The Journal of Leo Tolstoi First. Volume—1895-1899

194

Two lines crossed out by Tolstoi. A note by M. L. Obolensky in the copy in possession of the editors.

195

The Englishman, Aylmer Maude, translator of many works of Tolstoi into English. The agricultural colony which Tolstoi mentions was being founded at that time in England in the town of Purleigh in Essex. Maude settled in the neighbourhood of the colony and supported it materially. Maude himself and several representatives of this colony visited Tolstoi at this time. He wrote and published in England, a biography of Tolstoi, The Life of Tolstoi, by Aylmer Maude, two volumes, London, 1908 to 1910. Unfortunately this most detailed biography of Tolstoi in English, contains among other things the most perverted information about Tolstoi and an absolutely incorrect interpretation of his views, as well as of some of his acts. Tolstoi himself, learning before his death of the contents of some of these chapters which were sent to Yasnaya Polyana in manuscript, found the interpretation of the relation among people near to him so incorrect that he wrote about it to Maude.

196

I. M. Tregubov, sentenced to exile by administrative order, was living in the Caucasus among the Dukhobors, far from the centres of administration, and remained still free. (See entry of following day.)

197

This search was made in connection with I. M. Tregubov’s things, who was wanted at that time, and which were left by him in A. N. Dunaev’s apartment.

198

That is, in England at the V. G. and A. K. Chertkovs.

199

Further in Tolstoi’s manuscript two pages are cut out. Note of M. L. Obolensky in the copy in possession of the editors.

In reference to the mood during the month mentioned by him as “bad and unproductive” Tolstoi wrote to Chertkov (April 30, 1897): “I will not say that I have been depressed, because when I ask myself, ‘Who am I? For what am I?’ I answer myself satisfactorily, but I have no energy, and I feel as if Lilliputian hairs were laid over me and I have less and less initiative and activity.”

200

In the beginning of June of that year, Tolstoi decided to leave the conditions of his life which tortured him and wrote a letter to his wife about this. But later he changed his mind and on the envelope of this letter made an inscription: “If I will make no special provision about this letter, then give this after my death to S. A.” This letter he gave afterwards for safe-keeping to his son-in-law, Prince N. L. Obolensky, who did deliver it, as was designated, after Tolstoi’s death. At that time it was printed in different publications. (See Letters of Count L. N. Tolstoi to his Wife, March, 1913, pages 524 to 526.)

201

In his letter to V. G. Chertkov of July 12, 1896, Tolstoi informed him of his illness: “About a week ago when I began to answer letters, I fell terribly ill with a bilious attack, so that I could only answer one letter. My illness was very painful, but it passed away quickly. I am now vigorous and healthy.”

202

Tolstoi’s daughter, Maria Lvovna, married to Prince N. L. Obolensky.

203

Tolstoi wrote about him to A. C. Chertkov (July 12, 1897): “A young peasant, Shidlovsky, came to me from the province of Kiev, a man with a very lively spirit.”

204

In his letter to Chertkov of July 23, 1897, Tolstoi wrote: “Latterly I have begun again to make entries in the Journal – a sign that I have revived somewhat spiritually and no longer feel myself alone.”

205

William Crookes, a well-known English physicist and chemist, a follower of spiritualism. A detailed report about this speech was printed in the Novoe Vremia of 1897, under the title, “On the Relativity of Human Knowledge.”

206

M. P. Novikov gave Tolstoi his notes, through his brother, in which he described all the persecutions which he had to undergo for his friendship with Tolstoi. The notes up to this time have not yet been printed.

207

Paul Carus, editor of a Chicago magazine, The Open Court, devoted to the scientific explanation of religious questions. (See his article, “A Tribute to Tolstoi,” printed in the International Tolstoi Almanac, compiled by P. A. Sergienko, Kniga, 1909.)

208

Evgenie Ivanovich Popov, friend and adherent of Tolstoi’s ideas, author of the book, The Life and Death of E. N. Drozhin (see Note 38), several other works on vegetarianism, the simple life, mathematics, etc.

209

The family of Count I. L. Tolstoi.

210

Vasili Vasilevich Longinov, later Rector of the Kharkov Theological Seminary.

211

In a letter to the Chertkovs of August 8, 1897, Tolstoi wrote: “I feel weak also from the fact, that we have a pile of visitors here … all this wastes time and strength and is useless. I thirst terribly for silence and peace. How happy I would be if I could end my days in solitude and principally, in conditions, not repulsive and torturing to my conscience. But it seems that it is necessary. At least, I know no way out.”

212

Peter Alexeevich Bulakhov, a peasant from the province of Smolensk, belonging to the sect of the Old-Believers, the followers of which avoid military service.

213

Mikhail Alexandrovich Stakhovich, afterwards a member of the Council of Empire, an old friend of the Tolstoi family, and probably his sister, Sophia Alexandrovna, or his brother, Alexander Alexandrovich (1858–1915).

214

Probably – Vasili Alexeevich Maklakov, a well-known lawyer, afterwards a member of the Duma, and his brother, Alexei Alexeevich, a well-known Moscow physician.

215

Ilya Yakovlovich Ginsburg, a well-known Russian sculptor, who made several busts and statues of Tolstoi.

Mikhail Nicholaievich Sobolev, instructor in the Moscow University, living at this time with the Tolstois as a teacher to Count M. L. Tolstoi.

N. A. Kasatkin, a well-known Russian painter.

216

In regard to this letter of the Japanese, Tolstoi in a letter of August 8, 1897, wrote: “Recently I received a letter from Crosby with an enclosure of a letter from a Japanese who lived with him in New York. The Japanese read The Gospel in Brief, and writes that it explained to him the meaning of life and that he is now going home to Japan, in order to apply these beliefs to his life and to the life of others and to establish settlements there. A splendid letter which touched me deeply and gave me joy. The same truth evidently is accessible and necessary to every one.”

217

Count L. L. Tolstoi (born in 1869), Tolstoi’s third son, and his wife, the Princess Dora Fedorovna (born Westerlund).

218

B. N. Leontev, at one time calling himself a follower of Tolstoi, committed suicide in 1909.

219

In the Russkia Viedomosti (No. 211, 1897), in the report of the missionary congress which took place in Kazan in August, 1897, in which many high representatives of the hierarchy participated, it was stated among other things, that for combating the spread of sects and dissensions, the congress considered it necessary to adopt the following measures: To forbid the dissenters to open schools for their children and to close all the schools existing at the present moment; to declare the adherence to a particularly obnoxious sect as a compromising circumstance and to thus give the right to peasant communities to expel from their midst members discovered as belonging to an obnoxious sect and to exile them to Siberia. For the sake of combating dissensions and sects, still other measures were suggested and discussed at the congress, which among others were: The soliciting of the passing of a law, by which it would be possible to take away by force the children of the dissenters and sectarians, and the establishing of asylums in every diocese for bringing them up in the orthodox faith… The Archbishop of Riazan, Meletie, called the attention of the congress to another very important measure, and to his mind, a very useful one for the success of missionary work: the confiscation of the property of the dissenters and sectarians.

220

P. A. Boulanger was sent abroad for continuing the affair of helping the Dukhobors, for which V. G. Chertkov, P. I. Biriukov and I. M. Tregubov were exiled before him.

221

In his letter to the Swedish papers (not yet printed in Russia) Tolstoi wrote that the Nobel prize ought to be awarded to the Dukhobors, as people who have done their utmost towards the establishment of universal peace. This letter, dated August 27, 1898, was printed in P. I. Biriukov’s paper: Svobodnaia Mysl (Geneva), No. 4, 1899.

222

Arthur St. John, an Englishman, a former officer in the India service, came to Moscow to deliver the money donated for the benefit of the Dukhobors by English Quakers. Wishing to come into personal relation with the Dukhobors, he went to the Caucasus, where he was arrested and sent out of Russia. Later, he went with the Dukhobors to America and lived with them a long time.

223

The Molokans, from the province of Samara, district of Buzuluk, came twice (in April and September, 1897) to Tolstoi to ask him that he help them get back the children taken from them by the police and placed in orthodox monasteries. (See Tolstoi’s letter about this to the editor of the Peterburgskaia Viedomosti, printed in that paper in October, 1897, and reprinted in the Collected Works of Tolstoi, edited by Sytin, Popular Edition, Volume XXII. See also, article of A. S. Prugavin, “Leo Tolstoi and the Malakans of Samara,” in his book, On Leo Tolstoi and the Tolstoians, Moscow, 1911.)

224

About the children taken away from the Molokans. The rough draft of this letter is now in the Petrograd Tolstoi Museum.

225

Count A. V. Olsuphiev, Adjutant General. In letters to him and to the two other persons mentioned below, Tolstoi asked their collaboration in freeing from the monasteries, the children taken from the Molokans.

226

Charles Heath. An Englishman now dead, a former instructor of English language and literature in a law school, and later one of the tutors of the Emperor, Nicholas II.

227

Mme. E. I. Chertkov, the widow of an Adjutant General, a well-known follower of the “Evangelist” teaching or what is known as The Pashkov Evangelist Doctrine. The mother of V. G. Chertkov.

228

The Swede, Langlet, who previously had given detailed information to Tolstoi about the Nobel prize. He was a guest at Yasnaya Polyana at this time.

229

The last sentence was marked off in the original.

230

To V. G. Chertkov, during the time of his enforced two-year sojourn abroad, Tolstoi from time to time actually sent extracts of his Journal. But in general, Tolstoi, for reasons which will be given at the proper time and place, found it later necessary to change his decision not to give his Journal to be copied in its entirety to any one; the confirmation of this can be found in the fact that the present issue of the Journal is being printed from a transcript made according to Tolstoi’s wishes. When V. G. Chertkov returned to Russia, Tolstoi continually gave him his Journals to copy in their entirety.

231

In the letter to A. C. Chertkov of October 13, 1897, Tolstoi wrote: “How many people are there with whom one does not speak unreservedly, because you know that they are drunk. Some are drunk with greed, some with vanity, some with love, some simply with drugs. Lord forfend us from these intoxications. These intoxications place no worse boundaries between people than religion, patriotism, aristocracy do, and prevent that union which God desires.”

232

V. G. Chertkov lived through hard times in England; his condition naturally reflected itself upon his family, among which number was his sister-in-law, O. K. Dieterichs, who was their guest at this time.

233

Tolstoi sent to the editor of the Peterburgskaia Viedomosti a letter in regard to the children taken away from the Samara Molokans, and about those measures which were suggested as a means of fighting the sectarians and Old-Believers which were made in the missionary congress in Kazan. This letter was printed in No. 282, of October 15th.

234

Protestant ministers of various localities in Holland: L. A. Beller, A. De-Kuh and I-Kh. Klein, at a meeting in Grevenhagen, definitely expressed themselves against war and military service.

235

N took an adverse attitude to Chertkov’s social work among Englishmen. Chertkov fell ill with pneumonia.

236

To Moscow to be copied.

237

V. D. Liapunov (1873–1905), peasant-poet of Tula. Working in Tula, Liapunov in the autumn of 1897 came to Tolstoi that he judge his poetry. Tolstoi was very much pleased with the poems, contrary to his custom, for in general he did not like poetry. Tolstoi proposed that Liapunov stay in his house to help copy his manuscripts.

238

Afanasi Aggeev, a free-thinking peasant from the village of Kaznacheevka, 4 versts from Yasnaya Polyana. In 1903 he was sentenced by the Tula District Court to exile in Siberia for life for the public utterance of words insulting to the Orthodox Faith. He died in 1908.

239

N. Y. Grot (1852–1899), professor at the Moscow University, author of numerous articles on philosophic questions and editor of the magazine, Problems of Philosophy and Psychology. Tolstoi submitted his work, What Is Art? to Grot to be printed in his magazine. Shortly before his death, at the request of Grot’s brother, Tolstoi wrote his recollections about him, which were printed, together with his letter to Grot, in the compilation, N. Y. Grot, in Sketches, Recollections and Letters by Comrades and Pupils, Friends and Admirers, Petrograd, 1911, and in the Full Collected Works of L. N. Tolstoi, issued by Sytin, subscribed edition, Volume XV; Popular Edition, Volume XXIV.

240

A. P. Ivanov (died 1912), ex-officer and old scribe, with whom Tolstoi became acquainted at the time of the census of 1862, having found him among the Moscow tramps. He led a vagabond life, coming or tramping from time to time to Yasnaya Polyana to help Tolstoi copy his manuscripts.

241

Prince D. A. Khilkov (1858–1915), who at this time was in accord with Tolstoi in several questions of a more external nature, formerly an officer of the Hussars and afterwards of the Cossacks, a landlord in the district of Sumsk, province of Kharkov. In the eighties, he resigned from military service and sold for a trifle his 400 dessiatines of land, the only personal property he had at the time, to the peasants of the village of Pavlovok; in 1889, on account of his propaganda against religion, he was exiled by administrative order to Zakavkaz. In 1893 Khilkov and his wife suffered a great sorrow: their children were taken away from them by order of the government (following the manipulations of Khilkov’s mother), and they were given over to this lady for bringing up, she having absolutely no sympathy with the opinions of her son. Afterwards, when a strong movement among the Dukhobors began in the Caucasus, Khilkov was sent over to the Baltic Provinces, where he lived up to 1899, at which time it was decided that he be sent abroad. In his sojourn abroad, his convictions underwent a change to the side of the violent revolutionaries. But when Khilkov returned to Russia in 1905, he absolutely abstained from every political activity. In the beginning of the Russian-German War, Khilkov entered the army as a volunteer and in October, 1914, was killed at Lvov (Lemberg).

242

A peasant from Yasnaya Polyana, now dead, who was well-lettered and loved to read.

243

The clergy who came carried the icon to the churches, in the parish of which stood Yasnaya Polyana. According to the order of the clergy, the elder of Yasnaya Polyana called a village meeting and ordered every one to go to church and meet the icon which was afterwards carried from house to house in all the households of the village. Concerning Tolstoi and the icon, see his letter to Countess S. A. Tolstoi, which evidently by mistake is dated 1898 (Letters of Count L. N. Tolstoi to his Wife, Moscow, 1913, page 558).

244

N. N. Miklukha-Maklai (1847–1887), a well-known Russian traveller, living many years among the Tuzemts of New Guinea and other islands. In his letter to Miklukha-Maklai in the middle of the eighties, Tolstoi wrote that he considered him remarkable, not for what every one else considered him remarkable, but that “he could find manifestations of humanity among the wildest men on the globe.”

245

Such a type was afterwards portrayed by Tolstoi in his story The Forged Coupon, under the name of the housekeeper, Vasili. (See Posthumous Literary Works of L. N. Tolstoi, issued by A. L. Tolstoi, Volume I.)

246

Every group of people is always inferior to the elements which compose it.

247

The work by M. O. Menshikov, Concerning Holy Love and Sex Love, was printed in Knizhki Nedieli in 1897, No. 11. In Chapters IV and V of this work, Menshikov wrote about the struggle of the two principles: The many-gods and the One-God; Tolstoi was probably pleased with the following lines: “The great teaching about One-God wiped out, together with the idols, the very conception of separate gods; the gods disappeared but their elements – the passions – remained, until now the overwhelming majority of Christians who profess by word in the One-God, in reality bow to a plurality… (Italics made by the author.) Notwithstanding the thousand year rule of the Gospels, we, in an overwhelming majority are more sincerely idolaters than Christians – of course without suspecting it… Nihilist, Godless, paganized, the contemporary generation accepts as an undoubted law, that the development of man consists in enlarging the number of needs and refining them to the point of a cult. Is this not a new plurality of gods, an idolatry?”

248

In his book, What Is Art?

249

St. John, Chapter XIV, Verse 2.

250

Chapter I, Verse 24, St. Paul to the Colossians.

251

See letter of Count L. N. Tolstoi to his Wife, March, 1913, page 535 (No. 583) and page 537 (No. 585).

252

See letter of Count L. N. Tolstoi to his Wife, March, 1913, pages 536–537.

253

About this time Tolstoi wrote to an acquaintance of his: “You know Mme. M. A. Schmidt. She lives near us, straining every effort, notwithstanding her weak health and her age (about 50), to work to support herself. (She constantly helps people) and it is impossible to see her without a softening of the heart and … envy. She is always joyous, calm and graceful.”

254

In the Novoe Vremia (November 19, 1897, No. 7,806) there appeared an article by V. V. Rozanov: “Graceful Demonism” in which, in an ironical tone, he criticised Menshikov’s article, “On Sex Love,” which was printed in Knizhki Nedieli (1897, Nos. 9–11). In his words later on, Tolstoi speaks of his deeply loved brother, Nickolai Nickolaievich (1823–1860). In his Recollections, Tolstoi relates the incident as follows: “I remember how once, a very stupid and bad man, an Adjutant General, who was hunting with him, laughed at him and how my brother, glancing at me, smiled kindly,” evidently finding great satisfaction in this. (Biriukov, Biography of L. N. Tolstoi, Vol. I, Moscow, 1911, pages 43–44).

255

A. Maude translated What Is Art? into English.

256

The letter of N. Y. Grot is printed, I think, in Tolstoi’s book, What Is Art?

257

Grigori Antonovich Zakharlin (1829–1895), a well-known professor in the Moscow University, in his day, one of the most popular Moscow physicians.

258

Countess Maria Nicholaievna Tolstoi (1830–1912), Tolstoi’s only sister. As a young girl, she married her second cousin, Count V. P. Tolstoi; some time later she separated from him and soon after she became a widow. When her daughters were married (Mme. V. V. Nagornov, Princess E. V. Obolensky and Mme. E. S. Denisenko) Countess Tolstoi, under the influence of the well-known Father Ambrose, of the Optina Desert, entered the convent of Shamordino (in the province of Kaluga) and later took the veil. In this convent she spent the rest of her life.

259

Monk Ambrose, the celebrated holy man of the Optina Desert, died in 1891, at the age of 80. About Tolstoi’s visits to the Optina Desert see fragment of notes made by S. A. Tolstoi under the title My Life (Tolstoi Annual, 1913, Petrograd, 1914).

260

Dushan Petrovich Makovitsky, then editor in Hungary (in Ruzhomberg), of the Slavic publication which corresponded to the publication Posrednik issued in Moscow, in which Tolstoi and some of his friends took a most active interest.

261

In this place, in the original Journal, a page had been entered in Tolstoi’s hand; evidently the beginning of a letter. This was its contents:

“You ask me a question which I now for twenty years have been trying to solve.

“It always seems to us – when the simple truth is that we ought to lead a Christian life, and when it is disclosed to us how terribly far from that life is the life we lead – it always seems to us that we for the moment find ourselves in an exceptionally disadvantageous condition for beginning that new life, which opens itself to us: To one, it is a mother, to another a wife, to a third, children, to a fourth, business; this one bought a bull, or the other has a wedding which interferes from his going to the feast. And we usually say to ourselves, ‘Oh, if it were not so,’ – looking at it as on an accidental hindrance and not as on the unavoidable conditions of Christian life, as on the law of gravitation in problems of activity.

“Beauty which discloses to us the kingdom of God blinds us so, that we immediately want to enter it and we forget that this is not the programme of life, but the ideal; and that the programme of life consists in struggle and in effort to attain the kingdom of God, to approach it.

“And when you understand this, then the attitude towards activity is changed…”

262

The village of Dolgoe, province of Tula, district of Krapevensk, nineteen versts from Yasnaya Polyana. The Yasnaya Polyana house in which Tolstoi was born stands there. In the fifties this house was sold to a neighbouring landlord, Gorobov, who took it from Yasnaya Polyana to Dolgoe, where it remained until 1913, when it was destroyed.

263

Nicholai Ilich Storozhenko (1836–1906), professor in the Moscow University, author of numerous books and articles on Russian history and general literature.

264

Tolstoi probably asked N. A. Kasatkin for examples of true art in painting.

265

N’s stories seemed to be about some of the Chertkovs’ difficult experiences in England.

266

Prince S. N. Troubetskoi (1862–1905), professor of philosophy in the Moscow University, took an active part in the magazine, Problems of Philosophy and Psychology, and became after N. Y. Grot’s death, the editor of it. Tolstoi, as was said above, gave his work, What Is Art? to this magazine.