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Recent Publications on L. N. Tolstoi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2017

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

An omnibus review of recent Tolstoi scholarship has some of the frightening aspects of an omnibus of contemporary crime literature — any selection in the extraordinary plenitude betrays a personal weakness for favorite themes and authors. As Russia's most famous literary figure, Tolstoi has naturally claimed a major share of attention in the extensive scholarly activity in the humanities in the Soviet Union. Lenin's series of articles on Tolstoi has imparted a certain dignity and official status to the subject; and his well-known pronouncement on “Lëv Tolstoi as a Mirror of the Russian Revolution” has acted as a safe green light for all succeeding Soviet investigators. Indeed, there has been a minimum of that off-centre indulgence in political rehabilitation and a marked concentration on the purely scholarly aspects of the subject. Finally, the existence of a huge amount of unpublished Tolstoi manuscripts has rendered the field an unusually rich one for fresh study.

Type
Review Articles
Information
Slavonic Yearbook American Series , Volume 1 , 1941 , pp. 338 - 346
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1941

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References

1 Cf. O Tolstom, literaturno-kritičeski sbornik, ed. Friche, V. M. (Moscow-Leningrad, 1928)Google Scholar.

2 For bibliographies (incomplete) and review material covering the years 1928–1939, see the following: Tolstoi i o Tolslom. Novye malerialy, ed. Gusev, N. N. and Chertkov, V. G. (Moscow, 1928), IV, 19–199 Google Scholar; Breitburg, S. M., Literalura o Tolstom poslednich let (Moscow, 1931)Google Scholar; “Akademičeskoe izdanie polnoe sočinenii L. N. Tolstogo,” Literaturnoe Nasledstvo (Moscow, 1935), Nos. 19–21, pp. 671–711; Popov, P., “Tolstoi i o Tolstom,” Literaturnoe Nasledstvo (Moscow, 1939), Nos. 37-38, II, 725–749 Google Scholar.

3 The works selected are: Akademičeskoe izdanie polnoe sočinenii L. N. Tolstogo, general ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow-Leningrad, 1935–1939), Vols. VII, XVII, XIX-XX, XXV-XXVI, XXXIII, XXXVI, XXXVIII, XLVII, LIV-LVI, LVIII-LIX, LXXXIII, LXXXV-LXXXVII ; Gudzi, N. K., Kak rabotal Tolstoi (Moscow, 1936)Google Scholar; Gusev, N. N., Letopis žizni i tvorčeslva L. N. Tolstogo (Moscow-Leningrad, 1936)Google Scholar; Sbornik Gosudarstvennogo Tolstovskogo Muzeja, ed. Bronch-Burevich, V. (Moscow, 1937)Google Scholar; Letopisi Gosudarstvennogo Literaturnogo Muzeja. L. N. Tolstoi, ed. Gusev, N. N. (Moscow, 1938)Google Scholar; Myshkovskaya, L., L. Tolstoi. Rabota i stil (Moscow, 1939)Google Scholar; Literaturnoe Nasledstvo, L. N. Tolstoi (Moscow, 1939), Nos. 37–38, Vols. I-II.

4 The lack of popular editions of selected works was met by publication of L. N. Tolstoi, Polnoe sobranie chudoižstvennych proizvedenii, ed. K. Khalabaev i B. M. Eichenbaum (Moscow-Leningrad, 1928), 15 volumes, and Polnoe sobranie chudožestvennych proizvedenii Lva Nikolaeviča Tolstogo, ed. I. I. Glivenko i M. A. Tsyavlovski (Moscow-Leningrad, 1928), 12 volumes. A great many editions of separate works have also appeared since 1928.

5 This has been published: L. N. Tolstoi, Polnoe sobranie sočinenii; Prospekt (Moscow-Leningrad, 1929).

6 The Moscow All-Union Lenin Library, The State Tolstoi Museum, and The State Literary Museum.

7 The volumes published from 1928 to 1935 (I-VII, IX-XIII, XVIII, XXVII, XXXII, XLIII-XLIV, XLVI, LXIII, LXXII) have been well reviewed in Literaturnoe Nasledstvo (Moscow, 1935), Nos. 19–21, pp. 671–711.

8 VIII, works (1860–62); XVII, works (1870); XIX-XX, Anna Karenina; XXV-XXVI, works (1880); XXXIII, second volume of Resurrection; XXXVI, works (1904–1906); xXXXVIII, works (1908–1910).

9 This conception of “absolute definitiveness” has become a fixed policy in Soviet editions of other great classical Russian authors, such as in the complete editions of Pushkin, Lermontov, etc.

10 The first four parts of the novel are published in volume XVIII.

11 The commentaries on the First Series of the Academy Edition are uniform in design: a study of the genesis and history of the work in question, and a description of the manuscripts. Literary criticism is eschewed.

12 Some pages from Resurrection, published by Gershenzon, M., Novye propily (Moscow, 1923)Google Scholar, vol. I, were not included by Gudzi; and since the publication of the Academy Edition of Resurrection, 475 additional proofsheets of the novel, corrected by Tolstoi, have turned up in the Moscow All-Union Lenin Library.

13 XLVII (1854–1857); LIV (1900–1903); LV (1904–1906); LVI (1907–1908); LVIII (1910). Only one other volume in this Series has been published — XLVI (1847–1854).

14 Dnevnik molodosti Lva Nikolaeviča Tolstogo (1847–1852), ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow, 1917), and Dnevnik Lva Nikolaevila Tolstogo (1895–1899) ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow, 1916). Both volumes have been translated into English: The Diaries of Leo Tolstoy, Youth, 1847 to 1852, translated from the Russian by C. J. Hogarth and A. Sirnis (London-New York, 1917), and The Journal of Leo Tolstoy (1895–1899), translated from the Russian by Rose Strunsky (New York, 1917). Citations and separate pages of the diaries may be found in various biographies and publications that had appeared before the Academy Edition. Attention should also be called to Léon Tolstoï, Journal Inlime (1853–1865). Traduction de Jean Chuzeville et Valdimir Pozner, vols. I-II (Paris, 1926). The Russian original (which I have seen nowhere mentioned in print) of this French version is very likely the source of The Private Diary of Leo Tolstoy (1853–1857), translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude (New York, 1927). Neither the French nor English versions give any definite information as to the source, but a careful examination of these renderings indicates that the source must have been a copy of Tolstoi's original diary manuscripts; there are serious omissions, misreadings, and confusion in dates. The editors of the Academy Edition seem to be entirely unaware of the existence of this Russian source and of the French and English translations of it. See Predislovie to volume XLVII, p. vii.

15 For example, in volume XLVII, 222 pages are devoted to the text, and 305 closely printed pages to the notes.

16 Cf. Popov, P., “Tolstoi i o Tolstom,” Literaturnoe Nasledstvo (Moscow, 1939), Nos. 37–38, II, 725 Google Scholar.

17 The best treatment of this influence is to be found in Eichenbaum's, B. Lëv Tolstoi, pjatidesjatye gody (Leningrad, 1928)Google Scholar and Lëv Tolstoi, šestidesjatye gody (Leningrad, 1931).

18 Zapisnye knižki (May 12/24, 1857), XLVII, 208.

19 Volumes LIX (letters from 1844–1855); LXXXIII (letters to his wife, 1862–1886); LXXXV-LXXXVII (letters to V. G. Chertkov, 1883–1896). Two other volumes in this Third Series of the Academy Edition have appeared before 1935 — LXII (letters from 1880–1886); LXXII (letters from 1889–1900).

20 It may also be mentioned that some fifty thousand letters to Tolstoi, from correspondents all over the world, exist in the manuscript collections.

21 For a bibliography of Tolstoi's letters published before the Academy Edition, see Breitburg, S. M., Lileratura o Tolslom poslednich let (Moscow, 1931), pp. 41–43 Google Scholar.

22 Literaturnoe Nasledslvo (Moscow, 1939), Nos. 37–38, II, 137–146.

23 Ibid., II, 725.

24 This book is one of a series of Letopisi of famous Russian authors sponsored by the Literary Section of the Academy of Science.

25 The book adds little that is new to her previous work, Rabota Tolstogo nod proizvedeniem (Moscow, 1931).

26 Sbornik Gosudarstvennogo Tolslovskogo Muzeja (Moscow, 1937) and Letopisi Gosudarstvennogo Literaturnogo Muzeja, L. N. Tolstoi (Moscow, 1938).

27 Volume I: A. Gurshtein. “Lenin on Tolstoi”; G. Lukach, “Tolstoi and the Growth of Realism”; P. Popov, “The Style of Tolstoi's Early Tales”; V. Vinogradov, “On the Language of Tolstoi”; B. Eichenbaum, “Tolstoi after War and Peace”; volume III M. Chistyakova, “Tolstoi and the European Peace Congress”; S. Breitburg, “Bernard Shaw •n his Dispute with Tolstoi on Shakespeare”; L. Semenov, “Material on the History of the Creation of Hadji Murad”; K. Shokhor-Trotski, “Tolstoi and the Student Movement of 1899”; P. Popov, “New Data on the Family Relations of Tolstoi”; N. Gusev, “Concerning the History of the Family Tragedy of Tolstoy”; E. Tsakin, “An Unknown Portrait of Tolstoi”; I. Vladimirov, “On the History of Tolstoi as Arbiter of the Peace”; N. Pokrovskaya, “Nonsense Verse of Tolstoi”; E. Seidenschnur, “R.-M. Rilke and Tolstoi”; S. Lure, “Tolstoi and the Cinema”; A. Eliseev, “Tolstoi and the Nizhni Novgorod Black Hundred.”