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Speech at the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature (Tolstoy). Unpublished, unfinished and unfinished

Speech at the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature (Tolstoy). Unpublished, unfinished and unfinished

26.03.2019

Merciful G[sires]. My election as a member of the society flattered my vanity and sincerely rejoiced me. This flattering choice, I attribute not so much to my feeble attempts in literature, but to the sympathy expressed by this election for the area of literature in which these attempts were made. In the last two years, political and especially revealing literature, borrowing for its own purposes the means of art and finding remarkably intelligent, honest and talented representatives who answered with ardor and decisiveness every minute's question, every temporal wound of society, seemed to have absorbed all the attention of the public and deprived fiction of all its significance. The majority of the public began to think that the task of all literature is only to denounce evil, to discuss and correct it, in a word, to develop civic feeling in society. In the last two years, I happened to read and hear judgments that the times of fables and rhymes have passed irrevocably, that the time is coming when Pushkin will be forgotten and will no longer be re-read, that pure art is impossible, that literature is only an instrument for the civil development of society, etc. True, the voices of Fet, Turgenev, Ostrovsky, muffled by the political noise, were heard at that time, rumors about art for art’s sake, renewed in criticism, alien to us, were heard, but society knew what it was doing, continued to sympathize with political literature alone and consider it alone - literature . This enthusiasm was noble, necessary, and even temporarily just. In order to have the strength to take those huge steps forward that our society has made in Lately, it had to be one-sided, it had to be carried further than the goal, in order to reach it, it had to see this goal alone in front of it. And indeed, was it possible to think about poetry at a time when for the first time a picture of the evil surrounding us was revealed before our eyes and an opportunity was presented to get rid [of] it. How to think about beauty when it hurts! It is not for us, who enjoy the fruits of this passion, to reproach him for it. The unconscious need for respect for literature widespread in society, the public opinion that has arisen, I will even say self-government, which has replaced our political literature for us, are the fruits of this noble passion. But no matter how noble and beneficial this one-sided infatuation was, it could not continue, like any infatuation. The literature of the people is its complete, all-round consciousness, in which it should equally reflect how folk love to goodness and truth, so is the popular contemplation of beauty in known era development. Now that the first irritation of the newly discovered activity has passed, the triumph of success has also passed, when the long restrained political current that had broken through and threatened to swallow up all literature had subsided and subsided in its course, society realized the one-sidedness of its enthusiasm. Rumors were heard that the dark pictures of evil were tired, that it was useless to describe what we all know, etc. And the society was right. This naively expressed dissatisfaction meant that society now understood, not only from critical articles, but realized by experience, lived through that seeming simple truth that, no matter how great the significance political literature that reflects the temporary interests of society, no matter how necessary it is for the development of the people, there is another literature that reflects the eternal, common human interests, the most expensive, sincere consciousness of the people, literature accessible to a person of any people and any time, and literature, without which not a single people developed, having strength and juiciness.

This conviction, which has recently appeared, is doubly joyful for me. It is joyful for me personally, as for a one-sided lover of belles-lettres, which I sincerely acknowledge myself to be, and joyful in general, as a new proof of the strength and maturity of our society and literature. The consciousness that has penetrated into society of the necessity and significance of two separate kinds of literature is the best proof that our literature is not at all, as many still think, children's fun transferred from foreign soil, but that it stands on its own solid foundations, responds to the many-sided needs of its own. society, has said and still has a lot to say, and there is a serious consciousness of a serious people.

In our time of maturity of our literature, more than ever one can be proud of the title of a Russian writer, rejoice at the resumption of the society of lovers of Russian literature and sincerely thank for the honor of being elected a member of this venerable society.

Comments

On January 28, 1859, at the suggestion of K. S. Aksakov, Tolstoy was elected, simultaneously with I. S. Turgenev, to the membership of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature at Moscow University. This society was one of the oldest literary societies in Russia (founded in 1811), but during most of the reign of Nicholas I it was inactive and only in 1858 resumed its meetings, at a moment marked by a general upsurge in Russian public life. A. S. Khomyakov, K. S. Aksakov, M. A. Maksimovich and M. N. Longinov were the closest people responsible for the revival of the Society and the resumption of its activities. According to the new leaders of the Society, it was supposed to serve the cause of rapprochement between Russian literature and the Russian public. At one of the first meetings of the renewed Society, on January 21, 1859, its temporary secretary, M. N. Longinov, delivered a keynote speech dedicated to clarifying public interest Russian literature and its merits in the matter of moral and civic education Russian society, the spread among it of liberal ideas and noble aspirations. In particular, he pointed to the enormous educational value, the so-called accusatory literature, which revealed social ulcers and vices and fought against the conditions that gave rise to them and supported their existence.

Following the example of some European scholars and literary societies, Khomyakov, as chairman of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature, introduced the custom according to which every newly elected member had to make a speech on a topic of a literary nature; in turn, the chairman himself, on such occasions, usually took the floor to reply to the new member. Obeying this custom, at the very next meeting of the Society on February 4, 1859, Tolstoy made a short speech in which he outlined his views on the paramount importance artistic element in literature. The choice of this topic and the very content of the speech were by no means accidental, unexpected, but were a reflection of Tolstoy's interests and opinions, characteristic of this period of time. The end of the fifties, when everything Russian society experienced a period of social upheaval, literary reflection which was the development democratic literature, saturated with combative questions of social life and struggle, was marked by Tolstoy, contrary to the prevailing mood, by a passion for the idea of pure, self-sufficient art. In "Alberta", in "Lucerne", in "Dream" this idea of the lofty, irrelevant significance of art found itself artistic expression; but it was also reflected in some of the diary entries and in Tolstoy's letters to friends, especially in letters to V.P. Botkin, who in this era was his main adviser and arbiter on issues of art and literature. So in a letter to him dated November 1, 1857, describing his impressions after returning to his homeland from a trip abroad, Tolstoy writes: “Druzhinin is also smart, calm and firm in his convictions. I did not catch him and saw the last of all our mutual acquaintances. After Nekrasov's gloom, Annenkov's vague mobility, and various political, unfeeling outpourings, I rested at Druzhinin's. In general, I must tell you that the new direction of literature has done something that all our old acquaintances and your humble servant themselves do not know what? they are like that, and have the appearance of being spat on... Saltykov even explained to me that the time has now passed for fine literature (and not for Russia now, but in general), that in all of Europe Homer and Goethe will no longer be re-read. After all, all this is ridiculous, but you will go crazy when suddenly the whole world assures that the sky is black when you see it blue, and you involuntarily think whether you yourself see well. Under the influence of this mood, Tolstoy even had the idea of the need to publish some collection or even a journal that would come out in defense of pure art. On January 4, 1858, he wrote to the same correspondent, in response to his extensive letter from Rome, in which Botkin sets out his views on state of the art Russian literature, largely coinciding with the point of view of Tolstoy himself: “In our country, that is, in Russian society, an unprecedented mess is taking place, raised by the issue of emancipation. Political life suddenly, unexpectedly embraced everyone ... Fine literature, positively, has no place now for the public. But don't think that prevents me from loving her now more than ever. I'm tired of talk, arguments, speeches, etc... I have serious business with you. Thu? would you say at the present time, when the dirty political stream wants to decisively gather everything into itself and, if not destroy, then pollute art, what would you say about people who, believing in the independence and eternity of art, would gather in deed (i.e. . by the very art in the word) and by the word (criticism) would prove this truth and save the eternal, independent of accidental, one-sided and exciting political influence? Can't we be these people? That is, Turgenev, you, Fet, I and everyone who shares our convictions. The means to this, of course, is a magazine, a collection, whatever you want. Everything that is and will be purely artistic should be attracted to this magazine; everything Russian and foreign that is artistic should be condemned. The purpose of the magazine is one: artistic enjoyment, crying and laughing. The magazine proves nothing, knows nothing. One measure of it is educated taste. The journal does not want to know either one direction or the other, and therefore, obviously, wants to know the needs of the public even less. The magazine does not want quantitative success. He does not imitate the taste of the public, but boldly becomes a teacher of the public in the matter of taste, but only taste.

Although the idea of publishing a purely artistic journal, casually abandoned by Tolstoy, was not carried out, and was hardly feasible under the prevailing social mood of that era, its very inception in Tolstoy's mind is extremely revealing. No less indicative is his sympathetic review of Druzhinin, who in this era, along with Botkin, was the most prominent representative of the theory of pure art in Russian criticism; also indicative is the fact that it was to these years that the emergence of intimate friendly relations between Tolstoy and Fet, whose poetry led away public consciousness from the contradictions of conscious reality, from questions of social struggle.

Taken in this perspective, Tolstoy's speech to the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature is a concise summary of those thoughts about the meaning and role of art in the life of a person and people that have developed in these years in Tolstoy's mind, and which we meet in fragmentary maxims in many places in his Diaries. and letters of this time. Thus, for example, the Diary entry of March 21, 1858, contains, in the form of a cursory hint, the main idea of his entire speech: “The political excludes the artistic, for the first, in order to prove, must be one-sided.” In his speech to the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature on February 4, 1859, Tolstoy only developed this idea and gave it a clear and complete expression.

We find some details about this meeting in the minutes printed in Moskovskie Vedomosti No. 59 of March 10, 1859:

“1859, February 4th day, under the chairmanship of A. S. Khomyakov and in the presence of Messrs. Full Members: S. A. Maslova, M. P. Pogodin, S. P. Shevyrev, N. F. Pavlov, A. F. Tomashevsky, M. A. Maksimovich, A. F. Veltman, I. S. Aksakov , P. A. Bessonova, M. N. Longinov, F. B. Miller, S. A. Sobolevsky, N. V. Sushkov, V. M. Undolsky, S. M. Solovyov, P. I. Bartenev, N F. von Kruse, I. V. Selivanov and Count L. N. Tolstoy, The Society had its usual 5th meeting, in which the following took place:

2. The newly elected members: I. V. Selivanov, Count L. N. Tolstoy, N. F. von Kruse and S. M. Solovyov delivered speeches in which they expressed their gratitude to the Society for their election. In addition, in these speeches, I. V. Selivanov outlined his view on the so-called accusatory literature and on the need for it to be famous times folk life. Count L. N. Tolstoy touched upon the question of the advantages of the artistic element in literature over all its temporal trends; JF von Kruse presented several thoughts on the meaning of the word in the development of society; S. M. Solovyov pointed to the appearance of accusatory literature in two different eras society: an era of growth and an era of decline.

After the greetings spoken by the Mr. Chairman to the new Members and a lengthy conversation, in which, in addition to the Mr. Chairman and the above-named Members, other Members also took part and made their comments, the Society put: a) the speeches of the Full Members I. V. Selivanov, Count L N. Tolstoy and N. F. von Kruse, submitted by them in writing, to be printed in a future edition of the Society, and b) to ask S. M. Solovyov to set out in writing the remarks made by him, for printing both of them together with the speeches mentioned above.

It can be seen from the above extract from the minutes that the speeches delivered by the newly elected members of the Society at the meeting on February 4 dealt mainly with the question of comparative value the importance of the purely artistic and political element in literature, with Tolstoy emphasizing the primary importance of the first, while all other speakers focused their attention on the second, in their understanding accusatory. He was also touched upon in his response speech to Tolstoy by the chairman of the Society, A. S. Khomyakov, who spoke in defense of the legality and importance of denunciation in literature. “The rights of literature, servants of eternal beauty, do not destroy the rights of accusatory literature, which always accompanies social imperfection, and sometimes is a healer of social ulcers. There is an infinite beauty in the unruffled truth and harmony of the soul; but there is true, lofty beauty in repentance, which restores the truth and aspires a person or society to moral perfection. (Works of A. S. Khomyakov. Moscow. 1900. Vol. III, p. 418.)

The resolution of the Society regarding the publication of speeches delivered at its meetings, including Tolstoy's, was not enforced, not through the fault of the Society, but because the government did not allow the printing of the "Proceedings" of the Society without prior censorship, i.e. deprived his rights, which it had already under its first Charter of 1811. In view of such a derogation of its rights, the Society decided to temporarily refrain from publishing its works, and thus Tolstoy's speech remained unpublished. In the present edition, it is printed from a surviving copy, written by a clerk's hand, with corrections made by the author himself. The manuscript occupies 2 sheets of writing paper of an ordinary size, and is stored in the Tolstoy office of the All-Union Library. V. I. Lenin. (Folder XXII. 8.) For the first time, "Speech in the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature" was published in the edition of the "Federation": "Leo Tolstoy. Unreleased works of art”, with introductory articles by A. E. Gruzinsky and V. F. Savodnik. M. 1928, pp. 247-250.

Footnotes

298. In the original: one

299. Strikethrough: about rhymes and fables, about graceful

300. In the original: All

301. In the original: reflective

Current page: 1 (total book has 2 pages)

Lev Nikolaevich
Tolstoy
Speech at the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature
(1859)

State publishing house

« Fiction»

Moscow - 1935

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Preface to the electronic edition

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 Yasnaya Polyana Estate Museum, 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. To this end, the State Museum of Leo Tolstoy, the Yasnaya Polyana Museum-Estate, together with a partner, ABBYY, opened the project “All 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.

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UNPUBLISHED, UNFINISHED AND UNFINISHED

** [SPEECH IN THE SOCIETY OF LOVERS OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE.]

Merciful G[sires]. My election as a member of the society flattered my vanity and sincerely rejoiced me. This flattering election, I attribute not so much to my weak attempts at literature, but to the sympathy expressed by this election for the area of literature in which these attempts were made. In the last two years, political and especially incriminating literature, having borrowed the means of art for its purposes and found remarkably intelligent, honest and talented representatives, who answered ardently and decisively to every question of the minute, to every temporary wound of society, seemed to have absorbed all the attention of the public and deprived fiction of all its significance. The majority of the public began to think that the task of all literature is only to denounce evil, to discuss and correct it, in a word, to develop civic feeling in society. In the last two years, I happened to read and hear judgments that the times of fables and rhymes have passed irrevocably, that the time is coming when Pushkin will be forgotten and will no longer be re-read, that pure art is impossible, that literature is only an instrument for the civil development of society and etc. True, the voices of Fet, Turgenev, Ostrovsky, muffled by the political noise, were heard at that time, rumors about art for art’s sake, renewed in criticism, alien to us, were heard, but society knew what it was doing, continued to sympathize with one political literature and consider it one 1
In the original: one

- literature. This passion was noble, necessary, and even temporarily justified. In order to have the strength to take those huge steps forward that our society has taken in recent times, it had to be one-sided, it had to be carried away further than the goal, in order to achieve it, it was necessary to see this goal alone in front of yourself. And indeed, could one think 2
Strikethrough:about rhymes and fables, about graceful

About poetry at a time when for the first time a picture of the evil surrounding us was revealed before our eyes and it was possible to get rid of it. How to think about beauty when it hurts! It is not for us, who enjoy the fruits of this passion, to reproach him for it. The unconscious need for respect for literature widespread in society, the public opinion that has arisen, I will even say self-government, which our political literature has replaced for us, are the fruits of this noble passion. But no matter how noble and beneficial this one-sided infatuation was, it could not continue, like any other infatuation. The literature of the people is its complete, all-round consciousness, in which both the people's love for goodness and truth, and the people's contemplation of beauty in a certain era of development, should be equally reflected. Now that the first irritation of the newly discovered activity has passed, the triumph of success has also passed, when the long-restrained political current that had broken through and threatened to swallow up all literature had subsided and subsided in its course, society realized the one-sidedness of its enthusiasm. Rumors were heard that the dark pictures of evil were tired, that it was useless to describe what we all 3
In the original: All

We know, etc. And society was right. This naively expressed dissatisfaction meant that society now understood, not only from critical articles, but learned from experience, lived through that seemingly simple truth that, no matter how great the significance of political literature, reflecting 4
In the original: reflective

In itself, the temporary interests of society, no matter how necessary it is for the development of the people, there is another literature that reflects the eternal, common human interests, the most expensive, sincere consciousness of the people, literature, accessible to a person of any people and any time, and literature , without which not a single people developed, having strength and juiciness.

This recently revealed conviction is doubly joyful for me. It is joyful for me personally, as for a one-sided lover of belles-lettres, which I sincerely acknowledge myself to be, and joyful in general, as a new proof of the strength and maturity of our society and literature. The consciousness that has penetrated into society of the necessity and significance of two separate kinds of literature is the best proof that our literature is not at all, as many still think, children's fun transferred from foreign soil, but that it stands on its own solid foundations, answers to the many-sided needs of their society, has said and still has much to say, and is the serious consciousness of a serious people.

Comments by N. M. Mendelssohn

[SPEECH IN THE SOCIETY OF LOVERS OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE.]

On January 28, 1859, at the suggestion of K. S. Aksakov, Tolstoy was elected, simultaneously with I. S. Turgenev, to the membership of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature at Moscow University. This society was one of the oldest literary societies in Russia (founded in 1811), but during most of the reign of Nicholas I it was inactive and only in 1858 resumed its meetings, at a moment marked by a general upsurge in Russian public life. A. S. Khomyakov, K. S. Aksakov, M. A. Maksimovich and M. N. Longinov were the closest people responsible for the revival of the Society and the resumption of its activities. According to the new leaders of the Society, it was supposed to serve the cause of rapprochement between Russian literature and the Russian public. At one of the first meetings of the renewed Society, on January 21, 1859, its temporary secretary, M.N. ideas and noble aspirations. In particular, he pointed to the enormous educational value of the so-called accusatory literature, which revealed social ulcers and vices and fought against the conditions that gave rise to them and supported their existence.

Following the example of some European scholars and literary societies, Khomyakov, as chairman of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature, introduced the custom according to which every newly elected member had to make a speech on a topic of a literary nature; in turn, the chairman himself, on such occasions, usually took the floor to reply to the new member. Obeying this custom, at the very next meeting of the Society on February 4, 1859, Tolstoy delivered a short speech in which he outlined his views on the primacy of the artistic element in literature. The choice of this topic and the very content of the speech were by no means accidental, unexpected, but were a reflection of Tolstoy's interests and opinions, characteristic of this period of time. The end of the fifties, when the whole of Russian society was experiencing a period of social upsurge, the literary reflection of which was the development of democratic literature, saturated with combative questions of social life and struggle, was marked by Tolstoy, contrary to the prevailing mood, by a passion for the idea of pure, self-sufficient art. In Alberta, in Lucerne, in The Dream, this idea of the lofty, irrelevant significance of art found artistic expression; but it was also reflected in some of the diary entries and in Tolstoy's letters to friends, especially in letters to V.P. Botkin, who in this era was his main adviser and arbiter on issues of art and literature. So in a letter to him dated November 1, 1857, describing his impressions after returning to his homeland from a trip abroad, Tolstoy writes: “Druzhinin is also smart, calm and firm in his convictions. I did not catch him and saw the last of all our mutual acquaintances. After Nekrasov's gloom, Annenkov's vague mobility, and various political, unfeeling outpourings, I rested at Druzhinin's. In general, I must tell you that the new direction of literature has made all our old acquaintances and your humble servant themselves do not know what they are, and look like spat on ... Saltykov even explained to me that the time has now passed for fine literature (and not for Russia now, but in general) that throughout Europe Homer and Goethe will no longer be reread. After all, all this is ridiculous, but you will go crazy when suddenly the whole world assures that the sky is black when you see it blue, and you involuntarily think whether you yourself see well. Under the influence of this mood, Tolstoy even had the idea of the need to publish some collection or even a journal that would come out in defense of pure art. On January 4, 1858, he wrote to the same correspondent, in response to his extensive letter from Rome, in which Botkin sets out his views on the current state of Russian literature, which largely coincide with the point of view of Tolstoy himself: “We, i.e., in Russian society, there is an unprecedented mess, raised by the issue of emancipation. Political life suddenly embraced everyone... Fine literature, positively, has no place now for the public. But don't think that prevents me from loving her now more than ever. I'm tired of talk, arguments, speeches, etc... I have serious business with you. What would you say at the present time, when the dirty political stream wants to resolutely gather everything into itself and, if not destroy, then pollute art, what would you say about people who, believing in the independence and eternity of art, would gather in deed (i.e. i.e. by the very art in the word) and the word (criticism) would prove this truth and save the eternal, independent of accidental, one-sided and exciting political influence? Can't we be these people? That is, Turgenev, you, Fet, I and everyone who shares our convictions. The means to this, of course, is a magazine, a collection, whatever you want. Everything that is and will be purely artistic should be attracted to this magazine; everything Russian and foreign that is artistic should be condemned. The purpose of the magazine is one: artistic enjoyment, crying and laughing. The magazine proves nothing, knows nothing. One measure of it is educated taste. The journal does not want to know either one direction or the other, and therefore, obviously, wants to know the needs of the public even less. The magazine does not want quantitative success. He does not imitate the taste of the public, but boldly becomes a teacher of the public in the matter of taste, but only taste.

Although the idea of publishing a purely artistic journal, casually abandoned by Tolstoy, was not carried out, and was hardly feasible under the prevailing social mood of that era, its very inception in Tolstoy's mind is extremely revealing. No less indicative is his sympathetic review of Druzhinin, who in this era, along with Botkin, was the most prominent representative of the theory of pure art in Russian criticism; it is also indicative that the emergence of intimate friendly relations between Tolstoy and Fet belongs to these years, whose poetry led public consciousness away from the contradictions of conscious reality, from issues of social struggle.

We find some details about this meeting in the minutes printed in Moskovskie Vedomosti No. 59 of March 10, 1859:

2. The newly elected members: I. V. Selivanov, Count L. N. Tolstoy, N. F. von Kruse and S. M. Solovyov delivered speeches in which they expressed their gratitude to the Society for their election. In addition, in these speeches, I. V. Selivanov outlined his views on the so-called accusatory literature and on the need for it in certain times of people's life. Count L. N. Tolstoy touched upon the question of the advantages of the artistic element in literature over all its temporal trends; JF von Kruse presented several thoughts on the meaning of the word in the development of society; S. M. Solovyov pointed to the appearance of accusatory literature in two different eras of society: the era of growth and the era of decline.

It can be seen from the above extract from the minutes that the speeches delivered by the newly elected members of the Society at the meeting on February 4 dealt mainly with the question of the relative importance of the purely artistic and political element in literature, with Tolstoy emphasizing the primary importance of the former, while all others the speakers focused their attention on the second, accusatory in their understanding. He was also touched upon in his response speech to Tolstoy by the chairman of the Society, A. S. Khomyakov, who spoke in defense of the legality and importance of denunciation in literature. “The rights of literature, servants of eternal beauty, do not destroy the rights of accusatory literature, which always accompanies social imperfection, and sometimes is a healer of social ulcers. There is an infinite beauty in the unruffled truth and harmony of the soul; but there is true, lofty beauty in repentance, which restores the truth and aspires a person or society to moral perfection. (Works of A. S. Khomyakov. Moscow. 1900. Vol. III, p. 418.)

The resolution of the Society regarding the publication of speeches delivered at its meetings, including Tolstoy's, was not enforced, not through the fault of the Society, but because the government did not allow the printing of the "Proceedings" of the Society without prior censorship, i.e. deprived his rights, which it had already under its first Charter of 1811. In view of such a derogation of its rights, the Society decided to temporarily refrain from publishing its works, and thus Tolstoy's speech remained unpublished. In the present edition, it is printed from a surviving copy, written by a clerk's hand, with corrections made by the author himself. The manuscript occupies 2 sheets of writing paper of an ordinary size, and is stored in the Tolstoy office of the All-Union Library. V. I. Lenin. (Folder XXII. 8.) For the first time, "Speech in the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature" was published in the edition of the "Federation": "Leo Tolstoy. Unpublished works of art”, with introductory articles by A. E. Gruzinsky and V. F. Savodnik. M. 1928, pp. 247-250.

PREFACE TO THE FIFTH VOLUME.

IN real volume includes works of 1856-1859.

Except famous works: “From the notes of Prince D. Nekhlyudov” (“Lucerne”), “Albert”, “Three deaths” and “Family happiness”, printed according to magazine texts, as the only authorized ones, this volume includes options for the last three things extracted from draft manuscripts of Tolstoy, as well as four works published after his death: “The Tale of How Another Girl Varinka Soon Grown Big”, “How Russian Soldiers Die” (“Anxiety”), “Summer in the Village” and “Speech in Society of Lovers of Russian Literature.

For the first time, unfinished and unfinished works and sketches of artistic content are printed in this volume: “The Beginning fantasy story"," Departure field", "Notes of a husband", "Excerpt without a title", "Bright Sunday of Christ"; writings related to the project for the liberation of the Yasnaya Polyana peasants, in the amount of seven issues; one sketch of journalistic content: "Note on the nobility"; a note of legal content: “On Russian military criminal legislation” and, finally, “An excerpt from a diary of 1857” (Travel notes in Switzerland) and “Forestry project”.

The works that appeared in the press during Tolstoy's lifetime are placed in the order of their publication, the rest - in the order of their writing, since they can be chronologically dated to a certain moment.

N. M. Mendelson.

V. F. Savodnik.

EDITORIAL NOTES TO THE FIFTH VOLUME.

Texts of works, printed during his lifetime L. Tolstoy, printed according to the new spelling, but with reproduction capital letters and styles of pre-Grotovskaya orthography in those cases when these styles reflect the pronunciation of L. Tolstoy and those of his circle (brychka, please).

When playing texts, unpublished in life L. Tolstoy (works that are not completely finished, unfinished, just begun, as well as draft texts), the following rules are observed:

The text is reproduced in compliance with all the features of spelling, which is not unified, that is, in cases of different spellings of the same word, all these differences are reproduced (“this” and “this”).

Words that are not written explicitly out of absent-mindedness are supplemented in direct brackets, without any reservation.

In the pronoun "what" over "o" the accent mark is placed in those cases where understanding would be difficult without it. This "emphasis" is not specified in the footnote.

The stresses (in "what" and other words), set by Tolstoy himself, are reproduced and this is stipulated in a footnote.

In place of words that are inconvenient in printing, a number is placed in double straight brackets indicating the number of words omitted by the editor: .

Incompletely written final letters (such as hook down, instead of final "ъ" or final letters "sya" in verb forms) are reproduced in full without any designations and reservations.

Conditional abbreviations (the so-called “abbreviations”) of the “k-th” type, instead of which, and words written incompletely, are reproduced in full, and the complemented letters are placed in straight brackets: “k[otor] th, “t[ak] k[ak]”, etc., only in those cases when the editor doubts the reading.

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Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich

Speech in a society of lovers of Russian literature

L.N. Tolstoy

SPEECH IN THE SOCIETY OF LOVERS OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE

Gracious sovereigns. My election as a member of the society flattered my vanity and sincerely rejoiced me. This flattering election I attribute not so much to mine. weak attempts in literature, how much to the sympathy expressed by this election for the field of literature in which these attempts were made. In the last two years, political and, in particular, incriminating literature, having borrowed the means of art for its purposes and found remarkably intelligent, honest and talented representatives who passionately and decisively answered every question of the minute, every temporary wound in society, seemed to have absorbed all the attention of the public. and stripped fiction of all its significance. The majority of the public began to think that the task of all literature is only to denounce evil, to discuss and correct it, in a word, to develop civil feeling in society. In the past two years, I have read and heard opinions that the times of fables and rhymes have passed irrevocably, that the time is coming when Pushkin will be forgotten and will no longer be re-read, that pure art it is impossible that literature is only a tool civil development society, etc. True, at that time the voices of Fet, Turgenev, Ostrovsky, drowned out by the political noise, were heard, renewed in criticism, alien to us, talk about art for art's sake, but society knew what it was doing, continued to sympathize with political literature alone and consider her one - literature. This passion was noble, necessary, and even temporarily justified. In order to have the strength to take those huge strides forward that our society has made recently, it had to be one-sided, it had to be carried away beyond the goal, in order to achieve it, it had to see this goal alone in front of it. And really, was it possible to think about poetry at a time when for the first time a picture of the evil surrounding us was revealed before our eyes and an opportunity was presented to get rid of it. How to think about the beautiful when it hurts! It is not for us, who enjoy the fruits of this hobby, to reproach him for it. The unconscious needs of respect for literature that are widespread in society, which have arisen public opinion I will even say that self-government, which our political literature has replaced for us, is the fruit of this noble passion. But no matter how noble and beneficial this one-sided infatuation was, it could not continue, like any other infatuation. The literature of the people is its full, all-round consciousness, in which both the people's love for goodness and truth, and the people's contemplation of beauty in a certain era of development, should equally be reflected. Now that the first irritation of the newly discovered activity has passed, the triumph of success has also passed, when the long-restrained political current that had broken through and threatened to swallow up all literature had subsided and subsided in its course, society realized the one-sidedness of its enthusiasm. Rumors were heard that the dark pictures of evil were tired, that it was useless to describe what we all know, etc. And the society was right. This naively expressed dissatisfaction meant that society now understood, not only from critical articles, but learned from experience, lived through that seemingly simple truth that, no matter how great the importance of political literature, reflecting the temporary interests of society, no matter how necessary it is for the development of the people. , there is another literature that reflects in itself the eternal, universal interests, the most dear, sincere consciousness of the people, literature accessible to a person of any people and any time, and literature without which not a single people developed, having strength and juiciness.

This recent conviction is doubly joyful for me. It is joyful for me personally, as for a one-sided lover of fine literature, which I sincerely acknowledge myself to be, and joyful in general, as a new proof of the strength and maturity of our society and literature. The consciousness that has penetrated into society of the necessity and significance of two separate kinds of literature is the best proof that our literature is not at all, as many still think, children's fun transferred from foreign soil, but that it stands on its own solid foundations, responds to the many-sided needs of its own. society, has said and still has much to say, and there is a serious consciousness of a serious people.

In our time of maturity of our literature, more than ever one can be proud of the title of a Russian writer, rejoice at the resumption of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature and sincerely thank for the honor of being elected a member of this venerable society.

The image of a woman in the religious consciousness has changed over the centuries: from matriarchy, where a woman was the head of the clan, clan, “judge”, and matricide was the most serious crime, to patriarchy, where a man took a leading position, and a woman began to be content with the title of “mistress hearth and obey the will of the man.

“In childhood, a woman must obey her father, in her youth - her husband, after the death of her husband - her sons ...”, the Indian “Laws of Manu” say. “Thank you, Lord, that you did not create me as a woman,” the Orthodox Jew repeats in prayer. “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church,” the Bible teaches. “Husbands are superior to wives because Allah has given one an advantage over the other,” insists the Qur'an.

Modest, submissive, existing for her man (father, husband, etc.) - this is the image of a woman, formed within the framework of religious consciousness. At a superficial glance, a picture of the complete oppression of women by men emerges. But don't you remember the beautiful ladies of the Middle Ages and modern times, because of which knights and gentlemen risked their lives, seeking their love or defending their honor? Don't you know the respect with which Hindus and Jews treat their mothers and wives? The Koran recognizes a wide range of rights for a woman and consistently protects them. A woman is the mistress of her husband's house. Christians honored and honor the image of the Holy Virgin Mary, and the purity and purity of a woman associated with it cause respect.

Religion some contemporary critics accused of being invented by men and in the interests of men, because:

a) God is allegedly male (but how can God have a gender?);

b) clergy - men (but you don’t have to curry favor with God - you just need to live according to his commandments);

c) the subordinate position of a woman is predetermined from the very beginning by the fact that she was created from the rib of a man (but is the life purpose of a woman to command a man?)

Isn't a truly chaste girl, who devotes all the power of maternal selflessness given to her to the service of God, manifested by love for people, the most beautiful and happiest human being?

Purpose Women and Men are one and the same. It consists in serving God. But the ways of this service are varied and precisely defined. And therefore, each gender must serve God in its own way, determined for it.

The main, exclusive business of a woman, given to her alone and necessary for the continuation and improvement of the human race, is the birth and upbringing of children. And therefore, all the forces and attention of a woman should be directed to him. And a man must create favorable conditions for the fulfillment of the exclusive mission of a woman.

But women are trying to prove to us that they can do everything that we men can do. I am ready to agree that women can do everything that men can do, maybe even better, but the problem is that men cannot do what only women can do. This applies not only to the birth and feeding of a child, but to the highest, best and closest thing to God - love, complete devotion to the one you love, a thing that real women have done and will do so well and naturally.

What would happen to the world, what would happen to us, men, if women did not have this property, and they would not show it? How can we do without mothers, helpers, girlfriends, comforters, who love in a man all the best that is in him, and the imperceptible suggestion of those who challenge and support this best in him? Without such women it would be bad to live in the world. Christ would not have had the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene, there would not have been thousands and thousands of obscure women, comforters of men in need of support and love, there would not have been the wives of the Decembrists who accomplished the "feat of selfless love." In this love there is an irreplaceable power of a woman.

A woman wants to improve - what can be more legitimate and fairer than this? But after all, the business of a woman, by her very purpose, is different from that of a man. And therefore the ideal of female perfection cannot be the same as the ideal of male perfection. Meanwhile, all this ridiculous and unkind activity of the fashionable women's movement is now directed towards the achievement of this "male ideal", which only confuses women and removes them from the true ideal, and does not bring them closer to it.

In the rapidly developing industrial society women, having lost their ideal, mostly through no fault of their own, are forced to start searching for it, but why in this way? You are flying into the wrong ray of light. And although many of your demands are justified and justified, we cannot be indifferent to them. We are overwhelmed different feelings- from sympathy and understanding to anger and resentment. For a woman who tries to be like a man is as ugly as an effeminate man.

No need to provoke chaos, confusion. In this new time of change, the main thing is not to lose your ideal, to keep it, not to lose faith in God - the basis of being. For religion is the soul of the people, and the purity of faith, and deeds, and thoughts is a pure soul, a pure body, a pure society, pure people and clean world. Faith must be in every person and within every person.

A woman should be a woman and a man should be a man. Man and woman are the two notes without which the strings human soul do not give the correct and complete chord, the divine melody.

I hope we will come to the right decision and this congress will bring its positive results.

1. Set a goal, stick to it

April, 1847, Kazan. A house on Chernoozerskaya Street, in the yard a dog barks to the tune of the song "Only" by the singer Nyusha. The spring sun is shining through the window of the apartment. A guy is sitting at the table short haircut and big ears, his name is Leo. In front of him is a notebook. See what is written there: "The worse the situation, the more intensify the activity." And again: "Overcome melancholy by work, not by entertainment." 19-year-old Lev was treated for gonorrhea all March, and then he came up with and wrote down the rules for himself, which he was going to be guided in life. So Tolstoy began to keep a diary. Do you think that after a couple of weeks he forgot about this idea and became interested in breeding Djungarian hamsters? Tolstoy wrote down thoughts about his life and actions until his death at 82! You can trace his purposefulness and craving for self-improvement, for example, in Selected Diaries, which were published by the Khudozhestvennaya Literatura publishing house from 1978 to 1985 (volume 21!).

2. Was brave

Autumn 1851, Chechnya, a place near Kizlyar. The Terek River seethes and goes around the bend, somewhere beyond the forest, the highlanders are cleaning their rifle muzzles. On our shore, as if shot, a Cossack sleeps, and the cadet of the 4th battery of the 20th artillery brigade, Lev Tolstoy, watches the sun go down behind the mountains. The writer (by definition - a peaceful person) on the battlefield was distinguished by enviable courage. In 1851 Lev went to Caucasian war, and then became a member of the Crimean. From 1854 to 1855, he defended Sevastopol, commanded a battery, which was located on the 4th bastion - in one of the most dangerous places. Enemy shells fell there so often that it seemed to be some kind of natural phenomenon, like snow in winter. When Leo retired in 1856, the Order of St. Anne and the medal "For the Defense of Sevastopol" hung on his chest.

3. Always fought with myself

Yasnaya Polyana, Tula region, summer 1860. The lion has already grown a beard, large ears hide hair. He steps down the path. Around green Forest, and in the eyes of Tolstoy something elusive. Thinking about the fate of local peasants? Not at all. “Wandering in the garden with a vague, voluptuous hope of catching someone in the bush. Nothing prevents me from working,” Tolstoy later wrote about such days. Leo considered passion for women to be one of his main vices - he either defeated her or lost again in this struggle, which dragged on for many years. As a result, his love for the weaker sex benefited world literature and cinema. As you probably know main character novel "Anna Karenina" (published in 1878) - a woman. This work by Leo Tolstoy is directed by different countries the world has already been filmed 30 times - the first version of the film was released in 1910, and the last one in 2012 (directed by Joe Wright, in leading role Keira Knightley).

4. Not afraid of experiments

In 1859, Leo Tolstoy opened for peasant children strange school right on your estate. Tolstoy, imagine, was sure that study should be exclusively for pleasure. “Education cannot be forced and should be enjoyed by the students” - that's what he wrote. In the Yasnaya Polyana school, in addition to Lev himself, four more people taught. They were obliged not to hammer knowledge into children, but to interest them in lessons. Pupils could choose which classes to go to, students were allowed to come to class at any time and leave the school whenever they wanted.

Who's with the beard

Leo Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828 in the family estate of Yasnaya Polyana in the Tula region. He died of pneumonia on November 20, 1910 in the house of the head of the Astapovo railway station (now Leo Tolstoy, Lipetsk region).