Sofia Andreevna. Lev Nikolaevich and Sofya Andreevna Tolstoy. Love story. Was Sofya Andreevna a bad wife?

Leo Tolstoy's wife.

Biography

Sofya Andreevna is the second daughter of the doctor of the Moscow Palace Office of the Actual State Councilor Andrei Evstafievich Bers (1808-1868), who came from German nobles on his father’s side, and Lyubov Alexandrovna Islavina (1826-1886), who came from merchant family. In his youth, his father served as a doctor for the Moscow lady Varvara Petrovna Turgeneva and had a child from her, Varvara Zhitova, who thus turned out to be the half-sister of Sofya Tolstoy and the half-sister of Ivan Turgenev. The other children of the Bers couple were daughters Elizaveta Andreevna Bers (1843-?) and Tatyana Andreevna Kuzminskaya (1846-1925) and five sons: Oryol vice-governor Alexander Andreevich (1845-?), state councilors Pyotr Andreevich (1849-1910) and Stepan Andreevich (1855-?), as well as Vladimir (1853-?) and Vyacheslav (1861-?).

Sophia was born in a dacha rented by her father, near the Pokrovskoye-Streshnevo estate, and until Sophia’s marriage, the Berses spent every summer there.

The first years of their married life were the happiest. Tolstoy wrote in his diary after his marriage: “Incredible happiness... It cannot be that this all ends only in life.” Tolstoy’s friend I.P. Borisov remarked about the couple in 1862: “She is a beauty, all good looking. She is smart, simple and uncomplicated - she should also have a lot of character, that is, her will is in her command. He is in love with her before Sirius. No, the storm in his soul has not yet calmed down - it has calmed down with the honeymoon, and there will probably still be hurricanes and seas of angry noise." These words turned out to be prophetic; in the 1880-1890s, as a result of Tolstoy’s change in views on life, discord occurred in the family. Sofya Andreevna, who did not share her husband’s new ideas, his desire to renounce property and live by his own, mainly physical labor, still understood perfectly well to what moral and human heights he had risen. In the book “My Life” Sofya Andreevna wrote: “...He expected from me, my poor, dear husband, that spiritual unity that was almost impossible under my material life and worries from which it was impossible and nowhere to escape. I would not have been able to share his spiritual life in words, but to bring it to life, to break it, dragging a whole big family, was unthinkable, and even unbearable.”

For many years, Sofya Andreevna remained her husband’s faithful assistant in his affairs: a copyist of manuscripts, a translator, a secretary, and a publisher of his works.

Sofia Andreevna’s “material life and worries” can be judged from her diaries. On December 16, 1887, she wrote: “This chaos of countless worries, interrupting one another, often leads me into a stunned state, and I lose my balance. It’s easy to say, but at any given moment I am concerned about: studying and sick children, the hygienic and, most importantly, spiritual state of my husband, big children with their affairs, debts, children and service, the sale and plans of the Samara estate..., new edition and part 13 with the banned “Kreutzer Sonata”, a petition for division with the Ovsyannikovsky priest, proofs of volume 13, Misha’s nightgowns, Andryusha’s sheets and boots; do not fall behind on house payments, insurance, name obligations, people’s passports, keeping accounts, rewriting, etc. and so on. - and all this must certainly directly affect me.”

Knowing that her role in the life of Leo Tolstoy was assessed ambiguously, she wrote: “...Let people treat with condescension the one who, perhaps, was too much to handle.” youth to carry on weak shoulders a high purpose - to be the wife of a genius and a great man.” The departure and death of Tolstoy had a hard effect on Sofya Andreevna, she was deeply unhappy, she could not forget that before his death she had not seen her husband conscious. On November 29, 1910, she wrote in the Diary: “Unbearable melancholy, remorse, weakness, pity to the point of suffering for my late husband... I can’t live.”

After Tolstoy's death, Sofya Andreevna continued her publishing activities, releasing her correspondence with her husband, and completed the publication of the writer's collected works.

Sofya Andreevna spent the last years of her life in Yasnaya Polyana, where she died on November 4, 1919. She was buried at the Kochakovskoye cemetery, not far from Yasnaya Polyana.

Children

From the marriage of Lev Nikolaevich with Sofia Andreevna, 13 children were born, five of whom died in childhood:

1. Sergei (1863-1947), composer, musicologist.
2. Tatiana (1864-1950), in 1917-1923. curator of the Yasnaya Polyana estate museum; since 1899 married to Mikhail Sergeevich Sukhotin.
3. Ilya (1866-1933), writer, memoirist. In 1916 he left Russia and went to the USA.
4. Lev (1869-1945), writer, sculptor. In exile in France, Italy, then in Sweden.
5. Maria (1871-1906), since 1897 married to Prince Nikolai Leonidovich Obolensky (1872-1934).
6. Peter (1872-1873)
7. Nicholas (1874-1875)
8. Varvara (1875-1875)
9. Andrey (1877-1916), official special assignments under the Tula governor.
10. Mikhail (1879-1944). In 1920 he emigrated and lived in Turkey, Yugoslavia, France and Morocco.
11. Alexey (1881-1886)
12. Alexandra (1884-1979), father's assistant.
13. Ivan (1888-1895).

Film incarnations

• In the sensational film by Yakov Protazanov “The Passing of the Great Elder” (1912), the role of Sofia Andreevna was played by American actress, who used the Russian pseudonym Olga Petrova. The film was banned from showing in Russia at the request of Tolstoy's family.
• In film

Do you remember? No, not through intrigues and affairs with powerful men, but themselves. By your actions, decisions, desire to live your own way. What are they like? Tolstoy women, real and literary?

Mother Maria Nikolaevna, née Princess Volkonskaya (1790-1830). On July 9, 1822, she married Nikolai Ilyich, Count Tolstoy, who was 4 years younger than her. Over 8 years of marriage, five children were born in the family - four sons and a daughter. No portraits of the future writer’s mother have survived, but her diaries and letters indicate clear literary talent. She died early, six months after the birth of her daughter. In the memory of her outstanding son she left an unearthly, sublimely spiritual image.

The wife of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy is Sofya Andreevna. Born Sophia Bers.

Wife Sofya Andreevna, née Bers (1844-1919), daughter of a Moscow doctor. The first years of their marriage were happy, hot, mutual love. From 1863 to 1888, 13 children were born into the family - 9 sons and 4 daughters, of whom five sons and a daughter survived to adulthood. Sofya Andreevna, no matter what they say about her, was not only the mother of a large, even at that time, family, the head of a troublesome household, but the secretary and publisher of her brilliant husband. She rewrote it several times - not on a computer, and not even on Remington, but by hand!!! - his endless novels, invariably increasing from version to version. At a certain stage, the understanding between the spouses disappeared - he wanted to give up his property in favor of the poor, and she had to think about how to provide a fortune for her sons and a dowry for her daughters. Sofia Andreevna’s greatest grief, according to her, was that she did not find her husband, who had left home and was dying, conscious...

Were in real life Tolstoy's cousins ​​and aunts, various social acquaintances. Numerous bright literary portraits, generously hung throughout the pages of his literary masterpieces.

Still from the 1965 film War and Peace.

Natasha Rostova and Elen Kuragina. A lively, but - for now - ugly girl from Moscow and a precocious St. Petersburg socialite. Up to madness different characters. But how are they similar for the author? Because both are fallen women. Yes Yes Yes! And Natasha too! She cheated on her fiance, deciding to run away and get married to someone else. Prince Andrei talks about this - a fallen woman must be forgiven. But he himself cannot forgive... And Helen, having decided that with her beauty everything is permitted, takes lovers left and right. How did the author dispose of their destinies? He married Natasha to ex-husband Helen, portraying her family life in a very unsightly light - the episode with the crap in the diaper became common... And Tolstoy simply “killed” Helen herself, because, apparently, he had no idea how her life could develop without a decent marriage, and such was not in the cards for her. The reputation is not the same...

Greta Garbo as Anna Karenina in the 1935 film of the same name.

Anna Karenina and Dolly Oblonskaya. And in this novel there are no heroines who completely satisfied the author. Another fallen lady, Anna, also had to be “killed”, since she did not have a positive life prospect. She separated from her husband and did not marry her lover... Dolly, “exhausted by children,” also does not enjoy the author’s special sympathy. She clearly reveals the features of Sofia Andreevna, who at a certain stage lost her husband’s love due to the fact that she was bogged down in household chores. And Countess Lydia Ivanovna, constantly teaching everyone something, and Princess Betsy Tverskaya, who is either married or not, who out of boredom brought Anna and Vronsky together... everything, everything is wrong! Not in this world ideal women!

A still from the 1967 film “Anna Karenina” starring Tatyana Samoilova.

Katerina Maslova and Gasha. But this illegitimate half-gypsy, a hanger-on, seduced for fun by a visiting officer, seems to be very attractive to His Excellency. The aunties who kicked out the pregnant girl are just the opposite. And the seducer himself with his mental tossing, his surroundings are all complete falsehood. But of all the fallen women looking at us from the pages of Tolstoy’s novels, Katyusha Maslova is the most fallen, a resident of a brothel, a drinker and even involved in a poisoning case... Why is this the author’s attitude? From the history of the creation of the novel, the latest major work Tolstoy, who was written intermittently for eleven years, reveals the reason for the count’s biased attitude towards fallen aristocrats to one degree or another, firstly, and towards a rootless commoner who sells herself, secondly.

Mini-serail "War and Peace" 2007. In the role of Natalie Rostova - Clémence Poesy.

...Well-known lawyer and public figure A.F. Koni in 1887 told Tolstoy an incident from judicial practice- how a certain juror recognized the defendant as a prostitute as a woman whom he had once seduced and abandoned. His conscience prompted him to help the woman out, even marry her, but the unfortunate woman died in prison. Then Tolstoy admitted to his biographer and even his legal wife that he himself had a similar story - an affair with his sister’s maid, Gasha, whom his noble relatives drove from the yard in an unknown direction. Here it becomes clear why the story of the seduction of Katyusha Maslova is written out so juicily and convincingly. The writer simply poured out the torments of a guilty conscience onto paper, as if half a century later he asked for forgiveness from the girl he had ruined and even tried, through his hero, to somehow rectify the situation.

Still from the 2012 film Anna Karenina.

In addition, in many of Tolstoy’s works - remember the short but achingly painful “Kreutzer Sonata” - his heroines, with their femininity demanding love, slowly but surely pull other people nearby, almost always men, into the abyss of immorality. What is this - an attempt to at least slightly justify one’s sins with someone else’s imperfection? They say that they, women, are far from ideal, they experience carnal temptation themselves and seduce others.

What is invariable in Tolstoy’s novels is that only women pay for their own and other people’s mistakes with ruined and often prematurely cut off lives. Men, although they are left alone with heavy, belated repentance, still live... live. Although who knows which is worse.

Sophie Marceau in the 1997 film Anna Karenina.

And little has changed since the time when readers tore new books by Leo Tolstoy from the hands of booksellers... A woman is still responsible for everything - both cooking and morality. So reread, at least occasionally, classic novels - maybe then there will be no reason to throw yourself in front of the train.

These two stories are amazing in their power, but even more so in their paradoxical nature. Because it may seem: the great Leo Tolstoy suddenly appears as some kind of moral monster. But, when you think about it, you understand: there are people who cannot be judged by our everyday laws. Tolstoy was simply “different”. With a different attitude towards death even of the closest people.
And with a different understanding of love.

"The house is full of doctors..."

At the beginning of September 1906, Sofya Andreevna underwent a complex and dangerous operation to remove a purulent cyst. The operation had to be done right in the Yasnaya Polyana house, because it was too late to transport the patient to Tula. This is what the famous professor Vladimir Fedorovich Snegirev, summoned by telegram, decided.

He was an experienced surgeon, but to perform an operation on Tolstoy’s wife, and even in non-clinical conditions, means taking risks and taking on enormous responsibility! Therefore, Snegirev literally interrogated Tolstoy several times: did he consent to the operation? The doctor was unpleasantly surprised by the reaction: Tolstoy “washed his hands”...

In Snegirev’s memoirs, published in 1909, one can feel barely restrained irritation at the head of the family and the writer, whose genius the professor admired. But his professional duty forced him again and again to drive Tolstoy into a corner with a direct question: does he agree to a risky operation, as a result of which his wife may die, but without which he will undoubtedly die? And he will die in terrible agony...

The professional duty of a surgeon forced him to drive Tolstoy into a corner again and again with a direct question: does he agree to a risky operation, as a result of which his wife may die, but without which he will undoubtedly die?

At first Tolstoy was against it. For some reason he convinced himself that Sofya Andreevna would certainly die. And, according to his daughter Sasha, “he cried not from grief, but from joy...”, admiring how his wife behaved in anticipation of death.

“With great patience and meekness, my mother endured the disease. The stronger the physical suffering, the softer and brighter she became,” recalled Sasha. “She did not complain, did not grumble about fate, did not demand anything and only thanked everyone, said something to everyone affectionate. Feeling the approach of death, she resigned herself, and everything worldly and vain flew away from her.”

It was this spiritually beautiful state of his wife that, according to Tolstoy, the visiting doctors, who, in the end, gathered eight people, wanted to disrupt.

“The house of doctors is full,” he writes with hostility in his diary. “It’s hard: instead of devotion to the will of God and a religiously solemn mood, it’s petty, rebellious, selfish.”

At the same time, he feels “special pity” for his wife, because she is “touchingly reasonable, truthful and kind.” And he tries to explain to Snegirev: “I am against intervention, which, in my opinion, violates the grandeur and solemnity of the great act of death.” And he is rightly indignant, clearly realizing: in the event of an unfavorable outcome of the operation, the full burden of responsibility will fall on him. “Killed” Tolstoy’s wife against her husband’s will...

And at this time the wife is suffering unbearably from the onset of an abscess. She is constantly injected with morphine. She calls the priest, but when he arrives, Sofya Andreevna is already unconscious. According to the testimony of the Tolstoys’ personal physician Dushan Makovitsky, mortal melancholy begins...

"I'm leaving..."

What about Tolstoy? He is neither for nor against. He says to Snegirev: “I’m leaving... The children will gather, the eldest son, Sergei Lvovich, will arrive... And they will decide what to do... But, besides, we must, of course, ask Sofya Andreevna.”

Meanwhile, the house becomes crowded. “Almost the whole family came,” recalled Sasha, who became the housewife during her mother’s illness, “and, as always happens when many young, strong and idle people gather, despite anxiety and grief, they immediately filled the house with noise, bustle and excitement, They talked, drank, ate endlessly. Professor Snegirev, a corpulent, good-natured and loud-mouthed man, demanded a lot of attention... It was necessary to put everyone who came to bed, feed everyone, order that the chickens and turkeys be slaughtered, send to Tula for medicine, for wine and fish (more than twenty people sat at the table), send out coachmen for those coming to the station, to the city..."

Before leaving home, Tolstoy said: “If the operation is successful, ring my bell twice, and if not, then... No, it’s better not to ring at all, I’ll come myself...”

There is a shift watch near the patient's bedside, and Tolstoy has nothing to do there. But from time to time he comes to his wife. “At 10.30 L.N. came in,” writes Makovitsky, “he stood in the doorway, then ran into Doctor S.M. Polilov, talked to him, as if not daring to intrude into the kingdom of doctors, into the patient’s room. Then he entered quietly steps and sat on a stool away from the bed, between the door and the bed. Sofya Andreevna asked: “Who is it?” L.N. answered: “Who did you think?” and approached her: “And you haven’t yet.” you're sleeping! What time is it?" She complained and asked for water. L.N. handed it to her, kissed her, said, "Sleep," and quietly left. Then at midnight he came again on tiptoe."

“During the operation itself, he went to Chepyzh and walked there alone and prayed,” recalled son Ilya.

Before leaving, he said: “If the operation is successful, ring my bell twice, and if not, then... No, it’s better not to ring at all, I’ll come myself...”

The operation was successful. However, the catgut used to stitch the wound turned out to be rotten. During the operation, the professor scolded the supplier with the most abusive words: “Oh, you German face! Son of a bitch! Damn German...”

The tumor, the size of a child's head, was shown to Tolstoy. “He was pale and gloomy, although he seemed calm, as if indifferent,” recalled Snegirev. “And, looking at the cyst, even, in a calm voice asked me: “Is it over? Did you delete this?”

And when he saw his wife recovering from the anesthesia, he was horrified and left her room indignant:

“They won’t let a person die in peace! A woman is lying with her stomach cut open, tied to a bed, without a pillow... moaning more than before the operation. This is some kind of torture!”

He felt as if he had been deceived by someone.

“It’s terribly sad,” Tolstoy writes in his diary. “I feel sorry for her. Great suffering and almost in vain.”

They parted with Snegirev dryly.

“He was little talkative,” the professor recalled of his farewell to Tolstoy in his office, “he sat frowning all the time, and when I began to say goodbye to him, he did not even get up, but, half turning, extended his hand to me, barely muttering some kind of courtesy. This whole conversation and his address made a sad impression on me. It seemed that he was dissatisfied with something, but I could not find the reason for this dissatisfaction either in his actions and behavior or in my assistants, or in the state of his illness...”

How to explain the husband’s reaction, knowing that the surgeon Snegirev gave his wife thirteen years of life?

Tolstoy, of course, did not want his wife to die. To suggest such a thing is not only monstrous, but also factually incorrect. Both Tolstoy’s diary and the memoirs of his daughter Sasha say that he rejoiced at Sofia Andreevna’s recovery.

Firstly, he really loved and appreciated her and was attached to her forty years of marriage. Secondly, Sofia Andreevna’s recovery meant that life in Yasnaya Polyana was returning to its usual course, and for Tolstoy, with his rational lifestyle, and even given his age, this was urgently necessary. And although, according to Sasha, “sometimes my father recalled with tenderness how well my mother endured suffering, how affectionate and kind she was to everyone,” this did not mean at all that he was not happy about her salvation.

It seems to me that the matter was different. Tolstoy felt spiritually wounded. He was determined to greet his wife’s death as the “revelation” of her inner being, but instead he received a huge purulent cyst from Snegirev. At the same time, Tolstoy seemed calm, but in fact he experienced a strong spiritual shock. Because this was crap the real reason wife's suffering.

Temporary victory of the material over the spiritual

He felt like a loser, and Snegireva - a winner. Most likely, Snegirev understood this, judging by the tone of his memories. And therefore Tolstoy could not, without falsehood, express his warm gratitude to the doctor for saving his wife; this, in Tolstoy’s eyes, was only a temporary victory of the material over the spiritual. She had no real value for him and was just a sign of the animal nature of man, from which Tolstoy himself, approaching death, experienced more and more rejection. He understood that he himself would have to part with this, it would be put in a coffin, and what would be left after? That's what worried him! That's what he was constantly thinking about!

The superstitious Sofya Andreevna seriously believed that it was she who, “reviving after a dangerous operation,” “took Masha’s life”

And it just so happened that just two months after Sofia Andreevna’s successful operation, his most beloved daughter Masha suddenly died of pneumonia. Her death was so sudden and rapid with the absolute helplessness of the doctors that the thought involuntarily creeps in: did Masha give her father this death? In any case, the superstitious Sofya Andreevna seriously believed that it was she, “reviving after a dangerous operation,” who “took Masha’s life” (from a letter from Lydia Veselitskaya).

"I feel neither horror nor fear..."

Masha burned out in a few days. “She couldn’t speak, she just moaned weakly like a child,” Sasha recalled. “A blush burned on her thin cheeks; she couldn’t turn over from weakness; her whole body must have hurt. When they put compresses on, they lifted her higher or turned her with side to side, her face wrinkled painfully, and her moans became stronger. Once I somehow clumsily grabbed her and hurt her, she screamed and looked at me reproachfully, and long later, remembering her scream, I could not forgive myself for the awkwardness. movements..."

The atmosphere of this event was very different from what happened in Yasnaya Polyana Two months ago. There were few doctors... None of the relatives made any noise or fuss... Tolstoy was not asked about anything... Ilya Lvovich writes in his memoirs that “her death did not particularly strike anyone.”

In Tatiana Lvovna’s diary there is a short entry: “Sister Masha died of pneumonia.” They did not see anything terrible in this death. But a young thirty-five-year-old woman died, who married late and did not have time to taste real family happiness...

The description of the death of his daughter in Tolstoy’s diary seems to be a continuation of the description of the death of his wife, which did not take place due to the intervention of doctors. “Now, at one o’clock in the morning, Masha has died. It’s a strange thing. I don’t feel any horror, no fear, no consciousness of something exceptional happening, not even pity, grief... Yes, this is an event in the physical sphere and therefore indifferent. I watched all the time at her, as she died: surprisingly calmly. For me, she was a creature unfolding before my revelation. I watched her unfolding, and she was joyful to me...”

According to Makovitsky, ten minutes before his death, Tolstoy kissed his daughter’s hand.

Parting

Four years later, dying at the Astapovo station, Leo Tolstoy called not for his living wife, but for his departed daughter. Sergei Lvovich, who was sitting at his father’s bedside on the eve of his death, writes: “At that time, I involuntarily overheard my father realizing that he was dying. He lay with his eyes closed and occasionally uttered individual words from the thoughts that occupied him, which he often did when he was healthy, when he thought about something that worried him, he said: “This is bad, your business is bad...” And then: “Wonderful, wonderful.” Then he suddenly opened his eyes and, looking up, said loudly: “Masha! Masha!" A shiver ran down my spine. I realized that he remembered the death of my sister Masha."

He walked through the melting wet snow with a frequent old man's gait, sharply turning out his toes, as always, and never looked back...

But Tolstoy carried his daughter’s body only to the end of the village. “...He stopped us, said goodbye to the deceased and walked home along the speck,” recalled Ilya Lvovich. “I looked after him: he walked through the melting wet snow with a frequent senile gait, as always, sharply turning out his toes, and never looked back ..."

Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya-Yesenina - woman amazing fate, in which there were happy childhood, and three marriages, and a war, and, of course, great love for a very bright, complex person, the man of her whole life, Sergei Yesenin. Oksana Sukhovicheva, senior researcher at the permanent exhibitions department of the Yasnaya Polyana museum-estate, talks about the life of Sofia Tolstoy-Yesenina.

Oksana Sukhovicheva.

Sophia was born on April 12 (25), 1900 in Yasnaya Polyana, in the house of Leo Tolstoy. Sonya's father is Andrei Lvovich Tolstoy, mother is Olga Konstantinovna Diterichs, daughter of a retired general, participant Caucasian War. The girl was named after her grandmother, so Sonechka became her full namesake - Sofia Andreevna Tolstoy.

Grandfather Lev Nikolaevich and grandmother Sofya Andreevna adored the girl. Her grandmother even became her godmother.

Sonechka spent the first four months of her life in Yasnaya Polyana. Then Andrei Lvovich sold the lands in the Samara province, which went to him, his brother Mikhail and sister Alexandra through the division of family property in 1884, and bought the Toptykovo estate 15 versts from Yasnaya Polyana (it has not survived to this day).

Andrei Tolstoy with his wife Olga Konstantinovna and children Sonya and Ilyusha. 1903, Toptykovo. Photo of Sofia Andreevna Tolstoy. From funds State Museum L.N. Tolstoy in Moscow.

Olga Konstantinovna really liked Toptykovo - it was a small copy of Yasnaya Polyana, with an estate, fields, and gardens. Andrey, Olga and little Sonya moved there and lived amicably and happily. Three years later, a second child was born in the family - son Ilya. But soon everything went wrong... As Leo Tolstoy said about his son, he began to lead a “lordly lifestyle.” His friends often visited the estate, Andrei began to leave home... And one day the young count admitted to his wife that he had cheated on her. Olga did not forgive her husband and, on the advice of Lev Nikolaevich, left with the children for England, to live with her sister.

From the memoirs of Sofia Andreevna: “I spent the first four years of my life in Yasnaya Polyana, Toptykovo, Gaspra. I constantly saw my grandfather, but, having left for England, I did not retain any clear, definite memories of him. There was only a feeling of his being, and a very good one... From those around me I began to understand that my grandfather was something remarkably good and great. But I didn’t know what exactly and why he was so especially good...”

Andrei Tolstoy married for the second time, and his daughter Masha was born in the marriage. Olga never remarried and devoted herself to raising children.

From England, Sonechka wrote to her grandparents. Many letters, postcards and drawings have been preserved. Grandmother also wrote to her a lot.

This is the postcard 6-year-old Sonechka Tolstaya sent to her
grandmother to Yasnaya Polyana from England. From the exhibition “If it burns, it burns, burning...” in the Yasnaya Polyana gallery.

Here is an excerpt from a letter from 1904: “Dear Sonyushka. I thank you for your letter and dear Aunt Galya for leading your hand. I often think about you and miss you. Now Uncle Misha’s children live here in the outbuilding... I think that your Ilyusha has now grown up and walks well and will soon talk, and you will have more fun with him. Kiss your mother and aunt Galya from me... And I tenderly hug you, my dear granddaughter, and Ilyushka too. Don’t forget your loving grandmother Sofya Andreevna.”

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy with his grandchildren, Sonechka on the right. May 3, 1909, Yasnaya Polyana. Photo by V. G. Chertkov from the collections of the museum-estate of L. N. Tolstoy “Yasnaya Polyana”.

In 1908, Olga and her children returned to Russia. They settled in Velyatinki and often came to Yasnaya Polyana. Sofya Andreevna wrote:

“...A few days later I was sent alone to YaP. There, after a common breakfast, they left me in the house to sit with my grandfather while he had breakfast. I sat on the end of the chair and froze with timidity. I watched as he released soft-boiled eggs into the oatmeal... He ate, chewed, and his nose rose in a terribly funny and cute way. He asked me about something, very simply and affectionately, and my fear began to go away, and I answered him something...”
Lev Nikolaevich loved his granddaughter very much. On July 15, 1909, he wrote “A Prayer to Granddaughter Sonechka” especially for her: “God commanded all people to do one thing, that they love each other. You need to learn this matter. And in order to learn this matter, you need to first: not allow yourself to think bad things about anyone, second: not to say bad things about anyone, and third: not to do to others what you don’t want to do to yourself. Whoever learns this will learn the greatest joy in the world - the joy of love."

Soon Olga Konstantinovna bought an apartment for herself and her children in Moscow, on Pomerantsev Lane. Descendants of the Tolstoys still live there.
Sonya grew up to be a very open, intelligent, enthusiastic girl. She received a good education and was fluent in foreign languages. Her character was similar not to her calm aristocratic mother, but to her father - she was just as emotional, active, energetic, she loved life very much.

Sergei Mikhailovich Sukhotin and Sofya Tolstaya (right) with friends. Moscow, 1921
Photo from the collections of the State Museum of Leo Tolstoy in Moscow.

Sophia entered Moscow University, but did not study there for even a year - the girl was in poor health and was often sick. Later, Tolstaya will successfully graduate from the Moscow Institute of the Living Word. In the meantime, Aunt Tatyana Lvovna invited her to live and receive treatment in Yasnaya Polyana.
At that time, in 1921, Sergei Mikhailovich Sukhotin, the adopted son of Tatyana Lvovna, worked as commandant in Yasnaya Polyana. Sergei and Sophia liked each other, began writing letters and dating. And in the fall they got married. Sergei was 13 years older than Sophia! He already had one unsuccessful marriage, war and prison behind him. He was even sentenced to death for economic crimes, but was granted amnesty. Apparently, these life events left an imprint on his health - in January 1922, 35-year-old Sergei Sukhotin suffered an apoplexy, and in the spring of 1923 - another one. Paralysis completely destroyed Sophia's husband. It was decided to send him to France for treatment.

Sergei Yesenin and Sofya Tolstaya, 1925

And very soon Sofya Andreevna met the biggest and main love all my life. From her memories: “Once I was with my literary friends in the Pegasus Stable. Then they talked a lot about this literary café of imagists... We were clearly lucky: soon after our arrival Yesenin began reading poetry. I had heard about Yesenin, around whose name already in those years the most contradictory “legends” began to emerge. I also came across some of his poems. But I saw Yesenin for the first time. It’s hard for me to remember now what kind of poetry he read then. And I don’t want to fantasize. What is this for? My memory forever retains something else from that time: the extreme nakedness of Yesenin’s soul, the insecurity of his heart... But my personal acquaintance with him happened later...”

And here is Sofia Andreevna’s entry in her desk calendar of 1925:
"9th of March. First meeting with Yesenin."

Sofya Andreevna recalls: “In the apartment of Galya Benislavskaya, in Bryusovsky Lane, where Yesenin and his sister Katya lived at one time, writers, friends and comrades of Sergei and Galya once gathered. Boris Pilnyak was also invited, and I came with him. We were introduced... I felt especially joyful and light all evening... Finally, I began to get ready. It was very late. We decided that Yesenin would accompany me. He and I went out into the street together and wandered around Moscow at night for a long time... This meeting decided my fate...”

Sofya Andreevna fell in love with Yesenin immediately, completely and irrevocably. The poet often came to the Tolstoys’ apartment on Pomerantsev Lane. They practically never separated. Already in June 1925 Yesenin moved to his chosen one.

“Parrot ring”, which Sofya Andreevna wore all her life. Until May 15, 2016, it can be seen at the exhibition “If it burns, it burns, burning...” in the Yasnaya Polyana gallery.

Once, during one of their walks, Sofya and Sergei met a gypsy woman with a parrot on the boulevard. They gave her some change for fortune-telling, and the parrot pulled out a large copper ring for Yesenin. The gypsy woman put this ring on Sergei Alexandrovich, and he soon gave it to Sonya. She adjusted the ring to her size and then wore it all her life between her other two rings.

Sergey Yesenin.

Apparently, it’s been this way forever,
By the age of thirty, having gone crazy,
Increasingly hardened cripples,
We keep in touch with life.
Honey, I'm turning thirty soon.
And the earth becomes dearer to me every day.
That's why my heart began to dream,
That I'm burning with pink fire.
If it burns, then it burns, burning.
And not for nothing in the linden blossom
I took the ring from the parrot, -
A sign that we will burn together.
The gypsy woman put that ring on me,
I took it off my hand and gave it to you.
And now, when the barrel organ is sad,
I can’t help but think, not be shy.
A swamp pool is wandering in my head.
And there is frost and darkness on the heart.
Maybe someone else
You gave it away with a laugh.
Maybe kissing until dawn
He asks you himself
Like a funny, stupid poet
You brought me to sensual poems.
So what! This wound will also pass.
It’s only bitter to see the edge of life,
The first time for such a bully
The damned parrot deceived me.

When Yesenin proposed to her, Sophia was in seventh heaven. On July 2, 1925, she wrote to Tolstoy’s friend Anatoly Koni: “During this time, I experienced big changes- I'm getting married. Now my divorce case is underway, and by the middle of the month I will marry someone else... My fiancé is the poet Sergei Yesenin. I am very happy and very much in love.” Yesenin also proudly told his friends that his bride was Tolstoy’s granddaughter.

Life with a poet cannot be called sweet and cloudless. All relatives sympathized with Sophia because they understood how difficult it was for her with Yesenin. Constant drinking, gatherings, leaving home, drinking sprees, doctors... She tried to save him.

In the fall of 1925, the poet went on a terrible binge, which ended with a month-long treatment in psychiatric hospital Gannushkina. Sofya Andreevna understood that she was losing him. On December 18, 1925, she wrote to her mother and brother:

“...Then I met Sergei. And I realized that this was very big and fatal. It was neither sensuality nor passion. I didn't need him at all as a lover. I just loved all of him. The rest came later. I knew that I was going to the cross, and I walked consciously... I wanted to live only for him.

I gave myself all to him. I am completely deaf and blind, there is only him. Now he doesn't need me anymore, and I have nothing left.

If you love me, then I ask you never to judge Sergei in your thoughts or words or blame him for anything. What if he drank and tormented me while drunk? He loved me, and his love covered everything. And I was happy, incredibly happy... He gave me the happiness of loving him. And to carry within myself the kind of love that he, his soul, gave birth to in me is endless happiness...”

Yesenin's death on December 28, 1925 was very difficult for Sofya Andreevna. What saved her was that she immediately threw herself into work. I started collecting memories of Yesenin, manuscripts, photographs, his things. Already in December 1926, an exhibition dedicated to Yesenin was opened at the Writers' Union. And a year later - the Yesenin Museum. Sofya Andreevna was involved in the publication of poetry, conducted literary evenings his memory. In 1928, she began working at the State Tolstoy Museum in Moscow, first as a research assistant, and from 1933 as an academic secretary.

Sofia Tolstaya with best friend Evgenia Chebotarevskaya, 1940. Photo from the collections of the museum-estate of L. N. Tolstoy “Yasnaya Polyana”.

In 1941 she became director of the United Tolstoy Museums. In the first months of the war, when the threat of occupation loomed over Yasnaya Polyana, Sofya Andreevna organized the evacuation of exhibits from Tolstoy’s house, which ended two weeks before the invasion of the Tolstoy museum by German troops.

Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya-Yesenina in a group of Soviet military personnel. Yasnaya Polyana, 1943. Photo from the collections of the State Museum of Leo Tolstoy in Moscow.

On October 13, 1941, 110 boxes with exhibits were sent first to Moscow and then to Tomsk. Only three and a half years later they returned to their original place. On May 24, 1945, Sofya Andreevna officially reopened the museum in a solemn ceremony. After the separation of Yasnaya Polyana from other Tolstoy museums, Tolstaya-Yesenina continued to hold the post of director of the State Museum of Leo Tolstoy in Moscow.

Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya-Yesenina and Alexander Dmitrievich Timrot on the terrace of a house in Yasnaya Polyana. Early 1950s Photo from the collections of the State Museum
L.N. Tolstoy in Moscow.

In 1947, 32-year-old handsome Alexander Timrot came to work in Yasnaya Polyana. And Sofya Andreevna fell in love again... In 1948 they got married.

Tolstaya-Yesenina spent her last years in an apartment on Pomerantsev Lane. A few weeks before her death, Sergei Yesenin’s son Alexander (born in 1924 from the poetess Nadezhda Volpin) came to Moscow. But she refused to meet him - she didn’t want him to see her in this state. Sofya Andreevna died on June 29, 1957 in Moscow, and was buried near Yasnaya Polyana in the cemetery in Kochaki, in the Tolstoy family necropolis.

It’s surprising to hear Sofya Andreevna herself in her memoirs..

There is no other couple in the history of Russia whose life was discussed as actively as the life of Leo and Sophia Tolstoy. There were hundreds of rumors and various conjectures about them. Even the most intimate and personal details were of interest to society. Leo Tolstoy was 34 years old, Sophia Bers was 18.

He spent his whole life searching for an ideal, conquering women one after another. And she was young and inexperienced, in love with her future husband. Many later accused Sofya Andreevna of not being able to become a good wife for the writer, of almost ruining his life. However, it was almost impossible to please Tolstoy, despite the fact that Sonya Bers gave him all of herself.

Direct descendants and great-great-grandchildren of Leo Tolstoy - Fekla, Vladimir and Peter Tolstoy

presented for the first time the memoirs of Sofia Andreevna Tolstoy “My Life”

You will find out many previously unknown details to the general public.

personal life of Leo Tolstoy with his family, as well as hear opinions

Tolstoy himself in many ways important issues human existence

Tfat WITH. A. =Mine life=read online

T.A. Kuzminskaya (S.A.’s sister) My life Houses And V Clear Glade

T.A. Kuzminskaya’s book “My Life at Home and in Yasnaya Polyana” is one of the best in the extensive memoir literature about Tolstoy. This book is about the young
Tolstoy, about those " best years his life", years of family happiness and work on an immortal creation - the novel "War and Peace".

Cooked book Sophia Andreevna Tolstoy

read by great-great-granddaughter Fekla Tolstaya

Descendants L. N. Tolstoy

Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya

Wife of Leo Tolstoy.

Sofya Andreevna is the second daughter of the Moscow doctor Andrei Evstafievich and Lyubov Aleksandrovna Bers. Having received a good education at home, in 1861 she passed the exam at Moscow University for the title of home teacher.

The Bers family saw Lev Nikolayevich as a groom for Lisa, who was of marriageable age. But the writer constantly thought about Sophia, wrote to her in letters about his experiences and everything that he could not say in person when they met. In one of his letters, Tolstoy said how tormented he was by the current situation. In the same letter, he asked Sophia if she would become his wife, to which she agreed.

In 1862, Sofya Andreevna married L.N. Tolstoy.

The first years of their married life were the happiest.

Tolstoy wrote in his diary after his marriage: “Incredible happiness... It cannot be that this all ends only in life” (L.N. Tolstoy, vol. 19, p. 154).

Tolstoy’s friend I.P. Borisov remarked about the couple in 1862: “She is a beauty, all pretty. Soundly smart, simple and uncomplicated - she should also have a lot of character, i.e. her will is in her command. He's in love with her before Sirius. No, the storm in his soul has not yet calmed down - it has calmed down with the honeymoon, and there will probably still be hurricanes and seas of angry noise."

These words turned out to be prophetic; in the 80-90s, as a result of Tolstoy’s change in views on life, discord occurred in the family.

Sofya Andreevna, who did not share her husband’s new ideas, his desire to renounce property and live by his own, mainly physical labor, still understood perfectly well to what moral and human heights he had risen.

In the book “My Life” Sofya Andreevna wrote:

“...He did not expect from me, my poor, dear husband, that spiritual unity, which was almost impossible given my material life and worries, from which it was impossible and nowhere to escape. I would not have been able to share his spiritual life in words, and to bring it to life, to break it, dragging a whole large family behind me, was unthinkable, and even unbearable.”

Fat Sophia Andreevna(for household chores)

Trubetskoy (prince, sculptor) sculpts L.N. Tolstoy

The book “Skeleton Dolls” was written by Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya in the genre of children's literature, and is a collection of works. The stories included in this collection were written by S.A. Tolstoy in the 90s. XIX century.

Nevertheless, this book is well known - among lovers of L. Tolstoy's work, thanks to Tolstoy scholars, who often mention it in their literary works, and to the Internet audience, thanks to articles in online publications. The book “Skeleton Dolls” is a bibliographic rarity, arousing the interest of both researchers and thoughtful and inquisitive readers who are familiar with it “in absentia” from Tolstoy’s excursions, thematic publications in magazines and the one-man show “Of course, yes... The Game” into dolls."

The collection “Skeleton Dolls” includes several different stories: Skeleton Dolls. Yule story; Grandmother's treasure. Tradition; History of the dime. Fairy tale; Vanichka. True incident from his life; Rescued Dachshund. Vanya's story.

Fat Sophia - Pupae-Skeletons

Sofia Andreevna’s “material life and worries” can be judged from her diaries. On December 16, 1887 she wrote:

“This chaos of countless worries, interrupting one another, often leaves me in a dazed state, and I lose my balance. It’s easy to say, but at any given moment I am concerned about: studying and sick children, the hygienic and, most importantly, spiritual state of my husband, big children with their affairs, debts, children and service, the sale and plans of the Samara estate..., new edition and Part 13 with the forbidden “Kreutzer Sonata”, a petition for division with the Ovsyannikov priest, proofs of volume 13, Misha’s nightgowns, Andryusha’s sheets and boots; do not fall behind on house payments, insurance, name duties, people’s passports, keeping accounts, rewriting, etc. and so on. - and all this must certainly directly affect me.”

For many years, Sofya Andreeva remained her husband’s faithful assistant in his affairs: a copyist of manuscripts, a translator, a secretary, and a publisher of his works.

Sofya Andreevna rewrote all the works of Lev Nikolaevich. Tolstoy wrote in terrible handwriting, she copied it completely. She gave it to him, he read it, corrected it again, she wrote it again the next night!!!

War and Peace, Sofya Andreevna rewrote 7 times COMPLETELY!!

The diary is full of different women's emotions... and resentment towards the husband when he does not understand something. And maternal feelings, where is the truth and where is the lie?

The artist L.O. Pasternak, who was closely acquainted with the Tolstoy family, remarked about Sofya Andreevna:

“...She was big in many ways, an outstanding person- in pair with Lev Nikolaevich... Sofya Andreevna was a great personality in herself.”

Possessing a subtle literary sense, she wrote novels, children's stories, and memoirs. Throughout her life, with short breaks, Sofya Andreevna kept a diary, which is described as a noticeable and unique phenomenon in memoirs and literature about Tolstoy. Her hobbies were music, painting, photography.

Their living together it was quite difficult. The couple constantly fought and then made peace, losing spiritual intimacy. Several times the quarrels reached the point of a possible break in relations, but each time there was reconciliation. And when the wife’s hysterics became daily, Tolstoy secretly left their house, after which Sophia tried to commit suicide. This was their last quarrel, since Lev Nikolaevich was ill and soon died.

Sophia Andreevna Fat at my husband's grave

The departure and death of Tolstoy had a hard effect on Sofya Andreevna, she was deeply unhappy, she could not forget that before his death she had not seen her husband conscious. On November 29, 1910, she wrote in the Diary:

“Unbearable melancholy, remorse, weakness, pity to the point of suffering for my late husband... I can’t live.”

After Tolstoy's death, Sofya Andreevna continued her publishing activities, releasing her correspondence with her husband, and completed the publication of his collected works.

Sofya Andreevna died on November 4, 1919. Knowing that her role in the life of Leo Tolstoy was assessed ambiguously, she wrote:

“... Let people treat her condescendingly, who, perhaps, from a young age was unable to bear the high task of being the wife of a genius and a great man on her weak shoulders.”