Leo Tolstoy and Sophia Bers: half a century of war and peace

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

There are still controversies about this couple - there has not been so much gossip about anyone and so many conjectures were born as about the two of them. The history of the Tolstoy family life is a conflict between the real and the sublime, between everyday life and dreams, and the inevitably following spiritual abyss. But who is right in this conflict is an unanswered question. Each of the spouses had their own truth …

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Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on August 28, 1828 in Yasnaya Polyana. The count came from several ancient clans, branches of the Trubetskoy and Golitsyns, Volkonsky and Odoevsky were intertwined in his genealogy. Lev Nikolayevich's father married the heiress of a huge fortune, Maria Volkonskaya, who sat in girls, not for love, but the relationship in the family was tender and touching.

Little Lyova's mother died of fever when he was one and a half years old. The orphaned children were raised by aunts who told the boy what an angel his late mother was - she was smart, educated, and delicate with the servants, and took care of the children - and how happy the father was with her. Although it was a good fairy tale, it was then that the ideal image of the one with which he would like to connect his life was formed in the imagination of the future writer.

The search for the ideal turned into a heavy burden for the young man, which over time turned into a pernicious, almost manic attraction to the female sex. The first step towards the disclosure of this new side of life for Tolstoy was a visit to a brothel, where his brothers were brought. Soon in his diary he will write: "I performed this act, and then I stood by the bed of this woman and cried!"

At the age of 14, Leo experienced a feeling, as he believed, similar to love, seducing a young maid. This picture, already being a writer, Tolstoy will reproduce in "Resurrection", revealing in detail the scene of Katyusha's seduction.

The whole life of the young Tolstoy was spent in developing strict rules of behavior, in spontaneous evasion from them and in a stubborn struggle with personal shortcomings. Only one vice he cannot overcome - voluptuousness. Perhaps the admirers of the great writer would not have learned about his many predilections for the female sex - Koloshina, Molostvova, Obolenskaya, Arsenyeva, Tyutcheva, Sverbeeva, Shcherbatova, Chicherina, Olsufyeva, Rebinder, the Lvov sisters. But he persistently entered into his diary the details of his love victories.

Tolstoy returned to Yasnaya Polyana full of sensual impulses. “”, - he wrote down upon arrival. “."

Desire or love

Sonechka Bers was born into the family of a doctor, an actual state councilor. She received a good education, was smart, easy to communicate, had a strong character.

In August 1862, the Bers family went to visit their grandfather at his estate Ivica and stopped at Yasnaya Polyana on the way. And then the 34-year-old Count Tolstoy, who remembered Sonya as a child, suddenly saw a lovely 18-year-old girl who excited him. There was a picnic on the lawn, where Sophia sang and danced, showering everything around with sparks of youth and happiness. And then there were conversations at dusk, when Sonya was shy in front of Lev Nikolaevich, but he managed to get her to talk, and he listened to her with delight, and said in parting: "How clear you are!"

Soon the Bers left Ivitz, but now Tolstoy could not live a day without a girl who won his heart. He suffered and suffered because of the age difference and thought that this deafening happiness was not available to him: "" In addition, he was tormented by the question: what is this - desire or love? This difficult period of trying to understand oneself will be reflected in War and Peace.

He could not resist his feelings any longer and went to Moscow, where he proposed to Sophia. The girl gladly agreed. Now Tolstoy was absolutely happy: "Never so joyfully, clearly and calmly did I imagine my future with my wife." But there was one more thing: before getting married, he wanted them not to have any secrets from each other.

Sonya had no secrets from her husband - she was as pure as an angel. But Lev Nikolaevich had plenty of them. And then he made a fatal mistake that predetermined the course of further family relations. Tolstoy gave the bride to read the diaries, in which he described all his adventures, passions and hobbies. For the girl, these revelations were a real shock.

Only her mother was able to convince Sonya not to give up the marriage, she tried to explain to her that all men at the age of Lev Nikolaevich have a past, they just prudently hide it from their brides. Sonya decided that she loved Lev Nikolaevich strongly enough to forgive him everything, including the courtyard peasant Aksinya, who at that time was expecting a child from the count.

Family weekdays

Married life in Yasnaya Polyana began far from cloudlessly: it was difficult for Sophia to overcome the disgust she felt for her husband, remembering his diaries. However, she gave birth to Lev Nikolaevich 13 children, five of whom died in infancy. In addition, for many years she remained a faithful assistant to Tolstoy in all his affairs: a copyist of manuscripts, a translator, a secretary, and a publisher of his works.

For many years Sofya Andreevna was deprived of the pleasures of Moscow life, to which she was accustomed from childhood, but she humbly accepted the hardships of rural existence. She raised the children herself, without nannies and governesses. In her free time, Sophia completely rewrote the manuscripts of the "mirrors of the Russian revolution." The countess, trying to correspond to the ideal of his wife, which Tolstoy told her more than once, received petitioners from the village, resolved disputes, and over time opened a hospital in Yasnaya Polyana, where she herself examined the suffering and helped as far as she had knowledge and skills.

Everything she did for the peasants was actually done for Lev Nikolaevich. The count took all this for granted, and was never interested in what was happening in the soul of his wife.

Out of the frying pan into the fire…

After writing "Anna Karenina", in the nineteenth year of family life, the writer had a mental crisis. He tried to find solace in the church, but he could not. Then the writer renounced the traditions of his circle and became a real ascetic: he began to wear peasant clothes, run a subsistence economy, and even promised to distribute all his property to the peasants. Tolstoy was a real "house builder", having invented his own charter for his future life, demanding its unquestioning fulfillment. The chaos of countless household chores did not allow Sofya Andreevna to delve into her husband's new ideas, to listen to him, to share his experiences.

Sometimes Lev Nikolayevich went beyond reason: he demanded that the younger children should not be taught what was not needed in a simple folk life, then he wanted to give up property, thereby depriving the family of the means of subsistence. He wanted to renounce copyright for his works, because he believed that he could not own them and profit from them.

Sofya Andreevna stoically defended the interests of the family, which led to the inevitable family collapse. Moreover, her mental anguish was revived with renewed vigor. If earlier she did not even dare to be offended by the betrayal of Lev Nikolaevich, now she began to recall all the past grievances at once.

After all, whenever she, pregnant or having just given birth, could not share a matrimonial bed with him, Tolstoy was fond of another maid or cook. Again he sinned and repented … But he demanded obedience and obedience to his paranoid life rules from his family.

A letter from the other world

Tolstoy died during a trip, which he went on after breaking up with his wife at a very old age. During the move, Lev Nikolayevich fell ill with pneumonia, got off at the nearest large station (Astapovo), where he died in the house of the station chief on November 7, 1910.

After the death of the great writer, a storm of accusations fell upon the widow. Yes, she could not become a like-minded person and an ideal for Tolstoy, but she was a model of a faithful wife and an exemplary mother, sacrificing her happiness for the sake of her family.

Sorting through the papers of her late husband, Sofya Andreevna found his sealed letter to her, dated in the summer of 1897, when Lev Nikolayevich first decided to leave. And now, as if from another world, his voice sounded, as if asking for forgiveness from his wife: ""

At that time, no one could have imagined that the granddaughter of the classic Sophia Tolstaya will be carried away by the peasant poet Sergei Yesenin, and the entire literary community will talk about this rebellious aristocratic novel.