Tolstoy полностью

Tolstoy was by this point bored with regimental life in the Caucasus, dissatisfied with himself and longing for a change of scenery, so before he returned to Starogladkovskaya in October, he applied to be transferred to active duty in the war against Turkey. In January 1854, when his request was granted and he was finally promoted to full officer class as an ensign, he decided to travel to his new regiment in Bucharest via Yasnaya Polyana, a detour of over 600 miles. February was an ecstatic month for Tolstoy. He was overjoyed to see Yasnaya Polyana again, and be reunited with his beloved Aunt Toinette. He went to see his sister Masha at Pokrovskoye, and his brother Dmitry at Shcherbachevka, and in Moscow the four Tolstoy brothers posed for a photograph. It was the last time they would ever be together. The visit was over all too soon. On 3 March Tolstoy set off to join his new artillery brigade, travelling via Kursk, Poltava and Kishinyov before finally arriving in Bucharest ten days later, shortly before France and Britain declared war on Russia.

The Crimean War ostensibly blew up over access to the holy sites in Palestine, but was really about Russia’s expansionist ambitions, and the threat that they represented to French and British interests. After the annexation of Georgia in 1801, and Bessarabia in 1812, Russia proceeded to defeat the Ottoman Empire in 1829, thus acquiring new powers and new territories (including part of Armenia). For the allies, it was only a matter of time before Nicholas I gained full access to the eastern Mediterranean. Hostilities between Turkey and Russia began in October 1853, most of them taking place around the mouth of the Danube. When France and Britain became involved in March 1854, and Russia was forced to withdraw from Moldavia and Wallachia, wrongly counting on Austrian support (in return for having sent in troops to quash the rebellion in Hungary in 1850), the Crimean peninsula became the main theatre of war. So Tolstoy was out of luck again, as three months after he arrived in Bucharest the main action was transferred elsewhere.

Tolstoy was pleasantly surprised by the elegance of Bucharest, and enjoyed going to the Italian opera and the French theatre when he first arrived.⁶⁴ Once he was settled, he carried on with his writing. He concentrated on revising and completing Boyhood, and then at the end of March he was posted for two weeks to Olteniţa, just north of the Danube, which had been the site of a battle with the Turks the previous November. Then came an attachment to the artillery commander General Serzhputovsky, which meant going on patrol to different parts of Moldavia, Wallachia and Bessarabia. In May Tolstoy observed the last days of the Russian siege of the Ottoman fortress town of Silistra, situated on the south side of the Danube in present-day Bulgaria. Russia needed to take Silistra in order to advance further, and huge numbers of Russian troops had been moved into the area in April when the siege had begun. Tolstoy was not actively involved in the bombardment of the town, but since he was working as an orderly, and for a sadistic superior, he often ended up in the trenches and found himself exposed to mortal danger on more than one occasion. Writing home to Aunt Toinette, he described the strangely magnificent spectacle of watching people killing each other every morning and evening. When he was not relaying orders he was stationed in the Russian camp, located in gardens belonging to Silistra’s governor, Mustafa-Pasha, which afforded grand views of the Danube and of the besieged town (particularly during the night-time bombardments). A date in June was set for the final storming of Silistra, but at two in the morning, an hour before it was due to commence, Field Marshal Pashkevich sent word that the Tsar, under pressure from Austria, had ordered a retreat. Tolstoy, along with the entire company on the Russian side, was extremely disappointed.⁶⁵