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Unit 5: The Spark Neglected Burns the House by Leo Tolstoy

At times in these dark days he turned to the figure of his mother and all the good she Notes
represented and to which he aspired, for; “Such was the figure of my mother in my imagination.
She appeared to me a creature so elevated, pure, and spiritual that often in the middle period
of my life, during my struggle with overwhelming temptations, I prayed to her soul, begging
her to aid me, and this prayer always helped me much.”
But times were to change and things were soon to rapidly settle: Tolstoy fell in love.

Youth: Marriage, Children, War and Peace and Anna Karenina

In September of 1862, at the age of thirty four, Tolstoy married the sister of one of his friends,
nineteen year old Sofia ‘Sonya’ Andreyevna Behrs (b.1844). Their children were: Sergey (b.1863),
Tatiana (b.1864), Ilya (b.1866), Leo (b.1869), Marya ‘Masha’ (1871-1906), Petya (1872-1873),
Nicholas (1874-1875), unnamed daughter who died shortly after birth in 1875, Andrey (b.1877),
Alexis (1881-1886), Alexandra ‘Sasha’ (b.1884), and Ivan (1888-1895).

Wanting her to understand everything about him before they married, Tolstoy had given
Sonya his diaries to read. Even though she consented to marriage it took her some time to get
over the initial shock of their content. However, the tension and jealousy they sparked between
them never clearly dissipated. In other matters Countess Tolstoy proved helpful to her husband’s
writing career: she organised his rough notes, copied out drafts, and assisted with his correspondence
and business affairs of the estate. Thus Tolstoy plunged into his writing: he started War and
Peace in 1862 and its six volumes were published between 1863 and 1869. Listless and depressed
even though it was met with much enthusiasm, Tolstoy travelled to Samara in the steppes
where he bought land and built an estate he could stay at in the summer.
He started writing his next epic Anna Karenina with the opening line that gloomily alluded
to his own life: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own
way”, in 1873. The first chapters appeared in the Russian Herald in 1876. The same year it was
published in its entirety. In 1878, Count Tolstoy suffered the most intense bout of self-doubt
and spiritual introspection yet; he became depressed and suicidal; his usually rational outlook
on life became muddled with what he thought was a morally upright life as husband and
father. He harshly examined his motives and criticised himself for his egotistical family cares….concern
for the increase of wealth, the attainment of literary success, and the enjoyment of every kind
of pleasure (ibid, Intro.).
So Tolstoy wrote his “Confessions” (1879) and began the last period of “My Awakening to the
Truth” which has given him the highest well-being in life and joyous peace in view of approaching
death.’ A number of his non-fiction articles and novels outlining his ideology and harshly
criticising the government and church followed including The Census in Moscow, A Criticism
of Dogmatic Theology (1880), A Short Exposition of the Gospels (1881), What I Believe (1882), What
Then Must We Do? (1886), and On Life and Death (1892). His other plays, viz. The Death of Ivan
Ilych (1886), The Power of Darkness (1888), The Kreutzer Sonata (1890), Father Sergius (written
between 1890-98), Hadji Murad (written between 1896 and 1904), The Young Czar (1894), What
Is Art? (1897), The Forged Coupon (1904), Diary of Alexander I (1905), and The Law of Love and
the Law of Violence (1908) were also written around this time. With the publication of Resurrection
(1901) Tolstoy was excommunicated by the Russian Orthodox Church; but his popularity with
the public was unwavering. Tolstoy the author now had a large following of disciples devoted
to ‘Tolstoyism’.

Conversion and Last Years

Tolstoy’s main follower was a wealthy army officer, Vladimir Chertkov (1854-1910). Sonya
would soon be caught in a bitter battle with him for her husband’s private diaries. Having

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