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Elective English—III

Notes style, which was developed specifically and consciously as an apt and accessible medium for
conveying moral concepts to the popular audience.
Critics still argue over exactly which works should be classified as stories for the people, but
certainly, a number of stories written in the 1880s belong to the genre. Four of the more complete
editions of Tolstoy’s collected works contain a volume or clearly marked section of a volume
designated Stories for the People (Narodnye rasskazy). Some two dozen stories appeared in one
or more of these editions, but only sixteen of them were included in every one. Of these the most
celebrated are “What Men Live By”, “Two Old Men”, “Where Love Is, There Is God Also”, “How
Much Land Does a Man Need”, “The Tale of Ivan the Fool” and “The Three Hermits”. In 1887,
Tolstoy consented to the publication by The Intermediary of a volume to be titled Stories for the
People. Forbidden by the censorship, the book never appeared, but its proposed contents included
fifteen of the sixteen stories. To this number may doubtless be added stories written earlier, such
as “God Sees the Truth, But Waits”, and later, such as “Alesha Gorshok,” which share the same
stylistic and thematic profile.
A third person narrator tells all of the stories. Most commonly, the narrator’s voice closely
resembles that of the popular characters, and his outlook is sympathetic to them. The degree of
his sympathy may vary, however. Often, as in “What Men Live By,” “Two Old Men” and
“The Tale of Ivan the Fool,” the narrator identifies closely with the characters. Occasionally the
narrator’s stance is more objective and neutral, as in “Two Brothers and the Gold.” In no case is
the voice of the narrator sarcastic, as it can often be in Tolstoy’s depiction of upper class society.
The syntactic foundation of all the stories is the simple sentence, pruned of all but essential
elements and frequently elliptical. Longer sentences tend to be constructed of a string of principal
clauses rather than subordinate clauses grouped around a main one. Constructions have either
a Biblical or a popular colouring, or both. In most of the stories, the narrative is markedly
popular. The popular flavour is achieved by the consistent inversion of literary word order in
the sentence (e.g., “Ne mog eshche ia poniat’...” [“not able still was I to understand...”] instead of
“ia eshche ne mog poniat’...” [“I still was not able to understand...”]) and the use of popular
lexical material. This material is often proverbial and sometimes from folklore, for example,
the traditional opening phrase of the skazka, “zhil-byl” (literally, “there lived-there was”)
which appears in many of these stories. On the other hand, Tolstoy often, especially in the
moralizing conclusions of the stories, introduced a tone of solemnity reminiscent of Biblical
language. The Bible is actually quoted in nine of the stories, either in text or as epigraph. The
influence of Biblical language affects nearly all of the stories. It is the clearest in the language of
divine characters such as the angels in What Men Live By and Two Brothers and the Gold, the
heavenly voice in “Where Love Is, There Is God Also. Normally, whenever the narrative touches
directly upon the underlying thematic sense of the work, as in the moralizing conclusion of
The Candle.
The stories for the people, with their absence of complex metaphorical language, maximally
simplified syntax, syntactic inversion, peasant words and expressions, and the use of many
devices and motifs from both folklore and Scripture; exemplify an innovative and coherent
writing style. We may confidently agree with B.M. Eikhenbaum and S.P. Bychkovxv that they
represent a remarkable stylistic departure from Tolstoy’s earlier work. Tolstoy’s use of language
was studied, conscious, deliberate, and directed both at the creation of a popular tonal quality
and at the avoidance of his former “literary” style, with its tendency to syntactic and lexical
complexity, foreignisms, and lengthy periodicity.
All the stories for the people are more or less openly didactic and may even present a moral
formally, as in “The Godson.” Characters are most often developed through their actions and
words. Occasionally the narrator characterizes his heroes directly, but usually he confines himself
to brief physical descriptions. Very rarely, and nowhere at length, are the psychological processes
of the characters described directly. This is another important distinction between the stories for

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