna with the inscription “For Bravery” and medals “For the Defense of Sevastopol 1854-1855” and “In Memory of the War of 1853-1856”. Surrounded by the glitter of fame and, using the reputation of a very brave officer, Tolstoy had every chance of a career, but he "spoiled" it for himself. This is almost the only time in his life (except for the "Combining different versions of epics into one" made for children in his pedagogical compositions), he indulged in poetry: he wrote a satirical song, in the manner of soldiers, about the unfortunate case 4 (August 16, 1855, when General Read, misunderstanding the command of the commander-in-chief, unreasonably attacked the Fedyukhinsky heights. The song (As of the 4th, the mountains carried us hard to take away), which touched a number of important generals, was a huge success and, of course, damaged the author. Immediately after the assault on August 27 (8 September) Tolstoy was sent by courier to St. Petersburg, where he finished "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 in Europe

In St. Petersburg he was warmly greeted both in high society salons and in literary circles; he became especially close with Turgenev, with whom he at one time lived in the same apartment. The latter introduced him to the circle of Sovremennik and other literary luminaries: he became on friendly terms with Nekrasov, Goncharov, Panaev, Grigorovich, Druzhinin, Sologub.

“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 playing cards, binges with gypsies ”(Levenfeld).

At this time, "Snowstorm", "Two Hussars" were written, "Sevastopol in August" and "Youth" were completed, and the writing of future "Cossacks" was continued.

The cheerful life did not hesitate to leave a bitter residue in Tolstoy's soul, especially since he began to have a strong discord with the circle of writers close to him. As a result, “the people were disgusted with him and he was disgusted with himself” - and at the beginning of 1857 Tolstoy left 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 deification of a villain, terrible"), at the same time he attends balls, museums, he admires the "sense of social freedom." However, the presence at the guillotine made such a heavy impression that Tolstoy left Paris and went to places associated with Rousseau - to Lake Geneva. At this time, Albert wrote the story and the story of Lucerne.

In the interval between the first and second trips, he continues to work on "Cossacks", wrote Three Deaths and Family Happiness. It was at this time that Tolstoy almost died on a bear hunt (December 22, 1858). He is having an affair with the peasant woman Aksinya, at the same time his need for marriage is maturing.

On the next trip, he was mainly interested in public education and institutions aimed at raising the educational level of the working population. He closely studied questions 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 Tales" 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 Lelevel. 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 further 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.

Pedagogical activity

He returned to Russia soon after the release of the peasants and became a world 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 masters must borrow the heights of the spirit from the peasants. He was actively engaged in the organization of 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 newest German pedagogy, Tolstoy resolutely rebelled against any regulation and discipline in the school; the only method of teaching and upbringing that he recognized was that no method was needed. Everything in teaching should be individual - both teacher and student, and their mutual relationship. In the Yasnaya Polyana school, the children sat where they wanted, who how much they wanted and who how they wanted. There was no specific teaching program. The teacher's only job was to keep the class interested. The classes were going well. They were led by Tolstoy himself with the help of several permanent teachers and several random ones, from his closest acquaintances and visitors.

Since 1862, he began to publish the pedagogical journal "Yasnaya Polyana", where he himself was again the main employee. In addition to theoretical articles, Tolstoy also wrote a number of short stories, fables and transcriptions. Tied together, Tolstoy's pedagogical articles made up an entire volume of his collected works. Tucked away in a very rare special magazine, they remained little noticed at the time. Nobody paid attention to the sociological basis of Tolstoy's ideas about education, to the fact that Tolstoy saw only facilitated and improved methods of exploiting the people by the upper classes in education, science, art and technological success. Moreover, from Tolstoy's attacks on European education and on the notion of "progress" that was popular at that time, many drew the conclusion that Tolstoy was a "conservative."

This curious misunderstanding lasted about 15 years, bringing closer to Tolstoy, for example, a writer who was organically opposite to him, as NN Strakhov. It was only in 1875 that NK Mikhailovsky, in his article "The Hand and the Shuytsa of Count Tolstoy," striking with the brilliance of analysis and foreseeing Tolstoy's future activities, outlined the spiritual image of the most original of Russian writers in the real light. The little attention that was paid to Tolstoy's pedagogical articles is partly due to the fact that little was done about him at that time.

Apollon Grigoriev had the right to call his article about Tolstoy ("Time", 1862) "Phenomena of modern literature, missed by our criticism." Extremely cordially welcoming the debits and credits of Tolstoy and the "Sevastopol Tales", recognizing in him the great hope of Russian literature (Druzhinin even used the epithet "genius" in relation to him), criticism then for 10-12 years, until the appearance of "War and Peace", not that he ceases to recognize him as a very great writer, but somehow grows cold towards him.

Among the stories and essays he wrote in the late 1850s are Lucerne and Three Deaths.

Family and offspring

In the late 1850s, he met Sophia Andreevna Bers (1844-1919), the daughter of a Moscow doctor from the Eastsee Germans. He was already in his fourth decade, Sofya Andreevna was only 17 years old. On September 23, 1862, he married her, and the fullness of family happiness fell to his lot. In the person of his wife, he found not only the most faithful and devoted friend, but also an irreplaceable helper in all matters, practical and literary. For Tolstoy, the brightest period of his life begins - the rapture of personal happiness, very significant due to the practicality of Sofya Andreevna, material well-being, the outstanding, easily given tension of literary creativity and, in connection with it, the unprecedented glory of all-Russian, and then worldwide.

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 estate museum. In 1925 she emigrated with her daughter. Daughter Tatiana Mikhailovna Sukhotina-Albertini 1905-1996
• Ilya (May 22, 1866 - December 11, 1933)
• Leo (1869-1945)
• Maria (1871-1906) Buried in the village. Cochetes of the Krapivensky district. Since 1897 she has been married to Nikolai Leonidovich Obolensky (1872-1934)
• Peter (1872-1873)
• Nikolay (1874-1875)
• Barbara (1875-1875)
• Andrew (1877-1916)
• Michael (1879-1944)
• Alexey (1881-1886)
• Alexandra (1884-1979)
• Ivan (1888-1895)

The flowering of creativity

During the first 10-12 years after marriage, he creates War and Peace and Anna Karenina. At the turn of this second era of Tolstoy's literary life, there are plans conceived back in 1852 and completed in 1861-1862. "Cossacks", the first of the works in which Tolstoy's great talent reached the level of a genius. For the first time in world literature, the difference between the brokenness of a cultured person, the absence of strong, clear moods in him, and the spontaneity of people close to nature was shown with such vividness and certainty.

Tolstoy showed that it is not at all the peculiarity of people close to nature that they are good or bad. The heroes of the works of Tolstoy the dashing horse thief Lukashka, a kind of dissolute girl Maryanka, the drunkard Eroshka, cannot be called good. But they cannot be called bad either, because they have no consciousness of evil; Eroshka is directly convinced that "There is no sin in anything"... Tolstoy's Cossacks are just living people, for whom not a single emotional movement is clouded by reflection. The Cossacks were not assessed in a timely manner. At that time, everyone was too proud of the "progress" and success of civilization to be interested in how a representative of culture defied some half-savages before the force of direct spiritual movements.

"War and Peace"

Unprecedented success fell to the lot of "War and Peace". An excerpt from the novel entitled "Year 1805" appeared in the "Russian Bulletin" in 1865; in 1868, three parts of it came out, followed shortly by the other two.

Recognized by the critics of the whole world as the greatest epic work of new European literature, "War and Peace" amazes from a purely technical point of view by the size of its fictional canvas. Only in painting can one find some parallel in the huge paintings of Paolo Veronese in the Venetian Palace of the Doges, where hundreds of faces are also painted with amazing clarity and individual expression. All classes of society are represented in Tolstoy's novel, from emperors and kings to the last soldier, all ages, all temperaments and in the space of the whole reign of Alexander I.

Anna Karenina

The endlessly joyful rapture of the bliss of being is no longer in Anna Karenina, which dates back to 1873-1876. There is still a lot of gratifying experience in the almost autobiographical novel of Levin and Kitty, but there is already so much bitterness in the depiction of Dolly's family life, in the unhappy end of Anna Karenina and Vronsky's love, so much anxiety in Levin's mental life that, in general, this novel is already a transition to the third period. literary activity of Tolstoy.

In January 1871, Tolstoy sent a letter to A.A. Fet: "How happy I am ... that I will never write verbose nonsense like War again.".

On December 6, 1908, Tolstoy wrote in his diary: "People love me for those trifles -" War and Peace ", etc., which they think are very important"

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 like someone came to Edison and said: 'I really respect you for dancing the mazurka well.' I ascribe meaning to my completely different books (religious!) ".

In the sphere of material interests, he began to say to himself: "Well, well, you will have 6,000 dessiatines in the Samara province - 300 heads of horses, and then?"; in the field of literary: "Well, okay, you will be more glorious than Gogol, Pushkin, Shakespeare, Moliere, all the writers in the world - so what of it!"... When he started thinking about raising children, he asked himself: "why?"; reasoning "About how the people can achieve prosperity," he "suddenly said to himself: what is it to me?" In general, he “I felt that what he was standing on had broken, that what he was living on was no longer there”... The natural result was the thought of suicide.

“I, a happy person, hid the lace from myself so as not to hang myself on the crossbar between the cupboards 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 did not know what I want: I was afraid of life, I strove away from it and, meanwhile, hoped for something else from it. "

Other works

In March 1879, in the city of Moscow, Leo Tolstoy met Vasily Petrovich Shchegolenok and in the same year, at his invitation, he came to Yasnaya Polyana, where he stayed for about a month or a month and a half. The goldfinch told Tolstoy a lot of folk tales and epics, of which more than twenty were written down by Tolstoy, and the plots of some, Tolstoy, if not written down on paper, then remembered (these records are printed in volume XLVIII of the Jubilee edition of Tolstoy's works). Six works written by Tolstoy have a source of legends and stories of the Goldfinch (1881 - " Than people are alive", 1885 -" Two old men" and " Three elders", 1905 -" Korney Vasiliev" and " Prayer", 1907 -" Old man in church"). In addition, Count Tolstoy diligently wrote down many sayings, proverbs, individual expressions and words told by the Goldfinch.

Literary criticism of Shakespeare's works

In his critical essay On Shakespeare and the Drama, based on a detailed analysis of some of Shakespeare's most popular works, in particular: King Lear, Othello, Falstaff, Hamlet, etc. - Tolstoy sharply criticized Shakespeare's abilities as a playwright.

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 Metropolitan Macarius (Bulgakov's) Orthodox Dogmatic Theology. Conducted conversations with priests and monks, went to the elders in Optina Pustyn, read theological treatises. In order to learn in the original the primary sources of Christian teaching, he studied the ancient Greek and Hebrew languages ​​(in the study of the latter he was helped by the Moscow rabbi Shlomo Minor). At the same time, he looked closely at the schismatics, became close to the thoughtful peasant Syutaev, talked with the Molokans, the Stundists. Also, Tolstoy was looking for the meaning of life in the study of philosophy and in acquaintance with the results of the exact sciences. He made a number of attempts to simplify more and more, striving to live a life close to nature and agricultural life.

Gradually, he abandons the whims and conveniences of a rich life, does a lot of physical labor, dresses in the simplest clothes, becomes a vegetarian, gives the family all his large fortune, and renounces literary property rights. On this basis, the unalloyed pure impulse and striving for moral improvement creates the third period of Tolstoy's literary activity, a 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 fully set forth only in foreign editions of his religious and social treatises.

Any unanimous attitude was not established even in relation to the fictional works of Tolstoy, written during this period. So, in a long series of small stories and legends, intended mainly for folk reading ("How people live", etc.), Tolstoy, in the opinion of his unconditional admirers, reached the pinnacle of artistic power - that spontaneous skill that is given only to folk legends, therefore that they embody the creativity of an entire people. On the contrary, in the opinion of people who are indignant at Tolstoy for turning from an artist into a preacher, these artistic teachings, written with a definite purpose, are crudely tendentious. The lofty and terrible truth of "The Death of Ivan Ilyich", according to fans, placing this work along with the main works of Tolstoy's genius, according to others, is deliberately harsh, deliberately sharply emphasizes the soullessness of the upper strata of society in order to show the moral superiority of a simple "kitchen man" Gerasim. The explosion of the most opposite feelings, caused by the analysis of marital relations and the indirect demand for abstinence from marriage, in the "Kreutzer Sonata" made one forget about the amazing brightness and passion with which this story was written. The folk drama Power of Darkness, in the opinion of Tolstoy's admirers, is a great manifestation of his artistic power: Tolstoy managed to accommodate so many common human features within the narrow framework of ethnographic reproduction of Russian peasant life that the drama with tremendous success bypassed all the scenes of the world.

In the last major work of 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 his artistic power has certainly suffered from the predominance of theoretical interests and that creativity is now only needed by Tolstoy, in order to propagate his social and religious views in a public form. In his aesthetic treatise ("On Art") one can find enough material to declare Tolstoy an enemy of art: in addition to what Tolstoy here partly completely denies, partly he significantly belittles the artistic significance of Dante, Raphael, Goethe, Shakespeare (in the presentation of Hamlet he experienced "special suffering" for this "false semblance of works of art"), Beethoven and others, he directly comes to the conclusion that "the more we surrender ourselves to beauty, the more we move away from good."

Excommunication

Belonging to the Orthodox Church by birth and baptism, Tolstoy, like most representatives of the educated society of his time, in his youth and youth was indifferent to religious issues. In the mid-1870s, he showed an increased interest in the teaching and worship of the Orthodox Church. The second half of 1879 became a turning point away from the teachings of the Orthodox Church. In the 1880s, he took the position of an unambiguously critical attitude towards church doctrine, clergy, and official church life. The publication of some of Tolstoy's works was prohibited by the spiritual and secular censorship. In 1899 Tolstoy's novel "Resurrection" was published, in which the author showed the life of various social strata of contemporary Russia; the clergy was depicted as mechanically and hastily performing the 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 inclined to the idea of ​​publicly condemning Tolstoy and declaring him to be outside the church. Metropolitan Anthony (Vadkovsky) played an active role in this. As it appears in the chamber-furrier magazines, 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 style), 1901, in the official organ of the Synod, "Church Gazette, published under His Holiness the Governing Senod" was published "Determination of the Holy Synod of February 20-22, 1901 No. 557, with a message to the faithful children of the Orthodox Greek Russian Church about Count Leo Tolstoy":

In his Answer to the Synod, Leo Tolstoy confirmed his break with the Church: “The fact that I have renounced a church that calls itself Orthodox is absolutely true. But I denied her not because I rebelled against the Lord, but on the contrary, only because I wanted to serve him with all the strength of my soul. " However, Tolstoy objected to the charges brought against him in the definition of the synod: “The resolution of the synod generally has many shortcomings. It is illegal or intentionally ambiguous; it is arbitrary, unsubstantiated, untrue and, moreover, contains slander and incitement to bad feelings and actions. " In the text of "Answer to the Synod", Tolstoy reveals these theses in detail, recognizing a number of significant discrepancies between the dogmas of the Orthodox Church and his own understanding of the teaching of Christ.

The synodal definition aroused the indignation of a certain part of society; Numerous letters and telegrams were sent to Tolstoy's address expressing sympathy and support. At the same time, this definition provoked a stream of letters from the other part of society - with threats and abuse.

At the end of February 2001, the great-grandson of Count Vladimir Tolstoy, manager of the museum-estate of the writer in Yasnaya Polyana, sent a letter to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II with a request to revise the synodal definition; In an unofficial interview on television, the Patriarch said: "We cannot revise now, because after all, it is possible to revise if a person changes his position." In March 2009, Vl. Tolstoy expressed his opinion on the significance of the synodal act: “I studied the documents, read the newspapers of that time, got acquainted with the materials of public discussions around excommunication. And I got the feeling that this act gave a signal for a total split in Russian society. The reigning family, the higher aristocracy, the local nobility, the intelligentsia, the raznochin strata, and the common people split. A crack went through the body of the entire Russian, Russian people. "

Moscow census of 1882. L. N. Tolstoy - census participant

The 1882 census in Moscow is famous for the fact that the great writer Count Leo Tolstoy took part in it. Lev Nikolayevich wrote: "I suggested using the census in order to find out poverty in Moscow and help it with business and money, and make sure that the poor were not in Moscow."

Tolstoy believed that for society the interest and significance of the census lies in the fact that it gives him a mirror, in which you want or don’t want, the whole society and each of us will look. He chose for himself one of the most difficult and difficult sections, Protochny Lane, where the shelter was located, in the midst of Moscow's dullness this gloomy two-story building was called the "Rzhanova Fortress". Having received an order from the Duma, Tolstoy, a few days before the census, began to bypass the site according to the plan he had been given. Indeed, the filthy shelter, filled with beggars and desperate people who had sunk to the very bottom, served as a mirror for Tolstoy, reflecting the terrible poverty of the people. Freshly impressed by what he saw, Leo Tolstoy wrote his famous article "On the census in Moscow." In this article, he writes:

Despite the good goals of the census declared by Tolstoy, the population was suspicious of this event. On this occasion, Tolstoy writes: “When they explained to us that the people had already learned about the rounds of apartments and were leaving, we asked the owner to lock the gates, and we ourselves went into the courtyard to persuade the people who were leaving.” Lev Nikolayevich hoped to arouse sympathy in the rich for urban poverty, raise money, recruit people willing to contribute to this business and, together with the census, go through all the dens of poverty. In addition to fulfilling the duties of a scribe, the writer wanted to get in touch with the unfortunate, find out the details of their needs and help them with money and work, expulsion from Moscow, placing children in schools, old people and old women in orphanages and almshouses.

According to the results of the census, the population of Moscow in 1882 was 753.5 thousand people, and only 26% were born in Moscow, and the rest were "newcomers". Of the Moscow residential apartments, 57% went outside, 43% to the courtyard. From the 1882 census, one can find out that in 63% the head of the household is the married couple, in 23% - the wife and only 14% - the husband. The census recorded 529 families with 8 or more children. 39% have servants, and most often they are women.

Last years of life. Death and burial

In October 1910, fulfilling his decision to live the last years according to his views, he secretly left Yasnaya Polyana. He began his last journey at the station of Kozlova Zaseka; on the way he fell ill with pneumonia and had to make a stop at the small station 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 kept 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 on her husband's grave by a certain priest (she refutes rumors that he was fake) in her presence. In particular, the Countess wrote: “I also declare that Lev Nikolayevich never before his death expressed a desire not to be inveted, but earlier he wrote in his diary in 1895, as if a testament:“ If possible, then (bury) without priests and funeral services. But if it is unpleasant for those who will bury, then let them bury, as usual, but as cheap and simple as possible. "

There is also an unofficial version of the death of Leo Tolstoy, set out in exile by I.K. Sursky, according to a Russian police official. According to her, the writer, before his death, wanted to be reconciled with the church and came to Optina Pustyn for this. Here he was awaiting an order from the Synod, but feeling unwell, he was taken away by his daughter who had arrived and died at the Astapovo post station.

Philosophy

Tolstoy's religious and moral imperatives were the source of the Tolstoyan movement, one of the fundamental theses of which is the thesis of "non-resistance to evil by force." The latter, according to Tolstoy, is recorded in a number of places in the Gospel and is the core of Christ's teaching, as well as Buddhism. The essence of Christianity, according to Tolstoy, can be expressed in a simple rule: “ Be kind and do not resist evil by force».

Ilyin I.A., in particular, spoke out against the position of non-resistance, which gave rise to controversies in the philosophical environment, in his work "On Resisting Evil by Force" (1925)

Criticism of Tolstoy and Tolstoyism

• The Chief Prosecutor of the Most Holy Synod of Victory Bearers, in his private letter dated February 18, 1887 to Emperor Alexander III, wrote about Tolstoy's drama The Power of Darkness: “I have just read a new drama by L. Tolstoy and cannot recover from horror. And they assure me that they are preparing to give it at the Imperial Theaters and are already learning the roles. I don’t know anything like that in any literature. Zola himself has hardly reached such a degree of rough realism that Tolstoy becomes here. The day on which Tolstoy's drama will be presented at the Imperial Theaters will be decisive fall our stage, which has already dropped very low. "

• The leader of the extreme left wing of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party, V.I. he is ridiculous, like a prophet who discovered new recipes for the salvation of mankind, and therefore the foreign and Russian "Tolstoyans" who wished to turn the weakest side of his teaching into a dogma are absolutely scanty. Tolstoy is great as an exponent of the ideas and moods that had developed among millions of the Russian peasantry at the time of the onset of the bourgeois revolution in Russia. Tolstoy is original, for the totality of his views, taken as a whole, expresses precisely the peculiarities of our revolution as a peasant bourgeois revolution. The contradictions in Tolstoy's views, from this point of view, are a real mirror of those contradictory conditions in which the historical activity of the peasantry was placed in our revolution. ".
• The Russian religious philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev wrote at the beginning of 1918: “L. Tolstoy must be recognized as the greatest Russian nihilist, the destroyer of all values ​​and shrines, the destroyer of culture. Tolstoy triumphed, his anarchism triumphed, his non-resistance, his denial of the state and culture, his moralistic demand for equality in poverty and non-existence and submission to the peasant kingdom and physical labor. But this triumph of Tolstoyism turned out to be less meek and beautiful-hearted than Tolstoy had imagined. It is unlikely that he himself would have rejoiced at such a triumph of his. The godless nihilism of Tolstoyism is exposed, its terrible poison destroying the Russian soul. For the salvation of Russia and Russian culture with a hot iron, it is necessary to burn out from the Russian soul Tolstoy's morality, low and destructive. "

His article “The Spirits of the Russian Revolution” (1918): “There is nothing prophetic in Tolstoy, he did not anticipate or predict anything. As an artist, he faces a crystallized past. He did not have that sensitivity to the dynamism of human nature that Dostoevsky had to the highest degree. But in the Russian revolution it is not Tolstoy's artistic insights that triumph, but his moral assessments. Tolstoyans in the narrow sense of the word, who share the doctrine of Tolstoy, are few, and they represent an insignificant phenomenon. But Tolstoyism in a broad, non-doctrinal sense of the word is very characteristic of a Russian person, it determines Russian moral assessments. Tolstoy was not a direct teacher of the Russian left intelligentsia; Tolstoy's religious teaching was alien to her. But Tolstoy grasped and expressed the peculiarities of the moral makeup of the majority of the Russian intelligentsia, perhaps even the Russian man-intellectual, perhaps even the Russian man in general. And the Russian revolution is a kind of triumph of Tolstoyism. Both Tolstoy's Russian moralism and Russian immorality were imprinted on it. This Russian moralism and this Russian immorality are interconnected and are two sides of the same disease of moral consciousness. Tolstoy managed to instill in the Russian intelligentsia a hatred for everything historically individual and historically different. He was the spokesman for that side of Russian nature that abhorred historical power and historical glory. This he taught to moralize in an elementary and simplified way over history and to transfer to historical life the moral categories of individual life. By this he morally undermined the possibility for the Russian people to live a historical life, to fulfill their historical destiny and historical mission. He morally prepared the historical suicide of the Russian people. He clipped the wings of the Russian people as a historical people, morally poisoned the sources of every impulse to historical creativity. The world war was lost by Russia because Tolstoy's moral assessment of the war prevailed in it. In the terrible hour of the world struggle, the Russian people were weakened by Tolstoy's moral assessments, in addition to betrayal and animal selfishness. Tolstoy's morality disarmed Russia and delivered it into the hands of the enemy. "

• V. Mayakovsky, D. Burliuk, V. Khlebnikov, A. Kruchenykh, called for "to throw Tolstoy L. N. and others from the steamer of our time" in the 1912 Futurist manifesto "Slap in the face of public taste"
• George Orwell defended Tolstoy W. Shakespeare against criticism

• Researcher of the history of Russian theological thought and culture Georgy Florovsky (1937): “There is one decisive contradiction in Tolstoy's experience. He undoubtedly had the temperament of a preacher or a moralist, but he had no religious experience at all. Tolstoy was not at all religious, he was religiously mediocre. Tolstoy did not derive his “Christian” worldview from the Gospel at all. He already verifies the gospel with his own view, and therefore he so easily trims it down and adapts it. For him, the Gospel is a book compiled many centuries ago by “poorly educated and superstitious people,” and it cannot be accepted in its entirety. But Tolstoy does not mean scientific criticism, but simply personal choice or selection. Tolstoy, in some strange way, seemed to be late mentally in the 18th century, and therefore found himself outside of history and modernity. And he deliberately leaves the present into some kind of contrived past. All his work is in this respect some kind of continuous moralistic Robinsonade. Annenkov also called Tolstoy's mind sectarian... There is a striking discrepancy between the aggressive maximalism of Tolstoy's socio-ethical denials and denials and the extreme poverty of his positive moral teaching. All morality for him is reduced to common sense and to worldly prudence. “Christ teaches us exactly how we can get rid of our misfortunes and live happily.” And this is what the whole Gospel comes down to! Here Tolstoy's insensibility becomes creepy, and “common sense” turns into madness ... abandoning history, only by leaving culture and simplifying, that is, by removing questions and abandoning tasks. Moralism in Tolstoy turns around historical nihilism.»

• The holy righteous John of Kronstadt sharply criticized Tolstoy (see "Father John of Kronstadt's response to Count Leo Tolstoy's appeal to the clergy"), and in his dying diary (August 15 - October 2, 1908) he wrote:

"24 August. How long, Where, do you endure the worst atheist who confused the whole world, Leo Tolstoy? How long do you not call him to your judgment? Behold, I am coming soon, and will My wages with Me reward commensurately for his work? (Rev; Rev. 22, 12) Where, the earth is tired of enduring his blasphemy. - "
"6 September. Where, do not allow Leo Tolstoy, a heretic who surpassed all heretics, to reach before the feast of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, whom he terribly blasphemed and blasphemed. Take it from the ground - this stinking corpse, with its pride, has made the whole earth stink. Amen. 9 pm. "

• In 2009, as part of the court case on the liquidation of the local religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses Taganrog, a forensic examination was carried out, in the conclusion of which Leo Tolstoy's statement was cited: the same collection of the crudest superstitions and witchcraft, which completely conceals the whole meaning of Christian teaching, ”which was characterized as forming a negative attitude towards the Russian Orthodox Church, and Leo Tolstoy himself - as“ an enemy of Russian Orthodoxy ”.

Expert assessment of individual statements of Tolstoy

• In 2009, as part of a court case on the liquidation of the local religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses Taganrog, a forensic examination of the organization's literature was carried out for signs of incitement to religious hatred, undermining respect and hostility towards other religions. The experts concluded that Awake! contains (without specifying the source) the statement of Leo Tolstoy: “I became convinced that the teaching of the [Russian Orthodox] Church is theoretically an insidious and harmful lie, but in practice it is a collection of the most crude superstitions and witchcraft that completely conceals the whole meaning of Christian teaching,” which was described as formative negative attitude and undermining respect for the Russian Orthodox Church, and Leo Tolstoy himself - as an "enemy of Russian Orthodoxy."

• In March 2010, in the Kirovsky court of Yekaterinburg, Lev Tolstoy was accused "of inciting religious hatred towards the Orthodox Church." Extremism expert Pavel Suslonov testified: "Lev Tolstoy's leaflets" Preface to the Soldiers 'Memo "and" Officers' Memo "" directed to soldiers, sergeant major and officers, contain direct calls for inciting sectarian hatred directed against the Orthodox Church. "

Bibliography

Tolstoy's translators

• In Azerbaijani language - Dadash-zade, Mamed Arif Maharram oglu
• Into English - Constance Garnett, Leo Wiener, Elmer and Louis Maude (en: Aylmer and Louise Maude)
• In Bulgarian - Sava Nichev, Georgi Shopov, Hristo Dosev
• In Spanish - Selma Ansira
• In Kazakh language - Ibrai Altynsarin
• Into Malay - Victor Pogadaev
• In Norwegian - Martin Grahn, Olaf Broch, Martha Grundt
• In French - Michel Okouturier, Vladimir Lvovich Binstok
• Esperanto - Valentin Melnikov, Victor Sapozhnikov
• In Japanese - Konishi Masutaro

Worldwide recognition. Memory

Museums

In the former estate "Yasnaya Polyana" there is a museum dedicated to his life and work.

The main literary exposition about his life and work is in the Leo Tolstoy State Museum, in the former house of the Lopukhins-Stanitskaya (Moscow, Prechistenka 11); its branches also: at the Lev Tolstoy station (former Astapovo station), the memorial museum-estate of Leo Tolstoy "Khamovniki" (Lev Tolstoy street, 21), the exhibition hall on Pyatnitskaya.

Scientists, cultural figures, politicians about L.N. Tolstoy

Screen adaptations of his works

• "Resurrection"(eng. Resurrection, 1909, UK). 12-minute silent film based on the novel of the same name (filmed during the writer's lifetime).
• "The power of darkness"(1909, Russia). Silent movie.
• Anna Karenina(1910, Germany). Silent movie.
• Anna Karenina(1911, Russia). Silent movie. Dir. - Maurice Meter
• "Living Dead"(1911, Russia). Silent movie.
• "War and Peace"(1913, Russia). Silent movie.
• Anna Karenina(1914, Russia). Silent movie. Dir. - V. Gardin
• Anna Karenina(1915, USA). Silent movie.
• "The power of darkness"(1915, Russia). Silent movie.
• "War and Peace"(1915, Russia). Silent movie. Dir. - Y. Protazanov, V. Gardin
• "Natasha Rostova"(1915, Russia). Silent movie. Producer - A. Khanzhonkov. Cast - V. Polonsky, I. Mozzhukhin
• "Living Dead"(1916). Silent movie.
• Anna Karenina(1918, Hungary). Silent movie.
• "The power of darkness"(1918, Russia). Silent movie.
• "Living Dead"(1918). Silent movie.
• "Father Sergius"(1918, RSFSR). Silent motion picture film by Yakov Protazanov, starring Ivan Mozzhukhin
• Anna Karenina(1919, Germany). Silent movie.
• "Polikushka"(1919, USSR). Silent movie.
• "Love"(1927, USA. Based on the novel "Anna Karenina"). Silent movie. Greta Garbo as Anna
• "Living Dead"(1929, USSR). Cast - V. Pudovkin
• Anna Karenina(Anna Karenina, 1935, USA). Sound film. Greta Garbo as Anna
• « Anna Karenina "(Anna Karenina, 1948, UK). Vivien Leigh as Anna
• "War and Peace"(War & Peace, 1956, USA, Italy). Audrey Hepburn as Natasha Rostova
• "Agi Murad il diavolo bianco"(1959, Italy, Yugoslavia). Steve Reeves as Hadji Murat
• "People too"(1959, USSR, after a fragment of "War and Peace"). Dir. G. Danelia, starring V. Sanaev, L. Durov
• "Resurrection"(1960, USSR). Dir. - M. Schweitzer
• Anna Karenina(Anna Karenina, 1961, USA). Sean Connery as Vronsky
• "Cossacks"(1961, USSR). Dir. - V. Pronin
• Anna Karenina(1967, USSR). Tatiana Samoilova as Anna
• "War and Peace"(1968, USSR). Dir. - S. Bondarchuk
• "Living Dead"(1968, USSR). In ch. roles - A. Batalov
• "War and Peace"(War & Peace, 1972, UK). Soap opera. Anthony Hopkins as Pierre
• "Father Sergius"(1978, USSR). Feature film by 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 "Fake Coupon"). Dir. - Robert Bresson
• "Two hussars"(1984, USSR). Dir. - Vyacheslav Krishtofovich
• Anna Karenina(Anna Karenina, 1985, USA). Jacqueline Bisset as Anna
• "Simple death"(1985, USSR, based on the story "The Death of Ivan Ilyich"). Dir. - A. Kaidanovsky
• "The Kreutzer Sonata"(1987, USSR). Cast - Oleg Yankovsky
• "For what?" (Za co?, 1996, Poland / Russia). Dir. - Jerzy Kavalerowicz
• Anna Karenina(Anna Karenina, 1997, USA). Sophie Marceau as Anna, Sean Bean as Vronsky
• Anna Karenina(2007, Russia). Tatiana Drubich as Anna

For more details see: List of screen versions of "Anna Karenina" 1910-2007.

• "War and Peace"(2007, Germany, Russia, Poland, France, Italy). Soap opera. Alessio Boni as Andrei Bolkonsky.

Documentary

• "Lev Tolstoy". Documentary. TsSDF (RTSSDF). 1953.47 minutes.

Movies about Leo Tolstoy

• "The departure of the great old man"(1912, Russia). Director - Yakov Protazanov
• "Lev Tolstoy"(1984, USSR, Czechoslovakia). Director - S. Gerasimov
• "The last station"(2008). Christopher Plummer as L. Tolstoy, Helen Mirren as Sophia Tolstoy. A film about the last days of the writer's life.

Gallery of portraits

Tolstoy's translators

• In Japanese - Konishi Masutaro
• In French - Michel Okouturier, Vladimir Lvovich Binstok
• In Spanish - Selma Ansira
• Into English - Constance Garnett, Leo Wiener, Elmer and Louis Maude (en: Aylmer and Louise Maude)
• In Norwegian - Martin Grahn, Olaf Broch, Martha Grundt
• In Bulgarian - Sava Nichev, Georgi Shopov, Hristo Dosev
• In Kazakh language - Ibrai Altynsarin
• Into Malay - Victor Pogadaev
• Esperanto - Valentin Melnikov, Victor Sapozhnikov
• In Azerbaijani language - Dadash-zade, Mamed Arif Maharram oglu

Lev Tolstoy is one of the most famous writers and philosophers in the world. His views and beliefs formed the basis of a whole religious and philosophical movement called Tolstoyism. The literary legacy of the writer consisted of 90 volumes of fiction and journalistic works, diary notes and letters, and he himself was repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Nobel Peace Prize.

"Do all that you have determined to be done"

Family tree of Leo Tolstoy. Image: regnum.ru

Silhouette of Maria Tolstoy (nee Volkonskaya), mother of Leo Tolstoy. 1810th. Image: wikipedia.org

Leo Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828 in the Yasnaya Polyana estate, Tula province. He was the fourth child in a large noble family. Tolstoy was orphaned early. His mother died when he was not yet two years old, and at the age of nine he lost his father as well. The aunt, Alexandra Osten-Saken, became the guardian of the Tolstoy's five children. The two older children moved to their aunt in Moscow, while the younger ones remained in Yasnaya Polyana. The most important and dear memories of Leo Tolstoy's early childhood are connected with the family estate.

In 1841, Alexandra Osten-Saken died, and the Tolstoys moved to Kazan with their aunt Pelageya Yushkova. Three years after the move, Lev Tolstoy decided to enter the prestigious Imperial Kazan University. However, he did not like studying, he considered exams a formality, and university professors - incompetent. Tolstoy did not even try to get a scientific degree, in Kazan he was more attracted to secular entertainment.

In April 1847, Leo Tolstoy's student life ended. He inherited his part of the estate, including his beloved Yasnaya Polyana, and immediately went home without receiving a higher education. In the family estate, Tolstoy tried to improve his life and start writing. He drew up his educational plan: to study languages, history, medicine, mathematics, geography, law, agriculture, natural sciences. However, he soon came to the conclusion that it was easier to make plans than to implement them.

Tolstoy's asceticism was often replaced by revelry and card games. Wanting to start the right, in his opinion, life, he made up the daily routine. But he did not observe it either, and in his diary he again noted his dissatisfaction with himself. All these failures prompted Leo Tolstoy to change his lifestyle. The case presented itself in April 1851: the elder brother Nikolai arrived in Yasnaya Polyana. At that time he served in the Caucasus, where the war was going on. Leo Tolstoy decided to join his brother and went with him to a village on the banks of the Terek River.

On the outskirts of the empire, Leo Tolstoy served for almost two and a half years. He whiled away the time hunting, playing cards, and occasionally raiding enemy territory. Tolstoy liked such a solitary and monotonous life. It was in the Caucasus that the story "Childhood" was born. While working on it, the writer found a source of inspiration that remained important to him until the end of his life: he used his own memories and experiences.

In July 1852, Tolstoy sent the manuscript of the story to the Sovremennik magazine and attached a letter: “… I look forward to your verdict. He will either encourage me to continue my favorite activities, or make me burn everything I started. "... The editor Nikolai Nekrasov liked the work of the new author, and soon Childhood was published in the magazine. Encouraged by his first success, the writer soon began the sequel to Childhood. In 1854, he published a second story, Boyhood, in the Sovremennik magazine.

"The main thing is literary works"

Leo Tolstoy in his youth. 1851. Image: school-science.ru

Lev Tolstoy. 1848. Image: regnum.ru

Lev Tolstoy. Image: old.orlovka.org.ru

At the end of 1854, Leo Tolstoy arrived in Sevastopol - the epicenter of hostilities. Being in the thick of things, he created the story "Sevastopol in the month of December." Although Tolstoy was unusually frank in describing battle scenes, the first Sevastopol story was deeply patriotic and glorified the bravery of Russian soldiers. Soon Tolstoy began working on his second story, Sevastopol in May. By that time, there was nothing left of his pride in the Russian army. The horror and shock that Tolstoy experienced on the front line and during the siege of the city greatly influenced his work. Now he wrote about the senselessness of death and the inhumanity of war.

In 1855, from the ruins of Sevastopol, Tolstoy went to exquisite Petersburg. The success of the first Sevastopol story gave him a sense of purpose: “My career is literature - writing and writing! From tomorrow I work all my life or I give up everything, the rules, religion, decency - everything. "... In the capital, Lev Tolstoy finished Sevastopol in May and wrote Sevastopol in August 1855 - these essays completed the trilogy. And in November 1856, the writer finally left military service.

Thanks to the truthful stories about the Crimean War, Tolstoy entered the Petersburg literary circle of the Sovremennik magazine. During this period he wrote the story "Snowstorm", the story "Two Hussars", finished the trilogy with the story "Youth". However, after a while, relations with the writers from the circle soured: "These people are sick of me, and I am sick of myself"... To unwind, at the beginning of 1857, Leo Tolstoy went abroad. He visited Paris, Rome, Berlin, Dresden: he got acquainted with famous works of art, met with artists, observed how people live in European cities. The trip did not inspire Tolstoy: he created the story "Lucerne", in which he described his disappointment.

Leo Tolstoy at work. Image: kartinkinaden.ru

Leo Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana. Image: kartinkinaden.ru

Leo Tolstoy tells a fairy tale to his grandchildren Ilyusha and Sonya. 1909. Kryokshino. Photo: Vladimir Chertkov / wikipedia.org

In the summer of 1857, Tolstoy returned to Yasnaya Polyana. In his native estate, he continued to work on the story "Cossacks", and also wrote the story "Three Deaths" and the novel "Family Happiness". In his diary, Tolstoy defined his purpose for himself at that time: "The main thing is literary works, then - family responsibilities, then - household ... And so to live for yourself - for a good deed a day and enough".

In 1899, Tolstoy wrote the novel Resurrection. In this work, the writer criticized the judicial system, the army, the government. The contempt with which Tolstoy described the institution of the church in his novel Resurrection provoked a response. In February 1901, in the journal Tserkovnye Vedomosti, the Holy Synod published a decree on the excommunication of Count Leo Tolstoy from the church. This decision only increased the popularity of Tolstoy and drew public attention to the ideals and beliefs of the writer.

Tolstoy's literary and social activities became known abroad as well. The writer was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1901, 1902 and 1909 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1902-1906. Tolstoy himself did not want to receive the award and even told the Finnish writer Arvid Jarnefelt to try to prevent the award of the award, because, "If it happened ... it would be very unpleasant to refuse" "He [Chertkov] took every possible way into the hands of the unfortunate old man, he tore us apart, he killed the artistic spark in Lev Nikolaevich and kindled condemnation, hatred, denial, which are felt in the last articles of Lev Nikolaevich years that his stupid evil genius incited him to ".

Tolstoy himself was burdened by the life of a landowner and a family man. He strove to bring his life in line with his convictions and at the beginning of November 1910 secretly left the Yasnaya Polyana estate. The road turned out to be unbearable for the elderly man: on the way he fell seriously ill and was forced to stop at the house of the superintendent of the Astapovo railway station. Here the writer spent the last days of his life. Lev Tolstoy died on November 20, 1910. The writer was buried in Yasnaya Polyana.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) is considered one of the greatest writers not only in Russia, but throughout the world. He created such masterpieces as War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Resurrection, Living Corpse, etc. He came from a noble family. This already provided him with a prosperous and well-fed life. But, having crossed the 50-year mark, the writer began to think about the essence of being.

He suddenly realized that material well-being is not at all the main thing. Therefore, he began to engage in physical labor, began to dress in the clothes of commoners, gave up eating meat and declared himself a vegetarian. On top of this, he gave up the rights to his literary property and fortune in favor of the family. He also put forward the theory of non-resistance to evil, relying in his statements on the evangelical forgiveness. The views of the great writer very quickly became popular among people, and found their followers.

In 1891, famine broke out in the Black Earth and Middle Volga regions as a result of a poor harvest. On the initiative of Lev Nikolaevich, institutions were organized whose task was to help people in need. The writer initiated donations, and in a short time, 150 thousand rubles were collected. About 200 canteens were opened there, where thousands of people were fed. The victims were given seeds and horses. All these noble deeds perfectly characterize the personality of Leo Tolstoy.

However, the true essence of a person is known in the smallest detail. In his fleeting statements, judgments and insignificant actions. It should be noted here that many people, whose life is calm, satisfying and serene, sometimes dream of suffering at least a little, experiencing hardships and hardships. Most often this happens from satiety and boredom. In rare cases, such a desire is sincere, and then a person really radically changes his life. He distributes property to the poor, goes to a monastery or goes to war.

But the overwhelming majority of prosperous people never do this. Such gentlemen only tell others about their desire, but they do not strike a finger to make it a reality. It was to such a public that the great writer belonged. But in order not to be unfounded, let us turn to the facts.

This is what Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko (1853-1921), a famous writer, publicist and journalist, who served 6 years in exile in Yakutia, recalled:
“Several months after my return from exile, I went to see Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. It was necessary to publish a book, and I really wanted him to take part in this. difficult and unpleasant moments of it.

Come to me, - said Lev Nikolaevich, looking at me with a steadfast gaze. - What a happy person you are. You were in Siberia, you went through prisons. And I pray to God to let me suffer for my beliefs, but he doesn't.

Soon I met a man who was introduced to me as Orlova. At first he was a non-Chai, then he became a Tolstoyan. He lived on the outskirts of the city with a large family, eked out a semi-impoverished existence. Lev Nikolaevich often came to visit him. He sat down on a chair, admired the wretched environment, ragged and half-starved children. At the same time, he constantly repeated that he was jealous of Orlov, that he was surprisingly good at home. "

Once the widow of Uspenskaya met the great writer. Her husband died in hard labor, and the poor woman fought for survival, trying to bring her only son into the people. She lived in a tiny apartment, chopping wood herself, heating the stove, cooking, washing dishes, and wearing rags. Tolstoy sincerely admired this woman, and on every occasion he was moved by saying that he had never met a happier person than she. However, the venerable writer never helped Uspenskaya even with a penny. And really, why - she's happy.

Vladimir Alexandrovich Posse (1864-1940), a journalist and participant in the revolutionary movement, recalled:
“Once Lev Nikolaevich asked me:“ Have you been in prison? ”To which I replied in the affirmative. The writer perked up and remarked dreamily:“ What I lack is prison. How wonderful it is to fully experience the hardships and experience torment! I would really like to sit in a real damp prison. "To this I could not find what to say."

The personality of Leo Tolstoy is remarkable in one more aspect. This is what Nikolai Vasilyevich Davydov (1848-1920), a prosecutor, a public figure, a close friend of the writer's family and a frequent visitor to Yasnaya Polyana, recalled:
“We gathered one evening in Yasnaya Polyana on the veranda. Someone from the family began to read a chapter from“ War and Peace. ”Lev Nikolayevich himself was not with us. He was unwell and was in his room. However, soon the writer appeared at the door, I stood and listened to the reading. When they finished reading, I asked with interest what it was that they had read. It was painfully well and well written. "

The life path of the great classic, undoubtedly, deserves every respect. But sometimes he clearly played to the audience, which put others in an awkward position.