LEO TOLSTOY AND SOFIA TOLSTAYA:

A dialogue between two independently minded kindred spirits

ANDREW DONSKOV

…when you’re away, your letters help me live, just like your voice when you’re around.

— Sofia Andreevna to Lev Nikolaevich (Letter Nº 86)¹

Your letters reflect not only your mental state, but that of the children, too — [the ones] at home. […] I use your letter[s] (as though they were a thermometer) to follow the moral temperature of the family — has it gone up or down?

— Lev Nikolaevich to SOFIA ANDREEVNA (Letter Nº 106)

I have been busy collecting and transcribing as many of my letters as possible to Lev Nikolaevich over my whole lifetime. What a touching account these letters hold of my love for Lëvochka and my life as a mother!

— SOFIA ANDREEVNA, Dnevniki [Diaries] (II.10)

SETTING THE STAGE

Both Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828–1910) and his wife Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya (1844–1919) were prolific letter writers. According to records in the Tolstoy Museum archives in Moscow, Lev Nikolaevich wrote approximately 10,000 letters over his lifetime — 840 of these addressed to his wife, as published in volumes 83 and 84 of the Jubilee Edition of his works (1938 and 1949). Tolstaya had earlier compiled and published two editions of her husband’s letters to her: the first (1913) contained 656 letters arranged chronologically, the second (1915) included seven more letters, the last dated 31 October 1910, shortly before the writer’s death, as well as some 700 personal annotations.² Letters written by (or to) Sofia Andreevna over her lifetime also numbered in the thousands.

When Tolstaya published the letters she received from Lev Nikolaevich, she declined to include any of her 644 letters to him. The absence of half their correspondence has served to obscure the underlying significance of many of his comments to her and occasionally led the reader to wrong conclusions. This problem was only partly resolved when about two-thirds (443) of Tolstaya’s letters to her husband were published through Academia (Moscow and Leningrad) in 1936 by the Tolstoys’ granddaughter Anna Il’inichna Tolstaja and her husband Pavel Sergeevich Popov in the collection Tolstaja S. A. Pis’ma k L. N. Tolstomu [S. A. Tolstaya, Letters to L. N. Tolstoy].

Tolstaya’s remaining 201 letters have never been published in any language, and the University of Ottawa’s Slavic Research Group has been granted exclusive rights for publication in Russian, as well as the translation and publication rights in English. Of interest to readers, eleven of these unpublished letters have been included (in both their original form and in English translation) in an appendix to the present volume, though without the extensive annotations that will eventually accompany their appearance in the Russian edition.

In addition to these letters, both Tolstoy and Tolstaya frequently wrote postscripts to letters penned by other people in whose presence they happened to be at the time — for example, children, close relatives, friends and acquaintances. In the case of such additions by Tolstoy, the Jubilee Edition contains only his postscripts, nearly always without the benefit of the context supplied by the original letters, which in many cases provide valuable insights into his remarks. The postscripts (approximately 400–500 of them between the two writers) help us to establish the dates on which the letters were written, gain further insights into the couple’s way of life, define their circles of correspondents, and determine the kind of reading they engaged in. When added to the letters, the result will be a total of some 2,000 documents, to be published in their original Russian in a four-volume referential edition, thoroughly comparing all texts with their original sources. The inaccuracies and omissions in earlier editions, stemming mainly from censorship and ideological bias, will be corrected and restored in the new publication.

THE MULTI-VOLUME PROJECT: LOOKING AHEAD

The century which has passed since the deaths of Leo Tolstoy (1910) and Sofia Tolstaya (1919) has seen unceasing scholarly investigation of the former’s remarkable works, thought and life, as well as several important studies devoted to the latter. It should not seem surprising, moreover, that the field known as Tolstoy Studies, now entering its second century, remains a highly dynamic and evolving academic discipline, producing new ideas and bringing to light new materials and sources.

It is hoped that this particular edition will serve as a reference for years to come, especially since it chronicles and analyses an extensive series of personal and professional exchanges between two significant Russian figures of the turn of the twentieth century: Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy and his chosen life partner Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya. Cultural historians, gender studies specialists, and humanists in various disciplines may well find fascination in examining such personal (but still topical) exchanges between these two individuals — a literary dialogue sustained over their 48 years of married life. Of particular interest will be the many insights offered by an insider into Tolstoy’s world-view and the evolution of his ideas over the period. Tolstaya was an artistically sensitive critic and, at the same time, a pragmatic professional, who played a role more closely integrated than any other human being into all facets of Tolstoy’s life, including his inner spiritual development and his constantly evolving career as a writer.

I believe that the projected multi-volume publication, multifaceted as it is in scope, will be a landmark edition, of value to seasoned academics and the next generation of young scholars. It will offer both the academic community and the general public a unique opportunity to become acquainted with a remarkable woman whose fascinating career contributed so significantly both to that of a great writer and to the larger society in which they lived. It will, in addition, lead to a re-evaluation by scholars of some of their previous conclusions regarding Tolstoy and Tolstaya, for their correspondence — especially Sofia Andreevna’s 201 unpublished letters — reveals a complexity of much deeper layers in their relationship. It will lead to new corrections on a variety of subjects, ranging from Tolstaya’s collaboration and assistance in Tolstoy’s creative production to the sometimes bitter accusations and unfair treatment she received from some of his followers (known as “Tolstoyans”) — notably his long-time associate, Vladimir Chertkov — not to mention criticism directed at her by her children and, indeed, by her husband himself.

It will be possible to better understand and more accurately evaluate many significant ideas encountered both in Tolstoy’s fiction and in his treatises on the basis of Tolstaya’s reaction to them in her letters and her husband’s subsequent counter-reaction.

The value of these new epistolary materials reveals itself in relation to the overall context of writings, diaries and other correspondence, particularly during the periods in Tolstoy’s life when he did not keep a diary. Hence the need to set forth the entire correspondence in an integrated string of chronologically arranged letters that enables readers to follow the epistolary exchange from start to finish.

Another consideration favouring the chronological sequencing of the whole correspondence with no omissions is the opportunity to search for and analyse (with proper dating) the real-life events which Tolstoy later transformed into episodes in his literary works. Nowhere is the connection between the writer’s life and his creative process more apparent than in his family letters, which are a more reliable guide than memoirs to real-life experiences (memoirs often being written at a later period, and under the influence of subsequent events).

Furthermore, the sequence of letters reflects the changing patterns and trends of the literary and social atmosphere over five decades. Numerous references over this period allow the reader to trace these changes both in Russia as a whole and in the Tolstoys’ relationships with well-known figures of the time (e.g., writers Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Chekhov, Gorky and Fet; painters Kramskoj, Repin and Ge; composers Taneev, Arenskij and Tchaikovsky; philosophers Grot, Lopatin and Strakhov; even the tsars: Alexander II, Alexander III and Nicholas II). Thus the project’s scope reaches far beyond the study of two individual correspondents.

Such a multifaceted and interdisciplinary edition, as previewed in the present English translation, will greatly enrich not only the field of Tolstoy studies but provide useful research material for scholars and students in history, sociology, culturology and gender studies, in reference to the five decades of Russian history covered by the correspondence (1860s to 1900s).

Tolstaya’s letters and postscripts to her husband, embracing (as they do) the whole period of their married life (from August 1862 to his death in November 1910), written from a consistent point of view and with remarkable clarity of insight, constitute the most important documentary source for Tolstoy scholarship to be published in many years. They provide significant new information that is not to be found in any of her other writings. Indeed, recent scholarship (notably, Remizov 2011) has seen an outcry over the current dispersal of the couple’s letters among so many sources and encouraged the publication of their entire correspondence as a source of particularly valuable information on both Tolstoy and Tolstaya as subjects of scholarly research.

First, these letters and postscripts allow us to peer into the soul, as it were, of this remarkable woman, whose lot it was not only to be married to one of the world’s greatest writers, but to take on a number of significant roles in conjunction with his creative output: as a painstaking transcriber of his daily jottings; as a consultant who sometimes contributed to his actual writing; as a publicist and liaison with publishers, printing-houses and the press (later as a publisher herself). She also acted as her husband’s advocate and defender in questions of censorship — a task Tolstoy abhorred (on one occasion she even presented a plea on his behalf to the Tsar) — and as his eyes and ears on the social and political scene in Moscow, from where she would report to him through her letters sent back to his preferred abode at Yasnaya Polyana. Her letters confirm and illustrate what she wrote in 1904 in the preface to her memoir My Life: “The significance of my forty-two years of conjugal life with Lev Nikolaevich cannot be excluded from his life.” In addition, they reflect and illustrate her independent activities as a musician, painter, photographer and writer of her own novels and stories.

Second, letters and postscripts written by both correspondents provide fresh insights into the major works Tolstoy produced over almost a half-century. They help explain and clarify not only the aims of his various novels and treatises, but also the practical procedures involved in their publication and promotion, as well as their reception on the part of contemporary critics. They illustrate the vital link between many of Tolstoy’s fictional scenes and characters, and events and personages in his family life, which then in turn consciously or sub-consciously informed these same scenes and characters.

Third, the letters and postscripts chronicle in considerable detail not only the shared experiences and mutual relationship of two individuals, but also members of the extended Tolstoy family and their circles of acquaintances (one of the principal themes running through the correspondence). Beyond that, they serve as a window on the whole of Russian society of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

APPRAISING A LIFE THROUGH AN EPISTOLARY EXCHANGE

This, however, is a task for the future. The current volume of selected letters presents a continually unfolding dialogue between the Tolstoy-Tolstaya couple for the first time in English translation, and offers substantial and unique insight into the minds of two fascinating individuals over the 48-year period of their conjugal life. Not only do we gain a more multi-faceted understanding of these deep-thinking correspondents by penetrating their immediate and extended family life — full of joy and sadness, bliss and tragedy. This dialogue also allows us to observe, as in a generation-spanning chronicle, a variety of scenes from Russian society — from rural peasants working the lands of the Tolstoy estates to lords and ladies of noble birth parading within the walls of the Imperial Court and the Russian Orthodox Church — all of whom both writers were well acquainted with. We learn about Tolstoy’s diverse family setting in which he penned a host of stories, novels and philosophical treatises (including two of the world’s most famous works of fiction: War and Peace and Anna Karenina). We learn about Tolstaya’s development as a writer, businesswoman and an individual in her own right, including her indispensable (yet all too often overlooked) contribution to the writing, publishing and dissemination of her husband’s works. We learn about the far-reaching effects of Tolstoy’s spiritual conversion in 1880 on his marital and family relations, including the events leading up to his final departure from his beloved Yasnaya Polyana in October 1910, and his death which followed shortly afterwards, as well as the devastating effects of these events on Tolstaya as a wife and mother. In sum, this correspondence represents two lifetimes of intertwined creative energy that collectively left their indelible mark on both Russian history and world literature.

It is indeed surprising that no attempt has been made to date to publish the integrated correspondence as an entire or even partial exchange — or to offer a sustained critical study of the particular relationship evident in these letters — especially since a similar edition of letters between Fëdor Mikhajlovich Dostoevsky and his wife Anna Grigor’evna Dostoevskaja was issued in a prestigious academic edition: F. M. Dostoevskij—A. G. Dostoevskaja: Perepiska [Correspondence] (1979), including 239 letters by the two correspondents and a critical overview by the editors (pp. 352–88). This fact may serve as yet another illustration of the bias against Sofia Andreevna on the part of those offended by the fact that her often negative criticism of her husband’s failings had impugned the idyllic image promoted by the vast majority of his followers and some researchers; this image had permeated both Soviet and post-Soviet Tolstoy research and prevented many scholars from investigating a good deal of obviously important material. The recent first-time publication (in Russian, preceded by an English translation under my editorship) of her major autobiographical work, My Life, for example, is a hint that the correction of these errors is very much on the agenda of Slavic scholarship today.

A few Soviet works on Tolstoy and Tolstaya are relevant and should be taken into account. Apart from the annotations to Tolstoy’s letters in the Jubilee Edition (1938, 1949) and Tolstaya’s letters to Tolstoy in Tolstaja and Popov’s 1936 edition, little discussion on the overall exchange of letters is available in Russia. To be sure, every Russian scholar who has written about the husband-wife relationship (e.g., Pavel Birjukov, Vladimir Zhdanov, Vladimir Tunimanov, Nina Nikitina, Tat’jana Komarova) discusses their letters, but not as a dialogue. This includes the brilliant, judicious account of their marriage in Pavel Basinskij’s Lev Tolstoj: begstvo iz raja [Leo Tolstoy: Flight from Paradise] (2010). Nor do we encounter any more comprehensive treatment of their correspondence in the major biographical works published in the West.

Three recent biographies might be mentioned as particularly pertinent: one of Tolstoy, Rosamund Bartlett’s Tolstoy: A Russian Life (2011); and the other two of Tolstaya: Sofja Andrejewna Tolstaja: Ein Leben an der Seite Tolstojs [Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya: A Life at Tolstoy’s Side] (2009) by Ursula Keller and Natalja Sharandak; Sophia Tolstoy: A Biography (2010) by Alexandra Popoff.

A notable exception here is the earlier two-volume edition (1978) of Lev Tolstoy’s letters to various addressees, translated into English and annotated by Professor Reginald F. Christian of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, which includes 36 addressed to Sofia Tolstaya but, again, without either her responses or the letters Tolstoy was responding to.

A shorter study with excellent overview and analysis is Hugh McLean’s “The Tolstoy marriage revisited — many times” (2011). Also worth noting is Inessa Medzhibovskaya’s thorough analysis, Tolstoy and the Religious Culture of his Time: A Biography of a Long Conversion, 1845–1887 (2008), and Hilde Hoogenboom’s conference paper, “The Tolstoy Family: Conflicts in the Literary Field at Home” (2014).

There are lessons, however, suggested by some previously published works. For example, in the Dostoevsky couple’s letters mentioned above, the biographical introduction focused almost entirely on Fëdor Mikhajlovich and very little on his wife Anna Grigor’evna. In the current essay, on the other hand, in view of the proliferation of criticism already accorded Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy and his writings by world literary scholarship, as well as the obvious significance of Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya’s accomplishments, a more appropriate balance in emphasis begs observance.

SOFIA ANDREEVNA TOLSTAYA: THREE PERIODS OF DEVELOPMENT

Sofia Andreevna Behrs was born 22 August 1844 at Pokrovskoe Glebovo-Streshnevo near Moscow. She received her education at home and, in 1861, at the age of seventeen, passed the ‘home-teacher’ examination at Moscow University. By this time her father, Andrej Evstaf’evich Behrs, had been appointed physician to the Imperial Court — a position which provided him and his family with a private apartment in the Kremlin.

The following year, on 14 September 1862, she was proposed to by Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, who had courted her on her grandfather’s estate (Ivitsy) near Tula, some fifty kilometres north of Yasnaya Polyana. His proposal contained a caveat, perhaps a hint that the marital journey ahead would not be an easy one: “Tell me as an honest person, do you want to be my wife? Only if you can fearlessly, from the bottom of your heart, say yes. If there is even a shadow of a doubt in your mind, it would be better to say no” (14 September 1862, Letter Nº 2).

The wedding took place nine days later on 23 September at the Birth of the Virgin Mary Church [Tserkov’ Rozhdestva Bogoroditsy] on the Kremlin grounds.

Following the wedding, Sofia Andreevna quickly adapted not only to the role of Tolstoy’s wife but also to that of his copyist and literary assistant, starting with his Polikushka, a story of peasant life, which was published the following year. It took her significantly longer to accustom herself to the duties of household manager and mother (of what eventually turned out to be a family of thirteen children — five of whom did not survive to adulthood, and not counting several miscarriages). She fulfilled all these roles with a natural ability, efficiency and devotion. She took personal charge of her children’s education during their younger years, even devising special readers and grammar books for them. Her busy home schedule left little time for amusement or travel, apart from the occasional trips to St. Petersburg, Kiev and the Crimea. Sadly, despite her early studies in French (in which she was fluent) and later in English and German, she never had the opportunity to travel outside Russia.

She was, however, quite active in community and social affairs, especially during her time in Moscow — including the famine relief efforts of 1891 and 1892, when she set up and managed a campaign to collect funds for famine victims and purchase needed food and other supplies.³ She also found time to develop her artistic talent for music, painting, photography and writing. Among other painting activities, she would make copies of early portraits of her husband by well-known artists of the day.

One of her greatest legacies was her ongoing support of her husband’s unique literary career. She authored the first biographical sketch of Tolstoy to appear in print.⁴ During the 1870s she wrote a series of essays on certain aspects of his life (his conflict with Turgenev, for example), as well as his career as a novelist (in particular, his work on War and Peace and Anna Karenina). During the periods of her husband’s illness, she would issue press releases on the true state of his health in an effort to counteract widespread false rumours as to his supposed arrest or even death. She publicly defended him from malicious attacks by his opponents, and did her best to protect him from undesired visits to Yasnaya Polyana either by over-zealous supporters or by those interested primarily in personal gain. And despite her personal and philosophical objections to his later writings such as The Kreutzer Sonata, she made a (successful) personal petition to the Tsar himself against their official censorship ban.⁵

With her fluency in French and her better-than-average knowledge of German and English, she frequently found herself translating Tolstoy’s works into French as well as translating texts of interest to him from all three of these languages into Russian.⁶

Most importantly, particularly during the later years of their marriage, Tolstaya took an active role in the publication of her husband’s writings. This included negotiations with printers and publishers, supervising the editing and proofreading process⁷ and even maintaining a warehouse of his books in a wing of their Khamovniki home in Moscow. A major turning-point in this activity came in May 1883, when Tolstoy gave Tolstaya complete charge of the publication of all his writings published before 1881 (including royalties), while he himself renounced his rights to virtually all his later writings (as well as personal property in general). Between 1886 and 1891 she brought out eight different editions of his collected writings as well as republishing fifteen volumes of individual works.

Added to all this is her activity as archivist and documentary historian. It is in good measure thanks to Tolstaya that so many materials (including manuscripts, letters and diaries and a catalogue of her husband’s library holdings at Yasnaya Polyana) have been preserved for future generations of scholars. According to senior museum researcher Tat’jana Nikiforova, the S. A. Tolstaya archive in the Manuscript Division of the State L. N. Tolstoy Museum in Moscow numbers 22,000 items,⁸ including thousands of letters written by or addressed to her. Her correspondents included many prominent contemporary writers, artists, critics, philosophers, theatre people, lawyers and politicians.

Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya’s independent role as editor and publisher of Tolstoy’s works is not to be underestimated, certainly not by Tolstoy’s biographers, who have provided a good deal of documentation on her life (though sadly neglecting her own literary pursuits).

Until very recently, however, there were very few published objective portrayals of Sofia Andreevna’s life and professional activity. Of the comments extant, the vast majority may be divided into two groups: (a) those from Tolstoyans and suchlike, who saw her as authoritarian, intellectually limited, offensive and coarse in her dealings with people; and (b) those from visitors to her home and her own regular correspondents, who by and large came to appreciate her talents, her dedication to her family and her invaluable assistance to her husband’s writing career. The latter group included many famous names, for example: artists Il’ja Repin and Leonid Pasternak; composers Sergej Taneev and Anton Arenskij; philosophers Nikolaj Grot and Pavel Bakunin; theatre directors Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko; literary critics Nikolaj Strakhov and Vladimir Stasov, plus a large number of writers and publishers, including Afanasij Fet, Ivan Turgenev, Maxim Gorky, Zinaida Gippius and Anna Dostoevskaja.

Her descriptions of these personalities read as a chronicle of the times, affording a unique portrait of late-nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century Russian society. Together with her other ventures, they also highlight her accomplishments as an author in her own right — a rarity in the largely male-dominated world of the time.

In Part III, Chapter 39 of My Life, Tolstaya describes “three significant periods in my life that had a considerable influence on me”, namely (a) her first acquaintance with Tolstoy’s early works (which led to a subsequent interest in Russian and world literature), (b) her platonic attraction to the Tolstoys’ family friend Prince Leonid Dmitrievich Urusov, who introduced her to philosophy, (c) the death of her youngest son, Vanechka, and the subsequent comfort she found in music. This comfort came in particular from the music of pianist-composer Sergej Ivanovich Taneev, and her platonic relationship with him enriched and enhanced her life-long love of music and served as a catalyst for her novel Song Without Words. All three of these significant periods left their mark on Tolstaya’s career as a writer, and are worth exploring in some detail.

LITERATURE AND LEV NIKOLAEVICH TOLSTOY

In her youth, Tolstaya developed an interest in both Russian and world literature. She describes this experience in Chapter I.22 of My Life:

From the age of fourteen up to eighteen I read through the whole of Russian literature, [including] Grigorovich’s Rybaki [The fishermen] and Pereselentsy [The migrants]. I was delighted to read Aksakov’s Semejnaja khronika [A family chronicle]. I also read all of Tolstoy, and Goncharov’s Oblomov, along with everything that came out in Russian translation — Dickens, and so forth.

We also read a good many French books at random: in the case of Molière, Racine and Corneille we just had to read everything. We read George Sand with great enthusiasm, as well as V[ictor] Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris, [Paul Henri] Féval’s Le Bossu and many others.

…in German I was reading Goethe, Schiller and Auerbach, which I quite liked. I was particularly pleased with [Auerbach’s] novel Auf der Höhe [On the Heights].

She then goes on to recount her exploration of the whole history of Russian literature, likening it to “the growth of a living being” (ibid.), and how she was particularly fascinated with Ivan Turgenev (1818–1883). As a university student she participated in a public reading of Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons, finding “something very appealing and promising for the future” in the character of Bazarov (Autobiography, p. 141). She also had a special attraction to Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield — which she at the time read in Russian translation (later she would become quite proficient in reading original works in English) — growing very attached to the novel’s characters, as though they were “the dearest and closest people to me” (My Life, I.7).

The greatest pleasure and impact of all, however, came from her reading of two autobiographical novels by Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, namely Childhood [Detstvo] and Boyhood [Otrochestvo], later to be supplemented by the third part of his well-known trilogy, Youth [Junost’]. When it came to Tolstoy, she “wasn’t content with just reading — I would copy favourite passages and commit them to memory” (ibid.). It was in part her reading of these books that inspired her to write her first story, Natasha.

Here may be seen the very beginnings of a mutual literary attraction and interaction between Sofia Andreevna and Lev Nikolaevich, which actually preceded their personal relationship and romance.

After their marriage the newly-wed Tolstaya took on the task of transcribing her husband’s texts (penned in his notoriously indecipherable handwriting) to make them legible for the typesetters. Because of the author’s inevitable dissatisfaction with his initial drafts, this often meant copying the same stories over and over again to incorporate his many corrections and newly minted passages. While initially she found the task daunting — for example, shortly after their marriage she wrote: “I have been transcribing Lëvochka’s [i.e., Lev Nikolaevich’s] work for days on end, and am so tired” (My Life, II.6), — it is clear that she came to relish the opportunity for such close familiarity with her husband’s creative process. She confessed in My Life (II.14):

The transcribing of War and peace — and indeed, all Lev Nikolaevich’s works — was a source of great æsthetic pleasure for me. I fearlessly looked forward to my evening labours, and joyfully anticipated just what I would derive from the delight of becoming further acquainted with his work as it unfolded. I was enthralled by this life of thought, these twists and turns, surprises and all the various unfathomable aspects of his creative genius.

And her letters to Lev Nikolaevich confirm the depth of enthusiasm she felt for this work:

Today I spent practically the whole day transcribing. I didn’t get very far ahead, though, as I got distracted. But transcribing is pleasant, as though a close friend were sitting [with me] in the same room, and [this friend] doesn’t need to be entertained — it’s just good that he is here. This is how it is with my copying: I don’t have to think, but simply to follow and benefit from the various thoughts of another, one very close to me, and from that comes good. (SAT to LNT, 11 November 1866, Letter Nº 28)

What have you decided as regards our ‘shrine’ — your novel? I’ve now started to think of it as your (meaning mine, too) baby, and releasing these sheets of paper comprising your novel to Moscow is literally letting go of a child, and I’m fearful lest it come to any harm. I’ve really fallen in love with your creation. It’s doubtful I’ll love anything as much as this novel. (SAT to LNT, 14 November 1866, Letter Nº 31)

Thirty years later Sofia Andreevna still had nostalgic thoughts about her fascination with the transcribing of her husband’s fiction (“artistic”) works (“How silly I was when you were writing War and Peace and how smart you were! How delicately — cleverly, with such genius — War and Peace was written!” — Letter Nº 167.) But her feelings for his post-1880 philosophical writings were entirely different. They would frequently cause her concern that they were a waste of such a talented writer’s time and that he should give them up in favour of a return to fiction. Yet, at least with hindsight, in 1894 she could look at his change of literary genre quite philosophically herself:

I cannot forswear my love for your artistic works; and today I suddenly had the clear realisation that this is because I experienced it during the best years of my life together with you — i.e., simply in my youth. And [our] daughters in their youth are experiencing another side of your literary activity, and will love it above all else. (SAT to LNT, 11 September 1894, Letter Nº 174)

But Tolstaya’s role in her husband’s creative endeavours was not long confined to simply transcribing. Her contributions to his Primer,⁹ as well as to some of the descriptions (especially of women’s clothing) in War and Peace and Anna Karenina have been all too frequently left unsung. The eminent Tolstoy scholar Lidija Gromova-Opul’skaja (2005: 305), for example, states:

It is well known that during the time War and peace was being created, Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya was not just a transcriber, but Tolstoy’s first enthusiastic reader and even his assistant. According to Èvelina Zajdenshnur, in both War and peace and Anna Karenina Sofia Andreevna would re-describe the clothing of Tolstoy’s heroines. Zajdenshnur points out, for example, that in Tolstoy’s early draft, Natasha and Sonja appeared at their first ball “in muslin dresses with roses on their corsages” [v kisejnykh plat’jakh s rozami u korsazha] whereas Tolstaya changed this to: “in gossamer dresses with rose-coloured capes and roses on their corsages” [v dymkovykh plat’jakh na rozovykh chekhlakh s rozami u korsazha] — and the change was accepted by Tolstoy.

There are in fact, several instances in which Tolstoy declined to describe his female characters’ dress, happily leaving this task to Tolstaya as part of her transcribing duties.¹⁰

The writer Maxim Gorky, for one, recognised Tolstaya’s contribution, declaring:

We do not know what — or how — Leo Tolstoy’s wife spoke to him in those moments when they sat eye to eye as he read to her (before anyone else) the book chapters he had only just finished writing. Mindful of the genius’s monstrous intuitive insight, I still think that certain aspects of the images of women included in his great novel [War and peace] could only be perceived by a woman, who in turn suggested them to the novelist.¹¹

Even earlier, just two years after their marriage, Tolstoy himself had acknowledged his wife’s literary acumen in a letter he penned to her on 7 December 1864:

What a smart girl you are in anything you put your mind to!.. Like a good wife, you think of your husband as yourself, and I remember how you said to me that all my military and historical [scenes] that I’ve put so much effort into will turn out poorly, while the [parts about] family, the characters’ traits and psychological [makeup] will turn out fine. That is so true; nothing could be truer. And I remember your saying that to me, and I remember the whole of you like that. (LNT to SAT, 7 December 1864, Letter Nº 20)

Indeed, perhaps nowhere more vividly can the interaction between these two literary careers be seen (never mind the fact that one of them was obviously much more widely known than the other) than in the many letters Tolstoy and Tolstaya exchanged throughout their lifetime, which started even before their marriage. A good part of their correspondence centred around literary topics, and was actually written in a superb literary style, with sensitive artistic descriptions of nature, which she took personal delight in. Her letters to him were replete with pithy and obviously vivid psychological portrayals of people, capturing a whole image in the brushstrokes of a few sentences — not only providing for highly interesting reading, but making readers even today feel they are living part of her life with her.

Some of her letters contain opinions (occasionally critical) of her husband’s works, passing her own judgement on her favourite and not-so-favourite characters (for example, Prince Andrej and Princess Mar’ja — see Letter Nº 12 of 25 November 1864). Overall, however, she was deeply appreciative of her husband’s creative genius. She was particularly moved by his play The Power of Darkness [Vlast’ t’my] (1886) and expressed enthusiasm over its performance in a number of theatres. She criticised Resurrection as “false, spicy, drawn out and even repulsive”,¹² at the same time describing Master and Man [Khozjain i rabotnik] as “fresh fruit” by comparison.

In a letter to her husband of 29 October 1895, she wrote with complete candour:

I received your little letter just before I left. It is brief, but again one that lets me feel the whole of you very close to me, and reachable, and kind, and understandable. Besides, I feel quite ashamed and sorry to tell you this, but for some reason I find joy in the fact that you have become disenchanted with your narrative [an early draft of Resurrection [Voskresenie]]. I’ve felt all along that it was contrived, and that it did not well up from the depths of your heart and talent. It was something you composed, but did not live. […]

How I would like to lift you higher so that when people read you, they might feel they, too, need wings to fly to you, so that their heart might melt, and so that whatever you wrote would offend no one, but make things better, and so that your work might have an eternal character and fascination. (SAT to LNT, 29 October 1895, Letter Nº 182)

As much as she was put off by Tolstoy’s post-1880 philosophical writings, she nevertheless remained a devoted supporter of his belletristic works, and took every opportunity to encourage him to concentrate on the latter at the expense of the former. In a letter of 5–6 March 1882, for example, she wrote him (quoted in My Life, III.107):

What a feeling of joy came over me as I read that you once more feel like writing in an artistic genre. You have felt something I’ve been waiting for and desiring for a long time. Herein lies our salvation and our joy — here is something that will bring us together once more, something that will comfort you and refresh our lives. It is the real work for which you were created, and outside this sphere there is no rest for your soul… May God grant you hold on to this vision, so that this Divine spark may flare up in you once more.

It is evident from a number of places in her correspondence and diary entries that while Tolstaya recognised to some extent her own creative talent, she felt consistently held back by the role dictated by society as a female member of the human race. She felt that, as a woman, opportunities for manifesting that talent and devoting herself more fully to her literary pursuits were constantly being thwarted both by the overwhelming shadow cast by her world-famous husband’s public profile, and by the duties imposed on her as a wife and mother (particularly the latter). In a diary entry of 12 June 1898 (I: 388) she mused:

I was thinking today: why are women not geniuses? There are no [women] writers, artists or composers. Because all the passion and abilities of energetic women are spent on their families, their love, their husbands — and, especially, their children. All other abilities are atrophied, and stay undeveloped in the womb. Once child-bearing and child-raising are over, then their artistic needs awaken — but by then it is already too late to develop anything within themselves.

And as late as 16 September 1908 she wrote:

…Lev Nikolaevich has been smart and happy his whole life. He has always worked at what he enjoys, and not because it was something he had to do. He would write whenever he wanted to. He would be out ploughing whenever he wanted to. Whenever he got tired of something, he would drop it. Would I ever try living like that? What would become of the children, or Lev Nikolaevich himself?” (Dnevniki, II.114)

Still, on the basis of all the information presented both in this current volume and her own writings, especially My Life, it is evident that Tolstaya’s own writing career was not completely atrophied, that she left to history a (given the constraints on her life) literary legacy worthy of study. Her early youthful jottings, her all too often neglected works of fiction, and above all her lifelong interaction with her celebrated husband’s belletristic creativity as described above, point to an observable development of her writing abilities far beyond “the womb”. As devoted as she was to caring for the physical and educational needs of her husband and children, she did allow her own inherent genius to shine through, as much as her complex life circumstances would permit.

Indeed, her care of the educational needs of her children¹³ also extended, on occasion, to the spheres of writing and sculpture as favourite activities. In a letter to her son, Lev L’vovich, dated 30 June 1897, she admits to an “excellent understanding of the whole creative process”, on the basis of which she willingly offered constructive literary advice to a son who had recently celebrated his 28th birthday:

You say that you are continuing to write. I am afraid that you are taking a too light-hearted approach. Your story “Vorobejchik” [The little sparrow] is simply boring, and the public doesn’t like that. It can’t like it, and so that’s why it was returned. You have to look at it from all sides and record, record, especially your direct impressions or express your moments of inspiration in some kind of form, even if in the most compressed form. I am poor at expressing myself, but I have an excellent understanding of the whole creative process.

To her eldest son Sergej L’vovich she wrote on 26 October 1917 about the difficulty of editing and arranging his father’s literary manuscripts, along with the need for a collective approach:

…apparently you have clearly not appreciated the enormity and complexity of the task. For example, the manuscripts of War and peace were not only [damaged] in a ditch but then ended up being stuffed into a couple of drawers. These are all just clippings and fragments, and it’s difficult to come up with a system to put everything in order. Working alone is unthinkable.¹⁴

Hence it may be seen that Sofia Andreevna’s writing legacy, though apparently in competition with her family duties, is intricately bound together with her husband’s writing pursuits, and those of her children as well. More than in the case of Tolstoy himself, who, notoriously (at least in his later period), found it difficult to reconcile the ideals of his writing with real-life situations,¹⁵ the ideas underlying Tolstaya’s brief writing career grew out of real life and were inseparable from it. From Natasha to Who is to blame?, each of her works may be found to be deeply rooted in her own life experience, which gives them a poignancy and an impression of realism that only enhances their effect on the reader.

Sofia Andreevna summed up her debt to her husband in My Life (III.39) as follows: “…as for Lev Nikolaevich, who had opened up the treasure of literature to me through his Childhood, I naturally began to poeticise him, to love him as a human being. And, despite all the ups and downs in our lives, I have never stopped loving him.”

PHILOSOPHY AND LEONID DMITRIEVICH URUSOV

“The second significant period in my spiritual life,” wrote Sofia Andreevna in My Life (ibid.), “was the time when I learnt to know the beauty of the philosophical thinking of the sages, who afforded me so much by way of spiritual development and even helped me live, simply through their wisdom.”

The philosophers on her reading list were many — from Socrates and Plato to Nikolaj Grot and Vladimir Solov’ëv. As an example of the personal significance they held for her, witness the following passage from her Autobiography [Avtobiografija] (p. 156):

The brilliant style and wealth of thinking of this philosopher [Marcus Aurelius] got me so carried away that I went over his writings twice. After this I read a number of philosophers one after the other, buying [their] books and writing out [their] thoughts and sayings which made an impression on me. I remember how I was struck by Epictetus’s thoughts on death. I found Spinoza quite difficult to understand, but his Ethics interested me, especially his explanation of the concept of God. I was excited by Socrates, Plato and other philosophers (mainly Greek), and I can say that [such] sages went a long way toward helping me live and think. Later I tried reading newer philosophers, too: I read Schopenhauer and others, but I liked the ancient ones a whole lot better.

Interestingly enough, Sofia Andreevna immediately went on to speak of the philosophical writings of her husband, Lev Nikolaevich, singling out her favourite, On life [O zhizni]. She translated this treatise into French with the editorial assistance of a native French speaker surnamed Tastevin and, in her Autobiography, even mentioned seeking help from Grot and Solov’ëv (ibid.), as well as from Lev Nikolaevich himself.

However, there was more to her philosophical attraction than the message of philosophy itself. It turned out she was also deeply attracted to the messenger, in the form of a Tolstoy family friend, the Deputy Governor of Tula Gubernia, Prince Leonid Dmitrievich Urusov, who was largely responsible for introducing her to the study of philosophy. In her introduction to the chapter dealing with the three most significant periods in her life, she said the following about her study of philosophy (My Life, III.39):

“It was L. D. Urusov who set me and later guided me along this path. I became quite attached to him, and loved him for a long time because of this, — in fact, I have never really stopped loving him either, even though he has been dead a long time.”

Tolstaya repeatedly emphasised the platonic nature of her relationship with Urusov. A page or so following this paragraph in My Life, she stated, for example:

“His relationship to me was gentlemanly and courteous, albeit occasionally on the ecstatic side. But we never, either in word or gesture, hinted at anything in the way of a romance between us.”

It is fair to say that the philosophical connection that she and Urusov shared satisfied their intellectual desires more fully than any spiritual bond they might have had with their respective spouses. As much as Tolstaya appreciated (and was even, on occasion, enamoured by) her husband’s philosophical tendencies, she perceived them as largely taking him mentally away from her and their children. She yearned for an idea-based relationship where family duties played no part, and found it, at this point in her life, in Urusov. The deputy governor, for his part, had found little intellectual interest in common with his wife, Marija Sergeevna (Monja, née Mal’tseva), whom Tolstaya describes (ibid.) as highly materialistic, “a very unpleasant woman, who had lived almost all her life in Paris, and with a poor reputation to boot”.¹⁶ Not only that, but she had taken their four children to live with her in Paris, cutting them off almost completely from any family interaction with their father. It was not surprising, therefore, that the pursuit of common philosophical interests nudged both Tolstaya and Urusov into a special meeting of minds which transcended their personal situations.¹⁷

This experience necessarily had an effect on Tolstaya’s artistic and literary contributions.

MUSIC AND SERGEJ IVANOVICH TANEEV

Music had played a significant role throughout Sofia Andreevna’s life, beginning with the final composition she wrote for her teaching certificate in 1861, entitled “Music”.¹⁸ During the early part of her marriage she often played four-handed piano pieces with Lev Nikolaevich.¹⁹ She found in music the comfort she needed from the more tedious aspects of child-rearing:

… and the music, which I have not heard in a long time, has at once taken me out of my own realm of the nursery, diapers and children which I have not taken a single step out of for a long time and transported me somewhere far, far away, where everything is different.²⁰

Her diaries and letters mention regular attendance at concerts and musical evenings held at Yasnaya Polyana, along with commentaries about various composers and musicians. She was, in fact, familiar with about as many composers as philosophers.

It was not until in 1895, however, that Sofia Andreevna became fully aware of her absolute dependence on the comforting power of music to carry her through what must have been one of the worst ordeals of her life, namely, the death of her youngest son, Vanechka,²¹ the favourite of the whole circle of the Tolstoys’ family and friends. This experience she described in her chapter on three significant periods²² as follows:

This was the time following the death of my little son Vanechka. I was in a state of extreme despair — the kind that happens only once in a lifetime. Such a state of sorrow is usually fatal, and those that survive are not in a condition to endure such heart-wrenching suffering a second time. But I did survive, and for that I am obliged to chance, as well as to the mysterious medium of … music.

Just as with her earlier introduction to philosophy, this particular message of music arrived together with a messenger, in the person of a prominent pianist and composer: “One day in May … I was sitting on the balcony. It was a warm day, and the whole garden had already turned green. Sergej Ivanovich Taneev dropped by…”

As it happened, the well-known composer was looking for a place to live for the summer, and Sofia Andreevna offered to rent him the then-empty annexe on the Yasnaya Polyana estate. She admitted she “was morally reaching out for anything that would take my mind off my life with Vanechka, and the presence of someone who was completely oblivious of my sadness to date — and was a pretty good pianist to boot — seemed quite desirable to me”.

This situation continued for two summers, as well as for part of the intervening winter. Sofia Andreevna “became intoxicated by music and got so accustomed to hearing it that I found myself no longer able to live without it”. She took out subscriptions to concerts and listened to music at every possible opportunity — not an easy task in an age when musical recordings were not nearly as accessible as they are today.

But it was Taneev’s music which affected her most of all:

It was he who first taught me, through his marvellous playing, to listen to and love music. I made every effort to hear his playing wherever and however I could, and would arrange to meet him just for this purpose — just so that I could ask him to play. Occasionally, when I did not manage to do this for some time, I felt sad, tormented by the burning desire to hear him play once more, or even just to see him.

His presence had a beneficial effect on me whenever I started feeling a longing for Vanechka. I would weep and feel the energy drain from my life. Sometimes all it took to calm me down was to meet with Sergej Ivanovich and hear his quieting, dispassionate voice. I had already got accustomed to being calmed by his presence and especially his playing. It was a kind of hypnosis, an involuntary influence on my aching soul — one he was completely unaware of.

It was not a normal state to be in. It happened to coincide with my change of life. For all my moodiness I remained virtually unaffected by Taneev’s personality….

For healing my sorrowful soul unintentionally through his music — he didn’t even know about it — I have remained forever grateful to him, and I have never stopped loving him. He was the first to open the door for me to an understanding of music, just as Lev Nikolaevich led me to the understanding of the literary arts, just as Prince Urusov gave me an understanding of and love for philosophy. Once you enter upon these scenes of spiritual delight, you never want to leave them and you constantly come back to them.

Again, just as with Urusov, Tolstaya took pains to deny any kind of romantic relationship with her musical muse:

I refused to entertain such a thought. I would always deny it and was actually afraid of it, even though there was one time when the influence of Taneev’s personality was very strong. Once that kind of feeling surfaces, it kills any sense of importance in the music and art. I wrote a long piece on that.

This brings us back directly to Tolstaya’s writing pursuits. The “long piece” she mentions was none other than her narrative Song without words [Pesnja bez slov],²³ which is based directly on her experience with the composer Taneev. Just as in real life, one of the distinguishing features of the composer/enchanted-listener relationship in her story is that the music itself is its guiding principle, outweighing any feelings of romance or physical attraction.

Sofia Andreevna’s protests of innocence, however, did not serve to mitigate the real feelings of jealousy on the part of Lev Nikolaevich over her obvious attentions to Taneev,²⁴ and bitter misunderstandings and arguments ensued (her husband even threatened to leave home). She sums up her own and her husband’s viewpoints in Chapter VII.16 of My Life:

Lev Nikolaevich also began to get irritated by Taneev’s presence, even though in the evenings he continued to play chess with him and listen to his music. Whenever they talked, Lev Nikolaevich would get irritated and once even told Taneev: “Only peasants or very stupid people would ever reason like that!” Taneev got up and walked out without saying a word, and later Lev Nikolaevich apologised to him.

Subsequently he wrote in his diary that he didn’t like the fact that Taneev had become le coq du village in our home. Indeed, everybody liked him, and everybody had a good time with him. He studied Italian together with Tanja and Masha. We would all go for walks together or take a carriage ride. I was friendly with Taneev, too — I was very excited about his piano-playing.

All this did not go over well with Lev Nikolaevich, and he was especially angry at me. I couldn’t put it down to jealousy; at first that never even entered my head. I was already fifty-two, and men as such could not possibly exist for me. Besides, I was too firmly and fervently in love with my husband, and there was absolutely no point in comparing anyone with such a being as Lev Nikolaevich, who was unique in terms of his spiritual beauty and elevation.

In addition to the above, it should also be pointed out that, while always polite, understanding, cordial, and appreciative of Sofia Andreevna, Taneev himself, as a homosexual, never felt any romantic affection for her.

SPIRITUAL SEARCHING, EVALUATION OF SELF

One can trace through the letters how both correspondents change over the decades, how they mature and progress in gaining a more multi-dimensional understanding of themselves and their partner, of their family, of the world around them, as well as of the meaning of life.

The love-stricken Lev Nikolaevich’s romantic infatuation with his young bride did not stop him from characterising her and other members of the Behrs family psychologically back in the early years of their marriage. He divided them into two categories with an intentional play on words: black and white Behrs. Sonja, along with her mother, her sister Tanja and her youngest brother Vjacheslav (Slava), fall into the black branch of the Behrs family, those whose mind is dormant but whose emotions run high: “they are capable, but unwilling, and hence comes their confidence (not always à propos) and tact”, though “their mind is dormant because they love with great strength” (Letter Nº 20, dated 7 December 1864). The white Behrs, on the other hand, “have a great sympathy for intellectual interests, but their minds are weak and shallow” (ibid.).

The first years were happy ones for the married couple, but feelings of depression, mainly on the part of Lev Nikolaevich, began to appear by the end of the decade. Commenting on a letter written to Tolstoy by his great aunt Aleksandra Andreevna (Alexandrine), in which the latter reveals her death-imbued outlook on life resulting from an unhappy love, Tolstaya wonders whether her husband’s depression—and her own, though she doesn’t make the connection overtly—and might be similarly attributable (see Letter Nº 38 of 4 September 1869).

Fears over depressive mental states resurfaced during Tolstoy’s trips to Samara for koumiss (fermented mare’s milk) treatments, to which he attributed considerable relief: “The feelings of melancholy and indifference I was complaining about have passed” he writes to his wife on 23 June 1871 (Letter Nº 41); “I feel I’ve entered a Scythian state of mind, where everything is interesting and new.”

Following his wife and children’s move to the recently purchased Khamovniki Lane house in Moscow in 1882, Lev Nikolaevich spent his winters in solitude at Yasnaya Polyana, filling his days with physical labour (especially ploughing), daily walks and horseback riding. He also spent time conversing with peasants and simple folk, most of whom were living hard lives: “Someone’s either begging, epileptic, consumptive, crippled, beating his wife or abandoning his children. And everywhere there’s suffering and evil, and people have come to accept that that’s the way it ought to be” (Letter Nº 75, 2 March 1882). A similar picture was evident almost three years later in Letter Nº 107 (2 February 1885), though in this case he seemed to be taking some comfort in his viewpoint as an observer and writer above the fray:

I have been having a lot more impressions of poverty and suffering. I see them always and everywhere, but it’s easier to spot them in the countryside. Here you see everything down to the last detail. And you see both the cause and the means. And I love it — not actually love it, but feel good — when I can clearly see my own situation amidst other people’s.

Sofia Andreevna, on the other hand, initially accepted the arrangement to live apart from her husband as necessary to provide the solitude Lev Nikolaevich needed to fully concentrate on his literary creativity. However, in time she came to suspect that he had ulterior motives. In a letter (Nº 100) dated 23 October 1884 she wrote:

Yesterday I received your first letter, and it saddened me. I see that you have been staying at Yasnaya not for the sake of your intellectual work, which I prize above everything else in life, but for some sort of ‘Robinson Crusoe’ game. You dismissed [our servant] Adrian, who longed to stay to the end of the month; you dismissed the cook, who would have been happy to do some work in exchange for a stipend, and from morning to night you engage in inappropriate physical labour which in ordinary life is done by young [peasant] men and women. Really, it would be better and more productive [for you] to live with the children. Of course you will say that this kind of life is in accord with your convictions, and that you are feeling so good [about it]. Well, that’s another matter, and I can only say “Enjoy!” — and still be upset that such intellectual forces are wasted in chopping wood, putting on the samovar and sewing boots — which are all very fine as a relaxation and a change of pace, but not [at least for you] as professional activities in themselves.

Tolstoy’s acute feeling of social injustice, however, did not afford him the opportunity to ensconce himself in a more sedentary life such as his wife hinted at, or to even think of living out her ideal: a life based on mutual affection and attention to bringing up their children in accord with the highest standards, while the husband and father devoted his genius to producing finely crafted fictional works complete with penetrating insight into the psychology of Russian society. But that kind of life, along with writing fiction in general, had become inimical to Tolstoy’s natural inclinations. His search for the meaning of life was now dictating to him the necessity of radically changing the life of each individual within his sphere of mental outreach, including his family’s and his own.

He summed up this new outlook on existence which he was now letting govern his path in life, as well as its incompatibility with the more traditional views of his wife, in a long, far-ranging letter written over several days in mid-December 1885 (Letter Nº 124). The brief excerpt below will convey something of the scope of his personal dilemma:

Here’s the crux of the matter, after all: this concept that I’m occupied with — perhaps one to which I am called — is an issue of moral teachings. And issues of moral teachings are different from all other subjects in that they cannot change, they can’t be relegated to [mere] words, that they cannot be obligatory for one but not obligatory for another. — If one’s conscience and reason require — and it has become quite clear to me what conscience and reason require — I cannot avoid doing what conscience and reason require and feel at peace — I cannot look at people associated with my love, people who know what reason and conscience require and refuse to do it, and not suffer. —

No matter which way you turn, I cannot help but suffer! living the life we live.

The fundamental discrepancy in their philosophical views of life only deepened over the decades, notwithstanding that the manifestations of these views in the letters were constantly interspersed with news of friends and family, practical day-to-day activities, and expressions of unchanging, undying love for each other.

Another wave of conflict came to a head in November of 1897, with both underlying positions set forth in plainer and plainer terms. After again acknowledging her husband’s claim that solitude was indispensable to his creativity as a major writer for mankind — a claim, she said, that may be well judged true by future generations — she measured what she deemed his professional criteria for success against a more personal perspective:

But as an individual, as your wife, I am obliged to make a tremendous effort to admit that whether something is written slightly better or worse, or whether the number of articles you have written is lesser or greater — is more important than my personal life, my love for you, my desire to live with you and find happiness in this and not somewhere else. (SAT to LNT, 19 November 1897, Letter Nº 200)

She also acknowledged that, by this point, she had accustomed herself to not getting bored during his absences. In fact, it even seemed to her at times that “when we are physically apart, we are more together in spirit, while when we come together materially, it is as though we drift emotionally apart” (ibid.).²⁵ Still, she would have preferred to find a way of living together harmoniously, no matter how faint a possibility that seemed to be (“Stay [at Yasnaya] for as long as it seems necessary and pleasant to you; everything here would be vexing to you, and that is harder than separation” — ibid.).

Lev Nikolaevich’s reply of a week later (Letter Nº 201, 26 November 1897) was equally blunt, flatly rejecting both the notion that his rightful place was alongside his wife as head of the family and her suggestion (inspired by reading a biography of Beethoven) that he might actually be under the influence of a latent desire for fame: “Fame may be the goal of a youngster or a very empty person,” he countered. “For a serious person, though, especially an older person, the goal of one’s activity is not fame, but the very best use of one’s abilities.” His dismissal of his wife’s reasoning as “patently unfair” and his point-by-point refutation of her claims took this position further:

First, the question is by no means what is more important; secondly, I am living here not just because some essay might turn out to be a little better written; thirdly, my presence in Moscow, as you very well know, could not prevent either Andrjusha or Misha from living badly, if that’s what they want. Not even the strictest father in the world can stop people with full beards from living the way they feel is best; fourthly, even if the question lay in what is more important — [(a)] writing what I write or what I at least think and hope (otherwise I wouldn’t [bother to] work [at all]) will be read by millions and may have a good influence on millions [of people], or [(b)] living in Moscow without any purpose there, in vanity, nervously and in poor [moral] health — then anyone would decide the question in favour of not going to Moscow. (LNT to SAT, 26 November 1897, Letter Nº 201)

THE EVOLUTION OF A KINDRED AND LOVING RELATIONSHIP

Despite some disagreements, especially concerning breast-feeding — which Lev Nikolaevich insisted on (Sofia Andreevna suffered early from mastitis) — and child-rearing in general, most scholars agree that the first two decades of the couple’s married life were marked by a strong attachment and love. The letters from this period are replete with words of love, care and concern for each other’s well-being — a theme which runs through their entire correspondence. Each of them waited for the other’s letters with great impatience, and even temporary absences seemed to cause torment. This remained largely true despite the worsening conflict over the years regarding their views on life and Christian teachings (as extensively detailed in previous and subsequent sections).

In the meantime, I would like to give the reader a sample of the expressions of mutual love that persist throughout the five decades of their correspondence; theirs was a love that somehow managed to remain constant and unaffected in their later years by the ever-widening philosophical discrepancy between their world-views, brought about in part by external influences (such as Chertkov and the Tolstoyans). It is a personal closeness which transcended the intellectual and their all-too-frequent physical separation.²⁶ These expressions are presented in chronological order without additional comment — they speak for themselves.

I suggest you don’t stay sitting [all day long], but keep walking around — otherwise (if I dare say it) my absence will make you feel sadder. — I’ll still keep writing to you every day, as I’m doing now — even if I have to bring you the letters myself, and you, please do write… (LNT to SAT, 22–23 April 1864, Letter Nº 4)

I find it terribly, terribly difficult [being alone], and I’m both miserable and frightened without you. (SAT to LNT, 23 April 1864, Letter Nº 5)

But, my sweet Lëva, I constantly feel I want to tell and explain everything to you. Lëvochka, make your letters to me a little longer, if you have the time. Even just a few minutes a day would be happy ones with your obvious participation. Otherwise [my life] feels so empty, so lonely. (SAT to LNT, 29 July 1865, Letter Nº 26)

…your letters are probably more dangerous to me than all the Greek [writers] because of the excitement they arouse in me. Especially since I receive them suddenly. I can’t read them without [breaking into] tears; I’m all a-trembling, and my heart beats [fast]. And you write whatever comes into your head, while for me every word is significant; I read all of them over and over. (LNT to SAT, 16–17 July 1871, Letter Nº 42)

Farewell, darling. I still haven’t received any letters from you. I try not to think of you while you’re away. Yesterday I went over to your desk and jumped back as though I had burnt my fingers, so as to avoid picturing you so vividly. Same thing at night-time — I don’t look at your side [of the bed].

(LNT to SAT, 16 January 1877, Letter Nº 48)

I’m concerned about you, and think [about you] whenever I’m alone. Only God grant that everything may be safe during our time apart, and I love this feeling of special love, the very highest spiritual love toward you which I feel all the stronger when we’re apart. (LNT to SAT, 18 June 1878, Letter Nº 56)

Farewell, my dear friend. As to how to comfort you, my dove, there’s only one thing I can do: love and feel sorry for you, but you don’t need that any more. What do you need? [I’d like] at least to know. Hugs and kisses to you, and I am hastening to send off this letter. (SAT to LNT, 3 March 1882, Letter Nº 77)

During this past while (I can’t say exactly how long — it’s been continuing to grow) you’ve become especially dear and interesting to me, and dear in all respects. It seems a new bond is being forged between us, and I worry terribly that it might break. (LNT to SAT, 29 September 1883, Letter Nº 87)

I had just sent off my letter [to you] yesterday, dear Lëvochka, when I received yours [dated 23 October 1884]. By some strange coincidence, everything you say to me I not only do not object to, but I myself have been thinking exactly the same thing… (SAT to LNT, 25 October 1884, Letter Nº 102)

You and I are a lot closer in our letters than in our lives. In a letter we remember everything and write down anything that might be of interest, even just a little, while in life we see little of each other… (SAT to LNT, 1 May 1888, Letter Nº 143)

For the very first time, dear Lëvochka, you wrote me a letter [dated 7 November] in which I could feel your heart, and I at once felt light and cheerful, as though my whole life were once again turned radiant. You were quite right that none of us should feel angry towards one another, especially us oldsters. We need to treat everything calmly and remember that the basis of our relationship is a solid love for one another, — and that’s the main thing. (SAT to LNT, 9 November 1892, Letter Nº 165)

For God’s sake, my dove, don’t hold anything in, don’t think about others, only of yourself. I would be happy to give up a lot for you, but unfortunately I don’t need to give up anything here, since coming to see you will be a joy [for me]. (LNT to SAT, 2 November 1895, Letter Nº 183)

How was your trip and how are you doing now, my friend? Your arrival left such a strong, cheerful and good impression, too good even for me, since I am missing you [now even] more strongly [than before]. (LNT to SAT, 12–13 May 1897, Letter Nº 197)

Dear Lëvochka, I have not felt so sorry and sad for a long time at parting from you as on this occasion, apart from that concern about leaving you that is constantly with me. (SAT to LNT, 28 April 1898, Letter Nº 203)

How are you all doing? How is Il’ja Vasil’evich? How are the snowstorms — has anyone been hurt by them? I hope that you are taking care of yourself. Hugs and kisses to you, my greetings to everyone. (SAT to LNT, 19 January 1905, Letter Nº 219)

If only you could feel how I love you, how I am willing with my whole being to make any kind of concessions, to do anything to serve you. Lëvochka, forgive me, come back to me, save me! Don’t think these are all just words, love me, take pity [on me] once again in your heart… (SAT to LNT, 30 October 1910, Letter Nº 236)

Don’t think I left because I don’t love you. I do love you and I have pity for you with all my heart, but I cannot act in any other way. (LNT to SAT, 30–31 October 1910, Letter Nº 237)

THE EVOLUTION OF TOLSTOY’S INDEPENDENT RELIGIOUS VIEWS

Despite the many expressions of love reflected in the small sample above, even a number of their early letters show hints of more serious issues to come, notably Tolstaya’s tendency towards a certain imbalance, sudden outbursts of emotion, exaggerated fears for her children, a growing criticism of her husband’s absences — all of which become more evident and pronounced following their move to Moscow in September 1881.

Tolstoy, on the other hand, was experiencing ever-increasing anger towards government practices (especially perceived injustice in respect to the peasants and especially following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in March 1881), as well as towards the traditional conservatism of the Russian Orthodox Church (which in turn had given rise to a proliferation of both domestic and foreign religious sects in Russia). Tolstoy was perplexed by his own dissatisfaction with his station in life, and the burning question of “What is the meaning of life that my inevitable death will not destroy?” This query is echoed by the major characters in his fiction.

As early as 1870 — but, especially after completing Anna Karenina — he wrote about “pauses in life”, old age and the unavoidable transition called death.²⁷ There are notable pauses in his diary-keeping, too. From 1850 to 1865 he kept a diary fairly regularly, followed by a pause in this activity while he was working on his two major novels. He resumed in 1878, but there are relatively few entries (except for the years 1881 and 1884) until 1888, when he went back to regular diary-keeping, and continued this activity until his death in 1910. It is particularly noteworthy that relatively few entries were recorded during the years of his spiritual crisis (mid-1870s to early 1880s).²⁸ This makes the personal letters he wrote during this period all the more critical for study and analysis.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the search for the ideal world was reinforced by Russian Christian and Marxist philosophies, accompanied by an increase in the number of treatises on the subject — utopias and dystopias. By the early nineteenth century the idea of the unity of people had already taken on the status of a prominent objective among Russian philosophers.

Most prominent among the unity promoters, however, were Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. The latter, especially, laid great emphasis on the love of goodness, of the other rather than the self. The supremacy of truth and non-violent resistance to evil, discernible even in his early fiction, grew in intensity throughout his literary works, both fiction and treatises. As early as 1855 his proclamation “to work consciously for the unification of people through religion” situated the idea of the unity of people within the spiritual and Christian context.

Tolstoy also read widely in the major Western and Eastern philosophies. In the Christian Scriptures, Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount was particularly meaningful to him, inculcating in him the idea that life should be a process of moral self-perfection. His treatise On Life [O zhizni] (1886–1888) picked up on the Biblical dictum (I John 4:8) of God as love, and on love being the only rational activity, along with the concomitant notion of the fundamental opposition between good and evil.²⁹

Christianity and its commandments — above all, the law of universal love — serve to counter the evil enemy forces, particularly the revolutionaries (as depicted also in Resurrection) aiming to change the world by violence and largely replace the outward forms of societal existence. From Tolstoy’s point of view, there was only one thing needed — a social order based “on free agreement and mutual love” (To political activists [K politicheskim dejateljam], 1903). It was in the name of this love that he protested against the punishment of peasants seeking one thing only (albeit a necessity for them) through their “disorders” — land — and he was devastated that peaceful, kind Russian peasants were learning so quickly to “make revolution”.

The truths he discovered after Confession (which he worked on from 1879 to 1880), in which he talked about his spiritual crisis, not only saved Tolstoy from despair but infused his writing activity with considerable new meaning. His sharp criticism of the anti-Christian structure of society led to a confrontation with authority, with the power of the state, the church, and even his own family. The latter conflict was aroused by his outline for the autobiographical drama I svet vo t’me svetit [And the light shineth in darkness] (begun in the 1890s, but not published until 1911, posthumously) — which Tolstoy repeatedly called “my drama” — and resulted in his ultimately leaving Yasnaya Polyana. The play can be seen as a ruthlessly condemning philosophical rebuttal of his own teachings in the person of the protagonist, who is aware of the internal discord that his newly acquired faith brings to both his surroundings and to himself, but who is incapable of altering it in any way. As to his argument with the official church, his falling away from it led in part to a rupture with the majority of his beloved Russian peasantry, who traditionally adhered to Orthodoxy, and eventually to his ex-communication from the Russian Orthodox Church in 1901.

The critical pathos evident in Tolstoy’s works strengthened the Protestant, disuniting mood in the country, which was marching irrevocably towards revolution, in spite of the postulate of nonviolent resistance to evil, and the conviction that evil could be conquered not through violence but simply through refusal to participate in evil actions. Hence his ardent support of all sorts of sectarian movements, even while realising the limitations and disuniting tendencies inherent in each of them.

It should be pointed out that Russian sects provided a formal expression for social protest in the context of historical circumstances. While some sects dated from the time of the schism [raskol] in the 1650s, many saw the peak of their activity during the late nineteenth century, following the emancipation of the peasants in 1861. Progressive elements in Russian society were unable to find any spiritual connection with the people as a whole — witness the failure of the “going to the people” [khozhdenie v narod] movement of the 1870s, which attempted to enlighten the peasantry through various educational projects. But such projects only resulted in widening the gap between the peasants and the upper classes, and caused a feeling of distrust and devastation among the former. This was reflected in a number of literary works of the period, such as Gleb Uspenskij’s novel Vlast’ zemli [The power of land] (1882).

The assassination of Alexander II in 1881 by young radicals marked a hardening of government attitudes towards any kind of protest.³⁰ Similar repressive measures were taken against the many (from both higher and lower classes) who dared voice their disenchantment with the Russian Orthodox Church and affiliate themselves with one of the foreign Christian preachers who had come to Russia in search of new converts.

It was against this political and social background that Tolstoy, after completing Anna Karenina, took his search for meaning in life in new directions. A period of spiritual crisis led to the attainment of a newfound faith, based on a harmonisation of his own views with the simple approach to life he observed on the part of those who tilled the land. This new outlook on life was very much in sympathy with ideas expressed by a number of peasant sectarians (e.g., M. P. Novikov, P. V. Verigin, V. K. Sjutaev, T. M. Bondarev and F. A. Zheltov)³¹ in their letters to him — a correspondence that continued until the end of his life. He in turn gave them moral encouragement to persevere in the face of persecution — witness his advice to one Tolstoyan, Prince Dmitrij Khilkov, in the summer of 1896:

…persecution is not only an inescapable condition of establishing truth, but it is a compulsory condition thereof. Don’t be concerned about the friction — if there is no friction, I can tell you right from the start that there will be no progress.³²

Notwithstanding his affinity with the sectarians³³ and the financial assistance he afforded them, Tolstoy persistently rejected one of their principal tenets, the importance of group identity (i.e., the sense of belonging to their own faith), which inherently signified disunity and separation from those of other faiths. On the contrary, he insisted (both in his correspondence and his works) on subjugating such identity to the overarching concept of the unity of people — that is, all people — which alone could provide a true motive power for the moral and spiritual uplifting of mankind.

Tolstoy was able to encourage his brother Sergej to accept his discovery. On 27 September 1899 he wrote to him:

This is how I understand the meaning of life: establishing the Kingdom of God on the Earth, i.e., to replace people’s violent, cruel and hateful co-existence with a loving and brotherly [co-existence]. The means to this end is one’s own self-perfection, i.e., the replacement of one’s selfish motives by a loving service to others, as is said in the Gospel, in which is all the law and the prophets; to do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you.³⁴ And in this I see the meaning of life, I see none higher than this, and I myself am far from consistent in living up to this meaning of life, but I often — and the further from my goal the more often I do it — train myself to live up to it, and the more I accustom myself to this, the more joyful, free and independent of anything external my life becomes, and the less I am afraid of death.³⁵

After his so-called spiritual crisis, Tolstoy more or less abandoned his literary-artistic pursuits in favour of proselytising his new-found spiritual ideas. This was done through the publishing house Posrednik [The Intermediary] founded in mid-1880s, which enabled him to publish his own stories in large circulation, as well as those by peasants themselves, and to offer his own moral instructions based on Christ’s teachings. He did this through folk-dramas and stories such as The first distiller [Pervyj vinokur], Aggej, Peter the Publican [Pëtr Khlebnik], God sees the truth, but waits [Bog pravdu vidit, da ne skoro skazhet], What men live by [Chem ljudi zhivy], and various treatises. The basic aim of these works was to show how to attain inner freedom and spiritual peace through self-denial, meditations about God, good and evil, along with selfless service to one’s neighbour.

SOFIA ANDREEVNA’S REACTION TO LEV NIKOLAEVICH’S PHILOSOPHY

Needless to say, all these pre-occupations and activities placed a strain on the couple’s relationship, as well as on the family. After 1881, their increasing spiritual separation was exacerbated by physical distance. Sofia Andreevna moved into their newly purchased house in Denezhnyj Lane in Moscow, not only to better provide for their children’s advanced schooling, but also to satisfy her innate desire for the sophisticated urban life she had grown up with. Lev Nikolaevich, as an individual who was repulsed by this same urban life, stayed mainly at their Yasnaya Polyana estate which he had grown up with, and which offered a solitude much more conducive to his creative success as a writer, though he did make occasional forays to see his wife and family in Moscow. In either place, the situation was not improved by all-too-frequent visitors, or by Lev Nikolaevich’s close association with his disciple Vladimir Chertkov (1854–1936) whom Sofia Andreevna looked upon as her arch enemy. She was particularly vexed and distraught, even threatening suicide, over the issue of her husband’s diaries and papers being placed in Chertkov’s hands, and she insisted on having them returned.

As late as 26 June 1910, she wrote in her diary (Dnevniki II.119):

My life with Lev Nikolaevich is becoming more unbearable by the day because of his heartlessness and cruelty toward me. And this is all the fault of Chertkov, gradually and consistently over a period of time. He has taken hold of this unfortunate old man any way he can, he has separated us from each other, he has killed the spark of artistry in Lev Nikolaevich and kindled the condemnation, hatred and denial which I have sensed in Lev Nikolaevich’s articles these past few years, which he had written under the influence of a stupid evil genius.

Incidentally, the 25-year acquaintance and collaboration between Tolstoy and Chertkov resulted in five volumes of Tolstoy’s letters and commentaries in the 90-volume Jubilee Edition of Tolstoy’s works — a compulsory read for any study of Tolstoy as a thinker (especially a religious thinker).

Chertkov was a Tolstoyan, a member of group that had taken it upon itself to disseminate its revered teacher’s words and to practise the kind of life he preached after 1881: non-violent resistance to evil along with condemnation of governments, official churches, law-courts and prevailing laws on private property. As noted above, while such attitudes and practices served to enhance Tolstoy’s popularity among the Russian populace at large, they naturally aroused suspicion and negative reaction on the part of government authorities who were generally quite intolerant towards any contrary views. Their activities soon met with harassment, incarceration and exile.

The extreme views and actions provoked by Tolstoy’s ideas in his followers, especially Chertkov, also took a huge negative toll on the mental and physical health of Tolstaya, notably evident in her letters to her husband and to other family members. Her expressions of support for Tolstoy must be weighed against the many aspects of his teachings and activities that troubled her: his insistence on applying his abstract faith to everyday life (which she found impractical and insincere), his denigration of her and of women in general, and especially what she saw as his too-cozy relationship with Vladimir Chertkov and the latter’s undue influence on him (especially after 1883). All of this continued to provoke great dissatisfaction and depression in her, right up to the time of her husband’s death in 1910.³⁶

One of Lev Nikolaevich’s earliest sounding-boards for gaining feedback for his evolving ideas on God and religion was his great aunt Aleksandra Andreevna (Alexandrine) Tolstaja, an extremely refined and intelligent woman, a lady-in-waiting to the Imperial Court, and one of his favourite correspondents.

In a letter to her dated 3 May 1859, he confided that while he was a fervent (Orthodox) believer as a child, in a sentimental, unthinking way, at the age of 14 his thoughts about life brought him face to face with religious tenets which did not fit in logically with his own, more pragmatic view of life. He decided to abandon these in favour of his inner discoveries. He wrote to Alexandrine:

I found that there is such a thing as immortality, such a thing as love, and that one must live for others to be eternally happy. I was surprised at how close these discoveries were to the Christian religion, and instead of exploring them further on my own, I began to search for them in the Gospels, but found little. I found neither God, nor a Redeemer, nor sacraments, nothing at all; but I searched with all, all the powers of my soul, and wept, and tormented myself, and wanted nothing but the truth. For God’s sake, don’t think that my words could give you even the slightest inkling of the whole force and concentration of my searchings of that period. It’s one of the great mysteries of the soul which lies in each of us, but I can say that rarely have I encountered in people such passion for the truth as was at that time in me.³⁷

Later, after completing his second major novel, Anna Karenina, he felt a renewed urge to align himself with the traditional practices of Russian Orthodoxy. His wife noted in her diary of 25 August 1877:

A religious spirit is taking firmer and firmer root in him. Just as in his childhood, every day he gives himself to prayer, on holidays he goes to mass, where each time he is surrounded by muzhiks, asking about the war; he fasts on Fridays and Wednesdays and keeps talking about the spirit of humility, cutting off and silencing, half-jokingly, those who would condemn others. On the 26th of July he took a trip to Optina-Pustyn’ [Monastery] and was delighted at the wisdom, education and life of the elder monks there.³⁸

Tolstoy’s occasional visits to the monastery, however, were not enough to appease his hunger for intellectual answers and bring him spiritual peace. He set about reading Joseph Ernest Renan’s Vie de Jésus (1863), as well as David Friedrich Strauss’s Der alte und der neue Glaube [The old faith and the new] (1873). In a commentary to Tolstoy’s correspondence with Aleksandra Andreevna Tolstaja, biographer Natal’ja Ivanovna Azarova sums up his search as follows:

The truth which he sought for so long and tormentingly was revealed to him in Christ’s words to a disciple: “Leave all, and follow me”.³⁹ The desire to forsake the world’s glory, hiding in the depths of his heart, became his leitmotif: to live in a Godlike manner meant distancing himself from all the earthly vanities that had tempted him before, cutting himself off from the life of people of his circle, as Tolstoy would later write in A confession [Ispoved’].

Tolstoy’s way of seeing his surroundings changed. He became impatient towards those who had gone astray, expressing condemnation and even indignation. He beheld, in historical Christianity, evil intent on the part of church officials and came down with passionate fury on those who represented for him the falsehood and deceit of the church.

He began a tremendous undertaking — translating the Gospel texts afresh from the Greek, merging them into a single whole, free from superstition and, as it seemed to him, more understandable to the common people. His goal was to establish a practical religion — a set of ethical teachings based on Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. In working on harmonising the Gospel texts, he dispensed with everything irrational constituting the living heart of religion: miracles, the divinity of the Christ, the Trinity of the Godhead, the redeeming sacrifice of the Saviour for the sins of humanity. Not comfort and compassion, but self-perfection was emphasised in his revised teachings. Tolstoy called his treatise Harmony and translation of the four Gospels [Soedinenie i perevod chetyrëkh Evangelij]. During the process he experienced such rapture over the revelation that he felt he really had attained that pure Christian religion he had dreamt about as a child, and passionately desired to preach it.⁴⁰

As hinted at earlier, all of this lay heavily on Sofia Andreevna. It is not that she was overly set in her religious beliefs, but she had been brought up in Russian Orthodox ways and practices. She observed religious holidays, fasted, attended church services, took part in communion and genuinely desired to impart Christian values to her children — values which their father increasingly condemned in his writing. Witness her comments in My Life (VI.62), in which she made clear her disapproval of his harsh tone in his philosophical writings:

His book A criticism of dogmatic theology [Issledovanie dogmaticheskogo bogoslovija] was written in such a sharp manner that for the very first time I refused to transcribe one of Lev Nikolaevich’s works. I was simply bothered by his cursings and railings at everything I was accustomed to hold dear. And in any case I did not understand philosophy in the form of coarse disgruntlement. A philosopher should lay out his thoughts calmly, concisely and wisely.

I recall gathering all the sheets together, bringing them to my husband and declaring that I would no longer do any transcribing for him, that I did not relish criticising him, but it was impossible for me not to criticise this Criticism of dogmatic theology. Subsequently Lev Nikolaevich significantly softened his sharpness of expression in this book.

Sofia Andreevna’s reaction to her husband’s change of literary direction from fiction to philosophical treatise was more than simply a personal antipathy to his new ideas and his less-than-compassionate manner of expressing them. She was concerned that they could actually be harmful — to the Russian reading public of the time, ultimately, but first and foremost to her own children. In a touching letter dated 3 April 1902 to Aleksandra Andreevna Tolstaja, she wrote:

To change his spiritual mindset, of course, is impossible. And I often think that perhaps he has gone higher and farther than us, and that his approach to God and the next life is clearer than ours. In our approach to spiritual questions there is more tenderness and humility, while in his, perhaps, there is more understanding and elevation, which is not given to me as an ordinary woman to understand.

Most of all I fear for the children. Their father has turned them utterly into unbelievers. Let alone the older ones, he has completely ruined Sasha⁴¹ for me: without having lived any spiritual life whatsoever, she has jumped right away into scepticism and denial. The other day we were travelling with her to Yalta and along the journey I tried to instil the truth in her and point out the errors of her ways. I told her that her father had come through [periods of] both faith in the Church and struggle [against it], that he had read all the sages and the Holy Fathers, and the tenets of all kinds of faiths — and come to his own special, personal, spiritual state of mind. Sasha, by contrast, had read nothing, did little in the way of thinking, engaged in no struggles at all, quit the Church and was left hanging. Her stubbornness and character are inflexible, and I am powerless in the face of her father’s iron influence.

CHILDREN IN THE TOLSTOY-TOLSTAYA CORRESPONDENCE

Indeed, much in the couple’s correspondence is devoted to their children, whom Lev Nikolaevich accepted on a formal level as a focus of his family duties; for Sofia Andreevna, throughout most of her marriage, they practically constituted the raison d’être of her earthly existence. Naturally, they were little children at first, and Sofia Andreevna’s detailed description of their early development bubbled over with all the pride and concerns of any new mother. On 22 November 1864 (Letter Nº 10) she wrote her husband in regard to her first two:

The girl [Tanja] has been quite rebellious, while the boy [Serëzha] has lately been having severe diarrhœa — six times already, though he has been sleeping very well at night. Perhaps it’s for the better, but still there’s a lot of grief. There’s a blush of smallpox starting, but I’m not afraid of smallpox. That’s my report on your own children, I’ve nothing more to say about them.

But even after that uncompromising statement she could not resist a further note of exuberance: “Now they’re sleeping like little cherubs…”

By and by new children’s names appeared in the letters. The family was growing and expanding. We see a woman involved in child-raising as well as running a household, completely absorbed in her husband and offspring. In Letter Nº 12 (25 November 1864), she spoke about the downstairs (where the children’s rooms were located): “this is my realm, my children, my activities and my life” and later added: “I don’t feel like going anywhere outside the nursery”.

Lev Nikolaevich, on the other hand, was more ambivalent regarding his parental role. As early as 1 December 1864 (Letter Nº 16) he wrote his wife:

Along with you and the children (though I still feel my love for them is not very strong) I have a constant love and care for my writing. If I didn’t have that, I feel I could definitely not last a day without you, and you understand correctly: writing is to me what the children are no doubt to you.

And ten days later, on 11 December (Letter Nº 22) he added a clarification of sorts: “Don’t say or think that I don’t love them… It’s just that I don’t love them to the same degree that I love you.”

As time went on, Lev Nikolaevich found himself increasingly indulging in the solitude he craved for his first love — that is, his writing career — and spending less and less time with his wife and children. The degree of mental and physical separation between father and family was exacerbated by two major factors: (1) the spiritual crisis Tolstoy experienced, particularly at the beginning of the 1880s (in January 1881 Tolstaya noted in her autobiographical memoir My Life [III.73] that her husband’s obsession with studying the Gospels had made him “oblivious of life”); and (2) the family’s decision to purchase a second house in Moscow (the Arnautov house in Khamovniki Lane) where Sofia Andreevna would live with her children to expose them to a broader range of educational opportunities, while Lev Nikolaevich would continue to spend most of his time in the solitude of Yasnaya Polyana. But this second circumstance, in the very act of driving husband and family apart, also had an unanticipated benefit: it meant that far more of their marital dialogue would be preserved for history through whole archives of written correspondence.

It becomes increasingly apparent from the letters that Tolstoy’s much-coveted solitude equalled much-dreaded loneliness for Tolstaya, associated with her growing neurotic troubles. Amid all the purely informative statements about their day-to-day activities in their respective homes — reports on the children’s health, on their own health, on the children’s upbringing and education, on problems with the children’s tutors, governesses and household staff — is sprinkled a liberal dose of disappointments, regrets, accusations and self-justifications. Paramount among these is Sofia Andreevna’s oft-expressed feeling that her husband saw good and evil only in the abstract, through the idealism of his writings; she felt he had not the slightest regard for why or how this should be expressed, first and foremost in practical terms within his own family. He in turn saw his fatherly duty from a diametrically opposite point of view. In an extended letter (Nº 124) dated 15–18 December 1885, he presented his wife with a carefully considered outline of how he perceived the discrepancy in their views on child-raising and education. It is worth quoting a few excerpts here:

… what I consider good, I consider as such not for myself, but for others and especially for my children.…what you were preparing for them in the form of a refined education with French and English governors and governesses, with music, etc., were temptations of vainglory, exalting one’s self over others — [this was] a millstone which we ourselves had placed around our necks.…

Life passed by me. And sometimes (you were wrong about this), you called upon me to participate in this life, you made demands on me, you reproached me for not involving myself in money matters or in the bringing up of our children, as though I were capable of handling money matters, [as though I were capable of] increasing or preserving [our] wealth, so as to increase and preserve the very evil which, in my view, was causing my children to ruin themselves. As though I could involve myself in an upbringing based on pride — isolating one’s self from people, secular education and academic degrees, which were identical with what I associated with people’s downfall! You, along with our growing children, were moving farther and farther in one direction, and I in quite another. Thus years passed — one year, two years, five years. The children grew, [you] spoilt them as [you] raised them, while the two of us kept growing farther and farther apart, and my situation became more false, more difficult.

A week or so later, Sofia Andreevna countered with her own impression of her children (Letter Nº 127, 23 December 1885): “I am grateful that my children trust me. And I shall justify their trust, as now that’s the only thing I have left.”

Lev Nikolaevich’s sons (especially Lev L’vovich) tended to be very critical of their father’s new ideas. He in turn was critical of what he considered the empty and dissolute lives led by several of his sons (witness the above quotation), Andrej and Mikhail in particular, though, in terms of views on life, he experienced the greatest disagreements with Sergej and Lev.

His daughters, on the other hand, were more supportive and generally took his side. However, he felt quite possessive, jealous and perturbed when they decided to leave home to get married. It is noteworthy that upon his final departure at the end of October 1910, he chose to reveal his whereabouts only to his youngest daughter, Aleksandra (Sasha), and made her promise not to share this information with his wife.

CRITICISM OF TOLSTOY’S IDEAS FROM FAMILY AND FRIENDS

While the attacks on Tolstoy’s ideas from official sources (the government and the church) may have been harsh, the writer might well have expected this from those he considered his enemies, and he was able to bear them more or less in stride. Criticism from people close to him — his wife, his children, other family members and dear friends — was actually more hurtful, and he took it more personally.

In addition to personal opposition from his sons, one of the earliest critical responses after his 1880s conversion had come from his great-aunt confidante, Aleksandra Andreevna (Alexandrine) Tolstaja, to whom, as we have already seen, Sofia Andreevna eventually confessed her own misgivings some twenty years later. In a letter to Sofia Andreevna dated 19 July 1882 she gave a rather insightful summary of Lev Nikolaevich’s new religious outlook, as follows:

Quite possibly I’m mistaken, but it seems to me sometimes that it is from this exclusive standpoint of belief that Lëvochka [i.e., Lev Nikolaevich] has proceeded step by step to rejecting and breaking no longer just human opinion, but the very Word of God, when it runs counter to his convictions. He has indeed searched for God, but with no humility, and found only himself, i.e., some kind of new and distorted code he has thought up himself and which he cherishes and takes pride in, precisely because he worked it out himself. This was all done with his usual sincerity (I have no doubt), but without wisdom and without simplicity, and left on him a trace of that anxiety, irritation and moral emptiness that struck me during our visit together in Moscow. I could find in him not a hint of spiritual or mental peace, or more patience, intrinsically and mathematically associated with genuine love or truth. That is why I felt right from the very first time that this was not the truth. The truth is so attractive in itself that the heart accepts it involuntarily, before any rationalisation occurs, but there was nothing like that going on here. In the tempest of Lëvochka’s words, in his wild indignation and condemnation of anything that does not fit into his system, I could find nothing comparable to the meekness of Christ, in Whose name he writes and preaches. Darling Sophie, you as a woman will catch another feeling I have had. I have felt hurt and ashamed that I did not bring with me from Moscow a single ray of cheer, all the while remembering practically the only long conversation I had with Dostoevsky a week before he died; up until then my heart was swelling and my spirits were being lifted. Dostoevsky was aflame with love for people, as is Lëvochka, but somehow on a broader scale, without limitations, without material details and all those trifles which Lëvochka gives pride of place to. When Dostoevsky spoke of Christ, you could feel that genuine sense of brotherhood which unites us all in one Saviour. I can never forget the expression on his face, nor his words, and I began to understand the tremendous influence that he had on everyone without exception, even on those who were unable to fully understand him. He didn’t take anything away from anyone, but the spirit of his truth animated everyone. — This is what I dream about for our Lëvochka when he stops sitting in his Tower of Babel.

A few years later a similar criticism was voiced by Tolstoy’s close friend and literary associate Nikolaj Nikolaevich Strakhov in correspondence with a mutual acquaintance Ivan Sergeevich Aksakov. First, in a letter written 12 December 1884, he declared that “Everything Tolstoy writes concerning his subjective interpretation of Christianity is very poorly written.”⁴² Then, on 17 May 1885, this letter:

On holiday here in Mshatka I read over the whole Gospel in brief with complete attention (and comparison with the [Scriptural] text) and, I must confess, despite my usual position regarding Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, I was astounded at the utter hideousness of the writing. It had seemed to me that he would have clung even closer here to his own translation of the Gospel text — the translation I am familiar with, which he keeps at Yasnaya Polyana. As it turned out, his Gospel in brief goes beyond all bounds in its departure from the text — it is not even a translation but some kind of paraphrase, just like the content summaries at the beginning of each chapter [of the Gospels]. The whole thing gives the appearance of distortion and deception. These utterly gratuitous departures, by their sheer numbers, take away from those places where there is no departure from the actual text but only from the generally accepted translations, which are indeed precise and significant.

The language is unrestrained, uneven, and sometimes unnecessarily crude. […]

Then, in the dogmatic sense, of course, he is a huge heretic; in terms of practical teachings he is a Quaker and in terms of the metaphysical he’s a Unitarian.⁴³

Strakhov didn’t shy away from expressing such criticisms directly to Tolstoy, rejecting the latter’s unreasonable Christian demands on people’s lives and thought patterns, even while he continued to have nothing but admiration for the acknowledged level of artistry shown in his earlier fiction works. A decade later, on 29 October 1894, he wrote to his friend:

Now I am surprised at how often you forget that people have certain insurmountable needs. “Human affairs must yield to God’s,” you write, “in matters of everyone’s personal life.” Oh, without a doubt! You hold on to the true path — the path of personal self-perfection — and the correctness of your steps has always excited me. But you don’t realise just how absorbed you are in your inner work and you ask people to do what they are not capable of taking on. The rejection of all personal will — that’s what it all amounts to; but this rejection is a renunciation of life, and people can’t renounce life. Life requires calm, fixed forms, it requires space for one’s desires, it requires labour and rest, fun and excitement… and that is something you know perfectly well — you have said it in all your writings.⁴⁴

A final example of criticism from friendly quarters may be found in the memoir of Tolstoy’s last private secretary, Valentin Fëdorovich Bulgakov, which he appropriately entitled: Disputing with Tolstoy [V spore s Tolstym] (see esp. pp. 6–7). He was particularly sceptical of Tolstoy’s exaggeration of the need for spiritual self-perfection and the emphasis on this aspect of life at the expense of man’s material needs — a doctrine he viewed as a deplorable estrangement of the human personality from its firm earthly roots. He took issue with Tolstoy’s position that evil was confined within the individual, suggesting instead that more serious attention be paid to the negative pressure exerted by problems in the individual’s environment and society at large. In contrast with his employer, he believed that the state indeed had a role in keeping the perverse actions of its citizens in check, since anarchy against the state posed an equal if not greater danger to social well-being. Near the beginning of Part I, Chapter 2, of Disputing with Tolstoy (p. 33), Bulgakov wrote:

One can demand a harnessing of the spirit and call upon it to hold sway over the corporeal element in our lives, but one cannot maintain, as do Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy and his disciple, the philosopher Pëtr Petrovich Nikolaev, that there exists only the spiritual (!), and that the corporeal is scarcely more than the product of our imagination. All of this betrays a measure of disrespect not only for man, but for the existing world order which is quite independent of our will.

Bulgakov insisted that, in the nature of all living things, the spiritual and corporeal do not exist independently of each other. They only represent two aspects of the same phenomenon. From this perspective, one cannot focus one’s educational endeavours on the spiritual and neglect the corporeal. Only the development of the spiritual and material in harmony leads to the ideal embodiment of man.

TOLSTAYA AS TOLSTOY’S ADVOCATE

Despite her antipathy towards her husband’s interpretation of Christian teachings, as Tolstoy’s wife she was sometimes (reluctantly) pressed into service to defend those very teachings or at least their consequences in terms of the Russian legal system. A case in point was a young man named Aleksej Petrovich Zaljubovskij, who, influenced by Tolstoy’s ideas of non-violence, refused to be conscripted into the armed forces and was imprisoned as a result. In a letter to Tolstaya dated 20 November 1885 (Letter Nº 120) he enlisted (albeit with an apology: “I’m afraid … that you will get upset with me for piling this matter on top of you”) her participation in a campaign to free the young man, and three days later she responded with an outline of what she was willing to contribute. But the tone of her reply and the reservations evident therein are especially significant:

The only thing I can do — and will do — is to go and petition the war minister [Pëtr Semënovich Vannovskij], while Birjukov will go ask [the Governor-General of Moscow] Grand Prince Sergej Aleksandrovich. — It is difficult for me as your wife, as I am petitioning for the release of your works, to [also] petition for someone who has accepted these teachings. When I think of what I shall say to the minister or to whomever I ask, the only thing that comes to me is that I am asking because I have been requested to, and it is painful for me that this young man’s convictions, which are probably derived from your teachings of Christ, have not led to any good — i.e., not to the result you intended, but to the young man’s demise, and that is why I am asking to mitigate his fate. (SAT to LNT, 23 November 1885, Letter Nº 123)

On several occasions Tolstaya advocated on her husband’s behalf in publishing some of his more controversial works, despite her own disagreement with their underlying message. When The Kreutzer Sonata was banned by the authorities, she went to St. Petersburg in April 1891 and, in a private audience with Tsar Alexander III, won not only a lifting of the ban for publication in Tolstoy’s Complete Collected Works, but also the Tsar’s promise that he alone would be the arbiter of censorship in respect to Tolstoy’s future works published by Tolstaya.⁴⁵ Tolstaya hoped that her public advocacy for the uncensored release of The Kreutzer Sonata would deflect any mistaken impression that its heroine could in any way be identified with her person or her family.

There were a few causes in which not only Sofia Andreevna, but also their sons and daughters, shared Tolstoy’s enthusiasm. During the winters of 1891–92 and 1892–93 there was widespread famine in Rjazan’ and Samara Gubernias, and Lev Nikolaevich, together with his daughters, his son Lëva and a scattering of his Tolstoyan followers, headed out to both regions to organise soup-kitchens for the famine victims and take other practical measures to alleviate their suffering. Each time, Tolstaya was apparently as moved by the disaster as her husband. She was not content to sit at home, inactive, during these periods. She took it upon herself to organise a publicity campaign — first through personal contact among her wealthy social acquaintances and then, through the newspapers, among the public at large — to raise funds for the actual foodstuffs and equipment needed to establish and maintain the soup-kitchens which had been set up at her husband’s initiative.

Her first step was to send Tolstoy’s own description (“A frightful question”) of the scope of the tragedy to the press, as she confirmed in her letter to him of 4 November 1891 (Nº 157). Here, too, we learn that the editor of Russkie vedomosti, Vasilij Mikhajlovich Sobolevskij, considered these articles so important that he decided to come to see Tolstaya the next day with the text already typeset and ready to proofread.

However, her very next sentence in the same letter includes the query: “Did you read my letter to the editor in Russkie vedomosti dated 3 November? In just twenty-four hours it brought me in around 1,500 roubles.” Her only question at that point pertained to where the collected funds should be sent. She then proceeded to recount several touching stories about her personal contact with various donors of money and clothing, which brought her as an individual right to the heart of the hunger relief efforts.

Indeed, Tolstoy and the famine victims were not the only beneficiaries of Tolstaya’s charitable campaign. As is evidenced by the aforementioned accounts, participating in a social activity of her husband’s which she could finally agree with reinvigorated her with a renewed sense of purpose, and helped improve both her mental and physical health. A whole new tone is apparent in the subsequent part of her 4 November letter:

I don’t know how all of you will look at my actions. But I find it tiresome just sitting by without participating in your efforts, and since yesterday I even feel my health has improved; I record [all my transactions] in a notebook, make out receipts, express my thanks, talk with the public, and I am glad that I can help in the expansion of your cause, even if it is through other people’s donations.

The dialogue on the famine situation and Tolstaya’s contribution to its relief continues through a number of subsequent exchanges (Letters Nº 158–163).

One other point deserves particular mention under the topic of Tolstaya’s advocacy of her husband’s literary career, despite her personal opposition to most of his post-1881 ideas. When Tolstoy was formally ex-communicated by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church in February 1901, she immediately launched a vehement protest against this move in the Russian press of the day, writing that “My sorrow and displeasure [at this decision] know no bounds.”⁴⁶

The complete text of Tolstaya’s letter to Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev, Senior Procurator of the Russian Orthodox Church, was first published in the Russian Orthodox paper Tserkovnye vedomosti [Church Gazette] (which had published the original ex-communication decree) on 25 March 1901. But from there, as she writes in My Life (VIII.16), “that letter of mine practically flew around the world. It was translated into all sorts of languages, and garnered flattering reviews of my action and praise for my boldness.…” She further claimed that Tolstoy’s own Reply to the Synod [Otvet Sinodu], completed 4 April 1901 (PSS 34:245–53), “didn’t resonate with the same effect as my impromptu action of a woman defending her husband, which took everyone by surprise”. However, in her next edition of Tolstoy’s Complete Collected Works, she included an article he had written on 15 March 1901 entitled To the Tsar and his associates [Tsarju i ego pomoshchnikam], giving “all sorts of advice and directives as to how to govern Russia”. This article was subsequently removed from the twelfth edition by the censors.

TOLSTAYA’S ANNOTATIONS TO HER HUSBAND’S LETTERS

No matter the depth of her personal feelings for Lev Nikolaevich as a husband and a human being, or the extent of her strongly felt opposition to his post-1880 interpretation of Christian teachings, there were times when she could not help but approach his writings, including their 48-year correspondence, through the lens of an editor with an eye on the future history of world literature. Only a few years after his passing, she hastened to publish his letters to her and append hundreds of her own editorial annotations.

The first edition, published in 1913, comprised 656 letters in chronological order, while the second edition of 1915 added seven additional letters. It was entitled Pis’ma grafa L. N. Tolstogo k zhene, 1862–1910 [Letters of Count L. N. Tolstoy to his wife, 1862–1910].

In her preface to the first edition she offered this explanation for the timing:

Before I leave this life to join my beloved in the spiritual realm to which he has departed, I should like to share with those who love and admire him something he gave me that is very dear to me, namely his letters to me, including details of our conjugal life of forty-eight years together, which was happy almost to the very end…

I was prompted to publish these letters, too, by my concern that after my death, which is probably not far off, people will (as usual) misinterpret and write falsely about our mutual husband-wife relationship. So let them find interest in and base their judgements on true and living sources, and not on conjecture, gossip and invention.

And may they look with compassion on someone who took upon her delicate shoulders something she was possibly not quite ready for at such an early age, namely, the task of being the spouse of a genius and a great man.

One particular copy of the second edition preserved in the Yasnaya Polyana archives is, in fact, a dismantled printer’s copy, with a fresh sheet of paper inserted between each page by Sofia Andreevna herself, containing her annotations or commentaries. She began these in January 1919 and continued work on them up to her death in November of that year.

The annotations can be arbitrarily categorised by their themes, listed here in order of importance:

1.Clarifications (apart from proper names)

2.Tolstoy’s works

3.Famine relief efforts (1891–93)

4.Friends and acquaintances

5.Personalities (including authors, musicians, artists and government officials)

6.Relatives (both close and distant)

7.Teachers (tutors to the Behrs and the Tolstoy families)

8.Servants (managers and general staff)

9.Peasants (especially those on the Yasnaya Polyana estate)

10.Animals

11.Places (commentaries on geographical place-names)

Some of these are worth noting in particular, as they may serve as a final clarification to the overall relationship reflected in this correspondence. One example is Lev Nikolaevich’s letter (Nº 88) of 30 September 1883, in which he wrote: “Both [your recent letters] indicate to me that you are in that same lovely good spirit which I left you in, and which you’ve been in, with minor interruptions, for a long time.” On the very same date, Sofia Andreevna notes, in her first commentary concerning their philosophical disagreements, “There was no time to think about how to live better. Life had drained all my strength, and this was not something Lev Nikolaevich wanted.”⁴⁷

A FEW CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Two lives. Two independently minded souls, who were as fervently kindred in love as they were fiercely independent in world-view. No matter how strong the bonds of the soul and heart, they were driven apart mentally and physically as they increasingly felt the need to claim their own solitudes in their individual places of residence. Yet they remained deeply bound by an undeniable affection for each other. Indeed, as Tolstaya herself recognised in her letter (Nº 200) of 19 November 1897, the closer their relationship of personal intimacy approached the everyday, mundane world of family and society, the more it was threatened to be torn asunder by the ever-widening gulf between Sofia Andreevna’s realism and Lev Nikolaevich’s idealism. It was a gulf between differing perceptions of the social mores that had been evolving through the Russian upper classes for centuries — between the ‘Tolstayas’ who accepted them more or less unquestioningly, and the ‘Tolstoys’ who, with apparently good reason, were beginning to question their legitimacy.

Hence the dialogue set forth in this book is much more than a routine exchange of letters between two members of the same family, though the dialogue between practicality and idealism is certainly not unique to this particular couple. What makes it unique and of publishable interest more than a century after its occurrence is twofold. First, there is the fact that the dialogue was carried on between two extremely artistically gifted and intelligent thinkers, both of whom could be described as writers in their own right. Second, this dialogue continued for almost fifty years, not in spontaneous unrecorded oral conversations where words vanish the moment they escape the participants’ short-term memories, but in meticulously recorded thought-traces in pen and ink, where each sentence could be parsed and pondered by the respective interlocutors. Through the magic of annotation, translation and publishing, this possibility is now open to thousands of readers in faraway lands and future centuries, many of whom would not have been able to understand the original conversations had they been present.

It is curious — some might even say ironic — that the physical distance that increasingly separated Tolstoy and Tolstaya during their lifetimes became the catalyst for the couple exchanging their thoughts on paper rather than in person. As a result, their exchange was made accessible to a far broader circle of onlookers than those who happened to be within range of their voices at the time.

It is truly a dialogue for the ages, a dialogue across both time and space.

 

1   Throughout the notes, the abbreviation LNT designates Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, while SAT is used in reference to his wife, Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya.

2   An additional 177 letters had come to light by the time the Jubilee Edition was published.

3   This is described in My Life, V.129.

4   Graf Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoj [Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy], published in St. Petersburg by M. M. Stasjulevich in 1879 as part of his Russkaja biblioteka series.

5   See My Life, V.93 and V.94.

6   In 1885–86, for example, she translated the book Uchenie 12 apostolov [Teachings of the Twelve Apostles] from German, and in 1888 her translation of Tolstoy’s O zhizni [On Life] was published in French as De la Vie.

7   This she did in close co-operation with Tolstoy’s editorial adviser, Nikolaj Nikolaevich Strakhov, who enjoyed a relationship of mutual admiration and respect with both Sofia Andreevna and her husband. See A. A. Donskov (ed.), L. N. Tolstoj i S. A. Tolstaja: Perepiska s N. N. Strakhovym / The Tolstoys’ Correspondence with N. N. Strakhov (Donskov 2000). This volume contains the complete extant correspondence between Tolstaya and Strakhov: 40 letters written by Strakhov and 47 by Tolstaya, mainly discussing editing and proofreading questions.

8   These comprise documents relating to Tolstaya’s biography; her writings (literary works and memoirs); household documents (various accounts, inventories of personal effects in the Moscow and Yasnaya Polyana houses, records of income and expenses, plans of the estate, records of payments to day-workers, orders for flower seeds and fruit-tree saplings for the Yasnaya Polyana orchard etc.); publishing-related materials (order blanks for publishing Tolstoy’s writings, correspondence with print-shop owners, subscription notices for regular editions, records of publication income and expenses, distribution lists for the volumes, along with their contents).

9   See Chapter 4.2 in my book Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya: Literary works.

10  For example, in one of the drafts of Anna Karenina — see PSS 20: 523 — LNT left a marginal notation: “Ask Sonja [= SAT] to describe the outfits”.

11  Gorky 1973: XVI: 358–74, cited in the editor’s Introduction to My Life, p. xxviii. See also ibid., p. xxvi, where SAT is quoted as saying: “for some reason he actually believes and listens to my opinions (much to my pride)”.

12  Letter to SAT’s son Lev L’vovich Tolstoj, 12 August 1895 (L. N. Tolstoy Museum archives, unpublished).

13  For example, she compiled a Russian grammar for them, and composed a number of stories which she read to them during periods of extended travel.

14  Quoted in Dnevniki II: 597.

15  As I have mentioned in a number of my publications, even the peasants, with whom Tolstoy himself identified more than with any other social group, were generally represented in his writings as stereotypes or abstractions, rather than as true-to-life individuals. See, for example, my 1979 article “The peasant in Tolstoy’s thought and writings” in Canadian Slavonic Papers, where I argue that the grace that came to Tolstoy’s major characters in moments of their most intense spiritual anguish was in the form of peasants, not so much as personalities as the symbolic qualities they embody, qualities of sincerity, simplicity and naturalness. Over the course of Tolstoy’s post-1880 writings, the peasants may be seen as evolving into vehicles through which, he hoped, everybody could learn a great deal about life.

16  Ironically, perhaps, as it turned out, Urusov’s wife had a considerable appreciation and respect for Sofia Andreevna and her conjugal relationship to Tolstoy. In a letter to Tolstaya following Leonid Dmitrievich’s death, she wrote: “You are your husband’s best pupil — you have taken from him everything you need for the perfecting of your marvellous nature” (quoted in My Life, V.103).

17  It has been mistakenly assumed that the prototype for the character of the Duke’s friend, Dmitrij Bekhmetev, in SAT’s Who is to blame? was the poet Afanasij Fet. Clearly, the whole text, seen against the background of her letters, notes and diaries, points to Urusov as the prototype.

18  See Editor’s introduction to My Life, p. xxii.

19  See ibid., p. xxxi.

20  SAT to LN, 7 December 1864 (Letter Nº 21). See also Letter Nº 206 and Nº 218.

21  The Tolstoys had already experienced an inordinate number of deaths in their family, but Vanechka’s passing affected her with particular grief. Her relation to Vanechka in itself was a catalyst for two of the stories in her collection The Skeleton-dolls (see Chapter 4.3 of my 2011 book Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya: Literary works), and possibly had an influence on the writing of her final story for Tolstoy’s New primer (see below).

22  Unless otherwise indicated, all the quotations in this section are from SAT’s chapter “Three significant periods” (My Life, III.39).

23  The title is taken from Mendelssohn’s well-known collection Songs without words (see Chapter 4.5 in my Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya: Literary works).

24  See Letters Nº 193 and Nº 198.

25  Lev Nikolaevich himself had earlier recognised (Letter Nº 56, 18 June 1878) that he felt a high spiritual love for his wife most strongly when they were apart.

26  Letters signify separation, distance, and absence. The sheer volume of their correspondence (some 1,500 letters in total) suggests at least five years, all told, of prolonged absence from each other.

27  This is especially reflected in his letter to his brother Sergej Nikolaevich of 9–10 November 1875 (L. N. Tolstoj, Perepiska s sestroj i brat’jami [L. N. Tolstoy: Correspondence with his sister and brothers]).

28  Sofia Andreevna, by contrast, kept her diary quite consistently from 1862 almost until her passing in 1919.

29  In his important religious treatise V chëm moja vera [What I believe] (1884), Tolstoy sets forth five ‘commandments’ in summary of his creed: (1) do not be angry; (2) do not lust; (3) do not curse; (4) do not resist evil with violence; (5) love all people without distinction.

30  Tolstoy’s urgent plea to Alexander III to pardon the guilty fell upon deaf ears; some of the leaders were promptly executed and this plea brought further suspicion upon Lev Nikolaevich on the part of the authorities, not to mention added concern and anger from Sofia Andreevna.

31  See Bibliography.

32  PSS vol. 69, pp. 140–41.

33  One of the most notable examples of Tolstoy’s financial aid to Christian sectarians was his channelling of proceeds from the sale of his last major novel, Resurrection [Voskresenie], to support the emigration of the persecuted Doukhobors from the Caucasus to Canada in 1899. For more on this fascinating story, see my 2005 book: Leo Tolstoy and the Canadian Doukhobors: an historic relationship, as well as my earlier edition (1998) Sergej Tolstoy and the Doukhobors: a journey to Canada.

34  See Matth. 22: 40 and Matth. 7: 12.

35  L. N. Tolstoj, Perepiska L. N. Tolstogo s sestroj i brat’jami [L. N. Tolstoy’s correspondence with his sister and brothers], p. 431.

36  It is noteworthy that no comprehensive study has been made to date of SAT’s editions of her husband’s works. A substantive article (if not a book), would be a welcome contribution to Tolstoy scholarship. The interested reader is referred, for starters, to Gudzij & Zhdanov 1953; Nikiforova 2004; the articles “Tvorcheskaja istorija povesti «Kholstomer»” [The creative history of the narrative The Strider] in Gromova-Opul’skaja 2005: 76–92, and “Nekotorye itogi tekstologicheskoj raboty nad «Polnym sobraniem sochinenij L. N. Tolstogo»” [Some results of a textological study of L. N. Tolstoy’s Complete Collected Works], ibid.: 277–320.

37  L. N. Tolstoj i A. A. Tolstaja: Perepiska [Correspondence] (1857–1903), pp. 158–59.

38  S. A. Tolstaja, Dnevniki [Diaries], I.503.

39  See, for example, Luke 18: 22.

40  L. N. Tolstoj i A. A. Tolstaja: Perepiska [Correspondence] (1857–1903), p. 667.

41  Sasha — the Tolstoys’ youngest daughter, Aleksandra L’vovna Tolstaja (1884–1979).

42  M. I. Shcherbakova, I. S. Aksakov — N.  N. Strakhov: Perepiska / Ivan Aksakov — Nikolaj Strakhov: Correspondence (2007): 119–21.

43  Ibid., pp. 134–37.

44  L. N. Tolstoj — N. N. Strakhov: Polnoe sobranie perepiski / Leo Tolstoy & Nikolaj Strakhov: Complete correspondence, vol. II, pp. 969–70.

45  SAT’s specific request to the Tsar took this form: “Your Majesty, if my husband should again write in the belletristic genre and I publish his works, it would give me the greatest happiness if the fate of his writings were to be decided by the personal will of Your Majesty.” To which the Tsar replied: “I shall be most happy to do so. Send his writings directly to my attention.” (My Life, V.93). One is perforce reminded of the maxim (attributed by some to Voltaire, by others to English author Evelyn Beatrice Hall): “I wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.”

46  From the text of SAT’s letter, reproduced in My Life, VIII.16.

47  With the exception of a brief note by Tat’jana Komarova — see: T. V. Komarova, “Pometki S. A. Tolstoj na jasnopoljanskom èkzempljare Pisem grafa L. N. Tolstogo k zhene 1862–1910 gg.” [SAT’s annotations on the Yasnaya Polyana copy of LNT’s letters to his wife 1862–1910], Jasnopoljanskij sbornik 1998 (Tula, 1999): 155–58 — these annotations have not been subject to detailed study and analysis. This will constitute part of my investigation into the above-mentioned multi-volume complete correspondence which I am currently engaged in.