TOLSTOY
ALSO BY ROSAMUND BARTLETT
Wagner and Russia (1995)
Chekhov: Scenes from a Life (2004)
CO-AUTHORED
Literary Russia: A Guide (1997)
EDITED AND CO-EDITED
Shostakovich in Context (2000)
Victory over the Sun: the World’s First Futurist Opera (forthcoming)
TRANSLATED AND EDITED
Anton Chekhov, About Love and Other Stories (2004)
Anton Chekhov, A Life in Letters (co-translated with A. Phillips, 2004)
Anton Chekhov, The Exclamation Mark (2008)
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (forthcoming)
TOLSTOY
A RUSSIAN LIFE
Rosamund Bartlett
First published in Great Britain in 2010 by
PROFILE BOOKS LTD
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This eBook edition published in 2010
Copyright © Rosamund Bartlett, 2010
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
eISBN 978 1 84765 283 6
for Lucy
CONTENTS
Map
Chronology
Tolstoy Family Tree
Bers Family Tree
Note on Conventions
Introduction
1 Ancestors: The Tolstoys and the Volkonskys
2 Aristocratic Childhood
3 Orphanhood
4 Youth
5 Landowner, Gambler, Officer, Writer
6 Literary Duellist and Repentant Nobleman
7 Husband, Beekeeper and Epic Poet
8 Student, Teacher, Father
9 Novelist
10 Pilgrim, Nihilist, Muzhik
11 Sectarian, Anarchist, Holy Fool
12 Elder, Apostate and Tsar
Epilogue: Patriarch of the Bolsheviks
Notes
Further Reading in English
Select Bibliography
Illustration Credits
Acknowledgements
Index
CHRONOLOGY
1828
Born at Yasnaya Polyana, Tula Province
1830
Death of Tolstoy’s mother
1837
Father dies shortly after family moves to Moscow
1841
The five Tolstoy children move to Kazan
1844
Becomes a student at Kazan University
1847
Starts writing a diary and returns to Yasnaya Polyana without finishing his degree when he comes into his inheritance
1851
Travels to the Caucasus with his brother Nikolay and joins the army
1852
Childhood is published
1854
Receives his commission and transfers to Bucharest, then the Crimea
1855
Sebastopol in December greeted with wide acclaim; arrives in St Petersburg and meets Turgenev and other writers for the first time
1856
Death of brother Dmitry; retires from the army
1857
First visit to Western Europe
1859
Opens school at Yasnaya Polyana for the peasants
1860
Second visit to Western Europe, to study pedagogy; death of brother Nikolay
1861
Appointed Justice of the Peace after serfs are emancipated; opens more schools and founds an educational journal
1862
Yasnaya Polyana raided by the secret police while Tolstoy is in Samara; marries Sofya Bers
1863
Starts writing War and Peace (completed 1869); birth of first child – son Sergey
1871
Buys an estate in Samara province
1872
Publishes ABC book and re-opens Yasnaya Polyana school briefly
1873
Starts writing Anna Karenina (completed 1877)
1875
Publication of the New ABC
1877
Becomes devout – visits Optina Pustyn Monastery
1878
Reconciliation with Turgenev; meetings with sectarians in Samara
1879
Renounces the Orthodox faith
1880
Confession (circulates in samizdat in 1882)
1881
Appeals to Tsar to exercise clemency after the assassination of Alexander II
Union and Translation of the Four Gospels
Family moves to Moscow for the winter months
1882
Investigation of Dogmatic Theology (published in 1891)
What I Believe (circulates in samizdate in 1884)
1883
Meets Vladimir Chertkov; Gospel in Brief published in France
1885
Sonya takes over the publication of Tolstoy’s earlier fiction First English translations of Confession, What I Believe
1886
What Then Must We Do?; The Death of Ivan Ilych; The Powers of Darkness
First English translations of War and Peace and Anna Karenina
1887
On Life (first publication in French in 1889)
1888
The Tolstoys’ last child, Ivan, is born First grandchild is born (to Ilya and his wife Sofya)
1889
The Kreutzer Sonata – circulates immediately in samizdat Tolstoy’s sister Masha becomes a nun
1890
Sonya obtains permission to publish The Kreutzer Sonata after an audience with Alexander III; Tolstoy is anathematised
1891
Renounces copyright and divides property among his wife and children. By now vegetarian, teetotal; no longer smokes or hunts
1892
Famine relief in Ryazan province
1893
The Kingdom of God is Within You – immediately published in translation
1894
Death of first Tolstoyan ‘martyr’; meets first Dukhobors
1895
Death of Ivan Tolstoy before his seventh birthday; Tolstoy takes up cycling
1896
First Tolstoyan colony established in England
1897
Chertkov exiled to England; founds press to publish Tolstoy’s writings
1898
What is Art?
1899
Resurrection – royalties pay for Dukhobors to emigrate to Canada
1901
Excommunicated
1902
Recovers from serious illness in the Crimea
1904
Death of brother Sergey
1906
Chertkov allowed to return from exile
1908
‘I Cannot Be Silent!’
1910
Death at Astapovo railway station
TOLSTOY FAMILY TREE
Note: The Tolstoy and Bers family trees reproduced here are principally designed to clarify the genealogies of Tolstoy and his wife Sonya and are not comprehensive.