1/13 April, Weimar1 It’s difficult to write down now what has happened these last four months – Italy, Nice, Florence, Livorno. An attempt to write Aksinya.2 Naples. The first vivid impression of nature and antiquity – Rome – Hyères – Paris – reconciliation with Turgenev – London – not too bad – a loathing for civilisation. Brussels – a brief feeling of domesticity, a letter about Katenka to Mashenka.3 Eisenach – the journey – thoughts about God and immortality. God has been restored – hope and immortality. The first and second night in Eisenach – the cries of a sick child – the clocks – the babbling. Weimar – a wench – Liebes gutes Kind, sie sind irre [Dear good child, you are mistaken]. The teacher’s Landmann [fellow countryman]. Tröbst.4 The Duke.5
1/13 April Got up at 10, toothache, went to the Kinderarbeitgarten – a good thing for the town, but the same communism. Then to see Langhart.6 A narrow-minded teacher-administrator. His idea of Reforme – die Schule mit dem Leben verbinden [to connect up school and life]. Tröbst is dissatisfied with Langhart; he could, but he hasn’t the energy to understand me. […]
3/15 April, Jena Couldn’t sleep last night. I can’t solve the problem of upbringing and education, but I’m taking a calmer view of German education. […] Only Germany has derived pedagogy from philosophy. The Reformation of philosophy. England, France and America have imitated it.
4/16 April, Weimar Schullehrerseminar [School teachers’ seminar]. Excellent. Rechnen [counting] with sticks and conversion to numbers – geography with problems of measurements. (Language instruction not good, with needless effort spent on defining what is already defined. Zwätzen.7 A very stupid school, showing what institutions imposed from above can lead to. Theory without practice. Grignon – a model. Set off on foot. In the mountains and in the woods I revelled in nature, simply and happily. […]
The job of a school is not die Wissenschaft beibringen [to impart knowledge] but die Achtung und die Idee der Wissenschaft beibringen [to impart the respect for and idea of knowledge]. With this thought I dropped off to sleep peacefully. On the journey, as I was throwing pebbles, I thought about art too. Is it possible to have as one’s sole aim only situations and not characters? I think it is, and that’s what I’ve done, and that’s where I’ve been successful. Only it’s not everybody’s task, but mine.
5/17 April Got up at 8. At the Kindergarten. Geometric drawing and basket-making are nonsense. You won’t discern the laws of development of a child that way. They learn by heart when it doesn’t concern their world, but you can’t understand their world. A child can draw sticks, but only has a vague idea of a circle. And you can’t teach perseverance when everything is new. Perseverance is the strength to reject everything that isn’t what you want to be concerned with. Biedermann8 is not stupid, but he’s a scholar and a writer, a part of whom is already in his book and no longer in him. But apart from Childhood, I exist entirely in myself, and for that reason I look down on these people so freely. Afterwards, Tröbst and Kaehler9 with his mother. After seeing her I realised that I was taking a responsibility on myself by taking him away. But he has a long neck. Today I can think more freely about his work, since the school has taken shape – the transition from the practice of life to theory: taking what is ready made from life and reducing it to a system – in all sciences, but especially the natural sciences. Went for a walk to beautiful Tiefurt with Bech, Tröbst and Kaehler. Empty chatter. The Duchess is stupidly ill at ease. Zauberflöte – I was in raptures, especially the duet. Kaehler, I think, is useless.
6/18 April, Dresden10 […] Went to evening mass. I can stand it in church. Perhaps I’ll prepare for communion. Chatted with Lvov. A smell of mother-Russia. Chicherin is terribly repulsive.11
7/19 April […] Deutscher Disputations-Verein [German debating society]. I spoke. On the country’s education and on public opinion.
9/21 April, Berlin […] Auerbach!!!!!12 A most charming man! Ein Licht mir aufgegangen [He was a revelation to me]. His stories about the juryman, about the first impression of nature in Versöhnungsabend [The Evening of Reconciliation], about Klauser, the pastor of Christianity. He is as it were the spirit of mankind, than which there is nothing higher. He read poetry enchantingly. About music, as pflichtloser Genuss [pleasure without obligations]. A turn in the direction of corruption in his opinion. A story from the Schatzkästlein.13 He’s forty-nine, upright, young, a believer. No poet of negation.
12/24 April The frontier. Well and cheerful; hardly aware of being in Russia.
6 May, Yasnaya Polyana Haven’t written my diary for about ten days. Travelled with Mme Fet and was bored. In Tula the Auerbachs, Golovachev and Voyeykov to cause chaos. Auntie is sad and has aged. Seryozha is good in every respect, only he’s idle. I’ve been appointed an arbiter of the peace14 and have accepted. Went to Tula, chatted a lot and am beginning to be proud and therefore stupid. Markov has refused the co-editorship of the journal.15 And generally speaking the idea of the journal is flagging. Chaos at Pirogovo, and Seryozha and I could do nothing. I’ve forgotten the pleasant day at the Behrs’; but I daren’t marry Liza.16
Tomorrow morning, Polikushka, and read the statutes.17 In the evening, prepare the school syllabus and a lecture.
7 May Read the statutes with the peasants, and nothing else. I’m overcome by laziness. Yermil sighed: ‘Lord have mercy!’ Ivan Deyev: ‘The secret police’!18 The German19 is useless. I’m disgusted with the horses.
8 May Prepared a history lecture till 12. Read it and copied it out before dinner; after dinner I went out for a ride. […]
9 May Went to mass; invited the priest to come and read. The children’s explanation of the rituals is even more stupid than the one the priest gives them. Some gentlemen from the grammar school. A meeting. I invited them to write for the journal.20 […]
12 May Submitted an application about the school.21 I’m a parish teacher. Tired myself out with gymnastics. Wonderful lectures in the garden. Came back home and was seized with the desire to write The Cossack. […]
25 June A remarkable quarrel with Turgenev;22 a final one – he’s an absolute scoundrel – but I think that in time I’ll relent and forgive him. My work as an arbiter hasn’t provided me with much material and has made me quarrel with all the landowners for good, and has ruined my health – also for good, I think. Order prevails in the school, but it lacks life, I’m afraid. I’m not going because of illness. Wrote out a syllabus.23
22 September, Moscow I’m in Moscow. Was right about Turgenev. I meant to write him a letter – and for some reason didn’t – in which I meant to ask his forgiveness. There’s a great deal of work ahead. I’ll cling on to it. Liza Behrs tempts me, but nothing will come of it. Mere calculation isn’t enough, and there’s no feeling.
23 September Wrote a letter to Turgenev.24 Went to Rachinsky’s.25 Found a crowd of young professors there. ‘We’re clever people; we can also enjoy ourselves in a simple manner.’ Chicherin is proud, which I’m very glad about. Read my letter to him. Better that I didn’t send it. Pikulin will examine me today. I’m not having supper and am almost well. I’ve got consumption, but I’m getting used to it.26 I’m bored because my circle is too restricted. She is probably in the place where I’m not.
8 October, Yasnaya Polyana Yesterday I received a letter from Turgenev in which he accused me of telling people that he’s a coward and of distributing copies of my letter to him. Wrote back to him that it was nonsense, and sent a letter as well: ‘you call my behaviour dishonourable; you wanted to punch my face before, but I consider myself to blame, ask your forgiveness and decline the challenge.’27
I have two students;28 the school is getting worse. I’m beginning to get disillusioned about the journal.
28 October School and arbitration business are going well, but we haven’t started on the journal yet. I feel like writing. Yesterday I opened a third school, which won’t be a success. Wrote to Chicherin about students.
5 November Went to church with the singers. The teachers are poor. Alexey Ivanovich is stupid. Alexander Pavlovich is morally unwell. Ivan Ilich is the most reliable of all. Quarrelled with the headman; made a good start on The Yasnaya Diary.29 Interrupted by the schoolchildren. Plebeian indignation on Chernov’s part against Auerbach. The teachers have some disgusting secrets. If it’s women, that’s all right. Kaehler’s experiments are interesting and good. He’s a nice and useful lad. I feel well, and in the mood for writing. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Is this good mood going to last generally, or is it only that my bile is working properly again?
6 November Wrote my diary30 in the morning, pretty well. A mass of material. Worked at the school; feeling my way with analysis.
Pyotr Vasilyevich31 was drunk. Gymnastics. Read Perevlessky32 – he’s not right. After dinner I wasted time singing. In the evening I couldn’t get on with my writing. I still feel like working – we’ll see what happens.
1 Tolstoy reached Weimar on 31 March/12 April after four months travelling in Europe. He left Hyères at the end of November 1860 (old style) and spent about a fortnight in Florence where he met the Decembrist S. G. Volkonsky, whom he intended to portray in his novel about them. In the course of January he visited Livorno, and then spent a month or so in Naples and Rome. Little is known of his stay in Paris except that he continued to visit schools and briefly resumed his friendship with Turgenev. His short visit to England is the subject of a recent book Tolstoy in London, by Victor Lucas, London, 1979, which gives an interesting account of his educational activities, schools visits and collection of pedagogical material, including essays written for him by schoolchildren in London which he took back with him to Russia. Much of March was spent in Brussels pursuing his educational interests and working on his story Polikushka, and from there he went via Frankfurt and Eisenach to Weimar.
2 The story An Idyll, or its second version Tikhon and Malanya, which drew on Tolstoy’s liaison with Aksinya Bazykina.
3 Tolstoy had met Princess Golitsyna and her niece Katenka the previous winter in Hyères, and his sister was on friendly terms with them both. Tolstoy was seriously attracted by Katenka and even contemplated marriage. According to his wife, the two ladies were the prototypes of Mme Stahl and her ward Varenka in Anna Karenina.
4 The headmaster of a school in Weimar and a children’s writer.
5 The Duke was a grandson of Paul I and had founded a museum and an art school in Weimar.
6 The headmaster of another school in Weimar.
7 A village near Jena which had an agricultural school which Tolstoy visited.
8 A German historian and journalist, at the time editor of a Weimar newspaper. The book Tolstoy referred to was his Geschichtsunterricht nach kulturgeschichtlicher Methode, 1860.
9 A German teacher whom Tolstoy invited to work for him at his school in Yasnaya Polyana. Kaehler stayed with Tolstoy until summer 1862, and later taught German at a school in Tula.
10 Tolstoy spent three days in Dresden en route for Berlin to visit more schools and buy books.
11 A reference to two letters of advice and admonition from Chicherin.
12 Tolstoy’s long talk with Berthold Auerbach was the highlight of his visit to Berlin.
13 A cycle of short stories for the people by Auerbach.
14 He served for only one year. The posts of arbiter were created after the emancipation to adjudicate between landowners and peasants in disputes arising from the settlement of 1861.
15 Tolstoy’s pedagogical journal Yasnaya Polyana which began to appear in January 1862.
16 Sonya’s elder sister.
17 The Act of Emancipation of February 1861.
18 Two Yasnaya Polyana peasants who were suspicious of the provisions of the new Act.
19 It is not clear whether Tolstoy was referring to his German gardener or to the German teacher Kaehler.
20 Teachers from the school in Tula who visited Tolstoy’s school but failed to respond to his invitation to write for his journal.
21 An application for official recognition.
22 This was the famous quarrel at Fet’s estate when Tolstoy offended Turgenev by an injudicious reference to the education of Turgenev’s illegitimate daughter (Letters, I, 148).
23 A programme for the first issue of Yasnaya Polyana.
24 The letter has not survived, but Tolstoy’s wife refers to its contents in her diary, from which it would appear that Tolstoy apologised and asked Turgenev’s forgiveness – although Turgenev apparently did not think so!
25 A professor of botany at Moscow University, who was also interested in educational theory (Letters, I, 158).
26 Unlike his brothers Nikolay and Dmitry, Tolstoy never suffered from consumption.
27 See Letters, I, 148. Turgenev accused Tolstoy of circulating copies of the letter referred to in Note 24, and threatened to ‘demand satisfaction’.
28 Students employed as teachers at his school.
29 The first version of the article The Yasnaya Polyana School in November and December.
30 Yasnaya Polyana Diary.
31 P. V. Morozov, a teacher from Tula, soon to be employed by Tolstoy at the Yasnaya Polyana school.
32 Author of a book of object lessons based on Pestalozzi’s theories. Tolstoy criticised the book in the August issue of Yasnaya Polyana, 1862.