LEV TOLSTOY, THE GREAT FRIEND OF CHILDREN

F. M. Dostoevsky and the great Lev Tolstoy (the more modest Alexei Tolstoy belonged to a collateral branch), the two titans of Russian and universal literature (one Apollonian, the other Dionysian; one Olympian and harmonious, the other settled on a twin peak, though reached by an exhausting and precipitous path; one rebellious in social issues, especially after his religious crisis, the other profoundly Orthodox, yet eternally restless in addressing psycho-social and philosophical questions, even as epileptic seizures drained his strength)—the two titans, then, were contemporaries, yet never had the chance or pleasure to meet in earthly life.

What is certain is that they held each other in immense esteem, a fact confirmed by Anna Grigorievna Dostoevskaya, the second wife of Fyodor Mikhailovich. In her memoirs about the life and work of her brilliant husband, Anna Grigorievna recounts her visit to Lev Tolstoy after Dostoevsky’s death. The count expressed his regret at never having spoken with the great departed writer and, through a series of proofs, assured his guest of his steadfast admiration for Fyodor Mikhailovich’s work. As I have already pointed out, the essential similarity between the two great writers is this: both created masterpieces for world culture and enriched literature for children! Yet, unlike Dostoevsky, who was constantly pressed by need and hounded by creditors, the noble and wealthy Tolstoy not only produced dozens of stories and tales for children (The Whale, Jacob’s Dog, The Firemen’s Dogs, The Three Bears, The Travelers, The Little Girl and the Mushrooms, The Elephant, The Lion and the Little Dog, The Eagle) for pleasure’s sake, but also seriously engaged in carrying out educational and social reforms—first through his writings and at his estate at Yasnaya Polyana, and later throughout the empire, through courageous letters addressed to the Tsar and his ministers. Nevertheless, despite his universal stature, which brought him fame and the admiration of culture-lovers as far away as India and Japan, the great Lev Tolstoy not only failed to receive the Nobel Prize before his death in 1910 (he was born September 9, 1828 at Yasnaya Polyana, Tula province)—some sources claim he even refused it—but, as Ion Vasile Șerban (prefacer of the volume The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories, BPT, Minerva Publishing House, Bucharest, 1971) informs us, between September 20–22, 1901, following the publication of the novel Resurrection in 1899 in the magazine Niva (“The Field”), “the Synod’s decision of excommunication of Count Tolstoy is made public.” The decision remained in force, though the famous writer and rebel continued to enjoy numerous “manifestations of sympathy from all quarters.” In response, Lev Tolstoy wrote the article Reply to the Synod’s Decision, where he declared: “The Church is, theoretically speaking, a cunning and harmful lie; practically, a whole series of crude superstitions and sorcery, under which the true meaning of the Christian doctrine disappears entirely.” Unyielding after his excommunication, Tolstoy continued to write and defend the oppressed. In 1902 he wrote to the Tsar, requesting “the abolition of private property in land” (the idea of the American economist Henry George, that “land cannot be the object of private property,” is not only intensely debated in Resurrection, but is even applied by Dmitry Ivanovich Nekhlyudov—the novel’s main character and the writer’s alter ego—through favorable agreements made with the peasants on his estates). In 1905, he completed several stories (Korney Vasiliev, Alyosha the Pot, The Posthumous Notes of the Elder Fyodor Kuzmich), as well as the article The Green Stick. In 1906, he published the novella Why? and the story Heavenly and Earthly. The following year (1907), he sent P. A. Stolypin, Minister of the Interior, a letter in which he described “the people’s hardship and the necessity of abolishing private property in land” (Ion Vasile Șerban). In 1910—the year of his departure from home and of his death, on November 9/21 at Astapovo station—the great writer completed the story Khodynka. Then, as Șerban informs us, he managed, in secret from his family and “in the presence of four disciple-witnesses,” to draft a testament according to which his daughter Alexandra—the only Tolstoyan among his 13 children—“becomes the legatee of his works, provided that she renounces author’s rights in favor of the public.” This came after, starting in 1859, he was so concerned with the peasants’ suffering that he “drafted projects for the emancipation of the serfs” (without concrete results, even though they had been approved by the government). He even founded a school at Yasnaya Polyana (ineffective in turn), and in 1871, after a period away from literature, reopened the school (in his Journal, he noted that he was as concerned with pedagogy as he had been 15 years earlier). In 1872, he wrote the Primer, which in later editions appeared in millions of copies, and he lectured to teachers. From 1874 (at the same time working on Anna Karenina and initiating a public collection to aid the starving), he continued with the same dedication to his pedagogical activity: writing the article On Popular Education, a new Primer, and the four Russian Readers. (George Petrovai, Sighetu Marmației, Romania)