He devoted his entire life to Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. Tolstoy – his life, social and religious views. Literary criticism of Shakespeare's works

Tolstoy, Lev Nikolaevich(count; 1828-1910) - the most famous writer in the history of world literature. Z a famous writer who achieved something unprecedented in the history of literature in the 19th century. glory. In his face they powerfully united great artist with the great moralist.

The personal life of Leo Tolstoy - his stamina, tirelessness, responsiveness, animation in defending his ideals, his attempt to renounce the blessings of this world, to live a new, good life, based only on high, ideal goals and knowledge of the truth - all this adds to the charm of Tolstoy's name to legendary proportions.

Rich and noble family, to which he belongs, already in the time of Peter the Great occupied prominence. It is not without a peculiar interest that great-great-grandfather Pyotr Andreevich The herald of such humane ideals played a sad role in the history of Tsarevich Alexei. Great-grandson of Peter Andreevich, Ilya Andreevich, described in “War and Peace” in the person of the good-natured, impractical old Count Rostov. Son of Ilya Andreevich, Nikolai Ilyich, was the father of Lev Nikolaevich. He is depicted quite close to reality in “Childhood” and “Adolescence” in the person of Father Nikolinka and partly in “War and Peace” in the person of Nikolai Rostov. With the rank of lieutenant colonel of the Pavlograd Hussar Regiment, he took part in the war of 1812 and retired after the conclusion of peace. Having spent his youth cheerfully, Nikolai Ilyich lost a lot of money and completely upset his affairs. The passion for the game passed on to Leo Tolstoy, who, already famous writer, played recklessly.

To put his upset affairs in order, Nikolai Ilyich, like Nikolai Rostov, married the ugly and no longer very young Princess Volkonskaya. The marriage, however, was happy. They had four sons: Nikolai, Sergei, Dmitry and Lev and a daughter Maria. Besides Leo, an outstanding person there was Nikolai, whose death (abroad, in 1860) Tolstoy so amazingly described in one of his letters to Fet.

Tolstoy's maternal grandfather, Catherine's general, was brought onto the stage in War and Peace in the person of the stern, rigorist old Prince Bolkonsky. Best Features Lev Nikolaevich undoubtedly borrowed his moral character from the Volkonskys.

The writer’s mother, depicted with great accuracy in “War and Peace” in the person of Princess Marya, had a remarkable gift for storytelling, for which, with her shyness passed on to her son, she had to lock herself with the large number of listeners who gathered around her in a dark room.

In addition to the Volkonskys, Tolstoy is closely related to a number of other aristocratic families - the princes Gorchakovs, Trubetskoys and others.

Lev Nikolaevich was born on August 28, 1828 in Krapivensky district of Tula province. (15 versts from Tula), in which has now received worldwide fame mother's ancestral magnificent estate - Yasnaya Polyana.

Tolstoy was not even two years old when his mother died. A distant relative, T. A. Ergolskaya, took over the upbringing of orphaned children. In 1837, the family moved to Moscow because the eldest son had to prepare to enter the university; but soon the father suddenly died, leaving affairs in a rather disordered state, and the three youngest children again settled in Yasnaya Polyana under the supervision of T.A. Ergolskaya and paternal aunt, Countess A. M. Osten-Sacken. Here Lev Nikolaevich remained until 1840, when Count. Osten-Sacken and the children moved to Kazan, to a new guardian - their father’s sister P. I. Yushkova.

This ends the first period of Tolstoy’s life, which he described in “Childhood” with great accuracy in conveying thoughts and impressions and only with a slight change in external details. The Yushkov house, somewhat provincial in style, but typically secular, was one of the most cheerful in Kazan; All family members highly valued comme il faut and external splendor. " My good aunt,- says Leo Tolstoy - the purest being, she always said that she would like nothing more for me than for me to have a relationship with a married woman." Two the most important beginnings Tolstoy's nature - enormous pride and the desire to achieve something real, to know the truth - have now entered into a struggle.

At the same time, there was an intense internal struggle and the development of a strict moral ideal. The entire subsequent life of Leo Tolstoy is a painful struggle with the contradictions of life. If Belinsky can rightfully be called great heart, then the epithet suits Tolstoy great conscience.

Receiving Higher education he studied at the Eastern and Law faculties. He was just enrolled at the university, studying very little and receiving twos and ones in the exams. The failure of Tolstoy’s university studies is hardly a mere accident. Being one of the truly great sages in the sense of the ability to think deeply about the purpose and purpose of human life, Tolstoy at the same time lacks the ability to think scientifically, that is, to subordinate his thought to the results of research. Having dropped out of the university even before the transition exams for the 3rd year of law. faculty, Tolstoy settled in Yasnaya Polyana from the spring of 1847.

Tolstoy was very interested in Rousseau. With no one does he have so many points of contact as with the great hater of civilization and the preacher of a return to primitive simplicity. The peasants, however, did not completely capture Tolstoy; he soon left for St. Petersburg and in the spring of 1848 began taking the exam for a candidate of jurisprudence. He passed two exams, from criminal law and criminal procedure, successfully, then he got tired of studying, and he took it again and simply went to the village. Later, he visited Moscow, where he often succumbed to his inherited passion for gambling, greatly upsetting his financial affairs.

During this period of Leo Tolstoy's life. He was especially passionately interested in music (he played the piano quite well and was very fond of classical composers). A lot of time was also spent on carousing, gaming and hunting.

Soon he decided to enlist in military service, but obstacles arose in the form of a lack of necessary papers, which were difficult to obtain, and Tolstoy lived for about 5 months in complete solitude in Pyatigorsk, in a simple hut. In the fall of 1851, Tolstoy, having passed the exam in Tiflis, entered the 4th battery of the 20th artillery brigade, stationed in the Cossack village of Starogladov, on the banks of the Terek, near Kizlyar, as a cadet. In a remote village, Tolstoy found the best part of himself: he began to write and in 1852 sent the first part of the autobiographical trilogy: “Childhood” to the editors of Sovremennik.

In the Caucasus, Tolstoy, soon promoted to officer, remained for two years, participating in many skirmishes and being exposed to all the dangers of combat life in the Caucasus. He had rights and claims to the St. George Cross, but did not receive it, which apparently upset him. When the Crimean War broke out at the end of 1853, Tolstoy transferred to the Danube Army, participated in the battle of Oltenica and the siege of Silistria, and from November 1854 to the end of August 1855 he was in Sevastopol. Tolstoy also endured all the horrors, hardships and suffering that befell his heroic defenders. He lived for a long time on the terrible 4th bastion, commanded a battery in the battle of Chernaya, and was during the hellish bombardment during the assault on Malakhov Kurgan.

Tolstoy spent whole days and even nights on drinking and gambling, carousing with his gypsy friends. He was criticized for this former comrades from the writers' circle. As a result, “people became disgusted with him and he became disgusted with himself” - and at the beginning of 1857, Tolstoy left St. Petersburg without any regret and went abroad. Western Europe - Germany, France, England, Switzerland, Italy - made an unexpected impression on him, where Tolstoy spent only about 1½ years. And upon returning home, he actively began setting up schools in his Yasnaya Polyana.

Tolstoy resolutely rebelled against any regulation and discipline in school; the only method of teaching and education that he recognized was that no method was needed. Everything in teaching should be individual - both the teacher and the student, and their mutual relationships. At the Yasnaya Polyana school, the children sat, whoever wanted where they wanted, whoever wanted as much as they wanted, and whoever wanted as they wanted. There was no specific teaching program. The teacher's only job was to get the class interested. Despite this extreme pedagogical anarchism, classes went well. They were led by Tolstoy himself with the help of several regular teachers and several random ones, from his closest acquaintances and visitors.

At that time he began to experience a strong feeling for Sofya Andreevna Bers, daughter of a Moscow doctor from the Baltic Germans. He was already in his fourth decade, Sofya Andreevna was only 17 years old. Having endured a passion for Sofya Andreevna in his heart for three years, Tolstoy married her in the fall of 1862, and to his lot fell the greatest completeness of family happiness that can ever be found on earth. In his wife, he found not only his most faithful and devoted friend, but also an irreplaceable assistant in all matters, practical and literary.

Tolstoy revels in the happiness of family life. During the first 10-12 years after his marriage, he created War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

The horror was that, being in the prime of strength and health, Leo Tolstoy lost all desire to enjoy the prosperity he had achieved; he had “nothing to live for” because he could not understand the purpose and meaning of life. In the sphere of material interests, he began to say to himself: “Well, okay, you will have 6,000 dessiatines in the Samara province. - 300 heads of horses, and then? in the literary sphere: “Well, okay, you will be more famous than Gogol, Pushkin, Shakespeare, Moliere, all the writers in the world - so what!” Starting to think about raising children, he asked himself: “why?”; arguing “about how the people can achieve prosperity,” he “suddenly said to himself: what does it matter to me?” In general, he “felt that what he stood on had given way, that what he had lived on was no longer».

The natural result was suicidal thoughts. « I, a happy man, hid the cord from myself so as not to hang myself on the crossbar between the wardrobes in my room, where I was alone every day, undressing, and stopped going hunting with a gun so as not to be tempted by too easy a way to rid myself of life. I myself didn’t know what I wanted: I was afraid of life, I wanted to get away from it and, meanwhile, I still hoped for something from it." To find an answer to the questions and doubts that tormented him, Tolstoy first of all feverishly rushed into the field of theology. He began to have conversations with priests and monks, went to the elders in Optina Pustyn, read theological treatises, studied ancient Greek and Hebrew languages in order to know the original sources Christian teaching.

At the same time, he looked closely at the schismatic Old Believers, became close to the thoughtful peasant sectarian Syutaev, and talked with the Molokans and Stundists. With the same feverishness he sought the meaning of life in the study of philosophy and in becoming acquainted with the results of the exact sciences. He made a number of attempts at greater and greater simplification, striving to live a life close to nature and agricultural life. He gradually gives up whims and conveniences rich life, does a lot of physical labor, dresses in simple clothes, becomes a vegetarian, gives his entire large fortune to his family, and renounces literary property rights.

According to people who are indignant at Tolstoy for turning from an artist into a preacher, these artistic teachings, written for a specific purpose, are grossly tendentious. But everyone understood that in Tolstoy’s words there was a lofty and terrible truth..

Tolstoy directly comes to the conclusion that “ the more we give ourselves artistic beauty, the more we move away from good". Tolstoy pursues his new religious worldview, which was the fruit of many years of painful work of his deep analytical mind.The foundations of his worldview are in the doctrine of non-resistance to evil through violence, in the salvation of the world with goodness and love, in the salvation of man through personal free self-improvement, in the denial of all coercive forms of society acting by external force (state, church hierarchy, military organization and war, etc.). Tolstoy attracted a huge following in Russia

The latest fact in Tolstoy’s biography is the determination of the Holy Synod of February 20-22, 1901 “ A writer known to the whole world, we read in this definition, Russian by birth, Orthodox by baptism and upbringing, Count Tolstoy, in the seduction of his proud mind, boldly rebelled against the Lord and against His Christ and against His holy property, openly before everyone having renounced his Mother, the Orthodox Church, who fed and raised him, and dedicated his literary activity and the talent given to him from God to spread among the people teachings contrary to Christ and the Church, and to destroy in the minds and hearts of people the fatherly faith, the Orthodox faith, which established the universe, by which our ancestors lived and were saved, and by which Holy Rus' has hitherto held on and was strong . In his writings and letters, scattered in great numbers by him and his disciples all over the world, especially within our dear fatherland, he preaches, with the zeal of a fanatic, the overthrow of all the dogmas of the Orthodox Church and the very essence of the Christian faith: he rejects the personal living God, in Glorified Holy Trinity, Creator and Provider of the universe; denies the Lord Jesus Christ - the God-man, Redeemer and Savior of the world, who suffered for us for the sake of men and for our salvation and rose from the dead; denies the seedless conception according to the humanity of Christ the Lord and virginity before the Nativity and after the Nativity of the Most Pure Theotokos, Ever-Virgin Mary, does not recognize afterlife and retribution, rejects all the sacraments of the church and the grace-filled action of the Holy Spirit in them and, scolding the most sacred objects of faith of the Orthodox people, did not shudder to mock the greatest of the sacraments, the Holy Eucharist.” Due to all this, “the church does not consider him a member and cannot count him until he repents and restores his fellowship with her».

Some of Tolstoy's works written before 1905 were prohibited by censorship from being published in Russia.

On August 28, 1908, the entire civilized world celebrated the 80th anniversary of his birth, despite the position of the Russian Church.

The religious problem was always in the foreground for Count Tolstoy. Experiencing a painful mental crisis in the late seventies, Count Tolstoy turned to a thorough study historical foundations Christianity. For this purpose, he even studied the Jewish language under the guidance of the Moscow Rabbi Minor.

After re-reading many commentaries on the Bible, Tolstoy unconditionally condemned all orthodox nationalist statements and embarked on the path of broad universalism. According to Count Tolstoy, in the soul of the Russian people there is no hatred, neither religious nor tribal, towards foreigners. This hatred has been artificially instilled over centuries by short-sighted and self-serving policies.

Judeophobia, in Tolstoy’s eyes, is not faith, not political conviction, but a painful passion. Poisoned by their own poison, other maniacs of Judeophobia reach the point of wild eccentricity and savage obscurantism.

It is not economic adversity, not the regiments of enemy armies that destroy nations and countries, but the collapse inner strength, degeneration of the moral core and the pernicious infection of national intolerance - this is what sweeps away tribes and states from the face of the earth. Rome, Egypt and Babylon fell and crumbled for hatred of the peoples who inhabited their country, for hatred, like ice, cannot be a binding cement for long. Woe to that country where conquered and dispossessed peoples, doused with malice and frozen with cruelty, serve as supporting pillars of a fragile statehood.

Only deliberate slander can assert that there is spontaneous, racial enmity, ineradicable tribal discord between Jews and Christians. If others think that by oppressing the Jews they are fulfilling the irresistible dictates of fate, which for some reason doomed entire nations to suffering, then their blind habit must be contrasted with the undoubted truth, expressed in ancient times by one Jewish teacher: God does not seem to care about the food of the poor, so that we have a reason good deed get rid of the torment of the future; God allows the lack of rights of individual nationalities so that we have a reason to correct all previous sins towards foreigners through a living feat of active love of peace.

Of the ancient Jewish legends, Count Tolstoy especially appreciated the legend “ About the cry of the patriarchs"for the optimistic belief in the nearness of that time, "when peoples, having forgotten their strife, great family unite"; the story of the birth of Abraham for his immortal, captivating dream of nature rejoicing at the birth of a new spiritual leader.

The close and inextricable kinship between the religion of Israel and the moral gospel of Jesus predetermines, according to Tolstoy, the duty of true Christians to carefully guard against all temptations of intolerance towards Jews. " Jews are persecuted only for their faith - baptism entails for the most part, almost complete equalization of rights».

There is no, in Tolstoy's eyes, a more blasphemous combination of concepts than religious persecution. Religion certainly excludes hatred and persecution, because the first natural movement of the human soul, in which a religious feeling has awakened, is the consciousness of power over oneself high strength, who called him to life and wishes the good of all living things. Just as a religious soul cannot harbor a vengeful feeling towards those who persist in prejudice, so it cannot be characterized by arrogant alienation from those who seek divine truth insatiable, but seeks other ways. People who raise the sword of religious persecution are dead and have not yet been born to faith.

By creating the Jewish question, they are making a terrible mistake. In national disputes, especially in relation to dependent people, it is necessary, first of all, to eliminate all repression and all kinds of restrictions on rights. Evil can only be defeated with good. If some Jews repay active anti-Semites in the same coin, if centuries of insults and oppression accumulate vindictive feelings among the persecuted, then the Russian people, who have seen through this long-standing mistake, can only correct it with patient and unfeigned generosity.

Some of the everyday weaknesses often attributed to merchant Jewry are, according to Tolstoy's interpretation, the direct result of persecution. " To get rid of them, you need to fight persecution, not with them" The best argument in favor of the Jews are, according to Tolstoy, those incredible excesses that other people allow themselves militant anti-Semites and from the church pulpit , and from the parliamentary rostrum.

“If all the accusations against the Jews, accusations that I personally do not believe, were fair, then even then it would remain undoubted that the Jews could not do any harm to people living a Christian life” - Count Tolstoy.

– Today’s lecture is dedicated to Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. I must say that I am not at all delighted with Tolstoy’s social or religious views, and I consider them, in general, incorrect, and not even interesting. But, nevertheless, at the beginning of the course several people approached me who, as it turned out, considered Tolstoy a religious genius, a Christian beacon. And that’s why I wanted to speak a little more about Lev Nikolaevich. Still, this figure is amazing. He is, of course, a world-class writer.

By the way, in the West, in fact, only Dostoevsky and Tolstoy are known from Russian literature. They know neither Pushkin, nor Lermontov, nor Nekrasov, nor Gogol, nor Chekhov, but only Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. It seems to me because, in the perception of Westerners, Dostoevsky’s novels are, as it were, thrillers of the 19th century, they pinch the soul a little. As for Tolstoy, this is a 19th century soap opera. “War and Peace,” in fact, is perceived by modern Westerners as a serial soap opera. Westerners, in my opinion, do not see any deep searches in them.

Speaking about Tolstoy, I must immediately try to explain his essence, and I will express the three most striking aspects of his soul. Taken together, they define what Tolstoy is.

Firstly, this enormous strength Tolstoy’s selfhood, in the Christian understanding, is his, perhaps, pride, self-confidence. He is a man who did only what he wanted. But, you understand, it is very difficult to live like this, and this is associated with a lot of sorrows, sorrows, and they, naturally, did not escape Tolstoy. In general, every person, especially great person, is a tragedy, and Tolstoy is, in my opinion, a tragedy squared. Tolstoy is a very passionate person, and he always gave vent to his passions: if I want, I will do what I want, and in fact, no one can tell me. He always had his own personal opinion; there were no authorities for him at all. We'll come back to this later.

Secondly, in contrast to this, Tolstoy always strived, and sincerely strived, for the high and pure, always in the depths of his soul he wanted to resolve the most important questions of existence, the most important questions of life. He constantly improves himself, keeps a diary in which he records his spiritual and emotional experiences, downs and ups. He always wants to be honest, fair, good, and in this, in fact, he sees the purpose of his life.

And thirdly, he brilliantly knew how to embody all these thoughts and experiences in his works, in literature. In my opinion, a stronger writer than Tolstoy simply has not been born. His skill is amazing, it always surprised and delighted me, I simply read any of his work with a kind of freezing, opening my mouth. Tolstoy possessed exceptional creative power, simply phenomenal power, and he carried this power throughout his entire life. For all 82 years of his life, he did not lose it at all.

Now a little about the life, biography, family of Tolstoy. By the way, family and family connections in general have always been extremely important for Tolstoy; he is even considered a descriptive writer family values, he especially knew how to masterfully embody this side. We will simultaneously remember his relatives and the characters of War and Peace.

Mother - Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya. You should immediately remember Princess Marya, Maria Nikolaevna Bolkonskaya. He, in fact, did not change anything, only changed his surname a little. By the way, the image of Princess Marya in War and Peace is quite close to the prototype. Leo Tolstoy simply idolized his mother, but she died early, when Tolstoy was not yet three years old, and he mainly knew about her from stories, from family legends. He had an exceptionally high opinion of his mother.

By the way, my maternal grandfather, Nikolai Sergeevich Volkonsky, is old Bolkonsky, a man of Catherine’s, even Elizabethan, time, a man of strict order. Remember how he forced Princess Marya to learn algebra so that she would not be the same fool as all the other noble ladies? Actually, this is also copied from life, because Nikolai Sergeevich, in the end, retired and devoted the rest of his life to raising his daughter (in his own style, of course).

Tolstoy's father is Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy. What was Rostov's name? Nikolai Ilyich Rostov. I also changed my last name a little here. In “War and Peace,” Nikolai Rostov is a rather narrow-minded person, but, as they say, “a kind fellow,” and indeed, this is similar to his father, Nikolai Ilyich. In general, Maria Nikolaevna married Nikolai Tolstoy when she was over 30, then it was considered very late, she had completely spent too much time in girls. But the marriage was very happy. The children went: Nikolai, Sergei, Dmitry and four - Levushka, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. Last child In this happy family there was Maria, Tolstoy’s younger sister, after whose birth her mother died. Maria Nikolaevna later became a nun, at the end of her life (though she had lived stormy life- children, two husbands), she became a nun in the Shamordino monastery. It was to her that Lev Nikolaevich came in the last days of his life. The first thing he did after his famous departure was to go to her.

Tolstoy’s father also died quite early, when Tolstoy was, if I’m not mistaken, nine years old, and the whole family was raised by different teachers and educators at different times, some aunts. The last teacher lived in Kazan, that’s where everyone moved, and the children began to enter Kazan University. The older brothers entered the Faculty of Mathematics, at that time the famous mathematician Lobachevsky taught there, everyone went to him, and Levushka decided to enroll in Faculty of Philology, and he had a specialization in oriental languages. He did very well in his exams. In general, Tolstoy was exceptionally capable of languages; he learned languages ​​easily. For this he it was just necessary for one or two weeks work out. He understood the grammatical structure and learned the vocabulary. In general, throughout his life, he not only spoke French, because then all our aristocracy spoke it, but he masterfully, at the level of an Englishman, spoke English language, corresponded with the British, German at the same level. And in general, another dozen or one and a half languages ​​- he read them fluently.

But, you see, such a nature - I do what I want - studying at the university is not a very suitable activity for her, Levushka neglected his classes and failed his exams. He should have already been expelled - he left the university on his own, went to Moscow, to the family estate, Yasnaya Polyana. Yasnaya Polyana was actually my mother’s estate, the estate of Nikolai Sergeevich Volkonsky. There, the unbridled nature of young Tolstoy was fully revealed. He tried to do something, started a school for the children of the surrounding peasants, but basically he wasted his life, to be honest, playing cards and squandered a lot of money, got into debt. And his older brother Nikolai, a man very positive, whom Tolstoy always respected very much, advised him: “You know, you need to become a military man. Go somewhere south. This, in general, is your business, maybe you’ll earn money there.”

And Levushka went south and fought there with the Chechens. And then the Crimean War and the defense of Sevastopol began, he took part in the defense of Sevastopol, showed remarkable courage, and received an order. Already at that time he began to write. If in Yasnaya Polyana he didn’t know what to do, and thought: “I’ll write a novel.” The novel didn’t work out, but the story “Childhood” turned out, which he sent to Nekrasov at Sovremennik, and everyone there admired it and immediately published it. He never learned to write, but he immediately wrote so well. If you remember this story, it was written brilliantly, with exceptional talent. Then came his “Sevastopol Stories”, which made a huge impression on our public. I advise you to just read them, they are so well written.

And everyone understood this. Our sovereigns - Alexander II and Alexander III after that they read Tolstoy, they were simply delighted with his works. And at the request of Alexander II, he was not yet emperor yet, he was removed from the theater of military operations, because he was too valuable a person for Russia.

Tolstoy ends up in Moscow. There he meets the entire writing fraternity. He writes a lot of new things, although he continues to play cards and behave inappropriately. I will keep silent about Tolstoy’s “exploits”, I will only say that gossips they said that literally his children were studying at the school for peasant children that Tolstoy organized. I still think this is an exaggeration.

Tolstoy married, having already settled down a little - he was 34 years old, to an 18-year-old girl - Sofya Andreevna Bers. She was the wife of a doctor, received an excellent education, was very talented - both a musician and a writer, in general a very lively and active person. In general, love and a fairly quick wedding. Tolstoy changed: he suddenly turned into a zealous owner who began to raise the farm in Yasnaya Polyana (before that it had been completely abandoned). He decided to devote himself to writing and said that he would earn money through this work. Yasnaya Polyana is a fairly average estate; by the way, Tolstoy had more than one of them; he inherited several villages with peasants and land, all of which, except Yasnaya Polyana, he lost at cards. Yasnaya Polyana remains.

He behaved very harshly with the publishers of his works, demanding decent fees. And if Dostoevsky could hardly bargain for 150 rubles per printed sheet, being at the height of his fame, then Tolstoy managed to arrange things in such a way that for “War and Peace” he received 500 rubles per printed sheet. And you know, “War and Peace” is four thick volumes. He organized a farm in Yasnaya Polyana, it began to generate income, and he involved his wife in it, who was happy to do it all.

The relationship between Sofia Andreevna and Lev Nikolaevich in different periods were, I must say, different. First fiery sacrificial love, 13 children, by the way, eight of whom lived to a ripe old age. Sofya Andreevna helped Tolstoy in every possible way. After his marriage, Tolstoy conceived his epic War and Peace, and he wrote it in about four years. Sofya Andreevna copied his manuscripts at night all the time.

And Tolstoy was an extremely demanding author. He made very high demands on himself and his literature. And if Dostoevsky had no time all the time, he wrote in a hurry, and often could not somehow finish his works literary, Tolstoy rewrote, including “War and Peace,” several times, seven or eight times. Tolstoy’s exceptional creative ability throughout his life is amazing.

Worldwide fame. Tolstoy became a major writer after War and Peace. After several stories, the next one appears great novel- “Anna Karenina”, written with the same skill, perhaps even higher skill, than “War and Peace”.

Tolstoy was very self-critical of his writings. For example, after the publication of War and Peace, he remarked to Fet in a letter: “How happy I am that I will never write verbose rubbish like War and Peace again!” But, it’s true, he wrote a lot, and “Anna Karenina” is not a thin brochure, and “Resurrection” too. All in all, full meeting The works of Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy number 90 volumes, each volume is thick.

After Anna Karenina, something completely amazing happened: Tolstoy changed dramatically, he became interested in religious issues, and from a great writer he became a religious preacher. The second, most interesting and most tragic period of Tolstoy’s life began.

I’ll tell you a little more about Tolstoy as a writer. This was a man who did not recognize any authorities, if he was strict about his writings, especially since he was very strict about the works of other authors, so strictly that it is simply amazing. For example, Chekhov, with whom, in general, he briefly met, one might say, was friends, wrote:“What I especially admire about him is his contempt for all of us, other writers, or, better said, not contempt, but the fact that he considers all of us, other writers, to be absolutely nothing. So he sometimes praises Maupassant, Kuprin, Semenov, me. Why does he praise? Because he looks at us like children. Our stories, short stories, novels are child's play for him, and therefore he, in essence, looks at both Maupassant and Semyonov with the same eyes. Shakespeare is a different matter. This is already an adult and it irritates him that he does not write in Tolstoy’s style.” I was once very fascinated by Tolstoy and took notes on him. I had access to this 90-volume collected works. Well, I didn’t read all 90 volumes, but, nevertheless, I went crazy for several years, and I kept several notebooks of extracts.

Tolstoy about writers: “I read Goethe and see all the harmful influence of this insignificant, bourgeois-egoistic gifted person.” “I read The House of the Dead. I forgot a lot, re-read and don’t know better than books from all new literature,” he respected Dostoevsky. “I read everything by Leskov. It’s not good because it’s not true.” “I thought that the reason I liked Schiller’s The Robbers so much was that they were deeply true and faithful.”

At the end of his life, Tolstoy writes an article about Shakespeare, it is called “On Shakespeare and the Theater,” where he simply smears Shakespeare on the wall (this is probably not enough said, it’s something!). Moreover, he is a professional himself, he wrote several plays: “The Living Corpse”, “The Power of Darkness”. And he, in the course of criticizing Shakespeare, makes a lot of subtle comments about how plays should be written, what a play should be. He finds absolutely nothing of this in Shakespeare, and his conclusion is that he is a very mediocre writer. In our country, they say, a person is often greatly inflated, and it seems that he means something, but in fact his writings - they only bring harm, they are immoral. Shakespeare doesn't know how to create images. By the way, think about it - this remark is actually correct.

Let's move on to religion. I will say right away that Tolstoy actually denied all of Christianity: he denied the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus Christ, denied his atoning sacrifice, denied eternal life (for Tolstoy the soul does not have eternal life), denied church sacraments, denied devils and angels, denied the immaculate the conception of Christ, denied the fall of the first people and, in fact, the fall of the human race. Everything that distinguishes Christianity from other religions - he openly and loudly denied it all.

For Tolstoy, God has no personality, understand? This something is dissolved somewhere, somehow lives, but God is not a person. It is amazing. Therefore, from Tolstoy’s point of view, God cannot be prayed to, he cannot be loved (as a person, you understand), God can be worshiped, you can serve him. For Tolstoy, God is the master who launches a person into the world and expects him to behave well, in God’s way.

His biggest enemy in life turned out to be Orthodox Church. He is loyal to all religions - Indian religions, Buddhism - everything, everything except Orthodoxy, which he sharply, rudely criticized. I'll read something a little later. Tolstoy came to this not out of the blue, but through quite a long religious quest. He had a period when he went to church, confessed, even took communion, but all this was, you know, not horse feed. And then this hypertrophied self of Tolstoy, these doubts, these denials that he had - they turned into confidence, and then Tolstoy only confirmed the truth of his religious position. From all of Christianity, he took only moral teaching. Of course, this is a very important part, and the moral teaching of Christianity, in my opinion, is unique and different from other religions, but there are also many similarities. For Tolstoy, Christ, of course, was not any God, but he was a brilliant preacher. However, the same brilliant preachers were Confucius, Buddha, Lao Tzu.

Sometimes he added Rousseau to this cohort, whom he loved and respected very much. Tolstoy made a translation, a compilation, so to speak, of the four Gospels into one text. I threw out everything I talked about, threw out all the miracles, left only the moral teaching. For example, the beginning of the Gospel of John is “in the beginning was the Word,” that is, the Logos, Christ, the Second Hypostasis of the Trinity. But Tolstoy, taking advantage of the fact that the word “logos” is polysemantic, means “word”, “thought”, and “mind”, so he changed it so that he got it “in the beginning there was the understanding of life.” And in this spirit he retold all the Gospels.

After that, 1881 is the death of Dostoevsky, and the next year Tolstoy’s “Confession” is published: a rather large work in which he honestly and sincerely describes all the vicissitudes of his religious consciousness and formulates what he came to. In fact, Tolstoy created a new religion, so to speak, a religion for the intelligentsia, where he threw out the baby with the bathwater. Although this idea to create a new religion arose in his youth. For some reason, already in his youth, he believed that he was called to do this.

Tolstoy wrote a lot in his diaries and later in numerous religious works, which the current generation, it must be said, is completely unaware, although this O most of Tolstoy's legacy. The fact is that the 90-volume collected works, all of his great novels, fit into the first 15 volumes, maximum 20. And the remaining 70 are his religious writings, these are his diaries, these are his letters, which mostly fall on the late period.

It is often said that Tolstoy lost his gift of writing in the second part of his life. I can't agree with this. Both “What Is My Faith” and a lot of other thick books of the second period were written very talentedly. And his journalistic articles - they usually have powerful titles: “Come to your senses!”, “I can’t remain silent!”, “Shame!”, “So what should we do?” - in general, such drums - they are all very well written.

Tolstoy’s “Confession” was published in Russia, but after that it was no longer published. But Tolstoy had a student: Vladimir Grigorievich Chertkov. This is an amazing person. The son of very high-ranking parents close to the court, a man of enormous will, a dry person, a fanatic. He became acquainted with Tolstoy’s new views, admired them, became saturated with them and became, as they now say, a lifelong fan of Tolstoy, accepted Tolstoyism, in general, became holier than the Pope, was more Tolstoyan than Tolstoy himself. Chertkov, firstly, took upon himself the work of publishing everything that Tolstoy wrote. Tolstoy was quickly banned in Russia, but in London Chertkov organized an entire intermediary publishing house, which published Tolstoy’s new works in Russian and imported them into Russia. And Chertkov’s second role, a very unsightly one: he was constantly picking on Tolstoy’s brains, all the time explaining to Tolstoy that he was called by providence to create a new word in religion, to explain the truth to people. He constantly, in every conversation, inspired Tolstoy, and Tolstoy is a vain man, although after his religious revolution, it must be said, Tolstoy still changed a lot in better side, but his vanity and pride remained - he constantly convinced Tolstoy to follow the path he had chosen. This was a man, according to reviews, very unpleasant, but Tolstoy loved him, considered him his closest friend, although all of Tolstoy’s relatives - Sofya Andreevna, and his sons, who had grown up by that time, and daughters - they all did not like this Vladimir Grigorievich transferred. Just imagine, for example, a picture like this: a mosquito has landed on Chertkov’s bald head, Tolstoy is quietly approaching him from behind - bang! killed a mosquito. Chertkov’s voice: “Lev Nikolaevich! How could you, this is Living being! - that is, he is a terrible bore.

Of course, Tolstoy’s sermon impressed many, but many did not like it either. Naturally, Tolstoy had a lot of enemies, mainly from the people of the Church. Many priests and bishops read this and were surprised: how can all this be written, how did it appear in Russia? But Tolstoy seemed to get away with everything. If Chertkov was expelled from Russia, in the end, despite intercession in very high spheres, then to Tolstoy for a long time no reprisals were used. Why? Because both Alexander II and Alexander III were very fond of Tolstoy as a writer and were engrossed in his books. And in front of them it was somehow impossible to condemn Tolstoy.

Now Alexander III died - and work began in the Synod to draw up a document on Tolstoy’s excommunication. It was carried out for several years, the first version, tough enough, was written by K.P. Pobedonostsev, but after that the bishops and metropolitans who met in the Synod edited it greatly, softened it, threw out all the words like “ anathematization", "excommunication". A document called “Definition of the Holy Synod” appeared in 1901, it says: “The attempts that were made to his, that is, to Tolstoy’s, admonition were not crowned with success. Therefore, the Church does not consider him a member and cannot consider him until he repents and restores his communion with her. Therefore, testifying to his falling away from the Church, we pray together that the Lord will grant him repentance into the mind of truth.” That yes in this document no anathematization, but there is only a statement that Tolstoy separated himself from the Church with his views, his writings, that is, he “fell away” from the Church, as formulated in this “Definition.” And it turned out something a little awkward. The point is that falling away without anathematization our church canons do not recognize, and the words “ anathematization"is not in the document, so this definition itself is somewhat non-canonical and does not fit into our canons. But, nevertheless, still in its meaning and in the consequences that it had, this is, of course, excommunication from the Church.

By the way, I forgot to say that Tolstoy’s sermon was, of course, a success in Russian society and made a great impression. Moreover, it was believed that in Russia the two most famous people were considered: Leo Tolstoy and Father John of Kronstadt. Father John had exceptional authority among the people: fiery faith, a miracle worker, a wonderful person. Both of the most famous people in Russia, of course, did not like each other, but if Tolstoy still did not speak out about John of Kronstadt, although, having an amazing gift of speech, he could have spoken out very strongly, I think, then John of Kronstadt, on the contrary, was not at all embarrassed in expressions. His fiery heart could not bear this blasphemy, which Tolstoy flaunted. He called it with these expressions: “Julian the apostate”, “new Arius”, “roaring lion”, “crucifier of Christ”, “apostate”, “lordly arrogance”, “malicious liar”, “devilish word”, “rotten idol”, “evil serpent”, “ flattering fox,” “laughs at the title of the Orthodox peasant, copying it in mockery.” Tolstoy by that time began to dress in a Russian shirt and boots, but the fact is that Sofya Andreevna bought him a shirt made of the best linen, and his boots were of the best brand, and this, from the point of view of John of Kronstadt, is a parody of the real peasant clothes. Here’s another from John of Kronstadt: “Oh, how terrible you are, Leo Tolstoy, spawn of vipers!” Or just "pig". Horror! “According to the scriptures, you (that is, Tolstoy) should hang a stone around your neck and lower it into the depths of the sea. There should be no place for you on earth!” – wrote John of Kronstadt. Harsh.

And here is what Fr. wrote. John of Kronstadt a few months before his death - TO Ronstadt died in 1908, and Tolstoy died in 1910. So, he writes: “Lord, do not allow Leo Tolstoy, the heretic who surpassed all heretics, to reach the Holy Mother of God, which he blasphemed terribly and blasphemes. Take him from the ground - this stinking corpse, which stinks the whole earth with its pride.” But I don’t know how to understand this - after all, Tolstoy got tired of it with his quests, that he loudly wishes the death of this heretic.

Tolstoy reacted quite quickly to his excommunication. Firstly, he really regretted that there were no words about anathematization and excommunication, he, so to speak, wanted to really suffer. What's going on here? Neither fish nor fowl. He wrote a response to the Synod's definition, where it is very clear. Listen: “The fact that I renounced the Church, which calls itself Orthodox, is absolutely fair. I became convinced that the teaching of the Church is theoretically an insidious, harmful lie, but in practice it is a collection of the grossest superstitions and witchcraft, completely hiding the entire meaning of Christian teaching.” And Tolstoy clarified the true meaning of Christian teaching in his works: “I really renounced the Church, stopped performing its rituals and wrote in my will to my loved ones that when I die, they would not allow church ministers to see me and my dead body would be removed as quickly as possible, without any spells and prayers over it, as they remove any nasty and unnecessary thing so that it does not interfere with the living. The fact that I reject the incomprehensible trinity and the fable of the fall of the first man, the story of God born of the Virgin redeeming the human race, is absolutely fair.” That's it, do you understand?

Not so long ago, just for the centenary of this work of the Synod, Tolstoy’s descendants often gathered in Yasnaya Polyana. They have this tradition: every even-numbered year they come to Yasnaya Polyana (or odd-numbered year), many of them came, more than 200 people. And in 2001, on the centenary of the excommunication, these descendants of Tolstoy turned to our patriarch - Alexei II - with a request to make this excommunication non-existent, to cancel it. But the patriarch did not do this. I think that, indeed, after such statements there was no way he could do this.

As for Tolstoy’s social views, it seems to me that they should not even be taken seriously, but some of his thoughts, nevertheless, are remarkable in their own way and are worth noting. You know that Tolstoy was against civilization in general: against telephones, steamships, steam locomotives - people don’t need all this. But, if you look closely, Tolstoy still does not deny every civilization; he denies, as they say, bourgeois civilization, which arose along with capitalism. But he does not deny peasant civilization at all.

The state, according to Tolstoy, is violence, it should not exist. In general, one of Tolstoy’s most important religious ideas is the rejection of violence, in any form, he could not tolerate it even to a small extent. What is a state, from Tolstoy’s point of view? This is the first rapist. It constantly issues some kind of prohibitive laws, puts people in prison, wages wars, which are the greatest evil for humanity and are the apotheosis of violence. Therefore, states must simply be eliminated. Ordinary peasants do not need it, they only need to work quietly in their field and, in fact, that’s all. These, of course, are typically anarchist views, but Tolstoy calls himself stateless, he has a lot of journalism on this matter. Naturally, we couldn’t publish it.

In this regard, Tolstoy develops the theory of non-resistance. Yes, there is a lot of evil in life, but it is impossible to defeat evil with other evil. Therefore, it is under no circumstances possible to respond to evil with violence, that is, with the same evil. But what should we do? But we must accept the status of non-resistance, that is, not protest by force, but simply refuse: refuse to serve the state, from military service, and so on and so forth.

In general, it must be said that, in my opinion, Tolstoy’s deepest misfortune is that he did not feel at all the fall of man. Well, I didn’t really feel it either in myself or in others. He believed that there is a dark room in which you are now, and there is a light room next to it, so what is stopping you from moving from the dark room to the light one? For some reason he himself believed that he could transfer or had already transferred, I don’t know.

Tolstoy, in my opinion, also has something valuable - his rejection of private property. He was firm and constant in this, he wrote: “Money, property is not a Christian matter. It comes from the authorities - give it to the authorities.” According to the Gospel, there is no property, those who have it have grief, that is, it is bad for them, and “therefore, no matter what position a Christian is in, he cannot do anything else in relation to private property except not participate in violence committed in the name of property." He had a very interesting correspondence with Stolypin, this is somewhere at the level of 1906-1907. Stolypin writes to Tolstoy: “You consider evil what I consider good for Russia,” that is, property. “Nature has invested in man some innate instincts, and one of the most strong feelings This order is a sense of ownership.” This is Stolypin’s opinion, which he clearly formulated and acted in accordance with it. Tolstoy answers him: “Why, why are you ruining yourself by continuing the erroneous activities you started, which can lead to nothing but a worsening of the situation of the general and yours? You made two mistakes: first, you started to fight violence with violence,” these are the famous, so to speak, “Stolypin’s ties,” when he hanged revolutionaries after the revolution. And the second mistake is the apologetics of private property. Stolypin wanted to calm everyone down precisely by imposing property. By the way, Tolstoy also interprets the parable of the unfaithful manager, in my opinion, in this sense, absolutely correctly, as a parable against private property.

Tolstoy said many times that everything is very simple, that if you follow my advice, “if all people,” as he put it, “followed this Tolstoyism, then there would be simply paradise on earth, there would be no revolutions, no wars, people would live together.” In general, everything would be fine.

Of course, Tolstoy’s religious preaching touched many people, but compared to the entire population of Russia, it was, of course, a drop in the ocean. And Lev Nikolayevich could not even convince his family of Tolstoyanism, such an embarrassment, although he tried very hard. First of all, he could not convince his wife of Tolstoyism. She loved him very much, tried to help him, but remained a traditional Christian. She went to church, confessed, argued with Tolstoy, there were furious arguments, but, of course, she could never argue with him. She was in a very difficult situation, in my opinion. On the one hand, she is Tolstoy’s wife and seems to have to protect him, like any normal wife, which is what she did: she wrote to Nicholas II, wrote to Anthony Vadkovsky, the first person present at the Synod, so that Tolstoy’s excommunication would be lifted. And at the same time, remaining a traditional Christian, she could not accept his teaching. Tolstoy really wanted a spiritual union with his wife, but nothing worked out. As a result, their very good, wonderful relationship went downhill. Here the problems of property also came into play, which Sofya Andreevna, it must be said, loved very much, and Lev Nikolaevich changed: if in his young period he tore 500 rubles from a sheet, then later he sent out an advertisement to newspapers that he allowed all publishers to print his works for free (though, starting in 1881, this was after Anna Karenina), print his religious works. Sofya Andreevna was terribly dissatisfied with this: so there was no money, and then it floated away, all this could have been realized.

Tolstoy's children were also skeptical of their father's ideas. They often sat in Yasnaya Polyana next to Tolstoy, at one large table, and Lev Nikolaevich also often began to preach his ideas. And they, therefore, chuckled into their fists, looked away, as they noticed the guest of Tolstoy (Chertkov). Nature rests on the children of a genius: alas, this happened not only on the children of Dostoevsky, but also on the children of Tolstoy. In general, all of Tolstoy's children eventually found some place in life. The eldest, by the way, remained in Russia, became a professor at the Moscow Conservatory, he was capable of music. Others left after the revolution (or even before the revolution), somewhere in America, in Europe they somersaulted. Produced offspring. Recently, 200 people were in Moscow - all of them were sons.

Tolstoy's daughters - a slightly different conversation about them. The eldest, the first in the family, Tatyana, loved Tolstoy very much, but was not a Tolstoy. The middle one - Masha - according to reviews, was just an angel, a person of love. She idolized her father and actually became his secretary. But she died quite quickly, the Lord took her. And the youngest, Alexandra, whose fate is generally very difficult, I’ll talk about her a little later.

I won’t talk about the story of Tolstoy’s will - it’s so confusing. In the end, it turned out that Tolstoy transferred all rights to publish his works to his youngest, Alexandra, but wrote some kind of addition that, they say, there is such a good person - Vladimir Grigorievich Chertkov, and that “my works should be published after Chertkov will edit them." Actually, both of these fragments acquired legal force, the trials began there, and instantly a conflict began between Alexandra and Chertkov, each began to pull the blanket over himself. But Chertkov turned out to be stronger; in the end, he remained in Russia. Of course, he was a unique person, he somehow managed to make friends with the Bolsheviks, and, in the end, the Soviet government decided to publish the complete works of Tolstoy, these 90 volumes, and the editor of the vast majority of them was Chertkov, who died only in 1936 year. Only the last two or three volumes were published without Chertkov. Sofya Andreevna was, of course, dissatisfied with this - that’s putting it mildly. She was constantly looking for these wills of Tolstoy in order to read and destroy them, but she was unable to find them, because Tolstoy signed the will secretly, in the forest, they rode out on horseback to sign.

And the last chord, perhaps the most important in Tolstoy’s life, is his departure. Family relationships became extremely unbearable, and besides, Tolstoy felt that he was not living like Tolstoy. He wore beautiful clothes, lived in a good house, he had servants - all this weighed on him. Well, how can it be - I consider something completely different to be true, but for some reason I don’t live like that. And one day, it was in the fall, Tolstoy, taking with him only the doctor, Makovitsky (and Tolstoy was actually very afraid of death), left at night for Optina Pustyn. He stayed there for several days, even intended to go to the cell of Elder Joseph of Optina, but at the last moment he turned back. Then he left for Shamordino, where his sister Maria Nikolaevna was a monk. He told her that he would like to stay in Optina. But suddenly Alexandra Lvovna arrived - she was an ardent sweatshirt at that time, which is why Tolstoy ordered the publication of all his works to her - they had a great conversation, and after a couple of hours she took him away from Shamordino, put him on a train that was going to Rostov-on-Don -Don.

It is unclear what the plans were. Apparently, she wanted to place him in some kind of Tolstoy community, which by that time already existed in Russia in quite a large quantities. There was terrible heat and stuffiness on the train. Tolstoy went out into the vestibule to breathe - and immediately caught pneumonia. He was dropped off - Alexandra with Doctor Makovitsky - at the Astapovo station, which is now called "Lev Tolstoy". An amazing accident: the head of the station was a Tolstoyan named Ozolin. He immediately provided Tolstoy with his home, where the sick Tolstoy was laid up. A few days later, people found out that Tolstoy was there, people began to gather to be curious, Tolstoy’s fans began to arrive, Chertkov arrived, all his sons arrived, finally Sofya Andreevna arrived, Tolstoy did not allow her to be allowed in. Elder Barsanuphius of Optina arrived with a special mission. The fact is that the fact that Tolstoy was in Optina and seemed to want to talk to the elders - this reached the episcopal authorities, the Synod, and the Synod issued a secret order that if Tolstoy repented before his death, then the excommunication would be lifted from him. And with this mission, Barsanuphius Optinsky went to the Astapovo station. He tearfully asked for an audience with Tolstoy. And Tolstoy, it cannot be said that he was absolutely dying then, he was in his right mind, he lost consciousness only two hours before his death, but his relatives stood up, both Chertkov and Alexandra. So Barsanuphius was not allowed in, although he tried several times to break through to Tolstoy. Tolstoy became worse, and on December 7, 1910, he died without confession.

Here's everything about Tolstoy in a nutshell.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy- outstanding Russian prose writer, playwright and public figure. Born on August 28 (September 9), 1828 in the Yasnaya Polyana estate in the Tula region. On his mother’s side, the writer belonged to the eminent family of Princes Volkonsky, and on his father’s side, to the ancient family of Count Tolstoy. Leo Tolstoy's great-great-grandfather, grandfather and father were military men. Representatives ancient family Even under Ivan the Terrible, the Tolstoys served as governors in many cities of Rus'.

The writer’s maternal grandfather, “descendant of Rurik,” Prince Nikolai Sergeevich Volkonsky, was enlisted in military service at the age of seven. He was a participant in the Russian-Turkish war and retired with the rank of general-in-chief. The writer's paternal grandfather, Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy, served in the navy and then in the Life Guards Preobrazhensky Regiment. The writer's father, Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy, voluntarily entered military service at the age of seventeen. He participated in Patriotic War 1812, was captured by the French and was liberated by Russian troops who entered Paris after the defeat of Napoleon's army. On his mother's side, Tolstoy was related to the Pushkins. Their common ancestor was boyar I.M. Golovin, an associate of Peter I, who studied shipbuilding with him. One of his daughters is the poet's great-grandmother, the other is the great-grandmother of Tolstoy's mother. Thus, Pushkin was Tolstoy’s fourth cousin.

The writer's childhood took place in Yasnaya Polyana - an ancient family estate. Tolstoy's interest in history and literature arose in his childhood: while living in the village, he saw how the life of the working people proceeded, from them he heard many folk tales, epics, songs, and legends. The life of the people, their work, interests and views, oral creativity- everything living and wise - Yasnaya Polyana revealed to Tolstoy.

Maria Nikolaevna Tolstaya, the writer’s mother, was kind and sympathetic person, an intelligent and educated woman: she knew French, German, English and Italian languages, played the piano, was engaged in painting. Tolstoy was not even two years old when his mother died. The writer did not remember her, but he heard so much about her from those around him that he clearly and vividly imagined her appearance and character.

Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy, their father, was loved and appreciated by the children for humane treatment to the serfs. In addition to taking care of the house and children, he read a lot. During his life, Nikolai Ilyich collected a rich library, consisting of rare books of French classics, historical and natural history works at that time. It was he who first noticed his inclination youngest son to a living perception of the artistic word.

When Tolstoy was nine years old, his father took him to Moscow for the first time. The first impressions of Lev Nikolaevich’s Moscow life served as the basis for many paintings, scenes and episodes of the hero’s life in Moscow Tolstoy's trilogy "Childhood", "Adolescence" and "Youth". Young Tolstoy saw not only the open side of life big city, but also some hidden, shadow sides. With his first stay in Moscow, the writer connected the end of the earliest period of his life, childhood, and the transition to adolescence. The first period of Tolstoy's Moscow life did not last long. In the summer of 1837, while traveling to Tula on business, his father died suddenly. Soon after the death of his father, Tolstoy and his sister and brothers had to endure a new misfortune: their grandmother, whom everyone close to them considered the head of the family, died. Sudden death her son was a terrible blow for her and less than a year later carried her to the grave. A few years later, the first guardian of the orphaned Tolstoy children, their father’s sister, Alexandra Ilyinichna Osten-Saken, died. Ten-year-old Lev, his three brothers and sister were taken to Kazan, where their new guardian, Aunt Pelageya Ilyinichna Yushkova, lived.

Tolstoy wrote about his second guardian as a “kind and very pious” woman, but at the same time very “frivolous and vain.” According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Pelageya Ilyinichna did not enjoy authority with Tolstoy and his brothers, therefore the move to Kazan is considered to be a new stage in the writer’s life: his upbringing ended, a period of independent life began.

Tolstoy lived in Kazan for more than six years. This was the time of formation of his character and choice of life path. Living with his brothers and sister with Pelageya Ilyinichna, young Tolstoy spent two years preparing to enter Kazan University. Having decided to enter the eastern department of the university, he paid special attention to preparing for exams in foreign languages. In exams in mathematics and Russian literature, Tolstoy received fours, and in foreign languages ​​- fives. Lev Nikolayevich failed in the exams in history and geography - he received unsatisfactory grades.

Failure on entrance exams served as a serious lesson for Tolstoy. He devoted the entire summer to a thorough study of history and geography, passed additional exams on them, and in September 1844 he was enrolled in the first year of the eastern department of the Faculty of Philosophy of Kazan University in the category of Arabic-Turkish literature. However, Tolstoy was not interested in studying languages, and after the summer holidays in Yasnaya Polyana he transferred from the Faculty of Oriental Studies to the Faculty of Law.

But in the future, university studies did not awaken Lev Nikolaevich’s interest in the sciences he was studying. Most of the time he independently studied philosophy, compiled “Rules of Life” and carefully wrote notes in his diary. By the end of the third year of studies, Tolstoy was finally convinced that the then university order only interfered with independent creative work, and he decided to leave the university. However, he needed a university diploma to obtain the license to enter the service. And in order to receive a diploma, Tolstoy passed university exams as an external student, spending two years of living in the village preparing for them. Having received university documents from the chancellery at the end of April 1847, former student Tolstoy left Kazan.

After leaving the university, Tolstoy again went to Yasnaya Polyana, and then to Moscow. Here at the end of 1850 he began literary creativity. At this time, he decided to write two stories, but did not finish either of them. In the spring of 1851, Lev Nikolaevich, together with his older brother, Nikolai Nikolaevich, who served in the army as an artillery officer, arrived in the Caucasus. Here Tolstoy lived for almost three years, being mainly in the village of Starogladkovskaya, located on the left bank of the Terek. From here he traveled to Kizlyar, Tiflis, Vladikavkaz, and visited many villages and villages.

It started in the Caucasus Tolstoy's military service. He took part in military operations of Russian troops. Tolstoy's impressions and observations are reflected in his stories “The Raid”, “Cutting Wood”, “Demoted”, and in the story “Cossacks”. Later, turning to the memories of this period of his life, Tolstoy created the story “Hadji Murat”. In March 1854, Tolstoy arrived in Bucharest, where the office of the chief of artillery troops was located. From here, as a staff officer, he traveled throughout Moldavia, Wallachia and Bessarabia.

In the spring and summer of 1854, the writer took part in the siege of the Turkish fortress of Silistria. However, the main place of hostilities at this time was the Crimean Peninsula. Here Russian troops under the leadership of V.A. Kornilov and P.S. Nakhimov heroically defended Sevastopol for eleven months, besieged by Turkish and Anglo-French troops. Participation in Crimean War- an important stage in Tolstoy’s life. Here he got to know ordinary Russian soldiers, sailors, and residents of Sevastopol closely, and sought to understand the source of the heroism of the city’s defenders, to understand the special character traits inherent in the defender of the Fatherland. Tolstoy himself showed bravery and courage in the defense of Sevastopol.

In November 1855, Tolstoy left Sevastopol for St. Petersburg. By this time he had already earned recognition in advanced literary circles. During this period, attention public life Russia was centered around the issue of serfdom. Tolstoy's stories of this time ("Morning of the Landowner", "Polikushka", etc.) are also devoted to this problem.

In 1857 the writer committed foreign travel. He visited France, Switzerland, Italy and Germany. Traveling to different cities, the writer became acquainted with the culture and social system of Western European countries with great interest. Much of what he saw was subsequently reflected in his work. In 1860, Tolstoy made another trip abroad. A year earlier, in Yasnaya Polyana, he opened a school for children. Traveling through the cities of Germany, France, Switzerland, England and Belgium, the writer visited schools and studied the features of public education. In most of the schools that Tolstoy visited, caning discipline was in effect and corporal punishment was used. Returning to Russia and visiting a number of schools, Tolstoy discovered that many teaching methods that were in effect in Western European countries, in particular Germany, had penetrated into Russian schools. At this time, Lev Nikolaevich wrote a number of articles in which he criticized the public education system both in Russia and in Western European countries.

Arriving home after a trip abroad, Tolstoy devoted himself to working at school and publishing the pedagogical magazine Yasnaya Polyana. The school founded by the writer was located not far from his home - in an outbuilding that has survived to this day. In the early 70s, Tolstoy compiled and published a number of textbooks for primary school: “ABC”, “Arithmetic”, four “Books to read”. More than one generation of children learned from these books. The stories from them are read with enthusiasm by children even today.

In 1862, when Tolstoy was away, landowners arrived in Yasnaya Polyana and searched the writer’s house. In 1861, the Tsar's manifesto announced the abolition of serfdom. During the implementation of the reform, disputes broke out between landowners and peasants, the settlement of which was entrusted to the so-called peace intermediaries. Tolstoy was appointed as a peace mediator in the Krapivensky district of the Tula province. When examining controversial cases between nobles and peasants, the writer most often took a position in favor of the peasantry, which caused discontent among the nobles. This was the reason for the search. Because of this, Tolstoy had to stop working as a peace mediator, close the school in Yasnaya Polyana and refuse to publish a pedagogical magazine.

In 1862 Tolstoy married Sofya Andreevna Bers, daughter of a Moscow doctor. Arriving with her husband in Yasnaya Polyana, Sofya Andreevna tried with all her might to create an environment on the estate in which nothing would distract the writer from his hard work. In the 60s, Tolstoy led a solitary life, completely devoting himself to work on War and Peace.

At the end of the epic War and Peace, Tolstoy decided to write a new work - a novel about the era of Peter I. However, social events in Russia caused by the abolition of serfdom so captured the writer that he left work on historical novel and began to create a new work, which reflected the post-reform life of Russia. This is how the novel Anna Karenina appeared, to which Tolstoy devoted four years to work.

In the early 80s, Tolstoy moved with his family to Moscow to educate his growing children. Here the writer, well acquainted with rural poverty, witnessed urban poverty. In the early 90s of the 19th century, almost half of the central provinces of the country were gripped by famine, and Tolstoy joined the fight against the national disaster. Thanks to his appeal, the collection of donations, purchase and delivery of food to the villages was launched. At this time, under the leadership of Tolstoy, about two hundred free canteens were opened in the villages of the Tula and Ryazan provinces for the starving population. A number of articles written by Tolstoy about the famine date back to the same period, in which the writer truthfully depicted the plight of the people and condemned the policies of the ruling classes.

In the mid-80s Tolstoy wrote drama "The Power of Darkness", which depicts the death of the old foundations of patriarchal-peasant Russia, and the story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” dedicated to the fate of a man who only before his death realized the emptiness and meaninglessness of his life. In 1890, Tolstoy wrote the comedy “The Fruits of Enlightenment,” which shows the true situation of the peasantry after the abolition of serfdom. In the early 90s it was created novel "Sunday", on which the writer worked intermittently for ten years. In all his works relating to this period of creativity, Tolstoy openly shows whom he sympathizes with and whom he condemns; depicts the hypocrisy and insignificance of the “masters of life.”

The novel “Sunday” was subject to censorship more than other works of Tolstoy. Most of the novel's chapters were released or abridged. The ruling circles launched an active policy against the writer. Fearing popular outrage, the authorities did not dare to use open repression against Tolstoy. With the consent of the Tsar and at the insistence of the Chief Prosecutor Holy Synod Pobedonostsev Synod adopted a resolution to excommunicate Tolstoy from the church. The writer was under police surveillance. The world community was outraged by the persecution of Lev Nikolaevich. The peasantry, advanced intelligentsia and ordinary people were on the side of the writer and sought to express their respect and support to him. The love and sympathy of the people served as reliable support for the writer in the years when the reaction sought to silence him.

However, despite all the efforts of reactionary circles, every year Tolstoy denounced the noble-bourgeois society more sharply and boldly and openly opposed the autocracy. Works of this period ( “After the Ball”, “For What?”, “Hadji Murat”, “Living Corpse”) are imbued with deep hatred of the royal power, the limited and ambitious ruler. In journalistic articles dating back to this time, the writer sharply condemned the instigators of wars and called for a peaceful resolution of all disputes and conflicts.

In 1901-1902, Tolstoy suffered a serious illness. At the insistence of doctors, the writer had to go to Crimea, where he spent more than six months.

In Crimea, he met with writers, artists, artists: Chekhov, Korolenko, Gorky, Chaliapin, etc. When Tolstoy returned home, hundreds of ordinary people warmly greeted him at the stations. In the fall of 1909, the writer made his last trip to Moscow.

Tolstoy's diaries and letters of the last decades of his life reflected difficult experiences that were caused by the writer's discord with his family. Tolstoy wanted to transfer the land that belonged to him to the peasants and wanted his works to be published freely and free of charge by anyone who wanted. The writer’s family opposed this, not wanting to give up either the rights to the land or the rights to the works. The old landowner way of life, preserved in Yasnaya Polyana, weighed heavily on Tolstoy.

In the summer of 1881, Tolstoy made his first attempt to leave Yasnaya Polyana, but a feeling of pity for his wife and children forced him to return. Several more attempts by the writer to leave his native estate ended with the same result. On October 28, 1910, secretly from his family, he left Yasnaya Polyana forever, deciding to go south and spend the rest of his life in a peasant hut, among the common Russian people. However, on the way, Tolstoy became seriously ill and was forced to get off the train at the small Astapovo station. The great writer spent the last seven days of his life in the house of the station master. News of the death of one of the outstanding thinkers, a wonderful writer, a great humanist, deeply struck the hearts of all the leading people of this time. Tolstoy's creative heritage is of great importance for world literature. Over the years, interest in the writer’s work does not wane, but, on the contrary, grows. As A. France rightly noted: “With his life he proclaims sincerity, directness, purposefulness, firmness, calm and constant heroism, he teaches that one must be truthful and one must be strong... Precisely because he was full of strength, he always was truthful!”

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy - a great Russian writer, by birth - a count from the famous noble family. He was born on August 28, 1828 in the Yasnaya Polyana estate located in the Tula province, and died on October 7, 1910 at the Astapovo station.

The writer's childhood

Lev Nikolaevich was a representative of a large noble family, the fourth child in it. His mother, Princess Volkonskaya, died early. At this time, Tolstoy was not yet two years old, but he formed an idea of ​​​​his parent from the stories of various family members. In the novel "War and Peace" the image of the mother is represented by Princess Marya Nikolaevna Bolkonskaya.

The biography of Leo Tolstoy in his early years is marked by another death. Because of her, the boy became an orphan. Leo Tolstoy's father, a participant in the War of 1812, like his mother, died early. This happened in 1837. At that time the boy was only nine years old. Leo Tolstoy's brothers, he and his sister, were handed over to T. A. Ergolskaya for education, distant relative, which had a huge influence on the future writer. Childhood memories have always been the happiest for Lev Nikolaevich: family legends and impressions of life in the estate became rich material for his works, reflected, in particular, in the autobiographical story “Childhood”.

Study at Kazan University

The biography of Leo Tolstoy in his youth was marked by such an important event as studying at the university. When the future writer turned thirteen years old, his family moved to Kazan, to the house of the children’s guardian, a relative of Lev Nikolaevich P.I. Yushkova. In 1844 future writer was enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy at Kazan University, after which he transferred to the Faculty of Law, where he studied for about two years: his studies did not arouse keen interest in the young man, so he devoted himself passionately to various social entertainments. Having submitted his resignation in the spring of 1847, due to poor health and “domestic circumstances,” Lev Nikolaevich left for Yasnaya Polyana with the intention of studying a full course of legal sciences and passing an external exam, as well as learning languages, “practical medicine,” history, and rural studies. economics, geographical statistics, study painting, music and write a dissertation.

Years of youth

In the fall of 1847, Tolstoy left for Moscow and then to St. Petersburg in order to pass candidate exams at the university. During this period, his lifestyle often changed: he either studied various subjects all day long, then devoted himself to music, but wanted to start a career as an official, or dreamed of joining a regiment as a cadet. Religious sentiments that reached the point of asceticism alternated with cards, carousing, and trips to the gypsies. The biography of Leo Tolstoy in his youth is colored by the struggle with himself and introspection, reflected in the diary that the writer kept throughout his life. During the same period, interest in literature arose, and the first artistic sketches appeared.

Participation in the war

In 1851, Nikolai, Lev Nikolayevich’s older brother, an officer, persuaded Tolstoy to go to the Caucasus with him. Lev Nikolaevich lived for almost three years on the banks of the Terek, in Cossack village, traveling to Vladikavkaz, Tiflis, Kizlyar, participating in hostilities (as a volunteer, and then was recruited). The patriarchal simplicity of the life of the Cossacks and the Caucasian nature struck the writer with their contrast with the painful reflection of representatives of educated society and the life of the noble circle, and provided extensive material for the story “Cossacks,” written in the period from 1852 to 1863 on autobiographical material. The stories “Raid” (1853) and “Cutting Wood” (1855) also reflected his Caucasian impressions. They also left a mark in his story “Hadji Murat,” written between 1896 and 1904, published in 1912.

Returning to his homeland, Lev Nikolayevich wrote in his diary that he really fell in love with this wild land, in which “war and freedom,” things so opposite in their essence, are combined. Tolstoy began to create his story “Childhood” in the Caucasus and anonymously sent it to the magazine “Sovremennik”. This work appeared on its pages in 1852 under the initials L.N. and, along with the later “Adolescence” (1852-1854) and “Youth” (1855-1857), formed the famous autobiographical trilogy. His creative debut immediately brought real recognition to Tolstoy.

Crimean campaign

In 1854, the writer went to Bucharest, to the Danube Army, where the work and biography of Leo Tolstoy received further development. However, soon a boring staff life forced him to transfer to besieged Sevastopol, to the Crimean Army, where he was a battery commander, showing courage (awarded with medals and the Order of St. Anne). During this period, Lev Nikolaevich was captured by new literary plans and impressions. He began writing "Sevastopol stories", which were a great success. Some ideas that arose even at that time allow one to guess in the artillery officer Tolstoy the preacher later years: he dreamed of a new “religion of Christ,” purified of mystery and faith, a “practical religion.”

In St. Petersburg and abroad

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy arrived in St. Petersburg in November 1855 and immediately became a member of the Sovremennik circle (which included N. A. Nekrasov, A. N. Ostrovsky, I. S. Turgenev, I. A. Goncharov and others). He took part in the creation of the Literary Fund at that time, and at the same time became involved in conflicts and disputes among writers, but he felt like a stranger in this environment, which he conveyed in “Confession” (1879-1882). Having retired, in the fall of 1856 the writer left for Yasnaya Polyana, and then, at the beginning of the next year, 1857, he went abroad, visiting Italy, France, Switzerland (impressions from visiting this country are described in the story “Lucerne”), and also visited Germany. In the same year in the fall, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy returned first to Moscow and then to Yasnaya Polyana.

Opening of a public school

In 1859, Tolstoy opened a school for peasant children in the village, and also helped establish more than twenty similar educational institutions in the Krasnaya Polyana area. In order to get acquainted with the European experience in this area and apply it in practice, the writer Leo Tolstoy again went abroad, visited London (where he met with A.I. Herzen), Germany, Switzerland, France, and Belgium. However, European schools somewhat disappoint him, and he decides to create his own pedagogical system based on personal freedom, publishes teaching aids and works on pedagogy, applies them in practice.

"War and Peace"

Lev Nikolaevich in September 1862 married Sofya Andreevna Bers, the 18-year-old daughter of a doctor, and immediately after the wedding he left Moscow for Yasnaya Polyana, where he devoted himself entirely to household concerns and family life. However, already in 1863, he was again captured by a literary idea, this time creating a novel about the war, which was supposed to reflect Russian history. Leo Tolstoy was interested in the period of our country's struggle with Napoleon at the beginning of the 19th century.

In 1865, the first part of the work “War and Peace” was published in the Russian Bulletin. The novel immediately evoked many responses. Subsequent parts provoked heated debate, in particular, the fatalistic philosophy of history developed by Tolstoy.

"Anna Karenina"

This work was created in the period from 1873 to 1877. Living in Yasnaya Polyana, continuing to teach peasant children and publish his pedagogical views, Lev Nikolaevich in the 70s worked on a work about the life of contemporary high society, building his novel on the contrast of two storylines: the family drama of Anna Karenina and the domestic idyll of Konstantin Levin, close and psychological drawing, both in convictions and in the way of life of the writer himself.

Tolstoy strove for an externally non-judgmental tone of his work, thereby paving the way for the new style of the 80s, in particular folk stories. The truth of peasant life and the meaning of existence of representatives of the “educated class” - these are the range of questions that interested the writer. “Family thought” (according to Tolstoy, the main one in the novel) is translated into a social channel in his work, and Levin’s self-exposures, numerous and merciless, his thoughts about suicide are an illustration of what he experienced in the 1880s spiritual crisis author, which matured while working on this novel.

1880s

In the 1880s, Leo Tolstoy's work underwent a transformation. The revolution in the writer’s consciousness was reflected in his works, primarily in the experiences of the characters, in the spiritual insight that changes their lives. Such heroes occupy a central place in such works as “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” (years of creation - 1884-1886), “The Kreutzer Sonata” (a story written in 1887-1889), “Father Sergius” (1890-1898), drama "The Living Corpse" (left unfinished, begun in 1900), as well as the story "After the Ball" (1903).

Tolstoy's journalism

Tolstoy’s journalism reflects his spiritual drama: depicting pictures of the idleness of the intelligentsia and social inequality, Lev Nikolayevich posed questions of faith and life to society and himself, criticized the institutions of the state, going so far as to deny art, science, marriage, court, and the achievements of civilization.

The new worldview is presented in “Confession” (1884), in the articles “So what should we do?”, “On hunger”, “What is art?”, “I cannot remain silent” and others. The ethical ideas of Christianity are understood in these works as the foundation of the brotherhood of man.

As part of a new worldview and a humanistic understanding of the teachings of Christ, Lev Nikolaevich spoke out, in particular, against the dogma of the church and criticized its rapprochement with the state, which led to him being officially excommunicated from the church in 1901. This caused a huge resonance.

Novel "Sunday"

Mine last novel Tolstoy wrote between 1889 and 1899. It embodies the entire range of problems that worried the writer during the years of his spiritual turning point. Dmitry Nekhlyudov, the main character, is a person internally close to Tolstoy, who goes through the path of moral purification in the work, ultimately leading him to comprehend the need for active good. The novel is built on a system of evaluative oppositions that reveal the unreasonable structure of society (the deceit of the social world and the beauty of nature, the falsehood of the educated population and the truth of the peasant world).

last years of life

The life of Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy in recent years was not easy. The spiritual turning point turned into a break with one’s environment and family discord. The refusal to own private property, for example, caused discontent among the writer’s family members, especially his wife. The personal drama experienced by Lev Nikolaevich was reflected in his diary entries.

In the fall of 1910, at night, secretly from everyone, 82-year-old Leo Tolstoy, whose life dates were presented in this article, accompanied only by his attending physician D.P. Makovitsky, left the estate. The journey turned out to be too much for him: on the way, the writer fell ill and was forced to disembark at the Astapovo railway station. Lev Nikolaevich spent the last week of his life in a house that belonged to her boss. The whole country was following reports about his health at that time. Tolstoy was buried in Yasnaya Polyana; his death caused a huge public outcry.

Many contemporaries came to say goodbye to this great Russian writer.