Where did Tolstoy study? Leo Tolstoy full biography What kind of education did Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy receive?
Leo Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828 in the Tula province (Russia) into a family belonging to the noble class. In the 1860s, he wrote his first great novel, War and Peace. In 1873, Tolstoy began work on the second of his most famous books, Anna Karenina.
He continued to write fiction throughout the 1880s and 1890s. One of his most successful later works is “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.” Tolstoy died on November 20, 1910 in Astapovo, Russia.
First years of life
On September 9, 1828, the future writer Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born in Yasnaya Polyana (Tula province, Russia). He was the fourth child in a large noble family. In 1830, when Tolstoy's mother, née Princess Volkonskaya, died, his father's cousin took over the care of the children. Their father, Count Nikolai Tolstoy, died seven years later, and their aunt was appointed guardian. After the death of his aunt, Leo Tolstoy, his brothers and sisters moved to their second aunt in Kazan. Although Tolstoy experienced many losses at an early age, he later idealized his childhood memories in his work.
It is important to note that the primary education in Tolstoy’s biography was received at home, lessons were given to him by French and German teachers. In 1843 he entered the Faculty of Oriental Languages at the Imperial Kazan University. Tolstoy failed to succeed in his studies - low grades forced him to transfer to an easier law faculty. Further difficulties in his studies led Tolstoy to eventually leave the Imperial Kazan University in 1847 without a degree. He returned to his parents' estate, where he planned to start farming. However, this endeavor also ended in failure - he was absent too often, leaving for Tula and Moscow. What he really excelled at was keeping his own diary - it was this lifelong habit that inspired much of Leo Tolstoy's writing.
Tolstoy was fond of music; his favorite composers were Schumann, Bach, Chopin, Mozart, and Mendelssohn. Lev Nikolaevich could play their works for several hours a day.
One day, Tolstoy’s elder brother, Nikolai, during his army leave, came to visit Lev, and convinced his brother to join the army as a cadet in the south, in the Caucasus mountains, where he served. After serving as a cadet, Leo Tolstoy was transferred to Sevastopol in November 1854, where he fought in the Crimean War until August 1855.
Early publications
During his years as a cadet in the army, Tolstoy had a lot of free time. During quiet periods, he worked on an autobiographical story called Childhood. In it, he wrote about his favorite childhood memories. In 1852, Tolstoy sent a story to Sovremennik, the most popular magazine of the time. The story was happily accepted, and it became Tolstoy's first publication. From that time on, critics put him on a par with already famous writers, among whom were Ivan Turgenev (with whom Tolstoy became friends), Ivan Goncharov, Alexander Ostrovsky and others.
After completing his story “Childhood,” Tolstoy began writing about his daily life at an army outpost in the Caucasus. The work “Cossacks”, which he began during his army years, was completed only in 1862, after he had already left the army.
Surprisingly, Tolstoy managed to continue writing while actively fighting in the Crimean War. During this time he wrote Boyhood (1854), a sequel to Childhood, the second book in Tolstoy's autobiographical trilogy. At the height of the Crimean War, Tolstoy expressed his views on the startling contradictions of the war through a trilogy of works, Sevastopol Tales. In the second book of Sevastopol Stories, Tolstoy experimented with a relatively new technique: part of the story is presented as a narration from the point of view of a soldier.
After the end of the Crimean War, Tolstoy left the army and returned to Russia. Arriving home, the author enjoyed great popularity on the literary scene of St. Petersburg.
Stubborn and arrogant, Tolstoy refused to belong to any particular school of philosophy. Declaring himself an anarchist, he left for Paris in 1857. Once there, he lost all his money and was forced to return home to Russia. He also managed to publish Youth, the third part of an autobiographical trilogy, in 1857.
Returning to Russia in 1862, Tolstoy published the first of 12 issues of the thematic magazine Yasnaya Polyana. That same year he married the daughter of a doctor named Sofya Andreevna Bers.
Major Novels
Living in Yasnaya Polyana with his wife and children, Tolstoy spent much of the 1860s working on his first famous novel, War and Peace. Part of the novel was first published in “Russian Bulletin” in 1865 under the title “1805”. By 1868 he had published three more chapters. A year later, the novel was completely finished. Both critics and the public debated the historical accuracy of the novel's Napoleonic Wars, coupled with the development of the stories of its thoughtful and realistic, yet still fictional, characters. The novel is also unique in that it includes three long satirical essays on the laws of history. Among the ideas that Tolstoy also tries to convey in this novel is the belief that a person’s position in society and the meaning of human life are mainly derived from his daily activities.
After the success of War and Peace in 1873, Tolstoy began work on the second of his most famous books, Anna Karenina. It was partly based on real events during the war between Russia and Turkey. Like War and Peace, this book describes some of the biographical events in Tolstoy's own life, most notably in the romantic relationship between the characters Kitty and Levin, which is said to be reminiscent of Tolstoy's courtship with his own wife.
The first lines of the book “Anna Karenina” are among the most famous: “All happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Anna Karenina was published in installments from 1873 to 1877, and was highly acclaimed by the public. The royalties received for the novel quickly enriched the writer.
Conversion
Despite the success of Anna Karenina, after the completion of the novel, Tolstoy experienced a spiritual crisis and was depressed. The next stage of Leo Tolstoy's biography is characterized by the search for the meaning of life. The writer first turned to the Russian Orthodox Church, but did not find answers to his questions there. He concluded that Christian churches were corrupt and, instead of organized religion, promoted their own beliefs. He decided to express these beliefs by founding a new publication in 1883 called The Mediator.
As a result, for his unconventional and controversial spiritual beliefs, Tolstoy was excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church. He was even watched by the secret police. When Tolstoy, driven by his new conviction, wanted to give away all his money and give up everything unnecessary, his wife was categorically against this. Not wanting to escalate the situation, Tolstoy reluctantly agreed to a compromise: he transferred the copyright and, apparently, all royalties on his work until 1881 to his wife.
Late fiction
In addition to his religious treatises, Tolstoy continued to write fiction throughout the 1880s and 1890s. The genres of his later work included morality tales and realistic fiction. One of the most successful of his later works was the story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” written in 1886. The main character tries his best to fight the death hanging over him. In short, Ivan Ilyich is horrified by the realization that he wasted his life on trifles, but the realization of this comes to him too late.
In 1898, Tolstoy wrote the story “Father Sergius,” a work of fiction in which he criticizes the beliefs he developed after his spiritual transformation. The following year he wrote his third voluminous novel, Resurrection. The work received good reviews, but it is unlikely that this success matched the level of recognition of his previous novels. Tolstoy's other late works are essays on art, a satirical play called The Living Corpse, written in 1890, and a story called Hadji Murad (1904), which was discovered and published after his death. In 1903, Tolstoy wrote a short story, “After the Ball,” which was first published after his death, in 1911.
Old age
During his later years, Tolstoy reaped the benefits of international recognition. However, he still struggled to reconcile his spiritual beliefs with the tensions he created in his family life. His wife not only did not agree with his teachings, she did not approve of his students, who regularly visited Tolstoy on the family estate. In an effort to avoid his wife's growing discontent, Tolstoy and his youngest daughter Alexandra went on pilgrimage in October 1910. Alexandra was the doctor for her elderly father during the trip. Trying not to expose their private lives, they traveled incognito, hoping to evade unnecessary questions, but sometimes this was to no avail.
Death and legacy
Unfortunately, the pilgrimage proved too onerous for the aging writer. In November 1910, the head of the small Astapovo railway station opened the doors of his house to Tolstoy so that the ailing writer could rest. Shortly after this, on November 20, 1910, Tolstoy died. He was buried in the family estate, Yasnaya Polyana, where Tolstoy lost so many people close to him.
To this day, Tolstoy's novels are considered one of the best achievements of literary art. War and Peace is often cited as the greatest novel ever written. In the modern scientific community, Tolstoy is widely recognized as having a gift for describing the unconscious motives of character, the subtlety of which he championed by emphasizing the role of everyday actions in determining the character and goals of people.
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Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy is a great Russian writer, by origin a count from a famous noble family. He was born on August 28, 1828 in the Yasnaya Polyana estate located in the Tula province, and died on October 7, 1910 at the Astapovo station.
The writer's childhood
Lev Nikolaevich was a representative of a large noble family, the fourth child in it. His mother, Princess Volkonskaya, died early. At this time, Tolstoy was not yet two years old, but he formed an idea of his parent from the stories of various family members. In the novel "War and Peace" the image of the mother is represented by Princess Marya Nikolaevna Bolkonskaya.
The biography of Leo Tolstoy in his early years is marked by another death. Because of her, the boy became an orphan. Leo Tolstoy's father, a participant in the War of 1812, like his mother, died early. This happened in 1837. At that time the boy was only nine years old. Leo Tolstoy's brothers, he and his sister, were entrusted to the upbringing of T. A. Ergolskaya, a distant relative who had enormous influence on the future writer. Childhood memories have always been the happiest for Lev Nikolaevich: family legends and impressions of life in the estate became rich material for his works, reflected, in particular, in the autobiographical story “Childhood”.
Study at Kazan University
The biography of Leo Tolstoy in his youth was marked by such an important event as studying at the university. When the future writer turned thirteen years old, his family moved to Kazan, to the house of the children’s guardian, a relative of Lev Nikolaevich P.I. Yushkova. In 1844, the future writer was enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy at Kazan University, after which he transferred to the Faculty of Law, where he studied for about two years: study did not arouse keen interest in the young man, so he devoted himself passionately to various social entertainments. Having submitted his resignation in the spring of 1847, due to poor health and “domestic circumstances,” Lev Nikolaevich left for Yasnaya Polyana with the intention of studying a full course of legal sciences and passing an external exam, as well as learning languages, “practical medicine,” history, and rural studies. economics, geographical statistics, study painting, music and write a dissertation.
Years of youth
In the fall of 1847, Tolstoy left for Moscow and then to St. Petersburg in order to pass candidate exams at the university. During this period, his lifestyle often changed: he either studied various subjects all day long, then devoted himself to music, but wanted to start a career as an official, or dreamed of joining a regiment as a cadet. Religious sentiments that reached the point of asceticism alternated with cards, carousing, and trips to the gypsies. The biography of Leo Tolstoy in his youth is colored by the struggle with himself and introspection, reflected in the diary that the writer kept throughout his life. During the same period, interest in literature arose, and the first artistic sketches appeared.
Participation in the war
In 1851, Nikolai, Lev Nikolayevich’s older brother, an officer, persuaded Tolstoy to go to the Caucasus with him. Lev Nikolaevich lived for almost three years on the banks of the Terek, in a Cossack village, traveling to Vladikavkaz, Tiflis, Kizlyar, participating in hostilities (as a volunteer, and then was recruited). The patriarchal simplicity of the life of the Cossacks and the Caucasian nature struck the writer with their contrast with the painful reflection of representatives of educated society and the life of the noble circle, and provided extensive material for the story “Cossacks,” written in the period from 1852 to 1863 on autobiographical material. The stories “Raid” (1853) and “Cutting Wood” (1855) also reflected his Caucasian impressions. They also left a mark in his story “Hadji Murat,” written between 1896 and 1904, published in 1912.
Returning to his homeland, Lev Nikolayevich wrote in his diary that he really fell in love with this wild land, in which “war and freedom,” things so opposite in their essence, are combined. Tolstoy began to create his story “Childhood” in the Caucasus and anonymously sent it to the magazine “Sovremennik”. This work appeared on its pages in 1852 under the initials L.N. and, along with the later “Adolescence” (1852-1854) and “Youth” (1855-1857), formed the famous autobiographical trilogy. His creative debut immediately brought real recognition to Tolstoy.
Crimean campaign
In 1854, the writer went to Bucharest, to the Danube Army, where the work and biography of Leo Tolstoy were further developed. However, soon a boring staff life forced him to transfer to besieged Sevastopol, to the Crimean Army, where he was a battery commander, showing courage (awarded with medals and the Order of St. Anne). During this period, Lev Nikolaevich was captured by new literary plans and impressions. He began writing "Sevastopol stories", which were a great success. Some ideas that arose even at that time allow one to discern in the artillery officer Tolstoy the preacher of later years: he dreamed of a new “religion of Christ,” purified of mystery and faith, a “practical religion.”
In St. Petersburg and abroad
Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy arrived in St. Petersburg in November 1855 and immediately became a member of the Sovremennik circle (which included N. A. Nekrasov, A. N. Ostrovsky, I. S. Turgenev, I. A. Goncharov and others). He took part in the creation of the Literary Fund at that time, and at the same time became involved in conflicts and disputes among writers, but he felt like a stranger in this environment, which he conveyed in “Confession” (1879-1882). Having retired, in the fall of 1856 the writer left for Yasnaya Polyana, and then, at the beginning of the next year, 1857, he went abroad, visiting Italy, France, Switzerland (impressions from visiting this country are described in the story “Lucerne”), and also visited Germany. In the same year in the fall, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy returned first to Moscow and then to Yasnaya Polyana.
Opening of a public school
In 1859, Tolstoy opened a school for peasant children in the village, and also helped establish more than twenty similar educational institutions in the Krasnaya Polyana area. In order to get acquainted with the European experience in this area and apply it in practice, the writer Leo Tolstoy again went abroad, visited London (where he met with A.I. Herzen), Germany, Switzerland, France, and Belgium. However, European schools somewhat disappoint him, and he decides to create his own pedagogical system based on personal freedom, publishes textbooks and works on pedagogy, and applies them in practice.
"War and Peace"
Lev Nikolaevich in September 1862 married Sofya Andreevna Bers, the 18-year-old daughter of a doctor, and immediately after the wedding he left Moscow for Yasnaya Polyana, where he devoted himself entirely to household concerns and family life. However, already in 1863, he was again captured by a literary idea, this time creating a novel about the war, which was supposed to reflect Russian history. Leo Tolstoy was interested in the period of our country's struggle with Napoleon at the beginning of the 19th century.
In 1865, the first part of the work “War and Peace” was published in the Russian Bulletin. The novel immediately evoked many responses. Subsequent parts provoked heated debate, in particular, the fatalistic philosophy of history developed by Tolstoy.
"Anna Karenina"
This work was created in the period from 1873 to 1877. Living in Yasnaya Polyana, continuing to teach peasant children and publish his pedagogical views, Lev Nikolaevich in the 70s worked on a work about the life of contemporary high society, building his novel on the contrast of two storylines: the family drama of Anna Karenina and the domestic idyll of Konstantin Levin , close in psychological pattern, and in beliefs, and in the way of life of the writer himself.
Tolstoy strove for an externally non-judgmental tone of his work, thereby paving the way for a new style of the 80s, in particular, folk stories. The truth of peasant life and the meaning of existence of representatives of the “educated class” - these are the range of questions that interested the writer. “Family thought” (according to Tolstoy, the main one in the novel) is translated into a social channel in his work, and Levin’s self-exposures, numerous and merciless, his thoughts about suicide are an illustration of the author’s spiritual crisis experienced in the 1880s, which had matured even while working on this novel.
1880s
In the 1880s, Leo Tolstoy's work underwent a transformation. The revolution in the writer’s consciousness was reflected in his works, primarily in the experiences of the characters, in the spiritual insight that changes their lives. Such heroes occupy a central place in such works as “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” (years of creation - 1884-1886), “The Kreutzer Sonata” (a story written in 1887-1889), “Father Sergius” (1890-1898), drama "The Living Corpse" (left unfinished, begun in 1900), as well as the story "After the Ball" (1903).
Tolstoy's journalism
Tolstoy’s journalism reflects his spiritual drama: depicting pictures of the idleness of the intelligentsia and social inequality, Lev Nikolayevich posed questions of faith and life to society and himself, criticized the institutions of the state, going so far as to deny art, science, marriage, court, and the achievements of civilization.
The new worldview is presented in “Confession” (1884), in the articles “So what should we do?”, “On hunger”, “What is art?”, “I cannot remain silent” and others. The ethical ideas of Christianity are understood in these works as the foundation of the brotherhood of man.
As part of a new worldview and a humanistic understanding of the teachings of Christ, Lev Nikolaevich spoke out, in particular, against the dogma of the church and criticized its rapprochement with the state, which led to him being officially excommunicated from the church in 1901. This caused a huge resonance.
Novel "Sunday"
Tolstoy wrote his last novel between 1889 and 1899. It embodies the entire range of problems that worried the writer during the years of his spiritual turning point. Dmitry Nekhlyudov, the main character, is a person internally close to Tolstoy, who goes through the path of moral purification in the work, ultimately leading him to comprehend the need for active good. The novel is built on a system of evaluative oppositions that reveal the unreasonable structure of society (the deceit of the social world and the beauty of nature, the falsehood of the educated population and the truth of the peasant world).
last years of life
The life of Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy in recent years was not easy. The spiritual turning point turned into a break with one’s environment and family discord. The refusal to own private property, for example, caused discontent among the writer’s family members, especially his wife. The personal drama experienced by Lev Nikolaevich was reflected in his diary entries.
In the fall of 1910, at night, secretly from everyone, 82-year-old Leo Tolstoy, whose life dates were presented in this article, accompanied only by his attending physician D.P. Makovitsky, left the estate. The journey turned out to be too much for him: on the way, the writer fell ill and was forced to disembark at the Astapovo railway station. Lev Nikolaevich spent the last week of his life in a house that belonged to her boss. The whole country was following reports about his health at that time. Tolstoy was buried in Yasnaya Polyana; his death caused a huge public outcry.
Many contemporaries came to say goodbye to this great Russian writer.
For Leo Tolstoy, Kazan is a city with which he was connected by family and friendly ties. Leo Tolstoy's great-grandfather was a governor in the city of Sviyazhsk, grandfather I.A. Tolstoy was the Kazan governor (1815-1820), father Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy, a participant in the war of 1812, lived in Kazan after his retirement, and after his marriage to Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya moved to his wife’s estate Yasnaya Polyana, where Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on August 28, 1828. The great writer’s aunt, Pelageya Ilyinichna Yushkova, a Kazan landowner, became the guardian of Leo Tolstoy and his brothers and sister after the death of their parents.
In 1841, thirteen-year-old Leo Tolstoy moved to Kazan. More than 40 thousand people lived in Kazan at that time. The city aristocracy preferred to live in the area of Gruzinskaya Street (now Karl Marx Street), running from the Arskoye Field to the Kremlin, a beautiful street with good-quality brick houses. The Arskoe field was a place of public festivities, not far from it was the Rodionovsky Institute of Noble Maidens, a military square, a riding arena and a Lutheran church. It was one of the most fashionable areas of the city of Kazan. This is where the Tolstoys settled. Pelageya Ilyinichna rented the Gortalovs’ house (now 15 Yapeeva Street) for her family and nephews.
In 1844, Leo Tolstoy entered the Kazan Imperial University in the department of oriental literature. Oriental languages provided an opportunity to make a diplomatic career, and my aunt wanted to see Tolstoy as ambassador to Turkey. But the cheerful social life captured the young man, there was no time to study and Tolstoy could not pass the first-year exams. After that, he transferred to the Faculty of Law.
The young Tolstoy reads a lot, attends concerts, performances, balls, is a frequent guest in the salon of the director of the Institute of Noble Maidens E.D. Zagoskina, and participates in amateur performances. Leo Tolstoy throughout his life carefully kept the poster for the evening of “living pictures”, which took place on April 19, 1846 in the Assembly Hall of Kazan University, the poster is a memory of his first stage success.
In 1847, leaving his studies at the University, Leo Tolstoy left Kazan. He inherited Yasnaya Polyana, his mother’s estate. The rector of Simonov University said to him in parting: “It would be very sad if your outstanding abilities did not find use.”
It was in our city, where the brilliant writer spent his adolescence and youth, that he first thought about choosing his path, the purpose of his life. The impressions of the Kazan period of Leo Tolstoy’s life were reflected in his stories “After the Ball”, “The Morning of the Landowner”, and the trilogy “Childhood. Adolescence. Youth".
Tolstoy visited Kazan three more times: in 1851 (on his way to the Caucasus), 1862 and 1876.
Born into the noble family of Maria Nikolaevna, nee Princess Volkonskaya, and Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy in the Yasnaya Polyana estate in Krapivensky district of the Tula province, he was the fourth child. The happy marriage of his parents became the prototype of the heroes in the novel “War and Peace” - Princess Marya and Nikolai Rostov. Parents died early. The future writer was educated by Tatyana Aleksandrovna Ergolskaya, a distant relative, and educated by tutors: the German Reselman and the Frenchman Saint-Thomas, who became the heroes of the writer’s stories and novels. At the age of 13, the future writer and his family moved to the hospitable house of his father’s sister P.I. Yushkova in Kazan.
In 1844, Leo Tolstoy entered the Imperial Kazan University at the Department of Oriental Literature of the Faculty of Philosophy. After the first year, he failed the transition exam and transferred to the Faculty of Law, where he studied for two years, plunging into secular entertainment. Leo Tolstoy, naturally shy and ugly, acquired a reputation in secular society for “thinking” about the happiness of death, eternity, and love, although he himself wanted to shine. And in 1847, he left the university and went to Yasnaya Polyana with the intention of pursuing science and “reaching the highest degree of perfection in music and painting.”
In 1849, the first school for peasant children was opened on his estate, where Foka Demidovich, his serf and former musician, taught. Yermil Bazykin, who studied there, said: “There were about 20 of us boys, the teacher was Foka Demidovich, a yard man. Under father L.N. Tolstoy he performed the position of musician. The old man was good. He taught us the alphabet, counting, sacred history. Lev Nikolaevich also came to us, also studied with us, showed us his diploma. I went every other day, every other day, or even every day. He always ordered the teacher not to offend us...”
In 1851, under the influence of his older brother Nikolai, Lev left for the Caucasus, having already begun to write “Childhood”, and in the fall he became a cadet in the 4th battery of the 20th artillery brigade, stationed in the Cossack village of Starogladovskaya on the Terek River. There he finished the first part of “Childhood” and sent it to the magazine “Sovremennik” to its editor N.A. Nekrasov. On September 18, 1852, the manuscript was published with great success.
Leo Tolstoy served for three years in the Caucasus and, having the right to the most honorable St. George Cross for bravery, “ceded” it to a fellow soldier, as giving a lifelong pension. At the beginning of the Crimean War of 1853-1856. transferred to the Danube Army, participated in the battles of Oltenitsa, the siege of Silistria, and the defense of Sevastopol. Then the story “Sevastopol in December 1854” was written. was read by Emperor Alexander II, who ordered to take care of the talented officer.
In November 1856, the already recognized and famous writer left military service and went to travel around Europe.
In 1862, Leo Tolstoy married seventeen-year-old Sofya Andreevna Bers. Their marriage produced 13 children, five died in early childhood, and the novels “War and Peace” (1863-1869) and “Anna Karenina” (1873-1877), recognized as great works, were written.
In the 1880s. Leo Tolstoy experienced a powerful crisis, which led to the denial of official state power and its institutions, the awareness of the inevitability of death, faith in God and the creation of his teaching - Tolstoyism. He lost interest in the usual lordly life, he began to have thoughts about suicide and the need to live correctly, become a vegetarian, engage in education and physical labor - he plowed, sewed boots, taught children at school. In 1891 he publicly renounced copyright on his literary works written after 1880.
During 1889-1899 Leo Tolstoy wrote the novel “Resurrection,” whose plot is based on a real court case, and scathing articles about the system of government - on this basis, the Holy Synod excommunicated Count Leo Tolstoy from the Orthodox Church and anathematized him in 1901.
On October 28 (November 10), 1910, Leo Tolstoy secretly left Yasnaya Polyana, setting off on a journey without a specific plan for the sake of his moral and religious ideas of recent years, accompanied by the doctor D.P. Makovitsky. On the way, he caught a cold, fell ill with lobar pneumonia and was forced to get off the train at Astapovo station (now Lev Tolstoy station in the Lipetsk region). Leo Tolstoy died on November 7 (20), 1910 in the house of the station chief I.I. Ozolin and was buried in Yasnaya Polyana.
“My good aunt... would like nothing more for me than for me to have a relationship with a married woman.”
After the death of their parents in September 1841, the Tolstoy brothers moved to Kazan to live with their aunt Yushkova, who took custody of the children. Levushka, the future great writer, was 13 years old at that time. He spent almost 6 years here, becoming a university student, but was expelled for poor academic performance and, let's say, unsatisfactory behavior. “BUSINESS Online” invites readers to get acquainted with a story that until recently was classified in order not to discredit the national treasure of the country.
THIS WAS NOT THE FIRST TOLSTOY IN KAZAN
“Lev Nikolaevich was not the first of the Tolstoy family to live in Kazan. His great-grandfather Andrei Ivanovich Tolstoy, writes the scientific and documentary magazine “Gasyrlar Avazy - Echo of Centuries” of the State Committee of the Republic of Tatarstan for Archival Affairs, “served here in 1754-1759 as an akhund-major, and later as a governor in Sviyazhsk. Lev Nikolaevich's grandfather, Count Ilya Andreevich Tolstoy (1757–1820), spent his youth here, and subsequently, from May 15, 1815, was governor for almost five years; buried in the cemetery of the Kizichesky Monastery. Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy, the writer’s father, visited Kazan repeatedly and for a long time, and his sister, Pelageya Ilyinichna, after she married the hussar colonel of the Kazan landowner Yushkov, became a native Kazan resident.
Leo Tolstoy lost his mother early. In 1837, the family moved to Moscow: the eldest son had to prepare to enter university. But soon the father suddenly died, leaving affairs in a rather disordered state, and the three younger children again settled in Yasnaya Polyana under the supervision of Ergalskaya and their paternal aunt, Countess Osten-Sacken. After her death in the fall of 1841, the Tolstoy brothers - Sergei, Dmitry and 13-year-old Levushka - arrived in Kazan in the care of Aunt Yushkova. “My good aunt,” said Tolstoy, “a pure being, always said that she would like nothing more for me than for me to have a relationship with a married woman: nothing shapes a young man more than a relationship with a woman of a decent circle.” . She wished me another happiness: that I should be an adjutant and best of all with the sovereign, that I should marry a rich girl and that I should have as many slaves as possible.” From this we can see what influence such a teacher could have had on the boy’s worldview.”
“BUT HE DID NOT HAVE EXTERNAL DATA”
During this period of life, two leading principles in nature Lev Tolstoy- enormous pride and the desire to achieve something real, to know the truth - entered into a struggle. He passionately wanted to shine in the world, to earn the reputation of a young man comme il faut. But he did not have the external qualities for this: he was ugly, awkward, and, in addition, he was hampered by natural shyness. At the same time, intense internal work was going on in him, associated with the formation of a strict moral ideal. Everything that is told in “Adolescence” and “Youth” - about the aspirations of Irtenev and Nekhlyudov for self-improvement - was taken by Tolstoy from the history of his own ascetic attempts. The most varied, as Tolstoy himself defines them, “thoughts about the most important questions of our existence” - happiness, death, God, love, eternity - painfully tormented him at that time in his life when his peers and brothers were completely devoted to the cheerful, easy and carefree pastime of the rich and noble people. All this led to the fact that Tolstoy developed “the habit of constant moral analysis, which destroyed the freshness of feelings and clarity of reason.” It was during the Kazan period that that painful spiritual struggle with the contradictions of life arose, the struggle that Tolstoy waged throughout his life.
Tolstoy's aunt chose a diplomatic career for him, and specially hired teachers were supposed to prepare him for the entrance exams. The fact is that Tolstoy did not study at a secondary educational institution. However, the tutors were unable to give the young man serious knowledge and did not instill an interest in science. In the spring of 1844, Levushka received two units in the entrance exams - in history and geography. A statement from Leo Tolstoy has been preserved with a request to retake these exams. Whether he was examined a second time or not is unknown, but since the fall of 1844, Lev Nikolaevich has been a student in the eastern department of the Faculty of Philosophy at Kazan University. Subsequently, Tolstoy transferred to the Faculty of Law.
“DIVIDED THE WHOLE WORLD INTO TWO CAMPS: “COMILFAULT” and “NECOMILFAULT”
According to Zagoskin ( Nikolay Pavlovich Zagoskin(1851–1912) - historian of Russian law, public figure, local historian, author of many books on the history of Kazan, rector of the Imperial Kazan University from 1906 to 1909 — approx. ed.), during his student years, Tolstoy plunged headlong “into the abyss of the cheerful, but at the same time empty and meaningless Kazan high society life.” Having put on a student uniform and a sword, young Tolstoy thereby entered the category of “adult” young people and was immediately captured by the turbulent stream of high-society noble life, replete with balls, amateur performances, live paintings, skiing from the mountains with young ladies and similar amusements.
Lev Nikolaevich, Yushkova, popular in the Kazan aristocratic society, was, of course, a welcome guest in all the noble salons of Kazan, which flattered his pride. At that time, with a kind of painfully intense attention, he watched his appearance, his impeccable French pronunciation and secular manners. To become “comme il faut” was what motivated him. He himself later recalled that he divided the whole world into two camps: “come me il faut” and “neko mil faut”. Aunt Yushkova completely indulged all these sentiments.
According to the recollections of a fellow student, Tolstoy “had the appearance of a rake, he sat on the top bench in large audiences, which signified his intention to listen to the lecture as little as possible.” However, Tolstoy successfully passed the six-month exams, but was not allowed to take the spring exams. Professor of Russian History Ivanov shortly before that he married Lev Nikolaevich’s second cousin, Alexandra Tolstoy; Serious quarrels soon followed between relatives. The vengeful Ivanov began to complain intensely about Tolstoy the student to his superiors. At a meeting of the faculty council, he demanded that he be left without exams for the second year of his first year “due to very rare attendance at lectures and complete failure in history.” Subsequently, Lev Nikolaevich recalled on this occasion: “The first year I was not promoted from the first to the second year by the professor of Russian history Ivanov, shortly before quarreling with my family, despite the fact that I had not missed a single lecture and knew Russian history.”
Not wanting to stay on the same course again, Lev Nikolaevich decided to transfer to the Faculty of Law. The forced choice was not the best. “The Faculty of Law,” recalled one of the then university professors, Mikhailov, “consisted of a random selection of professors who were notable for their mediocrity...” Lectures were given from yellowed notebooks that were many years old, and many foreign professors could not speak a word of Russian. But in 1845, serious changes took place at the faculty. The Department of Civil Law was occupied by a young talented scientist Dmitry Meyer. He belonged to the leading people of his time.
“TOLSTOY STUDYED VERY LITTLELY, RECEIVED D2’s AND ONE’S”
Under Meyer's guidance, Tolstoy began work on comparing Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws. Studying this topic, he discovered a new area of independent scientific work for himself and the opportunity to enjoy the consciousness of the power of his sharp “critical thought.” The traditions of studying at the Faculty of Philosophy were continued; Tolstoy studied very little, receiving twos and ones in the exams. In fact, he was only enrolled at the university.
The fact is that a critical approach to official science began to develop in him; it seemed pointless to him to cram dry dates, to take on faith the words of the textbook and professors. Tolstoy decided to break with the university and on April 12, 1847, filed a petition to be expelled from the student body. Soon he left Kazan and went to Yasnaya Polyana.
Despite his failure at the university, Kazan gave a lot to Tolstoy both as a person and as a future writer. Many impressions and experiences of the Kazan period of life were later reflected in autobiographical stories (“Adolescence”) and (“Youth”). An event took place in Kazan that had a great influence on the literary destiny of Lev Nikolaevich. His brother is here Sergey met the daughter of a military commander Andrei Petrovich KoreyshAnd, Varvara Andreevna with whom he fell in love. One day after a ball, at which the daughter and father made a strong impression on the young man, he, unable to sleep, went for a walk around the city and came to the house where Koreisha lived. Having walked a little more, he saw a terrible scene: the regimental commander who had fascinated him the day before was in charge of a ferocious reprisal: driving a Tatar soldier through the ranks. As a result of these Kazan impressions of his brother, Leo Tolstoy subsequently created his masterpiece “After the Ball”...
From March 11, 1847, Tolstoy was in a Kazan hospital; on March 17, he began to keep a diary, where, imitating Benjamin Franklin, he set goals and objectives for self-improvement, noted successes and failures in completing these tasks, analyzed his shortcomings and train of thoughts, motives of your actions. He kept this diary with short breaks throughout his life.
Prepared by Mikhail Birin
Petition from Count L. Tolstoy to the rector of Kazan University N.I. Lobachevsky about admission to the additional exam
In May of this year, I, together with students of the First and Second Kazan gymnasiums, were tested in order to enroll in the number of students of the Kazan University in the category of Arabic-Turkish literature. But how during this test he did not provide adequate information in history and statistics; So I humbly ask Your Excellency to allow me now to take an examination in these subjects again.
At the same time, I have the honor to present the following documents: 1) metric certificate from the Tula Consistory; 2) a copy of the resolution of the Tula Noble Deputy Assembly on August 3, 1844.
The above-mentioned petitioner, Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, added his hand to this petition.
It is determined: Tolstoy is to be admitted to the university as a self-paid student in the category of Turkish literature in the 1st year, about which the department of science inspector of the department is to be notified.
(Spelling and punctuation of the original source have been preserved.)
