Leo Tolstoy

Steiner, George, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky (Harmondsworth, 1967)

Wasiolek, Edward, Critical Essays on Tolstoy (Boston, MA, 1986)

–––, Tolstoy’s Major Fiction (Chicago, IL, and London, 1978)

Acknowledgements

I want to express my deepest gratitude to Alex Wilbraham and Arkady Ostrovsky for their generous support and help in the long process of writing this short book. Mikhail Dolbilov kindly read the manuscript and provided valuable remarks and suggestions. The colleagues at Tolstoy Museum in Moscow and Yasnaya Polyana were incredibly generous and supportive of my work. As always, I am grateful to my wife Irina Zorina for her help and encouragement.

When I was young, I used to discuss Tolstoy with my closest friend Boris (Barukh) Berman (1957–1992), who was then an aspiring Tolstoy scholar. He tragically died in a car accident near Jerusalem. His several remaining articles on Tolstoy were published posthumously. I do not think he would have agreed with everything I say and cannot even be sure he would have liked this book at all. Still his intellectual passion and personal integrity served as a major source of inspiration for me. Remembering our unforgettable conversations, I want to dedicate my book to his memory.

Photo Acknowledgements

The author and publishers wish to express their thanks to the below sources of illustrative material and/or permission to reproduce it. While every effort has been made to identify and credit copyright holders, we would like to apologize to anyone who has not been formally acknowledged.

L. N. Tolstoy State Museum, Moscow: pp. 9 (photo M. Panov), 12, 19, 20, 21 (photo Sofia Tolstoy), 37 (photo S. Levitsky), 55, 56 (photo P. Sergeenko), 62, 63, 77, 84, 95 (photo F. Khodasevich), 117 (photo P. Preobrazhensky), 127 (photo Y. Shteinberg ), 128, 139 (photo E. Tomashevich), 146 (photo Sofia Tolstoy), 163 (photo Sofia Tolstoy), 165 (photo Sofia Tolstoy), 178 (photo M. Kurbatov), 181 (photo V. Chertkov), 190 (photo F. Protasevich), 192 (photo V. Chertkov), 198 (photo Sofia Tolstoy), 208, 209 (photo V. Chekhovsky) – these images are reproduced with the permission of the L. N. Tolstoy State Museum, Moscow, owners of the photographs; The Literary Museum of the Institute of Russian Literature, St Petersburg: p. 189; The Museum of the L. N. Tolstoy Estate, Yasnaya Polyana: pp. 34 (photo A. Shurlepov), 143 (photo I. Guschin), 206 (photo I. Guschin); photo enlarged and retouched from a frame of Pate Brothers company newsreel film strip in the possession of the L.N. Tolstoy State Museum, Moscow, reproduced with their permission: p. 208; from an 1854 issue of Russkii Khudozhestvennyi Listok: p. 31; State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow: p. 121.