Autobiography of Countess Tolstoy by Sophie Andreevna
Translated by S. S. Koteliansky and Leonard Woolf
Tolstoy’s wife, Countess Sophia Andreyevna Tolstaya (1844–1919), was devoted to her husband in his literary work. She acted as copyist of War and Peace, copying the manuscript seven times from beginning to end. Sophia was also a diarist and documented her life with Tolstoy in a series of diaries which were published in English translation in the 1980s.
However, the couple had an increasingly troubled marriage, arguing over Tolstoy’s desire to give away his private property and the copyright of his works. Eventually the author left Sophia in 1910, aged 82, with his doctor and daughter Alexandra. Tolstoy died 10 days later in a railway station, whilst Sophia was kept away from him. Following the death of her husband, Sophia continued to live in Yasnaya Polyana, surviving the Russian Revolution in relative peace. This detailed autobiography was first published in English in 1922, three years after Sophia’s death.
Contents
PREFACE BY VASSILI SPIRIDONOV
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
NOTES
APPENDIX
APPENDIX I
SEMEN AFANASEVICH VENGEROV
APPENDIX II
NIKOLAI NIKOLAEVICH STRAKHOV.
APPENDIX III
TOLSTOY’S FIRST WILL
APPENDIX IV
TOLSTOY’S WILL OF 22 JULY, 1910
APPENDIX V
TOLSTOY’S GOING AWAY
TOLSTOY’S LETTER TO HIS DAUGHTER ALEXANDRA LVOVONA
FROM TOLSTOY’S DIARY
PREFACE BY VASSILI SPIRIDONOV
THE MANUSCRIPT OF the autobiography of Sophie Andreevna Tolstoy exists among the documents of the late director of the Russian Library, Professor Semen Afanasevich Vengerov, which, in accordance with the will of the deceased, have been handed over to the Library. The Library is now in the Petrograd Institute of Learning, and the documents form a special section in the Institute under the title: “The Archives of S. A. Vengerov.”
The history of the manuscript is as follows. At the end of July, 1913, S. A. Vengerov sent a letter to S. A. Tolstoy asking her to write and send him her autobiography which he proposed to publish. We do not know the details of S. A. Vengerov’s letter, but from the replies of S. A. Tolstoy which are printed below we may conclude that Professor Vengerov enclosed in his letter to S. A. Tolstoy a questionnaire, and that, besides the usual questions which he was accustomed to send out broadcast to authors and men of letters, he put a number of additional questions, especially for S. A. T., asking for light upon certain moments in the history of the life and creative activity of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy, and upon the time and causes of the differences between the husband and wife, the beginning of that formidable drama which took place in the Tolstoy family.
S. A. T. answered immediately; she wrote to Vengerov as follows:
Yasnaya Polyana,
30 July, 1913.
Much-respected Semen Afanasevich: I received your letter to-day, and hasten to tell you that I will try to answer all your questions soon; but in order to do it fully, I need a little time. I shall hardly be able to write an autobiography, even a brief one. At any rate, whatever I may communicate to you, you have my permission to cut out anything that you think superfluous. As to your questions about my family, my sister, Tatyana Andreevna Kuzminskii, could answer you better than I; she and my first cousin, Alexander Alexandrovich Bers, have devoted a good deal of time to this matter and have, in particular, tried to trace the origin of my father’s family, which came from Saxony. We have the seal with its coat-of-arms: a bear (hence Bers, i. e. Bär in German) warding off a swarm of bees. I will write to my sister to send me this information, and I will let you have it. Please also let me know roughly when you expect me to send you the information you desire.
The most difficult thing for me will be to fix the moment and the cause of our differences. It was not a difference, but a gradual going-away of Leo Nikolaevich from everything in his former life, and thus the harmony of all our happy previous life was broken.
Of all this I will try to write briefly, after having thought it over as well and as accurately as I can.
Accept the assurance of my respect and devotion for you,
Sophie Tolstoy.
Yasnaya Polyana,
Station Zassyeka,
21 August, 1913.
Much-respected Semen Afanasevich: This is a difficult task which you have set me, writing my autobiography, and, although I have already begun it, I am continually wondering whether I am doing it properly. The chief thing which I have decided to ask you is to tell me what length my article should be. If, for instance, you take a page of the magazine Vyestnik Europa as a measure, how many full pages, approximately, ought I to write? To-morrow I shall be sixty-nine years old, a long life; well, what out of that life would be of interest to people? I have been trying to find some woman’s autobiography for a model, but have not found one anywhere.
Pardon me for troubling you; I want to do the work you have charged me with as well as possible, but I have so little capacity and no experience at all.
I shall hope for an answer.
With sincere respect and devotion,
S. Tolstoy.
It may be supposed that Vengerov again came to the assistance of S. A. T. and solved her doubts, after which she went on with her work and finished it at the end of October, 1913. Being in Petersburg, she personally handed it over to Vengerov. The work did not satisfy Vengerov, as he did not find in it what, evidently, particularly interested him, namely, information as to the life in Yasnaya Polyana during the time when War and Peace and Anna Karenina were written. Vengerov wrote to S. A. T. about this, urging her to fill up the gap, to write a new additional chapter. S. A. T. did this. She sent the new material to Vengerov accompanied by the following letter:
Yasnaya Polyana,
Station Zassyeka,
24 March, 1914.
Much-respected Semen Afanasevich: You are perfectly right in your observation that I left a great gap in my autobiography, and I thank you very much for advising me to write one more chapter; I have now done so. But the question is, have I done it well, and is the new material suitable? Hard as I tried, and carefully as I searched for materials for that chapter, I found very little, but I have made the best use of it which I could.
In the former manuscript which I gave you in Petersburg, Chapter 3 should be cut out and the new one which I enclose in this letter substituted. The chapter had to be corrected considerably, things altered, struck out, and added.
The chapter about the children in the new material has been slightly altered at the beginning, and all the rest remains without alteration, as in the former manuscript.
Be so good as to note the Roman figures marking chapters, but divide it up into chapters anew at your discretion.
As I have not the whole manuscript in its final form before me, I cannot do it myself and am obliged to trouble you. Please also write me a word to say you have received the new chapter and give me your opinion, which I value greatly.
Accept the assurance of my sincere respect and devotion.
Sophie Tolstoy.
The additional matter did not satisfy S. A. Vengerov. He had long ago formed an idea of Yasnaya Polyana, during the period in which War and Peace and Anna Karenina were created, as of a “home” in which the interests of the family were such that literary interests were removed to the second floor. He hoped that S. A. T. in her additional matter would turn her attention to that particular side in the life and activity of L. N. Tolstoy, making use for that purpose of the very rich material possessed by her. But S. A. T. did not fulfil his hopes, as he told her in a letter to her and as may be seen from her reply.
S. A. T. held a different view, and she wrote to Vengerov:
Yasnaya Polyana,
Station Zassyeka,
5 May, 1914.
Much-respected Semen Afanasevich: I have received your letter; you are not quite satisfied with the new chapter, to which I reply: you want more facts, but where am I to get them? Our life was quiet, placid, a retired family life.
You write about the ‘home’ interests which must have been subordinated to Leo Nikolaevich’s writing of War and Peace and Anna Karenina. But what was that home? It consisted only of Leo Nikolaevich and myself. The two old women had become childish and took no interest at all in Leo N.’s writings, but used to lose their tempers over patience; a nd their only interests were the children and the dinner.
In so far as I could tear myself from domestic matters, I lived in my husband’s creative activity and loved it. But one can not put into the background a baby who has to be fed day and night, and I nursed ten children myself, which Leo N. desired and approved.
You mention among professional writers Gogol, Turgenev, Goncharov, and I would add Lermontov and others; all of them were bachelors without families, and that is a very different matter. This was reflected in their work, just as Leo N.’s family life was completely reflected in his works.
It is perfectly true that Leo N. was generally a man, and not merely a writer. But it is not true, if you will pardon me, that he wrote easily. Indeed, he experienced the ‘tortures of creative activity’ in a high degree; he wrote with difficulty and slowly, made endless corrections; he doubted his powers, denied his talent, and he
