Lev Tolstoy

The great Russian writer who received home education, but became the most famous writer not only in Russia, but also in the world. His novel "Anna Karenina" everyone began to read, a large-scale picture of the customs and life of the noble environment of St. Petersburg and Moscow interested everyone, because the main concept of the novel, tragic love married lady Annie Karenina.

Today, many people want to film this novel. famous directors. Tolstoy was opposed state system, he refused Nobel Prize, his life was stormy and tragic. Every thought is a quote.

Quotes and aphorisms of Leo Tolstoy

The more we love, the broader, fuller and more joyful our life becomes.

It always seems that we are loved for being good. And we do not guess that they love us because those who love us are good.

To love is to live the life of the one you love.

I am sure that the meaning of life for each of us is simply to grow in love.

Be in love? You can’t love everyone and always love - you can’t master it. Of course, that would be nice. But it is impossible, just as it is impossible not to sleep. And the one who definitely loved knows, and the more he loved, he knows that this is impossible. Will not get attention. To fall in love, you need to delve into someone else's soul. And this is work that requires strength.

Life is easier without love. But without it there is no point.

I don't have everything I love. But I love everything I have.

A true marriage is only one that illuminates love.

All great changes in the life of one person, as well as of all mankind, begin and take place in thought. In order for a change of feelings and actions to take place, there must first be a change of thought.

Most men demand virtues from their wives, which they themselves are not worth.

Not to mention the love for me, which is not a trace, she does not need my love for her, she needs one thing: that people think that I love her. Terrible.

Love is the essence of the soul, it must be strengthened and cleansed of all bad feelings, irritation and irony directed against a person.

Everyone dreams of changing the world, but no one aims to change himself.

Real knowledge comes from the heart. We only know what we love.

You have to believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy.

It is better to know a little of the really good and necessary than a lot of mediocre and unnecessary.

"Reading Circle"

Knowledge is knowledge only when it is acquired by the efforts of one's thought, and not by memory.

"Reading Circle"

A thought moves life only when it has been obtained by its own mind, or even when it answers a question that has already arisen in the soul. An alien thought, perceived by the mind and memory, does not affect life and gets along with actions that are contrary to it.

"Reading Circle"

A scientist is one who knows a lot from books; educated - one who has mastered all the most common knowledge and techniques of his time; enlightened - one who understands the meaning his life.

"Reading Circle"

About faith

True religion is such an attitude to the infinite life around him, established by man, which connects his life with this infinity and guides his actions.

"Reading Circle"

The essence of any religion consists only in the answer to the question, why do I live and what is my attitude towards the infinite world around me. There is not a single religion, from the most exalted to the most brutal, which would not have as its basis this establishment of the relation of man to the world around him.

"Reading Circle"

Faith is the understanding of the meaning of life and the recognition of the obligations arising from this understanding.

"Reading Circle"

People are alive with love; love for oneself is the beginning of death, love for God and people is the beginning of life.

"Reading Circle"

About the purpose of life

I would be the unhappiest of people if I did not find a goal for my life - a common and useful goal ...

In order to live honestly, one must be torn, confused, fought, abandoned, and forever struggled and deprived. And peace is spiritual meanness.

Letter to A.A. Tolstoy. October 1857

I was lonely and unhappy living in the Caucasus. I began to think in a way that only once in a lifetime do people have the power to think ... It was both painful and good time. Never, neither before nor after have I reached such a height of thought... And everything I found then will forever remain my conviction... I found a simple, old thing, I found that there is immortality, that there is love, and that one must live for another, in order to be happy forever ...

Letter to A.A. Tolstoy. April-May 1859

A revolution has happened to me, which has long been preparing in me and the makings of which have always been in me. It happened to me that the life of our circle - the rich, the scientists - not only disgusted me, but lost all meaning. I have renounced the life of our circle.

"Confession". 1879

Each person is a diamond that can purify and not purify himself, to the extent that he is purified, eternal light shines through him, therefore, the business of a person is not to try to shine, but to try to purify himself.

If there is no strength to burn and pour light, then at least do not block it.

"Reading Circle"

Imagine that the purpose of life is your happiness - and life is cruel nonsense. Recognize what the wisdom of man tells you, and your mind, and your heart: that life is service to the one who sent you into the world, and life becomes a constant joy.

"Reading Circle"

The only happy periods of my life were those when I devoted my whole life to serving people. These were: schools, mediation, starvation and religious assistance.

... moral activity ... constitutes the highest vocation of man ...

"On what is called art." 1896

About the word

One person will shout in the building filled with people: "We are burning!" - and the crowd rushes, and dozens, hundreds of people are killed.

Such is the clear harm done by the word. But this harm is no less great even when we do not see people who have suffered from our word.

"Reading Circle"

About upbringing and education

The basis of education is the establishment of an attitude to the beginning of everything and the guidance of behavior resulting from this attitude.

"Reading Circle"

In order to educate a person fit for the future, it is necessary to educate him, keeping in mind a completely perfect Man - only then will the pupil be a worthy member of the generation in which he will have to live.

"Reading Circle"

I want education for the people only in order to save those Pushkins, Ostrogradskys, Filarets, Lomonosovs drowning there. And they teem in every school.

Both upbringing and education are inseparable. It is impossible to educate without passing on knowledge; all knowledge acts educationally.

"About education"

The first and most important knowledge, which is primarily taught to children and adult learners, is the answer to the eternal and inevitable questions that arise in the soul of every person who comes to consciousness. First: what am I and what is my attitude towards the infinite world? And the second, following from the first: how should I live, what should I always count, for all possible conditions, good, and what is always, under all possible conditions, bad?

"About education"

If a teacher has only love for work, he will good teacher. If the teacher has only love for the student, like a father, a mother, he will better than that a teacher who has read all the books, but has no love for the work or for the students.

If a teacher combines love for work and for students, he is a perfect teacher.

"ABC. General remarks for the teacher»

…upbringing seems to be a complex and difficult matter only as long as we want to educate our children or anyone else without educating ourselves. If we understand that we can educate others only through ourselves, by educating ourselves, then the question of education is abolished and one question of life remains: how should one live oneself? I don't know of a single act of parenting that doesn't include self-education.

About a human

People are like rivers: the water is the same in all and the same everywhere, but each river is sometimes narrow, sometimes fast, sometimes wide, sometimes quiet. So are people. Each person bears in himself the germs of all human qualities and sometimes manifests one, sometimes another, and is often completely different from himself, remaining one and himself.

"Sunday"

My whole idea is that if vicious people are interconnected and constitute a force, then honest people need only do the same.

"War and Peace". Epilogue. 1863–1868

About war

“Is it really crowded for people to live in this beautiful world, under this immeasurable starry sky? Can a feeling of malice, vengeance, or the passion for the extermination of one's own kind be retained in the human soul in the midst of this charming nature?

"Raid", 1853

“... war ... contrary to human reason and all human nature event".

"War and Peace", 1863-1868

“It is quite obvious that if we continue to live as we do now, guided as in privacy, and in the life of individual states by one desire for the good of ourselves and our state, and we will, as now, ensure this good by violence, then, inevitably increasing the means of violence against each other and state against state, we, firstly, will be more and more go broke more, enduring b about most of its productivity is put into service; secondly, killing in wars against each other physically the best people let us degenerate more and more and morally fall and become corrupted.”

"Rethink!" 1904.

“I want the love of peace to cease to be a timid aspiration of peoples who are horrified at the sight of the disasters of war, but that it become an unshakable demand of an honest conscience.”

Interview with a French journalist

J. A. Bourdon (newspaper "Figaro").

We are gathered here to fight against war...we hope to defeat this huge force of all governments that have billions of money and millions of troops at their disposal...in our hands there is only one, but the most powerful tool in the world - truth

Report prepared for the Peace Congress in Stockholm

For me, the madness, the criminality of war, especially in recent times when I wrote and therefore thought a lot about the war, are so clear that apart from this madness and criminality I can see nothing in it.

War is such an unjust and bad thing that those who fight try to drown out the voice of conscience in themselves.

About civilization

What is called civilization is the growth of mankind. Growth is necessary, you can't talk about it, whether it's good or bad. It is, it is life. Like the growth of a tree. But the bough, or the forces of life, growing into the bough, are wrong, harmful, if they absorb all the force of growth. This is with our pseudo-civilization.

About art and creativity

Poetry is a fire that kindles in the human soul. This fire burns, warms and illuminates. A real poet himself involuntarily and with suffering burns and burns others. And that's the whole point.

Art is one of the means of distinguishing good from evil, one of the means of recognizing the good.

For a work to be good, one must love the main, basic idea in it. So, in "Anna Karenina" I loved the family thought ...

The main goal of art... is to reveal, to express the truth about the human soul... Art is a microscope that directs the artist to the secrets of his soul and shows these secrets common to all people.

Yasnaya Polyana, Moscow

Without my Yasnaya Polyana, I can hardly imagine Russia and my attitude towards it. Without Yasnaya Polyana, maybe I can see more clearly general laws necessary for my fatherland, but I will not love it to the point of partiality.

"Summer in the Village". 1858

... the main secret about how to make sure that all people do not know any misfortunes, never quarrel and do not get angry, but would be constantly happy, this secret was, as he told us, written by him on a green stick, and this stick is buried at road, on the edge of the ravine of the old Order, in the place where I ... asked in memory of Nikolenka to bury me ... And how I then believed that there was that green stick on which something was written that should destroy all evil in people and give them great blessing, so I believe even now that this truth exists and that it will be revealed to people and give them what it promises.

"Memories". 1906

I remember that I got to enter Moscow in a wheelchair with my father. It was a good day, and I remember my admiration at the sight of Moscow churches and houses, admiration caused by the tone of pride with which my father showed me Moscow.

"Memories". 1906

What a great spectacle the Kremlin presents! Ivan the Great stands like a giant in the midst of other cathedrals and churches... The white stone walls saw the shame and defeat of the invincible Napoleonic regiments; at these walls the dawn of the liberation of Russia from the Napoleonic yoke rose, and within a few centuries, within these same walls, the beginning of the liberation of Russia from the power of the Poles in the time of the Pretender was laid; and what a wonderful impression this quiet river Moscow makes! She saw how, being still a village, not occupied by anyone, then she exalted herself. Having become a city, I saw her all the misfortunes and glory, and finally, she waited until her greatness. Now this former village ... has become the greatest and most populous city in Europe.

Student essay. 1837

About nature

As he approached Ovsyannikov, he looked at the lovely sunset. There is a gap in the heaped clouds, and there, like a red irregular corner, the sun. All this is above the forest, rye. Joyfully. And I thought: No, this world is not a joke, not just a vale of testing and transition to a better, eternal world, but this is one of eternal worlds which is beautiful, joyful, and which we not only can, but must make more beautiful and joyful for those who live with us and for those who will live in it after us.

The purest joy, the joy of nature.

... a friend is good; but he will die, he will leave somehow, you will not keep up with him somehow; and nature, to whom he married by means of a merchant's fortress, or from which he was born by inheritance, is even better. Its own nature. And she is cold, and taciturn, and important, and demanding, but on the other hand, this is such a friend that you will not lose to death, and even die, you will go into her.

Now it's summer, and a lovely summer, and, as usual, I go crazy with the joy of carnal life and forget my work. This year I have struggled for a long time, but the beauty of the world has overcome me. And I enjoy life and do almost nothing else.

Nature enters into man both with breath and food, so that man cannot but feel himself a part of her and her part of himself.

The business of life, the purpose of its joy. Rejoice in heaven, in the sun. On stars, on grass, on trees, on animals, on people. This joy is being destroyed. You made a mistake somewhere - look for this mistake and correct it. This joy is most often violated by self-interest, ambition... Be like children - always rejoice.

In the morning, again, the play of light and shadow from large, densely dressed birch trees on the tall, dark green grass, and forget-me-nots, and deaf nettles, and that's all - the main thing, the waving of the birch trees of the preshpekt is the same as it was when I 60 years ago in the first time I noticed and fell in love with this beauty.

... people live as nature lives: they die, are born, copulate, be born again, fight, drink, eat, rejoice and die again, and no conditions, except for those unchanging ones that nature laid down for the sun, grass, beast, tree. They don't have any other laws.

"Cossacks". 1863

Happiness is being with nature, seeing it, talking to it.

"Cossacks". 1863

About love, marriage, family

To love is to live the life of the one you love.

"Reading Circle"

Love destroys death and turns it into an empty ghost; it also turns life from nonsense into something meaningful and makes happiness out of misfortune.

"Reading Circle"

If how many heads, so many minds, then how many hearts, so many kinds of love.

"Anna Karenina"

A true and lasting connection between a man and a woman is only in spiritual communion. Sexual intercourse without spirituality is a source of suffering for both spouses.

"Reading Circle"

Apart from death, there is no such significant, abrupt, all-changing and irrevocable act as marriage.

We must always marry in the same way as we die, that is, only when it is impossible otherwise.

About writers

I learn a lot from Pushkin, he is my father, and I have to learn from him.

S. A. Tolstaya. Diaries. 1873

I also read Herzen's "From the Other Shore" and also admired it. It should be written about him so that people of our time understand him. Our intelligentsia has sunk so low that it is no longer able to understand him. It already expects its readers ahead. And far above the heads of the present crowd conveys his thoughts to those who will be able to understand them.

Chekhov was with us, and I liked him. He is very gifted, and his heart must be kind, but he still does not have his own definite point of view.

I am very grateful to you for such a curious and wonderful study about Sylvester. Judging by it, I guess what treasures - the likes of which no other people has - lurk in our ancient literature. And how true is the intuition of the people, pulling them towards the Old Russian and repelling them from the new.

About silence, verbosity and slander

People learn how to speak main science How and when to be silent.

"Way of Life"

Speak only about what is clear to you, otherwise be silent.

"On every day"

If once you regret that you did not say, then you will regret a hundred times that you did not keep silent.

"Reading Circle"

It is true that where there is gold, there is also much sand; but this can by no means be a reason to say a lot of nonsense in order to say something smart.

"What is art?"

The one who has nothing to say speaks the most.

"Reading Circle"

Silence is often the best answer.

"Way of Life"

People like slander so much that it is very difficult to resist doing something pleasant for your interlocutors: not condemning a person.

"Reading Circle"

"My kingdom is not of this world"
Christ

"Woe to you, princes of power, rich,
satiated!"
Buddha

“Oh, how can you not think! We must, we must think!
L. Tolstoy

What a pity that our general education has long become so common that many of my contemporaries at the most reproductive age do not know, do not love, do not bow before the great representatives of our culture - our compatriots, no matter how they are called in certain periods stories. Lev Tolstoy. Is it really that hard to read? Well no. I think the reason is in our school "obligation" - a program that obliges familiarization with literary works all students, regardless of their interests and level of development. This compulsory reading and mentoring explanations of the teacher, which hinder the thinking of the young reader, remind me of an inoculation, after which the young man will never want to open the volume of the novel known to him.
And so, my word about Leo Tolstoy.
An artist and thinker who thought about the people and himself, about morality - the good that every soul needs. " Last years his life was indescribably touching and beautiful,” writes Ivan Alekseevich Bunin in his work “The Liberation of Tolstoy”.

Once, when Lev Nikolayevich and his already grown-up daughter Sasha were returning from a ride, he stopped his horse in a small clearing covered with forget-me-nots and said: “Here, between these oaks, bury me here when I die.”
He associated this place by the ravine with the memory of his brother Nikolenka, who died in childhood, with whom they were looking for a green stick that could make all people happy. Nikolenka was then eleven, and little Lyovushka was five.
Oh, these noble, exalted Russian souls, striving for the common good, ready for self-sacrifice for the sake of a dark people who do not know and do not understand them! And I remember with bitterness when my son, at his still tender age, returned home with a frightened expression on his face, after the teacher criticized his essay “How I see the future”, where he wrote that there would be no poor, sick and lonely people. Her criticism was an accusation, and the essay was an offense for which he and his parents could be punished: “Are there lonely and sick people in our country ?!”
Lev Nikolaevich was buried there, in this clearing, under large oaks. His grave is a mound covered with green grass, and nothing else - no cross, no monument on it - only foliage rustling in the wind and wild grass all around. And in this light green noise I once felt his words: “What am I? Why am I?”, “Substance and space, time and movement separate me and every living being from all God”, “I understand the material world less and less and, on the contrary, I am more and more aware of what cannot be understood, but can only be recognized”, “ ... the law of copulation is not obligatory for a person”, “Body? Why is it?
After his flight from home, at the Astapovo station, already seriously ill, Tolstoy dictated to his daughter: “... God is that unlimited Everything of which a person recognizes himself as a limited part. Only God truly exists. Man is his manifestation in matter, time and space. The more the manifestation of God in a person (life) is connected with the manifestations (lives) of other beings, the more he exists. The union of this life with the lives of other beings is accomplished by love.
Tolstoy kept a separate notebook, where he entered sayings wise people with which he agreed, understood and felt. There are the words of Christ, the words of the ancient Indian wisdom and the teachings of the Buddha, the words of the Old Testament prophets and the surah of the Koran. In this collection, he also wrote down his thoughts “about it” - about what occupied him with early childhood and all my life. “God forbid,” he wrote, “to live only for this world. In order for life to have meaning, its purpose must go beyond the comprehensible limits of the human mind. “Open your ears, deliverance from death has been found! Liberation is in the unmasking of the spirit from its material garment, in the reunion of the temporal Self with the eternal Self”*.
“I rode upstairs on a horse-drawn horse, looked at houses, signs, shops, cabbies, passers-by, passers-by, and suddenly it became so clear that this whole world with my life in it is only one of the countless possibilities of other worlds and other lives, and for me there is only one of the innumerable stages through which I pass (in time, it seems to me).

“... at 6 o'clock 5 minutes in the morning on November 7, 1910, not only the life of one of the most extraordinary people who ever lived in the world ended at the Astapovo station, but also ended some extraordinary human feat, extraordinary in its strength, a long and difficult struggle for what is "liberation", is the exit from the "Being into the Eternal", speaking in Buddhist words"**.
He dreamed of becoming a holy fool, walking through the villages under the windows of houses and forgiving alms, being unknown to anyone, humble.
I.A. Bunin wrote: “Is it really true, as they still think, that for so long he sought to escape from Yasnaya Polyana only for the sake of freeing himself from quarrels with his children and wife? After all, even as a cadet he experienced this “ecstasy of freedom”: it was happiness to think that he was not at all a Russian nobleman, a member of Moscow society ...
Like the Old Testament Job, who said, “what I was afraid of, comes to me,” Leo Tolstoy wrote in his diary: “I am rolling, rolling down the mountain of death. And I do not want death, I want and love immortality. What a childish purity of sincerity in his notes! And what wise truth! "I love my life - family, household, art." “How to be saved? I feel that I am dying, I love life and I am dying.”
His favorite hero Levin did not commit suicide, but continued to live "because there was in him the will to this temporary, earthly life and he felt that the desire for suicide was a temptation", and inner voice told him that he needed to be saved, that he could not lose his soul.
Sofya Andreevna lived with Lev Nikolaevich for forty-eight years. As a young girl, she entered his house. “I love her,” he wrote in his diary, “when I wake up at night or in the morning and see: she looks at me and loves ... I love when she sits close to me, and we know that we love each other.” He said then: "I am happy, like one in a million." In one of his letters, he wrote: "I lived to be 34 years old and did not know that it was possible to love and be so happy." But after some time, another entry appears in the diary: “It’s terribly scary, it’s pointless to connect your happiness with material conditions - wife, children, health, household, wealth ...”. “Where am I, the former one whom I myself loved and knew, who sometimes comes out all over and pleases and frightens me myself? I am small and insignificant. And I've been that way ever since I married the woman I love."
And here is from the pages of his "First Memoirs":
“When did I start? When did you start living? And why is it joyful for me to imagine myself then, but it used to be scary, as it is still scary for many now, to imagine myself when I again enter that state of death, from which there will be no memories that can be expressed in words?
Not only is space and time and reason the essence of the forms of thinking and that the essence of life is outside these forms, but our whole life is (increasingly) more and more subjugation of ourselves to these forms and then liberation from them.
In early childhood, when he, the youngest, was transferred to live with his brothers, he felt the contempt with which the elders treated him, and understood that it was a shame for a big boy to live with a nanny and girls; “but his heart was scared and sad,” he felt that he was “irrevocably losing innocence and happiness.”
Tolstoy remembered himself from early childhood, ever since he was swaddled and bathed, perhaps for the first time: “I am sitting in a trough, and I am surrounded by a new, not bad smell some substance that rubs my little body." The novelty of impressions made him pay attention to his body for the first time and love it. Many marveled at his memory. Such a memory was in outstanding, great people. The Buddha, for example, said that a myriad of years ago he was a kid.
Some people have the ability to feel not only their time, but also the past, other countries, the experiences of another person. This is a living, figurative, sensual memory, so necessary for creativity. Isn't she the ability to reincarnate? “In order to be among such people, one must be an individual who has passed in the chain of his ancestors long haul many existences.<…>A great martyr or a great lucky man is such a person. ** Such are the saints, philosophers, poets, artists, actors, such were Solomon, Buddha, Leo Tolstoy ... These are “people of dreams, contemplation, surprise at themselves and the world, people of that “thinking about which the Ecclesiastes speaks - people who have already secretly responded to the ancient call: “Come out of the Chain!” - already eager to dissolve, disappear in the All-One and at the same time fiercely suffering, yearning for all those faces, incarnations in which they lived, especially for every moment of their present "**
The followers of Leo Tolstoy strove for a simple, good life. Being in love with the great writer as an artist, young Ivan Bunin became a Tolstoyan.
Was a follower of Tolstoy and Nikolai Ge. Unrecognized at home great philosopher in painting, a passionate fighter against evil, the author of paintings that today, like no other, are relevant and tell us about the suffering and injustice that our world is full of, and at the same time passionately loving life and longing for happiness. He accidentally read “The Word of the great writer L.N. Tolstoy on the population census" in one of the newspapers and found close, dear words for his heart. Having visited the slums, Tolstoy wrote: "... our dislike for the lower ones is the reason for their poor condition." In his memoirs, N. Ge wrote: “As a spark ignites fuel, so this word set me on fire, I realized that I was right, that children's World mine did not fade, that he kept a whole life and that I owe him the best, that in my soul remained holy and whole. I am going to Moscow to hug this great man and work for him ... From that moment I understood and fell in love with this man without limit.

Recently, in late autumn, wandering around Khamovniki, I stopped at Tolstoy's house. The museum was closed. I remembered small, low rooms, a wooden staircase to the second floor ... Almost nothing remained of the land of the once large estate, multi-storey gray houses surrounded the house on all sides. The still-fallen leaves on the trees shone with a barely perceptible warm light.
Once upon a time winter evening Ivan Bunin visited Tolstoy here. “... wilderness, silence, empty moon lane,<…>snow yard,<…>there is a garden behind the house, and above it, fabulously charming stars quietly playing with multi-colored rays.<…>... how mysterious and full of meaning are these illuminated windows: after all, here is He! And such silence that you can hear how the heart is pounding **
And my first visit to this house was in winter. We came there with my father, who came to Moscow for a short time. I thank him for infecting me with love and deep respect for Tolstoy.
Often, when I walk along Khamovniki, this amazing person- a count in simple boots with a slanted beard, riding a cart with a barrel for water and driving a horse, and sometimes on horseback after a morning walk, and I hear a sudden angry cry: “Antichrist!”, and some kind of unkind thickens around him, dark force. And sometimes fragments of his words will reach me:
“In order to be accepted as one of my chosen readers, I require that you be sensitive, that you be a religious person…”
"How much society and books mean..."
“... and I fell in love with Dorka (the dog) because she is not an egoist. How would one learn to live in such a way as to always rejoice in the happiness of others?

The occupation of pedagogy, the desire to get rid of wealth - all this caused irritation and neglect of his thoughts among members of his family.
At the beginning of the 20th century, he looked anxiously into the future. “We,” he said, referring to Christians, “are often deceived by the fact that, when meeting with revolutionaries, we think that we are standing close by. Everything seems to be the same. But not only there big difference, but there are no people more distant from us than the revolutionaries. In his book " Christian teaching”, trying to explain why the world followed Christ, he writes about “temptations”, which are “disastrous semblances of goodness”, into which, like a trap, people fall. He considers it most dangerous when the state justifies the evil it does, supposedly for the benefit of the majority.
He looked for answers to the questions of solving the problems of modernity in religion. As a philosopher, Tolstoy thought a lot about death. “All those who devoted themselves to philosophy did nothing else but prepare for dying and death,” Plato argued. Tolstoy said more than once: "Life is death."

On the gloomy, autumn day of Tolstoy's death, when all the newspapers came out with his portrait in a mourning frame, from which an old man with a slanting beard in a baggy blouse looked mournfully, Ivan Bunin, who loved him so much, remembered a young, tanned cadet in the forest above the hot Terek summer day thinking: “... happiness lies in living for others ... the need for happiness is embedded in a person; so it is legal. Satisfying it egoistically, that is, seeking for oneself riches, fame, the convenience of life, love, it may happen that circumstances develop in such a way that it will be impossible to satisfy this desire. Therefore, these desires are illegal, and not the need for happiness is illegal. What desires can always be satisfied, despite external conditions? Which? Love, selflessness! He was so delighted and excited, having discovered this, as it seemed to him, a new truth, that he jumped up and impatiently began to look for someone to sacrifice himself as soon as possible, to whom he could do good ... "***

__________________________________________________

* Buddha's words from notebook L. Tolstoy
** Here and below, quotes from the work of I.A. Bunin "The Liberation of Tolstoy"
*** L. Tolstoy "Cossacks"

Prepared on the basis of an electronic copy of the 16th volume of the Complete Works of L.N. Tolstoy, provided by the Russian State Library

Electronic edition of the 90-volume collected works of L.N. Tolstoy is available on the portal www.tolstoy.ru

Preface to the 16th volume of the Complete Works of L.N. Tolstoy can be read in this edition

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This publication is an electronic version of the 90-volume collected works of Leo Tolstoy, published in 1928-1958. This is a unique academic publication, the most complete collection legacy of Leo Tolstoy, has long become a bibliographic rarity. In 2006, the museum-estate " Yasnaya Polyana» in cooperation with the Russian state library and with the support of the E. Mellon Foundation and coordination The British Council carried out the scanning of all 90 volumes of the publication. However, in order to enjoy all the advantages of the electronic version (reading on modern devices, the ability to work with text), more than 46,000 pages had to be recognized. For this State Museum L.N. Tolstoy, Yasnaya Polyana museum-estate, together with a partner, ABBYY, opened the project "The whole of Tolstoy in one click." More than 3,000 volunteers joined the project on readingtolstoy.ru, and they used ABBYY FineReader to recognize text and correct errors. Literally in ten days, the first stage of reconciliation was completed, and in two months, the second. After the third stage of proofreading volumes and individual works published in in electronic format on the site tolstoy.ru.

The edition retains the spelling and punctuation of the printed version of the 90-volume collected works of L.N. Tolstoy.

Project manager "All Tolstoy in one click"

Fekla Tolstaya

Reprinting is allowed free of charge

TEXT PREPARATION

T. N. VOLKOVA and N. S. RODIONOV

Printing the essay, on which I have assigned five years of unceasing and exceptional labor, with best conditions life, I would like to state my opinion on it in the preface to this essay and thereby forestall those perplexities that may arise in readers. I wanted readers not to see and not look for in my book what I did not want or could not express, and would pay attention to exactly what I wanted to express, but on which (according to the terms of the work) I did not consider it convenient to dwell on. Neither time nor my skill allowed me to do quite what I intended, and I take advantage of the hospitality of a special journal in order to, although incompletely and briefly, for those readers who may be interested, set out the author's view of his work.

1) What is War and Peace? This is not a novel, still less a poem, still less historical chronicle. War and Peace is what the author wanted and could express in the form in which it was expressed. Such a statement about the author's disregard for the conventional forms of prose artwork might seem presumptuous if it were intentional and if it had no examples. The history of Russian literature since Pushkin not only presents many examples of such a departure from the European form, but does not even give a single example of the contrary. Starting from Dead Souls Gogol and before Dead House Dostoevsky, in the new period of Russian literature there is not a single artistic prose work, a little out of mediocrity, which would fit perfectly into the form of a novel, poem or story.

2) The nature of time, as some readers expressed to me when the first part appeared in print, is not sufficiently defined in my work. To this reproach I have the following objection. I know what the character of the time is, which is not found in my novel - these are the horrors of serfdom, the laying of wives in walls, the beating of adult sons, Saltychikha, etc.; and this character of that time that lives in our imagination - I do not consider it true and did not want to express. Studying letters, diaries, legends, I did not find all the horrors of this rampage to a greater extent than I find them now or ever. In those days, people also loved, envied, searched for truth, virtue, were carried away by passions; the same was a complex mental and moral life, even sometimes more refined than now, in the upper class. If in our conception an opinion was formed about the nature of the self-will and brute force of that time, it is only because in legends, notes, stories and novels only prominent cases of violence and violence have come down to us. To conclude that the prevailing character of that time was violence is just as unfair as a person who sees only the tops of trees from behind a mountain would unfairly conclude that there is nothing in this area but trees. There is a character of that time (as well as the character of each epoch), arising from the greater alienation of the upper circle from other classes, from the reigning philosophy, from the peculiarities of education, from the habit of using French, etc. And I tried to express this character as much as I could .

3) Use French in Russian writing. Why do not only Russians, but also French speak in my work, partly in Russian, partly in French? The reproach that people speak and write in French in a Russian book is similar to the reproach that a person would make when looking at a picture and noticing black spots (shadows) in it, which are not in reality. The painter is not to blame for the fact that some - the shadow he made on the face of the picture seems to be a black spot, which does not exist in reality; but the painter is only to blame if these shadows are placed incorrectly and roughly. Dealing with the era of the beginning present century, depicting the faces of Russians of a well-known society, and Napoleon, and the French, who had such direct participation in the life of that time, I was involuntarily carried away by the form of expression of that French mindset more than was necessary. And therefore, without denying that the shadows I have laid down are probably incorrect and rude, I would only wish that those who find it very funny how Napoleon speaks now in Russian, now in French, would know that it is for them it seems only because they, like a person looking at a portrait, see not a face with light and shadows, but a black spot under the nose.

4) Names actors: Bolkonsky, Drubetskoy, Bilibin, Kuragin, etc. resemble famous Russian names. Comparing the current historical figures with other historical figures, I felt awkward for the ear to force Count Rostopchin to speak with Prince. Pronsky, with Strelsky, or with some other princes or counts of a fictitious, double or single family name. Bolkonsky or Drubetskoy, although they are neither Volkonsky nor Trubetskoy, sound familiar and natural in Russian aristocratic circles. I did not know how to come up with names for all the faces that would not seem false to my ear, like Bezukhov and Rostov, and I did not know how to get around this difficulty otherwise than by taking at random the surnames most familiar to the Russian ear and changing some letters in them. I would be very sorry if the similarity of fictitious names with real ones could give someone the idea that I wanted to describe this or that real person; especially because that literary activity, which consists in describing really existing or existing persons, has nothing in common with the one with which I was concerned.

Hi all.

I'm happy to open a section. "As the Greats Wrote". These writers, publicists are recognized all over the world. So, their work can be studied. At least in order to understand why their texts are read by millions. You shouldn't imitate.

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy

The first article is about Leo Tolstoy. As he wrote.

Like this, sitting at the table 🙂

But seriously, to the question " Why Tolstoy? I have at least, two answers.

The first one is worth learning from. This man always wrote as truthfully as possible and at the same time owned the word in all its power. Tolstoy is very straightforward and his books are still on the shelves of hundreds of thousands of people. 130-150 years later after creation. Not many authors achieve this. Also, consider the fact that he was a believer, and experienced Soviet militant atheism...

Secondly, this thought inspires me terribly. Tolstoy wrote everything by hand. Let this be a simple fact. But think about it. These are 272 works, of which about 170 were published during his lifetime. Just think about it: even 4 huge volumes of "War and Peace" are written by hand and designed in the head of one person. It inspires me. Such perseverance, diligence and courage. What if the book didn't work? “I’ll write anyway,” Lev Nikolaevich probably thought and wrote for 6 years.

I prepared this article primarily for everyone who wants to write strongly and touch the strings of the soul with the written word.

Until I read everything.

So the principles are:

• First principle. Serious preparation. Serious form.

Whatever Lev Nikolayevich writes about, a very deep approach is felt in his prose. Careful preparation for any topic is felt in every book. In "War and Peace", in the Kreutzer Sonata (which is only worth comparing the Kreutzer Sonata with his wife's betrayal), Confessions, On Art. This is especially true in War and Peace. In fact, Tolstoy had been preparing for the publication of War and Peace since 1856, when he first had such an idea. And the book was published only in 1869. The novel was actually written for 6 intense years, from 1863 to 1869. By historical information, the novel was rewritten 8 times by Tolstoy himself. And individual episodes up to 26 times.

This is worth learning.

• Second. depth and honesty.

Every thing I read is filled with a special depth of sincerity and honesty. And this honesty touches. I started reading Confessions during a break when I was seriously busy writing for a client. And he couldn't tear himself away. Each honest conclusion of Tolstoy, reflected on paper, was reflected in my soul as clearly as I see a reflection of myself in the water of a lake.

It wasn't until I finished reading the book that I was able to switch to the order. This rarely happens to me.

Openness to the truth on the one hand, and the ability to reflect on paper the conclusions drawn with the most accurate wording.

This sincerity and honesty makes me want to think the same way. That is sincere and honest. And for this principle I am especially grateful to Lev Nikolaevich. In our time, when the Internet, prose and everything around is overflowing with superficial, vulgar and empty. His deep prose especially touches the soul.

It clarifies the heart and mind so much that one also wants to think straight and make decisions according to conscience and before God.

This is for me today main principle good prose. When, after reading it, you cannot think in the old way. But again and again with open heart you go back to what you read, and these reflections, these reflections change you from the inside. Gradually, not quickly. But inevitable. Good prose is unobtrusive. With its honesty, it evokes a keen desire to ponder and study in more detail what is described. Good prose corrects, improves, but does not force one to do so.

Such is the prose of Leo Tolstoy.

• Third. Professionalism.

When you read good quality prose, you feel it every second. Maybe it's just for me, but I felt like I was reading something of very high quality. With my approach, where I could write something hastily and sloppy - every written word and image was like a revelation.

When you read a strong text, you are distracted from everything around you. It sucks like a funnel.

• Fourth. Characters.

There is important rule for writers. Not to write "he was smart", but to show the mind of the character so that the reader himself perfectly understands this. And I thought to myself, “hmm, this guy is smart.”

So Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy did an excellent job with this task. Each of the characters in any of his books has its own character. Real. If this is the boy Petya Rostov in War and Peace, then he is shown as a suspicious and frightened, but at the same time a kind and trusting boy. If this is a young girl, then after 2-3 sentences I already begin to see beauty and a seething stream of life in her. Tolstoy does it wonderfully. Pozdnyshev, the husband from the Kreutzer Sonata, is shown to be quick-tempered and harsh. I still remember that on the day I read this book, I got so turned on by a quarrel in the book that I had a fight with my wife. The example is negative, but it accurately characterizes the essence.

In the novel "War and Peace" - more than 500 characters that perfectly show the life of all segments of the population of Russia in the early 19th century. More than 500… Just imagine that you need to do this, and you will understand the complexity of this task, which Leo Tolstoy did very well.

Here, for example, are the relationships between the heroes of the novel "War and Peace" (click to open the full picture):

By the way, Tolstoy uses many historical characters in his novel War and Peace. And he writes about each with such authentic accuracy, as if he was filming them on video, and then writing, peeping into the video.

• Fifth. Plot.

The depth of the plot is another important component. If the plot does not force you to turn the page one by one, then the book is doomed to failure.

The plot must be realistic.

• Sixth. principle of the artist. He does not invent, but depicts.

The penultimate thing I want to pay special attention to.

I for a long time I could not understand how it was possible to depict war, hunting, a walk, and people's relationships with such amazing accuracy. Until I read the article by Tolstoy himself mentioned above. Tolstoy does not consider himself a writer in the full sense of the word. He calls himself an artist. And this - main feature. And its main task is to draw, depict, show what has already been created.

Here is what Tolstoy himself says about it:

My disagreement is in the description historical events with the stories of historians. It is not accidental, but inevitable. Historian and artist, describing historical era, have two completely different things. Just as the historian would be wrong if he tries to represent a historical person in all its integrity, in all the complexity of its relationship to all aspects of life, so the artist will not do his job, always presenting the person in his historical meaning. Kutuzov, not always with a telescope, rode a white horse, pointing at the enemies. Rostopchin did not always light the Vorontsov House with a torch (he never even did this), and Empress Maria Feodorovna did not always stand in an ermine mantle, leaning her hand on the code of laws; and this is how the popular imagination imagines them.

The historian deals with the results of an event, the artist with the very fact of the event. The historian, describing the battle, says: the left flank of such and such an army was moved against the village of such and such, shot down the enemy, but was forced to retreat; then the cavalry launched into the attack overturned ... and so on. The historian cannot say otherwise. Meanwhile for an artist, these words do not make any sense and do not even affect the event itself. Painter, whether from his own experience or from letters, notes and stories, renders its view about an event that has taken place, and very often (in the example of a battle) the conclusion about the activities of such and such troops, which the historian allows himself to make, turns out to be the opposite of the conclusion of the artist. The difference in the results obtained is also explained by the sources from which both draw their information. For the historian (we continue the example of the battle), the main source is the reports of private commanders and the commander in chief. An artist cannot draw anything from such sources. They don't say anything to him, they don't explain anything. Little of, the artist turns away from them, finding in them the necessary lies. Needless to say, in every battle, both enemies almost always describe the battle in completely opposite ways to one another; in every description of the battle there is a need for a lie, arising from the need to describe in a few words the actions of a thousand people spread over several miles, being in the strongest moral irritation under the influence of fear, shame and death.

So, the task of the artist and the historian is completely different, and the disagreement with the historian in the description of events and persons in my book should not strike the reader. But the artist should not forget that the idea of ​​historical persons and events that has been formed among the people is based not on fantasy, but on historical documents how far historians could group them; and therefore, understanding and presenting these persons and events in a different way, the artist must be guided, like the historian, by historical materials. Wherever historical figures speak and act in my novel, I did not invent, but used materials from which, during my work, a whole library of books was formed, the titles of which I do not find it necessary to write out here, but which I can always refer to.

• Seventh. Principle when to write.

“You should write only when you can’t not write”

This idea was expressed by Tolstoy in a letter (September 2, 1908) to Leonid Andreev: “I think that you need to write [...] only when the thought you want to express is so intrusive that it will not leave you until you express it as best you can”. And also an entry in the writer's diary dated October 19, 1909: "If you have to write, then only when you cannot help but write."

Today I was happy to share the principles of writing strong texts, which I took for myself from Leo Tolstoy. I am sure that if you follow these simple principles, your any texts will become stronger and more interesting.

Finally, I will share a summary of L.N. Tolstoy’s extremely useful article “On Art”:

A work of art is good or bad because of what it says, how it says it, and how far the artist speaks from the heart. In order for a work of art to be perfect, it is necessary that what the artist says be completely new and important for all people, that it be expressed quite beautifully, and that the artist speak from an inner need and therefore speak quite truthfully.

In order for what the artist says to be completely new and important, it is necessary for the artist to be a morally enlightened person, and therefore would not live an exclusively selfish life, but would be a participant in common life humanity.

Thank you for your attention.

Let your lyrics be strong.