Autobiography of Countess Tolstoy

The circumstances under which this autobiography of Tolstoy's wife has just been discovered and published in Russia are explained in the preface of Vassili Spiridonov which follows. Spiridonov edited and published it in the first number of a new Russian review, Nachala. We have translated his preface in full and also the greater number of his notes, which contain much material with regard to Tolstoy which has not previously been available for English readers. Such readers may perhaps consider that some of these notes and the documentation generally are over-elaborate. But they must remember that the question of Tolstoy's "going away" and of his relations with his wife, Countess Sophie Tolstoy, and other members of his family, has roused the most passionate interest and controversy in Russia. This is partly due, no doubt, to the dramatic and psychological interest of the whole story, but is also due very largely to the fact that Tolstoy's actions were bound up with his teachings, and his numerous disciples and opponents were watching the struggle of the preacher to put his principles in practice in his own life. The whole question of the will and the going away of Tolstoy, of the difference with his wife, and of the subsequent dealings with his property, has given rise to an immense literature in Russia. As Spiridonov's preface shows, it is treated as a kind of cause célèbre in which the whole of humanity is to judge between Tolstoy and his wife. The importance of this book lies in the fact that in it for the first time Countess Sophie Andreevna Tolstoy herself states her own case in full. The reader should, however, remember that it is only one side of the case.

We have added ourselves a few short appendices giving some additional information with regard to some of the more important points and persons.

S. S. K. L. S. W.

PREFACE BY VASSILI SPIRIDONOV

The manuscript of the autobiography of Sophie Andreevna Tolstoy exists among the documents of the late director of the Russian Library, Professor Semen Afanasevich Vengerov, which, in accordance with the will of the deceased, have been handed over to the Library. The Library is now in the Petrograd Institute of Learning, and the documents form a special section in the Institute under the title: "The Archives of S. A. Vengerov."

The history of the manuscript is as follows. At the end of July, 1913, S. A. Vengerov sent a letter to S. A. Tolstoy asking her to write and send him her autobiography which he proposed to publish. We do not know the details of S. A. Vengerov's letter, but from the replies of S. A. Tolstoy which are printed below we may conclude that Professor Vengerov enclosed in his letter to S. A. Tolstoy a questionnaire, and that, besides the usual questions which he was accustomed to send out broadcast to authors and men of letters, he put a number of additional questions, especially for S. A. T., asking for light upon certain moments in the history of the life and creative activity of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy, and upon the time and causes of the differences between the husband and wife, the beginning of that formidable drama which took place in the Tolstoy family.

S. A. T. answered immediately; she wrote to Vengerov as follows:[A]

YASNAYA POLYANA, 30 JULY, 1913.

MUCH-RESPECTED SEMEN AFANASEVICH: I received your letter to-day, and hasten to tell you that I will try to answer all your questions soon; but in order to do it fully, I need a little time. I shall hardly be able to write an autobiography, even a brief one. At any rate, whatever I may communicate to you, you have my permission to cut out anything that you think superfluous. As to your questions about my family, my sister, Tatyana Andreevna Kuzminskii, could answer you better than I; she and my first cousin, Alexander Alexandrovich Bers, have devoted a good deal of time to this matter and have, in particular, tried to trace the origin of my father's family, which came from Saxony. We have the seal with its coat-of-arms: a bear (hence Bers, i. e. Bär in German) warding off a swarm of bees.[B] I will write to my sister to send me this information, and I will let you have it.[C] Please also let me know roughly when you expect me to send you the information you desire.