by Cathy Porter
Yasnaya Polyana…from Algeria: Maria Tolstaya separated from her husband, Valerian Tolstoy, in 1857, then went abroad and spent the next two winters in Algeria; she returned to Russia from Switzerland in the summer of 1862.
Zaseka: Zaseka was a huge strip of crown forest adjacent to Yasnaya Polyana, some four miles wide, running through the whole of Tula province. (In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the trees in this forest were chopped down to make barricades against the onslaught of the Tartars.)
a large vaulted room downstairs: The “room under the vaults” had many different functions over the years. From the end of 1862 to 1864 it was Tolstoy’s study, where he wrote the beginning of War and Peace; between 1864 and the 1880s it was the older children’s nursery, then the Tolstoys’ sons’ room; between 1887 and 1902 it was Tolstoy’s study again; and from 1902 onwards the Tolstoys’ daughters lived here.
Dunyasha: See note to p. 24.
Alexei Stepanovich: Alexei Orekhov.
old Nikolai: Nikolai Bannikov.
Krasnoe, which used to belong to my grandfather Islenev: After the death of his first wife Sofia Kozlovskaya (in 1830), Islenev gambled away his Krasnoe estate at cards.
an endless annual succession of children: Sofia Kozlovskaya had six children by Islenev.
he was very involved with his school work: Tolstoy was actively involved in pedagogical work throughout 1859 to 1862. Twenty-one schools were opened in the district from the autumn of 1861 on, with him serving as arbitrator. Students banned from the universities were invited by Tolstoy to teach there, and he himself held classes for peasant children at Yasnaya Polyana.
a completely unwarranted search of Yasnaya Polyana: Between the 6th and 7th of July, while Tolstoy was away in Samara province taking the fermented mare’s milk cure, Yasnaya Polyana was searched on the orders of Dolgorukov, Chief of Police. They were looking for a secret printing press, banned works and so on, but found nothing incriminating. When he learnt about the search Tolstoy was extremely angry. “I keep telling myself,” he wrote to his cousin Alexandra on 7th August 1862, “what a blessing it was I wasn’t there. If I had I would certainly have been arrested—as a murderer.”
In his letter to Alexander II (22nd August), Tolstoy wrote that he would like to know “who was to blame for what occurred” so “they could be if not punished, then at least publicly exposed as guilty”. The letter was submitted by Tolstoy via S.A. Sheremetev, aide-de-camp to the Tsar. Dolgorukov’s explanation for this business completely satisfied the Tsar.
She gave me her story to read…simplicity: In young Sofia Behrs’s story ‘Natasha’ there were two heroes, Dublitsky and Smirnov, and a heroine called Elena, who had two sisters, the elder called Zinaida and the younger Natalya. The story tells of the pure love between Elena and Smirnov and her attraction for Dublitsky, a man considerably older than she.
Je crains d’aimer le comte: “I’m afraid I love the Count” (French). On 23rd August 1863, Tolstoy too made his first note in his diary about his feelings for Sofia Behrs: “I am afraid of myself—afraid it may be the desire for love, not love itself. I try to see only her weaknesses, but it won’t go away.” In a letter to Alexandra Tolstaya he humorously confessed: “Toothless old fool that I am, I have fallen in love.”
Le comte m’a fait la proposition: “The Count has proposed to me” (French).
C’est dommage que…étudié: “It’s a pity it wasn’t Mlle Lise; she has studied so well” (French).
dormeuse: Large sleeping carriage.
he wanted…the marriage: Compare with this note in Tolstoy’s diary: “Doubts about her love, and the thought that she has deceived herself. On the wedding day fear, distrust, the desire to run away.”
his friend P.: Mitrofan Polivanov.
Various Notes for Future Reference
L.N. has gone to Moscow to find a Russian tutor for the children: In a letter to Fet of 1st–2nd September 1877, he wrote: “I have spent all this time hunting around trying to organize our teaching staff for the winter.” In the autumn of 1877 the Tolstoys hired V.I. Alexeev to teach the children. “Vasily Ivanovich was the first teacher we had who genuinely wanted not only to teach us the usual subjects but to give us some sort of moral training too,” wrote Sergei Tolstoy.
the war: The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78. Tolstoy suffered for the casualties borne by the Russian army in the early months of the war. “This war upsets and grieves me inexpressibly,” he wrote to N.M. Nagornov in September 1877.
he visited the Optina Pustyn Monastery…life: Tolstoy and Strakhov left for the Optyna Monastery on 25th July. On 26th July he talked to Father Ambrosius and the other monks and attended vespers in the monastery.
a letter to the Tsar: Tolstoy’s plan to write to Alexander II about the reasons for Russia’s reverses in the war with Turkey, and about the general situation at home, was eventually dropped. Instead he began an article ‘On Alexander II’s Reign’ which was never finished.
demonstrate the absolute necessity for religion: Tolstoy wrote a dialogue called ‘People Talking’, then expounded his views on the relationship between faith and reason in the form of an article (under the same title), which remained uncompleted.
He has begun to study, translate and interpret the Gospels: In March 1880 he started on a work entitled ‘Collation and Translation of the Four Gospels’, “an investigation of the teachings of Christ based not on interpretation but on what has come down to us from the teachings of Christ, words attributed to him and written in the Gospels; a translation of the four Gospels, brought together here as one”. This work continued off and on until the summer of 1881. First edition, vols. 1–3, Geneva, 1892–94.
Bibikov…beautiful German woman…Anna Stepanovna…pleasant-looking: Pirogova killed herself on 4th January 1872 (information in Tula Provincial Herald, 8th January 1872). In April of that year Bibikov married a “beautiful German woman”, O.A. Firekel.
The Death of Vanechka
had published Vanechka’s story in her magazine The Toy: Vanechka’s story ‘The Dachshund Taks Who Was Saved’, in the journal The Toy, in the section ‘For Little Ones’, no. 3, 1895. Sofia Tolstoy described how it came to be written: “One day, lying on the ottoman in the drawing room, he said to me: ‘Maman, I’m bored, I want to write like Papa. I’ll tell you a story and you write it down.’ And he proceeded to dictate to me such a clever little story about his childish life.”
Sonya is suffering as much as before…child: She is quoting from two separate diary entries for 17th March: “Sonya is suffering as much as before, and is incapable of rising to a spiritual level. It must be that suffering is necessary for her and is doing its work within her. I feel sorry for her. But I believe it must be thus. It is necessary, so she may feel the hand of God and grow to know and love it.” And: “I have thought about it recently. Sonya is suffering terribly. The reason is that she invested all her spiritual energies in her animal love for her little one: she put her soul into the child, in the desire to keep him alive. She wanted to keep herself alive with the child, not to destroy her life for the world or God, but for her child. It’s very strange.”
Lev Nikolaevich was very sweet to me then too: In a letter of 27th March [1895], she wrote: “Lyovochka is being very kind to me. He takes me out for walks and has taken me to visit a political prisoner in jail. I find his kindness and affection very comforting, but it grieves me to see him becoming more and more old, bent and thin; he cries all the time, he never smiles and is never cheerful. He is terribly unhappy about Vanechka and cannot see me.”
She is here referring to Tolstoy’s visit to the Butyrki prison, on 22nd March, to see N.T. Izyumenko, who was deported to Siberia after refusing to do military service.
Searchable Terms
The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature of your e-book reader.
Abramka, son of Ilya the coachman: 1
45
Abrikosov, Khrisanf Nikolaevich (1877–1957), fellow thinker of Tolstoy’s: 282, 415
Abrikosovs, the: 467
Afanasyev, Vladimir Alexeevich, doctor: 413
Agafya Mikhailovna (1808–96), maid of P.N. Tolstaya, Tolstoy’s grandmother; later lived at Yasnaya Polyana: xv
Ageev, Afanasy Nikolaevich (1861–1908), peasant from the village of Kaznacheevka in Tula province: 557
“Alcide”, son of A. Seuron: 159–60
Alekhin, Arkady Vasilevich (1885–1918), fellow thinker of Tolstoy’s: 115, 120, 539
Alexander II, Nikolaevich (1818–81): xvi, xxiii, 3, 57–8, 507, 533, 535, 577, 578
Alexander III, Alexandrovich (1845–94): 58, 61, 140, 537, 566
Alexeev, Pyotr Semyonovich (1849–1913), doctor from the town of Chita and author of On Drunkenness: 115, 543
Alexeev, Vasily Ivanovich (1848–1919), teacher of the older Tolstoy children, 1877–81: 535, 577
“Alexei”, janitor at the Tolstoys’ Yasnaya Polyana estate: 405, 415
Almazov, Alexei Ivanovich (1838–1900), Moscow doctor and psychiatrist, fellow thinker of Tolstoy’s: 91, 266
Almedingen, Natalya Alexeevna (born 1883), editor of the children’s educational journals The Source, Education and Training and Little Sun: 408, 439
Altschuler, Isaak Naumovich (1870–1943), Yalta doctor: 297, 300–1, 303–4, 307, 309, 312
Altschuler, Maria Abramovna (1868–1928), wife of I.N. Altschuler: 321
Alyosha Gorshkoi, Yasnaya Polyana peasant, guard on Tolstoy’s estate: 21, 531
Amvrosy (Alexander Mikhailovich Grenkov “Father Ambrosius”) (1812–91), elder at the Optyna Pustyn Monastery: 119, 156, 578
Andreev, Leonid Nikolaevich (1871–1919), novelist: 457
Andreev, Vasily Vasilevich (1861–1918), musician, virtuoso balalaika player: 280
Annenkov, Konstantin Nikanorovich (1843–1910), lawyer and zemstvo activist: 117
Annenkova, Leonila Fominichna (1844–1912), wife of K.N. Annenkov: 96, 117, 204, 238, 266, 396, 548
Annenkovs, the: 263
Antony (born 1846), Metropolitan: 289, 312, 555
Arabazhin, K.I., author of articles about Tolstoy: 442, 567
Arbuzova, Maria Afanasyevna (died 1884), nurse of the older Tolstoy children: xv, 532
Arensky, Anton (Antony) Stepanovich (1861–1906), composer: 244, 318, 333
Arsenev, Alexei Alexandrovich (1850–1915), marshal of the nobility for the province of Tula: 90
Arseneva, Valeriya Vladimirovna (1836–1909), friend of Tolstoy’s: 529
Aubert, Mlle, governess to the Tolstoy children: 190, 195, 227, 471
Auer, Leopold Semyonovich (1845–1930) violinist and conductor: 201
Auerbach, Sofia Pavlovna (née Berkhgolts) (born 1844): 434
Auerbach, Yulia Fedorovna (née Berkhgolts), headmistress of Tula secondary school for girls: 502
Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685–1750): 184, 186, 193, 198, 237, 246
Bannikov, Mitrofan Nikolaevich, mounted guard at the Tolstoys’ Yasnaya Polyana estate: 534
Bannikov, Nikolai Dmitrievich, father of M.N. Bannikov: 576
Bannikova, Evdokiya Nikolaevna (“Dunyasha”), married name Orekhova: 531
Baranov, N.P., member of the Tula circuit court: 472
Baratynsky, Yevgeny Abramovich (1800–44), poet, ‘On Death’: 323
Baryatinsky, Alexander Ivanovich (1815–79), field-marshal-general, in 1856 vice-regent of the Caucasus and commander of the troops there: 341
Baturin, Viktor Pavlovich (1863–1938), artist: 441, 558
Bazykina, Axinya Alexandrovna (née Annikanova) (1836–1919) Yasnaya Polyana peasant woman, Tolstoy’s former mistress: 529, 532
Beethoven, Ludwig van (1770–1827): 50, 56, 71, 76, 95, 113, 163, 166, 173, 175, 184, 190, 193, 197–201, 203, 207, 216, 244, 269–70, 277, 335, 385, 387, 418, 440, 447, 463, 483
Behrs, Alexander Andreevich (“Sasha”) (1845–1918), brother of Sofia Tolstoy, officer: 128, 184, 221, 238, 245, 491, 514
Behrs, Andrei Evstafevich (1808–68), father of Sofia Tolstoy, doctor to the Royal Palace in Moscow: xiii
Behrs, Elizaveta (1843–1919), sister of Sofia Tolstoy: xiii
Behrs, Lyubov Alexandrovna (née Islavina) (1826–86), mother of Sofia Tolstoy: xiii
Behrs, Pyotr Andreevich (“Petya”) (1849–1910), brother of Sofia Tolstoy, writer: 30, 36, 514, 532
Behrs, Stepan Andreevch (“Styopa”) (1855–1909), brother of Sofia Tolstoy, lawyer: 46, 210, 213, 519, 535
Behrs, Tatyana Andreevna, see Kuzminskaya, Tatyana Andreevna
Behrs, Vladimir Andreevich (“Volodya”) (1853–74), brother of Sofia Tolstoy: 499, 500, 505–6, 513
Behrs, Vyacheslav Andreevich (1861–1907), brother of Sofia Tolstoy, engineer, murdered by terrorists: 103, 335, 348, 456, 515
Beketov, A.N., The Present and Future Nourishment of Man: 92, 541
Belgard, Alexei Valerianovich, head of the Chief Office of Press Affairs: 430
Belinky, Samuil Moiseevich (1877–1966), typist: 421, 571
Belskaya, Maria Mikhailovna (married name Naryshkina), acquaintance of the Tolstoys: 223
Berger, Ivan Alexandrovich (1867–1916), steward at the Yasnaya Polyana estate in the 1800s and steward at the Ovsyannikovo from 1894: 84
Berkenheim, Grigory Moiseevich (1872–1919), Tolstoy’s doctor: 419–20, 563
Bernstamm, Leopold (1859–1939), Russian sculptor and painter: 543
Bertenson, Lev Bernadovich (1850–1929), St Petersburg doctor: 304
Bessy Levina, Rozina (1880–1976), American pianist and teacher, graduated in 1898 from Moscow Conservatoire: 232
Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Vasily Nikolaevich (1835–1910), lieutenant-general, in charge of Tula ordnance factory: 117
Bibikov, Alexander Nikolaevich (1827–89), landowner in the province of Tula, owner of the Telyatinki estate: 32, 520, 530, 578
Bibikov, Alexei Alexeevich (1837–1914), until 1884 steward of Tolstoy’s Samara estate: 51, 57, 172, 535
Bibikov, Vasily Nikolaevich (1837–99), Tula landowner, 167, 236–7,
Bibikova, Sofia Alexandrovna: 459, 462
Biryukov, Pavel Ivanovich (“Posha”) (1860–1931), friend and biographer of Tolstoy: 73, 77–9, 83–5, 88, 144, 153, 211, 275, 339, 345–6, 399, 421, 423, 435–6, 450–1, 456, 524, 538–9, 547, 549–50, 552, 557
Bochkaryov, Valentin Nikolaevich (1880–1967), historian: 449
Bogdanov, Nikolai Nikolaevich, secretary of the Tolstoy Society in Moscow (in 1911): 434, 568
Bogoyavlensky, Sergei Georgievich, Tula agronomist: 490
Boldyryova, Mary, see Cherkasskaya, Mary
Boldyryovs, the: 261
Bool, Klara Karlovna (born 1869), teacher, governess to A.N. Dunaev’s children: 337
Boratynskaya, Elizaveta Sergeevna (née Sukhotina) (1851–1902), daughter of S.M. Sukhotin: 263
Borel, tutor of Andrei and Mikhail Tolstoy: 96, 130, 542
Boulanger, Pavel Alexandrovich (1865–1925), official on the Moscow-Kursk railway and fellow thinker of Tolstoy’s: 172, 178, 183, 187, 275, 289, 298, 310, 321, 330, 459, 550, 554, 558
Bourget, Paul Charles Joseph (1852–1935), French writer, ‘Barricade’ Physiologie de l’amour moderne; Un cœur de femme: 97, 127–8, 541
Brashnin, Ivan Petrovich (1826–98), merchant and fellow thinker of Tolstoy’s: 229
Bulakhov, Pyotr Alexeevich (“factory-worker”), peasant from Smolensk province, Old Believer: 224, 550
Bulgakov, Valentin Fyodorovich (1886–1966), Tolstoy’s secretary in 1910: 359, 366, 380–2, 390, 392–3, 397, 401, 408–9, 419, 421, 434, 450–1, 453–4, 457–61, 463–4, 468–72, 475, 481, 486, 561, 563, 570–2, 574
Bulygin, Mikhail Vasilevich (1863–1943), owner of Khatunka farm in Krapivna district: 85, 287, 421–2, 458, 540
Burylin, Dmitry Gennadyevich (1854–1924), owner of a textile factory in Ivanovo-Voznesensk: 448
Butkevich, Anatoly
Stepanovich (1869–1942), beekeeper, son of a Tula landowner: 72–3, 77, 120, 122–3
Butovich, Yakov Ivanovich: 486
Butyonev, Pavel Konstantinovich, student at Moscow University, friend of Mikhail Tolstoy: 186, 253, 263
Buyukli, Vsevolod Ivanovich (1873–1920/1), pianist: 335
Carlyle, Thomas (1795–1881), Scottish philosopher: 361
Carpenter, Edward (1844–1929) English writer and socialist: 205, 216, 223, 552
Chaliapin, Fyodor Ivanovic (1873–1938), singer: 339, 553
Chefranov, Sergei Vasilevich, manager of “N.N. Kushneryov and Co.”, printworks: 424, 433
Chekan, chief doctor at Tula provincial hospital: 329
Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich (1860–1904), writer; The Cherry Orchard; ‘Darling’ ‘The Butterfly’ The Seagull; The Screw: 142, 262, 264, 303, 339, 389, 432, 556–7
Cherkasskaya, Mary, married name Boldyryova: 261, 342
Cherkasskaya, Princess: 261, 459
Cherkassky, Alexander Alexeevich (born 1873), Prince: 241
Cherkasskys, the: 261
Chertkov, Grigory Ivanovich, father of V.G. Chertkov: 109
Chertkov, Vladimir Grigorevich (1854–1936), friend and fellow thinker of Tolstoy’s, and publisher of his works: viii–ix, xxvii–xxviii, 61–4, 68–70, 85, 109, 132, 139, 142, 153, 161, 178, 183–4, 219, 230, 243, 245–6, 248, 261, 275, 348–50, 352–392, 394, 408, 415, 417, 420, 423, 426–8, 437, 442, 446–7, 450–1, 453, 456, 463–464, 483, 538, 541, 543, 546–7, 549–50, 552–3, 557, 559–64, 569–71
Chertkov, Vladimir Vladimirovich (“Dima”) (1889–1964), son of V.G. Ghertkov: 350, 354–5, 372, 387, 459, 471
Chertkova, Anna Konstantinovna (“Galya”) (née Dieterichs) (1859–1927), wife of V.G. Chertkov: 261, 350, 408, 552
Chertkova, Elizaveta Ivanovna (née Chernysheva-Kruglikova), (1832–1922), mother of V.G. Chertkov: 109, 362, 369, 563
Chicherin, Boris Nikolaevich (1828–1904), professor of philosophy at Moscow University: 145, 204, 547
Chirikov, E.N., Life of Tarkhanov (‘Youth, Banishment, Return’): 452, 463
Chirkin, S.V. (1875–1943), Russian Consul in India: 381, 560