by Leo Tolstoy
Tsar Nicholas I visits England.
Herzen leaves Russia.
Revolution in France: Second Republic declared.
First Californian Gold Rush.
DATE
AUTHOR’S LIFE
LITERARY CONTEXT
1849
Goes to St Petersburg, studies law for a time. Becomes local magistrate in Tula.
Dickens:
David Copperfield
(to 1850).
1850
Living in Moscow. Reads and translates Sterne.
Death of Balzac.
1851
First serious attempt at writing fiction:
A History of Yesterday
(fragment). Goes to the Caucasus with eldest brother Nikolai to serve as a volunteer in the army. Begins
Childhood
, first part of a projected tetralogy entitled
Four Periods of Growth
.
Melville:
Moby-Dick
. Stowe:
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
(to 1852).
1852
Enlists officially in the army.
Childhood
published in
The Contemporary
.
Death of Gogol. Dickens:
Bleak House
(to 1853).
1853
During campaigns in the Caucasus writes
Boyhood
and stories of army life. Writes
A Christmas Night
. Publishes
The Raid
.
Ostrovsky’s first play produced.
1854
Promoted to ensign and transferred to Crimea.
Boyhood
appears in
The Contemporary
.
1855
Publishes
A Billiard-Marker’s Notes, Sevastopol in December, Sevastopol in May, The Wood-Felling
. Returns to St Petersburg.
Trollope:
The Warden
.
1856
Death of his brother Dmitri. Publishes
Sevastopol in August, The Snow Storm, Two Hussars, Meeting a Moscow Acquaintance, A Landlord’s Morning
. Resigns from the army, returns to Yasnaya Polyana.
Aksakov:
A Family Chronicle
.
Turgenev:
Rudin
.
Nekrasov:
Poems
.
1857
Visits France and Switzerland. Publishes
Youth, Lucerne
.
Flaubert:
Madame Bovary
. Trollope:
Barchester Towers
. Birth of Conrad.
1858
Visits St Petersburg. Publishes
Albert
.
Pisemsky:
A Thousand Souls
.
1859
Publishes
Three Deaths, Family Happiness
. Critical enthusiasm more muted than for his earlier works. Starts an experimental school for the peasants at Yasnaya Polyana.
Goncharov:
Oblomov
. Turgenev:
A Nest of the Gentlefolk
.
Ostrovsky:
The Storm
.
Eliot:
Adam Bede
.
Darwin:
The Origin of Species
.
HISTORICAL EVENTS
Russian intervention in Hungary.
Dostoevsky sentenced to forced labour in Siberia.
Great Exhibition in London.
St Petersburg-Moscow Railway opened.
France: Second Empire established.
Turkey declares war on Russia.
Crimean War begins.
Death of Tsar Nicholas I. Accession of Alexander II.
Crimean War ends.
Indian Mutiny.
Committees set up to prepare the gentry for the Emancipation of the serfs from private ownership.
Russia acquires Amur and Maritime Provinces from China.
Russian conquest of Caucasus completed: surrender of Shamil.
DATE
AUTHOR’S LIFE
LITERARY CONTEXT
1860
Second (and last) visit to western Europe. Death of his brother Nikolai, in France. Visits Rome.
Turgenev:
On the Eve, First Love
.
Eliot:
The Mill on the Floss
.
Dickens:
Great Expectations
(to 1861).
Chekhov born.
1861
Visits Paris, London, Brussels. Back in Russia, quarrels with Turgenev. Serves as Arbiter of the Peace. Resumes school work at Yasnaya Polyana.
Dostoevsky:
The House of the Dead
.
Herzen:
My Past and Thoughts
(to 1867).
1862
Starts publication of educational magazine. Gives up being Arbiter of the Peace. Police raid on his house. Marries Sofya Andreyevna Behrs, daughter of a court physician. Closes the school.
Turgenev:
Fathers and Children
.
Hugo:
Les Misérables
.
Flaubert:
Salammbô
.
1863
Publishes
The Cossacks, Polikushka
. Sergei born (first of thirteen children).
Death of Thackeray.
Chernyshevsky:
What is to be Done?
1864
Dostoevsky:
Notes from Underground
.
Nekrasov:
Who can Live Happy in Russia?
(to 1876).
Dickens:
Our Mutual Friend
(to 1865).
1865–6
Publishes
1805
(volumes 1 and 2 of
War and Peace
).
Leskov:
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk
.
1866
Unsuccessful defence of soldier court-martialled for striking an officer.
Dostoevsky:
Crime and Punishment
.
1867
War and Peace
volume 3 published.
Turgenev:
Smoke
.
1868
War and Peace
volume 4 published.
Dostoevsky:
The Idiot
. Gorky born.
1869
War and Peace
volumes 5 and 6 published. Experiences acute fear of death in a hotel room at Arzamas.
Goncharov:
The Precipice
.
1870
Begins a novel about Peter the Great. Starts learning Ancient Greek.
Death of Dickens, Herzen. Kuprin born.
1871
Dostoevsky:
Demons
(to 1872).
1872
Reopens Yasnaya Polyana school. Poor health. Reading philosophers notably Schopenhauer. Writes
A Prisoner in the Caucasus, God sees the Truth but Waits
.
Leskov:
Cathedral Folk
.
HISTORICAL EVENTS
Vladivostok founded.
Italy: Garibaldi captures Naples and Sicily.
Emancipation of the serfs.
American Civil War begins. Lincoln President of the USA.
Bismarck becomes Prime Minister of Prussia.
American slaves freed.
Polish Rebellion crushed.
Zemstva and trial by jury introduced in Russia.
&
nbsp; First International formed in London.
Russia captures Tashkent.
American Civil War ends.
First attempt on the life of Alexander II.
Russia captures Samarkand and Bukhara.
Franco-Prussian War. End of Second Empire; Third Republic inaugurated in France.
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) born.
Paris Commune.
Russian translation of Marx’s Capital published.
DATE
AUTHOR’S LIFE
LITERARY CONTEXT
1873
Begins writing
Anna Karenina
.
Leskov:
The Enchanted Wanderer
.
1875
Publishes
New Primer, Russian Reader
. Increasingly preoccupied with religious problems, troubled by war with Turkey.
Saltykov-Shchedrin:
The Golovlyovs
(to 1880).
1875–7
Anna Karenina
appears in instalments.
1876
Begins to practise Orthodoxy.
James:
Roderick Hudson
.
1877
Turgenev:
Virgin Soil
.
Garshin:
Four Days
.
1878
Anna Karenina
published in book form. Reconciliation with Turgenev. Moral crisis leads him into theological studies. Abandons practice of Orthodoxy.
Hardy:
The Return of the Native
.
1879
Begins writing
A Confession
.
Dostoevsky:
The Brothers Karamazov
(to 1880).
1880
Begins
Critique of Dogmatic Theology, Translation and Harmony of the Gospels
. 4th edition of
Collected Works
appears (11 vols).
Death of Flaubert. Blok, Bely born.
1881
Writes to the Tsar asking for a pardon for the assassins of Alexander II. Visits monastery of Optina Pustyn.
Death of Dostoevsky.
James:
The Portrait of a Lady
.
1882
Finishes
A Confession
(banned in Russia). Studies Hebrew. Moves his family to Moscow.
1883
Writes
What I Believe
. Hands over control of property to his wife. Chertkov arrives as a visitor, stays as a disciple.
Death of Turgenev.
Korolenko:
Makar’s Dream
.
Garshin:
The Scarlet Flower
.
1884
What I Believe
banned. Publishes fragments from
The Decembrists
(unfinished novel). Writes
Memoirs of a Madman
.
Huysmans:
Against Nature
. Zamyatin born.
1885
Renounces hunting, meat, tobacco and alcohol. Publishes ‘popular’ tales including
What Men Live By, Where Love is, God is, Ivan the Fool, Two Old Men
.
Zola:
Germinal
.
HISTORICAL EVENTS
Russian Populist movement begins.
Russia invades Chinese Turkestan.
Universal Exhibition in Vienna.
Land and Liberty movement formed in Russia.
Russia declares war on Turkey.
Russo-Turkish War ends. Congress of Berlin.
Afghan War.
Trial of Vera Zasulich.
People’s Will party formed in Russia.
Governor of Kharkov assassinated.
Osip Vissarionovich Djugashvili (Stalin) born.
Alexander II assassinated. Accession of Alexander III.
Jewish residence in Russia severely restricted.
Great Britain: Married Women’s Property Act.
University riots. Censorship laws strengthened.
Plekhanov and others form Marxist study groups.
DATE
AUTHOR’S LIFE
LITERARY CONTEXT
1886
The Death of Ivan Ilych, How Much Land Does a Man Need?, The Godson
published. Tolstoy’s play
The Power of Darkness
offends the Tsar and is forbidden. Finishes
What Then Must We Do?
Denounced as heretic by Archbishop of Kherson.
Chekhov: first volume of stories.
James:
The Bostonians, The Princess Casamassima
.
1887
1888
Publishes
Strider
(written 1861).
The Power of Darkness
performed in Paris.
Chekhov:
The Steppe
. Death of Garshin.
1889
Begins writing
Resurrection
. Publication of
Collected Works
(12 vols). Unauthorized copies of
The Kreutzer Sonata
in circulation.
Akhmatova born.
1890
Tsar gives permission for publication of an edited version of
The Kreutzer Sonata
. Writes
The Devil
.
Pasternak born.
Wilde:
The Picture of Dorian Gray
.
1891
Renounces copyright on his works post-1881, divides property among family. Writes
Why do Men Stupefy Themselves?
Ehrenburg, Bulgakov born.
1891–2
Engaged in famine relief work.
1892
The Fruits of Enlightenment
produced in Moscow.
Chekhov:
Ward Mo. 6
.
Merezhkovsky:
Symbols
.
Gorky publishes his first story.
Mandelstam, Tsvetayeva born.
1893
Publishes
The Kingdom of God is within you
.
Death of Maupassant.
1894
Publishes
Christianity and Patriotism, Reason and Religion, Religion and Morality, How to Read the Gospels, Walk in the Light
.
Babel born.
1895
Publishes
Master and Man
. Intervenes to defend the Dukhobors against persecution.
1896
Chekhov:
The Seagull
. Merezhkovsky:
Christ and Anti-Christ
(to 1905).
1897
Chertkov arrested and exiled.
1898
Finishes
Father Sergius
. Publishes a censored version of
What is Art?
Zola:
J’Accuse
.
Blok:
Ante Lucem
(to 1900).
HISTORICAL EVENTS
Five students (including Lenin’s brother) hanged for an attempt on the Tsar’s life.
Second International founded.
Beginning of Trans-Siberian Railway construction.
Famine in southern Russia.
Witte becomes Finance Minister.
Famine in some Russian regions.
Massacres in Armenia.
Great Britain: Independent Labour Party founded.
Death of Tsar Alexander III. Accession of Tsar Nicholas II.
Great Britain: Greenwich bomb outrage.
Socialist Revolutiona
ry Party founded in Russia.
Pobedonostsev urges the Tsar to imprison Tolstoy.
Spanish-American War. Curies discover radium.
Russian Social Democrat Party founded.
DATE
AUTHOR’S LIFE
LITERARY CONTEXT
1899
Publishes
Resurrection
(begun 1889). Son Sergei accompanies Dukhobors to Canada.
Leonov, Olesha, Nabokov born.
Gorky:
Foma Gordeyev
.
Chekhov:
The Lady with the Dog
.
1900
Freud:
The Interpretation of Dreams
.