Biography of Tolstoy's adult years. Brief biography of Leo Tolstoy: the most important events

“The great writer of the Russian land,” Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on August 28 (September 9), 1828 in the village of Yasnaya Polyana, Tula province. His father, a hussar lieutenant colonel, and his mother, nee Princess Volkonskaya, are described partly in “Childhood” and “Adolescence”, partly in “War and Peace”. The boy was one and a half years old when his mother died, and nine years old when his father died; an orphan, he remained in the care of his aunt, Countess Osten-Sacken; The boy's upbringing was entrusted to a distant relative, T. A. Ergolskaya. Tolstoy later recalled touchingly this kind and meek woman, who had a beneficial influence on the children entrusted to her upbringing. Being 24 years old, he wrote to her from the Caucasus: “The tears that I shed, thinking about you and your love for us, are so joyful that I let them flow without any false shame.”

Having received a home education, which was common at that time for the children of landowners, Tolstoy in 1844 entered Kazan University at the Faculty of Oriental Languages; a year later he switches to law school. A precocious young man, prone to introspection and a critical attitude towards everything around him, Tolstoy remains extremely dissatisfied with the composition of professors and university teaching. At first, he set to work quite diligently and began writing an essay in which he drew a parallel between Catherine the Great’s “Order” and the works of Montesquieu; but soon these activities were abandoned, and Tolstoy was temporarily captured by the interests of social life: the brilliant outer side of the secular world and its eternal festivities, picnics, balls, receptions, captivated the impressionable young man; he devoted himself to the interests of this world with all the passion of his nature. And, as in everything in his life, he was consistent here to the end, denying at that time everything that was not included in the circle of interests of a secular person.

But, as shown in “Childhood, Adolescence and Youth,” which contains a lot of autobiographical material, Tolstoy even in childhood showed traits of self-absorption, some kind of persistent moral and mental quest; the boy was always haunted by questions from his still vague inner world. We can say, judging by the artistic material the writer left us, that he almost did not know a carefree childhood, with its unconscious joy. Proud, always subordinating everything to his thoughts, he, like most great people, spent a painful childhood, suppressed by various questions of external and internal life, which were beyond his childhood strength to resolve.

It was this feature of the nature of the young Tolstoy that took over in him after a certain period of time spent in secular pleasures. Under the influence of his own thoughts and reading, Tolstoy decided to dramatically change his life. What he decided was immediately carried out. Convinced of the emptiness of social life, disappointed with his university studies, Tolstoy returns to his constant ideals of life. In “Childhood” and Adolescence” we read more than once about how the boy, the hero of the story, draws up programs for a future pure and reasonable life that meets some vague requirements of conscience. It was as if an unknown voice was always heard in his soul, the voice of moral dictates, and forced him to follow him. The same thing happened in Kazan. Tolstoy gives up secular entertainment, stops attending university, becomes interested in Rousseau and spends days and nights reading the books of this writer, who had a great influence on him.

In his books, Tolstoy seeks not mental pleasures or knowledge in themselves, but practical answers to questions How live and how to live, that is, to see the meaning and true content of life. Influenced by these reflections and reading Rousseau’s books, Tolstoy writes the essay “On the Purpose of Philosophy,” in which he defines philosophy as “the science of life,” that is, as one that clarifies the goals and way of life of a person. Already at this time, Rousseau's books posed before the young Tolstoy a problem that irresistibly attracted his mental gaze: about moral improvement. Tolstoy, through increased spiritual tension, determines the plan for his future life: it should take place in the implementation of good and in actively helping people. Having come to this conclusion, Tolstoy quits the university and goes to Yasnaya Polyana to take care of the life of the peasants and improve their situation. Here, many failures and disappointments awaited him, described in the story “The Morning of the Landowner”: with the help of one person it was impossible to solve such a large task at once, especially since the work was hampered by many unnoticed little things and interference.

Leo Tolstoy in his youth. Photo from 1848

In 1851, Tolstoy left for the Caucasus; here a lot of impressions await him, strong and fresh, which the heroic nature of the 23-year-old Tolstoy longed for. Hunts for wild boars, elk, birds, grandiose pictures of Caucasian nature, and finally, skirmishes and battles with the mountaineers (Tolstoy enlisted as a cadet in the artillery) - all this made a great impression on the future writer. In battles he was cool and courageous, he was always in the most dangerous places and was nominated for an award more than once. Tolstoy’s lifestyle at that time was Spartan, healthy and simple; composure and courage did not leave him in the most dangerous moments, such as when, while hunting a bear, he missed the animal and was crushed by it, rescued a minute later by other hunters and miraculously escaping with two harmless wounds. But he led a life not only of combat and hunting - he also had hours for literary work, which few knew about yet. At the end of 1851, he informed Ergolskaya that he was writing a novel, not knowing whether it would ever be published, but working on it gave him deep pleasure. Characteristic of the young Tolstoy is a lack of ambition and endurance in leisurely and hard work. “I remade the work that I started a long time ago three times,” he writes to Ergolskaya, “and I expect to redo it again in order to be satisfied; I write not out of vanity, but out of passion; it is pleasant and useful for me to work, and I work.”

The manuscript that Tolstoy was working on at that time was the story “Childhood”; Among all the impressions of the Caucasus, the young writer loved to revive childhood memories with sadness and love, reviving every feature of his past life. Life in the Caucasus did not coarse his impressionable and childishly tender soul. In 1852, Tolstoy’s first story was published in Nekrasov’s magazine “Sovremennik” with the modest signature of L.N.; only a few close people knew the author of this story, noted in critical literature. After “Childhood” appeared “Adolescence” and a number of stories from Caucasian military life: “Raid”, “Forest cutting” and the major story “Cossacks”, outstanding in its artistic merit and reflecting the features of a new worldview. In this story, Tolstoy for the first time emphasized the negative attitude towards urban cultural life and the dominance over it of simple and healthy life in the fresh bosom of nature, in close proximity to the simple and spiritually pure masses of the people.

Tolstoy's military wandering life continued during the Crimean War that had then begun. He took part in the unsuccessful siege of Silistria on the Danube and observed with curiosity the life of the southern peoples. Promoted to officer in 1854, Tolstoy arrived in Sevastopol, where he survived its siege until the city’s surrender in 1855. Here Tolstoy tried to start a magazine for soldiers, but did not receive permission. Brave, as always, and here in the most dangerous places, Tolstoy reproduced his rich observations of this siege in three stories “Sevastopol in December, May and August.” These stories, which also appeared in Sovremennik, attracted everyone's attention.

After the fall of Sevastopol, Tolstoy retired, moved to St. Petersburg and devoted himself primarily to literary interests; he becomes close to the circle of writers of that time - Turgenev, Goncharov, Ostrovsky, Nekrasov, Druzhinin, is friends with Fet. But Tolstoy’s new views on life, on culture, on the goals and objectives of a person’s personal life, which were largely determined during his solitary life in the Caucasian wilderness, were alien to the general views of writers and alienated Tolstoy from them: he remained generally closed and alone.

After several years of self-absorbed and lonely life, having reached several certain points of his own worldview, created by great spiritual tension, Tolstoy now, with some kind of mental greed, strives to embrace the entire property of the spiritual culture of the West. After studying agriculture and school in Yasnaya Polyana, he travels abroad, visits Germany, France, Italy and Switzerland, takes a closer look at the life and institutions of the Western world, absorbs a lot of books on philosophy, sociology, history, public education, etc. Everything he sees and everything he heard, everything he read, everything that strikes his mind and soul, becomes material for internal processing in the process of achieving the solid foundations of the worldview, which Tolstoy’s thought tirelessly seeks.

A great event for his inner life was the death of his brother, Nicholas; questions about the purpose and meaning of life, questions about death with more greater strength took possession of his soul, temporarily inclining him to extremely pessimistic conclusions. But soon a burning thirst for mental work and activity again embraces him. Studying the organization of school affairs in Western European countries, Tolstoy came to his own pedagogical theory, which he tried to implement upon returning to Yasnaya Polyana. He starts a school there for peasant children and a pedagogical magazine called Yasnaya Polyana. Education, as a powerful tool for social reforms, seems to him to be the most important task in life. In Yasnaya Polyana, he wanted to do in miniature something that could then be adopted throughout the world. The basis of Tolstoy's theory was the same point of view of the need for personal improvement of a person, not through forcible inoculation of views and beliefs, but in accordance with the basic properties of his nature.

Having married S.A. Bers and having established a calm family life, Tolstoy devoted himself to the study of philosophy, ancient classics, and his own literary works, not forgetting either school or Agriculture. The period from the sixties to the eighties of the last century is distinguished for Tolstoy by exceptional artistic productivity: during these years he wrote the most important works in terms of artistic value and outstanding in volume. From 1864 to 1869, he was busy with the huge historical epic “War and Peace” (see summary and analysis of this novel). From 1873 to 1876 he worked on the novel Anna Karenina. In this novel, in the history of Levin’s inner life, the turning point in the spiritual life of Tolstoy himself is already reflected. The desire to implement in his personal life the ideas of goodness and truth that he recognized, which manifested itself in him from his youth, finally takes over in him. Religious, moral and philosophical interests take precedence over literary and artistic interests. He depicted the history of this spiritual turn in “Confession,” written in 1881.

Portrait of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. Artist I. Repin, 1901

From then on, Tolstoy subordinated his literary activity to accepted moral ideas, becoming a preacher and moralist (see Tolstoyism), denying his lived artistic activity. His mental productivity is still enormous: in addition to a number of religious, philosophical and social treatises, he writes dramas, stories and novels. Since the end of the eighties, stories for the people have appeared: “How people live,” “Two old men,” “Candle,” “If you let the fire go, you won’t put it out”; stories: “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”, “The Kreutzer Sonata”, “Master and Worker”, dramas “The Power of Darkness” and “Fruits of Enlightenment”, and the novel “Resurrection”.

Tolstoy's fame in these years became worldwide, his works were translated into the languages ​​of all countries, his name enjoyed great honor and respect among the entire educated world; In the West, special societies are organized dedicated to the study of the works of the great writer. Yasnaya Polyana, where he lived, was visited by people from all countries, driven by the desire to talk with the great writer. Until the very end of his life, an unexpected end that amazed the whole world, Tolstoy, an 80-year-old man, tirelessly devoted himself to mental pursuits, creating new philosophical and artistic works.

Wishing to retire before the end of his life and live in complete harmony with the spirit of his teaching, which was always his cherished aspiration, Tolstoy left Yasnaya Polyana in the last days of October 1910, but on the way to the Caucasus he fell ill and had to stop at the Astapovo station, where died 11 days later - November 7 (20), 1910.

Count, great Russian writer.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on August 28 (September 9), 1828 in the estate of the Krapivensky district of the Tula province (now in) in the family of a retired captain-captain Count N. I. Tolstoy (1794-1837), a participant in the Patriotic War of 1812.

L.N. Tolstoy was educated at home. In 1844-1847 he studied at Kazan University, but did not complete the course. In 1851, he went to the Caucasus to the village - to the place of military service of his elder brother N.N. Tolstoy.

Two years of living in the Caucasus turned out to be unusually significant for spiritual development writer. The story “Childhood” he wrote here is the first printed work of L. N. Tolstoy (published under the initials L. N. in the Sovremennik magazine in 1852) - together with the stories “Adolescence” (1852-1854) and “Youth” that appeared later "(1855-1857) was part of the extensive plan of the autobiographical novel "Four Epochs of Development", the last part of which - "Youth" - was never written.

In 1851-1853, L.N. Tolstoy took part in military operations in the Caucasus (first as a volunteer, then as an artillery officer), and in 1854 he was sent to the Danube Army. Soon after the start of the Crimean War, at his personal request, he was transferred to Sevastopol, during the siege of which he participated in the defense of the 4th bastion. Army life and episodes of the war gave L. N. Tolstoy material for the stories “Raid” (1853), “Forest cutting” (1853-1855), as well as for artistic essays “Sevastopol in December”, “Sevastopol in May”, “ Sevastopol in August 1855" (all published in Sovremennik in 1855-1856). These essays, traditionally called “ Sevastopol stories", made a huge impression on Russian society.

In 1855, L. N. Tolstoy came to, where he became close to the staff of Sovremennik, met I. A. Goncharov, and others. The years 1856-1859 were marked by the writer’s attempts to find himself in the literary environment, to get comfortable among professionals, assert your creative position. The most striking work of this time is the story “Cossacks” (1853-1863), in which the author’s attraction to folk themes was manifested.

Dissatisfied with his work, disappointed in secular and literary circles, L. N. Tolstoy at the turn of the 1860s decided to leave literature and settle in the village. In 1859-1862, he devoted a lot of energy to the school he founded for peasant children, studied the organization of teaching in and abroad, published the pedagogical magazine “Yasnaya Polyana” (1862), preaching a free system of education and upbringing.

In 1862, L. N. Tolstoy married S. A. Bers (1844-1919) and began to live patriarchally and secludedly in his estate as the head of a large and ever-increasing family. During the years of peasant reform, he served as a peace mediator for the Krapivensky district, resolving disputes between landowners and their former serfs.

The 1860s were the heyday of the artistic genius of L. N. Tolstoy. Living a sedentary, measured life, he found himself in intense, concentrated spiritual creativity. The original paths mastered by the writer led to a new rise in national culture.

L. N. Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace” (1863-1869, publication began in 1865) has become a unique phenomenon in Russian and world literature. The author managed to successfully combine depth and sincerity psychological novel with the scope and multi-figuredness of an epic fresco. With his novel, L.N. Tolstoy tried to give an answer to the desire of the literature of the 1860s to understand the course of the historical process, to determine the role of the people in decisive epochs of national life.

In the early 1870s, L.N. Tolstoy again focused on his pedagogical interests. He wrote "ABC" (1871-1872), later - "New ABC" (1874-1875), for which the writer composed original stories and adaptations of fairy tales and fables, which made up four "Russian books for reading." For a while, L.N. Tolstoy returned to teaching at the Yasnaya Polyana school. However, soon symptoms of a crisis in the writer’s moral and philosophical worldview began to appear, aggravated by the historical stoppage of the social turning point of the 1870s.

The central work of L. N. Tolstoy of the 1870s is the novel “Anna Karenina” (1873-1877, published in 1876-1877). Like the novels and, written at the same time, “Anna Karenina” is a highly problematic work, full of signs of the times. The novel was the result of the writer’s thoughts about fate modern society and are imbued with pessimistic sentiments.

By the beginning of the 1880s, L.N. Tolstoy formed the basic principles of his new worldview, which later received the name Tolstoyism. Most full expression they found in his works “Confession” (1879-1880, published in 1884) and “What is My Faith?” (1882-1884). In them, L. N. Tolstoy concluded that the foundations of the existence of the upper strata of society, with which he was connected by origin, upbringing and life experience. To the writer’s characteristic criticism of materialist and positivist theories of progress, to the apology of naive consciousness is now added a sharp protest against the state and the official church, against the privileges and way of life of his class. L.N. Tolstoy connected his new social views with moral and religious philosophy. The works “Study of Dogmatic Theology” (1879-1880) and “Connection and Translation of the Four Gospels” (1880-1881) laid the foundation for the religious side of Tolstoy’s teaching. Purified from distortions and church rituals, Christian teaching in its updated form should, according to the writer, unite people with the ideas of love and forgiveness. L.N. Tolstoy preached non-resistance to evil through violence, considering the only reasonable means of combating evil to be its public denunciation and passive disobedience to authorities. He saw the path to the future renewal of man and humanity in individual spiritual work, moral improvement of the individual, and rejected the significance of political struggle and revolutionary explosions.

In the 1880s, L. N. Tolstoy noticeably cooled towards artistic work and even condemned his previous novels and stories as lordly “fun”. He became interested in simple physical labor, plowed, sewed his own boots, and switched to vegetarian food. At the same time, the writer’s dissatisfaction with the usual way of life of his loved ones grew. His journalistic works “So what should we do?” (1882-1886) and "Slavery of Our Time" (1899-1900) sharply criticized the vices modern civilization, but the author saw a way out of its contradictions primarily in utopian calls for moral and religious self-education. Actually artistic creativity the writer of these years is imbued with journalism, direct denunciations of an unfair trial and modern marriage, land ownership and the church, passionate appeals to the conscience, reason and dignity of people (the story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” (1884-1886); “The Kreutzer Sonata” (1887-1889, published in 1891); “The Devil” (1889-1890, published in 1911).

During the same period, L.N. Tolstoy began to show serious interest in dramatic genres. In the drama “The Power of Darkness” (1886) and the comedy “The Fruits of Enlightenment” (1886-1890, published in 1891), he examined the problem of the pernicious influence of urban civilization on conservative rural society. L. N. Tolstoy’s desire to appeal directly to the reader from the people caused the so-called “folk stories” of the 1880s (“How People Live,” “Candle,” “Two Old Men,” “How Much Land Does a Man Need,” etc.), written in the genre of parables, have come to life.

L. N. Tolstoy actively supported the publishing house “Posrednik”, which emerged in 1884, which was led by his followers and friends V. G. Chertkov and I. I. Gorbunov-Posadov and whose goal was to distribute books among the people that served the cause of education and were close to Tolstoy’s teachings . Many of the writer’s works, under censorship conditions, were published first in Geneva, then in London, where, on the initiative of V. G. Chertkov, the Svobodnoe Slovo publishing house was founded. In 1891, 1893 and 1898, L. N. Tolstoy led a broad social movement to help peasants in starving provinces, and issued appeals and articles on measures to combat hunger. In the 2nd half of the 1890s, the writer devoted a lot of effort to protecting religious sectarians - the Molokans and Doukhobors, and facilitated the relocation of the Doukhobors to Canada. (especially in the 1890s) became a place of pilgrimage for people from the farthest corners of Russia and other countries, one of the largest centers of attraction for the living forces of world culture.

The main artistic work of L. N. Tolstoy in the 1890s was the novel “Resurrection” (1889-1899), the plot of which arose on the basis of an authentic court case. In an astonishing combination of circumstances (a young aristocrat, once guilty of seducing a peasant girl raised in a manor house, must now, as a juror, decide her fate in court), the writer expressed the alogism of a life built on social injustice. The cartoonish depiction of church ministers and its rituals in “Resurrection” became one of the reasons for the decision of the Holy Synod to excommunicate L. N. Tolstoy from the Orthodox Church (1901).

During this period, the alienation observed by the writer in his contemporary society makes the problem of personal moral responsibility extremely important for him, with the inevitable pangs of conscience, enlightenment, moral revolution and subsequent break with his environment. The plot of “departure”, a sharp and radical change in life, an appeal to a new faith in life becomes typical (“Father Sergius”, 1890-1898, published in 1912; “The Living Corpse”, 1900, published in 1911; “After the Ball” , 1903, published 1911; " Posthumous notes Elder Fyodor Kuzmich...", 1905, published in 1912).

In the last decade of his life, L. N. Tolstoy became the recognized head of Russian literature. He maintains personal relationships with young contemporary writers V. G. Korolenko, A. M. Gorky. His social and journalistic activities continued: his appeals and articles were published, work was carried out on the book “The Reading Circle”. Tolstoyism became widely known as an ideological doctrine, but the writer himself at that time experienced hesitation and doubts about the correctness of his teaching. During the Russian Revolution of 1905-1907, his protests against the death penalty became famous (article “I Can’t Be Silent”, 1908).

L. N. Tolstoy spent the last years of his life in an atmosphere of intrigue and discord between the Tolstoyans and members of his family. Trying to bring his lifestyle into agreement with his beliefs, on October 28 (November 10), 1910, the writer secretly left. On the way, he caught a cold and died on November 7 (20), 1910 at the Astapovo station of the Ryazan-Ural Railway (now a village in). The death of L.N. Tolstoy caused a colossal public outcry in and abroad.

The work of L. N. Tolstoy marked a new stage in the development of realism in Russian and world literature, and became a kind of bridge between the traditions of the classical novel of the 19th century and the literature of the 20th century. The writer's philosophical views had a huge influence on the evolution of European humanism.

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Born in Yasnaya Polyana, Krapivensky district, Tula province, on August 28 (September 9), 1828. Lived in the estate in 1828-1837. Since 1849 he returned to the estate periodically, and since 1862 he lived permanently. He was buried in Yasnaya Polyana.

He first visited Moscow in January 1837. He lived in the city until 1841, subsequently visited several times and lived for a long time. In 1882 he bought a house on Dolgokhamovnichesky Lane, where from then on his family usually spent the winter. The last time I came to Moscow was in September 1909.

In February-May 1849 he visited St. Petersburg for the first time. Lived in the city in the winter of 1855-1856, visited annually in 1857-1861, and also in 1878. The last time he came to St. Petersburg was in 1897.

He visited Tula several times in 1840-1900. In 1849-1852 he served in the office of the noble assembly. In September 1858 he took part in the congress of the provincial nobility. In February 1868, he was elected as a juror for the Krapivensky district and attended sessions of the Tula District Court.

Owner of the Nikolskoye-Vyazemskoye estate in Chernsky district, Tula province since 1860 (previously belonged to brother N.N. Tolstoy). In the 1860-1870s, he conducted experiments on improving the economy on the estate. The last time I visited the estate was on June 28 (July 11), 1910.

In 1854, the wooden manor house in which L. N. Tolstoy was born was sold and transported from the village of Dolgoye, Krapivensky district, Tula province, which belonged to the landowner P. M. Gorokhov. In 1897, the writer visited the village to buy the house, but due to its dilapidated condition it was considered untransportable.

In the 1860s, he organized a school in the village of Kolpna, Krapivensky district, Tula province (now within the city of Shchekino). On July 21 (August 2), 1894, he visited the mine of the joint-stock company “Partnership R. Gill” at the Yasenki station. On October 28 (November 10), 1910, the day he left, he took the train at Yasenki station (now in Shchekino).

He lived in the village of Starogladovskaya, Kizlyar district, Terek region, the location of the 20th artillery brigade, from May 1851 to January 1854. In January 1852, he was enlisted as a fireworksman of the 4th class in battery No. 4 of the 20th artillery brigade. On February 1 (February 13), 1852, in the village of Starogladovskaya, with the help of his friends S. Miserbiev and B. Isaev, he recorded the words of two Chechen folk songs with translation. The recordings of L. N. Tolstoy are recognized as “the first written monument of the Chechen language” and “the first experience of recording Chechen folklore in the local language.”

I visited the Grozny fortress for the first time on July 5 (17), 1851. He visited the commander of the left flank of the Caucasian line, Prince A.I. Baryatinsky, to obtain permission to participate in hostilities. Subsequently he visited Grozny in September 1851 and February 1853.

First visited Pyatigorsk on May 16 (28), 1852. Lived in Kabardinskaya Slobodka. On July 4 (16), 1852, he sent the manuscript of the novel “Childhood” from Pyatigorsk to the editor of the Sovremennik magazine. On August 5 (17), 1852, he left Pyatigorsk for the village. He visited Pyatigorsk again in August - October 1853.

Visited Orel three times. On January 9-10 (21-22), 1856, he visited his brother D.N. Tolstoy, who was dying of consumption. On March 7 (19), 1885, I was passing through the city on my way to the Maltsev estate. On September 25-27 (October 7-9), 1898, he visited the Oryol provincial prison while working on the novel “Resurrection.”

In the period from October 1891 to July 1893, he came several times to the village of Begichevka, Dankovsky district, Ryazan province (now Begichevo), the estate of I. I. Raevsky. In the village he organized a center to help starving peasants of Dankovsky and Epifansky districts. The last time L.N. Tolstoy left Begichevka was on July 18 (30), 1893.

pseudonyms: L.N., L.N.T.

one of the most famous Russian writers and thinkers, one of greatest writers peace; participant in the defense of Sevastopol

Lev Tolstoy

short biography

- the greatest Russian writer, writer, one of the world's greatest writers, thinker, educator, publicist, corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Thanks to him, not only works appeared that are included in the treasury of world literature, but also an entire religious and moral movement - Tolstoyism.

Tolstoy was born on the Yasnaya Polyana estate, located in the Tula province, on September 9 (August 28, O.S.) 1828. Being the fourth child in the family of Count N.I. Tolstoy and Princess M.N. Volkonskaya, Lev was left an orphan early and was raised by a distant relative T. A. Ergolskaya. Childhood years remained in the memory of Lev Nikolaevich as a happy time. Together with his family, 13-year-old Tolstoy moved to Kazan, where his relative and new guardian P.I. lived. Yushkova. After receiving home education, Tolstoy became a student at the Faculty of Philosophy (Department of Oriental Languages) at Kazan University. Studying within the walls of this institution lasted less than two years, after which Tolstoy returned to Yasnaya Polyana.

In the fall of 1847, Leo Tolstoy moved first to Moscow, and later to St. Petersburg to take university candidate exams. These years of his life were special, priorities and hobbies replaced each other like in a kaleidoscope. Intense study gave way to carousing, gambling at cards, and a passionate interest in music. Tolstoy either wanted to become an official, or saw himself as a cadet in a horse guards regiment. At this time, he incurred a lot of debts, which he managed to pay off only after many years. Nevertheless, this period helped Tolstoy better understand himself and see his shortcomings. At this time, for the first time he had a serious intention to engage in literature, he began to try himself in artistic creativity.

Four years after leaving the university, Leo Tolstoy succumbed to the persuasion of his older brother Nikolai, an officer, to leave for the Caucasus. The decision did not come immediately, but a large loss in cards contributed to its adoption. In the fall of 1851, Tolstoy found himself in the Caucasus, where for almost three years he lived on the banks of the Terek in a Cossack village. Subsequently, he was accepted into military service and participated in hostilities. During this period, the first published work appeared: the Sovremennik magazine published the story “Childhood” in 1852. It was part of a planned autobiographical novel, for which the stories “Adolescence” (1852-1854) and composed in 1855-1857 were subsequently written. "Youth"; Tolstoy never wrote the “Youth” part.

Having received an appointment in Bucharest, in the Danube Army, in 1854, Tolstoy, at his personal request, was transferred to the Crimean Army, fought as a battery commander in besieged Sevastopol, receiving medals and the Order of St. for valor. Anna. The war did not prevent him from continuing his studies in the literary field: it was here that he was written throughout 1855-1856. “Sevastopol Stories” were published in Sovremennik, which had enormous success and secured Tolstoy’s reputation as a prominent representative of the new generation of writers.

As the great hope of Russian literature, as Nekrasov put it, he was greeted in the Sovremennik circle when he arrived in St. Petersburg in the fall of 1855. Despite the warm welcome, Active participation in readings, discussions, dinners, Tolstoy did not feel like he belonged in the literary environment. In the fall of 1856, he retired and after a short stay in Yasnaya Polyana, he went abroad in 1857, but in the fall of that year he returned to Moscow, and then to his estate. Disappointment in the literary community, social life, dissatisfaction with creative achievements led to the fact that in the late 50s. Tolstoy decides to leave writing and gives priority to activities in the field of education.

Returning to Yasnaya Polyana in 1859, he opened a school for peasant children. This activity aroused such enthusiasm in him that he even made a special trip abroad to study advanced pedagogical systems. In 1862, the count began publishing the Yasnaya Polyana magazine with pedagogical content with supplements in the form of children's books for reading. Educational activities was suspended due to an important event in his biography - his marriage in 1862 to S.A. Bers. After the wedding, Lev Nikolaevich moved his young wife from Moscow to Yasnaya Polyana, where he was completely absorbed in family life and household chores. Only in the early 70s. he will briefly return to educational work, write “The ABC” and “The New ABC.”

In the fall of 1863, he conceived the idea of ​​a novel, which in 1865 would be published in the Russian Bulletin as “War and Peace” (the first part). The work caused a huge resonance; the skill with which Tolstoy painted a large-scale epic canvas, combining it with amazing accuracy with psychological analysis, and entered the private lives of the heroes into the outline did not escape the public. historical events. Lev Nikolaevich wrote the epic novel until 1869, and during 1873-1877. worked on another novel that was included in the golden fund of world literature - “Anna Karenina”.

Both of these works glorified Tolstoy as the greatest artist of the word, but the author himself in the 80s. loses interest in literary work. A very serious change occurs in his soul and in his worldview, and during this period the thought of suicide comes to him more than once. The doubts and questions that tormented him led to the need to begin with the study of theology, and works of a philosophical and religious nature began to appear from his pen: in 1879-1880 - “Confession”, “Study of Dogmatic Theology”; in 1880-1881 - “Connection and translation of the Gospels”, in 1882-1884. - “What is my faith?” In parallel with theology, Tolstoy studied philosophy, analyzed the achievements exact sciences.

Outwardly, the change in his consciousness manifested itself in simplification, i.e. in refusing the opportunities of a prosperous life. The Count dresses in common clothes, refuses food of animal origin, the rights to his works and his fortune in favor of the rest of the family, and works a lot physically. His worldview is characterized by a sharp rejection of the social elite, the idea of ​​statehood, serfdom and bureaucracy. They are combined with the famous slogan of non-resistance to evil by violence, the ideas of forgiveness and universal love.

The turning point was also reflected in Tolstoy’s literary work, which takes on the character of denouncing the existing state of affairs with a call on people to act according to the dictates of reason and conscience. His stories “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”, “The Kreutzer Sonata”, “The Devil”, dramas “The Power of Darkness” and “Fruits of Enlightenment”, and the treatise “What is Art?” belong to this time. Eloquent evidence of a critical attitude towards the clergy, the official church and its teachings was the novel “Resurrection” published in 1899. Complete divergence from the position of the Orthodox Church resulted in Tolstoy’s official excommunication from it; this happened in February 1901, and the decision of the Synod led to a loud public outcry.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. In Tolstoy’s artistic works, the theme of cardinal life changes and departure from the previous way of life prevails (“Father Sergius”, “Hadji Murat”, “The Living Corpse”, “After the Ball”, etc.). Lev Nikolaevich himself also came to the decision to change lifestyle, to live the way he wanted, in accordance with current views. Being the most authoritative writer, head national literature, he breaks with his environment, worsens relationships with his family and loved ones, experiencing a deep personal drama.

At the age of 82, secretly from his household, on an autumn night in 1910, Tolstoy left Yasnaya Polyana; his companion was his personal physician Makovitsky. On the way, the writer was overtaken by illness, as a result of which they were forced to get off the train at Astapovo station. Here he was sheltered by the station chief, and the last week of the life of a world-famous writer, known among other things as a preacher of a new teaching and a religious thinker, passed in his house. The whole country monitored his health, and when he died on November 10 (October 28, O.S.), 1910, his funeral turned into an event of an all-Russian scale.

The influence of Tolstoy, his ideological platform and artistic style on the development of the realistic trend in world literature is difficult to overestimate. In particular, its influence can be traced in the works of E. Hemingway, F. Mauriac, Rolland, B. Shaw, T. Mann, J. Galsworthy and other prominent literary figures.

Biography from Wikipedia

Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy(September 9, 1828, Yasnaya Polyana, Tula province, Russian Empire - November 20, 1910, Astapovo station, Ryazan province, Russian Empire) - one of the most famous Russian writers and thinkers, one of the greatest writers in the world. Participant in the defense of Sevastopol. An educator, publicist, religious thinker, his authoritative opinion caused the emergence of a new religious and moral movement - Tolstoyism. Corresponding Member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences (1873), honorary academician by category belles lettres(1900). Was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

A writer who was recognized during his lifetime as the head of Russian literature. The work of Leo Tolstoy marked a new stage in Russian and world realism, acting as a bridge between classic novel XIX century and literature of the XX century. Leo Tolstoy had a strong influence on the evolution of European humanism, as well as on the development of realistic traditions in world literature. The works of Leo Tolstoy have been filmed and staged many times in the USSR and abroad; his plays have been staged on stages all over the world. Leo Tolstoy was the most published writer in the USSR from 1918 to 1986: the total circulation of 3,199 publications amounted to 436.261 million copies.

The most famous works of Tolstoy are the novels “War and Peace”, “Anna Karenina”, “Resurrection”, the autobiographical trilogy “Childhood”, “Adolescence”, “Youth”, the stories “Cossacks”, “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”, “Kreutzerova” sonata”, “Hadji Murat”, a series of essays “Sevastopol Stories”, dramas “The Living Corpse”, “Fruits of Enlightenment” and “The Power of Darkness”, autobiographical religious and philosophical works “Confession” and “What is my faith?” and etc.

Origin

Family tree of L. N. Tolstoy

A representative of the count branch of the Tolstoy noble family, descended from Peter's associate P. A. Tolstoy. The writer had extensive family connections in the world of the highest aristocracy. Among his father's cousins ​​are the adventurer and brute F.I. Tolstoy, the artist F.P. Tolstoy, the beauty M.I. Lopukhina, the socialite A.F. Zakrevskaya, the maid of honor A.A. Tolstaya. The poet A.K. Tolstoy was his second cousin. Among the mother's cousins ​​are Lieutenant General D. M. Volkonsky and the wealthy emigrant N. I. Trubetskoy. A.P. Mansurov and A.V. Vsevolozhsky were married to their mother’s cousins. Tolstoy was related by property with ministers A. A. Zakrevsky and L. A. Perovsky (married to cousins ​​of his parents), generals of 1812 L. I. Depreradovich (married to his grandmother’s sister) and A. I. Yushkov (brother-in-law of one of aunts), as well as with Chancellor A.M. Gorchakov (brother of another aunt’s husband). The common ancestor of Leo Tolstoy and Pushkin was Admiral Ivan Golovin, who helped Peter I create the Russian fleet.

The features of Ilya Andreevich’s grandfather 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. In some character traits and biographical facts, he was similar to Nikolenka’s father in “Childhood” and “Adolescence” and partly to 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, which did not allow him to serve under Nicholas I. He was a participant in the foreign campaign of the Russian army against Napoleon, including participating in the “Battle of the Nations” near Leipzig and being captured by the French, but was able to escape, 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 go into bureaucratic service in order not to end up in debtor's prison because of the debts of his father, the Kazan governor, who died under investigation for official abuses. The negative example of his father helped Nikolai Ilyich develop his ideal of life - a private independent life with family joys. To put his upset affairs in order, Nikolai Ilyich (like Nikolai Rostov) married the no longer very young Princess Maria Nikolaevna from the Volkonsky family in 1822, the marriage was happy. They had five children: Nikolai (1823-1860), Sergei (1826-1904), Dmitry (1827-1856), Lev, Maria (1830-1912).

Tolstoy's maternal grandfather, Catherine's general, Prince Nikolai Sergeevich Volkonsky, had some similarities with the stern rigorist old Prince Bolkonsky in War and Peace. Lev Nikolayevich's mother, similar in some respects to Princess Marya depicted in War and Peace, had a remarkable gift as a storyteller.

Childhood

The silhouette of M. N. Volkonskaya is the only image of the writer’s mother. 1810s

Leo Tolstoy was born on August 28, 1828 in the Krapivensky district of the Tula province, on his mother’s hereditary estate - Yasnaya Polyana. He was the fourth child in the family. The mother died in 1830 from “childbed fever,” as they said then, six months after the birth of her daughter, when Leo was not yet 2 years old.

The house where L. N. Tolstoy was born, 1828. In 1854, the house was sold by order of the writer for removal to the village of Dolgoye. Broken in 1913

A distant relative, T. A. Ergolskaya, took up the task of raising orphaned children. In 1837, the family moved to Moscow, settling on Plyushchikha, as the eldest son had to prepare to enter the university. Soon, the father, Nikolai Ilyich, suddenly died, leaving affairs (including some litigation related to the family’s property) in an unfinished state, and the three youngest children again settled in Yasnaya Polyana under the supervision of Ergolskaya and their paternal aunt, Countess A. M. Osten-Sacken , appointed guardian of the children. Here Lev Nikolaevich remained until 1840, when Osten-Sacken died, the children moved to Kazan, to a new guardian - their father’s sister P. I. Yushkova.

The Yushkov house was considered one of the most fun in Kazan; All family members highly valued external shine. "My good aunt, - says Tolstoy, - the purest being, always said that she would want nothing more for me than for me to have a relationship with a married woman.”.

Lev Nikolaevich wanted to shine in society, but his natural shyness and lack of external attractiveness hampered him. The most diverse, as Tolstoy himself defines them, “philosophies” about the most important questions of our existence - happiness, death, God, love, eternity - left an imprint on his character in that era of his life. What he told in “Adolescence” and “Youth”, in the novel “Resurrection” about the aspirations of Irtenyev and Nekhlyudov for self-improvement, was taken by Tolstoy from the history of his own ascetic attempts of this time. All this, wrote the critic S. A. Vengerov, led to the fact that Tolstoy created, in the words of his story “Adolescence,” “ the habit of constant moral analysis, which destroyed the freshness of feeling and clarity of reason" Giving examples of introspection of this period, he ironically speaks of the exaggeration of his adolescent philosophical pride and greatness, and at the same time notes the insurmountable inability to “get used to not being ashamed of his every simplest word and movement” when confronted with real people, whose benefactor he considered himself then seemed.

Education

His education was initially carried out by the French tutor Saint-Thomas (the prototype of St.-Jérôme in the story “Boyhood”), who replaced the good-natured German Reselman, whom Tolstoy portrayed in the story “Childhood” under the name of Karl Ivanovich.

In 1843, P.I. Yushkova, taking on the role of guardian of her minor nephews (only the eldest, Nikolai, was an adult) and niece, brought them to Kazan. Following the brothers Nikolai, Dmitry and Sergei, Lev decided to enter the Imperial Kazan University (the most famous at that time), where Lobachevsky worked at the Faculty of Mathematics, and Kovalevsky worked at the Eastern Faculty. On October 3, 1844, Leo Tolstoy was enrolled as a student of the category of Eastern (Arabic-Turkish) literature as a self-paid student - paying for his studies. In the entrance exams, in particular, he showed excellent results in the compulsory “Turkish-Tatar language” for admission. According to the results of the year, he had poor performance in the relevant subjects, did not pass the transition exam and had to re-take the first-year program.

To avoid repeating the course completely, he transferred to law school, where his problems with grades in some subjects continued. The transitional May 1846 exams were passed satisfactorily (received one A, three Bs and four Cs; the average result was three), and Lev Nikolaevich was transferred to the second year. Leo Tolstoy spent less than two years at the Faculty of Law: “Every education imposed by others was always difficult for him, and everything he learned in life, he learned himself, suddenly, quickly, with intense work,” writes S. A. Tolstaya in his “Materials for the biography of L. N. Tolstoy.” 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 work - comparing Catherine’s “Order” with Esprit des lois <«Духом законов» (рус.) фр.>Montesquieu. ... this work fascinated me, I went to the village, began to read Montesquieu, this reading opened up endless horizons for me; I started reading and left university precisely because I wanted to study.”

Beginning of literary activity

From March 11, 1847, Tolstoy was in the 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 for their actions. He kept this diary with short breaks throughout his life.

L.N. Tolstoy kept his diary from a young age until the end of his life. Notebook entries from 1891-1895.

Having completed his treatment, in the spring of 1847 Tolstoy left his studies at the university and went to Yasnaya Polyana, which he inherited under the division; his activities there are partly described in the work “The Morning of the Landowner”: Tolstoy tried to establish a new relationship with the peasants. His attempt to somehow smooth out the young landowner’s feeling of guilt before the people dates back to the same year when the story “Anton the Miserable” by D. V. Grigorovich and the beginning of “Notes of a Hunter” by I. S. Turgenev appeared.

In his diary, Tolstoy formulated for himself a large number of life rules and goals, but he managed to follow only a small part of them. Among those who succeeded were serious studies in English, music, and law. In addition, neither his diary nor his letters reflected the beginning of Tolstoy’s involvement in pedagogy and charity, although in 1849 he first opened a school for peasant children. The main teacher was Foka Demidovich, a serf, but Lev Nikolaevich himself often taught classes.

In mid-October 1848, Tolstoy left for Moscow, settling where many of his relatives and acquaintances lived - in the Arbat area. He rented Ivanova’s house on Sivtsev Vrazhek for living. In Moscow, he was going to begin preparing for the candidate exams, but classes never started. Instead, he was attracted to a completely different side of life - social life. In addition to his passion for social life, in Moscow, in the winter of 1848-1849, Lev Nikolaevich first developed a passion for playing cards. But since he played very recklessly and did not always think through his moves, he often lost.

Having left for St. Petersburg in February 1849, he spent time in revelry with K. A. Islavin, the uncle of his future wife (“My love for Islavin ruined 8 whole months of my life in St. Petersburg for me”). In the spring, Tolstoy began to take the exam to become a candidate of rights; He passed two exams, from criminal law and criminal proceedings, successfully, but he did not take the third exam and went to the village.

Later he came to Moscow, where he often spent time gambling, which often had a negative impact on his financial situation. During this period of his life, Tolstoy was especially passionately interested in music (he himself played the piano quite well and greatly appreciated his favorite works performed by others). His passion for music prompted him later to write the Kreutzer Sonata.

Tolstoy's favorite composers were Bach, Handel and Chopin. The development of Tolstoy’s love for music was also facilitated by the fact that during a trip to St. Petersburg in 1848, he met in a very unsuitable dance class setting with a gifted but lost German musician, whom he later described in the story “Albert.” In 1849, Lev Nikolaevich settled the musician Rudolf in Yasnaya Polyana, with whom he played four hands on the piano. Having become interested in music at that time, he played works by Schumann, Chopin, Mozart, and Mendelssohn for several hours a day. At the end of the 1840s, Tolstoy, in collaboration with his friend Zybin, composed a waltz, which in the early 1900s he performed with the composer S.I. Taneyev, who made a musical notation of this musical work (the only one composed by Tolstoy). The waltz is heard in the film Father Sergius, based on the story by L. N. Tolstoy.

A lot of time was also spent on carousing, gaming and hunting.

In the winter of 1850-1851. started writing "Childhood". In March 1851, he wrote “The History of Yesterday.” Four years after he left the university, Lev Nikolayevich’s brother Nikolai, who served in the Caucasus, came to Yasnaya Polyana and invited younger brother join military service in the Caucasus. Lev did not immediately agree, until a major loss in Moscow accelerated the final decision. The writer's biographers note significant and positive influence brother Nikolai on the young and inexperienced Leo in everyday affairs. In the absence of his parents, his older brother was his friend and mentor.

To pay off his debts, it was necessary to reduce his expenses to a minimum - and in the spring of 1851, Tolstoy hastily left Moscow for the Caucasus without a specific goal. He soon decided to enlist in military service, but for this he lacked the necessary documents left in Moscow, while waiting for which Tolstoy lived for about five months in Pyatigorsk, in a simple hut. He spent a significant part of his time hunting, in the company of the Cossack Epishka, the prototype of one of the heroes of the story “Cossacks”, who appears there under the name Eroshka.

In the fall of 1851, Tolstoy, having passed the exam in Tiflis, entered the 4th battery of the 20th artillery brigade, stationed in the Cossack village of Starogladovskaya on the banks of the Terek, near Kizlyar, as a cadet. With some changes in details, she is depicted in the story “Cossacks”. The story reproduces a picture of the inner life of a young gentleman who fled from Moscow life. In the Cossack village, Tolstoy began to write again and in July 1852 he sent to the editors of the most popular magazine at that time, Sovremennik, the first part of the future autobiographical trilogy, Childhood, signed only with the initials L. N.T.” When sending the manuscript to the magazine, Leo Tolstoy attached a letter that said: “ ...I look forward to your verdict. He will either encourage me to continue my favorite activities, or force me to burn everything I started.».

Having received the manuscript of “Childhood,” the editor of Sovremennik, N. A. Nekrasov, immediately recognized its literary value and wrote a kind letter to the author, which had a very encouraging effect on him. In a letter to I. S. Turgenev, Nekrasov noted: “This is a new talent and, it seems, reliable.” The manuscript of an as yet unknown author was published in September of the same year. Meanwhile, the novice and inspired author began to continue the tetralogy “Four Epochs of Development”, the last part of which - “Youth” - never took place. He pondered the plot of “The Landowner’s Morning” (the completed story was only a fragment of “The Roman of a Russian Landowner”), “The Raid,” and “The Cossacks.” Published in Sovremennik on September 18, 1852, “Childhood” was extremely successful; after publication, the author immediately began to be ranked among the luminaries of the young literary school along with I. S. Turgenev, Goncharov, D. V. Grigorovich, Ostrovsky, who already enjoyed great literary fame. Critics Apollo Grigoriev, Annenkov, Druzhinin, Chernyshevsky appreciated the depth of psychological analysis, the seriousness of the author's intentions and the bright salience of realism.

The relatively late start of his career is very characteristic of Tolstoy: he never considered himself a professional writer, understanding professionalism not in the sense of a profession that provides a means of living, but in the sense of the predominance of literary interests. He did not take the interests of literary parties to heart, and was reluctant to talk about literature, preferring to talk about issues of faith, morality, and social relations.

Military service

As a cadet, Lev Nikolaevich remained for two years in the Caucasus, where he participated in many skirmishes with the highlanders led by Shamil, and was exposed to the dangers of military Caucasian life. He had the right to the St. George Cross, but in accordance with his convictions, he “gave it” to a fellow soldier, considering that a significant improvement in the conditions of service of a colleague was higher than personal vanity. With the beginning of the Crimean War, Tolstoy transferred to the Danube Army, participated in the battle of Oltenitsa and the siege of Silistria, and from November 1854 to the end of August 1855 he was in Sevastopol.

Stele in memory of a participant in the defense of Sevastopol in 1854-1855. L. N. Tolstoy at the fourth bastion

For a long time he lived on the 4th bastion, which was often attacked, commanded a battery in the battle of Chernaya, and was during the bombardment during the assault on Malakhov Kurgan. Tolstoy, despite all the everyday hardships and horrors of the siege, at this time wrote the story “Cutting Wood,” which reflected Caucasian impressions, and the first of the three “Sevastopol stories” - “Sevastopol in December 1854.” He sent this story to Sovremennik. It was quickly published and read with interest throughout Russia, making a stunning impression with the picture of horrors that befell the defenders of Sevastopol. The story was noticed Russian Emperor Alexander II; he ordered to take care of the gifted officer.

Even during the life of Emperor Nicholas I, Tolstoy intended to publish together with artillery officers " cheap and popular"The magazine "Military Leaflet", however, Tolstoy failed to implement the magazine project: " For the project, my Sovereign Emperor most graciously deigned to allow our articles to be published in “Invalid”“,” Tolstoy bitterly ironized about this.

For being on the Yazonovsky redoubt of the fourth bastion during the bombardment, for composure and discretion.

From the presentation to the Order of St. Anne, 4th class.

For the defense of Sevastopol, Tolstoy was awarded the Order of St. Anna, 4th degree with the inscription “For bravery,” medals “For the defense of Sevastopol 1854-1855” and “In memory of the war of 1853-1856.” Subsequently, he was awarded two medals “In memory of the 50th anniversary of the defense of Sevastopol”: a silver one as a participant in the defense of Sevastopol and a bronze medal as the author of “Sevastopol Stories”.

Tolstoy, enjoying the reputation of a brave officer and surrounded by the brilliance of fame, had every chance of a career. However, his career was spoiled by writing several satirical songs, stylized as soldiers' songs. One of these songs was dedicated to the failure during the battle near the Chernaya River on August 4 (16), 1855, when General Read, misunderstanding the order of the commander-in-chief, attacked Fedyukhin Heights. The song entitled “Like the fourth, the mountains carried us hard to take away,” which affected a number of important generals, was a huge success. For her, Lev Nikolaevich had to answer to the assistant chief of staff A. A. Yakimakh. Immediately after the assault on August 27 (September 8), Tolstoy was sent by courier to St. Petersburg, where he completed “Sevastopol in May 1855.” and wrote “Sevastopol in August 1855,” published in the first issue of Sovremennik for 1856 with the author’s full signature. “Sevastopol Stories” finally strengthened his reputation as a representative of a new literary generation, and in November 1856 the writer left military service forever with the rank of lieutenant.

Traveling around Europe

In St. Petersburg, the young writer was warmly welcomed in high society salons and literary circles. He became closest friends with I. S. Turgenev, with whom they lived in the same apartment for some time. Turgenev introduced him to the Sovremennik circle, after which Tolstoy established friendly relations with such famous writers as N. A. Nekrasov, I. S. Goncharov, I. I. Panaev, D. V. Grigorovich, A. V. Druzhinin, V. A. Sollogub.

At this time, “Blizzard”, “Two Hussars” were written, “Sevastopol in August” and “Youth” were completed, and the writing of the future “Cossacks” continued.

However, cheerful and rich life left a bitter aftertaste in Tolstoy’s soul, at the same time he began to have a strong discord with the circle of writers close to him. As a result, “people became disgusted with him, and he became disgusted with himself” - and at the beginning of 1857, Tolstoy left St. Petersburg without any regret and went on a trip.

On his first trip abroad, he visited Paris, where he was horrified by the cult of Napoleon I (“The idolization of the villain, terrible”), while at the same time he attended balls, museums, and admired the “sense of social freedom.” However, his presence at the guillotine made such a grave impression that Tolstoy left Paris and went to places associated with the French writer and thinker J.-J. Rousseau - to Lake Geneva. In the spring of 1857, I. S. Turgenev described his meetings with Leo Tolstoy in Paris after his sudden departure from St. Petersburg as follows:

« Indeed, Paris is not at all in harmony with his spiritual system; He’s a strange person, I’ve never met anyone like him and I don’t quite understand him. A mixture of poet, Calvinist, fanatic, baric - something reminiscent of Rousseau, but more honest than Rousseau - a highly moral and at the same time unsympathetic creature».

I. S. Turgenev, Complete. collection op. and letters. Letters, vol. III, p. 52.

Trips around Western Europe- Germany, France, England, Switzerland, Italy (in 1857 and 1860-1861) made a rather negative impression on him. He expressed his disappointment in the European way of life in the story “Lucerne.” Tolstoy's disappointment was caused by the deep contrast between wealth and poverty, which he was able to see through the magnificent outer veneer of European culture.

Lev Nikolaevich writes the story “Albert”. At the same time, his friends never cease to be amazed at his eccentricities: in his letter to I. S. Turgenev in the fall of 1857, P. V. Annenkov told Tolstoy’s project to plant forests throughout Russia, and in his letter to V. P. Botkin, Leo Tolstoy reported how very happy he was the fact that he did not become only a writer, contrary to Turgenev’s advice. However, in the interval between the first and second trips, the writer continued to work on “Cossacks”, wrote the story “Three Deaths” and the novel “Family Happiness”.

Russian writers from the Sovremennik magazine circle. I. A. Goncharov, I. S. Turgenev, L. N. Tolstoy, D. V. Grigorovich, A. V. Druzhinin and A. N. Ostrovsky. February 15, 1856 Photo by S. L. Levitsky

His last novel was published in “Russian Bulletin” by Mikhail Katkov. Tolstoy's collaboration with the Sovremennik magazine, which lasted from 1852, ended in 1859. In the same year, Tolstoy took part in the organization Literary Fund. But his life was not limited to literary interests: on December 22, 1858, he almost died on a bear hunt.

Around the same time, he began an affair with the peasant woman Aksinya Bazykina, and plans for marriage were brewing.

On his next trip, he was mainly interested in public education and institutions aimed at raising the educational level of the working population. He closely studied issues of public education in Germany and France, both theoretically and practically - in conversations with specialists. Of the outstanding people in Germany, he was most interested in Berthold Auerbach as the author of the “Black Forest Stories” dedicated to folk life and as a publisher of folk calendars. Tolstoy paid him a visit and tried to get closer to him. In addition, he also met with the German teacher Disterweg. During his stay in Brussels, Tolstoy met Proudhon and Lelewell. In London he visited A. I. Herzen and attended a lecture by Charles Dickens.

Tolstoy’s serious mood during his second trip to the south of France was also facilitated by the fact that his beloved brother Nikolai died of tuberculosis almost in his hands. The death of his brother made a huge impression on Tolstoy.

Gradually, criticism towards Leo Tolstoy cooled down for 10-12 years, until the very appearance of “War and Peace”, and he himself did not strive for rapprochement with writers, making an exception only for Afanasy Fet. One of the reasons for this alienation was the quarrel between Leo Tolstoy and Turgenev, which occurred while both prose writers were visiting Fet on the Stepanovka estate in May 1861. The quarrel almost ended in a duel and ruined the relationship between the writers for 17 long years.

Treatment in the Bashkir nomadic camp Karalyk

In May 1862, Lev Nikolayevich, suffering from depression, on the recommendation of doctors, went to the Bashkir farm of Karalyk, Samara province, to be treated with a new and fashionable method of kumiss treatment at that time. Initially, he was going to stay in Postnikov’s kumiss clinic near Samara, but, having learned that many high-ranking officials were supposed to arrive at the same time (secular society, which the young count could not tolerate), he went to the Bashkir nomadic camp of Karalyk, on the Karalyk River, in 130 miles from Samara. There Tolstoy lived in a Bashkir tent (yurt), ate lamb, took sunbathing, drank kumiss, tea, and also had fun with the Bashkirs playing checkers. The first time he stayed there for a month and a half. In 1871, when he had already written War and Peace, he returned there again due to deteriorating health. He wrote about his impressions like this: “ The melancholy and indifference have passed, I feel myself returning to the Scythian state, and everything is interesting and new... Much is new and interesting: the Bashkirs, who smell of Herodotus, and Russian men, and villages, especially charming in the simplicity and kindness of the people».

Fascinated by Karalyk, Tolstoy bought an estate in these places, and already spent the summer of the next year, 1872, with his whole family in it.

Pedagogical activity

In 1859, even before the liberation of the peasants, Tolstoy was actively involved in setting up schools in his Yasnaya Polyana and throughout the Krapivensky district.

The Yasnaya Polyana school was one of the original pedagogical experiments: in the era of admiration for the German pedagogical school, Tolstoy resolutely rebelled against any regulation and discipline in the school. In his opinion, everything in teaching should be individual - both the teacher and the student, and their mutual relationships. At the Yasnaya Polyana school, the children sat, whoever wanted where they wanted, whoever wanted as much as they wanted, and whoever wanted as they wanted. There was no specific teaching program. The teacher's only job was to get the class interested. The classes went well. They were led by Tolstoy himself with the help of several regular teachers and several random ones, from his closest acquaintances and visitors.

L. N. Tolstoy, 1862. Photo by M. B. Tulinov. Moscow

Since 1862, Tolstoy began publishing the pedagogical magazine Yasnaya Polyana, where he himself was the main employee. Not feeling the vocation of a publisher, Tolstoy managed to publish only 12 issues of the magazine, the last of which appeared with a delay in 1863. In addition to theoretical articles, he also wrote a number of stories, fables and adaptations, adapted for elementary school. Combined together, Tolstoy's pedagogical articles made up an entire volume of his collected works. At one time they went unnoticed. On the sociological basis of Tolstoy’s ideas about education, on the fact that Tolstoy saw only simplified and improved ways of exploiting the people in education, science, art and technological success upper classes, no one paid attention. Moreover, from Tolstoy’s attacks on European education and “progress,” many concluded that Tolstoy was a “conservative.”

Soon Tolstoy left teaching. Marriage, the birth of his own children, and plans related to writing the novel “War and Peace” pushed back his pedagogical activities by ten years. Only in the early 1870s did he begin to create his own “ABC” and published it in 1872, and then released the “New ABC” and a series of four “Russian books for reading”, approved as a result of long ordeals by the Ministry of Public Education as manuals for primary educational institutions. In the early 1870s, classes at the Yasnaya Polyana school were restored for a short time.

The experience of the Yasnaya Polyana school subsequently came in handy for some domestic teachers. Thus, S. T. Shatsky, creating his own school-colony “Vigorous Life” in 1911, started from Leo Tolstoy’s experiments in the field of cooperation pedagogy.

Social activities in the 1860s

Upon returning from Europe in May 1861, L.N. Tolstoy was offered to become a peace mediator on the 4th section of the Krapivensky district of the Tula province. Unlike those who looked at the people as a younger brother who needed to be raised up to themselves, Tolstoy thought on the contrary that the people are infinitely higher than the cultural classes and that the masters need to borrow the heights of spirit from the peasants, so he, having accepted the position of mediator, actively defended land interests of the peasants, often violating royal decrees. “Mediation is interesting and exciting, but the bad thing is that all the nobility hated me with all the strength of their souls and are thrusting des bâtons dans les roues (French spokes in my wheels) from all sides.” Working as an intermediary expanded the writer’s circle of observations on the life of peasants, giving him material for artistic creativity.

In July 1866, Tolstoy appeared at a military court as a defender of Vasil Shabunin, a company clerk stationed near Yasnaya Polyana of the Moscow Infantry Regiment. Shabunin hit the officer, who ordered him to be punished with canes for being drunk. Tolstoy argued that Shabunin was insane, but the court found him guilty and sentenced him to death. Shabunin was shot. This episode made a great impression on Tolstoy, since in this terrible phenomenon he saw the merciless force represented by a state based on violence. On this occasion, he wrote to his friend, publicist P.I. Biryukov:

« This incident had much more influence on my entire life than all the seemingly more important events in life: loss or recovery of a condition, successes or failures in literature, even the loss of loved ones».

Creativity flourishes

L. N. Tolstoy (1876)

During the first 12 years after his marriage, he created War and Peace and Anna Karenina. At the turn of this second era literary life Tolstoy’s works are conceived back in 1852 and completed in 1861-1862, the first of the works in which the talent of the mature Tolstoy was most realized.

The main interest of creativity for Tolstoy manifested itself “ in the “history” of characters, in their continuous and complex movement, development" His goal was to show the individual’s ability for moral growth, improvement, and resistance to the environment, relying on the strength of his own soul.

"War and Peace"

The release of War and Peace was preceded by work on the novel The Decembrists (1860-1861), to which the author returned several times, but which remained unfinished. And “War and Peace” experienced unprecedented success. An excerpt from the novel entitled "1805" appeared in the Russian Messenger of 1865; in 1868 three of its parts were published, soon followed by the remaining two. The first four volumes of War and Peace quickly sold out, and a second edition was needed, which was released in October 1868. The fifth and sixth volumes of the novel were published in one edition, printed in an already increased edition.

“War and Peace” has become a unique phenomenon in both Russian and foreign literature. This work has absorbed all the depth and intimacy of a psychological novel with the scope and diversity of an epic fresco. The writer, according to V. Ya. Lakshin, turned “to special condition national consciousness in the heroic time of 1812, when people from different segments of the population united in resistance to foreign invasion,” which, in turn, “created the basis for the epic.”

The author showed national Russian features in “ hidden warmth of patriotism", in disgust for ostentatious heroism, in calm faith in justice, in the modest dignity and courage of ordinary soldiers. He portrayed Russia's war with Napoleonic troops as a nationwide war. The epic style of the work is conveyed through the completeness and plasticity of the image, the branching and crossing of destinies, and incomparable pictures of Russian nature.

In Tolstoy's novel, the most diverse layers of society are widely represented, from emperors and kings to soldiers, all ages and all temperaments throughout the reign of Alexander I.

Tolstoy was pleased with his own work, but already in January 1871 he sent a letter to A. A. Fet: “How happy I am... that I will never write verbose rubbish like “War” again”. However, Tolstoy hardly underestimated the importance of his previous creations. When asked by Tokutomi Rock in 1906 which of his works Tolstoy loved most, the writer replied: "Novel "War and Peace"".

"Anna Karenina"

A no less dramatic and serious work was the novel about tragic love “Anna Karenina” (1873-1876). Unlike the previous work, there is no place in it for an endlessly happy rapture in the bliss of existence. In the almost autobiographical novel of Levin and Kitty, there are still joyful experiences, but in the depiction family life Dolly already has more bitterness, and in the unhappy ending of the love of Anna Karenina and Vronsky there is so much anxiety in mental life that this novel is essentially a transition to the third period of Tolstoy’s literary activity, the dramatic one.

There is less simplicity and clarity of mental movements characteristic of the heroes of War and Peace, more heightened sensitivity, inner alertness and anxiety. The characters of the main characters are more complex and subtle. The author sought to show the subtlest nuances of love, disappointment, jealousy, despair, and spiritual enlightenment.

The problematics of this work directly led Tolstoy to the ideological turning point of the late 1870s.

Other works

Waltz composed by Tolstoy and recorded by S. I. Taneyev on February 10, 1906.

In March 1879, in 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 and a half. The Goldfinch told Tolstoy many folk tales, epics and legends, of which more than twenty were written down by Tolstoy (these notes were published in volume XLVIII of the Anniversary edition of Tolstoy’s works), and Tolstoy, if he did not write down the plots of some of them, then remembered them: six written by Tolstoy works are sourced from the stories of Shchegolenok (1881 - “ How people live", 1885 - " Two old men" And " Three elders", 1905 - " Korney Vasiliev" And " Prayer", 1907 - " Old man in church"). In addition, Tolstoy diligently wrote down many sayings, proverbs, individual expressions and words told by the Goldfinch.

Tolstoy’s new worldview was most fully expressed in his works “Confession” (1879-1880, published in 1884) and “What is My Faith?” (1882-1884). Tolstoy dedicated the story “The Kreutzer Sonata” (1887-1889, published in 1891) and “The Devil” (1889-1890, published in 1911) to the theme of the Christian principle of love, devoid of all self-interest and rising above sensual love in the fight against the flesh. In the 1890s, trying to theoretically substantiate his views on art, he wrote the treatise “What is Art?” (1897-1898). But the main artistic work of those years was his novel “Resurrection” (1889-1899), the plot of which was based on a real court case. The sharp criticism of church rituals in this work became one of the reasons for the excommunication of Tolstoy by the Holy Synod from the Orthodox Church in 1901. The highest achievements of the early 1900s were the story “Hadji Murat” and the drama “The Living Corpse”. In “Hadji Murad,” the despotism of Shamil and Nicholas I is equally exposed. In the story, Tolstoy glorified the courage of struggle, the power of resistance and love of life. The play “The Living Corpse” became evidence of Tolstoy’s new artistic quests, which were objectively close to Chekhov’s drama.

Literary criticism of Shakespeare's works

In his critical essay “On Shakespeare and Drama,” based on a detailed analysis of some of the most popular works Shakespeare, in particular, “King Lear”, “Othello”, “Falstaff”, “Hamlet”, etc., Tolstoy sharply criticized Shakespeare’s abilities as a playwright. At the performance of "Hamlet" he experienced " special suffering" for that " fake likeness of works of art».

Participation in the Moscow census

L. N. Tolstoy in his youth, maturity, old age

L.N. Tolstoy took part in the Moscow census of 1882. He wrote about it this way: “I proposed to use the census in order to find out poverty in Moscow and help it with deeds and money, and make sure that there are no poor people in Moscow.”

Tolstoy believed that the interest and significance of the census for society is that it gives it a mirror into which, like it or not, the whole society and each of us can look. He chose one of the most difficult areas, Protochny Lane, where the shelter was located; among the Moscow chaos, this gloomy two-story building was called “Rzhanova Fortress.” Having received the order from the Duma, Tolstoy, a few days before the census, began to walk around the site according to the plan that was given to him. Indeed, the dirty 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. Under the fresh impression of what he saw, L. N. Tolstoy wrote his famous article “On the Census in Moscow.” In this article, he indicated that the purpose of the census was scientific, and was a sociological study.

Despite the good goals of the census declared by Tolstoy, the population was suspicious of this event. On this occasion, Tolstoy wrote: “ When they explained to us that people had already found out about the bypass of the apartments and were leaving, we asked the owner to lock the gate, and we ourselves went into the yard to persuade the people who were leaving" Lev Nikolaevich hoped to arouse sympathy among the rich for urban poverty, collect money, recruit people who wanted to contribute to this cause and, together with the census, go through all the dens of poverty. In addition to fulfilling the duties of a copyist, the writer wanted to enter into communication 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 men and women in shelters and almshouses.

In Moscow

As Moscow expert Alexander Vaskin writes, Leo Tolstoy came to Moscow more than one hundred and fifty times.

The general impressions he gained from his acquaintance with Moscow life were, as a rule, negative, and reviews of social situation in the city - sharply critical. So, on October 5, 1881, he wrote in his diary:

“Stink, stones, luxury, poverty. Debauchery. The villains who robbed the people gathered, recruited soldiers and judges to protect their orgy. And they feast. The people have nothing else to do but, taking advantage of the passions of these people, lure back the loot from them.”

Many buildings associated with the life and work of the writer have been preserved on the streets of Plyushchikha, Sivtsev Vrazhek, Vozdvizhenka, Tverskaya, Nizhny Kislovsky Lane, Smolensky Boulevard, Zemledelchesky Lane, Voznesensky Lane and, finally, Dolgokhamovnichesky Lane (modern Leo Tolstoy Street) and others. The writer often visited the Kremlin, where the family of his wife, Bersa, lived. Tolstoy loved to walk around Moscow, even in winter. The last time the writer came to Moscow was in 1909.

In addition, at 9 Vozdvizhenka Street, there was the house of Lev Nikolaevich’s grandfather, Prince Nikolai Sergeevich Volkonsky, which he bought in 1816 from Praskovya Vasilievna Muravyova-Apostol (daughter of Lieutenant General V.V. Grushetsky, who built this house, the wife of the writer Senator I.M. Muravyov-Apostol, mother of three Decembrist brothers Muravyov-Apostol). Prince Volkonsky owned the house for five years, which is why the house is also known in Moscow as the main house of the estate of the Volkonsky princes or as the “Bolkonsky house”. The house is described by L.N. Tolstoy as the house of Pierre Bezukhov. Lev Nikolaevich knew this house well - he often came here as a young man to balls, where he courted the lovely princess Praskovya Shcherbatova: “ Bored and drowsy, I went to the Ryumins, and suddenly it washed over me. P[raskovya] Sh[erbatova] is lovely. This hasn't happened for a long time" He endowed Kitya Shcherbatskaya with the features of the beautiful Praskovya in Anna Karenina.

In 1886, 1888 and 1889, L. N. Tolstoy walked from Moscow to Yasnaya Polyana three times. On the first such trip, his companions were the politician Mikhail Stakhovich and Nikolai Ge (son of the artist N. N. Ge). In the second - also Nikolai Ge, and from the second half of the journey (from Serpukhov) A. N. Dunaev and S. D. Sytin (the publisher’s brother) joined. During the third journey, Lev Nikolaevich was accompanied by a new friend and like-minded person, 25-year-old teacher Evgeny Popov.

Spiritual crisis and preaching

In his work “Confession” Tolstoy wrote that from the late 1870s he often began to be tormented by insoluble questions: “ Well, okay, you will have 6,000 acres in the Samara province - 300 heads of horses, and then?"; in the literary field: " Well, okay, you will be more famous than Gogol, Pushkin, Shakespeare, Moliere, all the writers in the world - so what!" As he began to think about raising children, he asked himself: “ For what?"; reasoning " about how people can achieve prosperity", He " suddenly he said to himself: what does it matter to me?"In general, he " felt that what he stood on had given way, that what he had lived on was no longer there" The natural result was thoughts of suicide:

« I, a happy man, hid the cord from myself so as not to hang myself on the crossbar between the closets in my room, where I was alone every day, undressing, and stopped going hunting with a gun so as not to be tempted by too easy a way to rid myself of life. I myself didn’t know what I wanted: I was afraid of life, I wanted to get away from it and, meanwhile, I hoped for something else from it.”.

Leo Tolstoy at the opening of the People's Library of the Moscow Literacy Society in the village of Yasnaya Polyana. Photo by A. I. Savelyev

To find an answer to the questions and doubts that constantly worried him, Tolstoy first of all took up the study of theology and wrote and published in 1891 in Geneva his “Study of Dogmatic Theology,” in which he criticized the “Orthodox Dogmatic Theology” of Metropolitan Macarius (Bulgakov). He had conversations with priests and monks, went to the elders in Optina Pustyn (in 1877, 1881 and 1890), read theological treatises, talked with the elder Ambrose, K. N. Leontyev, an ardent opponent of Tolstoy’s teachings. In a letter to T.I. Filippov dated March 14, 1890, Leontyev reported that during this conversation he told Tolstoy: “It’s a pity, Lev Nikolaevich, that I have little fanaticism. But I should write to St. Petersburg, where I have connections, so that you are exiled to Tomsk and that neither the countess nor your daughters are allowed to even visit you, and that little money is sent to you. Otherwise you are positively harmful.” To this, Lev Nikolaevich exclaimed passionately: “Darling, Konstantin Nikolaevich! Write, for God's sake, to exile me. This is my dream. I do everything possible to compromise myself in the eyes of the government, and I get away with it. Please write." In order to study the original sources of Christian teaching in the original, he studied ancient Greek and Hebrew (the Moscow rabbi Shlomo Minor helped him in studying the latter). At the same time, he looked closely at the Old Believers, became close to the peasant preacher Vasily Syutaev, and talked with the Molokans and Stundists. Lev Nikolaevich sought the meaning of life in the study of philosophy, in getting to know the results of the exact sciences. He tried to simplify as much as possible, to live a life close to nature and agricultural life.

Gradually, Tolstoy abandons the whims and comforts of a rich life (simplification), does a lot of physical labor, dresses in simple clothes, becomes a vegetarian, gives his entire large fortune to his family, and renounces literary property rights. On the basis of a sincere desire for moral improvement, the third period of Tolstoy’s literary activity is created, the distinctive feature of which is the denial of all established forms of state, social and religious life.

At the beginning of Alexander's reign III Tolstoy wrote to the emperor with a request to pardon the regicides in the spirit of evangelical forgiveness. Since September 1882, secret surveillance has been established over him to clarify relations with sectarians; in September 1883 he refused to serve as a juror, citing incompatibility with his religious worldview. Then he received a ban on public speaking in connection with the death of Turgenev. Gradually, the ideas of Tolstoyism begin to penetrate society. At the beginning of 1885, a precedent was set in Russia for refusing military service with reference to Tolstoy’s religious beliefs. A significant part of Tolstoy’s views could not receive open expression in Russia and were presented in full only in foreign editions of his religious and social treatises.

There was no unanimity regarding Tolstoy's artistic works written during this period. Thus, in a long series of short stories and legends intended primarily for popular reading (“How People Live,” etc.), Tolstoy, in the opinion of his unconditional admirers, reached the pinnacle of artistic power. At the same time, according to people who reproach Tolstoy for turning from an artist into a preacher, these artistic teachings, written for a specific purpose, were grossly tendentious. The lofty and terrible truth of “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” according to fans, placing this work on a par with the main works of Tolstoy’s genius, according to others, is deliberately harsh, it sharply emphasized the soullessness of the upper strata of society in order to show the moral superiority of a simple “kitchen peasant” » Gerasima. “The Kreutzer Sonata” (written in 1887-1889, published in 1890) also aroused opposite reviews - the analysis of marital relations made one forget about the amazing brightness and passion with which this story was written. The work was banned by censorship, but it was published thanks to the efforts of S. A. Tolstoy, who achieved a meeting with Alexander III. As a result, the story was published in a censored form in the Collected Works of Tolstoy with the personal permission of the Tsar. Alexander III was pleased with the story, but the queen was shocked. But folk drama“The Power of Darkness,” according to Tolstoy’s admirers, became a great manifestation of his artistic power: within the tight framework of an ethnographic reproduction of Russian peasant life, Tolstoy was able to fit so many universal human traits that the drama went around all the stages of the world with tremendous success.

L.N. Tolstoy and his assistants compile lists of peasants in need of help. From left to right: P. I. Biryukov, G. I. Raevsky, P. I. Raevsky, L. N. Tolstoy, I. I. Raevsky, A. M. Novikov, A. V. Tsinger, T. L. Tolstaya . The village of Begichevka, Ryazan province. Photo by P. F. Samarin, 1892

During the famine of 1891-1892. Tolstoy organized institutions to help the hungry and needy in the Ryazan province. He opened 187 canteens, which fed 10 thousand people, as well as several canteens for children, distributed firewood, provided seeds and potatoes for sowing, bought and distributed horses to farmers (almost all farms became horseless during the famine year), and donated Almost 150,000 rubles were collected.

The treatise “The Kingdom of God is within you...” was written by Tolstoy with short breaks for almost 3 years: from July 1890 to May 1893. The treatise aroused the admiration of the critic V.V. Stasov (“ first book of the 19th century") and I. E. Repin (" this thing is terrifyingly powerful") could not be published in Russia due to censorship, and it was published abroad. The book began to be distributed illegally in a huge number copies in Russia. In Russia itself, the first legal publication appeared in July 1906, but even after that it was withdrawn from sale. The treatise was included in the collected works of Tolstoy, published in 1911, after his death.

In his last major work, the novel “Resurrection,” published in 1899, Tolstoy condemned judicial practice and high society life, portrayed the clergy and worship as secularized and united with secular power.

On December 6, 1908, Tolstoy wrote in his diary: “ People love me for those trifles - “War and Peace”, etc., which seem very important to them».

In the summer of 1909, one of the visitors to Yasnaya Polyana expressed his delight and gratitude for the creation of War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Tolstoy replied: “ It’s the same as if someone came to Edison and said: “I really respect you because you dance the mazurka well.” I attribute meaning to completely different books of mine (religious!)" In the same year, Tolstoy described the role of his artistic works as follows: “ They draw attention to my serious things».

Some critics last stage In the literary activities of Tolstoy, they stated that his artistic power suffered from the predominance of theoretical interests and that creativity is now only needed by Tolstoy in order to propagate his socio-religious views in a publicly accessible form. On the other hand, Vladimir Nabokov, for example, denies the presence of preaching specifics in Tolstoy and notes that the power and universal meaning of his work have nothing to do with politics and simply crowd out his teaching: “ In essence, Tolstoy the thinker was always occupied with only two topics: Life and Death. And no artist can avoid these themes." It has been suggested that in his work “What is Art?” In part, Tolstoy completely denies and in part significantly belittles the artistic significance of Dante, Raphael, Goethe, Shakespeare, Beethoven, etc., he directly comes to the conclusion that “ the more we surrender to beauty, the more we move away from goodness", asserting the priority of the moral component of creativity over aesthetics.

Excommunication

After his birth, Leo Tolstoy was baptized into Orthodoxy. Like most representatives of educated society of his time, in his youth and youth he was indifferent to religious issues. But when he was 27 years old, the following entry appears in his diary:

« The conversation about deity and faith brought me to a great, enormous thought, the implementation of which I feel capable of devoting my life to. This thought is the foundation of a new religion, corresponding to the development of humanity, the religion of Christ, but purified from faith and mystery, a practical religion that does not promise future bliss, but gives bliss on earth».

At the age of 40, having achieved great success in literary activity, literary fame, prosperity in family life and an outstanding position in society, he begins to experience a feeling of the meaninglessness of life. He is haunted by thoughts of suicide, which seemed to him “a way out of strength and energy.” He did not accept the solution offered by faith; it seemed to him a “denial of reason.” Later, Tolstoy saw manifestations of truth in people's lives and felt a desire to unite with the faith of the common people. For this purpose, throughout the year he observes fasts, participates in divine services and performs the rituals of the Orthodox Church. But the main thing in this faith was the memory of the event of resurrection, the reality of which Tolstoy, by his own admission, “could not imagine” even at this period of his life. And he “tried not to think about many other things then, so as not to deny it.” The first communion after many years brought him an unforgettably painful feeling. Tolstoy took communion for the last time in April 1878, after which he stopped participating in church life due to complete disappointment in the church faith. The turning point for him from the teachings of the Orthodox Church was the second half of 1879. In 1880-1881, Tolstoy wrote “The Four Gospels: A Connection and Translation of the Four Gospels,” fulfilling his long-standing desire to give the world faith without superstitions and naive dreams, to remove from sacred texts Christianity that he considered a lie. Thus, in the 1880s he took the position of unequivocally denying church teaching. The publication of some of Tolstoy's works was prohibited by both spiritual and secular censorship. In 1899, Tolstoy’s novel “Resurrection” was published, in which the author showed the life of various social strata in contemporary Russia; the clergy were depicted mechanically and hastily performing rituals, and some took the cold and cynical Toporov for a caricature of K. P. Pobedonostsev, Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod.

There are different assessments of Leo Tolstoy's lifestyle. It is widely believed that the practice of simplicity, vegetarianism, manual labor and widespread charity are sincere expressions of his teachings in relation to one's own life. Along with this, there are critics of the writer who question the seriousness of his moral position. Denying the state, he continued to enjoy many class privileges of the upper layer of the aristocracy. Transferring management of the estate to the wife, according to critics, is also far from “giving up property.” John of Kronstadt saw in “bad manners and an absent-minded, idle life with the adventures of his youth” the source of Count Tolstoy’s “radical atheism.” He denied church interpretations of immortality and rejected church authority; he did not recognize the rights of the state, since it is built (in his opinion) on violence and coercion. He criticized church teaching, which, in his understanding, is that “ the life that exists here on earth, with all its joys, beauties, with all the struggle of the mind against darkness - the life of all the people who lived before me, my whole life with my inner struggle and victories of the mind is not a true life, but a fallen life , hopelessly spoiled; true, sinless life is in faith, that is, in the imagination, that is, in madness" Leo Tolstoy did not agree with the teaching of the church that a person from his birth is inherently vicious and sinful, since, in his opinion, such a teaching “ cuts down at the roots everything that is best in human nature" Seeing how the church was quickly losing its influence on the people, the writer, according to K. N. Lomunov, came to the conclusion: “ Everything alive - regardless of the church».

In February 1901, the Synod finally decided to publicly condemn Tolstoy and declare him outside the church. Metropolitan Anthony (Vadkovsky) played an active role in this. As it appears in the Chamber-Fourier journals, on February 22, Pobedonostsev visited Nicholas II in the Winter Palace and talked with him for about an hour. Some historians believe that Pobedonostsev came to the Tsar directly from the Synod with a ready-made definition.

On February 24 (Old Art.), 1901, in the official organ of the synod, “Church Gazette Published under the Holy Governing Synod,” it was published “ Resolution of the Holy Synod of February 20-22, 1901 No. 557, with a message to the faithful children of the Greek-Russian Orthodox Church about Count Leo Tolstoy».

<…>A world-famous writer, Russian by birth, Orthodox by baptism and upbringing, Count Tolstoy, in the seduction of his proud mind, boldly rebelled against the Lord and against His Christ and against His holy property, clearly before everyone renounced the Mother who fed and raised him, the Church. Orthodox, and devoted his literary activity and the talent given to him from God to the dissemination among the people of teachings contrary to Christ and the Church, and to the destruction in the minds and hearts of people of the fatherly faith, the Orthodox faith, which established the universe, by which our ancestors lived and were saved, and by which Until now, Holy Rus' held out and was strong.

In his writings and letters, scattered in large numbers by him and his disciples all over the world, especially within our dear Fatherland, he preaches, with the zeal of a fanatic, the overthrow of all the dogmas of the Orthodox Church and the very essence of the Christian faith; rejects the personal living God, glorified in the Holy Trinity, the Creator and Provider of the universe, denies the Lord Jesus Christ - the God-man, Redeemer and Savior of the world, who suffered for us for the sake of people and for our salvation and rose from the dead, denies the seedless conception of Christ the Lord for humanity and virginity before Nativity and after the Nativity of the Most Pure Theotokos, Ever-Virgin Mary, does not recognize the afterlife and retribution, rejects all the sacraments of the Church and the grace-filled action of the Holy Spirit in them and, swearing at the most sacred objects of faith of the Orthodox people, did not shudder to mock the greatest of the sacraments, the Holy Eucharist. Count Tolstoy preaches all this continuously, in word and in writing, to the temptation and horror of the entire Orthodox world, and thus undisguisedly, but clearly before everyone, he consciously and intentionally rejected himself from all communication with the Orthodox Church.

The previous attempts, to his understanding, were not crowned with success. Therefore, the Church does not consider him a member and cannot consider him until he repents and restores his communion with her.<…>Therefore, testifying to his falling away from the Church, we pray together that the Lord will grant him repentance into the mind of truth (2 Tim. 2:25). We pray, merciful Lord, do not want the death of sinners, hear and have mercy and turn him to Your holy Church. Amen.

From the point of view of theologians, the decision of the Synod regarding Tolstoy is not a curse on the writer, but a statement of the fact that he, of his own free will, is no longer a member of the Church. The anathema, which means for believers a complete ban on any communication, was not carried out against Tolstoy. The synodal act of February 20-22 stated that Tolstoy could return to the Church if he repented. Metropolitan Anthony (Vadkovsky), who was at that time the leading member of the Holy Synod, wrote to Sofya Andreevna Tolstoy: “All of Russia mourns for your husband, we mourn for him. Don’t believe those who say that we are seeking his repentance for political purposes.” However, the writer’s circle and the part of the public sympathetic to him considered that this definition was an unjustifiably cruel act. The writer himself was clearly annoyed by what had happened. When Tolstoy arrived in Optina Pustyn, when asked why he did not go to the elders, he replied that he could not go because he was excommunicated.

In his “Response to the Synod,” Leo Tolstoy confirmed his break with the church: “ The fact that I renounced the church that calls itself Orthodox is completely fair. But I renounced it 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" Tolstoy objected to the charges brought against him in the synod’s definition: “ The Synod's resolution generally has many shortcomings. It is illegal or deliberately ambiguous; it is arbitrary, unfounded, untruthful and, in addition, contains slander and incitement to bad feelings and actions" In the text of his “Response 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 teachings of Christ.

The Synodal definition caused outrage among a certain part of society; Numerous letters and telegrams were sent to Tolstoy expressing sympathy and support. At the same time, this definition provoked a flow of letters from another part of society - with threats and abuse. Tolstoy's religious and preaching activities were criticized from Orthodox positions long before his excommunication. For example, Saint Theophan the Recluse assessed it very sharply:

« In his writings there is blasphemy against God, against Christ the Lord, against the Holy Church and its sacraments. He is the destroyer of the kingdom of truth, the enemy of God, the servant of Satan... This son of demons dared to write a new gospel, which is a distortion of the true gospel».

In November 1909, Tolstoy wrote down a thought that indicated his broad understanding of religion:

« I do not want to be a Christian, just as I did not advise and would not want the Brahminists, Buddhists, Confucionists, Taoists, Mohammedans and others to be. We must all find, each in his own faith, what is common to all, and, abandoning what is exclusive, our own, hold on to what is common.».

At the end of February 2001, the count's great-grandson Vladimir Tolstoy, manager of the writer's museum-estate in Yasnaya Polyana, sent a letter to Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus' with a request to reconsider the synodal definition. In response to the letter, the Moscow Patriarchate stated that the decision to excommunicate Leo Tolstoy from the Church, made exactly 105 years ago, cannot be reviewed, since (according to Church Relations Secretary Mikhail Dudko), it would be wrong in the absence of the person who the action of the ecclesiastical court applies.

Letter from L.N. Tolstoy to his wife, left before leaving Yasnaya Polyana.

My departure will upset you. I regret this, but understand and believe that I could not have done otherwise. My situation in the house is becoming, has become, unbearable. Besides everything else, I can no longer live in the conditions of luxury in which I lived, and I do what old people of my age usually do: they leave worldly life to live in solitude and silence last days own life.

Please understand this and don't follow me if you find out where I am. Your arrival will only worsen your and my situation, but will not change my decision. I thank you for your honest 48-year life with me and ask you to forgive me for everything that I was guilty of before you, just as I sincerely forgive you for everything that you could be guilty of before me. I advise you to make peace with the new position in which my departure puts you, and not to have any ill feelings against me. If you want to tell me anything, tell Sasha, she will know where I am and will send me what I need; She cannot say where I am, because I made her promise not to tell this to anyone.

Lev Tolstoy.

I instructed Sasha to collect my things and manuscripts and send them to me.

V. I. Rossinsky. Tolstoy says goodbye to his daughter Alexandra. Paper, pencil. 1911

On the night of October 28 (November 10), 1910, L. N. Tolstoy, fulfilling his decision to live his last years in accordance with his views, secretly left Yasnaya Polyana forever, accompanied only by his doctor D. P. Makovitsky. At the same time, Tolstoy did not even have a definite plan of action. He began his last journey at Shchekino station. On the same day, having transferred to another train at the Gorbachevo station, I reached the city of Belyov, Tula province, after which, in the same way, but on another train to the Kozelsk station, I hired a coachman and headed to Optina Pustyn, and from there the next day to Shamordinsky monastery, where he met his sister, Maria Nikolaevna Tolstoy. Later, Tolstoy’s daughter Alexandra Lvovna secretly came to Shamordino.

On the morning of October 31 (November 13), L.N. Tolstoy and his entourage set off from Shamordino to Kozelsk, where they boarded train No. 12, which had already arrived at the station, with the Smolensk - Ranenburg message, heading east. There was no time to buy tickets upon boarding; Having reached Belyov, we purchased tickets to the Volovo station, where we intended to transfer to some train heading south. Those accompanying Tolstoy later also testified that the trip had no specific purpose. After the meeting, they decided to go to his niece Elena Sergeevna Denisenko, in Novocherkassk, where they wanted to try to get foreign passports and then go to Bulgaria; if this fails, go to the Caucasus. However, on the way, L. N. Tolstoy felt unwell, the cold turned into lobar pneumonia, and the accompanying people were forced to interrupt the trip that same day and take the sick Lev Nikolayevich out of the train at the first large station near the settlement. This station was Astapovo (now Leo Tolstoy, Lipetsk region).

The news of Leo Tolstoy's illness caused a great stir both in high circles and among members of the Holy Synod. Encrypted telegrams were systematically sent to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Moscow Gendarmerie Directorate of Railways about his state of health and the state of affairs. An emergency secret meeting of the Synod was convened, at which, on the initiative of Chief Prosecutor Lukyanov, the question was raised about the attitude of the church in the event of a sad outcome of Lev Nikolaevich’s illness. But the issue was never resolved positively.

Six doctors tried to save Lev Nikolaevich, but to their offers to help he only replied: “ God will arrange everything" When they asked him what he himself wanted, he said: “ I don't want anyone to bother me" His last meaningful words, which he uttered a few hours before his death to his eldest son, which he was unable to understand due to excitement, but which were heard by the doctor Makovitsky, were: “ Seryozha... the truth... I love a lot, I love everyone...»

On November 7 (20), 1910, after a serious and painful illness (he was choking), at the 83rd year of his life, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy died in the house of the station chief, Ivan Ozolin.

When L.N. Tolstoy came to Optina Pustyn before his death, Elder Barsanuphius was the abbot of the monastery and the monastery leader. Tolstoy did not dare to enter the monastery, and the elder followed him to the Astapovo station to give him the opportunity to reconcile with the Church. He had spare Holy Gifts, and he received instructions: if Tolstoy whispers in his ear just one word, “I repent,” he has the right to give him communion. But the elder was not allowed to see the writer, just as his wife and some of his closest relatives from among the Orthodox believers were not allowed to see him.

On November 9, 1910, several thousand people gathered in Yasnaya Polyana for the funeral of Leo Tolstoy. Among those gathered were the writer's friends and admirers of his work, local peasants and Moscow students, as well as government officials and local police sent to Yasnaya Polyana by the authorities, who feared that the farewell ceremony for Tolstoy could be accompanied by anti-government statements, and perhaps even will result in a demonstration. In addition, in Russia this was the first public funeral of a famous person, which was not supposed to take place according to the Orthodox rite (without priests and prayers, without candles and icons), as Tolstoy himself wished. The ceremony was peaceful, as noted in police reports. Mourners, observing full order Tolstoy's coffin was escorted from the station to the estate with quiet singing. People lined up and silently entered the room to say goodbye to the body.

On the same day, the resolution of Nicholas II on the report of the Minister of Internal Affairs on the death of Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy was published in the newspapers: “ I sincerely regret the death of the great writer, who, during the heyday of his talent, embodied in his works the images of one of the glorious years of Russian life. May the Lord God be a merciful judge to him».

On November 10 (23), 1910, L. N. Tolstoy was buried in Yasnaya Polyana, on the edge of a ravine in the forest, where as a child he and his brother were looking for a “green stick” that held the “secret” of how to make all people happy. When the coffin with the deceased was lowered into the grave, everyone present reverently knelt.

In January 1913, a letter from Countess S.A. Tolstoy dated December 22, 1912 was published, in which she confirmed the news in the press that a funeral service had been performed at her husband’s grave by a certain priest in her presence, while she denied rumors about that the priest was not real. In particular, the Countess wrote: “ I also declare that Lev Nikolaevich never before his death expressed a desire not to be buried, and earlier he wrote in his diary in 1895, as if a will: “If possible, then (bury) without priests and funeral services. But if this will be unpleasant for those who will bury, then let them bury as usual, but as cheaply and simply as possible.”" The priest who voluntarily wished to violate the will of the Holy Synod and secretly perform the funeral service for the excommunicated count turned out to be Grigory Leontievich Kalinovsky, a priest of the village of Ivankova, Pereyaslavsky district, Poltava province. Soon he was removed from office, but not for the illegal funeral of Tolstoy, but “ due to the fact that he is under investigation for the drunken murder of a peasant<…>, and the said priest Kalinovsky’s behavior and moral qualities are rather disapproving, that is, he is a bitter drunkard and capable of all sorts of dirty deeds“, as reported in the gendarmerie intelligence reports.

Report of the head of the St. Petersburg security department, Colonel von Kotten, to the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Empire:

« In addition to the reports of November 8th, I am reporting to Your Excellency information about the unrest of student youth that took place on November 9th... on the occasion of the burial day of the deceased L.N. Tolstoy. At 12 noon, a memorial service for the late L.N. Tolstoy was celebrated in the Armenian Church, which was attended by about 200 people praying, mostly Armenians, and a small part of students. At the end of the funeral service, the worshipers dispersed, but a few minutes later students and female students began to arrive at the church. It turned out that on entrance doors University and Higher Women's Courses posted announcements that a memorial service for L. N. Tolstoy would take place on November 9 at one o'clock in the afternoon in the above-mentioned church.
The Armenian clergy performed a requiem service for the second time, by the end of which the church could no longer accommodate all the worshipers, a significant part of whom stood on the porch and in the courtyard of the Armenian Church. At the end of the funeral service, everyone on the porch and in the church yard sang “Eternal Memory”...»

« Yesterday there was a bishop<…>It was especially unpleasant that he asked me to let him know when I was dying. No matter how they come up with something to assure people that I “repented” before death. And therefore I declare, it seems, I repeat, that I cannot return to church, take communion before death, just as I cannot say obscene words or look at obscene pictures before death, and therefore everything that will be said about my dying repentance and communion, - lie».

The death of Leo Tolstoy was reacted not only in Russia, but throughout the world. In Russia, student and worker demonstrations with portraits of the deceased took place, which became a response to the death of the great writer. To honor the memory of Tolstoy, workers in Moscow and St. Petersburg stopped the work of several plants and factories. Legal and illegal gatherings and meetings took place, leaflets were issued, concerts and evenings were cancelled, theaters and cinemas were closed at the time of mourning, bookstores and shops suspended trade. Many people wanted to take part in the writer’s funeral, but the government, fearing spontaneous unrest, prevented this in every possible way. People could not carry out their intentions, so Yasnaya Polyana was literally bombarded with telegrams of condolences. The democratic part of Russian society was outraged by the behavior of the government, which for many years bullied Tolstoy, banned his works, and, finally, prevented the celebration of his memory.

Family

Sisters S. A. Tolstaya (left) and T. A. Bers (right), 1860s.

From his youth, Lev Nikolaevich knew Lyubov Alexandrovna Islavina, married to Bers (1826-1886), and loved to play with her children Lisa, Sonya and Tanya. When the Bersov daughters grew up, Lev Nikolaevich thought about marrying eldest daughter Lise, hesitated for a long time until he made a choice in favor of his middle daughter Sophia. Sofya Andreevna agreed when she was 18 years old, and the count was 34 years old, and on September 23, 1862, Lev Nikolaevich married her, having previously admitted his premarital affairs.

For some time, the brightest period begins in his life - he is truly happy, largely thanks to the practicality of his wife, material well-being, outstanding literary creativity and in connection with it all-Russian and world-wide fame. In his wife, he found an assistant in all matters, practical and literary - in the absence of a secretary, she rewrote his drafts several times. However, very soon happiness is overshadowed by inevitable minor disagreements, fleeting quarrels, and mutual misunderstandings, which only worsened over the years.

For his family, Leo Tolstoy proposed a certain “life plan”, according to which he proposed to give part of his income to the poor and schools, and to significantly simplify his family’s lifestyle (life, food, clothing), and also sell and distribute “ everything is unnecessary": piano, furniture, carriages. His wife, Sofya Andreevna, was clearly not satisfied with such a plan, on the basis of which their first serious conflict broke out and the beginning of her “ undeclared war» for a secure future for their children. And in 1892, Tolstoy signed a separate deed and transferred all the property to his wife and children, not wanting to be the owner. However, they lived together Great love almost fifty years.

In addition, his older brother Sergei Nikolaevich Tolstoy was going to marry younger sister Sofia Andreevna - Tatyana Bers. But Sergei’s unofficial marriage to the gypsy singer Maria Mikhailovna Shishkina (who had four children from him) made the marriage of Sergei and Tatyana impossible.

In addition, Sofia Andreevna’s father, physician Andrei Gustav (Evstafievich) Bers, even before his marriage to Islavina, had a daughter, Varvara, from Varvara Petrovna Turgeneva, the mother of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. On her mother’s side, Varya was the sister of Ivan Turgenev, and on her father’s side, S. A. Tolstoy, thus, together with marriage, Leo Tolstoy acquired a relationship with I. S. Turgenev.

L.N. Tolstoy with his wife and children. 1887

From the marriage of Lev Nikolaevich with Sofia Andreevna, 9 sons and 4 daughters were born, five of the thirteen children died in childhood.

• Sergei (1863-1947), composer, musicologist. The only one of all the writer’s children who survived the October Revolution who did not emigrate. Knight of the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.
• Tatiana (1864-1950). Since 1899 she has been married to Mikhail Sukhotin. In 1917-1923 she was the curator of the Yasnaya Polyana museum-estate. In 1925 she emigrated with her daughter. Daughter Tatyana Sukhotina-Albertini (1905-1996).
• Ilya (1866-1933), writer, memoirist. In 1916 he left Russia and went to the USA.
• Lev (1869-1945), writer, sculptor. Since 1918, in exile - in France, Italy, then in Sweden.
• Maria (1871-1906). Since 1897 she has been married to Nikolai Leonidovich Obolensky (1872-1934). She died of pneumonia. Buried in the village. Kochaki of Krapivensky district (modern Tula region, Shchekinsky district, village of Kochaki).
• Peter (1872-1873)
• Nicholas (1874-1875)
• Varvara (1875-1875)
• Andrey (1877-1916), official of special assignments under the Tula governor. Participant in the Russian-Japanese War. He died in Petrograd from general blood poisoning.
• Mikhail (1879-1944). In 1920 he emigrated and lived in Turkey, Yugoslavia, France and Morocco. Died on October 19, 1944 in Morocco.
• Alexey (1881-1886)
• Alexandra (1884-1979). At the age of 16 she became her father's assistant. Head of a military medical detachment during the First World War. In 1920, she was arrested by the Cheka in the “Tactical Center” case, sentenced to three years, and after her release she worked in Yasnaya Polyana. In 1929 she emigrated from the USSR and in 1941 received US citizenship. She died on September 26, 1979 in New York State at the age of 95, the last of all the children of Leo Tolstoy.
• Ivan (1888-1895).

As of 2010, there were a total of more than 350 descendants of Leo Tolstoy (including both living and deceased), living in 25 countries around the world. Most of them are descendants of Lev Lvovich Tolstoy, who had 10 children. Since 2000, once every two years, meetings of the writer’s descendants have been held in Yasnaya Polyana.

Views on the family. Family in Tolstoy's works

L. N. Tolstoy tells a tale about a cucumber to his grandchildren Ilyusha and Sonya, 1909, Krekshino, photo by V. G. Chertkov. Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya in the future - last wife Sergei Yesenin

Leo Tolstoy, both in his personal life and in his work, assigned a central role to the family. According to the writer, the main institute human life is not the state or the church, but the family. From the very beginning of his creative activity, Tolstoy was absorbed in thoughts about his family and dedicated his first work, “Childhood,” to this. Three years later, in 1855, he wrote the story “Notes of a Marker,” where the writer’s craving for gambling and women can already be traced. This is also reflected in his novel “Family Happiness,” in which the relationship between a man and a woman is strikingly similar to the marital relationship between Tolstoy himself and Sofia Andreevna. During the period of happy family life (1860s), which created a stable atmosphere, spiritual and physical balance and became a source of poetic inspiration, two of the writer’s greatest works were written: “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina”. But if in “War and Peace” Tolstoy firmly defends the value of family life, being convinced of the fidelity of the ideal, then in “Anna Karenina” he already expresses doubts about its achievability. When relationships in his personal family life became more difficult, these aggravations were expressed in such works as “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”, “The Kreutzer Sonata”, “The Devil” and “Father Sergius”.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy paid great attention to his family. His thoughts are not limited to the details of marital relations. In the trilogy “Childhood”, “Adolescence” and “Youth”, the author gave a vivid artistic description of the world of a child, in whose life the child’s love for his parents, and vice versa, the love he receives from them, plays an important role. In War and Peace, Tolstoy already most fully revealed different types family relationships and love. And in “Family Happiness” and “Anna Karenina” various aspects of love in the family are simply lost behind the power of “eros”. The critic and philosopher N. N. Strakhov, after the release of the novel “War and Peace,” noted that all of Tolstoy’s previous works can be classified as preliminary studies that culminated in the creation of a “family chronicle.”

Philosophy

The religious and moral imperatives of Leo Tolstoy were the source of the Tolstoyan movement, built on two fundamental theses: “simplification” and “non-resistance to evil through violence.” The latter, according to Tolstoy, is recorded in a number of places in the Gospel and is the core of the teachings of Christ, as well as Buddhism. The essence of Christianity, according to Tolstoy, can be expressed in simple rule: « Be kind and do not resist evil with violence" - “The Law of Violence and the Law of Love" (1908).

The most important basis for Tolstoy’s teachings were the words of the Gospel “ Love your enemies" and the Sermon on the Mount. The followers of his teachings - the Tolstoyans - honored the five commandments proclaimed by Lev Nikolaevich: do not be angry, do not commit adultery, do not swear, do not resist evil with violence, love your enemies as your neighbor.

Among adherents of the doctrine, and not only, Tolstoy’s books “What is My Faith,” “Confession,” and others were very popular. Tolstoy’s life teaching was influenced by various ideological movements: Brahmanism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Islam, as well as the teachings of moral philosophers (Socrates, late Stoics, Kant, Schopenhauer).

Tolstoy developed a special ideology of nonviolent anarchism (it can be described as Christian anarchism), which was based on a rationalistic understanding of Christianity. Considering coercion an evil, he concluded that it was necessary to abolish the state, but not through a revolution based on violence, but through the voluntary refusal of each member of society to fulfill any state duties, be it military service, paying taxes, etc. L.N. Tolstoy believed: “ Anarchists are right in everything: both in denying what exists and in asserting that, given existing morals, nothing can be worse than the violence of power; but they are grossly mistaken in thinking that anarchy can be established by revolution. Anarchy can only be established by having more and more more people, who do not need the protection of government power and more and more people who will be ashamed to exercise this power.».

The ideas of nonviolent resistance set forth by L.N. Tolstoy in his work “The Kingdom of God is Within You” influenced Mahatma Gandhi, who corresponded with the Russian writer.

According to the historian of Russian philosophy V.V. Zenkovsky, the enormous philosophical significance of Leo Tolstoy, and not only for Russia, is in his desire to build culture on a religious basis and in his personal example of liberation from secularism. In Tolstoy’s philosophy, he notes the coexistence of multipolar forces, the “sharp and unobtrusive rationalism” of his religious and philosophical constructions and the irrationalistic insurmountability of his “panmoralism”: “Although Tolstoy does not believe in the Divinity of Christ, Tolstoy believed His words as only those who can believe.” who sees God in Christ,” “follows Him as God.” One of the key features of Tolstoy’s worldview is the search and expression of “mystical ethics”, to which he considers it necessary to subordinate all secularized elements of society, including science, philosophy, art, and considers it “blasphemy” to put them on the same level with good. The writer’s ethical imperative explains the lack of contradiction between the titles of the chapters of the book “The Way of Life”: “A reasonable person cannot help but recognize God” and “God cannot be known by reason.” In contrast to the patristic, and subsequently Orthodox, identification of beauty and goodness, Tolstoy decisively declares that “goodness has nothing to do with beauty.” In his book “The Reading Circle,” Tolstoy quotes John Ruskin: “Art is only in its proper place when its goal is moral improvement.<…>If art does not help people discover the truth, but only provides a pleasant pastime, then it is a shameful, not a sublime thing.” On the one hand, Zenkovsky characterizes Tolstoy’s discrepancy with the church not so much as a reasonably substantiated result, but as a “fatal misunderstanding,” since “Tolstoy was an ardent and sincere follower of Christ.” He explains Tolstoy’s denial of the church’s view of dogma, the Divinity of Christ and His Resurrection by the contradiction between “rationalism, internally completely inconsistent with his mystical experience.” On the other hand, Zenkovsky himself notes that “it was already in Gogol that the theme of the internal heterogeneity of the aesthetic and moral sphere was raised for the first time;<…>for reality is alien to the aesthetic principle.”

In the sphere of ideas about the proper economic structure of society, Tolstoy adhered to the ideas of the American economist Henry George, advocated the declaration of land as the common property of all people and the introduction of a single tax on land.

Bibliography

Of what Leo Tolstoy wrote, 174 of his works of art have survived, including unfinished works and rough sketches. Tolstoy himself considered 78 of his works to be completely finished works; only they were published during his lifetime and were included in collected works. The remaining 96 of his works remained in the archive of the writer himself, and only after his death did they see the light of day.

The first of his published works was the story “Childhood”, 1852. The writer’s first published book during his lifetime was “War Stories of Count L.N. Tolstoy” 1856, St. Petersburg; in the same year, his second book, “Childhood and Adolescence,” was published. The last work of fiction published during Tolstoy’s lifetime was the artistic essay “Grateful Soil,” dedicated to Tolstoy’s meeting with a young peasant in Meshcherskoye on June 21, 1910; The essay was first published in 1910 in the newspaper Rech. A month before his death, Leo Tolstoy was working on the third version of the story “There are No Guilty People in the World.”

Lifetime and posthumous editions of collected works

In 1886, Lev Nikolaevich’s wife first published the writer’s collected works. For literary science, the publication became a milestone Complete (anniversary) collected works of Tolstoy in 90 volumes(1928-58), which included many new literary texts, letters and diaries of the writer.

Currently, IMLI named after. A. M. Gorky RAS is preparing for publication a 100-volume collected works (in 120 books).

In addition, and later, collected works of his works were published several times:

• in 1951-1953 “Collected works in 14 volumes” (M.: Goslitizdat),
• in 1958-1959 “Collected works in 12 volumes” (M.: Goslitizdat),
• in 1960-1965 “Collected works in 20 volumes” (M.: Khud. Literature),
• in 1972 “Collected works in 12 volumes” (M.: Khud. Literature),
• in 1978-1985 “Collected works in 22 volumes (in 20 books)” (M.: Khud. Literature),
• in 1980 “Collected works in 12 volumes” (M.: Sovremennik),
• in 1987 “Collected works in 12 volumes” (M.: Pravda).

Translations of works

During the Russian Empire, over 30 years before the October Revolution, 10 million copies of Tolstoy’s books were published in Russia in 10 languages. Over the years of the existence of the USSR, Tolstoy's works were published in the Soviet Union in over 60 million copies in 75 languages.

Translation full meeting Tolstoy's works were translated into Chinese by Cao Ying; the work took 20 years.

World recognition. Memory

Four museums dedicated to the life and work of L. N. Tolstoy have been created on the territory of Russia. Tolstoy's Yasnaya Polyana estate, together with all the surrounding forests, fields, gardens and lands, has been turned into a museum-reserve, its branch museum-estate of L. N. Tolstoy in the village of Nikolskoye-Vyazemskoye. Under state protection is Tolstoy's house-estate in Moscow (Lva Tolstoy Street, 21), which, on the personal instructions of Vladimir Lenin, was converted into a memorial museum. The house at the Astapovo station, Moscow-Kursk-Donbass railway, was also turned into a museum. (now Lev Tolstoy station, South-Eastern railway), where the writer died. The largest of Tolstoy's museums, as well as the center of research work on the study of the writer's life and work, is the State Museum of Leo Tolstoy in Moscow (Prechistenka St., building No. 11/8). Many schools, clubs, libraries and other cultural institutions in Russia are named after the writer. The regional center and railway station (formerly Astapovo) of the Lipetsk region bear his name; district and regional center of the Kaluga region; village (formerly Stary Yurt) in the Grozny region, where Tolstoy visited in his youth. In many Russian cities there are squares and streets named after Leo Tolstoy. Monuments to the writer have been erected in different cities of Russia and the world. In Russia, monuments to Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy were erected in a number of cities: in Moscow, in Tula (as a native of the Tula province), in Pyatigorsk, Orenburg.

To the cinema

• In 1912, the young director Yakov Protazanov shot a 30-minute silent film “The Passing of the Great Old Man” based on evidence about the last period of Leo Tolstoy’s life using documentary footage. In the role of Leo Tolstoy - Vladimir Shaternikov, in the role of Sofia Tolstoy - British-American actress Muriel Harding, who used the pseudonym Olga Petrova. The film was very negatively received by the writer's relatives and those around him and was not released in Russia, but was shown abroad.
• Soviet full-length film dedicated to Leo Tolstoy and his family Feature Film director Sergei Gerasimov “Leo Tolstoy” (1984). The film tells the story of the last two years of the writer's life and his death. The main role of the film was played by the director himself, in the role of Sofia Andreevna - Tamara Makarova.
• In the Soviet television film “The Shore of His Life” (1985) about the fate of Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay, the role of Tolstoy was played by Alexander Vokach.
• IN TV movie"Young Indiana Jones: Journeys with Father" (USA, 1996) as Tolstoy - Michael Gough.
• In the Russian TV series “Farewell, Doctor Chekhov!” (2007) the role of Tolstoy was played by Alexander Pashutin.
• In the 2009 film by American director Michael Hoffman, “The Last Resurrection,” the role of Leo Tolstoy was played by Canadian Christopher Plummer, for which he was nominated for an Oscar in the category “Best Supporting Actor.” British actress Helen Mirren, whose Russian ancestors were mentioned by Tolstoy in War and Peace, played the role of Sophia Tolstoy and was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress.
• In the film “What Else Men Talk About” (2011), the cameo role of Leo Tolstoy was ironically played by Vladimir Menshov.
• In the film “Fan” (2012), Ivan Krasko starred as the writer.
• In the film in the genre of historical fantasy “Duel. Pushkin - Lermontov" (2014) in the role of young Tolstoy - Vladimir Balashov.
• In the 2015 comedy film directed by Rene Feret “Anton Chekhov - 1890” (French), Leo Tolstoy was played by Frédéric Pierrot (Russian) French..

The meaning and influence of creativity

The nature of the perception and interpretation of Leo Tolstoy’s work, as well as the nature of its impact on individual artists and on literary process, was largely determined by the characteristics of each country, its historical and artistic development. Thus, French writers perceived him, first of all, as an artist who opposed naturalism and knew how to combine a truthful depiction of life with spirituality and high moral purity. English writers relied on his work in the fight against traditional “Victorian” hypocrisy; they saw in him an example of high artistic courage. In the USA, Leo Tolstoy became a support for writers who asserted acute social themes in art. In Germany, his anti-militarist speeches acquired the greatest importance; German writers studied his experience in realistic depictions of war. Writers of the Slavic peoples were impressed by his sympathy for the “small” oppressed nations, as well as the national-heroic themes of his works.

Leo Tolstoy had a huge influence on the evolution of European humanism and on the development of realistic traditions in world literature. His influence affected the work of Romain Rolland, François Mauriac and Roger Martin du Gard in France, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe in the USA, John Galsworthy and Bernard Shaw in England, Thomas Mann and Anna Seghers in Germany, August Strindberg and Arthur Lundquist in Sweden, Rainer Rilke in Austria, Elisa Orzeszko, Boleslaw Prus, Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz in Poland, Maria Puymanova in Czechoslovakia, Lao She in China, Tokutomi Roka in Japan, each of them experiencing this influence in his own way.

Western humanist writers, such as Romain Rolland, Anatole France, Bernard Shaw, the brothers Heinrich and Thomas Mann, listened carefully to the author’s accusatory voice in his works “The Resurrection”, “The Fruits of Enlightenment”, “The Kreutzer Sonata”, “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” " Tolstoy's critical worldview penetrated their consciousness not only through his journalism and philosophical works, but also through his artistic works. Heinrich Mann said that Tolstoy's works were an antidote to Nietzscheanism for the German intelligentsia. For Heinrich Mann, Jean-Richard Bloch, Hamlin Garland, Leo Tolstoy was an example of great moral purity and intransigence to social evil and attracted them as an enemy of the oppressors and a defender of the oppressed. The aesthetic ideas of Tolstoy’s worldview were reflected in one way or another in Romain Rolland’s book “ People's Theater”, in articles by Bernard Shaw and Boleslav Prus (the treatise “What is Art?”) and in Frank Norris’s book “The Responsibility of the Novelist”, in which the author repeatedly refers to Tolstoy.

For Western European writers of Romain Rolland's generation, Leo Tolstoy was an older brother and teacher. He was the center of attraction of democratic and realistic forces in the ideological and literary struggle of the beginning of the century, but also the subject of heated daily debate. At the same time, for later writers, the generation of Louis Aragon or Ernest Hemingway, Tolstoy's work became part of the cultural wealth that they assimilated in their youth. Nowadays, many foreign prose writers, who do not even consider themselves students of Tolstoy and do not define their attitude towards him, at the same time assimilate elements of his creative experience, which has become the universal property of world literature.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was nominated 16 times for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1902-1906. and 4 times - for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1901, 1902 and 1909.

Writers, thinkers and religious figures about Tolstoy

• French writer and member of the French Academy André Maurois argued that Leo Tolstoy is one of the three greatest writers in the entire history of culture (along with Shakespeare and Balzac).
• German writer, laureate Nobel Prize in literature, Thomas Mann said that the world did not know another artist in whom the epic, Homeric principle would be as strong as Tolstoy, and that the elements of the epic and indestructible realism live in his works.
• The Indian philosopher and politician Mahatma Gandhi spoke of Tolstoy as the most honest man of his time, who never tried to hide the truth, embellish it, not fearing either spiritual or temporal power, reinforcing his preaching with deeds and making any sacrifices for the sake of the truth.
• The Russian writer and thinker Fyodor Dostoevsky said in 1876 that only Tolstoy shines in that, besides the poem, “ knows to the smallest accuracy (historical and current) the depicted reality».
• Russian writer and critic Dmitry Merezhkovsky wrote about Tolstoy: “ His face is the face of humanity. If the inhabitants of other worlds asked our world: who are you? - humanity could answer by pointing to Tolstoy: here I am.”".
• Russian poet Alexander Blok spoke of Tolstoy: "Tolstoy is the greatest and only genius modern Europe, the highest pride of Russia, a man whose one name is fragrance, a writer of great purity and holiness".
• Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov wrote in his English “Lectures on Russian Literature”: “Tolstoy is an unsurpassed Russian prose writer. Leaving aside his predecessors Pushkin and Lermontov, all the great Russian writers can be arranged in the following sequence: the first is Tolstoy, the second is Gogol, the third is Chekhov, the fourth is Turgenev.".
• Russian religious philosopher and writer Vasily Rozanov about Tolstoy: “Tolstoy is only a writer, but not a prophet, not a saint, and therefore his teaching does not inspire anyone”.
• The famous theologian Alexander Men said that Tolstoy is still the voice of conscience and a living reproach for people who are confident that they live in accordance with moral principles.

Criticism

During his lifetime, many newspapers and magazines of all political trends wrote about Tolstoy. Thousands of critical articles and reviews have been written about him. His early works found appreciation in revolutionary-democratic criticism. However, "War and Peace", "Anna Karenina" and "Resurrection" did not receive real disclosure and coverage in contemporary criticism. His novel Anna Karenina did not receive adequate criticism in the 1870s; the ideological and figurative system of the novel remained undisclosed, as well as its amazing artistic power. At the same time, Tolstoy himself wrote, not without irony: “ If short-sighted critics think that I wanted to describe only what I like, how Oblonsky dines and what kind of shoulders Karenina has, then they are mistaken».

Literary criticism

The first critic to respond favorably to Tolstoy’s literary debut in print was “ Domestic notes"S. S. Dudyshkin in 1854 in an article dedicated to the stories “Childhood” and “Adolescence.” However, two years later, in 1856, the same critic wrote a negative review of the book edition of Childhood and Boyhood, War Stories. In the same year, N. G. Chernyshevsky’s review of these books by Tolstoy appeared, in which the critic drew attention to the writer’s ability to depict human psychology in its contradictory development. In the same place, Chernyshevsky writes about the absurdity of S. S. Dudyshkin’s reproaches to Tolstoy. In particular, objecting to the critic’s remark that Tolstoy does not depict female characters in his works, Chernyshevsky draws attention to the image of Lisa from “The Two Hussars.” In 1855-1856, one of the theorists of “pure art” P.V. Annenkov gave a high assessment of Tolstoy’s work, noting the depth of thought in the works of Tolstoy and Turgenev and the fact that Tolstoy’s thought and its expression through the means of art were fused together. At the same time, another representative of “aesthetic” criticism, A.V. Druzhinin, in reviews of “Blizzard”, “Two Hussars” and “War Stories”, described Tolstoy as a deep connoisseur of social life and a keen researcher human soul. Meanwhile, the Slavophile K. S. Aksakov in 1857, in the article “Review of Modern Literature,” found in the works of Tolstoy and Turgenev, along with “truly beautiful” works, the presence of unnecessary details, due to which “the common line connecting them into one is lost "

In the 1870s, P. N. Tkachev, who believed that the writer’s task was to express in his work the liberating aspirations of the “progressive” part of society, in the article “Salon Art” dedicated to the novel “Anna Karenina”, spoke sharply negatively about the work of Tolstoy.

N. N. Strakhov compared the novel “War and Peace” in scale with the work of Pushkin. Tolstoy's genius and innovation, according to the critic, were manifested in his ability to use “simple” means to create a harmonious and comprehensive picture of Russian life. The writer’s inherent objectivity allowed him to “deeply and truthfully” depict the dynamics of the characters’ inner life, which in Tolstoy’s work is not subject to any initially given patterns and stereotypes. The critic also noted the author's desire to find the best traits in a person. What Strakhov especially appreciates in the novel is that the writer is interested not only in the spiritual qualities of the individual, but also in the problem of supra-individual - family and community - consciousness.

The philosopher K. N. Leontiev, in the brochure “Our New Christians” published in 1882, expressed doubts about the socio-religious validity of the teachings of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. According to Leontyev, Pushkin’s speech by Dostoevsky and Tolstoy’s story “How People Live” show the immaturity of their religious thinking and the insufficient familiarity of these writers with the content of the works of the church fathers. Leontyev believed that Tolstoy’s “religion of love,” accepted by the majority of “neo-Slavophiles,” distorts the true essence of Christianity. Leontyev’s attitude towards Tolstoy’s artistic works was different. The critic declared the novels “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina” the greatest works of world literature “over the last 40-50 years.” Considering the main drawback of Russian literature to be the “humiliation” of Russian reality dating back to Gogol, the critic believed that only Tolstoy was able to overcome this tradition, depicting “the highest Russian society... finally in a human way, that is, impartially, and in places with obvious love.” N. S. Leskov in 1883, in the article “Count L. N. Tolstoy and F. M. Dostoevsky as heresiarchs (The Religion of Fear and the Religion of Love),” criticized Leontiev’s pamphlet, convicting him of “conceivability,” ignorance of patristic sources and misunderstanding the only argument chosen from them (which Leontyev himself admitted).

N. S. Leskov shared N. N. Strakhov’s enthusiastic attitude towards Tolstoy’s works. Contrasting Tolstoy’s “religion of love” with K. N. Leontiev’s “religion of fear,” Leskov believed that it was the former that was closer to the essence of Christian morality.

Tolstoy’s later work was highly appreciated, unlike most democratic critics, by Andreevich (E. A. Solovyov), who published his articles in the journal of “legal Marxists” “Life”. In the late Tolstoy, he especially appreciated the “unattainable truth of the image,” the realism of the writer, tearing off the veils “from the conventions of our cultural, social life,” revealing “its lies, covered with lofty words” (“Life,” 1899, No. 12).

Critic I. I. Ivanov in literature late XIX century found "naturalism", going back to Maupassant, Zola and Tolstoy and being an expression of a general moral decline.

In the words of K.I. Chukovsky, “in order to write “War and Peace” - just think with what terrible greed it was necessary to pounce on life, grab everything around with your eyes and ears, and accumulate all this immeasurable wealth...” (article “Tolstoy as artistic genius", 1908).

A representative of Marxist literary criticism, which developed at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, V.I. Lenin believed that Tolstoy in his works was an exponent of the interests of the Russian peasantry.

The Russian poet and writer, Nobel Prize winner in literature Ivan Bunin, in his study “The Liberation of Tolstoy” (Paris, 1937), characterized Tolstoy’s artistic nature by the intense interaction of “animal primitiveness” and a refined taste for complex intellectual and aesthetic quests.

Religious criticism

Opponents and critics of Tolstoy's religious views were the Church historian Konstantin Pobedonostsev, Vladimir Solovyov, the Christian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev, the historian-theologian Georgy Florovsky, and Candidate of Theology John of Kronstadt.

The writer's contemporary, religious philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, strongly disagreed with Leo Tolstoy and condemned his religious activities. He noted the crudeness of Tolstoy's attacks on the church. For example, in a letter to N.N. Strakhov in 1884, he writes: “The other day I read Tolstoy’s “What Is My Faith.” Does a beast roar in a deep forest?” Soloviev points out the main point of his differences with Leo Tolstoy in a long letter to him dated July 28 - August 2, 1894:

“All our disagreement can be concentrated on one specific point - the resurrection of Christ”.

After long, fruitless efforts spent on the matter of reconciliation with Leo Tolstoy, Vladimir Solovyov writes “Three Conversations”, in which he sharply criticizes Tolstoyism. In the preface, he compares Tolstoy’s Christianity with the sect of “hole-benders”, whose entire faith boils down to prayer: “My hut , my hole, save me.” Solovyov calls the words “Christianity” and “gospel” a deception, under the cover of which supporters of Tolstoy’s teachings preach views directly hostile to the Christian faith. From Solovyov’s point of view, Tolstoyans could avoid obvious lies by simply ignoring Christ, who is alien to them, especially since their faith does not need external authorities, “rests on itself.” If they still want to refer to any figure from religious history, then an honest choice for them would be not Christ, but Buddha. Tolstoy’s idea of ​​​​non-resistance to evil through violence, according to Solovyov, in practice means failure to provide effective assistance to victims of evil. It is based on the false idea that evil is illusory, or that evil is simply a lack of good. In fact, evil is real, its extreme physical expression is death, in the face of which the successes of good in the personal, moral and social spheres (to which the Tolstoyans limit their efforts) cannot be considered serious. A true victory over evil must necessarily also be a victory over death, this is the event of the resurrection of Christ, attested historically. Solovyov also criticizes Tolstoy’s idea of ​​following the voice of conscience as a sufficient means for realizing the gospel ideal in human life. Conscience only warns against inappropriate actions, but not prescribes how and what to do. In addition to conscience, a person needs assistance from above, the direct action of a good principle within him. This inspiration of goodness The followers of Tolstoy's teaching deprive themselves. They rely only on moral rules, not noticing that they serve the false “god of this age.”

In addition to Tolstoy's religious activities, his personal path towards God attracted the attention of his Orthodox critics many years after the writer's death. For example, Saint John of Shanghai spoke about it this way:

“[Leo] Tolstoy carelessly, self-confidently, and not in the fear of God, approached God, received communion unworthily and became an apostate.”

Modern Orthodox theologian Georgy Orekhanov believes that Tolstoy followed a false principle that is dangerous even today. He examined the teachings of different religions and identified what they had in common - morality, which he considered true. Everything that was different - the mystical part of the creeds - was rejected by them. In this sense, many modern people are followers of Leo Tolstoy, although they do not consider themselves Tolstoyans. For them, Christianity comes down to moral teaching, and Christ for them is nothing more than a moral teacher. In fact, the foundation of the Christian life is faith in the resurrection of Christ.

Criticism of the writer's social views

In Russia, the opportunity to openly discuss the social and philosophical views of the late Tolstoy in print appeared in 1886 in connection with the publication in the 12th volume of his collected works of a shortened version of the article “So what should we do?”

The controversy surrounding the 12th volume was opened by A. M. Skabichevsky, condemning Tolstoy for his views on art and science. N. K. Mikhailovsky, on the contrary, expressed support for Tolstoy’s views on art: “In Volume XII Works gr. Tolstoy says a lot about the absurdity and illegality of the so-called “science for science” and “art for art’s sake”... Gr. Tolstoy says a lot of truth in this sense, and in relation to art this is extremely significant in the mouth of a first-class artist.”

Abroad, Romain Rolland, William Howells, and Emile Zola responded to Tolstoy’s article. Later, Stefan Zweig, having highly appreciated the first, descriptive part of the article (“...hardly ever has social criticism been more brilliantly demonstrated in an earthly phenomenon than in the depiction of these rooms of beggars and degenerate people”), at the same time remarked: “but barely, in In the second part, the utopian Tolstoy moves from diagnosis to therapy and tries to preach objective methods of correction, each concept becomes vague, the contours fade, thoughts, driving one another, stumble. And this confusion grows from problem to problem.”

V.I. Lenin in the article “L.” published in 1910 in Russia. N. Tolstoy and the modern labor movement" wrote about Tolstoy's "impotent curses" "at capitalism and the 'power of money'." According to Lenin, Tolstoy’s criticism of the modern order “reflects a turning point in the views of millions of peasants who had just emerged from serfdom and saw that this freedom meant new horrors of ruin, starvation, and homeless life...”. Earlier, in his work “Leo Tolstoy as a Mirror of the Russian Revolution” (1908), Lenin wrote that Tolstoy was ridiculous, like a prophet who discovered new recipes for the salvation of mankind. But at the same time, he is great as an exponent of the ideas and sentiments that had developed among the Russian peasantry at the time of the onset of the bourgeois revolution in Russia, and also that Tolstoy is original, since his views express the features of the revolution as a peasant bourgeois revolution. In the article “L. N. Tolstoy” (1910) Lenin points out that the contradictions in Tolstoy’s views reflect “the contradictory conditions and traditions that determined the psychology of various classes and strata of Russian society in the post-reform, but pre-revolutionary era.”

G. V. Plekhanov, in his article “Confusion of Ideas” (1911), highly appreciated Tolstoy’s criticism of private property.

Plekhanov also noted that Tolstoy’s teaching on non-resistance to evil is based on the opposition of the eternal and the temporal, is metaphysical, and therefore internally contradictory. It leads to a break between morality and life and a departure into the desert of quietism. He noted that Tolstoy's religion was based on belief in spirits (animism).

Tolstoy’s religiosity is based on teleology, and he attributes everything good that is in the human soul to God. His teaching on morality is purely negative. The main attraction of folk life for Tolstoy was religious faith.

V. G. Korolenko wrote about Tolstoy in 1908 that his wonderful dream of establishing the first centuries of Christianity can have a strong effect on simple souls, but others cannot follow him to this “dream-ridden” country. According to Korolenko, Tolstoy knew, saw and felt only the very bottom and the very heights of the social system, and it was easy for him to refuse “one-sided” improvements, such as the constitutional system.

Maxim Gorky admired Tolstoy as an artist, but condemned his teaching. After Tolstoy spoke out against the zemstvo movement, Gorky, expressing the dissatisfaction of his like-minded people, wrote that Tolstoy was captured by his idea, separated from Russian life and stopped listening to the voice of the people, soaring too high above Russia.

Sociologist and historian M. M. Kovalevsky said that Tolstoy’s economic teaching ( main idea which is borrowed from the Gospels), shows only that the social doctrine of Christ, perfectly adapted to the simple morals, rural and pastoral life of Galilee, cannot serve as a rule of conduct for modern civilizations.

A thorough polemic with Tolstoy’s teachings is contained in the study of the Russian philosopher I. A. Ilyin “On Resistance to Evil by Force” (Berlin, 1925).

Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on August 28, 1828 on his father's estate Yasnaya Polyana, in the Tula province. Tolstoy is an old Russian noble family; one representative of this family, the head of Peter's secret police Peter Tolstoy, was promoted to count. Tolstoy's mother was born Princess Volkonskaya. His father and mother served as prototypes for Nikolai Rostov and Princess Marya in War and Peace(see summary and analysis of this novel). They belonged to the highest Russian aristocracy, and their family affiliation with the upper stratum of the ruling class sharply distinguishes Tolstoy from other writers of his time. He never forgot about her (even when this realization of his became completely negative), always remained an aristocrat and kept aloof from the intelligentsia.

Leo Tolstoy spent his childhood and adolescence between Moscow and Yasnaya Polyana, in a large family with several brothers. He left unusually vivid memories of his early environment, his relatives and servants, in wonderful autobiographical notes that he wrote for his biographer P. I. Biryukov. His mother died when he was two years old, his father when he was nine years old. His further upbringing was in charge of his aunt, Mademoiselle Ergolskaya, who presumably served as the prototype for Sonya in War and Peace.

Leo Tolstoy in his youth. Photo from 1848

In 1844, Tolstoy entered Kazan University, where he first studied oriental languages ​​and then law, but in 1847 he left the university without receiving a diploma. In 1849, he settled in Yasnaya Polyana, where he tried to become useful to his peasants, but soon realized that his efforts were of no use because he lacked knowledge. During his student years and after leaving the university, he, as was common among young people of his class, led a chaotic life filled with the pursuit of pleasure - wine, cards, women - somewhat similar to the life that Pushkin led before exile to the south. But Tolstoy was unable to accept life as it is with a light heart. From the very beginning, his diary (existing since 1847) testifies to an unquenchable thirst for mental and moral justification of life, a thirst that forever remained the guiding force of his thought. This same diary was the first experience in developing that technique of psychological analysis, which later became Tolstoy’s main literary weapon. His first attempt to try himself in a more purposeful and creative type of writing dates back to 1851.

The tragedy of Leo Tolstoy. Documentary

In the same year, disgusted with his empty and useless Moscow life, he went to the Caucasus to join the Terek Cossacks, where he joined the garrison artillery as a cadet (junker means a volunteer, a volunteer, but of noble birth). On next year(1852) he finished his first story ( Childhood) and sent it to Nekrasov for publication in Contemporary. Nekrasov immediately accepted it and wrote about it to Tolstoy in very encouraging tones. The story was an immediate success, and Tolstoy immediately rose to prominence in literature.

At the battery, Leo Tolstoy led a rather easy and unburdensome life as a cadet with means; the place to stay was also nice. He had a lot of free time, most of which he spent hunting. In the few fights in which he had to participate, he performed very well. In 1854 he received an officer's rank and, at his request, was transferred to the army fighting the Turks in Wallachia (see Crimean War), where he took part in the siege of Silistria. In the autumn of the same year he joined the Sevastopol garrison. There Tolstoy saw a real war. He took part in the defense of the famous Fourth Bastion and in the Battle of the Black River and ridiculed bad command in a satirical song - the only work of his in verse known to us. In Sevastopol he wrote famous Sevastopol stories that appeared in Contemporary, when the siege of Sevastopol was still ongoing, which greatly increased interest in their author. Soon after leaving Sevastopol, Tolstoy went on vacation to St. Petersburg and Moscow, and the next year he left the army.

Only in these years, after the Crimean War, did Tolstoy communicate with the literary world. The writers of St. Petersburg and Moscow greeted him as an outstanding master and brother. As he later admitted, success greatly flattered his vanity and pride. But he did not get along with the writers. He was too much of an aristocrat for this semi-bohemian intelligentsia to please him. They were too awkward plebeians for him, and they were indignant that he clearly preferred the light to their company. On this occasion, he and Turgenev exchanged caustic epigrams. On the other hand, his very mentality was not to the heart of progressive Westerners. He did not believe in progress or culture. In addition, his dissatisfaction with the literary world intensified due to the fact that his new works disappointed them. Everything he wrote after childhood, did not show any movement towards innovation and development, and Tolstoy's critics failed to understand the experimental value of these imperfect works (see the article Tolstoy's Early Work for more details). All this contributed to his cessation of relations with the literary world. The culmination was a noisy quarrel with Turgenev (1861), whom he challenged to a duel, and then apologized for it. This whole story is very typical, and it revealed the character of Leo Tolstoy, with his hidden embarrassment and sensitivity to insults, with his intolerance for the imaginary superiority of other people. The only writers with whom he maintained friendly relations were the reactionary and “land lord” Fet (in whose house the quarrel with Turgenev broke out) and the Slavophile democrat Strakhov- people who were completely unsympathetic to the main trend of progressive thought of that time.

Tolstoy spent the years 1856–1861 between St. Petersburg, Moscow, Yasnaya Polyana and abroad. He traveled abroad in 1857 (and again in 1860–1861) and learned from there disgust at the selfishness and materialism of European society. bourgeois civilization. In 1859 he opened a school for peasant children in Yasnaya Polyana and in 1862 began publishing a pedagogical magazine Yasnaya Polyana, in which he surprised the progressive world with the assertion that it is not the intellectuals who should teach the peasants, but rather the peasants who should teach the intellectuals. In 1861 he accepted the post of mediator, a post created to oversee the implementation of the emancipation of the peasants. But the unsatisfied thirst for moral strength continued to torment him. He abandoned the revelry of his youth and began to think about marriage. In 1856, he made his first unsuccessful attempt to marry (Arsenyeva). In 1860, he was deeply shocked by the death of his brother Nicholas - this was his first encounter with the inevitable reality of death. Finally, in 1862, after much hesitation (he was convinced that since he was old - thirty-four years old! - and ugly, no woman would love him), Tolstoy proposed to Sofya Andreevna Bers, and it was accepted. They got married in September of that year.

Marriage is one of the two main milestones in Tolstoy's life; the second milestone was his appeal. He was always haunted by one concern - how to justify his life before his conscience and achieve lasting moral well-being. When he was a bachelor, he oscillated between two opposing desires. The first was a passionate and hopeless striving for that integral and unreasoning, “natural” state that he found among the peasants and especially among the Cossacks, in whose village he lived in the Caucasus: this state does not strive for self-justification, for it is free from self-consciousness, this justification demanding. He tried to find such an unquestioning state in conscious submission to animal impulses, in the lives of his friends and (and here he was closest to achieving it) in his favorite pastime - hunting. But he was unable to be satisfied with this forever, and another equally passionate desire - to find a rational justification for life - led him astray every time it seemed to him that he had already achieved contentment with himself. Marriage was his gateway to a more stable and lasting “state of nature.” It was a self-justification of life and a solution to a painful problem. Family life, its unreasoning acceptance and submission to it, henceforth became his religion.

For the first fifteen years of his married life, Tolstoy lived in a blissful state of contented vegetation, with a pacified conscience and a hushed need for higher rational justification. The philosophy of this plant conservatism is expressed with enormous creative force in War and Peace(see summary and analysis of this novel). He was extremely happy in his family life. Sofya Andreevna, almost still a girl when he married her, easily became what he wanted to make her; he explained his new philosophy to her, and she was its indestructible stronghold and unchanging guardian, which ultimately led to the disintegration of the family. The writer's wife turned out to be an ideal wife, mother and mistress of the house. In addition, she became a devoted assistant to her husband in literary work - everyone knows that she rewrote seven times War and Peace from the beginning to the end. She gave birth to Tolstoy many sons and daughters. She had no personal life: she was all lost in family life.

Thanks to Tolstoy's reasonable management of estates (Yasnaya Polyana was simply a place of residence; the large Trans-Volga estate brought in income) and the sale of his works, the family's fortune increased, as did the family itself. But Tolstoy, although absorbed and satisfied with his self-justifying life, although he glorified it with unsurpassed artistic power in his best novel, was still not able to completely dissolve in family life, as his wife dissolved. “Life in Art” also did not absorb him as much as his brothers. The worm of moral thirst, although reduced to a tiny size, never died. Tolstoy was constantly concerned with questions and demands of morality. In 1866 he defended (unsuccessfully) before a military court a soldier accused of striking an officer. In 1873 he published articles on public education, on the basis of which the astute critic Mikhailovsky was able to predict the further development of his ideas.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) - Russian writer, publicist, thinker, educator, was a corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Considered one of the world's greatest writers. His works have been filmed many times at world film studios, and his plays are staged on stages around the world.

Childhood

Leo Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828 in Yasnaya Polyana, Krapivinsky district, Tula province. Here was his mother's estate, which she inherited. The Tolstoy family had very extensive noble and count roots. In the highest aristocratic world there were relatives of the future writer everywhere. There was everyone in his family - a brethren-adventurer and an admiral, a chancellor and an artist, a lady-in-waiting and the first social beauty, a general and a minister.

Leo's dad, Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy, was a man with a good education, took part in the foreign campaigns of the Russian military against Napoleon, was captured in France, from where he escaped, and retired as a lieutenant colonel. When his father died, he inherited a lot of debts, and Nikolai Ilyich was forced to take a bureaucratic job. In order to save his upset financial component of the inheritance, Nikolai Tolstoy was legally married to Princess Maria Nikolaevna, who was no longer young and came from the Volkonsky family. Despite the small calculation, the marriage turned out to be very happy. The couple had 5 children. The brothers of the future writer Kolya, Seryozha, Mitya and sister Masha. Leo was fourth among all.

After her last daughter, Maria, was born, her mother began to experience “childbed fever.” In 1830 she died. Leo was not yet two years old at that time. And what a wonderful storyteller she was. Perhaps this is where this came from early love Tolstoy to literature. Five children were left without a mother. Their upbringing had to be done by a distant relative, T.A. Ergolskaya.

In 1837, the Tolstoys left for Moscow, where they settled on Plyushchikha. The older brother, Nikolai, was going to go to university. But very soon and completely unexpectedly, the father of the Tolstoy family died. His financial affairs were not completed, and the three youngest children had to return to Yasnaya Polyana to be raised by Ergolskaya and their paternal aunt, Countess Osten-Sacken A.M. It was here that Leo Tolstoy spent his entire childhood.

The writer's early years

After the death of Aunt Osten-Sacken in 1843, the children had to move again, this time to Kazan under the guardianship of their father’s sister P. I. Yushkova. Leo Tolstoy received his primary education at home, his teachers were the good-natured German Reselman and the French tutor Saint-Thomas. In the autumn of 1844, following his brothers, Lev became a student at the Kazan Imperial University. At first he studied at the Faculty of Oriental Literature, later transferred to the Faculty of Law, where he studied for less than two years. He understood that this was absolutely not the occupation to which he would like to devote his life.

In the early spring of 1847, Lev abandoned his studies and went to Yasnaya Polyana, which he inherited. At the same time, he began keeping his famous diary, having adopted this idea from Benjamin Franklin, whose biography he became well acquainted with at the university. Just like the wisest American politician, Tolstoy set himself certain goals and tried with all his might to fulfill them, analyzed his failures and victories, actions and thoughts. This diary went with the writer throughout his life.

In Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy tried to build new relationships with the peasants, and also took up:

• learning English;
• jurisprudence;
• pedagogy;
• music;
• charity.

In the fall of 1848, Tolstoy went to Moscow, where he planned to prepare for and pass the candidate exams. Instead, a completely different social life with its excitement and card games opened up for him. In the winter of 1849, Lev moved from Moscow to St. Petersburg, where he continued to lead revelries and a riotous lifestyle. In the spring of this year, he began taking exams to become a candidate of rights, but, having changed his mind about taking the final exam, he returned to Yasnaya Polyana.

Here he continued to lead an almost metropolitan lifestyle - cards and hunting. However, in 1849, Lev Nikolaevich opened a school for peasant children in Yasnaya Polyana, where he sometimes taught himself, but mostly the lessons were taught by the serf Foka Demidovich.

Military service

At the end of 1850, Tolstoy began work on his first work, the famous trilogy “Childhood”. At the same time, Lev received an offer from his older brother Nikolai, who served in the Caucasus, to join the military service. The elder brother was an authority for Leo. After the death of his parents, he became the writer’s best and most faithful friend and mentor. At first, Lev Nikolaevich thought about the service, but a large gambling debt in Moscow accelerated the decision. Tolstoy went to the Caucasus and in the fall of 1851 he entered service as a cadet in an artillery brigade near Kizlyar.

Here he continued to work on the work “Childhood,” which he finished writing in the summer of 1852 and decided to send to the most popular literary magazine of that time, “Sovremennik.” He signed with the initials “L.” N.T.” and along with the manuscript he enclosed a small letter:

“I will eagerly await your verdict. He will either encourage me to write more or make me burn everything.”

At that time, the editor of Sovremennik was N. A. Nekrasov, and he immediately recognized the literary value of the Childhood manuscript. The work was published and was a huge success.

The military life of Lev Nikolaevich was too eventful:

• more than once he was in danger in skirmishes with the mountaineers commanded by Shamil;
• when the Crimean War began, he transferred to the Danube Army and took part in the battle of Oltenitz;
• participated in the siege of Silistria;
• in the battle of Chernaya he commanded a battery;
• during the assault on Malakhov Kurgan he came under bombardment;
• held the defense of Sevastopol.

For military service, Lev Nikolaevich received the following awards:

• Order of St. Anne, 4th degree “For Bravery”;
• medal "In memory of the war of 1853-1856";
• medal "For the defense of Sevastopol 1854-1855".

The brave officer Leo Tolstoy had every chance of a military career. But he was only interested in writing. During his service, he did not stop composing and sending his stories to Sovremennik. Published in 1856, “Sevastopol Stories” finally established him as a new literary trend in Russia, and Tolstoy left military service forever.

Literary activity

He returned to St. Petersburg, where he made close acquaintances with N. A. Nekrasov, I. S. Turgenev, I. S. Goncharov. During his stay in St. Petersburg, he released several of his new works:

• "Blizzard",
• "Youth",
• "Sevastopol in August"
• "Two Hussars"

But very soon he became disgusted with social life, and Tolstoy decided to travel around Europe. He visited Germany, Switzerland, England, France, Italy. He described all the advantages and disadvantages he saw, the emotions he received in his works.

Returning from abroad in 1862, Lev Nikolaevich married Sofya Andreevna Bers. The brightest period of his life began, his wife became his absolute assistant in all matters, and Tolstoy could calmly do his favorite thing - composing works that later became world masterpieces.

Family, death and memory

Lev Nikolaevich lived in marriage and love with his wife for almost 50 years, they had 13 children, five of whom died while still young. There are many descendants of Lev Nikolaevich all over the world. Once every two years they gather in Yasnaya Polyana.

In life, Tolstoy always adhered to his certain principles. He wanted to be as close to the people as possible. He loved ordinary people very much.

In 1910, Lev Nikolaevich left Yasnaya Polyana, setting off on a journey that would correspond to his life views. Only his doctor went with him. There were no specific goals. He went to Optina Pustyn, then to the Shamordino Monastery, then went to visit his niece in Novocherkassk. But the writer became ill; after suffering from a cold, pneumonia began.

In the Lipetsk region, at the Astapovo station, Tolstoy was taken off the train, admitted to the hospital, six doctors tried to save his life, but to their proposals Lev Nikolaevich quietly replied: “God will arrange everything.” After a whole week of heavy and painful breathing, the writer died in the house of the station master on November 20, 1910 at the age of 82 years.

The estate in Yasnaya Polyana, together with the natural beauty that surrounds it, is a museum-reserve. Three more museums of the writer are located in the village of Nikolskoye-Vyazemskoye, in Moscow and at the Astapovo station. Moscow also has state museum L. N. Tolstoy.