Valeria Dmitrieva, a researcher at the traveling exhibitions department of the Yasnaya Polyana museum-estate, talks about the family customs and traditions of the count’s family.

Valeria Dmitrieva

Before meeting Sofya Andreevna, Lev Nikolaevich, at that time a young writer and an enviable groom, had been trying to find a bride for several years. He was gladly received in houses where there were girls of marriageable age. He corresponded with many potential brides, looked, chose, evaluated... And then one day a happy accident brought him to the house of the Berses, with whom he was familiar. This wonderful family raised three daughters at once: the eldest Lisa, the middle Sonya and the youngest Tanya. Lisa was passionately in love with Count Tolstoy. The girl did not hide her feelings, and those around her already considered Tolstoy to be the groom of the eldest of the sisters. But Lev Nikolaevich had a different opinion.

The writer himself had tender feelings for Sonya Bers, which he hinted at in his famous message.

On the card table, the count wrote with chalk the first letters of three sentences: “V. m. and p.s. With. and. n. m.m.s. and n. With. In the With. With. l. V. n. m. and v. With. L.Z.m.v. with v. With. T". Tolstoy later wrote that his entire future life depended on this moment.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, photo from 1868

According to his plan, Sofya Andreevna was supposed to unravel the message. If he deciphers the text, then she is his destiny. And Sofya Andreevna understood what Lev Nikolaevich meant: “Your youth and need for happiness remind me too vividly of my old age and the impossibility of happiness. There is a false view in your family about me and your sister Lisa. You and your sister Tanya will protect me.” She wrote that it was providence. By the way, Tolstoy later described this moment in the novel Anna Karenina. It was with chalk on the card table that Konstantin Levin encrypted Kitty’s marriage proposal.

Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya, 1860s

Happy Lev Nikolaevich wrote a marriage proposal and sent it to the Bers. Both the girl and her parents agreed. The modest wedding took place on September 23, 1862. The couple got married in Moscow, in the Kremlin Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Immediately after the ceremony, Tolstoy asked his young wife how she wanted to continue her family life: whether to go on a honeymoon abroad, stay in Moscow with her parents, or move to Yasnaya Polyana. Sofya Andreevna replied that she immediately wanted to start a serious family life in Yasnaya Polyana. Later, the Countess often regretted her decision and how early her girlhood ended and that she never visited anywhere.

In the fall of 1862, Sofya Andreevna moved to live at her husband’s estate Yasnaya Polyana, this place became her love and her destiny. Both remember the first 20 years of their lives as very happy. Sofya Andreevna looked at her husband with adoration and admiration. He treated her with great tenderness, reverence and love. When Lev Nikolaevich left the estate on business, they always wrote letters to each other.

Lev Nikolaevich:

“I’m glad that I was entertained this day, otherwise my dear I was already feeling scared and sad for you. It’s funny to say: as soon as I left, I felt how terrible it was to leave you. - Goodbye, darling, be a good girl and write. 1865 July 27. Warrior."

“How sweet you are to me; How you are better to me, purer, more honest, dearer, dearer than anyone in the world. I look at your children's portraits and rejoice. 1867 June 18. Moscow."

Sofya Andreevna:

“Lyovochka, my dear darling, I really want to see you at this moment, and again drink tea together under the windows in Nikolskoye, and run off on foot to Alexandrovka and again live our sweet life at home. Goodbye, darling, darling, I kiss you warmly. Write and take care of yourself, this is my will. July 29, 1865"

“My dear Lyovochka, I survived a whole day without you, and with such a joyful heart I sit down to write to you. This is my real and greatest consolation, writing to you even about the most insignificant things. June 17, 1867"

“It’s such hard work to live in the world without you; everything is wrong, everything seems wrong and not worth it. I didn’t want to write you anything like that, but it just happened. And everything is so cramped, so petty, something better is needed, and this best is only you, and you are forever alone. September 4, 1869"

The fat people loved spending time with the whole big family. They were great inventors, and Sofya Andreevna herself managed to create a special family world with its own traditions. This was felt most of all on family holidays, as well as on Christmas, Easter, and Trinity. They were very loved in Yasnaya Polyana. The fat people went to liturgy at the parish St. Nicholas Church, located two kilometers south of the estate.

Turkey and the signature dish, Ankovsky pie, were served for the festive dinner. Sofya Andreevna brought his recipe to Yasnaya Polyana from her family, to whom the doctor and friend Professor Anke passed it on.

Tolstoy's son Ilya Lvovich recalls:

“Ever since I can remember, on all special occasions in life, on major holidays and name days, Ankovsky pie has always and invariably been served in the form of a cake. Without this, dinner would not be dinner and the celebration would not be a celebration.”

Summer at the estate turned into an endless holiday with frequent picnics, tea parties with jam and games in the fresh air. They played croquet and tennis, swam in the Funnel, and went boating. We organized musical evenings, home performances...

The Tolstoy family playing tennis. From the album of photographs of Sofia Andreevna Tolstoy

We often dined in the courtyard and drank tea on the veranda. In the 1870s, Tolstoy brought children such fun as “giant steps.” This is a large pole with ropes tied at the top, with a loop on them. One foot was inserted into the loop, the other was pushed off the ground and thus jumped. The children loved these “giant steps” so much that Sofya Andreevna recalled how difficult it was to tear them away from the fun: the children did not want to eat or sleep.

At the age of 66, Tolstoy began riding a bicycle. The whole family was worried about him, wrote letters to him so that he would leave this dangerous occupation. But the count said that he was experiencing sincere childish joy and would under no circumstances leave his bicycle. Lev Nikolaevich even learned to ride a bicycle at Manezh, and the city government gave him a ticket with permission to ride along the city streets.

Moscow city government. Ticket No. 2300, issued to Tolstoy for cycling on the streets of Moscow. 1896

In winter, the Tolstoys enthusiastically skated; Lev Nikolaevich loved this activity very much. He spent at least an hour at the skating rink, teaching his sons, and Sofya Andreevna - his daughters. Near the house in Khamovniki, I filled the skating rink myself.

Traditional home entertainment in the family: reading aloud and literary lotto. Excerpts from works were written on the cards, and you had to guess the name of the author. In his later years, Tolstoy was read an excerpt from Anna Karenina, he listened and, not recognizing his text, highly appreciated it.

The family loved to play mailbox. All week long, family members dropped pieces of paper into it with jokes, poems, or notes about what was bothering them. On Sunday, the whole family sat in a circle, opened the mailbox and read aloud. If they were humorous poems or stories, they tried to guess who could have written them. If there were personal experiences, we sorted it out. Modern families can take this experience into account, because now we talk so little to each other.

For Christmas, a Christmas tree was always put up in the Tolstoys' house. They prepared decorations for her themselves: gilded nuts, figures of animals cut out of cardboard, wooden dolls dressed in different costumes, and much more. A masquerade was held at the estate, in which Lev Nikolaevich, and Sofya Andreevna, and their children, and guests, and servants, and peasant children took part.

“On Christmas Day 1867, the Englishwoman Hannah and I were passionate about making a Christmas tree. But Lev Nikolaevich did not like either Christmas trees or any celebrations and then strictly forbade buying toys for children. But Hannah and I asked for permission to have a Christmas tree and to be allowed to buy Seryozha only a horse, and Tanya only a doll. We decided to invite both the courtyard and peasant children. For them, in addition to various sweet things, gilded nuts, gingerbread cookies and other things, we bought wooden naked skeleton dolls, and dressed them in a wide variety of costumes, to the great delight of our children... About 40 children from the courtyard and from the village gathered, and the children and I were It’s a joy to distribute everything from the Christmas tree to the kids.”

Skeleton dolls, English plum pudding (pudding doused in rum, lit while serving), masquerade are becoming an integral part of the Christmas holidays in Yasnaya Polyana.

Sofya Andreevna was mainly involved in raising children in the Tolstoy family. The children wrote that their mother spent most of the time with them, but they all respected their father very much and were quite afraid of them. His word was the last and decisive, that is, the law. The children wrote that if you needed a quarter for anything, you could go to your mother and ask. She will ask you in detail what you need, and with persuasion to spend it, she will carefully give you the money. Or you could approach your father, who would simply look straight at him, glare at him and say: “Take it on the table.” He looked so soulfully that everyone preferred to beg for money from their mother.

Lev Nikolaevich and Sofya Andreevna Tolstoy with family and guests. September 1-8, 1892

The Tolstoy family spent a lot of money on the education of their children. They all received a good primary education at home, and the boys then studied at Tula and Moscow gymnasiums, but only the eldest son, Sergei Tolstoy, graduated from the university.

The most important thing that the children in the Tolstoy family were taught was to be sincere, kind people and treat each other well.

In their marriage, Lev Nikolaevich and Sofia Andreevna had 13 children, but only eight of them survived to adulthood.

The most difficult loss for the family was the death of their last son, Vanechka. When the baby was born, Sofya Andreevna was 43 years old, Lev Nikolaevich was 59 years old.

Vanechka Tolstoy

Vanya was a real peacemaker and united the whole family with his love. Lev Nikolaevich and Sofya Andreevna loved him very much and experienced the untimely death of their youngest son, who did not live to be seven years old, from scarlet fever.

“Nature tries to give the best and, seeing that the world is not yet ready for them, takes them back...” These were the words Tolstoy said after Vanechka’s death.

In the last years of his life, Lev Nikolaevich did not feel well and often gave his relatives cause for serious concern. In January 1902, Sofya Andreevna wrote:

“My Lyovochka is dying... And I realized that my life cannot remain in me without him. I have been living with him for forty years. For everyone he is a celebrity, for me he is my whole existence, our lives went into each other, and, my God! How much guilt and remorse has accumulated... It’s all over, you can’t return it. Help, Lord! How much love and tenderness I gave him, but how much of my weaknesses upset him! Forgive me, Lord! I’m sorry, my dear, dear dear husband!”

But Tolstoy understood all his life what a treasure he had inherited. A few months before his death, in July 1910, he wrote:

“My assessment of your life with me is this: I, a depraved, deeply vicious sexually person, no longer in my first youth, married you, a pure, good, intelligent 18-year-old girl, and despite this, my dirty, vicious past, you She lived with me for almost 50 years, loving me, working a hard life, giving birth, feeding, raising, caring for children and me, not succumbing to those temptations that could so easily seize any woman in your position, strong, healthy, beautiful. But you lived in such a way that I have nothing to reproach you with.”

The State Museum of L. N. Tolstoy in Moscow houses about 26 thousand copies of photographs. The museum has not only the most complete collection of photographs of L. N. Tolstoy (about 12 thousand), but also unique photographs of persons, places, events related to the life and work of the writer.

The foundation of the museum's photographic fund was the exhibits of the Tolstoy exhibition, which opened in 1911 on a voluntary basis in the Historical Museum in Moscow. The owners of the photographs (among them K.K. Bulla, F.T. Protasevich, the company “Scherer, Nabgolts and Co.”, who photographed Tolstoy) donated them to the permanent museum of L.N. Tolstoy, which opened in 1911 in Moscow on Povarskaya Street, and in 1921 it came under the jurisdiction of the state. Based on the 1939 resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on concentration in the State. Museum of L. N. Tolstoy in Moscow with all materials related to his life and work, the photo funds were replenished with new materials from different museums of the country. Of particular value among them are photographs and negatives of S. A. Tolstoy, the writer’s wife, received by the museum from Yasnaya Polyana, the Library named after. V.I. Lenin (former Rumyantsev Museum), Historical Museum: L.N. Tolstoy could have seen them, held them in his hands, they have inscriptions and notes from members of the writer’s family.

In subsequent years, large and significant in content receipts came from the archives of V. G. Chertkov, Tolstoy’s granddaughter S. A. Tolstoy-Yesenina, the son and grandson of the writer S. L. and S. S. Tolstoy, the great-grandson of A. I. Tolstoy, acquaintances of the Tolstoy family - Kh. N. Abrikosov, P. N. Boulanger, P. A. Sergeenko, N. N. Gusev, as well as from the archives of K. S. Shokhor-Trotsky and others.

The museum's photographic Tolstoyan culture is numerous and varied. This is a whole photo chronicle of the writer’s life, which was created over 60 years - from the first daguerreotype image to the color photograph portrait made by the pioneer of color photography S. M. Prokudin-Gorsky.

Tolstoy is filmed by professionals

There are few images of the young Tolstoy. These are daguerreotypes (mirror prints on a silver-plated metal plate) of 1849 and 1854 (of the four daguerreotypes of the writer known to us, three are in our museum) and the first photographs in the modern meaning of the word, i.e. prints on paper, works by S. L. Levitsky , M. B. Tulinova, I. Zheryuze (1856, 1862). Subsequently, as photographic equipment improved and Tolstoy’s popularity grew, his photographs became more and more numerous, especially in the first decade of the twentieth century. L. N. Tolstoy was photographed by representatives of well-known photographic firms, correspondents from newspapers and magazines, members of his family, relatives, friends, acquaintances and random visitors.

In the 1870s, there were still few images of the writer. The author of “Anna Karenina” appears before us in photographs by the professional I. G. Dyagovchenko (1876) and M. M. Panov (1878-79).

In the 1880s - 90s, the company Scherer, Nabholz and Co., which photographed Tolstoy and his family for almost a quarter of a century, occupied a special place among professional photographers in the writer’s documentary iconography. Most of the photographic portraits of the writer were made on the initiative of Sofia Andreevna for the collected works of her husband that she was preparing. During these same years, many amateur photographs of Tolstoy appeared, which was associated with the simplification of photography techniques.

Tolstoy in amateur photographs

The first amateur images of the writer (with the exception of a self-photoportrait of 1862) were made by a neighbor on the estate, Prince S. S. Abamelek-Lazarev (1884), family friend M. A. Stakhovich (1887) and wife S. A. Tolstoy (1887). The first two authors created entire photo collections - portraits of Tolstoy, his family, relatives and guests of Yasnaya Polyana; Many photographs are of a genre nature, conveying the emotional atmosphere of the Yasnaya Polyana estate.

In the 1890s, in addition to the already mentioned S. S. Abameleka-Lazarev and S. A. Tolstoy, the writer was photographed by Adamson, E. S. Tomashevich, J. Stadling (Swedish journalist), P. F. Samarin, P. I Biryukov, D. I. Chetverikov, artist N. A. Kasatkin, P. V. Preobrazhensky, the son of the writer Ilya Lvovich and others. All of them captured important, significant moments of the writer’s social activity, his activities and interests: Tolstoy mowing with a Yasnaya Polyana peasant; compiles lists of starving people in Begichevka, Ryazan province; among like-minded people on a farm in Rusanov, Tula province; at the booths on Devichye Pole in Moscow...

Some authors created heartfelt portraits of the writer, such as P. I. Biryukov, others managed to convey the spontaneity of a captured moment, such as the “vertical split” of Tolstoy mounting a horse in a photograph by the artist N. A. Kasatkin.

The largest number of photographs of L.N. Tolstoy were taken in the 1900s, when instant cameras appeared. Among the authors are people close to the writer: wife Sofya Andreevna, daughters Maria and Alexandra, son Ilya; friends and acquaintances: V. G. Chertkov, D. A. Olsufiev, P. I. Biryukov, D. V. Nikitin, I. M. Bodyansky, D. A. Khiryakov, P. A. Sergeenko and many others.

In their photographs, Tolstoy appears to us in a relaxed, confidential atmosphere, with family and guests, like-minded people and acquaintances, at work and on a walk, in Yasnaya Polyana, Moscow and other places. Psychological intimate photographic portraits alternate with dynamic photographs that convey the expression of a moment or a separate scene.

The last decade of the writer's life in photographs

In 1901, in connection with the “Decree of the Holy Synod” on the fall of Count L.N. Tolstoy from the Orthodox Church, it was officially forbidden to take and distribute images of the writer, so there are few professional photographs of him from the 1900s. She continued to order portraits of her husband S. A. Tolstaya from the company “Scherer, Nabgolts and Co.” In 1903, on the 75th anniversary of L. N. Tolstoy, his son Ilya Lvovich invited his friend, professional photographer F. T. Protasevich, to Yasnaya Polyana, who took many photographs of the hero of the day, his family and guests. On the eve of the writer’s 80th birthday (1908), St. Petersburg photographer from Novoye Vremya, K. K. Bull, came to Yasnaya Polyana with his son. In two days they created an entire pre-anniversary collection, which still amazes viewers with its vital truth and technical brilliance: psychologically meaningful portraits of the writer, his family, guests, peasants, views and interiors of the estate and its surroundings.

The last professional photograph of Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana was taken by photographers from the Otto Renard company, who in 1909 came to Yasnaya together with representatives of the Gramophone company, who wanted to record the voice of the “patriarch of Russian literature.”

The chronicle of L. N. Tolstoy’s trips in 1909 and 1910 to his friend V. G. Chertkov in Krekshino near Moscow, to his daughter T. L. Sukhotina in Kochety, the writer’s last visit to Moscow in September 1909 was reflected (in addition to photographs of V. G. . Chertkov and T. Tapsel) in photographs of professional craftsmen S. G. Smirnov, A. I. Savelyev, the company “Yu. Mobius", in film footage by A. O. Drankov, J. Meyer (Pathe company). They also filmed the mourning days of November 1910 in Astapov and Yasnaya Polyana, which were also captured by professionals T. M. Morozov, F. T. Protasevich and cameramen from the company A. A. Khanzhonkov.

S. A. Tolstaya and V. G. Chertkov - creators of outstanding photo collections

The most significant collections of Tolstoy iconography are the works of the writer’s wife S. A. Tolstoy and his friend V. G. Chertkov - both in terms of the number of photographs and the variety of subjects.

Photographs by S. A. Tolstoy (about 1000 scenes) are a kind of chronicle of the last twenty years of L. N. Tolstoy’s life (1887 - 1910). Her camera recorded both important events and everyday, prosaic ones. In her photographs we see Leo Tolstoy at work, on vacation, with his family and guests, with prominent cultural figures; Other favorite subjects of her photographs are portraits of children and grandchildren, relatives, numerous guests, landscapes of her beloved Yasnaya Polyana, episodes of everyday life. Many photographs of S. A. Tolstoy’s work depict the author himself, since she took pictures with a road camera, which she mounted on a tripod.

Among the photographs, marked by a somewhat static composition, in her photo collection there are many such photographs that vividly and vividly reflect the everyday everyday life of the Yasnaya Polyana and Moscow family life, in which, according to I. Repin, “every moment was deeply interesting - as can only be Tolstykh." The collection of S. A. Tolstoy is uneven in terms of execution technique (she did not even have a special room for processing photographs), but in terms of the nature of the subjects conveying the full-blooded lifestyle of L. N. Tolstoy, the atmosphere in which he lived, it is unsurpassed.

Tolstoy's friend and like-minded person V.G. Chertkov created his photo collection (about 360 subjects) for only five years (1905 - 1910). First of all, he tried to express through photography the peculiarity and complexity of the spiritual appearance of L. N. Tolstoy. Hence his predilection for close-up portraits, for the themes “Tolstoy and Nature”, “Tolstoy and the People”, through which, in his opinion, the writer’s personality was most revealed. Few amateurs, not to mention professional photographers, had access to the same extent as Chertkov, moments when it was possible to “spy” and take a close-up shot of Tolstoy’s face during a casual conversation, alone with his thoughts, at the moment of creativity. Instant cameras made it possible for Chertkov to shoot entire series of simultaneous close-up portraits of Lev Nikolaevich. Each “tape” of such photographs (there are 10 such series in the museum) conveys Tolstoy’s face in motion, in the endless variety of his expressions. Some of Chertkov’s photographic portraits in their psychological capacity and degree of generalization can compete with even the best paintings and graphic images of the writer, delighting us with the perfection of technical execution (the photographs were developed and printed by professional T. Tapsel, specially invited by Chertkov from England).

Around Tolstoy

The value of the photographic fund is represented by a unique collection of daguerreotypes (portraits of L. N. Tolstoy, his relatives, friends and acquaintances) from 1844 to 1856. works by V. Shenfeldt, K. P. Mazer, A. Ya. Davignon, M. A. Abadi, N. A. Pashkov, and the Blumenthal brothers. All seventeen daguerreotypes have survived to this day in good condition, with the exception of the 18th, which has partially lost its image.

Among a large number of photographs of various people from L. N. Tolstoy’s circle, the museum contains photo albums of representatives of secular society from the 1850s to the 1870s. from the archives of the Chertkovs, Panins, Levashovs, Vorontsovs-Dashkovs; albums of “photo portraits of august persons and persons famous in Russia” by G. Denyer (1865).

In the “Different Places” section, noteworthy are close-up photographs of views of the Caucasus taken by photographers and topographers of the General Staff of the Caucasian Army in the 1850s - 1860s, an album of light paintings by Count Nostitz (1896) with views of Moscow and Crimea.

Photographs of persons and places associated with the life and work of L.N. Tolstoy make up about 2/3 of the total number of photographs, but no matter how large this part of the main photographic fund is, the boundaries of its expansion are limitless - Tolstoy absorbed so much, so wide and diverse were his connections.

Count Leo Tolstoy, a classic of Russian and world literature, is called a master of psychologism, the creator of the epic novel genre, an original thinker and teacher of life. The works of this brilliant writer are Russia’s greatest asset.

In August 1828, a classic of Russian literature was born on the Yasnaya Polyana estate in the Tula province. The future author of War and Peace became the fourth child in a family of eminent nobles. On his father's side, he belonged to the old family of Count Tolstoy, who served and. On the maternal side, Lev Nikolaevich is a descendant of the Ruriks. It is noteworthy that Leo Tolstoy also has a common ancestor - Admiral Ivan Mikhailovich Golovin.

Lev Nikolayevich’s mother, nee Princess Volkonskaya, died of childbed fever after the birth of her daughter. At that time, Lev was not even two years old. Seven years later, the head of the family, Count Nikolai Tolstoy, died.

Caring for the children fell on the shoulders of the writer’s aunt, T. A. Ergolskaya. Later, the second aunt, Countess A. M. Osten-Sacken, became the guardian of the orphaned children. After her death in 1840, the children moved to Kazan, to a new guardian - their father’s sister P. I. Yushkova. The aunt influenced her nephew, and the writer called his childhood in her house, which was considered the most cheerful and hospitable in the city, happy. Later, Leo Tolstoy described his impressions of life at the Yushkov estate in his story “Childhood.”

Silhouette and portrait of Leo Tolstoy's parents

The classic received his primary education at home from German and French teachers. In 1843, Leo Tolstoy entered Kazan University, choosing the Faculty of Oriental Languages. Soon, due to low academic performance, he transferred to another faculty - law. But he did not succeed here either: after two years he left the university without receiving a degree.

Lev Nikolaevich returned to Yasnaya Polyana, wanting to establish relations with the peasants in a new way. The idea failed, but the young man regularly kept a diary, loved social entertainment and became interested in music. Tolstoy listened for hours, and...

Disappointed with the life of the landowner after spending the summer in the village, 20-year-old Leo Tolstoy left the estate and moved to Moscow, and from there to St. Petersburg. The young man rushed between preparing for candidate exams at the university, studying music, carousing with cards and gypsies, and dreams of becoming either an official or a cadet in a horse guards regiment. Relatives called Lev “the most trifling fellow,” and it took years to pay off the debts he incurred.

Literature

In 1851, the writer’s brother, officer Nikolai Tolstoy, persuaded Lev to go to the Caucasus. For three years Lev Nikolaevich lived in a village on the banks of the Terek. The nature of the Caucasus and the patriarchal life of the Cossack village were later reflected in the stories “Cossacks” and “Hadji Murat”, the stories “Raid” and “Cutting the Forest”.

In the Caucasus, Leo Tolstoy composed the story “Childhood,” which he published in the magazine “Sovremennik” under the initials L.N. Soon he wrote the sequels “Adolescence” and “Youth,” combining the stories into a trilogy. The literary debut turned out to be brilliant and brought Lev Nikolaevich his first recognition.

The creative biography of Leo Tolstoy is developing rapidly: an appointment to Bucharest, a transfer to besieged Sevastopol, and command of a battery enriched the writer with impressions. From the pen of Lev Nikolaevich came the series “Sevastopol Stories”. The works of the young writer amazed critics with their bold psychological analysis. Nikolai Chernyshevsky found in them a “dialectic of the soul,” and the emperor read the essay “Sevastopol in December” and expressed admiration for Tolstoy’s talent.

In the winter of 1855, 28-year-old Leo Tolstoy arrived in St. Petersburg and entered the Sovremennik circle, where he was warmly welcomed, calling him “the great hope of Russian literature.” But over the course of a year, I got tired of the writing environment with its disputes and conflicts, readings and literary dinners. Later in Confession Tolstoy admitted:

“These people disgusted me, and I disgusted myself.”

In the fall of 1856, the young writer went to the Yasnaya Polyana estate, and in January 1857 he went abroad. Leo Tolstoy traveled around Europe for six months. Visited Germany, Italy, France and Switzerland. He returned to Moscow, and from there to Yasnaya Polyana. On the family estate, he began arranging schools for peasant children. With his participation, twenty educational institutions appeared in the vicinity of Yasnaya Polyana. In 1860, the writer traveled a lot: in Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium, he studied the pedagogical systems of European countries in order to apply what he saw in Russia.

A special niche in the work of Leo Tolstoy is occupied by fairy tales and works for children and teenagers. The writer has created hundreds of works for young readers, including good and instructive fairy tales “Kitten”, “Two Brothers”, “Hedgehog and Hare”, “Lion and Dog”.

Leo Tolstoy wrote the school textbook “ABC” to teach children writing, reading and arithmetic. The literary and pedagogical work consists of four books. The writer included instructive stories, epics, fables, as well as methodological advice for teachers. The third book includes the story “Prisoner of the Caucasus.”

Leo Tolstoy's novel "Anna Karenina"

In the 1870s, Leo Tolstoy, while continuing to teach peasant children, wrote the novel Anna Karenina, in which he contrasted two storylines: the family drama of the Karenins and the home idyll of the young landowner Levin, with whom he identified himself. The novel only at first glance seemed to be a love affair: the classic raised the problem of the meaning of existence of the “educated class”, contrasting it with the truth of peasant life. "Anna Karenina" was highly appreciated.

The turning point in the writer’s consciousness was reflected in the works written in the 1880s. Life-changing spiritual insight occupies a central place in the stories and stories. “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”, “The Kreutzer Sonata”, “Father Sergius” and the story “After the Ball” appear. The classic of Russian literature paints pictures of social inequality and castigates the idleness of the nobles.

In search of an answer to the question of the meaning of life, Leo Tolstoy turned to the Russian Orthodox Church, but even there he did not find satisfaction. The writer came to the conclusion that the Christian Church is corrupt, and under the guise of religion, priests are promoting false teaching. In 1883, Lev Nikolaevich founded the publication “Mediator,” where he outlined his spiritual beliefs and criticized the Russian Orthodox Church. For this, Tolstoy was excommunicated from the church, and the writer was monitored by the secret police.

In 1898, Leo Tolstoy wrote the novel Resurrection, which received favorable reviews from critics. But the success of the work was inferior to “Anna Karenina” and “War and Peace”.

For the last 30 years of his life, Leo Tolstoy, with his teachings on non-violent resistance to evil, was recognized as the spiritual and religious leader of Russia.

"War and Peace"

Leo Tolstoy disliked his novel War and Peace, calling the epic “wordy rubbish.” The classic writer wrote the work in the 1860s, while living with his family in Yasnaya Polyana. The first two chapters, entitled “1805,” were published by Russkiy Vestnik in 1865. Three years later, Leo Tolstoy wrote three more chapters and completed the novel, which caused heated controversy among critics.

Leo Tolstoy writes "War and Peace"

The novelist took the features of the heroes of the work, written during the years of family happiness and spiritual elation, from life. In Princess Marya Bolkonskaya, the features of Lev Nikolaevich’s mother are recognizable, her penchant for reflection, brilliant education and love of art. The writer awarded Nikolai Rostov with his father's traits - mockery, love of reading and hunting.

When writing the novel, Leo Tolstoy worked in the archives, studied the correspondence of Tolstoy and Volkonsky, Masonic manuscripts, and visited the Borodino field. His young wife helped him, copying his drafts out clean.

The novel was read avidly, striking readers with the breadth of its epic canvas and subtle psychological analysis. Leo Tolstoy characterized the work as an attempt to “write the history of the people.”

According to the calculations of literary critic Lev Anninsky, by the end of the 1970s, the works of the Russian classic were filmed 40 times abroad alone. Until 1980, the epic War and Peace was filmed four times. Directors from Europe, America and Russia have made 16 films based on the novel “Anna Karenina”, “Resurrection” has been filmed 22 times.

“War and Peace” was first filmed by director Pyotr Chardynin in 1913. The most famous film was made by a Soviet director in 1965.

Personal life

Leo Tolstoy married 18-year-old in 1862, when he was 34 years old. The count lived with his wife for 48 years, but the couple’s life can hardly be called cloudless.

Sofia Bers is the second of three daughters of the Moscow palace office doctor Andrei Bers. The family lived in the capital, but in the summer they vacationed on a Tula estate near Yasnaya Polyana. For the first time Leo Tolstoy saw his future wife as a child. Sophia was educated at home, read a lot, understood art, and graduated from Moscow University. The diary kept by Bers-Tolstaya is recognized as an example of the memoir genre.

At the beginning of his married life, Leo Tolstoy, wanting there to be no secrets between him and his wife, gave Sophia a diary to read. The shocked wife learned about her husband’s stormy youth, passion for gambling, wild life and the peasant girl Aksinya, who was expecting a child from Lev Nikolaevich.

The first-born Sergei was born in 1863. In the early 1860s, Tolstoy began writing the novel War and Peace. Sofya Andreevna helped her husband, despite her pregnancy. The woman taught and raised all the children at home. Five of the 13 children died in infancy or early childhood.

Problems in the family began after Leo Tolstoy finished working on Anna Karenina. The writer plunged into depression, expressed dissatisfaction with the life that Sofya Andreevna so diligently arranged in the family nest. The count's moral turmoil led to Lev Nikolayevich demanding that his relatives give up meat, alcohol and smoking. Tolstoy forced his wife and children to dress in peasant clothes, which he made himself, and wanted to give his acquired property to the peasants.

Sofya Andreevna made considerable efforts to dissuade her husband from the idea of ​​​​distributing goods. But the quarrel that occurred split the family: Leo Tolstoy left home. Upon returning, the writer entrusted the responsibility of rewriting drafts to his daughters.

The death of their last child, seven-year-old Vanya, briefly brought the couple closer together. But soon mutual grievances and misunderstandings alienated them completely. Sofya Andreevna found solace in music. In Moscow, a woman took lessons from a teacher for whom romantic feelings developed. Their relationship remained friendly, but the count did not forgive his wife for “half-betrayal.”

The couple's fatal quarrel occurred at the end of October 1910. Leo Tolstoy left home, leaving Sophia a farewell letter. He wrote that he loved her, but could not do otherwise.

Death

82-year-old Leo Tolstoy, accompanied by his personal doctor D.P. Makovitsky, left Yasnaya Polyana. On the way, the writer fell ill and got off the train at the Astapovo railway station. Lev Nikolaevich spent the last 7 days of his life in the stationmaster's house. The whole country followed the news about Tolstoy’s health.

The children and wife arrived at the Astapovo station, but Leo Tolstoy did not want to see anyone. The classic died on November 7, 1910: he died of pneumonia. His wife survived him by 9 years. Tolstoy was buried in Yasnaya Polyana.

Quotes by Leo Tolstoy

• Everyone wants to change humanity, but no one thinks about how to change themselves.
• Everything comes to those who know how to wait.
• All happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
• Let everyone sweep in front of his own door. If everyone does this, the whole street will be clean.
• It's easier to live without love. But without it there is no point.
• I don't have everything I love. But I love everything I have.
• The world moves forward because of those who suffer.
• The greatest truths are the simplest.
• Everyone is making plans, and no one knows whether he will survive until the evening.

Bibliography

• 1869 – “War and Peace”
• 1877 – “Anna Karenina”
• 1899 – “Resurrection”
• 1852-1857 – “Childhood”. "Adolescence". "Youth"
• 1856 – “Two Hussars”
• 1856 – “Morning of the Landowner”
• 1863 – “Cossacks”
• 1886 – “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”
• 1903 – “Notes of a Madman”
• 1889 – “Kreutzer Sonata”
• 1898 – “Father Sergius”
• 1904 – “Hadji Murat”

1888
From left to right are: Alexander Emmanuilovich Dmitriev-Mamonov (son of the artist), Misha and Maria Tolstoy, M.V. Mamonov, Madame Lambert (governess); sitting: Sasha Tolstaya, Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya, Alexander Mikhailovich Kuzminsky (husband of Tatyana Kuzminskaya), artist Nikolai Nikolaevich Ge, Andrey and Lev Tolstoy, Sasha Kuzminsky, Tatyana Andreevna Kuzminskaya (sister of Sofia Andreevna Tolstoy), Mikhail Vladimirovich Islavin, Vera Aleksandrovna Kuzminskaya, Misha Kuzminsky, Miss Chomel (governess to the Kuzminsky children); in the foreground are Vasya Kuzminsky, Lev and Tatyana Tolstoy. During 12 years of friendship with Tolstoy, Ge painted only one picturesque portrait of Tolstoy. In 1890, at the request of Sofia Andreevna Tolstoy, Ge sculpted a bust of Tolstoy - the first sculptural image of the writer, and even earlier, in 1886, he completed a series of illustrations for Tolstoy’s story “How People Live.”

August 1897
The photographs were taken at the request of Ilya Yakovlevich Ginzburg, during his stay in Yasnaya Polyana, when he was working on a full-length sculptural portrait of Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy. Using these photographs, the sculptor sculpted a figurine of the writer and then sculpted it from life, correcting what had been previously done.

Anton Chekhov at Leo Tolstoy's in Gaspra
1901

Breakfast on the terrace of a house in Gaspra
December 1901

Leo Tolstoy with his family on his 75th birthday
1903 Tula province, Krapivensky district, village. Yasnaya Polyana
From left to right are: Ilya, Lev, Alexandra and Sergei Tolstoy; sitting: Mikhail, Tatyana, Sofya Andreevna and Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, Andrey.

Leo Tolstoy with peasant children on Trinity Day. May 17, 1909

Leo Tolstoy riding Zorka
1903

Leo Tolstoy with his sister Maria Nikolaevna in Yasnaya Polyana
July 1908

Leo Tolstoy near the terrace of the Yasnaya Polyana house
May 11, 1908

Leo Tolstoy in his study at home in Yasnaya Polyana
1909

1909 Tolstoy was photographed in the music store of Yuli Genrikhovich Zimmerman on Kuznetsky Most while listening to the new musical device “Minion”, which reproduces the performance of famous pianists.

1909 In the background on the left is the grandson Ilya Andreevich Tolstoy, on the right is the son of the servant Alyosha Sidorkov. “In my presence,” recalls Valentin Fedorovich Bulgakov, “Lev Nikolaevich, at 82 years old, played gorodki with Alyosha Sidorkov... the son of the old Yasnaya Polyana servant Ilya Vasilyevich Sidorkov. There is a photograph depicting Tolstoy’s “blow”. Of course, he could no longer play for a long time and “seriously”: he just “tried his strength.”

Going to the opening of the People's Library in the village of Yasnaya Polyana: Leo Tolstoy, Alexandra Tolstaya, Chairman of the Moscow Literacy Society Pavel Dolgorukov, Tatyana Sukhotina, Varvara Feokritova, Pavel Biryukov
January 31, 1910

19 May 1910
One of the last portraits of the writer. Filmed by Vladimir Grigorievich Chertkov at a time when Tolstoy and his secretary Valentin Fedorovich Bulgakov were sorting out the mail. On the day of the shooting, May 19, 1910, Tolstoy wrote in his diary: “Taking portraits. It’s unpleasant that I can’t refuse.” Lev Nikolaevich crossed out the last line, not wanting to upset Chertkov.

On September 9, Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy turns 190 years old. Today his name is known even to those who have not read a single line of his. And everyone keeps in their head their own image of the great Leo, mainly formed in his later years.

Photo:

And this happened because in the last years of Tolstoy’s life, photographers staged a real photo hunt for him. They began to film Tolstoy at his desk, in an open field, at a meal, and even in a wheelchair (as in the photo above), as was the case in Crimea in 1901-1902. and in Yasnaya Polyana during his 80th birthday in 1908. This anniversary was widely celebrated in Russia, but Tolstoy himself did not celebrate; he became seriously ill. This photo is also interesting because here we see Tolstoy in his permanent home clothes - a simple large knitted sweater, which to this day is kept in the Yasnaya Polyana house-museum.

Photo: State Museum of L. N. Tolstoy

This photo was taken in the summer of 1905 by his student Vladimir Chertkov, when the writer was returning from swimming on the Voronka River. Here Tolstoy is all in his humility and pride. A great man is always alone on this earth. But to whom did he take his hat off? Before Russia? Before God? No, the old man just felt hot...

Photo: State Museum of L. N. Tolstoy

But in this photo, which was also taken by Chertkov, we see a formidable Leo. You can’t hide from his gaze, he sees right through you. You cannot lie, flirt, or pose in front of him. This old man will split at the first interrogation.

However, what else can you expect from the man who wrote “War and Peace”, “Anna Karenina” and “Hadji Murat”?

Photo: State Museum of L. N. Tolstoy

In this photo we see Tolstoy in the most familiar position - at his desk. He's all about work. On the wall is Raphael’s favorite “Madonna,” a lithograph given by Aunt Alexandra Andreevna Tolstaya, a maid of honor at the imperial court. On the shelf there is a long row of spines of the Brockhaus and Efron Dictionary - Wikipedia of the early twentieth century. There are different books under it, but among them are the main ones: the Bible and the Koran.

Photo: State Museum of L. N. Tolstoy

In this photo we see Tolstoy at the most inopportune moment for filming. He just eats. The photo is blurry and amateurish, but that’s what’s good about it. This is a living Tolstoy, an ordinary person. But even here it is not easy. A plate of porridge sits on a saucepan to keep it warm. However, a gravy boat... Or honey? Simple but tasteful!

Many tried to catch Leo in the camera lens in order to leave their picture for eternity. This hunt, of course, greatly irritated him.

By the way, she also became one of the reasons for the flight of the 82-year-old man from Yasnaya Polyana in the late autumn of 1910.

But what's interesting...

Photo: State Museum of L. N. Tolstoy

He was the first to “hunt” himself. This photo is probably the world's first selfie taken by a famous person. In 1862 (the year of his marriage), he bought what was then a rare invention in Russia - a camera. The device was so bulky and heavy that it had to be transported on a cart drawn by two horses; one horse could not pull the load across the Russian off-road. Tolstoy set up the “unit” himself, prepared the plate for photography (it was not an easy process) and “filmed himself” (as it is written in his hand in the left corner) using a special “pear”. “I took myself” - that is, in modern parlance, a selfie.

Here's a retrograde for you!