War and Peace

- By Leo Tolstoy
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Russian writer and activist (1828–1910) "Tolstoy" and "Lev Tolstoy" redirect here. For other uses, see Tolstoy (disambiguation) and Lev Tolstoy (disambiguation). In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Nikolayevich and the family name is Tolstoy. Leo TolstoyЛев ТолстойTolstoy in 1908Born(1828-09-09)9 September 1828Yasnaya Polyana, Tula Governorate, Russian EmpireDied20 November 1910(1910-11-20) (aged 82)Astapovo, Ryazan Governorate, Russian Empire(now Lev Tolstoy, Lipetsk Oblast, Russia)Resting placeYasnaya PolyanaOccupationWriterreligious thinkerEducationImperial Kazan University (dropped out)PeriodModernGenresNovelnovellashort storysketchplaychildren's literaturesongpolemicessaytreatiseepistleliterary and art criticismtextbookautobiographydiarytranslationcorrespondenceSubjectsChristian anarchismpacifismLiterary movementRealismYears active1847–1910Notable worksListNotable awardsGriboyedov Prize (1892)Spouse Sophia Behrs ​(m. 1862)​Children14Signature Leo Tolstoy's voice recorded 1908 Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy[note 1] (/ˈtoʊlstɔɪ, ˈtɒl-/;[1] Russian: Лев Николаевич Толстой,[note 2] IPA: [ˈlʲef nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ tɐlˈstoj] ⓘ; 9 September [O.S. 28 August] 1828 – 20 November [O.S. 7 November] 1910),[2] usually referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential authors of all time.[3][4] He received nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature every year from 1902 to 1906 and for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1901, 1902, and 1909. Born into an aristocratic family, Tolstoy's notable works include the novels War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1878),[5] often cited as pinnacles of realist fiction,[2] and two of the greatest books of all time.[3][4] He first achieved literary acclaim in his twenties with his semi-autobiographical trilogy, Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth (1852–1856), and Sevastopol Sketches (1855), based upon his experiences in the Crimean War. His fiction includes dozens of short stories such as "After the Ball" (1911), and several novellas such as The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886), Family Happiness (1859) and Hadji Murad (1912). He also wrote plays and essays concerning philosophical, moral and religious themes. In the 1870s, Tolstoy experienced a profound moral crisis, followed by what he regarded as an equally profound spiritual awakening, as outlined in his non-fiction work Confession (1882). His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him to become a fervent Christian anarchist and pacifist.[2] His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You (1894), had a profound impact on such pivotal 20th-century figures as Mahatma Gandhi,[6] Martin Luther King Jr.[7] and Ludwig Wittgenstein.[8] He also became a dedicated advocate of Georgism, the economic philosophy of Henry George, which he incorporated into his writing, particularly in his novel Resurrection (1899). Tolstoy received praise from countless authors and critics, both during his lifetime and after. Virginia Woolf called Tolstoy "the greatest of all novelists",[9] and Gary Saul Morson referred to War and Peace as the greatest of all novels.[10] Tolstoy never having won a Nobel Prize was a major Nobel Prize controversy, and remains one.[11][12] Origins[edit] Main article: Tolstoy family The Tolstoys were a well-known family of old Russian nobility who traced their ancestry to a mythical[13] nobleman named Indris described by Pyotr Tolstoy as arriving "from Nemec, from the lands of Caesar" to Chernigov in 1353 along with his two sons Litvinos (or Litvonis) and Zimonten (or Zigmont) and a druzhina of 3000 people.[14][15] While the word "Nemec" has been long used to describe Germans only, at that time it was applied to any foreigner who did not speak Russian (from the word nemoy meaning mute).[16] Indris was then converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, under the name of Leonty, and his sons as Konstantin and Feodor. Konstantin's grandson Andrei Kharitonovich was nicknamed Tolstiy (translated as fat) by Vasily II of Moscow after he moved from Chernigov to Moscow.[14][15] Because of the pagan names and the fact that Chernigov at the time was ruled by Demetrius I Starshy, some researchers concluded that they were Lithuanians who arrived from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.[14][17][18] At the same time, no mention of Indris was ever found in the 14th-to-16th-century documents, while the Chernigov Chronicles used by Pyotr Tolstoy as a reference were lost.[14] The first documented members of the Tolstoy family also lived during the 17th century, thus Pyotr Tolstoy himself is generally considered the founder of the noble house, being granted the title of count by Peter the Great.[19][20] Life and career[edit] Leo Tolstoy at age 20, c. 1848 Tolstoy was born at Yasnaya Polyana, a family estate 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) southwest of Tula, and 200 kilometres (120 mi) south of Moscow. He was the fourth of five children of Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy (1794–1837), a veteran of the Patriotic War of 1812, and Princess Mariya Tolstaya (née Volkonskaya; 1790–1830). His mother died when he was two and his father when he was nine.[21] Tolstoy and his siblings were brought up by relatives.[2] In 1844, he began studying law and oriental languages at Kazan University, where teachers described him as "both unable and unwilling to learn".[21] Tolstoy left the university in the middle of his studies,[21] returned to Yasnaya Polyana and then spent much time in Moscow, Tula and Saint Petersburg, leading a lax and leisurely lifestyle.[2] He began writing during this period,[21] including his first novel Childhood, a fictitious account of his own youth, which was published in 1852.[2] In 1851, after running up heavy gambling debts, he went with his older brother to the Caucasus and joined the army. Tolstoy served as a young artillery officer during the Crimean War and was in Sevastopol during the 11-month-long siege of Sevastopol in 1854–55,[22] including the Battle of the Chernaya. During the war he was recognised for his courage and promoted to lieutenant.[22] He was appalled by the number of deaths involved in warfare,[21] and left the army after the end of the Crimean War.[2] His experience in the army, and two trips around Europe in 1857 and 1860–61 converted Tolstoy from a dissolute and privileged society author to a non-violent and spiritual anarchist. Others who followed the same path were Alexander Herzen, Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin. During his 1857 visit, Tolstoy witnessed a public execution in Paris, a traumatic experience that marked the rest of his life. In a letter to his friend Vasily Botkin, Tolstoy wrote: "The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens ... Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere."[23] Tolstoy's concept of non-violence or ahimsa was bolstered when he read a German version of the Tirukkural.[24][25] He later instilled the concept in Mahatma Gandhi through his "A Letter to a Hindu" when young Gandhi corresponded with him seeking his advice.[25][26][27] His European trip in 1860–61 shaped both his political and literary development when he met Victor Hugo. Tolstoy read Hugo's newly finished Les Misérables. The similar evocation of battle scenes in Hugo's novel and Tolstoy's War and Peace indicates this influence. Tolstoy's political philosophy was also influenced by a March 1861 visit to French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, then living in exile under an assumed name in Brussels. Tolstoy reviewed Proudhon's forthcoming publication, La Guerre et la Paix ("War and Peace" in French), and later used the title for his masterpiece. The two men also discussed education, as Tolstoy wrote in his educational notebooks: "If I recount this conversation with Proudhon, it is to show that, in my personal experience, he was the only man who understood the significance of education and of the printing press in our time." Fired by enthusiasm, Tolstoy returned to Yasnaya Polyana and founded 13 schools for the children of Russia's peasants, who had just been emancipated from serfdom in 1861. Tolstoy described the schools' principles in his 1862 essay "The School at Yasnaya Polyana".[28] His educational experiments were short-lived, partly due to harassment by the Tsarist secret police. However, as a direct forerunner to A.S. Neill's Summerhill School, the school at Yasnaya Polyana[29] can justifiably be claimed the first example of a coherent theory of democratic education. Personal life[edit] The death of his brother Nikolay in 1860 had an impact on Tolstoy, and led him to a desire to marry.[21] On 23 September 1862, Tolstoy married Sophia Andreevna Behrs, who was sixteen years his junior and the daughter of a court physician. She was called Sonya, the Russian diminutive of Sofia, by her family and friends.[30] They had 13 children, eight of whom survived childhood:[31] Tolstoy's wife Sophia and their daughter Alexandra Count Sergei Lvovich Tolstoy (1863–1947), composer and ethnomusicologist Countess Tatyana Lvovna Tolstaya (1864–1950), wife of Mikhail Sergeevich Sukhotin Count Ilya Lvovich Tolstoy (1866–1933), writer Count Lev Lvovich Tolstoy (1869–1945), writer and sculptor Countess Maria Lvovna Tolstaya (1871–1906), wife of Nikolai Leonidovich Obolensky Count Peter Lvovich Tolstoy (1872–1873), died in infancy Count Nikolai Lvovich Tolstoy (1874–1875), died in infancy Countess Varvara Lvovna Tolstaya (1875–1875), died in infancy Count Andrei Lvovich Tolstoy (1877–1916), served in the Russo-Japanese War Count Michael Lvovich Tolstoy (1879–1944) Count Alexei Lvovich Tolstoy (1881–1886) Countess Alexandra Lvovna Tolstaya (1884–1979) Count Ivan Lvovich Tolstoy (1888–1895) The marriage was marked from the outset by sexual passion and emotional insensitivity when Tolstoy, on the eve of their marriage, gave her his diaries detailing his extensive sexual past and the fact that one of the serfs on his estate had borne him a son.[30] Even so, their early married life was happy and allowed Tolstoy much freedom and the support system to compose War and Peace and Anna Karenina with Sonya acting as his secretary, editor, and financial manager. Sonya was copying and hand-writing his epic works time after time. Tolstoy would continue editing War and Peace and had to have clean final drafts to be delivered to the publisher.[30][32] However, their later life together has been described by A.N. Wilson as one of the unhappiest in literary history. Tolstoy's relationship with his wife deteriorated as his beliefs became increasingly radical. This saw him seeking to reject his inherited and earned wealth, including the renunciation of the copyrights on his earlier works. Some members of the Tolstoy family left Russia in the aftermath of the 1905 Russian Revolution, or after the establishment of the Soviet Union following the 1917 October Revolution, and many of Leo Tolstoy's relatives and descendants today live in Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom, France and the United States. Tolstoy's son, Count Lev Lvovich Tolstoy, settled in Sweden and married a Swedish woman, and their descendants with family names including Tolstoy, Paus and Ceder still live in Sweden. The Paus branch of the family is also closely related to Henrik Ibsen.[33] Leo Tolstoy's last surviving grandchild, Countess Tatiana Tolstoy-Paus, died in 2007 at Herresta manor in Sweden, which is owned by Tolstoy's descendants.[34] Swedish writer Daria Paus and jazz singer Viktoria Tolstoy are among Leo Tolstoy's Swedish descendants.[35] One of his great-great-grandsons, Vladimir Tolstoy (born 1962), has been a director of the Yasnaya Polyana museum since 1994 and an adviser to the President of Russia on cultural affairs since 2012.[36][37] Ilya Tolstoy's great-grandson, Pyotr Tolstoy, is a well-known Russian journalist and TV presenter as well as a State Duma deputy since 2016. His cousin Fyokla Tolstaya (born Anna Tolstaya in 1971), daughter of the acclaimed Soviet Slavist Nikita Tolstoy (ru) (1923–1996), is also a Russian journalist, TV and radio host.[38] Novels and fictional works[edit] Portrait of Leo Tolstoy by Ivan Kramskoi, 1873 Tolstoy is considered one of the giants of Russian literature; his works include the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina and novellas such as Hadji Murad and The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Tolstoy's earliest works, the autobiographical novels Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth (1852–1856), tell of a rich landowner's son and his slow realization of the chasm between himself and his peasants. Though he later rejected them as sentimental, a great deal of Tolstoy's own life is revealed. They retain their relevance as accounts of the universal story of growing up. Tolstoy served as a second lieutenant in an artillery regiment during the Crimean War, recounted in his Sevastopol Sketches. His experiences in battle helped stir his subsequent pacifism and gave him material for realistic depiction of the horrors of war in his later work.[39] His fiction consistently attempts to convey realistically the Russian society in which he lived.[40] The Cossacks (1863) describes the Cossack life and people through a story of a Russian aristocrat in love with a Cossack girl. Anna Karenina (1877) tells parallel stories of an adulterous woman trapped by the conventions and falsities of society and of a philosophical landowner (much like Tolstoy), who works alongside the peasants in the fields and seeks to reform their lives. Tolstoy not only drew from his own life experiences but also created characters in his own image, such as Pierre Bezukhov and Prince Andrei in War and Peace, Levin in Anna Karenina and to some extent, Prince Nekhlyudov in Resurrection. Richard Pevear, who translated many of Tolstoy's works, said of Tolstoy's signature style, "His works are full of provocation and irony, and written with broad and elaborately developed rhetorical devices."[41] The Power of Darkness2015 at Vienna's Akademietheater War and Peace is generally thought to be one of the greatest novels ever written, remarkable for its dramatic breadth and unity. Its vast canvas includes 580 characters, many historical with others fictional. The story moves from family life to the headquarters of Napoleon, from the court of Alexander I of Russia to the battlefields of Austerlitz and Borodino. Tolstoy's original idea for the novel was to investigate the causes of the Decembrist revolt, to which it refers only in the last chapters, from which can be deduced that Andrei Bolkonsky's son will become one of the Decembrists. The novel explores Tolstoy's theory of history, and in particular the insignificance of individuals such as Napoleon and Alexander. Somewhat surprisingly, Tolstoy did not consider War and Peace to be a novel (nor did he consider many of the great Russian fictions written at that time to be novels). This view becomes less surprising if one considers that Tolstoy was a novelist of the realist school who considered the novel to be a framework for the examination of social and political issues in nineteenth-century life.[42] War and Peace (which is to Tolstoy really an epic in prose) therefore did not qualify. Tolstoy thought that Anna Karenina was his first true novel.[43] After Anna Karenina, Tolstoy concentrated on Christian themes, and his later novels such as The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886) and What Is to Be Done? develop a radical anarcho-pacifist Christian philosophy which led to his excommunication from the Russian Orthodox Church in 1901.[44] After his religious conversion, Tolstoy came to reject most modern Western culture, including his novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, as elitist "counterfeit art" with different aims from the Christian art of universal brotherly love he sought to express.[45] In his novel Resurrection, Tolstoy attempts to expose the injustice of man-made laws and the hypocrisy of an institutionalized church. Tolstoy also explores and explains the economic philosophy of Georgism, of which he had become a very strong advocate towards the end of his life. Tolstoy also tried writing poetry, with several soldier songs written during his military service, and fairy tales in verse such as Volga-bogatyr and Oaf stylized as national folk songs. They were written between 1871 and 1874 for his Russian Book for Reading, a collection of short stories in four volumes (total of 629 stories in various genres) published along with the New Azbuka textbook and addressed to schoolchildren. Nevertheless, he was skeptical about poetry as a genre. As he famously said, "Writing poetry is like ploughing and dancing at the same time." According to Valentin Bulgakov, he criticised poets, including Alexander Pushkin, for their "false" epithets used "simply to make it rhyme."[46][47] Critical appraisal by other authors[edit] Tolstoy's contemporaries paid him lofty tributes. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who died thirty years before Tolstoy, admired and was delighted by Tolstoy's novels (and, conversely, Tolstoy also admired Dostoyevsky's work).[48] Gustave Flaubert, on reading a translation of War and Peace, exclaimed, "What an artist and what a psychologist!" Anton Chekhov, who often visited Tolstoy at his country estate, wrote, "When literature possesses a Tolstoy, it is easy and pleasant to be a writer; even when you know you have achieved nothing yourself and are still achieving nothing, this is not as terrible as it might otherwise be, because Tolstoy achieves for everyone. What he does serves to justify all the hopes and aspirations invested in literature." The 19th-century British poet and critic Matthew Arnold opined that "A novel by Tolstoy is not a work of art but a piece of life."[2] Isaac Babel said that "if the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy."[2] Later novelists continued to appreciate Tolstoy's art, but sometimes also expressed criticism. Arthur Conan Doyle wrote, "I am attracted by his earnestness and by his power of detail, but I am repelled by his looseness of construction and by his unreasonable and impracticable mysticism."[49] Virginia Woolf declared him "the greatest of all novelists."[2] James Joyce noted that, "He is never dull, never stupid, never tired, never pedantic, never theatrical!" Thomas Mann wrote of Tolstoy's seemingly guileless artistry: "Seldom did art work so much like nature." Vladimir Nabokov heaped superlatives upon The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Anna Karenina; he questioned, however, the reputation of War and Peace, and sharply criticized Resurrection and The Kreutzer Sonata. However, Nabokov called Tolstoy the "greatest Russian writer of prose fiction".[50] Critic Harold Bloom called Hadji Murat "my personal touchstone for the sublime in prose fiction, to me the best story in the world."[51] When William Faulkner was asked to list what he thought were the three greatest novels, he replied: "Anna Karenina, Anna Karenina, and Anna Karenina".[9] Critic Gary Saul Morson referred to War and Peace as the greatest of all novels.[10] Ethical, political and religious beliefs[edit] Tolstoy on 23 May 1908 at Yasnaya Polyana,[52] Lithograph print by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky Schopenhauer[edit] After reading Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation, Tolstoy gradually became converted to the ascetic morality upheld in that work as the proper spiritual path for the upper classes. In 1869 he writes: "Do you know what this summer has meant for me? Constant raptures over Schopenhauer and a whole series of spiritual delights which I've never experienced before....no student has ever studied so much on his course, and learned so much, as I have this summer."[53] In Chapter VI of Confession, Tolstoy quoted the final paragraph of Schopenhauer's work. It explains how a complete denial of self causes only a relative nothingness which is not to be feared. Tolstoy was struck by the description of Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu ascetic renunciation as being the path to holiness. After reading passages such as the following, which abound in Schopenhauer's ethical chapters, the Russian nobleman chose poverty and formal denial of the will: But this very necessity of involuntary suffering (by poor people) for eternal salvation is also expressed by that utterance of the Savior (Matthew 19:24): "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." Therefore, those who were greatly in earnest about their eternal salvation, chose voluntary poverty when fate had denied this to them and they had been born in wealth. Thus Buddha Sakyamuni was born a prince, but voluntarily took to the mendicant's staff; and Francis of Assisi, the founder of the mendicant orders who, as a youngster at a ball, where the daughters of all the notabilities were sitting together, was asked: "Now Francis, will you not soon make your choice from these beauties?" and who replied: "I have made a far more beautiful choice!" "Whom?" "La povertà (poverty)": whereupon he abandoned every thing shortly afterwards and wandered through the land as a mendicant.[54] Christianity[edit] In 1884, Tolstoy wrote a book called What I Believe, in which he openly confessed his Christian beliefs. He affirmed his belief in Jesus Christ's teachings and was particularly influenced by the Sermon on the Mount, and the injunction to turn the other cheek, which he understood as a "commandment of non-resistance to evil by force" and a doctrine of pacifism and nonviolence. In his work The Kingdom of God Is Within You, he explains that he considered mistaken the Church's doctrine because they had made a "perversion" of Christ's teachings. Tolstoy also received letters from American Quakers who introduced him to the non-violence writings of Quaker Christians such as George Fox, William Penn, and Jonathan Dymond. Later, various versions of "Tolstoy's Bible" were published, indicating the passages Tolstoy most relied on, specifically, the reported words of Jesus himself.[55] Mohandas K. Gandhi and other residents of Tolstoy Farm, South Africa, 1910 Tolstoy believed that a true Christian could find lasting happiness by striving for inner perfection through following the Great Commandment of loving one's neighbor and God, rather than guidance from the Church or state. Another distinct attribute of his philosophy based on Christ's teachings is nonresistance during conflict. This idea in Tolstoy's book The Kingdom of God Is Within You directly influenced Mahatma Gandhi and therefore also nonviolent resistance movements to this day. Tolstoy believed that the aristocracy was a burden on the poor.[56] He opposed private land ownership and the institution of marriage, and valued chastity and sexual abstinence (discussed in Father Sergius and his preface to The Kreutzer Sonata), ideals also held by the young Gandhi. Tolstoy's passion from the depth of his austere moral views is reflected in his later work.[57] One example is the sequence of the temptation of Sergius in Father Sergius. Maxim Gorky relates how Tolstoy once read this passage before him and Chekhov, and Tolstoy was moved to tears by the end of the reading. Later passages of rare power include the personal crises faced by the protagonists of The Death of Ivan Ilyich, and of Master and Man, where the main character in the former and the reader in the latter are made aware of the foolishness of the protagonists' lives. In 1886, Tolstoy wrote to the Russian explorer and anthropologist Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay, who was one of the first anthropologists to refute polygenism, the view that the different races of mankind belonged to different species: "You were the first to demonstrate beyond question by your experience that man is man everywhere, that is, a kind, sociable being with whom communication can and should be established through kindness and truth, not guns and spirits."[58] Christian anarchism[edit] Tolstoy had a profound influence on the development of Christian anarchist thought.[59] Tolstoy believed being a Christian required him to be a pacifist; the apparently inevitable waging of war by governments is why he is considered a philosophical anarchist. The Tolstoyans were a small Christian anarchist group formed by Tolstoy's companion, Vladimir Chertkov (1854–1936), to spread Tolstoy's religious teachings. From 1892 he regularly met with the student-activist Vasily Maklakov who would defend several Tolstoyans; they discussed the fate of the Doukhobors. Philosopher Peter Kropotkin wrote of Tolstoy in the article on anarchism in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica:Without naming himself an anarchist, Leo Tolstoy, like his predecessors in the popular religious movements of the 15th and 16th centuries, Chojecki, Denk and many others, took the anarchist position as regards the state and property rights, deducing his conclusions from the general spirit of the teachings of Jesus and from the necessary dictates of reason. With all the might of his talent, Tolstoy made (especially in The Kingdom of God Is Within You) a powerful criticism of the church, the state and law altogether, and especially of the present property laws. He describes the state as the domination of the wicked ones, supported by brutal force. Robbers, he says, are far less dangerous than a well-organized government. He makes a searching criticism of the prejudices which are current now concerning the benefits conferred upon men by the church, the state, and the existing distribution of property, and from the teachings of Jesus he deduces the rule of non-resistance and the absolute condemnation of all wars. His religious arguments are, however, so well combined with arguments borrowed from a dispassionate observation of the present evils, that the anarchist portions of his works appeal to the religious and the non-religious reader alike.[60] Tolstoy organising famine relief in Samara, 1891 Film by Aleksandr Osipovich Drankov of Tolstoy's 80th birthday (1908) at Yasnaya Polyana, showing his wife Sofya (picking flowers in the garden) daughter Aleksandra (sitting in the carriage in the white blouse); his aide and confidante V. Chertkov (bald man with the beard and mustache); and students. In hundreds of essays over the last 20 years of his life, Tolstoy reiterated the anarchist critique of the state and recommended books by Kropotkin and Proudhon to his readers, while rejecting anarchism's espousal of violent revolutionary means. In the 1900 essay, "On Anarchy," he wrote: "The Anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order, and in the assertion that, without Authority, there could not be worse violence than that of Authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that Anarchy can be instituted by a revolution. But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not require the protection of governmental power ... There can be only one permanent revolution – a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man." Despite his misgivings about anarchist violence, Tolstoy took risks to circulate the prohibited publications of anarchist thinkers in Russia, and corrected the proofs of Kropotkin's "Words of a Rebel", illegally published in St Petersburg in 1906.[61] Tolstoy in his study in 1908 (age 80) Pacificism[edit] In 1908, Tolstoy wrote A Letter to a Hindu[62] outlining his belief in non-violence as a means for India to gain independence from colonial rule. In 1909, Gandhi read a copy of the letter when he was becoming an activist in South Africa. He wrote to Tolstoy seeking proof that he was the author, which led to further correspondence.[24] Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God Is Within You also helped to convince Gandhi of nonviolent resistance, a debt Gandhi acknowledged in his autobiography, calling Tolstoy "the greatest apostle of non-violence that the present age has produced". Their correspondence lasted only a year, from October 1909 until Tolstoy's death in November 1910, but led Gandhi to give the name Tolstoy Colony to his second ashram in South Africa.[63] Both men also believed in the merits of vegetarianism, the subject of several of Tolstoy's essays.[64] The Boxer Rebellion stirred Tolstoy's interest in Chinese philosophy.[65] He was a famous sinophile, and read the works of Confucius[66][67][68] and Lao Zi. Tolstoy wrote Chinese Wisdom and other texts about China. Tolstoy corresponded with the Chinese intellectual Gu Hongming and recommended that China remain an agrarian nation, and not reform like Japan. Tolstoy and Gu opposed the Hundred Day's Reform by Kang Youwei and believed that the reform movement was perilous.[69] Tolstoy's ideology of non-violence shaped the thought of the Chinese anarchist group Society for the Study of Socialism.[70] Tolstoy denounced the intervention by the Eight-Nation Alliance in the Boxer Rebellion in China,[71][72] the Filipino-American War, and the Second Boer War.[73] Tolstoy praised the Boxer Rebellion and harshly criticized the atrocities of the Russian, German, American, Japanese, and other troops of the Eight-Nation alliance. He heard about the looting, rapes, and murders, and accused the troops of slaughter and "Christian brutality." He named the monarchs most responsible for the atrocities as Tsar Nicholas II and Kaiser Wilhelm II.[74][75] He described the intervention as "terrible for its injustice and cruelty".[76] The war was also criticized by other intellectuals such as Leonid Andreyev and Gorky. As part of the criticism, Tolstoy wrote an epistle called To the Chinese people.[77] In 1902, he wrote an open letter describing and denouncing Nicholas II's activities in China.[78] Tolstoy also became a major supporter of the Esperanto movement. He was impressed by the pacifist beliefs of the Doukhobors and brought their persecution to the attention of the international community, after they burned their weapons in peaceful protest in 1895.[79] He aided the Doukhobors to migrate to Canada.[80] He also provided inspiration to the Mennonites, another religious group with anti-government and anti-war sentiments.[81][82] In 1904, Tolstoy condemned the ensuing Russo-Japanese War and wrote to the Japanese Buddhist priest Soyen Shaku in a failed attempt to make a joint pacifist statement. Georgism[edit] Towards the end of his life, Tolstoy become occupied with the economic theory and social philosophy of Georgism.[83][84][85] He incorporated it approvingly into works such as Resurrection (1899), the book that was a major cause for his excommunication.[86] He spoke with great admiration of Henry George, stating once that "People do not argue with the teaching of George; they simply do not know it. And it is impossible to do otherwise with his teaching, for he who becomes acquainted with it cannot but agree."[87] He also wrote a preface to George's journal Social Problems.[88] Tolstoy and George both rejected private property in land (the most important source of income for Russian aristocracy that Tolstoy heavily criticized). They also rejected a centrally planned socialist economy. Because Georgism requires an administration to collect land rent and spend it on infrastructure, some assume that this embrace moved Tolstoy away from his anarchist views. However, anarchist versions of Georgism have been proposed since then.[89] Tolstoy's 1899 novel Resurrection explores his thoughts on Georgism and hints that Tolstoy had such a view. It suggests small communities with local governance to manage the collective land rents for common goods, while still heavily criticising state institutions such as the justice system. Hunting[edit] Tolstoy was introduced to hunting by his father, who was an avid huntsman.[90] He was trained to hunt from a young age and became a passionate huntsman himself. He was known to shoot duck, quail, snipe, woodcock and otters.[91][92] For example, Tolstoy wrote in his diary on 23 March 1852, "the weather was marvellous; went out hunting, rode up and down the undulating country till one. Killed two ducks."[93] His novel War and Peace included hunting scenes.[90] Tolstoy spent decades hunting, but stopped sometime in the 1880s and became a staunch opponent of hunting due to ethical concerns about killing.[94] In 1890 Tolstoy wrote a preface for Vladimir Chertkov's anti-hunting pamphlet Zlaia zabava: Mysli ob okhote (An Evil Pastime: Thoughts about Hunting).[95] Although Tolstoy in his later life opposed hunting, he never abandoned his love for horse-riding.[90] Vegetarianism[edit] Tolstoy first became interested in vegetarianism in 1882; however, his conversion to a vegetarian diet was a long and gradual process.[94] William Fay (Vladimir Konstantinovich Geins), who visited Tolstoy in Autumn 1885, influenced Tolstoy to become vegetarian.[94] In 1887, Tolstoy was lapsing from a vegetarian diet by occasionally eating meat.[94] It was only from 1890 that Tolstoy adopted a strict vegetarian diet which he was alleged to have never consciously betrayed.[94] Tolstoy's wife Sophia argued that his vegetarian diet did not provide him enough nourishment and contributed to his digestive ailments, however, Tolstoy stated that his health was not deprived on the diet but had improved.[94] Critics of Tolstoy such as I. S. Listovsky suggested that Tolstoy's writing talent went into decline after he adopted a meatless diet.[94] Tolstoy became a vegetarian for ethical and spiritual reasons, associating a meatless diet with "high moral views on life".[94] He viewed both hunting and eating meat as a moral evil as they involve unnecessary cruelty to animals and regretted his former habits.[94] In 1891, Tolstoy obtained a copy of Howard Williams's book The Ethics of Diet from Chertkov. His daughters translated the book into Russian and Tolstoy wrote an introductory essay titled "The First Step", published in 1893.[96] In his introductory essay, he described a cruel experience he had witnessed at a visit to a slaughterhouse in Tula. The cruelty he had witnessed confirmed his belief that meat should be removed from the diet.[94] In the essay he wrote that meat eating is "simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to moral feeling – killing".[97] Whilst on his vegetarian diet, Tolstoy was eating eggs daily but was questioned by one of his friends if eating eggs amounts to taking life. He commented that "Yes, I ought to have stopped taking eggs. At least from now I shall stop it".[98] By 1903, Tolstoy had removed eggs from his diet. Vasily Rozanov who had visited Tolstoy noted that vegetarianism was a way of living for Tolstoy and at the dinner table surrounded by family and guests who were eating meat and scrambled eggs, Tolstoy was eating kasha.[99] In a letter to A. D. Zutphen (a Dutch medical student), Tolstoy wrote that "My health not only has not suffered; it has in fact improved significantly since I have given up milk, butter and eggs, as well as sugar, tea, and coffee."[95] Tolstoy described his vegetarian diet consisting of oatmeal porridge, whole wheat bread, cabbage or potato soup, buckwheat, a boiled or fried potato and an apple prune compote.[100] Death[edit] Tolstoy's grave with flowers at Yasnaya Polyana Tolstoy died on 20 November 1910 at the age of 82. Just before his death, his health was a concern of his family, who cared for him daily. In his last days, he spoke and wrote about dying. Renouncing his aristocratic lifestyle, he left home one winter night.[101] His secretive departure was an apparent attempt to escape from his wife's tirades. She spoke out against many of his teachings, and in recent years had grown envious of his attention to Tolstoyan "disciples". Tolstoy died of pneumonia[102] at Astapovo railway station, after a day's train journey south.[103] The station master took Tolstoy to his apartment, and his personal doctors arrived and gave him injections of morphine and camphor. The police tried to limit access to his funeral procession, but thousands of peasants lined the streets. Still, some were heard to say that other than knowing that "some nobleman had died", they knew little else about Tolstoy.[104][better source needed] According to some sources, Tolstoy spent the last hours of his life preaching love, non-violence, and Georgism to fellow passengers on the train.[86] Legacy[edit] This section may need to be cleaned up. It has been merged from Leo Tolstoy's influence. Statue of Tolstoy in Castlegar, British Columbia Bust of Tolstoy in Mariupol, Ukraine, 2011 Bust of Tolstoy in Montevideo, Uruguay Although Leo Tolstoy was regarded as a Christian anarchist and not a socialist, his ideas and works still influenced socialist thinkers throughout history. He held an unromantic view of governments as being essentially violent forces held together by intimidation from state authority, corruption on behalf of officials, and the indoctrination of people from a young age.[105] In regard to his view of economics, he advocated for a return to subsistence agriculture.[106] In his view, a simplified economy would afford a lesser need for the exchange of goods, and as such, factories and cities – the centers of industry – would become obsolete.[106] In 1944, literary historian and Soviet medievalist Nikolai Gudzii wrote a biography of Tolstoy that spanned 80 pages. It was designed to show readers that Tolstoy would have revised his pacifistic and anti-patriotic sentiments if he were alive amid World War II.[107] At around the same time, literary scholar and historian Boris Eikhenbaum – in a stark contrast from his earlier works on Tolstoy – portrayed the Russian novelist as someone whose ideas aligned with those of early utopian socialists such as Robert Owen and Henri Saint-Simon. Eikenbaum suggested that these influences can be seen in Tolstoy's emphases on individual happiness and peasant welfare.[108] The discrepancies in Eikenbaum's portrayals of Tolstoy can be attributed to the political pressure in Soviet Russia at the time: public officials pressured literary scholars to conform with party doctrine.[108] In Soviet Russia[edit] From Tolstoy's writings the Tolstoyan movement was birthed, and its members used his works to promote non-violence, anti-urbanism and opposition to the state.[109] While Tolstoy himself never associated with the movement, as he was opposed to joining any organization or group, he named his thirteenth child Alexandra (Sasha) L'vovna Tolstaya the heir to his works with the intention that she would publish them for the Russian people.[109] Meanwhile, Tolstoy designated Vladimir Chertkov – who kept many of Tolstoy's manuscripts – as the editor of his works. Originally Tolstoy wanted to make the Russian people the heirs to his writings, but Russian law at the time decreed that property could only be inherited by one individual.[109] Following the Russian Civil War in 1917, writings that were formerly censored could now be published, since all literary works were nationalized in November 1918.[109] Alexandra worked during these years to publish sets of Tolstoy's works: from 1917 to 1919, she worked with Zadruga Publishing House to publish thirteen booklets on Tolstoy's writings, which had previously been censored under Russia's imperial rule. However, publishing a complete collection of Tolstoy's works proved to be more difficult. In December 1918, the Commissariat of Education granted Chertkov a 10 million rouble subsidy to publish a complete edition of his works, but it never materialized due to government control of publication rights.[109] Cooperatives were additionally made illegal in Russia in 1921, creating another obstacle for Alexandra and Chertkov.[109] In the 1920s, Tolstoy's estate, Yasnaya Polyana, was sanctioned by the Soviet state to exist as a commune for Tolstoyans. The government permitted this Christian-oriented community because they felt that religious sects like the Tolstoyans were models for the Russian peasantry.[109] The Soviet government owned the estate, which was deemed a memorial for the late Russian writer, but Alexandra had jurisdiction over the education offered at Yasnaya Polyana. Unlike most Soviet schools, the schooling at Yasnaya Polyana did not offer militaristic training and did not teach atheism. Over time, though, local communists – as opposed to the state government, which financially supported the institution – often denounced the estate and called for frequent inspections. After 1928, a change in cultural policy in the Soviet regime led to a takeover of local institutions, including Tolstoy's estate. When Alexandra stepped down from her role as head of Yasnaya Poliana in 1929, the Commissariat of Education and Health took control.[109] In 1925, the Soviet government created its first Jubilee Committee to celebrate the centennial of Tolstoy's birth, which originally consisted of 13 members but grew to 38 members after a second committee formed in 1927.[109] Alexandra was not content with the funds provided by the government and met with Stalin in June 1928. During the meeting, Stalin said the government could not provide the one million roubles requested by the committee.[109] However, an agreement was reached with the State Publishing House in April 1928 for the publishing of a 92-volume collection of Tolstoy's works.[109] During the Jubilee Celebration, Anatoly Luncharsky – the head of the People's Commissariat for Education – gave a speech in which he denied reports that claimed the Soviet government was hostile towards Tolstoy and his legacy. Instead of focusing on the aspects of Tolstoy's works that pitted him against the Soviet regime, he instead focused on the unifying aspects, such as Tolstoy's love for equality and labor as well as his disdain for the state and private property.[109] More than 400 million copies of Tolstoy's works have been printed in the Soviet Union, making him the best-selling author in Soviet Russia.[110] Influence[edit] Vladimir Lenin wrote several essays about Tolstoy, suggesting that a contradiction exists within his critique of Russian society. According to Lenin, Tolstoy – who adored the peasantry and voiced their discontent with imperial Russian society – may have been revolutionary in his critiques, but his political consciousness was not fully developed for a revolution.[111] Lenin uses this line of thinking to suggest that the 1905 Russian Revolution, which he called a "peasant bourgeois revolution," failed because of its backwardness: the revolutionaries wanted to dismantle the existing medieval forms of oppression and replace them with an old and patriarchal village-commune.[111] Tolstoy's concept of non-resistance to evil additionally hindered the 1905 revolution's success, Lenin thought, because the movement was not militant and had thus allowed the autocracy to crush them.[111] Nevertheless, Lenin concludes in his writings that despite the many contradictions in Tolstoy's critiques, his hatred for feudalism and capitalism mark the prelude to proletarian socialism.[111] Additionally, Tolstoy's philosophy of non-resistance to evil made an impact on Mahatma Gandhi's political thinking. Gandhi was deeply moved by Tolstoy's concept of truth, which, in his view, constitutes any doctrine that reduces suffering.[112] For both Gandhi and Tolstoy, truth is God, and since God is universal love, truth must therefore also be universal love. The Gujarati word for Gandhi's non-violent movement is "satyagraha", derived from the word "sadagraha" – the "sat" portion translating to "truth", and the "agraha" translating to "firmness".[112] Gandhi's conception of satyagraha was birthed from Tolstoy's understanding of Christianity, rather than from Hindu tradition.[112] In films and television[edit] In George Lucas's Young Indiana Jones a fictional Tolstoy appears as a mentor figure and friend of Indiana Jones in the made for TV movie, from 1996, Travels with Father. He is portrayed by Michael Gough.[113] A 2009 film about Tolstoy's final year, The Last Station, based on the 1990 novel by Jay Parini, was made by director Michael Hoffman with Christopher Plummer as Tolstoy and Helen Mirren as Sofya Tolstoya. Both performers were nominated for Oscars for their roles. There have been other films about the writer, including Departure of a Grand Old Man, made in 1912 just two years after his death, How Fine, How Fresh the Roses Were (1913), and Lev Tolstoy, directed by and starring Sergei Gerasimov in 1984. There is also a famous lost film of Tolstoy made a decade before he died. In 1901, the American travel lecturer Burton Holmes visited Yasnaya Polyana with Albert J. Beveridge, the U.S. senator and historian. As the three men conversed, Holmes filmed Tolstoy with his 60-mm movie camera. Afterwards, Beveridge's advisers succeeded in having the film destroyed, fearing that the meeting with the Russian author might hurt Beveridge's chances of running for the U.S. presidency.[114] Bibliography[edit] Main article: Leo Tolstoy bibliography See also[edit] Russia portalBiography portalPolitics portal Anarchism and religion Christian vegetarianism Leo Tolstoy bibliography Leo Tolstoy and Theosophy List of peace activists Tolstoyan movement Henry David Thoreau War & Peace (2016 TV series) Notes[edit] ^ Tolstoy pronounced his first name as [lʲɵf], which corresponds to the romanization Lyov. (Nabokov, Vladimir. Lectures on Russian literature. p. 216.) ^ In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as Левъ Николаевичъ Толстой in pre-reform Russian orthography. References[edit] ^ "Tolstoy" Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Leo Tolstoy". Encyclopædia Britannica. 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Tolstoy's Way of No Flesh: Abstinence, Vegetarianism and Christian Physiology. In Musya Glants, Joyce Toomre (1997). Food in Russian History and Culture. Indiana University Press. pp. 99-100. ISBN 0-253-33252-4 ^ Portmess, Lisa (1999). Ethical Vegetarianism: From Pythagoras to Peter Singer. State University of New York Press. p. 97. ISBN 0-7914-4043-5 ^ Satchidananda, Swami (1979). Gospel of Swami Ramdas. Praja Printers Private. p. 202 ^ Glants, Musya; Toomre, Joyce (1997). Introduction. In Food in Russian History and Culture. Indiana University Press. p. xvi. ISBN 0-253-33252-4 ^ LeBlanc, Ronald Denis (2009). Slavic Sins of the Flesh: Food, Sex, and Carnal Appetite in Nineteenth-Century Russian Fiction. University of New Hampshire Press. p. 279. ISBN 978-1-58465-767-5 ^ The last days of Tolstoy. VG Chertkov. 1922. Heinemann ^ Leo Tolstoy. EJ Simmons – 1946 – Little, Brown and Company ^ Meek, James (22 July 2010). "James Meek reviews 'The Death of Tolstoy' by William Nickell, 'The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy' translated by Cathy Porter, 'A Confession' by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Anthony Briggs and 'Anniversary Essays on Tolstoy' by Donna Tussing Orwin · LRB 22 July 2010". London Review of Books. pp. 3–8. Archived from the original on 28 March 2013. Retrieved 11 April 2013. ^ "The Last Days of Leo Tolstoy". www.linguadex.com. Archived from the original on 6 November 2018. ^ Higgs, Robert (2015). "Tolstoy's Manifesto on the State, Christian Anarchy, and Pacifism". The Independent Review. 19 (3): 471–479. ISSN 1086-1653. JSTOR 24564569. Archived from the original on 15 August 2021. Retrieved 20 April 2021. ^ a b McLean, Hugh (2008). "A Clash of Utopias". In Quest of Tolstoy. Academic Studies Press. pp. 181–194. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1zxsjx2.15. ISBN 978-1-934843-02-4. JSTOR j.ctt1zxsjx2.15. Archived from the original on 20 April 2021. Retrieved 24 November 2020. ^ Emerson, Caryl (2016). "Remarkable Tolstoy, from the Age of Empire to the Putin Era (1894–2006)". The Slavic and East European Journal. 60 (2): 252–271. doi:10.30851/60.2.007. ISSN 0037-6752. JSTOR 26633177. Archived from the original on 20 April 2021. Retrieved 20 April 2021. ^ a b Any, Carol (1990). "Boris Eikhenbaum's Unfinished Work on Tolstoy: A Dialogue with Soviet History". PMLA. 105 (2): 233–244. doi:10.2307/462559. ISSN 0030-8129. JSTOR 462559. S2CID 163911913. Archived from the original on 20 April 2021. Retrieved 20 April 2021. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Croskey, Robert M. (c. 2008). The legacy of Tolstoy :Alexandra Tolstoy and the Soviet regime in the 1920s /. Donald W. Treadgold studies on Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia. Seattle. hdl:2027/mdp.39015080856431. ISBN 978-0295988771. Archived from the original on 22 March 2024. Retrieved 20 April 2021. ^ New York Times February 15, 1987 ^ a b c d Boer, Roland (2014). "Lenin on Tolstoy: Between Imaginary Resolution and Revolutionary Christian Communism". Science & Society. 78 (1): 41–60. doi:10.1521/siso.2014.78.1.41. ISSN 0036-8237. JSTOR 24583606. Archived from the original on 20 April 2021. Retrieved 20 April 2021. ^ a b c Gray, Stuart; Hughes, Thomas M. (2015). "Gandhi's Devotional Political Thought". Philosophy East and West. 65 (2): 375–400. doi:10.1353/pew.2015.0051. ISSN 0031-8221. JSTOR 43830813. S2CID 142595907. Archived from the original on 20 April 2021. Retrieved 20 April 2021. ^ "The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Travels with Father (1996)". The A.V. Club. Archived from the original on 28 August 2023. Retrieved 28 August 2023. ^ Wallace, Irving, 'Everybody's Rover Boy', in The Sunday Gentleman. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1965. p. 117. Further reading[edit] Bayley, John (1997). Leo Tolstoy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-07463-0744-1. Bloom, Harold, ed. (2009) [2003]. Leo Tolstoy. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-14381-1328-9. Dillon, Emile Joseph (1934). Count Leo Tolstoy: A New Portrait. Hutchinson. Moulin, Daniel (2014). Leo Tolstoy. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-14725-0484-5. Rowe, William W. (1986). Leo Tolstoy. Twayne Publishers. ISBN 978-08057-6623-3. Simmons, Ernest Joseph (1946). Leo Tolstoy. Little, Brown and Company. Zorin, Andrei (2020). Leo Tolstoy. Reaktion Books. ISBN 978-17891-4256-3. Craraft, James. Two Shining Souls: Jane Addams, Leo Tolstoy, and the Quest for Global Peace (Lanham: Lexington, 2012). 179 pp. Lednicki, Waclaw (April 1947). "Tolstoy through American eyes". The Slavonic and East European Review. 25 (65). Leon, Derrick (1944). Tolstoy His Life and Work. London: Routledge. Trotsky's 1908 tribute to Leo Tolstoy Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). The Life of Tolstoy: Later years by Aylmer Maude, Dodd, Mead and Company, 1911 at Internet Archive Why We Fail as Christians by Robert Hunter, The Macmillan Company, 1919 at Wikiquote Why we fail as Christians by Robert Hunter, The Macmillan Company, 1919 at Google Books External links[edit] Leo Tolstoy at Wikipedia's sister projects Media from CommonsQuotations from WikiquoteTexts from WikisourceData from Wikidata Leo Tolstoy at Curlie Works by Leo Tolstoy in eBook form at Standard Ebooks Works by Leo Tolstoy at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Leo Tolstoy at Internet Archive Works by Leo Tolstoy at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) Leo Tolstoy at the Internet Book List Online project (readingtolstoy.ru) to create open digital version of 90 volumes of Tolstoy works Newspaper clippings about Leo Tolstoy in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW Wright, Charles Theodore Hagberg (1911). "Tolstoy, Leo" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 1053–1061. Waltz in F major (Page on Russian Wikipedia), Tolstoy's only known musical composition. vteLeo Tolstoy Bibliography Novels War and Peace (1869) Anna Karenina (1878) Resurrection (1899) Novellas Childhood (1852) Boyhood (1854) Youth (1856) Family Happiness (1859) Polikúshka (1860) The Cossacks (1863) The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886) The Kreutzer Sonata (1889) The Devil (1911) The Forged Coupon (1911) Hadji Murat (1912) Short stories "The Raid" (1852) "The Cutting of the Forest" (1855) "Sevastopol Sketches" (1855) "Recollections of a Billiard-marker" (1855) "The Snowstorm" (1856) "Two Hussars" (1856) "A Landowner's Morning" (1856) "Lucerne" (1857) "Albert" (1858) "Three Deaths" (1859) "The Porcelain Doll" (1863) "God Sees the Truth, But Waits" (1872) "The Prisoner of the Caucasus" (1872) "The Bear Hunt" (1872) "What Men Live By" (1881) "Diary of a Lunatic" (1884) "Quench the Spark" (1885) "An Old Acquaintance" (1885) "Where Love Is, God Is" (1885) "Ivan the Fool" (1885) "Evil Allures, But Good Endures" (1885) "Wisdom of Children" (1885) "The Three Hermits" (1886) "Promoting a Devil" (1886) "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" (1886) "The Grain" (1886) "Repentance" (1886) "Croesus and Fate" (1886) "Kholstomer" (1886) "The Two Brothers and the Gold" (1886) "A Lost Opportunity" (1889) "A Dialogue Among Clever People" (1892) "Walk in the Light While There is Light" (1893) "The Coffee-House of Surat" (1893) "The Young Tsar" (1894) "Master and Man" (1895) "Too Dear!" (1897) "Work, Death, and Sickness" (1903) "Three Questions" (1903) "Alyosha the Pot" (1905) "Father Sergius" (1911) "After the Ball" (1911) Plays The Power of Darkness (1886) The First Distiller (1886) The Light Shines in the Darkness (1890) The Fruits of Enlightenment (1891) The Living Corpse (1900) The Cause of It All (1910) Non-fiction A History of Yesterday (1851) Confession (1882) The Gospel in Brief (1883) What I Believe (1884) What Is to Be Done? (1886) The Kingdom of God Is Within You (1894) What Is Art? (1897) "A Letter to a Hindu" (1908) The Inevitable Revolution (1909) A Calendar of Wisdom (1910) Unfinished The Decembrists (1884) "Posthumous Notes of the Hermit Fëdor Kuzmich" (1905) Family Sophia (wife) Alexandra (daughter) Ilya (son) Lev Lvovich (son) Tatyana (daughter) Life and legacy Yasnaya Polyana Tolstoyan movement Christian anarchism Departure of a Grand Old Man (1912 film) Lev Tolstoy and the Russia of Nicholas II (1928 documentary) Lev Tolstoy (1984 film) The Last Station (1990 novel) 2009 film) Story of One Appointment (2018 film) A Couple (2022 film) Honors Tolstoy Farm Tolstoj quadrangle crater Related The Triumph of the Farmer or Industry and Parasitism (1888) Vladimir Chertkov Aylmer and Louise Maude Translators of Tolstoy Tolstoy scholars Category Associated subjects vteLeo Tolstoy's War and Peace (1869)Fictional characters Pierre Bezukhov Andrei Bolkonsky Natasha Rostova Marya Bolkonskaya Nikolai Rostov Hélène Kuragina Sonya Anatole Kuragin Petya Rostov All characters Historical characters Napoleon Mikhail Kutuzov Barclay de Tolly Pyotr Bagration Fyodor Rostopchin Alexander I of Russia Aleksey Petrovich Yermolov Events Battle of Schöngrabern Battle of Austerlitz Treaties of Tilsit Great Comet of 1811 Battle of Borodino Fire of Moscow Battle of Krasnoi French invasion of Russia Napoleonic Wars Film War and Peace (1915) War and Peace (1956) War and Peace (1966–67 series) TV War and Peace (1972 series) War and Peace (2007 miniseries) War & Peace (2016 series) Other adaptations War and Peace (1942 opera) Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 (2012 musical) Related War and Peace (1980 board game) War and Peace: 1796–1815 (2002 video game) vteLeo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (1877)Film 1911 1914 1915 1918 1920 Love (1927) 1935 1948 1953 Panakkaari (1954) The River of Love (1960) 1961 1967 1975 1985 1997 soundtrack 2012 soundtrack Vronsky's Story (2017) TV series 1977 2000 The Beautiful Lie (2015) Volver a caer (2023) Stage 1978 opera 1992 musical 2005 ballet 2007 opera Related Android Karenina Anna Karenina principle Adaptations vteLeo Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata (1889)Films The Kreutzer Sonata (1911) The Kreutzer Sonata (1915) The Kreutzer Sonata (1920) The Kreutzer Sonata (1922) The Kreutzer Sonata (1927) The Kreutzer Sonata (1937) Celos (1946) Prelude to Madness (1948) The Kreutzer Sonata (1987) The Kreutzer Sonata (2008) Other The Kreutzer Sonata (painting) String Quartet No. 1 vteLeo Tolstoy's Resurrection (1899)Film Resurrection (1909) Resurrection (1912) A Woman's Resurrection (1915) Resurrection (1918) Resurrection (1927) Resurrection (1931 Spanish) Resurrection (1931 English) We Live Again (1934) Resurrection (1943) Resurrection (1944) Resurrection (1958) Resurrection (1960) Anantha Rathriya (1996) Opera Risurrezione (1904) Vzkriesenie (1960) Other performances Redemption (1947) (radio) Related Siberia "Katyusha's song" vteLeo Tolstoy's The Living CorpseFilms The Weakness of Man (1916) Bigamy (1922) The Living Corpse (1929) Redemption (1930) Nights of Fire (1937) The Living Corpse (1968) vteLeo Tolstoy's "Father Sergius" (1911)Films Father Sergius (1918 Russian silent) Father Serge (1945 French) Father Sergius (1978 Soviet) The Sun Also Shines at Night (1990 Italian) vteLeo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886)Films Ikiru (1952 Japanese) A Simple Death (1985 Soviet) Ivans Xtc (2000 American) The Last Step (2012 Iranian) Living (2022 British) Authority control databases International FAST ISNI VIAF National Norway Chile Spain France BnF data Argentina Catalonia Germany Italy Israel Finland Belgium United States Sweden Latvia Japan Czech Republic Australia Greece 2 Korea Romania Croatia Netherlands 2 Poland Portugal 2 Russia Vatican Academics CiNii Google Scholar Artists KulturNav MusicBrainz Musée d'Orsay ULAN People Deutsche Biographie Trove Other Historical Dictionary of Switzerland RISM SNAC 2 IdRef
CHAPTER I
"Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes. But I warn you, if you don't tell me that this means war, if you still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetrated by that Antichrist-I really believe he is Antichrist-I will have nothing more to do with you and you are no longer my friend, no longer my 'faithful slave,' as you call yourself! But how do you do? I see I have frightened you-sit down and tell me all the news."
It was in July, 1805, and the speaker was the well-known Anna Pávlovna Schérer, maid of honor and favorite of the Empress Márya Fëdorovna. With these words she greeted Prince Vasíli Kurágin, a man of high rank and importance, who was the first to arrive at her reception. Anna Pávlovna had had a cough for some days. She was, as she said, suffering from la grippe; grippe being then a new word in St. Petersburg, used only by the elite.
All her invitations without exception, written in French, and delivered by a scarlet-liveried footman that morning, ran as follows:
"If you have nothing better to do, Count (or Prince), and if the prospect of spending an evening with a poor invalid is not too terrible, I shall be very charmed to see you tonight between 7 and 10-Annette Schérer."
"Heavens! what a virulent attack!" replied the prince, not in the least disconcerted by this reception. He had just entered, wearing an embroidered court uniform, knee breeches, and shoes, and had stars on his breast and a serene expression on his flat face. He spoke in that refined French in which our grandfathers not only spoke but thought, and with the gentle, patronizing intonation natural to a man of importance who had grown old in society and at court. He went up to Anna Pávlovna, kissed her hand, presenting to her his bald, scented, and shining head, and complacently seated himself on the sofa.
"First of all, dear friend, tell me how you are. Set your friend's mind at rest," said he without altering his tone, beneath the politeness and affected sympathy of which indifference and even irony could be discerned.
"Can one be well while suffering morally? Can one be calm in times like these if one has any feeling?" said Anna Pávlovna. "You are staying the whole evening, I hope?"
"And the fete at the English ambassador's? Today is Wednesday. I must put in an appearance there," said the prince. "My daughter is coming for me to take me there."
"I thought today's fete had been canceled. I confess all these festivities and fireworks are becoming wearisome."
"If they had known that you wished it, the entertainment would have been put off," said the prince, who, like a wound-up clock, by force of habit said things he did not even wish to be believed.
"Don't tease! Well, and what has been decided about Novosíltsev's dispatch? You know everything." "What can one say about it?" replied the prince in a cold, listless tone. "What has been decided? They have decided that Buonaparte has burnt his boats, and I believe that we are ready to burn ours."
Prince Vasíli always spoke languidly, like an actor repeating a stale part. Anna Pávlovna Schérer on the contrary, despite her forty years, overflowed with animation and impulsiveness. To be an enthusiast had become her social vocation and, sometimes even when she did not feel like it, she became enthusiastic in order not to disappoint the expectations of those who knew her. The subdued smile which, though it did not suit her faded features, always played round her lips expressed, as in a spoiled child, a continual consciousness of her charming defect, which she neither wished, nor could, nor considered it necessary, to correct.
In the midst of a conversation on political matters Anna Pávlovna burst out: "Oh, don't speak to me of Austria. Perhaps I don't understand things, but Austria never has wished, and does not wish, for war. She is betraying us! Russia alone must save Europe. Our gracious sovereign recognizes his high vocation and will be true to it. That is the one thing I have faith in! Our good and wonderful sovereign has to perform the noblest role on earth, and he is so virtuous and noble that God will not forsake him. He will fulfill his vocation and crush the hydra of revolution, which has become more terrible than ever in the person of this murderer and villain! We alone must avenge the blood of the just one.... Whom, I ask you, can we rely on?... England with her commercial spirit will not and cannot understand the Emperor Alexander's loftiness of soul. She has refused to evacuate Malta. She wanted to find, and still seeks, some secret motive in our actions. What answer did Novosíltsev get? None. The English have not understood and cannot understand the self-abnegation of our Emperor who wants nothing for himself, but only desires the good of mankind. And what have they promised? Nothing! And what little they have promised they will not perform! Prussia has always declared that Buonaparte is invincible, and that all Europe is powerless before him.... And I don't believe a word that Hardenburg says, or Haugwitz either. This famous Prussian neutrality is just a trap. I have faith only in God and the lofty destiny of our adored monarch. He will save Europe!"
She suddenly paused, smiling at her own impetuosity. "I think," said the prince with a smile, "that if you had been sent instead of our dear Wintzingerode you would have captured the King of Prussia's consent by assault. You are so eloquent. Will you give me a cup of tea?"
"In a moment. À propos," she added, becoming calm again, "I am expecting two very interesting men tonight, le Vicomte de Mortemart, who is connected with the Montmorencys through the Rohans, one of the best French families. He is one of the genuine émigrés, the good ones. And also the Abbé Morio. Do you know that profound thinker? He has been received by the Emperor. Had you heard?"
"I shall be delighted to meet them," said the prince. "But tell me," he added with studied carelessness as if it had only just occurred to him, though the question he was about to ask was the chief motive of his visit, "is it true that the Dowager Empress wants Baron Funke to be appointed first secretary at Vienna? The baron by all accounts is a poor creature."
Prince Vasíli wished to obtain this post for his son, but others were trying through the Dowager Empress Márya Fëdorovna to secure it for the baron.
Anna Pávlovna almost closed her eyes to indicate that neither she nor anyone else had a right to criticize what the Empress desired or was pleased with.
"Baron Funke has been recommended to the Dowager Empress by her sister," was all she said, in a dry and mournful tone.
As she named the Empress, Anna Pávlovna's face suddenly assumed an expression of profound and sincere devotion and respect mingled with sadness, and this occurred every time she mentioned her illustrious patroness. She added that Her Majesty had deigned to show Baron Funke beaucoup d'estime, and again her face clouded over with sadness.
The prince was silent and looked indifferent. But, with the womanly and courtierlike quickness and tact habitual to her, Anna Pávlovna wished both to rebuke him (for daring to speak as he had done of a man recommended to the Empress) and at the same time to console him, so she said:
"Now about your family. Do you know that since your daughter came out everyone has been enraptured by her? They say she is amazingly beautiful."
The prince bowed to signify his respect and gratitude. "I often think," she continued after a short pause, drawing nearer to the prince and smiling amiably at him as if to show that political and social topics were ended and the time had come for intimate conversation-"I often think how unfairly sometimes the joys of life are distributed. Why has fate given you two such splendid children? I don't speak of Anatole, your youngest. I don't like him," she added in a tone admitting of no rejoinder and raising her eyebrows. "Two such charming children. And really you appreciate them less than anyone, and so you don't deserve to have them."
And she smiled her ecstatic smile. "I can't help it," said the prince. "Lavater would have said I lack the bump of paternity." "Don't joke; I mean to have a serious talk with you. Do you know I am dissatisfied with your younger son? Between ourselves" (and her face assumed its melancholy expression), "he was mentioned at Her Majesty's and you were pitied...."
The prince answered nothing, but she looked at him significantly, awaiting a reply. He frowned. "What would you have me do?" he said at last. "You know I did all a father could for their education, and they have both turned out fools. Hippolyte is at least a quiet fool, but Anatole is an active one. That is the only difference between them." He said this smiling in a way more natural and animated than usual, so that the wrinkles round his mouth very clearly revealed something unexpectedly coarse and unpleasant.
"And why are children born to such men as you? If you were not a father there would be nothing I could reproach you with," said Anna Pávlovna, looking up pensively.
"I am your faithful slave and to you alone I can confess that my children are the bane of my life. It is the cross I have to bear. That is how I explain it to myself. It can't be helped!"
He said no more, but expressed his resignation to cruel fate by a gesture. Anna Pávlovna meditated. "Have you never thought of marrying your prodigal son Anatole?" she asked. "They say old maids have a mania for matchmaking, and though I don't feel that weakness in myself as yet, I know a little person who is very unhappy with her father. She is a relation of yours, Princess Mary Bolkónskaya."
Prince Vasíli did not reply, though, with the quickness of memory and perception befitting a man of the world, he indicated by a movement of the head that he was considering this information.
"Do you know," he said at last, evidently unable to check the sad current of his thoughts, "that Anatole is costing me forty thousand rubles a year? And," he went on after a pause, "what will it be in five years, if he goes on like this?" Presently he added: "That's what we fathers have to put up with.... Is this princess of yours rich?"
"Her father is very rich and stingy. He lives in the country. He is the well-known Prince Bolkónski who had to retire from the army under the late Emperor, and was nicknamed 'the King of Prussia.' He is very clever but eccentric, and a bore. The poor girl is very unhappy. She has a brother; I think you know him, he married Lise Meinen lately. He is an aide-de-camp of Kutúzov's and will be here tonight."
"Listen, dear Annette," said the prince, suddenly taking Anna Pávlovna's hand and for some reason drawing it downwards. "Arrange that affair for me and I shall always be your most devoted slave-slafe with an f, as a village elder of mine writes in his reports. She is rich and of good family and that's all I want."
And with the familiarity and easy grace peculiar to him, he raised the maid of honor's hand to his lips, kissed it, and swung it to and fro as he lay back in his armchair, looking in another direction.
"Attendez," said Anna Pávlovna, reflecting, "I'll speak to Lise, young Bolkónski's wife, this very evening, and perhaps the thing can be arranged. It shall be on your family's behalf that I'll start my apprenticeship as old maid."
CHAPTER II
Anna Pávlovna's drawing room was gradually filling. The highest Petersburg society was assembled there: people differing widely in age and character but alike in the social circle to which they belonged. Prince Vasíli's daughter, the beautiful Hélène, came to take her father to the ambassador's entertainment; she wore a ball dress and her badge as maid of honor. The youthful little Princess Bolkónskaya, known as la femme la plus séduisante de Pétersbourg, * was also there. She had been married during the previous winter, and being pregnant did not go to any large gatherings, but only to small receptions. Prince Vasíli's son, Hippolyte, had come with Mortemart, whom he introduced. The Abbé Morio and many others had also come.
* The most fascinating woman in Petersburg. To each new arrival Anna Pávlovna said, "You have not yet seen my aunt," or "You do not know my aunt?" and very gravely conducted him or her to a little old lady, wearing large bows of ribbon in her cap, who had come sailing in from another room as soon as the guests began to arrive; and slowly turning her eyes from the visitor to her aunt, Anna Pávlovna mentioned each one's name and then left them.
Each visitor performed the ceremony of greeting this old aunt whom not one of them knew, not one of them wanted to know, and not one of them cared about; Anna Pávlovna observed these greetings with mournful and solemn interest and silent approval. The aunt spoke to each of them in the same words, about their health and her own, and the health of Her Majesty, "who, thank God, was better today." And each visitor, though politeness prevented his showing impatience, left the old woman with a sense of relief at having performed a vexatious duty and did not return to her the whole evening.
The young Princess Bolkónskaya had brought some work in a gold-embroidered velvet bag. Her pretty little upper lip, on which a delicate dark down was just perceptible, was too short for her teeth, but it lifted all the more sweetly, and was especially charming when she occasionally drew it down to meet the lower lip. As is always the case with a thoroughly attractive woman, her defect-the shortness of her upper lip and her half-open mouth-seemed to be her own special and peculiar form of beauty. Everyone brightened at the sight of this pretty young woman, so soon to become a mother, so full of life and health, and carrying her burden so lightly. Old men and dull dispirited young ones who looked at her, after being in her company and talking to her a little while, felt as if they too were becoming, like her, full of life and health. All who talked to her, and at each word saw her bright smile and the constant gleam of her white teeth, thought that they were in a specially amiable mood that day.
The little princess went round the table with quick, short, swaying steps, her workbag on her arm, and gaily spreading out her dress sat down on a sofa near the silver samovar, as if all she was doing was a pleasure to herself and to all around her. "I have brought my work," said she in French, displaying her bag and addressing all present. "Mind, Annette, I hope you have not played a wicked trick on me," she added, turning to her hostess. "You wrote that it was to be quite a small reception, and just see how badly I am dressed." And she spread out her arms to show her short-waisted, lace-trimmed, dainty gray dress, girdled with a broad ribbon just below the breast.
"Soyez tranquille, Lise, you will always be prettier than anyone else," replied Anna Pávlovna. "You know," said the princess in the same tone of voice and still in French, turning to a general, "my husband is deserting me? He is going to get himself killed. Tell me what this wretched war is for?" she added, addressing Prince Vasíli, and without waiting for an answer she turned to speak to his daughter, the beautiful Hélène.
"What a delightful woman this little princess is!" said Prince Vasíli to Anna Pávlovna. One of the next arrivals was a stout, heavily built young man with close-cropped hair, spectacles, the light-colored breeches fashionable at that time, a very high ruffle, and a brown dress coat. This stout young man was an illegitimate son of Count Bezúkhov, a well-known grandee of Catherine's time who now lay dying in Moscow. The young man had not yet entered either the military or civil service, as he had only just returned from abroad where he had been educated, and this was his first appearance in society. Anna Pávlovna greeted him with the nod she accorded to the lowest hierarchy in her drawing room. But in spite of this lowest-grade greeting, a look of anxiety and fear, as at the sight of something too large and unsuited to the place, came over her face when she saw Pierre enter. Though he was certainly rather bigger than the other men in the room, her anxiety could only have reference to the clever though shy, but observant and natural, expression which distinguished him from everyone else in that drawing room.
"It is very good of you, Monsieur Pierre, to come and visit a poor invalid," said Anna Pávlovna, exchanging an alarmed glance with her aunt as she conducted him to her. Pierre murmured something unintelligible, and continued to look round as if in search of something. On his way to the aunt he bowed to the little princess with a pleased smile, as to an intimate acquaintance.
Anna Pávlovna's alarm was justified, for Pierre turned away from the aunt without waiting to hear her speech about Her Majesty's health. Anna Pávlovna in dismay detained him with the words: "Do you know the Abbé Morio? He is a most interesting man."
"Yes, I have heard of his scheme for perpetual peace, and it is very interesting but hardly feasible." "You think so?" rejoined Anna Pávlovna in order to say something and get away to attend to her duties as hostess. But Pierre now committed a reverse act of impoliteness. First he had left a lady before she had finished speaking to him, and now he continued to speak to another who wished to get away. With his head bent, and his big feet spread apart, he began explaining his reasons for thinking the abbé's plan chimerical.
"We will talk of it later," said Anna Pávlovna with a smile. And having got rid of this young man who did not know how to behave, she resumed her duties as hostess and continued to listen and watch, ready to help at any point where the conversation might happen to flag. As the foreman of a spinning mill, when he has set the hands to work, goes round and notices here a spindle that has stopped or there one that creaks or makes more noise than it should, and hastens to check the machine or set it in proper motion, so Anna Pávlovna moved about her drawing room, approaching now a silent, now a too-noisy group, and by a word or slight rearrangement kept the conversational machine in steady, proper, and regular motion. But amid these cares her anxiety about Pierre was evident. She kept an anxious watch on him when he approached the group round Mortemart to listen to what was being said there, and again when he passed to another group whose center was the abbé.
Pierre had been educated abroad, and this reception at Anna Pávlovna's was the first he had attended in Russia. He knew that all the intellectual lights of Petersburg were gathered there and, like a child in a toyshop, did not know which way to look, afraid of missing any clever conversation that was to be heard. Seeing the self-confident and refined expression on the faces of those present he was always expecting to hear something very profound. At last he came up to Morio. Here the conversation seemed interesting and he stood waiting for an opportunity to express his own views, as young people are fond of doing.

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Word Lists:

Fen : a low and marshy or frequently flooded area of land

Host : a person who receives or entertains other people as guests

Villain : (in a film, novel, or play) a character whose evil actions or motives are important to the plot

Mar : impair the appearance of; disfigure

Bald : having a scalp wholly or partly lacking hair

Lease : a contract by which one party conveys land, property, services, etc. to another for a specified time, usually in return for a periodic payment

Mine : used to refer to a thing or things belonging to or associated with the speaker

Shy : being reserved or having or showing nervousness or timidity in the company of other people

Village : a group of houses and associated buildings, larger than a hamlet and smaller than a town, situated in a rural area.

Stout : (of a person) somewhat fat or of heavy build

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Additional Information:

Rating: B Words in the Passage: 3517 Unique Words: 1,067 Sentences: 197
Noun: 1124 Conjunction: 331 Adverb: 199 Interjection: 4
Adjective: 265 Pronoun: 428 Verb: 652 Preposition: 370
Letter Count: 15,431 Sentiment: Positive / Positive / Positive Tone: Neutral (Slightly Conversational) Difficult Words: 660
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