“I can only remember three days in my whole life when I felt at leisure,” Vengerov used to say. The intense industriousness of his life may be seen from the following incomplete list of his works: “Russian Literature in her Contemporary Representatives: I. S. Turgenev, 1875; I. I. Lazhechnikov, 1883; A. F. Pisemskii, 1884.
“Critico-Biographical Dictionary of Russian Authors and Men of Letters,” Six volumes, 1889-1904. These six volumes only complete the first letter of the alphabet, most of the articles being written by Vengerov.
Russian Poetry. Seven volumes, 1893-1901.
Thirty volumes of Russian authors edited with notes about the writers.
“The Sources of the Dictionary of Russian Authors,” four volumes, 1900-1917.
“Library of Great Writers,” edited by Vengerov and containing the complete works of Shakespeare, Byron, Molière, and Pushkin.
“Outlines of the History of Russian Literature,” 1907.
“Russian Literature of the Twentieth Century,” 1890-1910.
“The Heroic Character of Russian Literature.” It will be seen from the above list that Vengerov devoted the whole of his life to Russian literature. As a writer and man of letters, he achieved considerable popularity.
APPENDIX II
NIKOLAI NIKOLAEVICH STRAKHOV.
N. N. STRAKHOV was born 16 October, 1828, and died 24 January, 1896. He studied at the ecclesiastical seminary of Kostroma and completed his course in 1845. He then passed to the Faculty of Mathematics in the Petersburg University and took his degree in 1848. He then entered the Faculty of Natural Science and Mathematics in the Teachers’ Training Institute and completed his course in 1851, after which he became a teacher of physics and mathematics. In 1857 he received the degree of Master of Zoology. In 1861 he gave up teaching and became the principal collaborator with the brothers Dostoevskii on the monthly magazine, Vremya. His chief writings were polemical. Under the nom-de-plume of “N. Kossize,” he wrote a series or articles which had a great success and were chiefly directed against the “westerners,” radicals, and socialists, e. g. Chernishersikii, Pisarev. Vremya, which had a large circulation, was suppressed by the authorities because of an article by Strakhov, called “The Fatal Problem,” which dealt with Russian-Polish relations in a spirit of opposition to the Government. Being without work, Strakhov began translating books into Russian, chiefly on Philosophical, scientific, and literary subjects.
Tolstoy’s friendship with Strakhov began in 1871. When someone asked him about the friendship, Strakhov sent him the following autobiographical note: “The origin of my acquaintance with L. N. Tolstoy in 1871 was as follows. After my articles on War and Peace, I decided to write him a letter asking him to let the Sarya have some of his work. He replied that he had nothing at present, but added a pressing invitation to come and see him at Yasnaya Polyana whenever an opportunity should present itself. In 1871 I received four hundred roubles from the Sarya, and in June I went to stay with my people in Poltava. On my way back to Petersburg I stopped at Tula for the night, and in the morning took a cab and drove out to Yasnaya Polyana. After that we used to see each other every year, that is, I used to stay a month or six weeks with him every summer. At times we quarrelled and grew cool to each other, but good feeling always won the day; his family got to like me, and now they see in me an old, faithful friend, which indeed I am.”
With Strakhov Tolstoy was on very friendly terms, which allowed complete frankness between them. Tolstoy himself wrote of his correspondence with Strakhov (in a letter of 6 February, 1906, to P. A. Sergeenko): “In addition to Alexandra Andreevna Tolstoy, I had two persons to whom I have written many letters which, as far as I can remember, might interest people interested in my personality. They are Strakhov and Prince Serge S. Urusov.” (Letters, Vol. II, page 227.)
The friendship of Tolstoy and Strakhov lasted for twenty-five years, and on Strakhov’s part there was thirty years adoration of Tolstoy’s genius and of his great spiritual and intellectual qualities. V. V. Rosanov wrote the following after Strakhov’s death: “Strakhov’s attachment to Tolstoy was most deep and mystical: he loved him as the incarnation of the best and most profound aspirations of the human soul, as a special nerve in the huge body of mankind in which we others form parts less understanding and significant; he loved him for what was indefinite and incomplete in him. He loved in him the dark abyss, the bottom of which no one could see, from the depths of which still rise numbers of treasures; and there is no doubt that Tolstoy never lost a better friend.”
Strakhov’s works included: From the History of Russian Nihilism, 1890; Essays on Pushkin and Other Poets, 1888; Biography of Dostoevskii; The Struggle of the West with our Literature, three volumes, 1882-1886; and some scientific works.
APPENDIX III
TOLSTOY’S FIRST WILL
TOLSTOY’S FIRST WILL was contained in the form of a letter in his diary of 27 March, 1895 and repeated in his diary of 1907, see Notes 62 and 63 above. The following is the text of the entry in the diary: —
My will is approximately as follows.
(Until I have written another this holds good.)
(1). To bury me where I die, in the cheapest cemetery, if I die in a town, and in the cheapest coffin, as paupers are buried. Flowers and wreaths are not to be sent, speeches are not to be made. If possible, bury me without priests or burial service. But if those who bury me dislike this, let them bury me in the ordinary way with a funeral service, but as cheaply and simply as possible.
(2.) My death is not to be announced in the newspapers, nor are obituary notices to be written.
(3.) All my papers are to be given to my wife, V. G. Chertkov, Strakhov, and to my daughters Tanya and Masha, for them, or for such of them as survive, to sort and examine. (I have myself struck out my daughter’s names. They ought not to be bothered with this.)
I exclude my sons from this bequest not because I did not love them (I have come of late to love them better and better, thank God) and I know that they love me; but they do not altogether understand my ideas; they did not follow their development; and they may have views of their own which may lead them to keep what ought not to be kept and to reject what ought to be kept. I have taken out of the diaries of my bachelor life what is worth keeping. I wish them to be destroyed. Also in the diaries of my married life I wish to be destroyed everything which might hurt anyone if published. Chertkov has promised me to do this even during my lifetime, and knowing the great and undeserved love that he has for me and his moral sensibility I am sure that he will do it splendidly. I wish the diaries of my bachelor life to be destroyed not because I wish to conceal the wickedness of my life — my life was the usual unclean life of an unprincipled young man — but because the diaries in which I recorded only the torments which arise from the consciousness of sin produce a false and one-sided impression and represent…. Well, let my diaries remain as they are. In them at least is seen how in spite of all the frivolity and immorality of my youth I yet was not deserted by God and though it was only in old age, I began, though only a little, to understand and love Him.
I write this not that I attribute great or even any importance to my papers, but because I know beforehand that after my death my books will be published, and will be talked about, and will be thought to be important. If that is so, it is better that my writings should not harm people.
As for the remainder of my papers I ask those who will have the arrangement of them not to publish everything, but only that which may be of use to people.
(4). With regard to the publishing rights of my former works — the ten volumes and the A. B. C. — I ask my heirs to give these to the public, i. e. to renounce the copyrights. But I only ask this, in no sense order it. It would be a good thing to do it. It would be good for you also. But if you do not wish to do it, that is your business. It means that you are not ready to do it. That my books for the last ten years have been sold was to me the most painful thing in my life.
(5). There is one more request, and it is the most important. I ask all, relations and strangers alike, not to praise me (I know that this must happen, because it has happened during my life time and in the worst way possible). Also if people are going to occupy themselves with my writings, let them dwell upon those passages in which I knew
