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

52

See Note 38.

53

M. A. Sopotsko, at one time in the beginning of the Nineties shared some of Tolstoi’s views in relation to the outer life, but never understood the essence of his religious philosophy. Later Sopotsko became a supporter of Orthodoxy and frequently attacked Tolstoi and his friends in print.

54

Marian Zdziechowski, a professor in the Cracow University, a well-known social worker. In the Sieverni Viestnik for the year 1895, No. 7, under the pseudonym M. Ursin, he contributed an article: “The Religious Political Ideals of Polish Society.” In respect to this article Tolstoi wrote him a long letter which was printed abroad and later was reprinted in the New Collection of Letters of L. N. Tolstoi, collected by P. A. Sergienko (published by Okto, 1911), from which by order of the Moscow Court it was deleted. After this letter M. E. Zdziechowski wrote several times to Tolstoi on the problems of Catholicism, but to those letters, mentioned in the Journal, Tolstoi evidently answered by a personal conversation during the former’s visit to Yasnaya Polyana in the summer of 1896.

55

In her letter addressed to M. L. Tolstoi, Vera Stepanovna Grinevich touched most seriously and deeply upon the fundamental problems concerning the religious upbringing of children. This letter produced a very strong impression on Tolstoi and he intended to answer it in detail, but other work drew him away from accomplishing this resolution. The letter of V. S. Grinevich and the letter to her by M. L. Tolstoi and V. G. Chertkov are printed in her book: The New School-family and the Causes of its Origin.

56

Nicholskoe, an estate of Count Olsuphiev near Moscow, close to the station of Podsolnechnaia on the Nicholai railroad.

57

Eugene Heinrich Schmidt, a German-Hungarian writer, resembling in some respects the philosophy of Tolstoi. In the Nineties he issued a magazine in Budapest: Die Religion des Geistes, and a newspaper with a Christian anarchical tendency: Ohne Staat. In 1901 he printed a book in Leipzig, Tolstoi, His Meaning to Our Civilization (see also his article on the cultural significance of the works of Leo Tolstoi, printed in the International Tolstoi Almanac by P. A. Sergienko, published by Kniga, 1909.)

58

Sergei Alexandrovich Rachinsky (1836–1902), a celebrated worker for popular education, who sacrificed his lectures in the Moscow University for his favourite occupation of teaching the peasant children in the village schools to write and read. A relative to Tolstoi on account of the first wife of his son, Sergei Lvovich, and personally acquainted with Tolstoi as early as the beginning of the Sixties.

59

Written originally in English.

60

The letter was called forth by the Italian-Abyssinian war, which was then going on. The rather extensive beginning of this letter has been preserved, but up to now has not been published anywhere.

61

Here follow words that have been crossed out. Note made by Prince N. L. Obolensky in the copy in possession of the editors.

62

Michail Petrovich Novikov, a peasant of the Province of Tula, who served a year as an army scribe in one of the regiments stationed in Moscow. After his acquaintance with Tolstoi he suffered much because of his endeavour to realise his beliefs in his life. A gifted writer.

63

Countess Tatiana Lvovna Tolstoi (born 1864), the eldest daughter of Tolstoi. In the year 1899 she married M. S. Sukhotin.

64

Maria Michailovna Kholevinsky, a woman doctor, living in Tula. By Administrative order, after the event mentioned in the Journal, she was exiled to Orenburg.

65

This letter, sent to both ministers (I. L. Goremykin and N. V. Muraviev) and to the same publishing house, was printed at first abroad in the paper The Free Press, No. 2, in 1902 (England), afterwards in Russia. (See Full Collected Works of Tolstoi, published by Sytin, 1913 – popular edition, Volume XXII. It is known that the request of Tolstoi in this letter: To direct all the prosecutions for the spreading of his forbidden books in Russia to himself and not to his followers and friends, as well as a whole series of subsequent similar petitions to Governmental officials – was not granted.)

66

The second act of Wagner’s opera, Siegfried. For the impression produced on Tolstoi, see What Is Art? chapter XIII – in the letter to his brother, Count S. N. Tolstoi, on April 20, 1896, Tolstoi under the fresh impression of this opera wrote the following: “Last night I was at the theatre and heard the celebrated new music of Wagner’s opera, Siegfried. I could not sit through a single act and I fled from the place like mad, and now I cannot talk calmly about it. It is stupid, unfit for children above seven years of age, a Punch and Judy show, pretentious, feigned, entirely false and without any music whatever. And several thousand sat and pretended to be fascinated.”

67

Aphrikan Alexandrovich Spier (1837–1890), a remarkable Russian philosopher, who lived many years in Germany and who wrote his works in German: Thinking and Reality, Morality and Religious, etc. Tolstoi was then reading his principal work, Denken und Wirklichkeit (Thinking and Reality) – in a letter of 1896 to Countess S. A. Tolstoi, Tolstoi wrote: “I am reading a newly discovered philosopher, Spier, and am rejoicing… A very useful book, destroying many superstitions, especially the superstition of materialism.” (The Letters of Count L. N. Tolstoi to his Wife, Moscow, 1913, page 510.)

68

The philosopher’s daughter, Elena Aphrikanovna Spier, who sent her father’s works to Tolstoi.

69

Grigori Grigorevich Myasoyedov (1835–1912). A celebrated artist, the painter of the picture, “The Reading of the Ordinance, of February 19th” and others; one of the principal initiators and founders of the Society of Travelling Expositions.

70

Dmitri Dmitrievich Sverbeev, the Governor of Courland, an acquaintance of the Tolstois’.

71

The cement factory, Gill, within 7 versts of Yasnaya Polyana.

72

To the Coronation in Moscow there went: Countess S. A. Tolstoi and Countess A. L. Tolstoi; while Countess T. L. Tolstoi went to Sweden for the coming marriage in Stockholm of Count L. L. Tolstoi and D. Ph. Westerlund.

73

The branch post office, 7 versts from Yasnaya Polyana.

74

Died in 1913.

75

The well-known publisher of Novoe Vremia, M. O. Menshikov, a contributor at that time to the liberal magazine, Knizhki Nedieli, where among other things, he occupied himself with popularizing Tolstoi’s ideas. In the article “The Errors of Fear,” printed in that magazine in 1896 (Nos. IV to VI) Menshikov sharply condemned certain governmental repressions of the time. For this article the magazine received a warning. Towards the later journalistic activities of Menshikov, Tolstoi took a critical attitude.

76

Fedior Alexeievich Strakhov, a friend, who shared the views of Tolstoi, author of philosophic articles published by Posrednik under the titles Beyond Political Interests, The Search For Truth. Posrednik also published a collection of articles of various thinkers compiled by him under the title Spirit and Matter (against materialism).

Several of his other articles were issued abroad. For Tolstoi’s review of the books of F. A. Strakhov see in Journal, August 15, 1910.

77

Nicholai Nicholaievich Strakhov (died in January of this year).

78

With F. A. Strakhov.

79

Timofei Nicholaievich Granovsky (1813–1855), a Russian historian, a professor at the Moscow University.

80

Vissarion Grigorevich Bielinsky (1810–1848), the critic – see in Journal, March 7, 1899, a comparison between Bielinsky and Gogol.

81

Alexander Alexandrovich Herzen (1812–1870), a great writer. From 1847 to his death he lived abroad as an exile. His collected works with censor deletions have been published in Russia only in 1905. Tolstoi as early as August 4, 1860, wrote in his Journal, “Herzen, a scattered mind, sickly ambition. But his broadness, skilfulness, kindness and refinement is Russian.” Soon after, in the beginning of 1861, Tolstoi, being abroad, spent a month in London, where he saw Herzen almost daily. In addition to the opinion expressed in this note of Tolstoi’s about Herzen, it should be noted that afterwards Tolstoi, appreciating him from another point of view, acknowledged a broad educational significance to his works (see, for example, Journal, October 12, 1895). In the letters to V. G. Chertkov of February 9, 1888, and to N. N. Gay of February 13 of the same year, Tolstoi called Herzen “a man remarkable in strength, in mind and in sincerity” and expressed regret that his works were forbidden in Russia, as the reading of them, according to his opinion, would be very instructive to the youth.

82

Nicholai Gavrilovich Chernishevsky (1828–1889) and Nicholai Alexandrovich Dobroliubov (1836–1861), Russian critics. Tolstoi became acquainted with Chernishevsky when he published his works in Sovremennik, which was edited by Chernishevsky.

83

Five-year-old daughter of F. A. Strakhov.

84

Declaration of Faith, later re-named The Christian Doctrine.

85

The estate of Tolstoi’s brother, S. N. Tolstoi, in the district of Krapivensk, in the Government of Tula, 35 versts from Yasnaya Polyana.

86

Count Sergei Nicholaievich Tolstoi (1826–1904). See for him in Biography of L. N. Tolstoi by P. Biriukov and in My Recollections by Count I. L. Tolstoi, Moscow, 1914.

87

The daughters of Count S. N. Tolstoi: Vera, Varvara and Maria Sergievna.

88

Charles Salomon, the translator of some of Tolstoi’s works into French, and a professor of the Russian language in the higher institutions in Paris.

89

Sergei Ivanovich Tanyeev (1856–1915), composer, at one time director at the Moscow Conservatory, an acquaintance of the Tolstoi family, who lived three summers (1894–1896) in Yasnaya Polyana.

90

On the Khodinka field at the time of the coronation celebration of May 18, 1896. In the beginning of the year 1910, Tolstoi wrote a little story called Khodinka, printed for the first time in his Posthumous Literary Works, Volume III, published by A. L. Tolstoi, Moscow, 1902.

91

Timofei Nicholaievich Bondarev (1820–1898), a peasant of the district of the Don. In 1867 he was exiled to Siberia for conversion to the Jewish faith and lived in the district of Minusinsk, in the Province of Yeniseisk, to the end of his life. Wrote a work called Industriousness and Parasitism, or The Triumph of the Agricultural Worker (issued with abbreviations in 1906 in Petrograd by Posrednik,) in which he proved the moral obligation of each man to do agricultural work. Tolstoi wrote a long introduction to this work. As to the impression which this work produced on Tolstoi, he himself wrote in his book What Then Shall We Do? (1884–1886) the following: “In all my life, two Russian thinkers had upon me a great moral influence and enriched my thought and clarified my philosophy. These people were not Russian poets, scholars, preachers – they were two remarkable men who are now living, and who all their life laboured in the muzhik labour of peasants, Siutaev and Bondarev.” In his letter here mentioned to Bondarev, Tolstoi touched upon those religious problems which Bondarev asked him. For more details about Bondarev see in the article of C. S. Shokhor-Trotsky: “Siutaev and Bondarev” (in the Tolstoi Annual, 1913), Petrograd, 1914, issued by the Tolstoi Museum Society, following which are printed ten letters by Tolstoi to Bondarev and some writings of Bondarev himself.

92

My Refusal From Military Service, The Memoirs of an Army Physician, issued by The Free Press, 1898, England. Tolstoi read this work even before, in manuscript, and at this time probably was re-reading it. In his letter to A. A. Shkarvan of December 16, 1895, Tolstoi wrote: “Your memoirs are interesting and important to the highest degree. I read them with spiritual joy and was touched.”

93

See Note 29.

94

Stephane Mallarmé (1842–1898), French poet, considered one of the most prominent Symbolists. For a more detailed opinion of him by Tolstoi, see his book, What Is Art? Chapter X.

95

Goethe (1749–1832), the German poet. See for Tolstoi’s opinion of him in his Journal, September 13, 1906. Earlier in 1891, in his letter to Countess A. A. Tolstoi, Tolstoi wrote: “As to Goethe, I do not like him at all. I don’t like his conceited paganism.”

Shakespeare (1564–1616). See Tolstoi’s article about him “On Shakespeare” and “On The Drama” and the opinion in his journal March 15, 1897.

96

Declaration of Faith.

97

Henry George (1839–1897), noted American social worker and writer on economic questions. In his numerous works, chiefly on agrarian questions, he was a warm defender of the destitute and the oppressed. George considered the existence of private land ownership as the principal cause of the existence of poverty; appearing as its opponent, he suggested the abolition of all existing taxes, substituting for them a single tax on the value of land; by means of this reform, land would pass into the hands of people cultivating it by their own labour, because for people who did not work it, it would be unprofitable to own great stretches of land, since they would have to pay a large amount of taxes on them.

Tolstoi sympathised very much with George’s scheme and wrote much about it (The Great Sin, The Only Possible Solution of the Land Question, A Letter to a Peasant and some chapters in Resurrection and others). Of the works of George, Tolstoi recognised as the best his Social Problems, to the Russian translation of which he wrote a preface. In the last years of George’s life, Tolstoi was in correspondence with him; in his letter to him of 1894 Tolstoi among other things wrote: “The reading of each one of your books clarifies for me much which formerly was not clear to me and convinces me more and more of the truth and practicality of your system” [translated from the Russian from a translation from the English. —Translator’s note]. On the occasion of George’s death, Tolstoi wrote to Countess S. A. Tolstoi on October 24, 1897: “Serezha told me yesterday that Henry George was dead. Strange to say, his death struck me as the death of a very close friend. The death of Alexandre Dumas produced the same impression upon me. One feels as if it were the loss of a real comrade and friend.” Many works of George’s are translated into the Russian; there is a splendid biography of him written by S. D. Nicholaev, and published by Posrednik: The Great Fighter for Land Liberation, Henry George, Moscow, 1906.

98

Anna Constantinovna Chertkov.

99

In the letter to Count L. L. Tolstoi of June 7, 1896, Tolstoi related the incident as follows: “Yesterday a remarkable event happened to me. Two or three times there came to me a young civilian from Tula asking me to give him books. I gave him some of my articles and spoke with him. He was, according to his convictions, a Nihilist and an Atheist. I told him from the bottom of my heart all that I thought. Yesterday he came and gave me a note: ‘Read it,’ he said, ‘then tell me what you think of me.’ In the note it was written that he was a junior officer in the gendarmerie, a spy, sent to me to find out what is going on here, and that he became unbearably conscience-stricken and that is why he disclosed himself to me. I felt pity and disgust and pleasure.”

100

The priest, John Ilich Sergiev (of Kronstadt) (1829–1908), who enjoyed great fame as “The supplicator for the sick.” In his preaching and his books he many times made sharp attacks against Tolstoi and his views.

101

Declaration of Faith.

102

Zakaz, a piece of Yasnaya Polyana forest, not far from the house. Tolstoi was afterwards buried there.

103

Tolstoi had the opportunity to closely observe the nomadic life of the Bashkirs in the province of Samara, where he went in the Sixties to drink kumyss, and in the Seventies and Eighties to his own estates (see The Biography of L. N. Tolstoi written by P. I. Biriukov (Moscow, 1913) published by Posrednik, Volume II, Chapter VIII; and also the Recollections in the Children’s Magazine, Mayak, 1913, by V. S. Morosov, a former pupil of the Yasnaya Polyana school in the beginning of the Sixties).

104

A village within four versts from Yasnaya Polyana.

105

Leonilla Fominishna Annenkov (1845–1914), an old friend of Tolstoi’s and an adherent of his philosophy, the wife of a Kursk landlord, the well-known scholarly lawyer, K. N. Annenkov (1842–1910). She made the acquaintance of Tolstoi in 1886 and from that time on corresponded very much with him. Completely sharing the opinions of Tolstoi, she applied them with a rare sequence to life and she was noted for her remarkable abundance of love which attracted every one who met her. Tolstoi valued her highly, considering that she had “a clear mind and a loving heart.”

106

Farther on one line is crossed out. A note of Princess M. L. Obolensky in the copy at the disposal of the editors.

107

It weighed upon him that certain persons to whom he did not want to show his Journal had read it nevertheless. In the last years of his life he was compelled to hide the current Journal somewhere in his rooms, and the finished note-books he gave away in safe keeping.

108

A village four versts from Yasnaya Polyana, where the Chertkovs lived in summer.

109

Declaration of Faith.

110

The note of July 19, 1896, he evidently originally inserted in a note-book from which he later wrote it out in his Journal.

111

Tolstoi’s brother, Count S. N. Tolstoi.

112

This article under the title of “How to Read The Gospels and What Is Its Essence” was printed at first in the edition of The Free Press, 1898, and after in 1905 in Russia. (See the complete works of Tolstoi published by Sytin, Popular Edition, Volume XV.) The central thought of this article is that in order to understand the true meaning of the Gospels, one has to penetrate those passages which are completely simple, clear and understandable. Tolstoi advises all those who wish to understand the true meaning of the Gospels to mark everything which is for them completely clear and understandable with a blue pencil and marking at the same time with a red one, around the words marked in blue, the words of Christ Himself as differing from the words of the Apostles. It is those places marked by the red pencil which will give the reader the essence of the teaching of Christ. Tolstoi in his own copy of the Gospels made such marks which he mentions later in the Journal with the words: “Marked the Gospels.”

113

Hadji Murad, one of the boldest and most remarkable leaders of the Caucasian mountaineers who played a big rôle in the struggle of the mountaineers with the Russians in the Forties of the Nineteenth Century. In 1852 he was killed in a skirmish with the Cossacks. Tolstoi heard much about him as early as the beginning of the Fifties, when he himself took part in the fight with the mountaineers. A month after the above-mentioned note in the Journal, Tolstoi made a rough sketch of his story, Hadji Murad, on which he worked with interruptions until 1904. This story was printed for the first time in his Posthumous Literary Works (published by A. L. Tolstoi, Volume III, 1912.) It is interesting to compare the introduction to it with the above note of Tolstoi’s in his Journal.

114

As in the copy at the disposal of the editors.

115

Afanasie Afanasevich Fet (Shenshin) (1820–1892), a Russian lyric poet and translator and friend of the Tolstoi family. Concerning the relations of Tolstoi with him, see My Recollections, by Fet (Volume II, 1890) and The Biography of L. N. Tolstoi by Biriukov. In the letter of November 7, 1866, Tolstoi wrote to Fet: “You are a man whose mind, not to speak of anything else, I value higher than any one of my acquaintances’ and who in personal intercourse is the only one who gives me that bread by which it is not alone that man lives.” Later Tolstoi and Fet became estranged from each other.

116

Kant, the German philosopher (1724–1804). For the opinions of Tolstoi about him see the Journal, February 19, and September 22, 1904, and September 2, 1906; August 8th, 1907; March 26, 1909. Kant’s Thoughts, selected by Tolstoi, were published by Posrednik, Moscow, 1906.

117

As a sixth sense, Tolstoi recognised the muscular sense. See the note of October 10, 1896.

118

S. I. Tanyeev.

119

The Shenshins – Tula landlords who lived on their estate, Sudakovo, five versts from Yasnaya Polyana.

120

Prosper St. Thomas, tutor of Tolstoi and his brothers. The incident mentioned in the Journal produced a tremendous impression on Tolstoi. “It may have been that this incident was the cause of all the horror and aversion to all kinds of violence which I experienced throughout life,” Tolstoi wrote afterwards in his recollections. (See P. Biriukov: The Biography of L. N. Tolstoi, Moscow, issued by Posrednik, Volume I, pages 99–100.) In Tolstoi’s story Boyhood, St. Thomas is pictured under the name of Saint Jerome. The incident mentioned here is described in Chapters XIV, XV and XVI of that story.

121

Written in English in the original.

122

Tolstoi, together with Countess S. A. Tolstoi, visited his sister, Countess Maria Nicholaievna, living in the convent of Shamordino near the Optina Desert. In his letter to her of September 13, 1896, Tolstoi wrote, “With great pleasure and emotion I recall my stay with you.”

123

The story, Hadji Murad. See Note 112.

124

Count Sergei Lvovich, with his wife, Countess Maria Constantinovna (born Rachinsky, who died in 1899); Count Ilya Lvovich, with his wife, Countess Sophia Nicholaievna, and Count Leo Lvovich, with his wife, the Countess Dora Fedorovna.

125

The Dutchman, Van-der-Veer, refused military service, as he declared in his letter to the Commander of the National Guard, on the grounds that he hated every kind of murder of men as well as of animals, especially murder at the order of other people. The military authorities sentenced him to three months’ solitary confinement. Later Van-der-Veer for several years published a magazine with a Christian tendency called Vrede.

126

Van-der-Veer’s letter, with the appendix by Tolstoi under the title “The Beginning of the End” was printed in the edition of The Free Press, 1898, England, later in Russia in the Obnovlenia, Petrograd, 1906, which was soon confiscated.