Tolstoy
Authors: Rosamund Bartlett
Table of Contents
Map: The Western Russian Empire in the Reign of Nicholas I
1. ANCESTORS: THE TOLSTOYS AND THE VOLKONSKYS
5. LANDOWNER, GAMBLER, OFFICER, WRITER
6. LITERARY DUELLIST AND REPENTANT NOBLEMAN
7. HUSBAND, BEEKEEPER, AND EPIC POET
11. SECTARIAN, ANARCHIST, HOLY FOOL
First U.S. edition
Copyright © 2011 by Rosamund Bartlett
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,
write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company,
215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003
First published in Great Britain in 2010 by Profile Books Ltd
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bartlett, Rosamund.
Tolstoy : a Russian life / Rosamund Bartlett.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
978-0-15-101438-5
1. Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828–1910. 2. Authors, Russian—9th century—Biography. I. Title.
PG
3385.
B
37 2011
891.73'3—c22
[
B
]
2010050015
Printed in the United States of America
DOC
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
for Lucy
Chronology
| 1828 | Born at Yasnaya Polyana, Tula Province |
| 1830 | Death of Tolstoy's mother |
| 1837 | Father dies shortly after family moves to Moscow |
| 1841 | The five Tolstoy children move to Kazan |
| 1844 | Becomes a student at Kazan University |
| 1847 | Starts writing a diary and returns to Yasnaya Polyana without finishing his degree when he comes into his inheritance |
| 1851 | Travels to the Caucasus with his brother Nikolay and joins the army |
| 1852 | Childhood is published |
| 1854 | Receives his commission and transfers to Bucharest, then the Crimea |
| 1855 | Sebastopol in December greeted with wide acclaim; arrives in St Petersburg and meets Turgenev and other writers for the first time |
| 1856 | Death of brother Dmitry; retires from the army |
| 1857 | First visit to Western Europe |
| 1859 | Opens school at Yasnaya Polyana for the peasants |
| 1860 | Second visit to Western Europe, to study pedagogy; death of brother Nikolay |
| 1861 | Appointed Justice of the Peace after serfs are emancipated; opens more schools and founds an educational journal |
| 1862 | Yasnaya Polyana raided by the secret police while Tolstoy is in Samara; marries Sofya Bers |
| 1863 | Starts writing War and Peace (completed 1869); birth of first child — son Sergey |
| 1871 | Buys an estate in Samara province |
| 1872 | Publishes ABC book and re-opens Yasnaya Polyana school briefly |
| 1873 | Starts writing Anna Karenina (completed 1877) 1875 Publication of the New ABC |
| 1877 | Becomes devout — visits Optina Pustyn Monastery |
| 1878 | Reconciliation with Turgenev; meetings with sectarians in Samara |
| 1879 | Renounces the Orthodox faith |
| 1880 | Confession (circulates in samizdat in 1882) |
| 1881 | Appeals to Tsar to exercise clemency after the assassination of Alexander II |
| Union and Translation of the Four Gospels | |
| Family moves to Moscow for the winter months | |
| 1882 | Investigation of Dogmatic Theology (published in 1891) |
| What I Believe (circulates in samizdat in 1884) | |
| 1883 | Meets Vladimir Chertkov; Gospel in Brief published in France |
| 1885 | Sonya takes over the publication of Tolstoy's earlier fiction |
| First English translations of Confession, What I Believe | |
| 1886 | What Then Must We Do?; The Death of Ivan Ilych ; The Powers of Darkness |
| First English translations of War and Peace and Anna Karenina | |
| 1887 | On Life (first publication in French in 1889) |
| 1888 | The Tolstoys' last child, Ivan, is born |
| First grandchild is born (to Ilya and his wife Sofya) | |
| 1889 | The Kreutzer Sonata — circulates immediately in samizdat Tolstoy's sister Masha becomes a nun |
| 1890 | Sonya obtains permission to publish The Kreutzer Sonata after an audience with Alexander III; Tolstoy is anathematised |
| 1891 | Renounces copyright and divides property among his wife and children. By now vegetarian, teetotal; no longer smokes or hunts |
| 1892 | Famine relief in Ryazan province |
| 1893 | The Kingdom of God is Within You — immediately published in translation |
| 1894 | Death of first Tolstoyan 'martyr'; meets first Dukhobors |
| 1895 | Death of Ivan Tolstoy before his seventh birthday; Tolstoy takes up cycling |
| 1896 | First Tolstoyan colony established in England |
| 1897 | Chertkov exiled to England; founds press to publish Tolstoy's writings |
| 1898 | What is Art? |
| 1899 | Resurrection - royalties pay for Dukhobors to emigrate to Canada |
| 1901 | Excommunicated |
| 1902 | Recovers from serious illness in the Crimea 1904 Death of brother Sergey i906 Chertkov allowed to return from exile |
| 1908 | 'I Cannot Be Silent!' |
| 1910 | Death at Astapovo railway station |
Bers Family Tree
Note on Conventions
A simplified transliteration system has been used in the body of the text (e.g. 'Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy'), but a more accurate one in the notes and bibliography (e.g. 'Petr Andreevich Tolstoi'). Exceptions are made in the case of accepted spellings such as 'Potemkin' (pronounced 'Potyomkin'), 'Tchaikovsky' and 'Bolshoi Theatre'.
Russian dates before 1918 are given according to the Julian calendar, which was twelve days behind the Gregorian calendar in the nineteenth century, and thirteen days behind in the twentieth century.
Introduction
IN JANUARY
1895, deep in the heart of the Russian winter, Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy left Moscow to go and spend a few days with some old friends at their country estate. He had just experienced another fracas with his wife over the publication of a new story, he felt suffocated in the city, and he wanted to clear his head by putting on his old leather coat and fur hat and going for some long walks in the clear, frosty air, far away from people and buildings. His hosts had taken care to clear the paths on their property, but Tolstoy did not like walking on well-ordered paths. Even in his late sixties he preferred tramping in the wilds, so he invariably ventured out past the garden fence and strode off into the deep snow, in whichever direction his gaze took him. Some of the younger members of the household had the idea of following in his footsteps one evening, but they soon had to give up when they saw how great was the distance between the holes left in the soft snow by his felt boots.
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