Leo Tolstoy

These early and somewhat amusing deliberations already show Tolstoy in miniature – from any occasion, however trivial it may seem, he is ready to derive major conclusions about humankind. He is certain that proper introspection can serve as a clue to the whole of humanity as any individual person is a part of the whole, and that reason alone is sufficient to perform this work. He believes that the truth is self-evident for a person who is independent from the corrupting influence of society. At the same time, he wants both to enter society and to mend it according to his ideas. He is also confident that philosophy is useful only if it serves practical needs and shapes the moral life of a person.

Further entries are written along the same lines. In one of them, the nineteen-year-old Tolstoy sets himself the task of mastering most of the existing sciences and arts, namely law, medicine, agriculture (both theoretical and practical), history, geography, statistics, mathematics, natural sciences, music and painting. In addition to that, he wants to study six languages and to write a dissertation and essays ‘on all the subjects he was going to study’. To give these ambitions an air of relative realism, Tolstoy explains that he wants to explore these fields with different degrees of depth: in music and painting, for example, he aspires to attain only ‘an average degree of perfection’. One of the most important tasks Tolstoy sets himself is ‘to write down rules’. Within several months he drafted rules for developing the physical will, emotional will, rational will, memory, activity and intellectual faculties. The first rule he prescribed to himself was ‘independence from all extraneous circumstances’ and avoidance of ‘the society of women’ (Ds, pp. 6–7). Predictably, he did not succeed in either.

In his studies Tolstoy always excelled at languages; a quarter of a century later the speed with which he learned ancient Greek seemed unbelievable to classical scholars. He did well in Tatar-Turkish (as the language was listed in the curriculum) and in Arabic, both of which he soon forgot, but failed other subjects including Russian history. Reluctant to resit the exams, Tolstoy applied for a transfer to the law faculty, but did not succeed there either. In 1847, when he came of age and entered his inheritance, he resigned from the university without receiving a degree. Fortunately the partition of the family property among his siblings left him with Yasnaya Polyana. Immediately he rushed back to join his aunt Toinette.

All these sporadic impulses, hopes and disappointments clearly reveal the influence of Rousseau. Tolstoy, as he later confessed, worshipped the Genevan thinker and even dreamt of wearing a medallion with Rousseau’s face. He shared Rousseau’s passionate cult of nature and a belief that the original purity of the human being had been spoilt by the artificial demands of society and civilization. Even more important for Tolstoy was Rousseau’s ideal of absolute transparency of the soul and the ensuing practice of incessant self-scrutiny, as well as his restlessness and constant readiness to run away from everything he owned or had achieved. Unlike Rousseau, however, Tolstoy was never a homeless wanderer. Yasnaya Polyana, through the vastness and beauty of its landscapes, through familial lore and strong ties with people of the land, connected him with the history and essence of Russia. Prodigal sons are doomed to leave their paradise behind, but Tolstoy, though he left it many times, always returned to Yasnaya Polyana. After his very last escape and subsequent death, his body was brought back to be buried in his native soil.

For several years Tolstoy oscillated between Yasnaya Polyana, Tula (where, surprisingly for such a born anarchist, he procured a sinecure in the civil service), Moscow and St Petersburg. In the capitals he aspired to learn manners and behaviour that would make him respectable in high society, but as was often the case with Tolstoy, his diary records both a fascination for the aristocratic world and a countervailing revulsion. Much later, describing the corrupt received opinions of his social milieu, Tolstoy wrote that ‘the kind aunt with whom I lived [Ergolskaya], herself the purest of beings, always told me that there was nothing she so desired for me as that I should have relations with a married woman: “Rien ne forme un jeune homme, comme une liaison avec une femme comme il faut”’ (CW, XXIII, p. 4).

Tolstoy as a teenager, 1840s – the earliest-known drawing of Tolstoy.

Entrance to Yasnaya Polyana, 1892.