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Tolstoi's University Years1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2017

Ernest J. Simmons
Ernest J. Simmons*
Affiliation:
Cornell University
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Extract

When Aunt Pelageya Yushkova finished appropriating “necessities” for the journey and the future existence of the Tolstoi children (Nikolai, Dmitri, Sergei, Lyovochka, and Masha) at Kazan, Yasnaya Polyana looked as though the Golden Horde had ravaged it. An immense amount of household equipment, and carpenters, tailors, mechanics, cooks, and upholsterers from among the skilled serfs were sent on ahead. The “complete orphans” with their various attendants and staples for the road set out, accompanied by a long train of carriages and carts. The brothers grieved at parting with Auntie Tatyana. Their “second mother's” love and long service gave her a stronger moral claim to the children than that of their legal guardian, Aunt Pelageya, who always treated her with polite hostility. Aunt Pelageya could never forget that Auntie Tatyana had once received a proposal from her husband, who still spoke with enthusiasm of “Toinette,” and indiscreetly recalled before his wife how “elle était charmante!”

Type
Research Article
Information
Slavonic and East European Review American Series , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , August 1944 , pp. 16 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1944

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Footnotes

1

This article is based on material collected for a biography of Tolstoi to be published by Oxford University Press.

References

2 Tatyana Alexandrovna Ergolskaya, a distant relative and the beloved foster-mother of the Tolstoi children.

3 Grading was on the basis of five to one, and would correspond roughly to our system of A to E: A = 5; B=4; C=3; D = 2; E=1.

4 Tolstoi devotes Chapter XXXI of Youth to his adolescent fervor to he comme il faut.

5 Zagoskin, N. P., “Graf L. N. Tolstoi i ego studenčeskie gotly,” Istoričeski vestnik, LV (1894), p. 100 Google Scholar.

6 Kazanskie gubernskie vedomosti (1846), No. 18.

7 Hiryukov, P. I., Biograjija Lva Nikolaeviča Tohtogo (Moscow, 1923), I, xviii Google Scholar.

8 “Zapiski sumašedšego,” Polnoe sobranie sočineni, pod obščei red. V. G. Čertkova (Moscow, 1928 ff.), XXVI, 467. All succeeding references to Tolstoi's writings are to this edition.

9 Gusev, N. N., Žizn’ Lva Nikolaeviča Tolstogo. Molodoi Tolstoi (Moscow, 1927), I, 106 Google Scholar.

10 The discrepancy in the locale of the act is puzzling. One cannot suppose that the Kizicheski Monastery and the brothel Tolstoi mentions were one and the same place, despite the amazing stories that have come out of Russia about the occasional debauchery lr> monasteries. Apparently Tolstoi has confused several experiences of this nature in his youth.

11 I. I. Starinin, “Okolo mudretsa,” Russkie vedotnosti (November 16, 1911).

12 Dnevnik, March 17, 1847, XLVI, 3.

13 These meditations on love are discussed in Chapter XXIV of Youth.

14 Dnevnik, XLVI, 237–238.

15 Yasnaja Poljana o L. N. Tolslom (Moscow, 1900), pp. 48–49.

16 Tolstoi refers here to traditional stories in mediaeval Russian history.

17 In this tirade may be seen the future relentless critic of conventional history books in War and Peace.

18 Nazarev, V. N., “Ljudi bylogo vremeni,” Istoričeski vestnik (November, 1890), pp. 438–440 Google Scholar.

19 “Pismo studentu o prave” (quoted by N. N. Gusev in Žizn Lva Nikolaeviča Tuhtogo, I, 121).

20 With some interruptions, Tolstoi continued the practice of keeping a diary, as well as various notebooks, containing observations, plans, projects, etc., throughout the remainder of his life. This material, of immense biographical importance, is so extensive that it will fill thirteen volumes (with notes) of the huge Soviet Academy Edition of Tolstoi's complete works.

21 The Nakaz, or “Injunction,” was written by Catherine in 1766 as a guide to her Commission appointed to draw up a Code of Laws. In it she expounded her personal views on the rights of the State and on civil and criminal law. The Nakaz was heavily indebted to Montesquieu's Esprit des lois and to C. B, Beccaria's Dei Delitli e delle Pene.

22 Dnevnik, March 22, 1847, XLVI, IS.

23 Ibid., p. 28.

24 Biryukov, P. I., Biografija Lva Nikolaeviča Tolstogo, I, 56 Google Scholar.

25 Goldenweiser, A. B., Vblizi Tolstogo (Moscow, 1922), I, 134 Google Scholar.

26 Zapisnye knižki, XLVII, 211.

27 “Otvet obščestvu Russo” (quoted by N. N. Guscv in Žizn Lva Nikolaeviča Tolstogo, I, 136).

28 These interesting compositions, probably written when he was eighteen or nineteen, have been published in complete form for the first time in the Soviet Academy Edition of Tolstoi's complete works.

29 Otryvok bez zaglavija, I, 226, n. 1; 227, n. 1.

30 Pravila dlja razvitija, XLVI, 262.

31 Dnevnik, March 17, 1847, XLVI, 4.

32 Otročestvo, II, 85.

33 A Confession (Maude Edition), p. 8.

34 Biryukov, P. I., Biografija Lva Nikolaeviča Tohiogo, I, 51 Google Scholar.

35 Pisma k S. A. Tolstoi, LXXXIII, 228.

36 Dnevnik, XLVI, 31.

37 Ibid., March 17, 1847, pp. 3–4.