The Journal of Leo Tolstoy/Explanatory Notes to Text

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1899, December

The Journal of Leo Tolstoy
by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Rose Strunsky

Explanatory Notes to Text

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1623170The Journal of Leo Tolstoy — Explanatory Notes to TextRose StrunskyLeo Tolstoy

NOTES TO THE TEXT

By V. G. Chertkov

1. With the words, "I continue," Tolstoi begins a new note-book of the Journal; this note-book presupposes another which the editors have only in separate fragments. The previous note-book ended with the following note:

"October 8, 1895, Y. P.

"(I am beginning an entry to-day with just what I finished two days ago.)

"I have only a short time left to live and I feel terribly like saying so much: I feel like saying what we can and must and cannot help believing about the cruelty of deception which people impose upon themselves; the economic, political and religious deception, and about the seduction of stupefying oneself—wine, and tobacco considered so innocent; and about marriage and about education and about the horrors. . . . Everything has ripened and I want to speak about it. So that there is no time for performing those artistic stupidities which I was prepared to do in Resurrection.

"But just now I asked myself: but can I write, knowing that no one will read? And I experienced something of disappointment; but only for a time; that means that there was some love of fame in it. But there was also the principal thing in it— the need before God.

"Father, help me to follow the same path of love. And I thank Thee. From Thee flows everything."

2. In the original, merely the initials of the phrase are used. Thus Tolstoi would often finish what he had written during the day with I. I L. (If I live), marking ahead in this fashion the date of the following day.

3. Countess Sophia Andreevna Tolstoi, born Behrs, 1844, wife of Tolstoi. In the Journal, Tolstoi calls her S., S. A., or Sonya.

4. "Catechism" Tolstoi called that systematic exposition of his philosophy in the form of questions and answers which he had begun about this time. In the text, he calls this work, The Declaration of Faith, or simply, The Declaration. (See entries December 23, '95, and further.) In the following year, 1896, Tolstoi abandoning the catechism form, continued and finished the work, which, in 1898, was published under the title Christian Doctrine by The Free Press (Swobodnoe Slovo) issued by A. and V. Chertkov, England, and later in 1905, it appeared also in Russia.

5. Tolstoi never returned to the continuation and revision of the plot of the story Who is Right? which had been begun by him about this time, and so it has remained unfinished. The beginning of the story as it was written by Tolstoi, is printed in his collected works (see the full collection of works by Tolstoi, edited by P. Biriukov, published by Sytin, 1913).

6. I.e., with Katiusha Maslov and not with Nekhliudov, as the first form of the novel was begun.

7. John C. Kenworthy, an English Methodist minister, a writer and lecturer, who shared at that time the opinions of Tolstoi and who founded in England an agricultural colony composed of his co-thinkers. The author of the work, Tolstoi, His Life and Works, London, 1902. There was printed abroad in the Russian Language in the journal of The Free Press (1899, No. 2, England) his The Anatomy of Poverty. They were lectures to the English workingmen on political economy, which struck Tolstoi favourably and which he included in the manuscript which was then being issued under the title of Archives of L. N. Tolstoi, No. II, and to which he even wrote an introduction. In later life, Kenworthy fell ill of nervous prostration and was taken to a sanatorium.

8. Albert Shkarvan, a Slav, who shared Tolstoi's opinions. An army surgeon in the hospital in Kashai (Hungary), he resigned from this service in February, 1895, for religious reasons, for which he was imprisoned for four months.

The Journal of Leo Tolstoy/Explanatory Notes to Text

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