In November 1910, Count Lev Tolstoy died at a remote Russian railway station attended by the world's media. He was eighty-two years old and had lived a remarkable and long life during one of the most turbulent periods of Russian history. Born into a privileged aristocratic family, he seemed set to join the ranks of degenerate Russian noblemen, but fighting in the Crimean war alongside rank and file soldiers opened his eyes to Russia's social problems and he threw himself into teaching the peasantry to read and write. After his marriage he wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina, both regarded as two of the greatest novels in world literature. Rosamund Bartlett's exceptional biography of this brilliant, maddening and contrary man draws on key Russian sources, including the many fascinating new materials which have been published about Tolstoy and his legacy since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
TOLSTOY
ALSO BY ROSAMUND BARTLETT
CO-AUTHORED
EDITED AND CO-EDITED
TRANSLATED AND EDITED
Anton Chekhov,
Anton Chekhov,
Anton Chekhov,
Leo Tolstoy,
TOLSTOY
A RUSSIAN LIFE
Rosamund Bartlett
First published in Great Britain in 2010 by
PROFILE BOOKS LTD
3A Exmouth House
Pine Street
London EC1R 0JH
This eBook edition published in 2010
Copyright © Rosamund Bartlett, 2010
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
eISBN 978 1 84765 283 6
for Lucy
CONTENTS
1 Ancestors: The Tolstoys and the Volkonskys
2 Aristocratic Childhood
3 Orphanhood
4 Youth
5 Landowner, Gambler, Officer, Writer
6 Literary Duellist and Repentant Nobleman
7 Husband, Beekeeper and Epic Poet
8 Student, Teacher, Father
9 Novelist
10 Pilgrim, Nihilist, Muzhik
11 Sectarian, Anarchist, Holy Fool
12 Elder, Apostate and Tsar
Epilogue: Patriarch of the Bolsheviks
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
1854
Receives his commission and transfers to Bucharest, then the Crimea
1855
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
1871
Buys an estate in Samara province
1872
Publishes
1873
Starts writing
1875
Publication of the
1877
Becomes devout – visits Optina Pustyn Monastery
1878
Reconciliation with Turgenev; meetings with sectarians in Samara
1879
Renounces the Orthodox faith
1880
1881
Appeals to Tsar to exercise clemency after the assassination of Alexander II
Family moves to Moscow for the winter months
1882
1883
Meets Vladimir Chertkov;
1885
Sonya takes over the publication of Tolstoy’s earlier fiction First English translations of
1886
First English translations of
1887
1888
The Tolstoys’ last child, Ivan, is born First grandchild is born (to Ilya and his wife Sofya)
1889
