Which university did Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy attend? Lev Tolstoy

There is no such person who would not read the literary works of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy. The student finishes studying the primer by reading short stories by Lev Nikolaevich and then does not part with the great expert on the human soul and unsurpassed master of words throughout all his school years. Not everyone knows, however, that Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy is also wonderful teacher and educator of children, great educator.

Tolstoy's school in Yasnaya Polyana

Educational issues worried the great writer throughout his long life. He devoted himself to raising children with the same passion with which he created his artistic works.

Upon returning from university to Yasnaya Polyana Lev Nikolaevich works with peasant children at Yasnaya Polyana school. Being an officer and taking part in military operations in the Caucasus, L. N. Tolstoy wrote “Childhood” and “Adolescence” - works that are simultaneously poetic, psychological and pedagogical. At the end of the Crimean War, in which L. N. Tolstoy showed himself to be an ardent patriot and courageous defender of Sevastopol in the most dangerous areas, he, along with other works of art, wrote the story “Youth” and thereby completed the trilogy dedicated to the formation of the human personality.

By the age of thirty, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy had become a generally recognized, famous writer. A wide and rewarding field of literary activity and fame opened up before him. But he is concerned about difficult issues of educating the people. He returns to Yasnaya Polyana and decides to devote himself entirely to raising and educating children. In one of his letters from this time (1860) we read: “Nobody bothers lovers of antiquities, to which I belong, from reading serious poems and stories and seriously discussing them. We need something else now. It’s not we who need to study, but we who need to teach Marfutka and Taraska at least a little of what we know.”

Working at the Yasnaya Polyana school and observing the work of teachers in a few other schools for peasant children, Lev Nikolaevich became convinced of the complete unsuitability of established methods of education and training. Reading pedagogical literature did not provide answers to the questions that worried him. In 1860, Lev Nikolaevich went abroad, studying educational institutions in Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, and England. But here, neither the theory nor the practice of raising and teaching children satisfied the great lover of children. Here is an excerpt from his diary: “I was at school. Terrible. Prayers for the king, beatings, everything by heart, frightened, mutilated children.”

Pedagogical activity, L. N. Tolstoy’s system

Upon returning from abroad, Lev Nikolaevich turns his Yasnaya Polyana school into a kind of pedagogical laboratory for developing new system of education and training. At the same time, as a peace mediator, the Krapivensky district of the Tula province established a number of new schools for peasant children. To highlight his experience and the experience of teachers working under his leadership, he publishes the pedagogical magazine “Yasnaya Polyana”. The organization of education and training at the Yasnaya Polyana school was a denial of all the foundations of feudal-bureaucratic pedagogy, jealously protected by the serf-owner government. Instead of drills, cane discipline and cramming, there is an attentive, humane attitude towards children, a friendly and free life for the child in the school community, and a conscious study of the elements of science. Children were not forced to study, but they came to school at dawn and left late in the evening. The children were not punished or beaten, but they voluntarily obeyed the teacher’s demands, recognized his authority and behaved exemplary.

The spirit of freedom hovered over the Yasnaya Polyana school. This could not but worry the officials of the feudal government. In the summer of 1862, in the absence of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, a search was carried out at the “seditious” school. They were looking for a secret printing house and illegal literature. And although nothing seditious was found, Lev Nikolaevich was forced to leave work at his school and stop publishing the Yasnaya Polyana magazine. And yet, the three-year experience of the Yasnaya Polyana school and Tolstoy’s articles in the Yasnaya Polyana magazine made a huge impression on progressive Russian people. The new school was shown in practice. The possibility of implementing a reasonable, truly humane system of raising and educating children was proven.

Working for a number of years on the epic War and Peace, Tolstoy did not stop thinking about children, their upbringing, and school work. In a letter to A.A. Tolstoy in 1865, he writes: “I keep thinking a lot about education, I’m looking forward to the time when I start teaching my children, then I’m going to open a new school and I’m going to write a summary of everything that I know about education and what no one knows or what no one agrees with.” Having finished the novel “War and Peace,” L. N. Tolstoy again directs all his vigorous energy to solving large theoretical and practical issues of raising children. He writes “The ABC” in four books, which essentially provides materials on all primary school subjects, from the alphabet to fictional stories, articles on natural science and materials on arithmetic. What importance L. N. Tolstoy attached to his work on the “ABC” can be judged by the following excerpt from one of his letters to A. A. Tolstoy: “My proud dreams about this alphabet are these: two generations of Russians will only learn from this alphabet all the children from royals to peasants will receive their first poetic impressions from it and that, having written this alphabet, I can die in peace.”

Having completed work on the “ABC,” L. N. Tolstoy again took up the solution of the same problem: he wrote the “New ABC” in one book, and after that, “Books for Reading.”

As a true scientist, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy did not trust his pedagogical instincts and his knowledge of children. He personally checked all his textbooks for school and through teachers and members of his family in schools.

While living in Moscow, Lev Nikolaevich visited schools and even tried to get a teaching position in one of the elementary schools. However, the Ministry of Public Education did not consider it possible to entrust him with teaching children.

Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy carried his interest in school and children until his death. Shortly before his death, he had a conversation with the children of the Yasnaya Polyana school about the magazine “Sun” that he had distributed.

How can one explain the deep interest of the greatest of writers in the issues of educating the children of the people? Lev Nikolaevich himself answers this question. He writes: “When I enter the school and see this crowd of ragged, dirty, thin children with their bright eyes and so often angelic expressions, I am overcome with anxiety, horror, the kind that I would feel at the sight of drowning people. Ah, fathers! How to get it out! And here the most precious thing drowns, namely that spiritual thing that is so obvious in children. I want education for the people only in order to save those drowning Pushkins, Ostrogradskys, Filarets, Lomonosovs. And they swarm in every school.” L.N. Tolstoy was an ardent patriot of his Motherland. He saw the power and glory of his Motherland in the development of the creative forces of the people. At every step he became convinced that the rule of the landowners and the capitalists replacing them not only financially ruined the people and the working people, but also kept them in darkness and ignorance. Having taken possession of all the benefits of culture and technical progress, landowners and capitalists, with the help of this culture and this progress, further enslave and rob the people, dooming the working people to poverty and moral savagery. He saw the education of the people as the most important means of reviving his Motherland.

Leo Tolstoy's contribution to pedagogy

Those interested in education issues will find in pedagogical works of L. N. Tolstoy a lot of fresh, correct ideas and thoughts. Reading Tolstoy is a true pleasure, despite the contradictory nature of many of his statements and paradoxes. In each of his lines you feel a living thought, a keen eye, great love for a person and great faith in him. Before you stand lively, intelligent, cheerful, morally pure peasant children, capable of creativity and great work.

“Who should learn to write from whom, the peasant children from us, or us from the peasant children?” - this is the title of L.N. Tolstoy one of his most remarkable articles. In this article, he describes in detail the lessons he taught about writing stories at the Yasnaya Polyana school. After many unsuccessful methodological techniques that confirmed the children’s inability for independent creative work, Lev Nikolaevich invited the children to write a story based on the proverb: “He feeds with a spoon, stabs with the stem of his eyes.” At first the children did not accept the teacher's offer.

“How are you going to write it?” said Fedka, and all the others, whose ears were pricked up, suddenly recoiled, convinced that this task was beyond their strength, and began to work on their previously begun work.
“You write it yourself,” someone told me.
Everyone was busy with their own business; I took a pen and inkwell and began to write.
“Well,” I said, “whoever writes better, and I’m with you.”

The lesson began in such an unusual way. The children became interested. The first page of Lev Nikolaevich's essay was rejected by them. Collective creativity began. The passion and enthusiasm were unusual. “We worked,” writes Lev Nikolaevich, “from 7 to 11 o’clock; they felt neither hunger nor fatigue and were still angry with me when I stopped writing; We started writing ourselves during breaks..."

The children showed not only their interest in “writing,” but also great artistic flair, faithfulness and accuracy of the eye, depth of experience, purity of moral definitions and feelings. Lev Nikolaevich was shocked by his discovery. “I was both scared and joyful, like a treasure seeker who would see the color of a fern: I was joyful because suddenly, completely unexpectedly, that philosopher’s stone was revealed to me, which I had been searching in vain for two years - the art of teaching the expression of thoughts; scary because this art evoked new demands, a whole world of desires that did not correspond to the environment in which the students lived, as it seemed to me at first. It was impossible to make a mistake. This was not an accident, but more conscious creativity.”

The first success was followed by other, even more brilliant successes. All contemporary pedagogy of L.N. Tolstoy could not even imagine that eleven-year-old peasant children could write stories, and Tolstoy published stories and stories written by Yasnaya Polyana students as examples of genuine art. Literary critics could only admire and bewilder.

IN pedagogy a coup was carried out. L. N. Tolstoy opened the pedagogy of the child. He irrefutably proved to the whole world that a child, if he is given the opportunity to create, if he is believed, if he is treated humanely, if he is helped and not pushed and not stuffed with all sorts of things incomprehensible to him, shows intelligence, perseverance and is able to rise to true artistic creativity.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was unable to scientifically explain his pedagogical discovery, being in captivity of idealism. The ideal of education, according to him, is not in front, but behind us, since a child will be born into the world perfect in the sense of harmony in relation to truth, beauty and goodness.

Many critics laughed at the order of the Yasnaya Polyana school, in which there were no strict rules, no strictly established regime, no strictly established programs, where everyone studied what was interesting to him. But through all this external chaos, every attentive teacher sees the great strength of Tolstoy’s Yasnaya Polyana school. The children studied there with all the energy and even passion. This is because in this school children were respected, cared for, their interests were studied and they tried to teach in an interesting way.

Teaching is serious and often hard work. Tolstoy proved that this is a fascinating work, if only the teacher finds the right subject, teaches what is needed for life and applies methods that are appropriate to the child’s nature and interests. Know how to open a child’s soul, give food to his mind, give direction to his inexhaustible energy, and he will be diligent, diligent, and hardworking. With interesting teaching and proper organization, a student will learn a thousand times more without fear and without a stick than with forced teaching.

From the magazine “Family and School” about Leo Tolstoy’s contribution to pedagogy, 1960

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Russian writer, Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on September 9 (August 28, old style) 1828 in the Yasnaya Polyana estate, Krapivensky district, Tula province (now Shchekinsky district, Tula region).

Tolstoy was the fourth child in a large noble family. His mother, Maria Tolstaya (1790-1830), née Princess Volkonskaya, died when the boy was not yet two years old. Father, Nikolai Tolstoy (1794-1837), a participant in the Patriotic War, also died early. A distant relative of the family, Tatyana Ergolskaya, was involved in raising the children.

When Tolstoy was 13 years old, the family moved to Kazan, to the house of Pelageya Yushkova, his father’s sister and the children’s guardian.

In 1844, Tolstoy entered Kazan University at the Department of Oriental Languages ​​of the Faculty of Philosophy, then transferred to the Faculty of Law.

In the spring of 1847, having submitted a request for dismissal from the university “due to poor health and domestic circumstances,” he went to Yasnaya Polyana, where he tried to establish new relations with the peasants. Disappointed by his unsuccessful management experience (this attempt is depicted in the story “The Morning of the Landowner,” 1857), Tolstoy soon left first for Moscow, then for St. Petersburg. His lifestyle changed frequently during this period. Religious sentiments, reaching the point of asceticism, alternated with carousing, cards, and trips to the gypsies. It was then that his first unfinished literary sketches appeared.

In 1851, Tolstoy left for the Caucasus with his brother Nikolai, an officer in the Russian troops. He took part in hostilities (first voluntarily, then receiving an army position). Tolstoy sent the story “Childhood” written here to Sovremennik magazine without revealing his name. It was published in 1852 under the initials L.N. and, together with the later stories “Adolescence” (1852-1854) and “Youth” (1855-1857), formed an autobiographical trilogy. Tolstoy's literary debut brought recognition.

Caucasian impressions were reflected in the story "Cossacks" (18520-1863) and in the stories "Raid" (1853), "Cutting Wood" (1855).

In 1854, Tolstoy went to the Danube front. Soon after the start of the Crimean War, at his personal request, he was transferred to Sevastopol, where the writer had the opportunity to survive the siege of the city. This experience inspired him to write his realistic Sevastopol Stories (1855-1856).
Soon after the end of hostilities, Tolstoy left military service and lived for some time in St. Petersburg, where he had great success in literary circles.

He joined the Sovremennik circle, met Nikolai Nekrasov, Ivan Turgenev, Ivan Goncharov, Nikolai Chernyshevsky and others. Tolstoy took part in dinners and readings, in the establishment of the Literary Fund, became involved in disputes and conflicts among writers, but felt like a stranger in this environment.

In the autumn of 1856 he left for Yasnaya Polyana, and at the beginning of 1857 he went abroad. Tolstoy visited France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, returned to Moscow in the fall, and then again to Yasnaya Polyana.

In 1859, Tolstoy opened a school for peasant children in the village, and also helped to establish more than 20 similar institutions in the vicinity of Yasnaya Polyana. In 1860, he went abroad for the second time to get acquainted with the schools of Europe. In London, I often saw Alexander Herzen, visited Germany, France, Switzerland, Belgium, and studied pedagogical systems.

In 1862, Tolstoy began publishing the pedagogical magazine Yasnaya Polyana with reading books as an appendix. Later, in the early 1870s, the writer created "ABC" (1871-1872) and "New ABC" (1874-1875), for which he composed original stories and adaptations of fairy tales and fables, which made up four "Russian books for reading."

The logic of the writer’s ideological and creative quest of the early 1860s was the desire to depict folk characters (“Polikushka”, 1861-1863), the epic tone of the narrative (“Cossacks”), attempts to turn to history to understand modernity (the beginning of the novel “Decembrists” , 1860-1861) - led him to the idea of ​​the epic novel "War and Peace" (1863-1869). The time of creation of the novel was a period of spiritual elation, family happiness and calm, solitary work. At the beginning of 1865, the first part of the work was published in the Russian Bulletin.

In 1873-1877, another great novel by Tolstoy was written - "Anna Karenina" (published in 1876-1877). The problems of the novel directly led Tolstoy to the ideological “turning point” of the late 1870s.

At the height of his literary fame, the writer entered a period of deep doubts and moral quests. In the late 1870s and early 1880s, philosophy and journalism came to the fore in his work. Tolstoy condemns the world of violence, oppression and injustice, believes that it is historically doomed and must be radically changed in the near future. In his opinion, this can be achieved through peaceful means. Violence must be excluded from social life; it is opposed to non-resistance. Non-resistance was not understood, however, as an exclusively passive attitude towards violence. A whole system of measures was proposed to neutralize the violence of state power: a position of non-participation in what supports the existing system - the army, courts, taxes, false teaching, etc.

Tolstoy wrote a number of articles that reflected his worldview: “On the census in Moscow” (1882), “So what should we do?” (1882-1886, published in full in 1906), “On Hunger” (1891, published in English in 1892, in Russian in 1954), “What is art?” (1897-1898), etc.

The writer’s religious and philosophical treatises are “A Study of Dogmatic Theology” (1879-1880), “The Connection and Translation of the Four Gospels” (1880-1881), “What is My Faith?” (1884), "The Kingdom of God is within you" (1893).

At this time, such stories as “Notes of a Madman” (work was carried out in 1884-1886, not completed), “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” (1884-1886), etc. were written.

In the 1880s, Tolstoy lost interest in artistic work and even condemned his previous novels and stories as lordly “fun.” He became interested in simple physical labor, plowed, sewed his own boots, and switched to vegetarian food.

Tolstoy's main artistic work in the 1890s was the novel "Resurrection" (1889-1899), which embodied the entire range of problems that worried the writer.

As part of the new worldview, Tolstoy opposed Christian dogma and criticized the rapprochement between the church and the state. In 1901, the reaction of the Synod followed: the internationally recognized writer and preacher was officially excommunicated from the church, this caused a huge public outcry. The years of disruption also led to family discord.

Trying to bring his way of life into harmony with his beliefs and burdened by the life of a landowner’s estate, Tolstoy secretly left Yasnaya Polyana in the late autumn of 1910. The road turned out to be too much for him: on the way, the writer fell ill and was forced to make a stop at the Astapovo railway station (now Leo Tolstoy station, Lipetsk region). Here, in the station master's house, he spent the last few days of his life. All of Russia followed reports about the health of Tolstoy, who by this time had gained worldwide fame not only as a writer, but also as a religious thinker.

November 20 (November 7, old style) 1910 Leo Tolstoy died. His funeral in Yasnaya Polyana became a nationwide event.

Since December 1873, the writer was a corresponding member of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (now the Russian Academy of Sciences), and since January 1900 - an honorary academician in the category of belles lettres.

For the defense of Sevastopol, Leo Tolstoy was awarded the Order of St. Anna, IV degree, with the inscription “For bravery” and other medals. Subsequently, he was also awarded medals “In memory of the 50th anniversary of the defense of Sevastopol”: silver as a participant in the defense of Sevastopol and bronze as the author of “Sevastopol Stories”.

Leo Tolstoy's wife was the daughter of a doctor, Sophia Bers (1844-1919), whom he married in September 1862. For a long time, Sofya Andreevna was a faithful assistant in his affairs: a copyist of manuscripts, a translator, a secretary, and a publisher of works. Their marriage produced 13 children, five of whom died in childhood.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources

Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich(August 28, 1828, Yasnaya Polyana estate, Tula province - November 7, 1910, Astapovo station (now Lev Tolstoy station) of the Ryazan-Ural railway) - count, Russian writer.

Tolstoy was the fourth child in a large noble family. His mother, nee Princess Volkonskaya, died when Tolstoy was not yet two years old, but according to the stories of family members, he had a good idea of ​​“her spiritual appearance”: some of his mother’s traits (brilliant education, sensitivity to art, a penchant for reflection and even portrait resemblance Tolstoy gave Princess Marya Nikolaevna Bolkonskaya (“War and Peace”) Tolstoy’s father, a participant in the Patriotic War, who was remembered by the writer for his good-natured, mocking character, love of reading, and hunting (served as the prototype for Nikolai Rostov), ​​also died early (1837). studied by a distant relative T. A. Ergolskaya, who had a huge influence on Tolstoy: “she taught me the spiritual pleasure of love.” Childhood memories always remained the most joyful for Tolstoy: family legends, first impressions of the life of a noble estate served as rich material for his works, and were reflected. in the autobiographical story “Childhood”.

Kazan University

When Tolstoy was 13 years old, the family moved to Kazan, to the house of a relative and guardian of the children, P. I. Yushkova. In 1844, Tolstoy entered Kazan University at the Department of Oriental Languages ​​of the Faculty of Philosophy, then transferred to the Faculty of Law, where he studied for less than two years: his studies did not arouse any keen interest in him and he passionately indulged in secular entertainment. In the spring of 1847, having submitted a request for dismissal from the university “due to poor health and home circumstances,” Tolstoy left for Yasnaya Polyana with the firm intention of studying the entire course of legal sciences (in order to pass the exam as an external student), “practical medicine,” languages, agriculture, history, geographical statistics, write a dissertation and “achieve the highest degree of excellence in music and painting.”

"The stormy life of adolescence"

After a summer in the village, disappointed by the unsuccessful experience of managing on new conditions favorable to the serfs (this attempt is depicted in the story “The Morning of the Landowner,” 1857), in the fall of 1847 Tolstoy He went first to Moscow, then to St. Petersburg to take candidate exams at the university. His lifestyle during this period often changed: he spent days preparing and passing exams, he devoted himself passionately to music, he intended to start an official career, he dreamed of joining a horse guards regiment as a cadet. Religious sentiments, reaching the point of asceticism, alternated with carousing, cards, and trips to the gypsies. In the family he was considered “the most trifling fellow,” and he was able to repay the debts he incurred then only many years later. However, it was precisely these years that were colored by intense introspection and struggle with oneself, which is reflected in the diary that Tolstoy kept throughout his life. At the same time, he had a serious desire to write and the first unfinished artistic sketches appeared.

"War and Freedom"

In 1851, his elder brother Nikolai, an officer in the active army, persuaded Tolstoy to go together to the Caucasus. For almost three years, Tolstoy lived in a Cossack village on the banks of the Terek, traveling to Kizlyar, Tiflis, Vladikavkaz and participating in military operations (at first voluntarily, then he was recruited). The Caucasian nature and the patriarchal simplicity of Cossack life, which struck Tolstoy in contrast with the life of the noble circle and with the painful reflection of a person in an educated society, provided material for the autobiographical story “Cossacks” (1852-63). Caucasian impressions were also reflected in the stories “Raid” (1853), “Cutting Wood” (1855), as well as in the later story “Hadji Murat” (1896-1904, published in 1912). Returning to Russia, Tolstoy wrote in his diary that he fell in love with this “wild land, in which the two most opposite things - war and freedom - are so strangely and poetically combined.” In the Caucasus, Tolstoy wrote the story “Childhood” and sent it to the Sovremennik magazine without revealing his name (published in 1852 under the initials L.N.; together with the later stories “Adolescence”, 1852-54, and “Youth”, 1855 -57, compiled an autobiographical trilogy). Tolstoy's literary debut immediately brought real recognition.

Crimean campaign

In 1854 Tolstoy received an appointment to the Danube Army in Bucharest. Boring life at the headquarters soon forced him to transfer to the Crimean Army, to besieged Sevastopol, where he commanded a battery on the 4th bastion, showing rare personal courage (awarded the Order of St. Anne and medals). In Crimea, Tolstoy was captivated by new impressions and literary plans (he was planning, among other things, to publish a magazine for soldiers); here he began writing a series of “Sevastopol stories”, which were soon published and had enormous success (even Alexander II read the essay “Sevastopol in December” ). Tolstoy's first works amazed literary critics with the boldness of his psychological analysis and a detailed picture of the “dialectics of the soul” (N. G. Chernyshevsky). Some of the ideas that appeared during these years make it possible to discern in the young artillery officer the late Tolstoy the preacher: he dreamed of “founding a new religion” - “the religion of Christ, but purified of faith and mystery, a practical religion.”

Among writers and abroad

In November 1855, Tolstoy arrived in St. Petersburg and immediately entered the Sovremennik circle (N. A. Nekrasov, I. S. Turgenev, A. N. Ostrovsky, I. A. Goncharov, etc.), where he was greeted as a “great hope of Russian literature" (Nekrasov). Tolstoy took part in dinners and readings, in the establishment of the Literary Fund, became involved in the disputes and conflicts of writers, but felt like a stranger in this environment, which he described in detail later in “Confession” (1879-82): “These people disgusted me, and I was disgusted with myself.” In the fall of 1856, Tolstoy, having retired, went to Yasnaya Polyana, and at the beginning of 1857 he went abroad. He visited France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany (Swiss impressions are reflected in the story “Lucerne”), returned to Moscow in the fall, then to Yasnaya Polyana.

Folk school

In 1859, Tolstoy opened a school for peasant children in the village, helped to establish more than 20 schools in the vicinity of Yasnaya Polyana, and this activity fascinated Tolstoy so much that in 1860 he went abroad for the second time to get acquainted with the schools of Europe. Tolstoy traveled a lot, spent a month and a half in London (where he often saw A.I. Herzen), was in Germany, France, Switzerland, Belgium, studied popular pedagogical systems, which generally did not satisfy the writer. Tolstoy outlined his own ideas in special articles, arguing that the basis of education should be “the freedom of the student” and the rejection of violence in teaching. In 1862 he published the pedagogical magazine “Yasnaya Polyana” with books for reading as an appendix, which became in Russia the same classic examples of children's and folk literature as those compiled by him in the early 1870s. "ABC" and "New ABC". In 1862, in the absence of Tolstoy, a search was carried out in Yasnaya Polyana (they were looking for a secret printing house).

"War and Peace" (1863-69)

In September 1862, Tolstoy married the eighteen-year-old daughter of a doctor, Sofya Andreevna Bers, and immediately after the wedding, he took his wife from Moscow to Yasnaya Polyana, where he completely devoted himself to family life and household concerns. However, already in the autumn of 1863 he was captured by a new literary project, which for a long time bore the name “One Thousand Eight Hundred and Five.” The time of creation of the novel was a period of spiritual elation, family happiness and calm, solitary work. Tolstoy read memoirs and correspondence of people of the Alexander era (including materials from Tolstoy and Volkonsky), worked in archives, studied Masonic manuscripts, traveled to the Borodino field, moving forward in his work slowly, through many editions (his wife helped him a lot in copying manuscripts, refuting this friends joked that she was still so young, as if she were playing with dolls), and only at the beginning of 1865 he published the first part of “War and Peace” in the “Russian Bulletin”. The novel was read avidly, evoked many responses, striking with its combination of a broad epic canvas with subtle psychological analysis, with a living picture of private life, organically inscribed in history. Heated debate provoked the subsequent parts of the novel, in which Tolstoy developed a fatalistic philosophy of history. There were accusations that the writer “entrusted” the intellectual demands of his era to the people of the beginning of the century: the idea of ​​a novel about the Patriotic War was indeed a response to the problems that worried Russian post-reform society. Tolstoy himself characterized his plan as an attempt to “write the history of the people” and considered it impossible to determine its genre nature (“will not fit any form, no novel, no story, no poem, no history”).

"Anna Karenina" (1873-77)

In the 1870s, still living in Yasnaya Polyana, continuing to teach peasant children and develop his pedagogical views in print, Tolstoy worked on a novel about the life of his contemporary society, building a composition on the juxtaposition of two storylines: the family drama of Anna Karenina is drawn in contrast with the life and home idyll of the young landowner Konstantin Levin, close to the writer himself both in his lifestyle, and in his beliefs, and in his psychological picture . The beginning of his work coincided with his fascination with Pushkin’s prose: Tolstoy strove for simplicity of style, for an external non-judgmental tone, paving the way for the new style of the 1880s, especially for folk stories. Only tendentious criticism interpreted the novel as a love affair. The meaning of the existence of the “educated class” and the deep truth of peasant life - this range of questions, close to Levin and alien to most of the heroes even sympathetic to the author (including Anna), sounded sharply journalistic for many contemporaries, primarily for F. M. Dostoevsky, who highly appreciated “Anna Karenin" in "A Writer's Diary". “Family thought” (the main thought in the novel, according to Tolstoy) is translated into a social channel, Levin’s merciless self-exposures, his thoughts about suicide are read as a figurative illustration of the spiritual crisis that Tolstoy himself experienced in the 1880s, but which matured during the work on the novel .

Turning point (1880s)

The course of the revolution taking place in Tolstoy’s consciousness was reflected in his artistic creativity, primarily in the experiences of the heroes, in the spiritual insight that refracts their lives. These characters occupy a central place in the stories “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” (1884-86), “The Kreutzer Sonata” (1887-89, published in Russia in 1891), “Father Sergius” (1890-98, published in 1912), the drama “ Living Corpse" (1900, unfinished, published in 1911), in the story "After the Ball" (1903, published in 1911). Tolstoy's confessional journalism gives a detailed idea of ​​his spiritual drama: painting pictures of social inequality and idleness of the educated strata, Tolstoy in a pointed form posed questions of the meaning of life and faith to himself and to society, criticized all state institutions, going so far as to deny science, art, and court , marriage, achievements of civilization. The writer’s new worldview is reflected in “Confession” (published in 1884 in Geneva, in 1906 in Russia), in the articles “On the Census in Moscow” (1882), “So what should we do?” (1882-86, published in full in 1906), “On Hunger” (1891, published in English in 1892, in Russian in 1954), “What is Art?” (1897-98), “Slavery of Our Time” (1900, fully published in Russia in 1917), “On Shakespeare and Drama” (1906), “I Can’t Be Silent” (1908).

Tolstoy's social declaration is based on the idea of ​​Christianity as a moral teaching, and he interpreted the ethical ideas of Christianity in a humanistic manner as the basis of the universal brotherhood of man. This set of problems involved an analysis of the Gospel and critical study of theological works, which were the subject of Tolstoy’s religious and philosophical treatises “A Study of Dogmatic Theology” (1879-80), “The Connection and Translation of the Four Gospels” (1880-81), “What is My Faith” ( 1884), “The Kingdom of God is within you” (1893). A stormy reaction in society accompanied Tolstoy's calls for direct and immediate adherence to Christian commandments.

In particular, his preaching of non-resistance to evil through violence was widely discussed, which became the impetus for the creation of a number of works of art - the drama “The Power of Darkness, or the Claw Got Stuck, All the Birds Are Abyss” (1887) and folk stories written in a deliberately simplified, “artless” manner. Along with the congenial works of V. M. Garshin, N. S. Leskov and other writers, these stories were published by the publishing house “Posrednik”, founded by V. G. Chertkov on the initiative and with the close participation of Tolstoy, who defined the task of the “Mediator” as “an expression in artistic images of the teachings of Christ,” “so that this book can be read to an old man, a woman, a child, and so that both of them become interested, are touched and feel kinder.”

As part of a new worldview and ideas about Christianity, Tolstoy opposed Christian dogma and criticized the rapprochement of the church with the state, which led him to complete separation from the Orthodox Church. In 1901, the reaction of the Synod followed: the internationally recognized writer and preacher was officially excommunicated from the church, which caused a huge public outcry.

"Resurrection" (1889-99)

Tolstoy's last novel embodied the entire range of problems that worried him during the turning point. The main character, Dmitry Nekhlyudov, spiritually close to the author, goes through the path of moral purification, leading him to active good. The narrative is built on a system of emphatically evaluative oppositions that expose the unreasonableness of the social structure (the beauty of nature and the falsity of the social world, the truth of peasant life and the falsehood that dominates the life of the educated strata of society). The characteristic features of the late Tolstoy - a frank, highlighted “tendency” (in these years Tolstoy was a supporter of deliberately tendentious, didactic art), harsh criticism, a satirical principle - appeared clearly in the novel.

Care and death

The turning point years radically changed the writer’s personal biography, resulting in a break with the social environment and leading to family discord (Tolstoy’s proclaimed refusal to own private property caused sharp discontent among family members, especially his wife). The personal drama Tolstoy experienced was reflected in his diary entries.

Late autumn 1910, at night, secretly from his family, 82-year-old Tolstoy, accompanied only by his personal physician D.P. Makovitsky, left Yasnaya Polyana. The journey turned out to be too much for him: on the way, Tolstoy fell ill and was forced to get off the train at the small Astapovo railway station. Here, in the station master's house, he spent the last seven days of his life. All of Russia followed reports about the health of Tolstoy, who by this time had already gained worldwide fame not only as a writer, but also as a religious thinker and preacher of a new faith. Tolstoy's funeral in Yasnaya Polyana became an event of all-Russian scale.

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For Leo Tolstoy, Kazan is a city with which he was connected by family and friendly ties. Leo Tolstoy's great-grandfather was a governor in the city of Sviyazhsk, grandfather I.A. Tolstoy was the Kazan governor (1815-1820), father Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy, a participant in the war of 1812, lived in Kazan after his retirement, and after his marriage to Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya moved to his wife’s estate Yasnaya Polyana, where Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on August 28, 1828. The great writer’s aunt, Pelageya Ilyinichna Yushkova, a Kazan landowner, became the guardian of Leo Tolstoy and his brothers and sister after the death of their parents.
In 1841, thirteen-year-old Leo Tolstoy moved to Kazan. More than 40 thousand people lived in Kazan at that time. The city aristocracy preferred to live in the area of ​​Gruzinskaya Street (now Karl Marx Street), running from the Arskoye Field to the Kremlin, a beautiful street with good-quality brick houses. The Arskoe field was a place of public festivities, not far from it was the Rodionovsky Institute of Noble Maidens, a military square, a riding arena and a Lutheran church. It was one of the most fashionable areas of the city of Kazan. This is where the Tolstoys settled. Pelageya Ilyinichna rented the Gortalovs’ house (now 15 Yapeeva Street) for her family and nephews.

In 1844, Leo Tolstoy entered the Kazan Imperial University in the department of oriental literature. Oriental languages ​​provided an opportunity to make a diplomatic career, and my aunt wanted to see Tolstoy as ambassador to Turkey. But the cheerful social life captured the young man; there was no time to study and Tolstoy was unable to pass his first-year exams. After that, he transferred to the Faculty of Law.

The young Tolstoy reads a lot, attends concerts, performances, balls, is a frequent guest in the salon of the director of the Institute of Noble Maidens E.D. Zagoskina, and participates in amateur performances. Leo Tolstoy throughout his life carefully kept the poster for the evening of “living pictures”, which took place on April 19, 1846 in the Assembly Hall of Kazan University, the poster is a memory of his first stage success.

In 1847, leaving his studies at the University, Leo Tolstoy left Kazan. He inherited Yasnaya Polyana, his mother’s estate. The rector of Simonov University said to him in parting: “It would be very sad if your outstanding abilities did not find use.”

It was in our city, where the brilliant writer spent his adolescence and youth, that he first thought about choosing his path, the purpose of his life. The impressions of the Kazan period of Leo Tolstoy’s life were reflected in his stories “After the Ball”, “The Morning of the Landowner”, and the trilogy “Childhood. Adolescence. Youth".
Tolstoy visited Kazan three more times: in 1851 (on his way to the Caucasus), 1862 and 1876.

1. "To love and be so happy"
2. “Be content with little and do good to others”

Lev Tolstoy is one of the most famous writers and philosophers in the world. His views and beliefs formed the basis of an entire religious and philosophical movement called Tolstoyism. The writer's literary heritage amounted to 90 volumes of fiction and journalistic works, diary notes and letters, and he himself was more than once nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Nobel Peace Prize.

“Do everything that you have determined to be done.”

Family tree of Leo Tolstoy. Image: regnum.ru

Silhouette of Maria Tolstoy (nee Volkonskaya), mother of Leo Tolstoy. 1810s. Image: wikipedia.org

Leo Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828 in the Yasnaya Polyana estate in the Tula province. He was the fourth child in a large noble family. Tolstoy was orphaned early. His mother died when he was not yet two years old, and at the age of nine he lost his father. Aunt Alexandra Osten-Saken became the guardian of Tolstoy's five children. The two older children moved to their aunt in Moscow, while the younger ones remained in Yasnaya Polyana. It is with the family estate that the most important and dear memories of Leo Tolstoy’s early childhood are associated.

In 1841, Alexandra Osten-Sacken died, and the Tolstoys moved to their aunt Pelageya Yushkova in Kazan. Three years after moving, Leo Tolstoy decided to enter the prestigious Imperial Kazan University. However, he did not like studying, he considered exams a formality, and university professors as incompetent. Tolstoy did not even try to get a scientific degree; in Kazan he was more attracted to secular entertainment.

In April 1847, Leo Tolstoy's student life ended. He inherited his part of the estate, including his beloved Yasnaya Polyana, and immediately went home, never receiving a higher education. On the family estate, Tolstoy tried to improve his life and start writing. He drew up his education plan: study languages, history, medicine, mathematics, geography, law, agriculture, natural sciences. However, he soon came to the conclusion that it is easier to make plans than to implement them.

Tolstoy's asceticism was often replaced by carousing and card games. Wanting to start the right life, in his opinion, he created a daily routine. But he didn’t follow it either, and in his diary he again noted his dissatisfaction with himself. All these failures prompted Leo Tolstoy to change his lifestyle. An opportunity presented itself in April 1851: the elder brother Nikolai arrived in Yasnaya Polyana. At that time he served in the Caucasus, where there was a war. Leo Tolstoy decided to join his brother and went with him to a village on the banks of the Terek River.

Leo Tolstoy served on the outskirts of the empire for almost two and a half years. He whiled away his time by hunting, playing cards, and occasionally participating in raids into enemy territory. Tolstoy liked such a solitary and monotonous life. It was in the Caucasus that the story “Childhood” was born. While working on it, the writer found a source of inspiration that remained important to him until the end of his life: he used his own memories and experiences.

In July 1852, Tolstoy sent the manuscript of the story to the Sovremennik magazine and attached a letter: “...I look forward to your verdict. He will either encourage me to continue my favorite activities, or force me to burn everything I started.”. Editor Nikolai Nekrasov liked the work of the new author, and soon “Childhood” was published in the magazine. Inspired by the first success, the writer soon began the continuation of “Childhood”. In 1854, he published a second story, “Adolescence”, in the Sovremennik magazine.

“The main thing is literary works”

Leo Tolstoy in his youth. 1851. Image: school-science.ru

Lev Tolstoy. 1848. Image: regnum.ru

Lev Tolstoy. Image: old.orlovka.org.ru

At the end of 1854, Leo Tolstoy arrived in Sevastopol - the epicenter of military operations. Being in the thick of things, he created the story “Sevastopol in December.” Although Tolstoy was unusually frank in describing battle scenes, the first Sevastopol story was deeply patriotic and glorified the bravery of Russian soldiers. Soon Tolstoy began working on his second story, “Sevastopol in May.” By that time, there was nothing left of his pride in the Russian army. The horror and shock that Tolstoy experienced on the front line and during the siege of the city greatly influenced his work. Now he wrote about the meaninglessness of death and the inhumanity of war.

In 1855, from the ruins of Sevastopol, Tolstoy traveled to sophisticated St. Petersburg. The success of the first Sevastopol story gave him a sense of purpose: “My career is literature - writing and writing! Starting tomorrow, I work all my life or give up everything, rules, religion, decency - everything.”. In the capital, Leo Tolstoy finished “Sevastopol in May” and wrote “Sevastopol in August 1855” - these essays completed the trilogy. And in November 1856, the writer finally left military service.

Thanks to his true stories about the Crimean War, Tolstoy entered the St. Petersburg literary circle of the Sovremennik magazine. During this period, he wrote the story “Blizzard”, the story “Two Hussars”, and finished the trilogy with the story “Youth”. However, after some time, relations with the writers from the circle deteriorated: “These people disgusted me, and I disgusted myself.”. To unwind, at the beginning of 1857 Leo Tolstoy went abroad. He visited Paris, Rome, Berlin, Dresden: he got acquainted with famous works of art, met with artists, and observed how people live in European cities. The journey did not inspire Tolstoy: he created the story “Lucerne”, in which he described his disappointment.

Leo Tolstoy at work. Image: kartinkinaden.ru

Leo Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana. Image: kartinkinaden.ru

Leo Tolstoy tells a fairy tale to his grandchildren Ilyusha and Sonya. 1909. Krekshino. Photo: Vladimir Chertkov / wikipedia.org

In the summer of 1857, Tolstoy returned to Yasnaya Polyana. At his native estate, he continued to work on the story “Cossacks”, and also wrote the story “Three Deaths” and the novel “Family Happiness”. In his diary, Tolstoy defined his purpose for himself at that time: “The main thing is literary works, then family responsibilities, then farming... And living like this for yourself is a good deed a day and that’s enough.”.

In 1899, Tolstoy wrote the novel Resurrection. In this work, the writer criticized the judicial system, the army, and the government. The contempt with which Tolstoy described the institution of the church in his novel “Resurrection” provoked a response. In February 1901, in the journal “Church Gazette,” the Holy Synod published a resolution excommunicating Count Leo Tolstoy from the church. This decision only increased Tolstoy's popularity and attracted the public's attention to the writer's ideals and beliefs.

Tolstoy's literary and social activities became known abroad. The writer was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1901, 1902 and 1909 and for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1902–1906. Tolstoy himself did not want to receive the award and even told the Finnish writer Arvid Järnefelt to try to prevent the award from being awarded because, “if this happened... it would be very unpleasant to refuse” “He [Chertkov] took the unfortunate old man into his hands in every possible way, he separated us, he killed the artistic spark in Lev Nikolaevich and kindled condemnation, hatred, denial, which can be felt in Lev Nikolaevich’s recent articles years, which his stupid evil genius egged him on".

Tolstoy himself was burdened by the life of a landowner and family man. He sought to bring his life into line with his beliefs and in early November 1910 secretly left the Yasnaya Polyana estate. The road turned out to be too much for the elderly man: on the way he became seriously ill and was forced to stay in the house of the caretaker of the Astapovo railway station. Here the writer spent the last days of his life. Leo Tolstoy died on November 20, 1910. The writer was buried in Yasnaya Polyana.