Leo Tolstoy - Last Steps: The Late Writings of Leo Tolstoy

Edited with an Introduction by JAY PARIN

Translations by R. F. CHRISTIAN, CONSTANCE GARNETT,
MICHAEL R. KATZ, JANE KENTISH, AYLMER MAUDE,
JAY PARINI and LEO WIENER

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This selection first published in Penguin Classics 2009

Selection and editorial material Jay Parini, Translation of Alyosha Gorshok Michael R. Katz, 2009

Translation of The Law of Love and the Law of Violence Jane Kentish, 1987

Translation of Tolstoys Letters R. F. Christian, 1978

Translation of Tolstoys Diaries R. F. Christian, 1985

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ISBN: 978-0-14-195954-2

LAST STEPS THE LATE WRITINGS OF LEO TOLSTOY

COUNT LEO TOLSTOY was born in 1828. He took part in the Crimean War, and married Sofya Andreyevna Behrs in 1862. Over the next fifteen years they had thirteen children and Tolstoy managed his vast estates in the Volga Steppes, continued his educational projects, cared for his peasants and wrote War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877). A Confession (1882) marked a spiritual crisis in his life; he became an extreme moralist and in a series of pamphlets after 1880 expressed his rejection of State and Church, indictment of the weaknesses of the flesh and denunciation of private property. In 1901 he was excommunicated by the Russian Holy Synod. He died in 1910, in the course of a dramatic flight from home, at the small railway station of Astapovo.

JAY PARINI , a poet and novelist, is Axinn Professor of English at Middlebury College in Vermont. His books include The Art of Subtraction: New and Selected Poems (2005) and The Last Station (1990), a novel of Tolstoys last year. He has also written biographies of John Steinbeck, Robert Frost and William Faulkner.

1724 Pyotr Tolstoy (great-great-great-grandfather) given hereditary title of Count by Tsar Peter the Great

1821 Death of Prince Nikolay Volkonsky, Tolstoys grandfather, at Yasnaya Polyana, Tula Province, 130 miles southwest of Moscow

1822 Marriage of Count Nikolay Tolstoy and Princess Marya Volkonskaya

1828 28 August (Old Style). Birth of fourth son, Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, at Yasnaya Polyana

1830 Death of mother

1832 The eldest, Nikolay, informs his brothers that the secret of earthly happiness is inscribed on a green stick, buried at Yasnaya Polyana (Tolstoy later buried there)

1836 Nikolay Gogols The Government Inspector

1837 Death of Alexander Pushkin in duel

Death of father

1840 Mikhail Lermontovs A Hero of Our Time

1841 Death of Lermontov in duel

Death of first guardian Alexandra Osten-Saken, an aunt. The Tolstoy children move to Kazan to live with another aunt, Pelageya Yushkova

1842 Gogols Dead Souls

1844 Enters Kazan University, reads Oriental languages

1845 Transfers to Law after failing examinations. Dissolute lifestyle: drinking, visits to prostitutes

1846 Fyodor Dostoyevskys Poor Folk

1847 Inherits estate of Yasnaya Polyana. Recovering from gonorrhoea, draws up scheme for self-perfection. Leaves university without completing studies on grounds of ill health and domestic circumstances

184850 In Moscow and St Petersburg, debauchery and gambling, large debts. Studies music

1850 Ivan Turgenevs A Month in the Country

1851 Travels to the Caucasus with Nikolay, who is serving in the army there. Reads Laurence Sterne: starts translating his Sentimental Journey (not completed). Writes A History of Yesterday (unfinished, first evidence of his powers of psychological analysis). Begins writing Childhood

1852 Death of Gogol. Turgenevs Sketches from a Hunters Album

Enters the army as a cadet ( Junker); based mainly in the Cossack station of Starogladkovskaya. Sees action against the Chechens, and narrowly escapes capture

Childhood

1853 Turkey declares war on Russia

The Raid

1854 France and England declare war on Russia. Crimean War starts

Commissioned, serves on Danube front. November: transferred at own request to Sevastopol, then under siege by allied forces

Boyhood

1855 Death of Nicholas I; accession of Alexander II

In action until the fall of Sevastopol in August. Gains celebrity with Sevastopol in December and further sketches, Sevastopol in May, Sevastopol in August 1855 (1856), Memoirs of a Billiard Marker, The Woodfelling

1856 Peace signed between Russia, Turkey, France and England

Turgenevs Rudin

In St Petersburg, moves in literary circles; associates with Turgenev, Ivan Goncharov, Nikolay Nekrasov, Afanasy Fet and others. Leaves the army. Death of brother Dmitry

The Snowstorm, Two Hussars, A Landowners Morning

1857 FebruaryAugust. First trip abroad, to Paris (lasting impression of witnessing an execution by guillotine), Geneva and Baden-Baden

Youth, Lucerne

1858 Long-term relationship with peasant woman on estate, Aksinya Bazykina, begins

Albert

1859 Goncharovs Oblomov; Turgenevs The Home of the Gentry

Founds primary school at Yasnaya Polyana

Three Deaths, Family Happiness

1860 Death of his brother Nikolay from tuberculosis

Dostoyevskys Notes from the House of the Dead (186061). Turgenevs On the Eve

186061 Emancipation of serfs (1861). Other reforms follow: Elective District Councils (zemstvos) set up (1864); judicial reform (1865). Formation of revolutionary Land and Liberty movement. Commencement of intensive industrialization; spread of railways

Serves as Arbiter of the Peace, dealing with post-Emancipation land settlements. Quarrels with Turgenev and challenges him (no duel). Travels in France, Germany, Italy and England. Loses great deal of money through gambling. Meets Proudhon in Brussels

1862 Turgenevs Fathers and Sons

Starts a magazine at Yasnaya Polyana on education for the peasants; abandoned after less than a year. Police raid on Yasnaya Polyana. Considers emigrating to England and writes protest to the Tsar. Marries Sofya Andreyevna Behrs (b. 1844)