Tolstoy. Spiritual problems of creativity of A.K.

[Radio Liberty: Programs: Culture]

The fate of Alexei Tolstoy

Ivan Tolstoy: Our program today is dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the death of the prose writer, playwright, poet, storyteller, publicist, journalist Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy, who died on February 23, 1945, a little before Victory Day.

A controversial figure. There are, perhaps, as many admirers of his literary talent as there are opponents of his civic position. I hope that in today’s program, our guest and I will try to understand these contradictions and understand what place Alexei Tolstoy occupies in the history of Russian literature. Our guest today is Inna Georgievna Andreeva, head of the Alexei Tolstoy Museum in Moscow.

First of all, there are several legends around Alexei Tolstoy that I would like to immediately dispel. Inna Georgievna, I count on your help. Origin of the Tolstoy family. They say that the Tolstoys are namesakes - writers, artists, sculptors, etc. - and some say that they are one big family. What does science say about this through your lips?

Inna Andreeva: A large family, originating from the Lithuanian prince Indris or, as it sounds in ancient Lithuanian, Intrius, which means “boar”. Indris had two sons - Litvinos and Zimonten. Zimonten was childless, and from Litvinos a very branched family had already descended - the Tolstoy family. Some historians believe that this same Indris - baptized Leonty - was in fact not Indris, but one of the sons of the Mongol Khan Ten-Gri. In fact, most historians debunk this theory, so we will focus on Indris, the Lithuanian prince. Further, there is a very branched Tolstoy tree, and let's come, specifically, to Pyotr Andreevich Tolstoy.

Ivan Tolstoy: Please remind us who this is.

Inna Andreeva: The same Pyotr Andreevich, famous Peter Andreevich Tolstoy, diplomat, comrade-in-arms of Peter the Great, envoy to Turkey from Russia, who provided invaluable services to the fatherland and was awarded for this both the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called and the title of count - by the way, this is where the Tolstoy counts come from.

Ivan Tolstoy: Could you please clarify why exactly the Tolstoys received the title of count?

Inna Andreeva: There are already several versions here. One of the most stable versions is that it was not for a very plausible act, that is, it was Pyotr Andreevich Tolstoy who brought Tsarevich Alexei back to Russia. There is even such a legend that before his death, Tsarevich Alexei cursed the Tolstoy family to the twenty-sixth generation.

Inna Andreeva: No, it was from Pyotr Andreevich, unfortunately.

Ivan Tolstoy: Then this will last for a long time: What is the fate of Pyotr Andreevich?

Inna Andreeva: He finished poorly. They say that he was exiled, as Peter’s closest ally, to Solovki. Solovki, it turns out, is not as close to the past as it might seem.

Ivan Tolstoy: Is it true that he was exiled there with his son? By the way, he himself was then a very old man.

Inna Andreeva: Yes, definitely. I would like to return to procreation, since the family tree, I repeat, is branched, and this is a topic for a three-hour conversation, if not more. Therefore, we will focus on the subsequent Tolstoys. This is Fyodor Tolstoy, from whom more specific branches have come. Many people are interested in the question of whether Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy and Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, Alexey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, American Tolstoy, Fyodor Konstantinovich Tolstoy, medalist, etc. are relatives. Yes, of course, they are relatives. Look, they have a common ancestor, Pyotr Andreevich Tolstoy. Pyotr Andreevich had two children. One is childless, and along the line of the other son - Ivan - there are already Andrei, Ilya, etc. and from Ilya there are already Lev Nikolaevich, Alexey Konstantinovich - of the same branch. Ivan, who has two sons, Andrei and Fedor, then Fedor has Stepan, Peter, Alexander, etc., and we come to Fedor. Nikolai Alexandrovich, who had five children, and the child of one of them was Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy. When asked which ones specifically family ties from Lev Nikolaevich and Alexey Nikolaevich, you begin to clearly count, and then it turns out that the relatives are very distant - a fourth cousin, grandson, great-great-great-nephew of Lev Nikolaevich. It seems that this is, as they say, “the tenth water on the jelly.” In fact, they have a single ancestor, Peter Andreevich Tolstoy, and therefore, of course, all Tolstoys are relatives.

Ivan Tolstoy: As Blok said, “nobles are all related to each other,” well, and even more so the Tolstoys. There is a persistent legend that Alexei Tolstoy is not his father’s son. There was a big family drama there even before he was born. Please say a few words about this.

Inna Andreeva: Of course, this was a very popular version among the first Russian emigration in the 20s and 30s. Berberova wrote about this. In fact, this is not true at all. Alexey Nikolaevich was the fifth child of Count Nikolai Alexandrovich Tolstoy and his wife, Alexandra Leontyevna Turgeneva. Alexandra Leontyevna Turgeneva, a fairly well-known children's writer in her time, a student, a woman of progressive views. She fell in love with a young commoner, a small nobleman, Alexei Bostrom and went to him, because Nikolai Alexandrovich Tolstoy was a typical, in her opinion, tyrant, and she, like all Russian women, tried to save Alexei Bostrom, and he was unhappy, he had poor health and there were many other factors.

Ivan Tolstoy: I fell in love with the torment.

Inna Andreeva: Of course of course. And she went to Bostrom, but Nikolai Alexandrovich, having met Bostrom on the train - this is known - almost shot at him, found out the address of their location and returned it, by force, to Alexandra Leontyevna. They lived together again.

Ivan Tolstoy: Just a Brazilian series.

Inna Andreeva: Come on! At the same time, Bostrom wrote tearful letters, begging Alexandra Leontievna to return, claiming that he could not live without her, etc.

Ivan Tolstoy: So how can you figure out which of them is the child?

Inna Andreeva: In one of the letters, when she refuses to return for serious reasons, she writes that “unfortunately, this has become completely impossible, because I am pregnant and already in my fifth month.” And, nevertheless, Bostrom still persuades her, and she leaves for him, and when the trial at which the Tolstoys were divorced had already taken place, Alexandra Leontyevna swore that the child Alyosha - Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy had already been born - Bostrom's son .

Ivan Tolstoy: And yet she knew that she was breaking her oath?

Inna Andreeva: She commits perjury. This time. Second, understand her as a woman and as a mother. Count Tolstoy left three surviving children - the girl Praskovya died at the age of five - Alexander, Elizaveta and Mstislav for himself. He categorically forbade them to communicate with their mother. Therefore, in order to keep at least the little one for herself, she committed perjury. But here's what's interesting. Before his death, Count Nikolai Alexandrovich Tolstoy made a will in favor of his four children, including Alyosha. This suggests that he knew perfectly well that Alexey was his son.

Ivan Tolstoy: A tyrant is a tyrant, but his head did not leave him at the last moment.

Inna Andreeva: You know, we often say, especially visitors to the museum, “Well, what do you want, the count after all.” This sounds very nice.

Ivan Tolstoy: Little Alexey Tolstoy settled with his mother and stepfather on a farm near Samara, and what happened to him next? Which path did he take?

Inna Andreeva: You know, you don’t become a writer right away. In principle, he really liked to read with his mother different books, read a lot, etc., but, nevertheless, went to study at the famous St. Petersburg Institute of Technology. He, in fact, completed it, but did not receive a diploma, but, in principle, completed the entire course of study.

Just in connection with this, whenever you talk about his works, especially those dedicated to technology - “Engineer Garin’s Hyperboloid”, and “Aelita”, and “Riot of the Machines” - you are not surprised at some things that Alexei Tolstoy understood , because he had a serious technical education. But in Russia at the beginning of the century, something unimaginable was happening. Someone became a poet, or it seemed to him that he was becoming a poet, someone a writer, someone an actor. Life was seething, and there was such madness, fear of the future, as if of some kind of catastrophe. And on this wave, all sorts of literary, theatrical, and philosophical associations arose, which young Alexei Tolstoy could not help but pass by. Of course, he also wandered to the famous “Tower” of Vyacheslav Ivanov, to all sorts of literary cabarets, etc. And since his mother’s upbringing, instilling in her a love of language and literature, had its effect and was not in vain, he felt the urge within himself to work with words, with language, and began to write poetry. Having left for Paris, he met Nikolai

Stepanovich Gumilyov, and from here his poetic activity began. Then he met Bryusov, Andrei Bely, Vyacheslav Ivanov, etc. He published two collections of poetry, “Lyrics” and “Beyond the Blue Rivers.” Yes, criticism can blaspheme them for some kind of imitation, for an attempt to juxtapose symbolism. But, nevertheless, they were sincere. They came from the heart, and it was not for nothing that Valery Bryusov praised these poems. Even Gumilyov, who was very sensitive to versification, treated them on the brink - he either scolded them very much, or praised them very much - and recommended Tolstoy as a rather interesting new poet who had appeared on the horizon of Russian literature. “Another Tolstoy,” as he said, and he was right, since Tolstoy’s subsequent work proved that he was a writer by God’s grace.

Ivan Tolstoy: That is, we can say that his mother defeated both his father and stepfather. You said that his mother, Alexandra Leontyevna, was born Turgeneva. What kind of Turgenevs are these? What relation do they have to the writer Ivan Sergeevich?

Inna Andreeva: The Turgenevs also have a very branched tree, but if we take a closer look, she is a relative of Nikolai Turgenev, the same one who was the Decembrist.

Ivan Tolstoy: So, in the same way, Alexander, who was a friend of Pushkin and went to bury him in the Holy Mountains?

Inna Andreeva: Of course, and it must be said that in the biography of Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy, whose favorite poet, by the way, was Pushkin, there is a very clear connection with this beloved poet. And from the side of Tolstoy the American, who finally betrothed Goncharova to Pushkin, and from the side of Alexander Turgenev. That is, Alexei Nikolaevich has very serious connections with Pushkin. In general, I think there are connections there, both biographical and creative, and, by the way, behavioral, which is very interesting, and this is a separate topic for conversation.

Ivan Tolstoy: But the relationship with Nikolai and Alexander Turgenev is also not direct, but cousin. Alexandra Leontievna was the granddaughter of Boris Turgenev, who was a cousin of these two. In their letters they called him “the vile serf owner, brother Boris.” So, Alexey Nikolaevich is still not from the Decembrist, and not from Pushkin’s Alexander, but from the “vile serf-owner, brother Boris.” Naturally, we do not choose our own relatives. But what is your relationship with the writer, Ivan Sergeevich?

Inna Andreeva: Very distant.

Ivan Tolstoy: I remember that in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron, in my opinion the author was Semevsky, it was said that Nikolai Turgenev (the Decembrist who was in exile and did not return because he was awaiting the death sentence passed by the investigative commission of Nicholas the First) met with Ivan Sergeevich abroad, in Paris, and they considered themselves, the article says, relatives, but, the dictionary entry says, these family ties cannot be traced. Turgenev is the surname of a native of the Golden Horde, and, as far as I remember, young Alexei Tolstoy used, slightly altering, this surname in his early years and even signed with this surname.

Inna Andreeva: You know, I don't remember this.

Ivan Tolstoy: Some of his stories are signed under the pseudonym "Mirza Turgen", and the village where some of his early works take place is called Turenevo.

Inna Andreeva: Of course of course. He was proud of his ancestors.

Ivan Tolstoy: Alexey Tolstoy, for most people, is somehow not associated with people Silver Age, although he grew up all over it and was familiar with a huge number of people. Almost the name of the cabaret "Stray Dog" belongs to him. But still, he is not associated with the Silver Age. Maybe this is some kind of mass delusion, or is there something to it?

Inna Andreeva: You know, in my opinion, this is mass oblivion. Experts associate Alexey Tolstoy with the Silver Age and its representatives. Nevertheless, you were absolutely correct in saying that Tolstoy was one of the founders of the poets’ cafe “Stray Dog”, and, accordingly, the “Comedians’ Halt”. This time. Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy was friends with Gumilyov. After they met in Paris, they even published the magazine "Island" - a famous magazine for those interested in the Silver Age.

Hope: I would like the program about such a wonderful personality as Alexey Tolstoy to be multi-part! In my favorite children's book, Nikita's Childhood, one feels some isolation of a family living in the steppe. Is this somehow connected with the fact that his mother, Alexandra Leontyevna, was excluded from social life on a kind of island of nature?

Inna Andreeva: I completely agree with our listener. On the one hand, this was true. On the other hand, Alexandra Leontyevna wanted this. She wanted this dissolution in the family, nature, and in general “Nikita’s Childhood” is a book of happiness. She distances herself from the world in which there are wars, blood, grief. In my opinion, this is the most happy book in the world.

Ivan Tolstoy: No wonder its subtitle is “A Tale of Many Excellent Things.”

Inna Andreeva: Undoubtedly. And this distance, in my opinion, was intentional, and it was deliberately maintained by Alexei Nikolaevich, because he wrote a book about many of the most excellent things - a book of happiness, and happiness cannot coexist with grief.

Ivan Tolstoy: Perhaps we can add to this the fact that he wrote it in a situation of isolation - in emigration, feeling his isolation from his homeland, and this, perhaps, greatly strengthened the feeling that was conveyed to the hero of this story and the entire atmosphere of this farm.

Inna Andreeva: Yes, and this saving of the child from all the troubles of insults is also felt: This, by the way, is my favorite book.

Alexander(Saint Petersburg): I love Tolstoy’s “Nikita’s Childhood” and “The Viper”. I have three questions. First: it’s clear that Blok and Tolstoy are antipodes, but where does such pathological hatred of Blok come from? With Bunin this is clear, but with Tolstoy it’s not entirely clear. Second: Pushkin is everyone’s idol, and among contemporary writers, who was the “significant” writer for Tolstoy’s contemporaries? Proust, Joyce, Kafka - of course, no - they are also antipodes. And third: features of Tolstoy’s style. They say that it has an archaic style and there is no innovation in it. What can you say about this?

Inna Andreeva: In fact, I believe that there was no "nature" of hatred. I understand what our listener means - this is the poet Bessonov in “Walking Through Torment”, Pierrot in “The Golden Key”. There was no hatred. It’s just that Alexey Nikolaevich, being a cheerful, warm, explosive person, did not understand Blok’s coldness. But he certainly understood his poetry. Even if he turns to the diaries of Blok himself, to the diaries of Alexei Nikolaevich - he was Blok’s guest, read his poetry, but it was not his. How some people love Dostoevsky, and others Leo Tolstoy. There was no hatred as such - there was only petty hooliganism, if we talk about “Yegor Abozov” and the literary part of “Sisters”. He played - like with dolls, like with puppets. Perhaps, after all, having in mind a collective image, which Alexey Nikolaevich himself spoke about more than once when he was accused of disliking Alexander Blok. Of course, he revered him as a poet, and one cannot even say that he was friendly, but he was accepted in Blok’s house and spoke very positively about him. Apparently, he simply did not understand him as a person. He seemed to him a very cold and distant person.

Ivan Tolstoy: I would extend what you said not only to Blok, but also to many characters of the Silver Age. In general, maybe to St. Petersburg. Here there was a profound difference in the nature of the psyche of Alexei Tolstoy and the people of the Silver Age. Alexei Nikolaevich, as far as I understand him as a writer, was generally alien to modernism as a whole. Mysticism, idealistic thinking, and all sorts of - as he called it - “fog in literature” were alien to him. He was a writer, of course, with a strong and powerful realistic streak. It is not for nothing that Fyodor Sollogub said words about him that some regard as offensive, but I consider them to be words that hit the mark; he said that “Alyoshka Tolstoy is talented with his belly,” and these may be rude words, but they are completely accurate. This characterizes a writer of a realistic direction. All of Petersburg was alien to Alexei Tolstoy; he escaped from it. You say that he was received at Blok's house. Once we accept; for a while - yes. But Blok wrote in his notebook that he was invited to read another of Tolstoy’s plays - “I won’t go,” writes Blok. This is not accidental, and, of course, Tolstoy later made fun of him a lot in some characters. And when Blok died, then, as often happens, the acceptance of man and his whole world began, and it is known, from memoirs, that Tolstoy in the 40s, during the war, read a lot of Blok - all three volumes of his poems, and how I would let you into my heart again. Listener Alexander had one more question. Which of Tolstoy's contemporary writers was close to him?

Inna Andreeva: We need to think about this. Firstly, he loved Remizov, and this is understandable.

Ivan Tolstoy: But, again, that side of it, which was more deeply rooted in the soil, was rooted in the people, in folklore, which Alexey Tolstoy himself felt very well. But he also did not tolerate Remizov’s mysticism. That is, in Remizov he only accepted his part.

Inna Andreeva: Certainly. He liked Gumilev.

Ivan Tolstoy: For the lack of mysticism.

Inna Andreeva: Absolutely right. He especially liked his travel series.

Ivan Tolstoy: But didn’t he accept Bryusov only because he saw the rationalism of Bryusov’s literary game? When Bryusov pretends to be a symbolist and puts “fog” on himself, is this all a game of fog and a game of symbolism, a game of unclear, symbolistic worlds? After all, in fact, Bryusov was a super-realistic person and wrote his poems simply as he played chess games.

Inna Andreeva: Alexei Tolstoy understood this perfectly. He even sometimes compared him with his unloved - for the time being, though - Dostoevsky. Yes, I didn’t like Bryusov, although I respected and respected him as a professional.

Ivan Tolstoy: As far as I understand, he loved Bunin.

Inna Andreeva: Oh, how I forgot Ivan Alekseevich! He loved Bunin very much.

Ivan Tolstoy: Who, in turn, also could not stand the Symbolists! And, in my opinion, for the same thing.

Inna Andreeva: Certainly. And who, too, at the same time - say, until the 20s - had great respect for the work of Alexei Nikolaevich, especially his prose.

Ivan Tolstoy: As far as I understand, he loved Leskov and the realist writers of the 19th century; adored Chekhov; then, from the younger ones, Bulgakov. That is, the entire realistic line in literature.

Inna Andreeva: Yes we're talking about modern writers. By the way, he absolutely couldn’t stand Leonid Andreev, which is completely understandable and explainable.

Georgy Georgievich(Saint Petersburg): I would like to look at the work of Alexei Tolstoy from a much broader perspective. As you know, in 1717 Lenin established the world's first totalitarian state. The second, as you know, is Mussolini, and the third is Adolf Hitler. So, wouldn’t it be right to consider the work of Tolstoy, who, as is known, glorified Ivan the Terrible during the years of Stalin - and the Stalin era represented tens of millions of people’s lives, wouldn’t it be right to consider his work from the point of view of adapting to this totalitarian state, which brought so much trouble to the peoples of Russia. And consider in this way not only the work of Alexei Tolstoy, but also writers who worked for the needs of the totalitarian regime. As for Nikita’s Childhood, everyone wrote it - both Aksakov and Lev Nikolaevich, it’s too simple.

Inna Andreeva: I disagree with our listener. What are we going to say about Zoshchenko then? He wrote stories about Lenin. Bulgakov wrote "Batum". They all worked for the authorities. It is a well-known truth: “There is no prophet in his own country.” Let's say the novel "Peter the Great", a duology about Ivan the Terrible. Simply, knowing the work of the writer under discussion, if you trace him, then he began to write about Peter the Great even before the revolution. This topic always worried him, and Peter the Great was not written at all for the needs of the authorities.

And, in general, this can be approached from a completely different angle. It's like escapism. After all, look: Alexei Tolstoy did not write a single novel about the five-year plan, say, about the construction of a hydroelectric power station, about the White Sea Canal, about the decisions of party congresses. He has a continuous escape into the past.

Ivan Tolstoy: Well, not quite back in time. For example, the novel “Bread” is not quite the past, but just yesterday, and so yesterday that we didn’t have time to sleep before it was already today. I would still like to say that there is some truth in our listener’s position. Alexei Tolstoy was a writer who adapted to his time. I would not like to hide this at all, and I would not want our program to recast the figure of Alexei Tolstoy. He really adapted to power. He was a man who wrote many dozens, perhaps hundreds, of shameful pages, which I am sure in another era he would not have written, but he was, in his own way, forced to write them. He agreed to live in this era, to exist, to feed himself and his family. He was forced to write this, and this was his human weakness. He had a choice, like any person for whom there is honor, he chose exactly this path.

I believe that he is quite rightly criticized and should be morally condemned. The writer cannot be applauded for his novel “Bread.”

Another thing is that the whole story of his return from emigration to the USSR - then still Soviet Russia - was connected with his natural need, and here he followed exclusively the call of his heart and listened to his inner voice. This whole story is connected with the fact that he wanted to be a “whole person”, to remain one. In emigration, he felt out of place, felt without a reader, and saw how limited the audience abroad turned out to be. He saw how many emigrants struggled, like spiders in a jar. Of course, there were wonderful, worthy people there, but, nevertheless, he saw a limited field for his artistic activity. He wanted to be with his people. Is it possible to reproach a person for such a call of the heart? I wouldn't.

And so, he returned to Soviet Russia. He knew what he was getting into. While still in exile, he made this compromise. He agreed - he sold his soul to the devil. Maybe not all of it. He left some artistic piece for himself. That’s why he came up with such wonderful lyrical things, which he later wrote in the Soviet Union. The same, after all, "Pinocchio". But having already agreed to a deal with the devil once, he was forced to dance according to the rules that were given. He wanted to remain a whole person, to sleep peacefully; he believed that he would sleep peacefully if his soul did not split in two - if he wrote what he thought, thought what the era ordered him to think. Look, he didn’t write a single piece of work “on the table.” From almost every writer of the 20s and 30s, from the Stalin era, there remained works written for the table, that is, written for themselves, for the soul, for God. Alexei Tolstoy, apparently, did not have a God. He had no need to speak out, as in Last Judgment. He believed that he should write only what could be immediately published. Almost all of his works were published. There was nothing left, not a single line, except private letters.

But, of course, this man also had civil position, and in those years when it was still “possible”, he defended someone and there is a whole series of evidence that some people were saved, some were returned to their professional activities, some escaped arrest, some... then he corrected his fate, and this will also be counted towards him at the Last Judgment.

During the war, Alexey Tolstoy joyfully surrendered to a patriotic position and wrote those works in which, of course, his clear, bold voice sounds; where there was no need to pretend, to listen to some circumstances. Inna Georgievna, I thank you for bringing a historical recording to our program - Alexei Tolstoy’s speech to military personnel in 1943 in Barvikha. Let's listen. Alexey Tolstoy says:

Alexey Tolstoy: We Russians are optimists. With every phenomenon we look for opportunities to turn it into human happiness. So in this brutal war. We stubbornly see the other shore - on the other side of victory; a shore where there will be rest and the beginning of great, won happiness. Nazism, as in an Arabian fairy tale, released a ferocious genie - the spirit of evil and vice - from an enchanted jug. But evil is a sign of imperfection and weakness, and you and I will drive the ferocious Nazi genie back into the jug and throw it into the abyss of timelessness. So let us be friends and good fighters for everything good and beautiful on earth!

Ivan Tolstoy: “Do you have books by Alexei Tolstoy at home?” Our correspondent in St. Petersburg, Alexander Dyadin, asked this question to passers-by. Let's listen to the answers.

Passerby: Yes, definitely. This is a school program, and I have children. We now have all the historical impressions of Peter from his novel and from the films made based on it.

Passerby: I don't know which ones, but they exist. Dad is interested in him.

Passerby: It's fantasy, I think, or something like that. I went through this at school.

Passerby: "Prince Silver", poetry. I really liked it at the time. I read this mostly when I was young. Then - to my son, he is a young man now, but he liked it. "Prince Silver" made a great impression on him.

Passerby: "Aelita", for example. When I read it, I think it was at school. Of course, his fiction was captivating.

Passerby: Yes, there is, but I can’t say for sure. This is rather a question for my parents. I remember it was on a separate shelf; I could tell it when I was a child.

Passerby: There are books. Four, I think. But now I don’t remember which ones.

Passerby: Eat. But I only remember “Aelita” - my grandfather forced me to read it. But I perceived it differently, because it was written about revolution and all that. I think it's outdated now. For general development and broadening your horizons, then yes. When they read a book, one sees one thing, another sees another, and the third sees nothing at all. For example, I would force my children to read.

Passerby: Alexey Tolstoy, who wrote “Peter the Great”, “Walking in Torment” - a wonderful novel. "Pinocchio", of course. A normal writer, although some believe that he wrote somewhat ideologically. "Walking in Torment", after all, is a novel that raised Soviet power: The most important thing is that it is easy to read. And sometimes, when you take Dickens in translation, it’s not readable.

Passerby: Eat. The last thing I read was "The Blob". It's very heartwarming. Not an educational text, but rather conveys emotions, the spirit of what he writes about. I think that it should be studied at school, that it is missed in vain. This is a classic, what can we say?

Passerby: There is, but to be honest, I don’t remember what. My parents have a library, but they read it all. I don’t even read such books - I would like something simpler.

Passerby: Of course I have. I don’t even remember, maybe some school works. I read it, but it's not particularly interesting. Everything is clear, of course, but not everything is interesting. Young people are different now.

Passerby: I don't remember. He probably made some contribution to literature, but in general I read the classics a little. Now, in my opinion, few people are interested in this.

Passerby: Of course, "Peter the Great". In my opinion, this is the first intelligent look at history. Well, in general, his historical and psychological description of any moments is brilliant. I think that he was in demand during his life, and will always be in demand.

Ivan Tolstoy: Last question to you, as the head of the museum. Who comes to the writer's museum?

Inna Andreeva: A lot of children come, students come, a lot of foreigners come. Again, I repeat, “there is no prophet in his own country.” For example, the Swedes and Japanese, we note, are very well versed in Tolstoy’s novel “Peter the Great”. They have a wild number of translations of this novel. Moreover, the translations are completely different, and by different translators. The Swedes, in general, are very fond of Alexei Tolstoy, especially Peter the Great, and, by the way, The Golden Key, oddly enough. Children come to see the real Pinocchio, to see how the writer lived. They come with pleasure. Young people, unfortunately, very often confuse him with Alexei Konstantinovich. They say they read “Prince Silver”, but not the rest. When you try to explain to them that these are completely different writers and tell them about the works of Alexei Nikolaevich, it turns out that they have not read anything. Adults really love “Walking Through Torment,” especially its first part. Many people come to Alexei Tolstoy in the museum, in his house, as the author of “Peter the Great,” and many claim that “The Golden Key” will last forever. Most, of course, come to the author of The Golden Key.

Sinner

The people are boiling, fun, laughter,

There are greenery and flowers all around,
And between the pillars, at the entrance of the house,
Brocade severe fractures
Raised with patterned braid;
The halls are richly decorated,
Crystal and gold are burning everywhere,
The yard is full of drivers and horses;
Crowding around the great meal,
The guests are feasted by a noisy choir,
Walks, merging with the music,
Their cross talk.

The conversation is not constrained by anything,
They speak freely
About the hated yoke of Rome,
About how Pilate rules,
About their elders secret meeting,
Trade, peace, and war,
And that extraordinary husband,
What appeared in their country.

“Flaming with love for neighbors,
He taught the people humility,
He is all the laws of Moses
Subjected to the law of love;
He does not tolerate anger or vengeance,
He preaches forgiveness
Orders to repay evil with good;
There is an unearthly power in him,
He restores sight to the blind,
Gives both strength and movement
To the one who was both weak and lame;
He doesn't need recognition
The heart's thinking is unlocked,
His searching gaze
No one has stood it yet.
Targeting illness, healing torment,
He was a savior everywhere
And extended a good hand to everyone,
And he didn’t condemn anyone.
It’s obvious that he’s God’s chosen husband!
He is there, on the floor of Jordan,
Walked like a messenger from heaven
He performed many miracles there,
Now he has come, complacent,
This side of the river
A crowd of diligent and obedient
The disciples follow him."

So the guests, discussing together,
They sit over a long meal;
Between them, draining the cup,
A young harlot sits;
Her fancy outfit
Involuntarily attracts the eye,
Her immodest attire
They talk about a sinful life;
But the fallen maiden is beautiful;
Looking at her, it’s unlikely
Before the power of dangerous charm
Men and elders will stand:
The eyes are mocking and bold,
Like the snow of Lebanon, my teeth are white,
Like the heat, the smile is hot;
Falling widely around the camp,
See-through fabrics tease the eye,
The naked shoulders are dropped.
Her earrings and wrists,
Ringing, to the delights of voluptuousness,
They call for fiery joys,
Diamonds shine here and there,
And, casting a shadow on the cheeks,
In all the abundance of beauty,
Intertwined with a pearl thread,
Luxurious hair will fall;
Her conscience does not disturb her heart,
Shyly the blood does not flare up,
Anyone can buy for gold
Her corrupt love.

And the maiden listens to conversations,
And they sound like a reproach to her;
Pride awoke in her,
And he says with a boastful look:
“I am not afraid of anyone’s power;
Do you want to keep a mortgage with me?
Let your teacher appear
He will not disturb my eyes!

Wine flows, noise and laughter,
The ringing of lutes and the roar of cymbals,
Smoking, sun and flowers;
And now to the crowd, making noise idly
A handsome husband approaches;
His wonderful features
Posture, gait and movements,
In the brilliance of youthful beauty,
Full of fire and inspiration;
His majestic appearance
Breathes with irresistible power,
There is no participation in earthly pleasures,
And looks to the future.
That husband is not like mortals,
The seal of the chosen one is on him,
He is as bright as the archangel of God,
When with a flaming sword
The enemy is in utter shackles
He was driven by the mania of Jehovah.
Unwittingly sinful wife
I am embarrassed by his greatness
And he looks timidly, lowering his gaze,
But, remembering my recent challenge,
She gets up from her seat
And straightening your body, flexible
And boldly stepping forward,
To a stranger with a cheeky smile
The hissing vial serves.

“You are the one who teaches renunciation -
I don't believe your teaching
Mine is more reliable and faithful!
It’s not thoughts that confuse me now,
Alone wandering in the desert,
Spent forty days in fasting!
I am attracted only by pleasure,
I’m unfamiliar with fasting and prayer,
I believe only in beauty
I serve wine and kisses,
My spirit is not disturbed by you,
I laugh at your purity!”

And her speech still sounded,
She still laughed
And the foam is light wine
ran through the rings of her hands,
How a general conversation arose around,
And the sinner hears in confusion:
“I was mistaken, in error
The alien's face brought her -
It's not the teacher in front of her,
That is John from Galilee,
His favorite student!

Carelessly to weak insults
He listened to the young maiden,
And after him with a calm look
Another approaches the temple.
In his humble expression
There is no delight, no inspiration,
But a deep thought lay
On the sketch of a wondrous person.
That is not the prophet's eagle gaze,
Not the charm of angelic beauty,
Divided into two halves
His wavy hair;
Falling over the tunic,
Woolen chasuble
With a simple cloth, slender growth,
In his movements he is modest and simple;
Lying around his beautiful lips,
The bar is slightly forked,
Such good and clear eyes
No one has ever seen it.

And it swept over the people
Like a breath of silence
And the wonderfully blessed arrival
The hearts of the guests are shocked.
The conversation stopped. Waiting
The motionless assembly sits,
Taking a restless breath.
And he, in deep silence,
He looked around those sitting with a quiet eye.
And without entering the fun house,
On a daring maiden of self-praise
He fixed his gaze sadly.

And that gaze was like a ray of the morning star,
And everything was revealed to him,
And in the dark heart of a harlot
He dispersed the darkness of the night;
And everything that was hidden there
What was done in sin
In her eyes it's inexorable
Illuminated to the depths;
Suddenly it became clear to her
The untruth of a blasphemous life,
All the lies of her vicious deeds,
And horror took possession of her.
Already on the verge of collapse,
She was amazed
How many blessings, how much strength
The Lord generously gave her
And how she rises clear
I was darkened by sin every hour;
And, for the first time, abhorring evil,
She is in that blessed gaze
And punish your depraved days,
And I read mercy.
And sensing a new beginning,
Still afraid of earthly obstacles.
She stood hesitating...

And suddenly in the silence there was a ringing
From the hands of a fallen phial...
A groan is heard from the constricted chest,
The young sinner turns pale,
Open lips tremble,
And she fell on her face, sobbing,
In front of the shrine of Christ.

There are no “passions”, clashes, or dramatic collisions visible in his fate. And researchers do not break copies about it. Unless one writes: “A talented satirist,” another: “Tolstoy is incomparably more interesting as a poet and playwright,” and a third suddenly: “A man of a noble and pure soul.”

Alexey Konstantinovich fades a little in the aura of his brilliant namesake writers, distant relatives - Lev Nikolaevich and Alexey Nikolaevich. There is little shine in it at all, rather a dim but even light. Always “next to” the greats. As a child, he sat on Goethe’s lap, Bryullov himself drew in his children’s album, early poetic experiments were approved by Zhukovsky himself, and, according to rumors, even Pushkin. He was a childhood friend of the future Emperor Alexander II. He was elected a corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in the department of Russian language and literature on the same day as Lev Nikolaevich... And so all his life.

It can be considered the “background” of Russian literature. However, the trace he left is clear. Starting with lines whose authorship is difficult for the reader to remember: “In the midst of a noisy ball, by chance...”, “My bells, steppe flowers...”, “Our land is big, there is just no order” and even “If you have a fountain, shut it up... " And ending with the very spirit of Russian poetry. Because Russian poetry is not only Pushkin and Blok, but also such names as Alexey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, quiet, but concealing subtlety and charm, depth, nobility and strength. Blessed is the culture that has such a background.

From courtier to free artist

Tall, handsome, unusually strong (he could tie a poker in a knot with his hands), friendly, courteous, witty, endowed excellent memory... This Russian gentleman was a welcome guest in all aristocratic salons and living rooms. He came from an old noble family - his maternal grandfather was the famous Alexei Razumovsky, a senator under Catherine II and the Minister of Public Education under Alexander I. His uncle on the same maternal side was the author of “The Black Hen”, Antony Pogorelsky. His paternal uncle is the famous medalist Tolstoy.

It so happened that at the age of eight, Alyosha Tolstoy turned out to be a playmate of Tsarevich Alexander. And in 1855, as soon as he ascended the throne, Emperor Alexander II called him to himself, promoted him to lieutenant colonel and appointed him as his adjutant. Alexey Konstantinovich faithfully served the sovereign, but he also used his “official position” to help writers in trouble: he returned Taras Shevchenko, who had been shaved as a soldier, to St. Petersburg, stood up for Ivan Aksakov, and rescued I. S. Turgenev from trial ... But the attempt to intercede for N.G. Chernyshevsky ended unsuccessfully: Alexey Konstantinovich was forced to resign. But now he has free time for literary creativity.

However, it was art that he considered his true destiny. According to contemporaries, Tolstoy was a man of a noble and pure soul, completely devoid of any vain aspirations. Through the mouth of one of his literary characters - John of Damascus - he spoke directly about this: “I was born simple to be a singer, to glorify God with a free verb...”

Tolstoy began writing at an early age. His first story, “The Ghoul,” written in fantasy genre, he released in 1841 under the pseudonym Krasnorogsky. However, later he did not give him of great importance and did not even want to include it in the collection of his works.

After a long break, in 1854, his poems appeared in the Sovremennik magazine and immediately attracted the attention of the public. And then the famous Kozma Prutkov was born - several people were hiding under this pseudonym, including the writer’s cousins ​​Alexey and Vladimir Zhemchuzhnikov, but Tolstoy wrote a considerable number of poems. Alexey Konstantinovich's humor is unique: subtle, but not malicious, even good-natured. On behalf of a stupid and narcissistic bureaucrat, the most unsightly phenomena of Russian life of that time are ridiculed in poems, fables, epigrams, and dramatic miniatures. The entire St. Petersburg and Moscow world spoke cheerfully about the antics of Tolstoy and the Zhemchuzhnikovs, but both Nicholas I and then Alexander II were dissatisfied. His other works were also written in an ironic style - “Essay on Russian history from Gostomysl to Timashev” and “Popov’s Dream”. “Essay...” is interesting both from a literary and historical point of view: it describes many events with great humor Russian life and some historical figures.

Then the dramatic poem “Don Juan” and the historical novel “Prince Silver”, poems written in the archaic-satirical genre, were published in the magazine “Russian Messenger” by M. N. Katkov. Then Tolstoy began writing the first part of the dramatic trilogy - “The Death of Ivan the Terrible.” She went on with extraordinary success theater stage and in addition to numerous purely literary merits, it is also valuable because at one time it was the first attempt to derive real image a king - a human king, a living personality, and not an exalted portrait of one of the greats of this world.

Later, Alexey Konstantinovich actively collaborated with M. M. Stasyulevich’s “Bulletin of Europe”. Here he published poems, epics, an autobiographical story, as well as the final two parts of a dramatic trilogy - “Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich” and “Tsar Boris”. They are distinguished by the deep psychologism of the main characters, a strict sequence of presentation of the material, a wonderful style... However, these advantages are inherent in the majority of Tolstoy’s literary creations, which have become examples of world classical literature.

Above the fray

Literary criticism, unanimous in other cases, has a very contradictory assessment of the literary position of Alexei Tolstoy. Some authors write that he was a typical Westerner, others insist on his Slavophile predilections. But he didn’t want to belong to any camp.

Since 1857, relations between Tolstoy and the editors of Sovremennik became cooler. “I admit that I will not be happy if you meet Nekrasov. Our paths are different,” he wrote to his wife then. Disagreements with democrats and liberals brought Tolstoy closer to the Slavophiles - champions of Russian antiquity and originality. Alexey Konstantinovich became friends with I. S. Aksakov and became a regular author of “Russian Conversation”. But after a few years, significant differences emerged here too. Tolstoy more than once ridiculed the claims of the Slavophiles to represent the true interests of the Russian people. From the beginning of the 1860s, he pointedly distanced himself from political life and - despite their hostile attitude towards each other - was published in both the Russian Bulletin and the Bulletin of Europe.

He held his own views on the historical paths of Russia in the past, present and future. And his patriotism - and he certainly was a patriot - had a special coloring.

“True patriotism,” Vladimir Solovyov later wrote about Tolstoy, “makes one wish for one’s people not only the greatest power, but, most importantly, the greatest dignity, the greatest approximation to truth and perfection, that is, to a genuine, unconditional good... The direct opposite of such an ideal - a violent, leveling unity that suppresses any individual individuality and independence.”

Therefore, A.K. Tolstoy had a negative attitude towards revolutionaries and socialists, but he did not fight revolutionary thought from an official monarchist position. He ridiculed the bureaucracy and conservatives in every possible way, was indignant at the activities of the III (gendarmerie) Department and the arbitrariness of censorship, during the Polish uprising he fought against the influence of Muravyov the Hangman, and resolutely opposed zoological nationalism and the Russification policy of the autocracy.

Following his sense of truth, Tolstoy could not devote himself entirely to one of the warring camps, he could not be a party fighter - he consciously rejected such a struggle:

In the midst of a noisy ball...

On that unforgettable evening, his life changed forever... In the winter of 1851, at a masquerade in Bolshoi Theater The count met a stranger under a mask, a lady with a beautiful figure, a deep beautiful voice and lush hair... That same evening, without knowing her name, he wrote one of his most famous poems, “Among the Noisy Ball...”. Since then all love lyrics A.K. Tolstoy is dedicated only to Sofya Andreevna Miller (née Bakhmeteva), an extraordinary woman, intelligent, strong-willed, well educated (she knew 14 languages), but with a difficult fate.

He fell passionately in love, his love did not go unanswered, but they could not unite - she was married, albeit unsuccessfully. After 13 years, they were finally able to get married, and their marriage turned out to be happy. Tolstoy always missed Sofia Andreevna, even in short separations. “Poor child,” he wrote to her, “since you were thrown into life, you have known only storms and thunderstorms... It’s hard for me to even listen to music without you. It’s like I’m getting closer to you through her!” He constantly prayed for his wife and thanked God for the happiness given: “If I had God knows what kind of literary success, if they put a statue of me somewhere in the square, all this would not be worth a quarter of an hour - to be with you and hold your hand, and see your sweet, kind face!”

During these years, two-thirds of his lyric poems were born, which were published in almost all Russian magazines of that time. However, his love poems are marked by deep sadness. Where does it come from in the lines created by a happy lover? In his poems on this topic, as Vladimir Solovyov noted, only the ideal side of love is expressed: “Love is a concentrated expression ... of universal connection and the highest meaning of existence; in order to be true to this meaning, it must be one, eternal and inseparable":

But the conditions of earthly existence are far from corresponding to this highest concept of love; the poet is unable to reconcile this contradiction, but he also does not want to give up his idealism, in which there is the highest truth.

The same nostalgia is reflected in the dramatic poem “Don Juan”, the title character of which is not an insidious seducer, but a young man who is looking for an ideal in every woman, “he strives for some vague and lofty goal with an inexperienced soul.” But, alas, he does not find this ideal on earth. However, having captured the poet’s heart, love revealed itself to him as the essence of everything that exists.

Against the stream

A.K. Tolstoy, who is considered to be primarily a lyricist or historical writer, in extreme cases, a satirist, was, according to Solovyov’s definition, a poet of militant thought - a poet-fighter: “Our poet fought with the weapon of free speech for the right of beauty, which is a tangible form of truth, and for the vital rights of the human person”:

This gentle, subtle man, with all the power of his talent, glorified, in prose and poetry, his ideal. Not limiting himself to a calm reflection of what came from the “land of rays,” his work was also determined by movements of the will and heart, and a reaction to hostile phenomena. And he considered hostile that which denied or insulted the highest meaning of life, the reflection of which is beauty. Beauty was dear and sacred to him as the radiance of eternal truth and love, as a reflection of the Supreme and Eternal Beauty. And he boldly walked against the tide for her:

It is no coincidence that we quote so abundantly from Vladimir Solovyov, our first - and great - philosopher. He was not personally acquainted with Alexei Konstantinovich, but he greatly appreciated him and his work for many merits. First of all, they agreed in their passion for the idealistic philosophy of Plato. Tolstoy believed that the true source of poetry, like all creativity, is not in external phenomena and not in the subjective mind of the artist, but in the world of eternal ideas, or prototypes:

What role does the artist himself play? - He doesn’t invent anything, and he cannot invent anything, create it in the sense in which we understand it today. He is a connecting link, a mediator between the world of eternal ideas, or prototypes, and the world of material phenomena. “Artistic creativity, in which the contradiction between the ideal and the sensual, between spirit and thing is abolished, is an earthly semblance of divine creativity, in which all opposites are removed” (V. Solovyov)…

Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy died in 1875. He was 58, his affairs were upset, his health was undermined, but this was not the main thing... Summing up his life, he again and again asked himself the question: had his destiny been fulfilled, had a trace been left?

No matter how we feel about the work of Alexei Konstantinovich, this question cannot but be answered satisfactorily. Vladimir Solovyov noted its significance: “As a poet, Tolstoy showed that one can serve pure art, without separating it from the moral meaning of life, - that this art should be pure from everything base and false, but not from ideological content and life significance. As a thinker, he gave in poetic form remarkably clear and harmonious expressions of the old, but eternally true Platonic-Christian worldview. As a patriot, he ardently stood for exactly what was most needed for our homeland, and at the same time - what is even more important - he himself represented what he stood for: living force free person».

for the magazine "Man Without Borders"

A.K. Tolstoy is a poet of spiritual quest.

"Orthodox Life" - October 2015

October marks the 130th anniversary of the death of Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy (08/24/09/05/1817 – 09/28/10/10/1875) - the famous Russian poet and prose writer, second cousin of L.N. Tolstoy. A.K. Tolstoy is especially famous for several texts: the poem “Among a noisy ball, by chance...”, which later became a famous romance; historical novel “Prince Silver”; the work of Kozma Prutkov (a fictitious comic mask - a non-existent poet created through the efforts of Tolstoy and the Zhemchuzhnikov brothers). The dramatic trilogy of A.K. Tolstoy is also known: “The Death of Ivan the Terrible”, “Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich”, “Tsar Boris”. In general, Tolstoy’s poetry is extremely melodic, and about half of Tolstoy’s poems were set to music by famous Russian composers: Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Rubinstein, Rachmaninov... A.K. Tolstoy believed that art should bring joy to a person and depict the beauty of nature, depth of spiritual search...
By social status, A.K. Tolstoy from birth belonged to the high-born aristocracy: he was the son of Count K.P. Tolstoy and A.A. Perovskaya, who separated from her husband immediately after the birth of the child. Tolstoy loved his mother very much, and the understanding with his father remained until the old age of Konstantin Petrovich, who towards the end of his life became very devout: “(...) He became quiet, thoughtful, visited every day church services and prayed at home, in a tiny apartment on Gorokhovaya.” In his childhood, Alexey’s uncle A.A. Perovsky, who was a famous writer at that time and published under the pseudonym Antony Pogorelsky, enjoyed enormous authority with Alexei. It was the uncle who played the main educational role in the life of his nephew: he taught compassion, love for one’s neighbor, careful attitude to money... Perovsky was a bright personality, and there is an authoritative opinion that he served as the prototype for the image of Pierre Bezukhov in Leo Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace.”
A.K. Tolstoy later recalled that “from the age of six he began to scribble paper and write poetry.” At his uncle's he repeatedly met many famous writers. In addition, travel broadened the child’s horizons: from the age of ten, A. Tolstoy was regularly taken abroad, starting with a trip to Italy. In 1830 - 1850s. A.K. Tolstoy was in the diplomatic service and held various official posts and court positions. Tolstoy had a passion for hunting: he had a huge physical strength and one went after a bear. As a socialite, he often attended balls and fell in love. But in the life of Alexei Konstantinovich there were also repeated walking pilgrimages to Optina Pustyn, communication with the elders. He was sensitive to prayer. There is evidence of how fervently he prayed during his illness with typhus, when death was near. But he prayed more for his loved ones: his mother and wife Sophia. In addition, many of Tolstoy’s poems are close to prayers in form and due to their confessional nature.
After his resignation, Tolstoy was engaged in literary activities and lived mainly on his estates: Pustynka near St. Petersburg and Krasny Rog in the Chernigov province. He treated the peasants humanely, but was not a zealous owner and gradually went bankrupt. Illnesses intensified, accompanied by severe pain. A.K. Tolstoy died at the age of 58 from a large dose of morphine prescribed by a doctor, administered by mistake during a severe attack of headache.
Tolstoy often visited the Loboř estate, located ten kilometers northwest of Rezhitsa (Rezekne). It belonged to Alexander Zhemchuzhnikov, a co-author and relative of A.K. Tolstoy. There is information that A.K. Tolstoy rested in another Latgale estate - Runtort (Rantor), located not far from Lucina (Ludza).
Let's look at the Christian themes of Tolstoy's works. The lyrical hero of Tolstoy's poems is often attracted to the sacred space to which he turns his gaze. (“In the land of rays, invisible to our eyes...” - 1856; “You know, I love there, behind the azure vault...” - 1858). The lyrical hero often feels like a warrior of the Lord (“Lord, preparing me for battle...” - 1857). However, he is aware of his own duality. (“There are days when an evil spirit disturbs me...” - 1858). Love, according to Tolstoy’s artistic consciousness, elevates the earthly to the heavenly, being a divine gift that does not end with death. (“Oh, don’t rush to where life is brighter and cleaner” - 1858).
In the poetry of A.K. Tolstoy there are poems of the prayer type - direct appeals of the lyrical hero to the Lord (“I dozed off, my head downcast” - 1858). Earthly space, in Tolstoy’s understanding, is the true space of Christian achievement. For example, in the poem “The soul quietly flew through the heavens” (1858), this is precisely why the soul asks to return to earth: “Here I only listen to the faces of bliss and joy, / Righteous souls know neither sorrow nor malice - / Oh, let me go again, Creator, to earth, / There would be someone to regret and comfort.” The Christian world often becomes an object of reverent admiration for the lyrical hero of A.K. Tolstoy’s poems: “Blagovest”, “Christ”. One of Tolstoy’s most famous poems dedicated to biblical themes is “Against the Current” (1867), praising Christian fortitude and the sacrifice of Christianity.
When creating texts related to biblical themes, A.K. Tolstoy could often be influenced by intermediary texts. For example, famous masterpiece Raphael (“Raphael’s Madonna” - 1858) or G. Semiradsky’s painting “The Sinner”, which gave the poet the impetus to create the poem of the same name (“The Sinner” - 1857). The poem “The Sinner” has a simple and artless plot: the events take place in Judea, during the reign of Pontius Pilate. A certain sinner-harlot cynically says that no one can force her to renounce sin or confuse her, but the holiness of Christ becomes a true revelation for her and forces her to turn to spiritual values. The poem “John of Damascus” (1858) is of great importance in Tolstoy’s work, the hero of which is rather the embodiment of divinely inspired creativity and is quite far from his historical prototype - the famous Byzantine theologian.
As one of the modern Orthodox priests noted, “for Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy, a wonderful Russian poet and figure (...), the biblical ideal was the ideal of freedom, the struggle for truth, for human dignity and justice.”

Reviews

Gena (let’s switch to “you”, if you don’t mind), you write, of course, very well.
All this is very interesting in an educational sense and in my spare time I will gladly return to your articles. However, my brain is like a juicer in the sense that it squeezes the essence out of any information, caring little about who it comes from. This may be sad fact, but I am not able to do anything with it. By the way, I will be glad if those who read me do the same with me. What is important is the WORD, and not who is behind it, although I myself doubt it, but so I live.

(Of course, let's switch to "you"). Thank you, Nikolay, for your feedback and kind words! I am close to the “juicer” principle you use: we read, depending on the characteristics of a particular text, to obtain information or emotions, and sometimes both at the same time. Therefore, the questions “what” and “how” are much more important than “who”. The question "who" becomes important if the text being read is, for example, used in scientific work: in philology this is one of the fundamental principles. Therefore, I probably have three types of reading in use: to obtain information, emotions, for scientific research, although, of course, such types of reading cannot exist in their pure form, because sometimes all this is intertwined... I hope that tomorrow I will be able to come visit you. Both here and on the Stichera. Best regards, Gennady.

The curse that never happened.

The Church and Tolstoy: the history of relations

In the history of Russian literature, there is, perhaps, no topic more difficult and sad than the excommunication of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy from the Church. And at the same time, there is no topic that would give rise to so many rumors, conflicting opinions and outright lies.

The story of Tolstoy's excommunication is unique in its own way. None of the Russian writers comparable to him in terms of artistic talent were at enmity with Orthodoxy. Neither the youthful opposition of Pushkin, nor the gloomy Byronism and the absurd death in a duel of Lermontov forced the Church to stop considering them its children. Dostoevsky, who in his spiritual development went through the path from participation in an underground organization to a prophetic understanding of the future destinies of Russia; Gogol, with his "Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends" and "Explanation of the Divine Liturgy"; Ostrovsky, who is rightly called the Russian Shakespeare, Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy, Aksakov, Leskov, Turgenev, Goncharov... In essence, all Russian classic literature XIX century created by Orthodox Christians.

Against this background, Leo Tolstoy’s conflict with the Russian Orthodox Church looks especially depressing. This is probably why any intelligent Russian person has been trying for more than a hundred years to find an explanation for the contradiction: how is it possible, the greatest of domestic writers, an unsurpassed master of words, possessed of amazing artistic intuition, an author who became a classic during his lifetime... And at the same time, the only one of our writers who was excommunicated from the Church.

In general, it is common for Russian people to come to the defense of the persecuted and convicted. And it doesn’t matter what exactly they were convicted for, why or where they were being driven from. Perhaps, main feature Our national character is compassion. And in the eyes of most people, Tolstoy certainly looks like the injured party in the story of excommunication. His relationship with the Church is often perceived as an unequal battle between a lone hero and government agency, a soulless bureaucratic machine.

Perhaps this point of view was most fully expressed by the wonderful writer Alexander Kuprin in his story “Anathema”. The plot of the story is simple: the protodeacon of the cathedral, Father Olympius, at a service is forced to proclaim an anathematism to his favorite writer Leo Tolstoy. Reading from the breviary of the 17th century monstrous curses, “which only the narrow mind of the monks of the first centuries of Christianity could have invented,” the protodeacon remembers the wonderful lines of Tolstoy, read the night before, and makes his choice - instead of “anathema,” he proclaims “many years to come” to Count Tolstoy.

The protodeacon can be understood. Here is a short excerpt from the story where the author describes the procedure for anathematizing Tolstoy:

“The archbishop was a great formalist, a pedant and a capricious person. He never allowed a single text to be omitted, either from the canon of the blessed father and shepherd Andrew of Crete, or from the funeral rite, or from other services. And Father Olympius, indifferently shaking the cathedral with his lion’s roar and forcing the glass on the chandeliers rang with a subtle rattling sound, cursed, anathematized and excommunicated: ... Mohammedans, Bogomils, Judaizers, cursed those who blaspheme the feast of the Annunciation, innkeepers, offending widows and orphans, Russian schismatics, rebels and traitors: Grishka Otrepiev, Timoshka Akundinov, Stenka Razin, Ivashka Mazepa, Emelka Pugachev, as well as all those who accept teachings contrary to the Orthodox faith..."

"... Although the spirit of the Lord is tempted according to Simon the Magus and according to Ananias and Sapphira, like a dog returning to his vomit, let his days be short and evil, and let his prayer become sin, and let the devil stand in his right hands and go out condemned, in one generation may his name perish, and may his memory be destroyed from the earth... And may a curse come, and anathema, not strictly and strictly, but with many lips... May he have the shaking of Cain, the leprosy of Gehazi, the strangulation of Judas, Simon the sorcerer's death, the Aryan tresio, Ananias and Sapphiri's sudden death... may he be excommunicated and anathematized and not forgiven after death, and may his body not crumble and may the earth not accept him, and may his part be in eternal hell and tormented day and night."

These are terrible words addressed to a great writer. But don’t rush to be horrified. The fact is that this whole nightmare, attributed by Kuprin to the “narrow mind of the monks of the first centuries of Christianity,” is from beginning to end his own invention. And it’s not even that the name of Emelyan Pugachev, who was born and lived in the eighteenth century, could not have appeared in the seventeenth-century missal. And it’s not that, starting from 1869, the anathematization of individuals in Russia was stopped altogether.

It’s just that in none of the numerous printed and handwritten rites of anathematization compiled by the Russian Orthodox Church over several centuries, there is anything even remotely similar to the curses that Kuprin spews out at Lev Nikolaevich on behalf of the Church. All these terrible spells are nothing more than a figment of the wild imagination of a de-churched Russian intellectual of the early twentieth century. In none of the churches of the Russian Empire was an anathema proclaimed against Tolstoy. Everything was much less solemn and more prosaic: the newspapers published the Message of the Holy Synod. Here it is full text:

by God's grace

The Holy All-Russian Synod, the faithful children of the Orthodox Catholic Greek-Russian Church rejoice in the Lord.

We pray you, brothers, beware of those who create strife and strife, except for doctrine, which you will learn, and turn away from them (Rom. 16:17).

From the beginning, the Church of Christ suffered blasphemies and attacks from numerous heretics and false teachers who sought to overthrow it and shake its essential foundations, which were based on faith in Christ, the Son of the Living God. But all the forces of hell, according to the promise of the Lord, could not overcome the Holy Church, which will remain unconquered forever. And today, by God’s permission, a new false teacher, Count Leo Tolstoy, has appeared. Known to the world a writer, Russian by birth, Orthodox by baptism and upbringing, Count Tolstoy, in the seduction of his proud mind, boldly rebelled against the Lord and against His Christ and against His holy heritage, clearly before everyone renounced the mother who fed and raised him, the Orthodox Church, and devoted his literary activity and the talent given to him from God to the dissemination among the people of teachings contrary to Christ and the Church, and to the destruction in the minds and hearts of people of the fatherly faith, the Orthodox faith, which established the universe, by which our ancestors lived and were saved, and by which they have hitherto held on and Holy Rus' was strong. In his writings and letters, scattered in large numbers by him and his disciples all over the world, especially within our dear Fatherland, he preaches with the zeal of a fanatic the overthrow of all the dogmas of the Orthodox Church and the very essence of the Christian faith; rejects the personal Living God, glorified in the Holy Trinity, the creator and provider of the Universe, denies the Lord Jesus Christ - the God-man, Redeemer and Savior of the world, who suffered for us and for our salvation and rose from the dead, denies the divine conception of Christ the Lord after humanity and virginity before Christmas and after the Nativity of the Most Pure Theotokos, Ever-Virgin Mary, does not recognize the afterlife and reward, rejects all the sacraments of the Church and the grace-filled action of the Holy Spirit in them and, swearing at the most sacred objects faith of the Orthodox people, did not shudder to mock the greatest of the sacraments, the Holy Eucharist. Count Tolstoy preaches all this continuously, in word and in writing, to the temptation and horror of the entire Orthodox world, and thus undisguisedly, but clearly before everyone, he consciously and intentionally rejected himself from all communication with the Orthodox Church. The previous attempts, to his understanding, were not crowned with success. Therefore, the Church does not consider him a member and cannot consider him until he repents and restores his communion with her. Now we testify to this before the whole Church for the confirmation of those who are right and for the admonition of those who are in error, especially for the new admonition of Count Tolstoy himself. Many of his neighbors who keep the faith think with sorrow that he, at the end of his days, remains without faith in God and the Lord our Savior, having rejected the blessings and prayers of the Church and from all communication with her.

Therefore, testifying to his falling away from the Church, we pray together that the Lord will grant him repentance into the mind of truth (2 Tim. 2:25). We pray, merciful Lord, that you do not want the death of sinners, hear and have mercy and turn him to Your holy Church. Amen.

Originally signed:

Humble ANTONY, Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and Ladoga.

Humble THEOGNOST, Metropolitan of Kiev and Galicia.

Humble VLADIMIR, Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna.

Humble JEROME, Archbishop of Kholm and Warsaw.

Humble JAKOV, Bishop of Chisinau and Khotyn.

Humble JACOB, Bishop.

Humble BORIS, Bishop.

Humble MARKEL, Bishop.

It is quite obvious that this document does not even contain a hint of any curse.

The Russian Orthodox Church simply bitterly stated the fact: the great Russian writer, Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy ceased to be a member of the Orthodox Church. And not at all by virtue of the determination made by the Synod. Everything happened much earlier. In response to the indignant letter from Lev Nikolaevich’s wife Sofia Andreevna Tolstoy, written by her regarding the publication of the Synod’s definition in newspapers, Metropolitan Anthony of St. Petersburg wrote:

“Dear Empress Countess Sofia Andreevna! It’s not cruel what the Synod did when it announced your husband’s apostasy from the Church, but cruel what he did to himself by renouncing his faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, our Redeemer and Savior. It is this renunciation that should have given vent to your sorrowful indignation long ago. And it is not because of a piece of printed paper that your husband is dying, of course, but because he has turned away from the Source of eternal life."

Compassion for the persecuted and sympathy for the offended are, of course, the noblest impulses of the soul. I certainly feel sorry for Lev Nikolaevich. But before you sympathize with Tolstoy, it is necessary to answer one very important question: how much did Tolstoy himself suffer over his excommunication from the Church? After all, you can only have compassion for someone who suffers. But did Tolstoy perceive the excommunication as some kind of tangible loss for himself? Now is the time to turn to his famous response to the definition of the Holy Synod, which was also published in all Russian newspapers. Here are some excerpts from this message:

"... The fact that I renounced the Church that calls itself Orthodox is completely fair.

And I became convinced that the teaching of the Church is theoretically an insidious and harmful lie, but in practice it is a collection of the grossest superstitions and witchcraft, completely hiding the entire meaning of Christian teaching.

I really renounced the Church, stopped performing its rituals and wrote in my will to my loved ones that when I die, they would not allow church ministers to see me and my dead body would be removed as quickly as possible, without any spells and prayers over it, as they remove any a nasty and unnecessary thing so that it does not disturb the living.

The fact that I reject the incomprehensible Trinity and the fable of the fall of the first man, the story of God born of the Virgin redeeming the human race, is absolutely fair

It is also said: “Does not recognize the afterlife and retribution.” If they understand the afterlife in the sense of the second coming, hell with eternal torment/devils and heaven - constant bliss - it is absolutely fair that I do not recognize such an afterlife...

It is also said that I reject all sacraments... This is absolutely fair, since I consider all sacraments to be base, rude, witchcraft inconsistent with the concept of God and Christian teaching and, moreover, a violation of the most direct instructions of the Gospel..."

Enough to make it clear: on the merits of the matter, Lev Nikolaevich had no complaints about the Synod’s definition. There were complaints about the formal side. Tolstoy doubted the canonicity of this definition from the point of view of church law. Simply put, Lev Nikolaevich was hurt precisely by the fact that his excommunication was not loudly announced from all departments of the Russian Orthodox Church. That is, he regretted that the procedure that Kuprin described in his story did not take place. His attitude towards the Definition is shown by an incident told by Tolstoy’s secretary, V.F. Bulgakov:

“Lev Nikolaevich, who entered the Remington store, began looking through the brochure lying on the table, his “Response to the Synod.” When I returned, he asked:

What, they proclaimed anathema to me?

It seems not.

Why not? It was necessary to proclaim... After all, as if this was necessary?

It is possible that they proclaimed it. Don't know. Did you feel it, Lev Nikolaevich?

“No,” he answered and laughed.

Without going into details and assessing the religious views of Leo Tolstoy, one can, however, clearly see that these views did not coincide with the Orthodox faith. From the Church he received only confirmation of this difference. This comparison suggests itself: the man left his family for many years. Lives with another woman. And so, when the first wife filed for divorce and received it, this man begins to be indignant at the legal flaws in the divorce procedure. From a human perspective, everything is understandable - which does not happen in life... But to sympathize with such a person is, to say the least, strange.

Tolstoy did not suffer from formal excommunication. Until his death, he was not completely sure of the correctness of his chosen path of confrontation with the Church. Hence his trips to Optina Pustyn, and the desire to settle in a monastery, and the request to send the Optina elder Joseph to him, who was dying at the Astapovo station (he was ill, and another elder, Barsanuphius, was sent to Astapovo). And in this duality of his, Lev Nikolaevich is truly deeply unhappy and deserves the most sincere sympathy. But there are situations in a person’s life when no one in the world can help him except himself. Tolstoy was never able to get out of the noose that he had been diligently tightening on himself all his life.

Alexander TKACHENKO

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The definition and message of the Holy Governing Synod about Count Leo Tolstoy dated February 20 - 22 (Old Art.), 1901 - a resolution (judgment) of the Holy Governing Synod, which officially announced that Count Leo Tolstoy is no longer a member of the Orthodox Church, since his (publicly expressed) beliefs are incompatible with such membership.

[edit] Background
Illustration for L. N. Tolstoy’s essay “Where there is love, there is God” (1887) In the last two decades of L. N. Tolstoy’s life, being a believer, baptized in Orthodoxy, in a number of works, especially in the novel “Resurrection” (1899 ) clearly showed that he does not accept a number of the most important dogmas of the Orthodox Church. He also distributed brochures describing his own understanding of Christianity, which was far from Orthodox (see article Tolstoy).

Tolstoy rejected the doctrine of the Trinity of God, the infallible authority of Ecumenical Councils, church sacraments, virgin birth, the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and his divinity. At the same time, he sharply criticized the Church for the fact that, in his opinion, it places its interests higher than the original Christian ideals. In the novel “Resurrection,” the clergy was depicted mechanically and hastily performing rituals, and in the image of the cold and cynical Toporov, some began to recognize K. P. Pobedonostsev, Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod. Although censorship did not allow such views in open seal, they continued to spread and became widely known.

A number of church hierarchs, since the late 1880s, appealed to the Synod and Emperor Alexander III with a call to punish Leo Tolstoy and excommunicate him from the Church, but the emperor replied that “he did not want to add a martyr’s crown to Tolstoy’s glory.” After the death of Alexander III (1894), Nicholas II began to receive similar calls. Saint Theophan the Recluse sharply condemned the views and preaching of the count.

The publisher and editor of the church magazine “Missionary Review” V. M. Skvortsov raised the issue of “Tolstoyism” at the 3rd All-Russian Missionary Congress in 1897 in Kazan. Skvortsov wrote: “According to the study of heretical wisdom, gr. Tolstoy, scattered throughout many of his religious treatises<…>, a congress of missionary specialists already recognized the Tolstoy religious movement as an established religious-social sect, extremely harmful not only in the church, but also in politically. »

When the count became seriously ill in the winter of 1899, the Holy Synod issued a secret circular in which it was recognized that he had decisively fallen away from communion with the Church and, according to church canons, in the event of death he could not be buried according to the Orthodox rite unless he restored communion with the Church before his death. her through the sacraments of confession and the Eucharist.

The summary (“extract”) of the Chief Prosecutor’s report for 1901, published in 1905, stated: “<…>The fanaticism of the Tolstoyans, their open mockery of Orthodoxy, their impudent blasphemy of holy things, their insult to the religious feelings of the Orthodox, are reported by the bishops of all dioceses infected with Tolstoyanism. This sect demands unrelenting vigilance from both the pastors of the church and the civil authorities, especially since its views are beginning to become Lately not only the property of the Orthodox masses, but also to subjugate the followers of all other sectarian false teachings. »

By the beginning of the 20th century, the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod, Pobedonostsev, who had previously considered excommunication necessary, became an opponent of such a step, believing that in the emerging internal political situation such an act would be perceived as a government demonstration, and not as a measure of church influence long awaited by believers.

Metropolitan Anthony The initiator in this case was St. Petersburg Metropolitan Anthony (Vadkovsky), who on February 11, 1901 sent a letter to the Chief Prosecutor (who was not a member of the Synod) in which he stated: “Now in the Synod everyone has come to the idea of ​​​​the need to publish Church Gazette" synodal judgment on Count Tolstoy." Pobedonostsev did not create obstacles and himself wrote the initial text of the Synodal Definition; In order to soften the tone of the Definition and so that it would have the character of evidence of Tolstoy’s independent fall from the Church, changes were made to its text by Metropolitan Anthony and other members of the Synod during a meeting on February 20 - 22 (O.S.), 1901.

Like all decisions of the Synod, the decision on Tolstoy was previously reported to the emperor by the chief prosecutor; From Pobedonostsev’s letter dated February 25 (Sunday), 1901, published after the revolution, to Emperor Nicholas II, it is clear that after the publication (on that day) of the synodal resolution, Pobedonostsev received a reprimand from the tsar, and therefore asked him for forgiveness in a letter for “not asking for Your Majesty’s consent to the very wording of the synod’s message.” Pobedonostsev further wrote in a letter to Nicholas II: “But that this action of the synod took place without the knowledge of Your Majesty, I dare to appeal to the memory of Your Majesty. This is the main reason why I asked permission to appear before Your Majesty last Friday, in order to report on this assumption of the synod and explain it. I reported that the synod was forced to do this by the turmoil occurring among the people and by numerous requests for the highest church authorities to have their say; that the message is written in a gentle and conciliatory spirit, about which care is taken.<…>».

[edit] Definition of the Synod
Definition of the Synod in "Church News" (beginning) On February 24, 1901, in the official organ of the Holy Governing Synod - the magazine "Church News" - a Definition was published with the Message of the Holy Synod No. 557 of February 20 - 22 of the same year about the fall of Count Leo Tolstoy from Churches. The next day it was published in all major newspapers in Russia.

The definition of the Synod read: “The Holy Synod, in its concern for the children of the Orthodox Church, for their protection from destructive temptation and for the salvation of the erring, having a judgment about Count Leo Tolstoy and his anti-Christian and anti-Church false teaching, recognized it as timely, in order to prevent a violation of the peace of the church, to make public, through publication in the Church Gazette, the following message:<…>" The message was prefaced by a quotation from Paul's letter to the Romans: “I pray you, brethren, beware of those who create strife and strife, except for the teaching that you have learned, and turn away from them” (Rom. 16:17); further it read:

From the beginning, the Church of Christ suffered blasphemies and attacks from numerous heretics and false teachers who sought to overthrow it and shake its essential foundations, which were based on faith in Christ, the Son of the Living God. But all the forces of hell, according to the promise of the Lord, could not overcome the Holy Church, which will remain unconquered forever. And today, by God’s permission, a new false teacher, Count Leo Tolstoy, has appeared. A world-famous writer, Russian by birth, Orthodox by baptism and upbringing, Count Tolstoy, in the seduction of his proud mind, boldly rebelled against the Lord and against His Christ and against His holy property, clearly before everyone renounced the Mother who fed and raised him, the Church. Orthodox, and devoted his literary activity and the talent given to him from God to the dissemination among the people of teachings contrary to Christ and the Church, and to the destruction in the minds and hearts of people of the fatherly faith, the Orthodox faith, which established the universe, by which our ancestors lived and were saved, and by which Until now, Holy Rus' had held out and was strong.

In his writings and letters, scattered in large numbers by him and his disciples all over the world, especially within our dear Fatherland, he preaches, with the zeal of a fanatic, the overthrow of all the dogmas of the Orthodox Church and the very essence of the Christian faith; denies the personal living God, glorified in the Holy Trinity, the Creator and Provider of the universe, denies the Lord Jesus Christ - the God-man, Redeemer and Savior of the world, who suffered for us for the sake of men and for our salvation and rose from the dead, denies the seedless conception of Christ the Lord for humanity and virginity until Nativity and after the Nativity of the Most Pure Theotokos, Ever-Virgin Mary, does not recognize the afterlife and retribution, rejects all the sacraments of the Church and the grace-filled action of the Holy Spirit in them and, swearing at the most sacred objects of faith of the Orthodox people, did not shudder to mock the greatest of the sacraments, the Holy Eucharist. Count Tolstoy preaches all this continuously, in word and in writing, to the temptation and horror of the entire Orthodox world, and thus undisguisedly, but clearly before everyone, he consciously and intentionally rejected himself from all communication with the Orthodox Church.

The previous attempts, to his understanding, were not crowned with success. Therefore, the Church does not consider him a member and cannot consider him until he repents and restores his communion with her. Now we testify to this before the whole Church for the strengthening of the righteous and for the admonition of the erring, especially for the new admonition of Count Tolstoy himself. Many of his neighbors who keep the faith think with sorrow that at the end of his days he remains without faith in God and the Lord our Savior, having rejected the blessings and prayers of the Church and all communication with her.

Therefore, testifying to his falling away from the Church, we pray together that the Lord will grant him repentance into the mind of truth (2 Tim. 2:25). We pray, merciful Lord, do not want the death of sinners, hear and have mercy and turn him to Your holy Church. Amen.

The definition was signed by Metropolitan Anthony and six other senior hierarchs. In a private letter, Anthony stated the reasons for the publication as follows:

I do not agree with you that the synodal act on Tolstoy could serve to destroy the Church. On the contrary, I think that he will serve to strengthen it... We started an underground polemic with the Tolstoyans. They hit us with satires and fables, and we also have our own satirists, although not entirely successful ones. We are not prepared to fight in this field. War will create or call forth talent. The initial tragedy has been replaced, perhaps, by comedy, and victory will still be on the side of the church.

[edit] Public reaction Public responses to the Definition of the Synod were varied. Many of the letters Tolstoy received contained curses, exhortations, calls to repent and reconcile with the church, and even threats.

"Leo Tolstoy in Hell." A fragment of a wall painting from a church in the village of Tazova, Kursk province. 1883. Tolstoy was especially harshly criticized by the famous Archpriest John of Kronstadt (1902):

Tolstoy’s hand rose to write such a vile slander against Russia, against its government!.. A daring, notorious atheist, like Judas the traitor... Tolstoy perverted his moral personality to the point of ugliness, to the point of disgust... Tolstoy’s bad manners from his youth and his absent-minded, idle life with adventures the summers of his youth, as can be seen from his own description of his life, were main reason his radical godlessness; acquaintance with Western atheists helped him even more to take this terrible path, and his excommunication from the Church by the Holy Synod embittered him to the extreme, offending his count's pride as a writer, darkening his worldly glory... oh, how terrible you are, Leo Tolstoy, spawn of vipers...

Also on July 14, 1908, on the eve of Tolstoy’s 80th birthday, the Moscow newspaper “News of the Day” published a prayer, according to the editors, composed by John of Kronstadt:

Lord, pacify Russia for the sake of Your Church, for the sake of Your poor people, stop the rebellion and revolution, take from the earth Your blasphemer, the most evil and unrepentant Leo Tolstoy and all his ardent followers... .

M. A. Sopotsko, a member of the Black Hundred “Union of the Russian People” wrote in the “Tula Diocesan Gazette”:

A remarkable phenomenon with a portrait of Count L.N. Tolstoy.
Many people, including those writing these lines, noticed an amazing phenomenon with the portrait of L.N. Tolstoy. After Tolstoy was excommunicated from the church by the decree of the divinely established authorities, the expression on Count Tolstoy’s face took on a purely satanic appearance: it became not only angry, but fierce and gloomy...

The impression one gets from the portrait of gr. Tolstoy, can only be explained by the presence near his portraits of evil spirits (demons and their leader the devil), which the three-cursed count zealously served to the detriment of humanity.

The well-known Orthodox philosopher V.V. Rozanov, without challenging the Synod's Definition on the merits, stated that the Synod, as a body more bureaucratic than religious, does not have the right to judge Tolstoy:

Tolstoy, with the full presence of his terrible and criminal delusions, mistakes and impudent words, is a huge religious phenomenon, perhaps the greatest phenomenon of religious Russian history in 19 centuries, although distorted. But an oak tree that has grown crookedly is, however, an oak tree, and it is not for a mechanically formal “institution” to judge it... This act shook the Russian faith more than the teachings of Tolstoy.

At the same time, letters and telegrams expressing sympathy were continuously sent to Tolstoy.

For three days in a row they gave Lev Nikolayevich a standing ovation, brought baskets of fresh flowers, sent telegrams, letters, addresses... Some kind of festive mood continued in our house for several days; there are whole crowds of visitors from morning to evening.

Even on April 8, Leo Tolstoy’s diary states: “Addresses and greetings continue.” Demonstrations were held in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kyiv and other cities expressing solidarity with the writer. The workers of the Maltsev glass factories presented Tolstoy with a large block of glass with the following inscription in gold letters:

You shared the fate of many great people who are ahead of their century, deeply respected Lev Nikolaevich! And before they were burned at the stake, rotting in prisons and exiles. Let them excommunicate you, as the Pharisees “high priests” want. Russian people will always be proud, considering you great, dear, beloved.

Legal Adviser to His Majesty's Cabinet N. A. Lebedev wrote:

I just read the decree of the Synod on Tolstoy. What nonsense. What a satisfaction of personal vengeance. After all, it is clear that this is the work of Pobedonostsev and that he is taking revenge on Tolstoy... Now what? Maybe tens of thousands read Tolstoy’s banned works in Russia, and now hundreds of thousands will read them... After his death, Tolstoy will be buried as a martyr for his idea. They will go to his grave to worship... What saddens me is the lack of the spirit of love and application of the truths of Christianity in the bishops... They dress up in rich clothes, get drunk and overeat, make money by being monks, forget about the poor and needy... They moved away from the people, built palaces, forgot the cells in which Anthony and Theodosius lived... they serve as a temptation with their debauchery... “My house will be called a house of prayer,” but they made it a den of robbers... All this is bitter and regrettable...

Pobedonostsev, in a letter to the editor-in-chief of the Church Gazette, Archpriest I. A. Smirnov (March 22, 1901), noted: “What a cloud of bitterness has risen for the Epistle!...” In the police archives, references were found to the fable “Donkeys and the Lion” (magazine “Free Thought”), a student drawing “How Mice Buried a Cat,” copies of many illuminated letters with harsh remarks about the Definition of the Synod. The poet N. N. Ventzel wrote the fable “The Victorious Pigeons,” which was widely distributed throughout Russia (it is known that in 1903 a copy of the fable was confiscated during a search of A. P. Chekhov).

In Paris, a journalistic collection “The Pen” (La Plume) was published in support of Tolstoy, in which Zola, Maeterlinck and many others declared their solidarity famous writers.

In April, Leo Tolstoy sent an open letter to several newspapers:

Not being able to personally thank all those persons, from dignitaries to ordinary workers, who expressed to me both personally and by mail and telegraph their sympathy regarding the resolution of the Holy Synod of February 20-22, I humbly ask your respected newspaper to thank all these persons , and I attribute the sympathy expressed to me not so much to the significance of my activity as to the wit and timing of the resolution of the Holy Synod.

This letter, however, was immediately banned from publication.

[edit] Letter from Sofya Andreevna On February 26, 1901, Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya sent a letter to the first member of the Synod, Metropolitan Anthony (Vadkovsky) of St. Petersburg, regarding the publication of the Definition of the Synod in newspapers:

Your Eminence!

Having read (yesterday) in the newspapers the cruel ruling of the Synod on the excommunication of my husband, Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, and seeing your signature among the signatures of the church pastors, I could not remain completely indifferent to this. There are no limits to my bitter indignation. And not from the point of view that my husband will die spiritually from this paper: this is not the work of people, but the work of God. The life of the human soul, from a religious point of view, is unknown to anyone except God and, fortunately, not subject to control. But from the point of view of the Church to which I belong and from which I will never depart, which was created by Christ to bless all the most significant moments in the name of God human life: births, marriages, deaths, human sorrows and joys... - which should loudly proclaim the law of love, all-forgiveness, love for enemies, for those who hate us, to pray for everyone - from this point of view, the order of the Synod is incomprehensible to me.

It will not arouse sympathy (unless only in Moskovskie Vedomosti), but indignation among people and great love and sympathy to Lev Nikolaevich. We are already receiving such statements, and there will be no end to them, from all over the world.

I cannot help but mention the grief I experienced from the nonsense that I had heard about before, namely: about the secret order of the Synod for priests not to perform a funeral service in the church of Lev Nikolaevich in the event of his death.

Who do they want to punish? - a deceased person who no longer feels anything, or the people around him, believers and people close to him? If this is a threat, then to whom and to what?

Is it really possible that in order to perform the funeral service for my husband and pray for him in church, I won’t find either a decent priest who will not be afraid of people before the real God of love, or an dishonest one whom I will bribe with a lot of money for this purpose? But I don't need that. For me, the church is an abstract concept, and I recognize as its ministers only those who truly understand the meaning of the church.

If we recognize as the church people who, with their malice, dare to violate the highest law of love of Christ, then all of us, true believers and churchgoers, would have left it long ago.

And those who are guilty of sinful deviations from the church are not those who are lost and seek the truth, but those who proudly recognized themselves as the head of it, and, instead of love, humility and forgiveness, became the spiritual executioners of those whom God would most likely forgive for their humble, complete renunciation. earthly blessings, love and help to people, life, although outside the church, than those who wear diamond miters and stars, but punish and excommunicate from the church - its shepherds.

It’s easy to refute my words with hypocritical arguments. But a deep understanding of the truth and the real intentions of people will not deceive anyone.

Countess Sofia Tolstaya.

The Countess's letter caused a great public outcry and was reprinted in many Russian and foreign newspapers. In her diary, Sofya Andreevna noted, not without pride: “No manuscript by L.N. had such a rapid and widespread distribution as this letter of mine.” Metropolitan Anthony soon wrote her a response; both texts were published on March 24, 1901 in the Church Gazette:

Dear Madam, Countess Sofia Andreevna!

It is not cruel what the Synod did by announcing your husband’s fall from the Church, but cruel what he did to himself by renouncing his faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, our Redeemer and Savior. It is this renunciation that should have given vent to your woeful indignation long ago. And it is not, of course, because of a piece of printed paper that your husband dies, but because he has turned away from the Source of eternal life.

For a Christian, life is inconceivable without Christ, according to Whose words “he who believes in Him has eternal life, and passes from death to life, but he who does not believe will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John III, 1. 16.36U, 24) , and therefore only one thing can be said about someone who renounces Christ is that he has passed from life to death. This is the death of your husband, but only he himself is to blame for this death, and not anyone else.

The Church to which you consider yourself to belong consists of believers in Christ, and - for believers, for its members, this Church blesses in the name of God all the most significant moments of human life: births, marriages, deaths, human sorrows and joys, but it never does this and cannot do it for unbelievers, for pagans, for those who blaspheme the name of God, for those who have renounced it and do not want to receive prayers or blessings from it, and in general for all those who are not members of it. And therefore, from the point of view of this Church, the order of the Synod is understandable, understandable and clear as God's day. And the law of love and forgiveness is not violated in the least. God's love is infinite, but She does not forgive everyone and not for everything. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not forgiven, neither in this nor in future life(Matt. XII, 32). The Lord always looks for a person with his love, but sometimes a person does not want to meet this love halfway and runs away from the Face of God, and therefore perishes. Christ prayed on the cross for His enemies, but in His high priestly prayer He also uttered a word bitter for His love, that the perishing son perished (John, XVII, 12). About your husband, while he is alive, it cannot yet be said that he is dead, but the absolute truth is said about him that he fell away from the Church and is not a member of it until he repents and reunites with it.

In its message, speaking about this, the Synod testified only to an existing fact, and therefore only those who do not understand what they are doing can be indignant at it. You receive expressions of sympathy from all over the world. I’m not surprised by this, but I think that you have nothing to console yourself with here. There is the glory of man and there is the glory of God. “The glory of man is like the flower of the grass: the grass is withered, and its flower is fallen, but the word of the Lord endures forever” (I Peter 1:24, 25).

When last year the newspapers spread the news of the count’s illness, the question arose for the clergy: should he, who had fallen away from the faith and the Church, be honored with a Christian burial and prayers? Appeals to the Synod followed, and he secretly gave guidance to the clergy and could give only one answer: it should not be done if he dies without restoring his communion with the Church. There is no threat to anyone here, and there could be no other answer. And I don’t think that there was any priest, not even a decent one, who would dare to perform a Christian burial over the count, and if he did, such a burial over an unbeliever would be a criminal profanation of the sacred rite. And why commit violence against your husband? After all, without a doubt, he himself does not want a Christian burial to be performed over him? Since you - a living person - want to consider yourself a member of the Church, and it really is a union of living rational beings in the name of the living God, then your statement that the Church for you is an abstract concept falls by itself. And in vain do you reproach the ministers of the Church for malice and violation of the highest law of love commanded by Christ. There is no violation of this law in the synodal act. This, on the contrary, is an act of love, an act of calling your husband to return to the Church and believers to pray for him.

The Lord appoints the shepherds of the Church, and not they themselves, as you say, proudly recognized themselves at its head. They wear diamond miters and stars, but this is not at all significant in their service. They remained shepherds, dressing in rags, persecuted and persecuted, and will always remain so, even if they had to dress in rags again, no matter how they were blasphemed and no matter what contemptuous words they called them.

In conclusion, I apologize for not answering you right away. I waited for the first sharp outburst of your grief to pass.

God bless you and keep you, and have mercy on the count - your husband!

Sofia Andreevna’s diary dated March 27 contains her impression of the Metropolitan’s answer: “He didn’t touch me at all. Everything is correct and everything is soulless. »

[edit] Leo Tolstoy's answer
I. Ya. Repin. Leo Tolstoy in 1901 In April 1901, L.N. Tolstoy responded to the Determination of the Synod, see the full text of the letter. At the beginning of this letter he criticizes the ruling:

At first I did not want to respond to the resolution of the Synod about me, but this resolution caused a lot of letters in which correspondents unknown to me - some scold me for rejecting what I do not reject, others exhorting me to believe in what I did not cease to believe, others express with me like-mindedness, which hardly exists in reality, and sympathy, to which I hardly have the right; and I decided to respond to the resolution itself, pointing out what was unfair in it, and to the appeals to me from my unknown correspondents. The resolution of the Synod in general has many shortcomings: it is illegal or deliberately ambiguous, it is arbitrary, unfounded, untruthful and, in addition, contains slander and incitement to bad feelings and actions.

It is illegal or deliberately ambiguous - because if it wants to be excommunication, then it does not satisfy the church rules by which such excommunication can be pronounced; if this is a statement that anyone who does not believe in the church and its dogmas does not belong to it, then this goes without saying and such a statement cannot have any other purpose than that, without being in essence excommunication, it would seem to be such, which is what actually happened, because that is how it was understood.<…>It is, finally, an incitement to bad feelings and actions, since it caused, as it should have been expected, in people who are unenlightened and unreasoning, bitterness and hatred towards me, reaching the point of threats of murder and expressed in the letters I receive.<…>So the resolution of the Synod is generally very bad. The fact that at the end of the decree it is said that the signatories are so sure of their rightness that they pray that God will make me for my good the same as they are, does not make it better.

The fact that I renounced the church that calls itself Orthodox is completely fair. But I renounced it not because I rebelled against the Lord, but on the contrary, only because I wanted to serve Him with all the strength of my soul. Before renouncing the church and unity with the people, which was inexpressibly dear to me, I, having some signs of doubting the correctness of the Church, devoted several years to theoretically and practically studying the teachings of the church: theoretically, I re-read everything I could about the teachings of the Church, studied and critically examined dogmatic theology; in practice, he strictly followed, for more than a year, all the instructions of the Church, observing all fasts and attending all church services. And I became convinced that the teaching of the Church is theoretically an insidious and harmful lie, but in practice it is a collection of the grossest superstitions and witchcraft, completely hiding the entire meaning of Christian teaching.<…>

The fact that I reject the incomprehensible Trinity and the fable about the fall of the first man, which has no meaning in our time, the blasphemous story about God born of the Virgin, redeeming the human race, is absolutely fair. I not only do not reject God - the spirit, God - love, the one God - the beginning of everything, but I do not recognize anything as truly existing except God, and I see the whole meaning of life only in the fulfillment of the will of God, expressed in Christian teaching.

It is also said: “Does not recognize the afterlife and retribution.” If we understand the afterlife in the sense of the second coming, hell with eternal torment, devils, and heaven - constant bliss, then it is absolutely fair that I do not recognize such an afterlife; but eternal life and retribution here and everywhere, now and always, I recognize to such an extent that, standing at my age on the edge of the grave, I often have to make an effort not to desire carnal death, that is, birth to a new life, and I believe that every good deed increases my true good eternal life, and every evil deed reduces it.

It is also said that I reject all sacraments. This is completely fair. I consider all sacraments to be base, rude, witchcraft inconsistent with the concept of God and Christian teaching and, moreover, a violation of the most direct instructions of the Gospel. In infant baptism I see a clear distortion of the entire meaning that baptism could have for adults who consciously accept Christianity; in performing the sacrament of marriage over people who had obviously been united before, and in allowing divorces and in sanctifying the marriages of divorced people, I see a direct violation of both the meaning and the letter of the Gospel teaching. In the periodic forgiveness of sins in confession, I see a harmful deception that only encourages immorality and destroys the fear of sin. In the consecration of oil, just as in the anointing, I see methods of crude witchcraft, as in the veneration of icons and relics, as in all those rituals, prayers, and spells with which the missal is filled. In communion I see the deification of the flesh and a perversion of Christian teaching. In the priesthood, in addition to obvious preparation for deception, I see a direct violation of the words of Christ, who directly forbids calling anyone teachers, fathers, mentors (Matt. 23: 8-10).

Finally, it was said, as the last and highest degree of my guilt, that I, “while scolding the most sacred objects of faith, did not shudder to mock the most sacred of sacraments - the Eucharist.” The fact that I did not shudder to describe simply and objectively what the priest does to prepare this so-called sacrament is completely fair; but the fact that this so-called sacrament is something sacred and that to describe it simply as it is done is blasphemy is completely unfair. The blasphemy is not in calling a partition a partition and not an iconostasis, and a cup a cup and not a chalice, etc., but the most terrible, never-ending, outrageous blasphemy is that people, using all possible means of deception and hypnotization - they assure children and simple-minded people that if you cut pieces of bread in a certain way and while pronouncing certain words and put them in wine, then God enters these pieces; and that the one in whose name a living piece is taken out will be healthy; In the name of whomever has died such a piece is taken out, it will be better for him in the next world; and that whoever ate this piece, God Himself will enter into him.