Leo Tolstoy: His Life and Work/Chapter 15
The Work of the Yasnaya Polyana School[edit]
In his educational articles of practical interest, Tolstoy gives an artistic description of several incidents in school life, a subject n which he took a warm and sincere interest, not like a stern pedant demanding obedience, but like a boy joining in the joys and sorrows of his school companions, giving them his whole soul, and sharing his great spiritual riches with them.
By putting together the incidents thus described, one sees the gigantic figure of the great educationist in all its grandeur.
I. The Working of the School[edit]
It was not cold outside -- a moonless winter night with clouds in the sky. We stopped at the cross-roads; the older, third-year pupils stopped near me, asking me to accompany them farther; the younger ones looked awhile at me and then ran off down hill. The young ones had begun to study with a new teacher, and they no longer had that confidence in me that the older boys had.
"Come, let us go to the preserve," (a small forest within two hundred steps of the house), said one of them. Fedka, a small boy of ten, of a tender, impressionable, poetical, and impetuous nature, was the most persistent in his demands. Danger seemed to form his chief condition for enjoyment...
He knew that there were wolves in the forest then, and so he wanted to go to the preserve. The rest joined in, so we went, all four of us, into the wood. another boy, I shall call him Semka, a physically and morally sound lad of about twelve, nicknamed Vavilo, walked ahead and kept exchanging calls with somebody in his ringing voice. Pronka, a sickly, meek, but uncommonly talented boy, the son of a poor family -- sickly, I think, mainly on account of insufficient food -- was walking by my side.
Fedka was walking between me and Semka, talking all the time in his extremely soft voice, telling us how he had herded horses here in the summer, or saying that he was not afraid of anything, or asking, "Suppose some one were to jump out at us!" and insisting on my answering him. We did not go into the forest itself -- that would have been too terrible -- but even near the forest it was getting darker; we could hardly see the path, and the fires of the village were hidden from view.
Semka stopped and began to listen.
"Stop, boys! What is that?" he suddenly said.
We held our tongues, but we could hear nothing; still it added terror to our fear.
"Well, what should we do if one should jump out and make straight for us?" Fedka asked.
We began to talk about robbers in the Caucasus. They recalled a story of the Caucasus I had told them long ago, and I told them more stories about abreks, Cossacks, and Khadzhi Murat. Semka was strutting ahead of us, stepping broadly in his big boots, and evenly swaying his strong back. Pronka tried to walk by my side, but Fedka pushed him off the path, and Pronka, who apparently always submitted to such treatment on account of his poverty, still rushed up to my side during the most interesting passages, though sinking knee-deep in the snow.
Everybody who knows anything about peasant children has noticed that they are not accustomed to any kind of caresses -- tender words, kisses, being fondly touched with the hand, and so forth....It was for this reason that I was startled when Fedka, who was walking by my side, in the most terrible part of the story suddenly touched me lightly with his sleeve, and then grasped two of my fingers with his whole hand, and did not let them go.
The moment I was silent, Fedka begged me to proceed, and that in such an imploring tone and with so much agitation that I could not refuse.
"Don't get in my way!" he once angrily called out to Pronka, who had run on in front; he was really quite savage with him -- he had such a mingled feeling of terror and joy, as he was holding on to my finger, that he could not bear any one daring to interrupt his pleasure.
"More, more! That's fine!"
We passed the forest and were approaching the village from the other end.
"Let us go back again," all cried when the lights became visible. "Let us take another walk!"
We walked in silence, now and then sinking in the loose, untrodden snow; the white darkness seemed to be swaying before our eyes; the clouds hung low, and seemed to be piled over us -- there was no end to that whiteness over which we alone crunched through the snow; the wind rustled through the bare tops of the aspens, but we were protected from the wind behind the forest.
I finished my story by telling them that the abrek, being surrounded, began to sing songs, and then threw himself on his dagger. All were silent.
"Why did he sing a song when he was surrounded?" asked Semka
"Didn't you hear? He was getting ready to die!" Fedka replied sorrowfully.
"I think he sang a prayer," added pronka.
All agreed....
We stopped in the grove, beyond the threshing floors, at the very end of the village. Semka picked up a stick from the snow and began to strike the frozen trunk of a lime tree. The hoar frost fell from the branches upon his cap, and the lonely sound of his beating was borne through the forest.
"Lev Nikolayevich," Fedka said (I thought he wanted to say something again about the countess), "why do people learn singing? I often wonder why they really do?"...
It feels strange to me to repeat what we spoke on that evening, but I remember we said everything, I think, that there was
to be said on utility and on plastic and moral beauty.
A rare happiness fell to the writer of these lines, as to
Fedka, who held Tolstoy by his fingers and was rapt in ecstasy. I
more than once walked with Tolstoy on the sam spot (Zakas).
Listening to his tales, I have experienced the same feeling, which
cannot be expressed in better words than those used by Fedka: "Go
on, go on! ah, how nice!"
II. The Lesson In Composition[edit]
Once last winger [Tolstoy goes on], I forgot everything after dinner as I read Snegirev's book, and even returned to the school with the book in my hands. It was a lesson in the Russian language.
"Well, write something on a proverb!" I said
The best pupils, Fedka, Semka, and a few others, pricked up their ears.
"What do you mean by `on a proverb'? What is it? Tell us!" the questions ran.
I happened to open the book at the proverb: "He feeds with the spoon and pricks his eye with the handle."
"Now imagine," I said, "that a peasant has taken a beggar to his house and then begins to rebuke him for the good he has done him, and you will see that `he feeds with spoon and pricks his eye with the handle.'"
"But how are you going to write it?" asked Fedka and all the rest, who had pricked up their ears. They retreated, having convinced themselves that this matter was beyond their strength, and they betook themselves to the work which they had begun.
"Will you write it yourself?" one of them said to me.
Everybody was busy with his work; I took a pen and ink and began to write.
"Well," said I, "who will write it best? I am with you.
I began the story, printed in the fourth issue of the "Yasnaya Polyana" magazine, and I wrote down the first page. Every unbiased man who has the artistic sense and feels with the poorer classes will, upon reading this first page, written by me, and the following pages of the story, written by the pupils themselves, separate this page from the rest, as if he were taking a fly out of the milk; it is so false, so artificial, and so badly expressed. I must remark that in the original form it was more monstrous still, as much has been corrected, thanks to the hints given by the pupils.
Fedka kept looking up from his copy book to me, and upon meeting my eyes, he smiled, winked, and repeated: "Write, write, or I'll give it to you!" He was evidently amused to see a grown person write a theme.
Having finished his theme worse and faster than usual, he climbed on the back of my chair and began to read over my shoulders. I could not proceed; others came up to us, and I read out to them what I had written.
They did not like it, and none of them praised it. I felt ashamed, and, to soothe my literary vanity, I began to tell them the plan of what was to follow. The further I got in my story, the more enthusiastic I became; I often corrected myself, and they kept helping me out. One would say that the old man should be a magician; another would remark: "No, that won't do, he must be just a soldier; the best thing will be if he steals from him; no, that won't go with the proverb," and so forth.
All were exceedingly interested. It was evidently a new and exciting sensation for them to be present at the process of creation and to take part in it. Their judgments were all, for the most part, to the same effect, and they were just, whether they spoke of the very structure of the story or of the incidents and the characters given to the personages. Nearly all of them took part in the composition; but, from the outset, those who distinguished themselves were the positive Semka, by his marked artistic power of description, and Fedka, by the correctness of his poetical conception, and especially by the glow and rapidity of his imagination.
Their demands had so little of the accidental in them and were so definite, that more than once, after beginning a discussion, I had to give way to them. I was strongly possessed by the demands of a regular structure and of an exact correspondence of the idea of the proverb to the story; while they, on the contrary, were only concerned about the demands of artistic truth. I, for example, wanted that the peasant, who had taken the old man to his house, should himself repent of his good deed, while they regarded this as impossible and introduced a cross old woman.
I said: "The peasant was at first sorry for the old man and afterward did not like giving away the bread."
Fedka replied that that would make the story improbable. "From the first he did not obey the old woman, and would not submit later on."
"What kind of a man is he, according to you?" I asked.
"He is like Uncle Timofey," said Fedka, smiling. "He has a scanty beard, goes to church, and he has bees."
"Is he good but stubborn?" I asked.
"Yes," said Fedka, "he will not obey the old woman."
From that time the old man was brought into the hut, the work became animated. They evidently for the first time felt the charm of clothing artistic incidents in words. Semka distinguished himself more than the rest in this respect; the correctest details were poured forth one after the other. The only fault that could be found with him was that these details sketched only the actual moment, without connection with the general feeling of the story. I hardly could write their descriptions as fast as they gave them, and only asked them to wait and not forget what they had told me.
Semka seemed to see and describe that which was before his eyes; the stiff, frozen bast shoes, with the dirt oozing from them as they thawed, and the half-burned scraps into which they were shrivelled when the old woman threw them into the oven.
Fedka, on the contrary, saw only such details as brought out for him the particular feeling which he had for particular individuals. Fedka saw the snow drifting behind the peasant's leg- rags, and the expression of compassion with which the peasant said, "Lord, how it snows!" (Fedka's face even showed how the peasant said it, and besides this, he swung his hands and shook his head.) He saw the cloak, all rags and patches, and the torn shirt, under which could be seen the shrunken body of the old man, wet from the melting snow. He created the old woman, who growled, as, at the command of her husband, she took off his bast shoes, and the pitiful groan of the old man as he muttered through his teeth, "Softly, motherkin, I have sores here."
Semka needed mainly objective pictures; bast shoes, a cloak, an old man, a woman, all almost independent of one another; but Fedka had to make others feel the pity with which he was filled himself. He ran ahead of the story, telling how he would feed the old man, how the latter would fall down at night, and would later teach a boy in the field to read, so that I was obliged to ask him not to be in such a hurry and not to forget what he had said. His eyes sparkled with positive hears; his swarthy, thin little hands were clasped convulsively; he was angry with me, and he kept urging me on: "Have you written it, have you written it?" he kept asking me.
He treated all the rest despotically; he wanted to talk all the time, giving the story not as a story is told, but as it is written, that is, artistically clothing in words the sensuous pictures. thus, for example, he would not allow words to be transposed; if he once said, "I have sores on my feet," he would not permit me to say, "On my feet I have sores." His soul, now softened and irritated by the sentiment of pity, that is, of love, clothed every image in an artistic form, and denied everything that did not correspond to the idea of eternal beauty and harmony.
The moment Semka was carried away into giving disproportionate details about the lambs in the inclosure, and so forth, Fedka grew angry and said, "What a lot of bosh!" I only needed to suggest what the peasant was doing, while his wife went to the gossip, to call forth at once in Fedka's imagination a picture with lambs bleating at the inclosure, with the sighs of the old man and the delirium of the boy Seryozhka; I only needed to suggest an artificial and false picture to make him immediately remark angrily that that was not necessary.
For example, I suggested the description of the peasant's looks, to which he agreed; but to my proposition to describe what the peasant was thinking when his wife had run over to the gossip, there immediately rose before him this very way of expressing his thought, "If you got in the way of Savoska, the corpse, he would pull all your locks out!" He said this, leaning his head on his hand the while, with such a tone of fatigue and quiet gravity -- although in his usual good-natured voice -- that the boys shook with laughter.
The chief quality in every art, the feeling of measure, was developed in him to an extraordinary degree. He writhed at the suggestion of any superfluous feature, made by some one of the boys.
He directed the structure of the story so despotically, and with such right to this despotism, that the boys soon went him, and only he and Semka, who would not give in to him, though working in another direction, were left. We worked from seven to eleven o'clock; they felt neither hunger nor fatigue, and even got angry at me when I stopped writing; they undertook to relieve me in writing, but they soon gave that up, as matters would not go well.
It was then for the first time that Fedka asked my name. We laughed because he did not know.
"I know," he said, "how to call you; but how do they call you in the manor? We have such names as Fokanychev, Zyabrev, Yermilin."
I told him.
"Are we going to print it?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Then we shall have to print work by Makarov, Morozov, and Tolstoy."
He was agitated for a long time and could not sleep and I cannot express the feeling of agitation, joy, fear, and almost regret, which I experienced during that evening. I felt that with that day a new world of enjoyment and suffering was opened up to him -- the world of art; I thought that I had received and insight into what no one has a right to see -- the germination of the mysterious flower of poetry.
I felt both dread and joy, like the seeker after the treasure who suddenly sees the flower of the fern -- I felt joy, because suddenly and quite unexpectedly there was revealed to me that stone of the philosophers which I had vainly been trying to find for two years -- the art of teaching the expression of thought; and dread, because this art made new demands -- brought with it a whole world of desires, which stood in no relation to the surroundings of the pupils, as I thought in the first moment. There was no mistaking. It was not an accident, but a conscious creation....
I gave up the lesson, because I was to much agitated.
"What is the matter with you? You are so pale -- are you ill?" my companion asked me. Indeed, only two or three times in my life have I experienced such a strong sensation as on that evening, and for a long time I was unable to render an account to myself of what I was experiencing. I distinctly felt that I had criminally looked through a glass hive at the work of the bees, concealed from the gaze of mortal man; it seemed to me that I had vaguely felt something like repentance for an act of sacrilege,...and at the same time I was happy as a man must be happy who beholds that which
no one has beheld before.
III. The First Lesson In History[edit]
Tolstoy writes:
I had intended to explain in the first lesson in what way russia differed from other countries, where its frontiers were, the nature of the structure of its government, then to say who was the present ruler, and how and when the Emperor ascended the throne.
"Teacher: Where do we live, in what country?"
"A Pupil: In Yasnaya Polyana."
"Another Pupil: In the field."
"Teacher: No, in what country is Yasnaya Polyana and the Government of Tula?"
"Pupil: the Government of Tula is seventeen versts from us. Where is it? Government is a Government, and that is all there is to say about it."
"Teacher: No. Tula is the capital of the Government, but a Government is something different. Well, what country is it?"
"Pupil (who has learned some geography before): The earth is round like a ball."
By means of questions as to what country a German, whom they knew, had lived in before and where they would get if they were to keep traveling all the time in one direction, the pupils were led up to answer they that lived in russia. Some, however, replied to the question where we should get if we traveled all the time in one direction, that we should get nowhere. Others said that we should get to the end of the world.
"Teacher (repeating the pupil's answer): You said that we should come to some other countries; where will Russia end and other countries begin?"
"Pupil: Where the Germans begin."
"Teacher: So, if you meet Gustav Ivanovich and Karl Fedorovich in Tula, you will say that the Germans have begun and that there is a new country?"
"Pupil: No, when the Germans begin thick."
"Teacher: No, there are places in Russia where the Germans are thick. Ivan Fomich is from one of them, and yet that is still russia. Why is it so?"
Silence.
"Teacher: Because they obey the same laws with the Russians."
"Pupil: One law? How so? The Germans don't come to our church and they eat meat on fast-days."
"Teacher: I do not mean that kind of law, but they obey one Tsar."
"Pupil (skeptical Semka): That is funny. Why have they a different law, and yet obey the Tsar?"
The teacher feels the need of explaining what a law is, and so he asks what is meant by "obeying a law," or "being under one law."
"Girl (independent manorial girl, hurriedly and timidly): To accept the law means `to get married.'"
The pupils look inquiringly at the teacher. The teacher begins to explain that the law consists in putting a man in jail and in punishing him for stealing or killing.
"Skeptic Semka: And have not the Germans such a law?"
"Teacher: There are also laws with us about the gentry, the peasants, the merchants, the clergy (the word `clergy' perplexes them)."
"Skeptic Semka: And have not the Germans such a law?"
"Teacher: In some countries there are such laws, and in others there are not. We have a Russian Tsar, and in the German countries there is a German Tsar."
This answer satisfies all the people and even skeptical Semka.
Thinking it was now time to pass on to explain what is meant by the classes, the teacher asks them what classes of society they know. the pupils begin to enumerate them: the gentry, the peasants, the popes, the soldiers. "Any more?" asks the teacher. "The manorial servants, the burghers, the samovar-makers." The teacher asks them to distinguish these classes.
"Pupils: The peasants plough, the manorial servants serve their masters, the merchants trade, the soldiers serve, the samovar-makers get the samovars ready, the popes serve the mass, the gentry do nothing..."
Then in the same order and under similar difficulties there follows an explanation of the idea of "Classes of Society," "frontiers," and other terms applied to the State.
The lesson lasts about two hours. The teacher is convinced that the pupils have retained a great deal of what has been said, and he continues his subsequent lessons in the same strain, convincing himself only much later that his method was wrong, and
that all that he has been doing has been the merest nonsense.
IV. The Second Lesson In History[edit]
"The holding of this class has remained a memorable event in my life, [says Tolstoy]. I shall never forget it. The children had long been promised that I should tell them history, going backward, while another teacher would begin from the beginning, so that we should finally meet. My evening scholars had left me, and I came to the class of Russian history. They were talking about Svyatoslav. They felt dull. On a tall bench sat in a row, as they always put themselves, three peasant girls, with their heads tied with kerchiefs. One was asleep. Mishka pushed me. "Look there, our cuckoos are sitting there -- one is asleep." And they were like cuckoos!
"You had better tell us from the end," said some one, and all got up.
I sat down and began to talk. As always, the hubbub, the groans, the tussling, lasted about two minutes. Some were crawling under the table, some on the table, some under the benches, and on their neighbors' shoulders and knees, till at last all was silent. I began with Aleksandr I, told them of the French Revolution, of Napoleon's successes, of his seizing the government, and of the war which ended in the peace of Tilsit. The moment we reached Russia there were heard sounds and words expressing lively interest on all sides.
"Well, is he going to conquer us, too?"
"Never mind, Aleksandr will give it to him!" said some one who knew about Aleksandr, but I had to disappoint them -- the time had not yet come for that -- and they felt uncomfortable when they heard that the Tsar's sister was spoken of as a bride for Napoleon, and that aleksandr spoke with him on the bridge, as if he was his equal.
"Just wait!" exclaimed Petka, with a threatening gesture.
"Go on and tell us!"
When Aleksandr declined to submit to him, that is, when Aleksandr declared war, all expressed their approbation. When Napoleon came against us at the head of twelve nations and stirred up the Germans and Poland, their hearts sank from agitation.
A German, a friend of mine, was standing in the room.
"Ah, you were against us, too," said Petka (the best storyteller).
"Keep quiet!" cried the others.
The retreat of our army tortured my audience, and on all sides were asked questions why? and curses were heaped on Kutuzov and Barclay.
"Your Kutuzov is no good!"
"Just wait," said another.
"Well, did he surrender?" asked a third.
When we reached the battle of Borodino, and when in the end I was obliged to say that we did not gain a victory, I was sorry for them -- it was evident that I gave them all a terrible blow.
"Though our side did not win, theirs did not either!"
When Napoleon came to Moscow and was waiting for the keys of the city and for submission, there was a burst of protest, as they had thought they were unconquerable. The conflagration of Moscow was, naturally, approved of by all. Then came the victory, Napoleon's retreat.
"When he came out of Moscow, Kutuzov rushed after him and went to fight him," I said.
"He made him rear!" Fedka corrected me.
Fedka, red in his face, was sitting opposite me, and was bending his thin, tawny fingers with excitement. That is his habit. The moment he said this, the whole room groaned with pride and delight. A little fellow in the back row was being badly squeezed, but nobody paid any attention.
"That's better! There, take the keys now!" and so forth.
Then I continued, describing our pursuit of the French. It pained the children to hear that some one was too late at Berezina, and that we let them pass; Petka even groaned with pain.
"I should have shot him dead for being late."
Here we even had some pity for the frozen Frenchmen. Then, when we crossed the border and the Germans, who had been against us, joined us, some one remembered the German who was standing in the room.
"How is that? At first you are against us, and when the power is losing, you are with us!" and suddenly all rose and shouted at the German, so that the noise could be heard in the street. When they quieted down I went on, telling them about our following up Napoleon as far as Paris, placing the real king on the throne, celebrating our victory, and feasting. But the recollection of the Crimean War spoiled the whole thing.
"Just wait," said Petka, shaking his fist; "let me grow up and I will show them!"
If we had at that moment had a chance at the Shevardino redoubt and Mount Malakhov, we should certainly have taken them back.
It was late when I ended. As a rule the children are asleep at that time. No one was sleeping, and the eyes of the little cuckoos were burning. Just as I got up, Taraska crawled out from underneath my chair, to my great astonishment, and look vivaciously, and, at the same time, seriously at me.
"How did you get down there?"
"He was there all the time," some one said.
"There was no need to ask him whether he had understood; you could see that by his face.
"Well, are you going to tell about it?" I asked.
"I?" He thought a while. "I will tell the whole thing."
"I will tell it at home."
"So will I."
"And I."
"Is that all?"
"Yes."
All flew down under the staircase, some promising to give it to the Frenchmen, others scolding the German, and others repeating how Kutuzov had made him "rear".
"Sie haben ganz Russisch erzachlt," the German who had been hooted said to me in the evening. "You ought to hear how they tell the story in our country! You said nothing about the German struggle for freedom."
I fully agreed with him that my narrative was not history but a fanciful tale to rouse the national sentiment.
Consequently, as a study of history, this attempt was even
less successful than the first.To give a full picture of Tolstoy as a schoolmaster, we must add his views on the teaching of music. He gives a concise summary of his conclusions in four short paragraphs.
[Tolstoy writes] From the small experience which I have
had in teaching music, I have become convinced:
(1) That the method which consists in writing the
sounds down in figures is the most convenient.
(2) That teaching time independently of sound is
again the most convenient method.
(3) That, in order that musical instruction should
produce permanent effect and be cheerfully received, it
is necessary from the very outset to teach the art and
not the skill of singing and playing. Young ladies may
be made to play Burgmuner's exercises, but the children
of the people it is better not to teach at all than to
teach mechanically.
(4) That the aim of musical instruction must consist
in giving the pupils that knowledge of the common laws of
music which we possess, but by no means in transmitting
that false taste which is developed in us.
Drawing occupied a conspicuous place in the school course, but
Tolstoy did not teach it himself, as he did not think he was
competent, and this task was undertaken by a fellow teacher.
In the spring of 1862, Tolstoy was very tired after his work as Peace Mediator, and at the school, and having some fear of consumption, he resolved to try the Koumiss treatment.
Accompanied by his man-servant Aleksey and two schoolboys, he went to the province of Samara in the middle of May [1862].
He wrote from Moscow to his aunt Tatyana, informing her that he and his companions were all well and giving her certain advice and messages in connection with the school.
They went by rail to Tver and then on by a steamer, which was to take them down the river Volga to Samara.
On the voyage, Tolstoy probably was in that very happy mood which is so often enjoyed by all travellers upon the Volga. The great river in its spring overflow, the soft murmur of the steamer as it moved, the fascinating spring nights with their starlit skies, the mirror-like river, the lights of the shore and the vessel, the pilgrims, monks, Tartars, and other passengers, who, in spite of the great variety of types, conditions, nationalities, and religions, bear on them a distinctive Great Russian cachet; possibly thoughts of the great historic past of the river and its banks -- all these make an incomparably gladdening and softening impression and bring with them many thoughts and dreams.
Tolstoy probably had some similar sensations, for on May 20th [1862] he wrote in his diary:
[Tolstoy writes] On board steamer. It seems as if
I were again awakening to life and to the understanding
of it. The thought as to the absurdity of progress
pursues me. With the intelligent and the silly, with old
men and with children, I keep discussing this one thing.
On his way, Tolstoy stopped with his relation Vladimir
Ivanovich Yuskhov in Kazan.
Then, from Samara itself, he wrote to his aunt:
[Tolstoy writes] May 27, 1862...I have had a
splendid journey; I like the locality very much; my
health is better, i.e., I cough less. Aleksey and the
boys are alive and well, as you may tell their
parents..."
He next wrote from the place where he was undergoing his
treatment:
[Tolstoy writes] June 28, 1862...Aleksey and myself have
become stouter, especially aleksey, but we cough a
little, and again especially Aleksey. We are living in
a Kibitka [1]. I found my friend Stolipin
was an Ataman [2] at Uralsk, where I
visited him. I brought from there a clerk, but I do not
dictate or write much. Laziness quite overpowers one
when taking koumiss. In a fortnight I intend returning
home. I am troubled by want of news in these wilds, and
also by the consciousness that I am dreadfully behindhand
with the publication of the journal. I kiss your hands.
Please write in detail about Seryozha, Masha, the
student, whom I greet.
Enclosed are letters from the boys to their
teachers.
While he was spending a peaceful time in the Bashkir Steppes,
an unexpected event took place in the school at Yasnaya Polyana.
There can be no doubt that the powerful preaching of freedom of speech and action at the school could not but attract the attention of the authorities, and Yasnaya Polyana was denounced to those whom it concerned as a center of criminal revolutionary propaganda. In the summer of 1862, the police appeared in the school and made a perquisition.
A full description of this is to be found in the reminiscences of E. Markov in his article printed in "The European Messenger."
[E. Markov writes] I cannot help mentioning a
characteristic episode, known only to a very few persons,
but which had been the cause of Tolstoy's giving up
educational work. As a peace mediator of the first
elected group, Tolstoy warmly sympathized with the
liberation of the serfs, and he naturally acted in a
direction which provoked a large majority of landowners
against him. He has received a number of threatening
letters; they threatened to knock him down or shoot him
in a duel; and he has been denounced to the authorities.
It so happened that just at the very time when the
magazine "Yasnaya Polyana" was started by Tolstoy,
proclamations of different revolutionary parties made
their appearance in St. Petersburg, and the police were
actively engaged searching for the hidden printing press.
Some one of Tolstoy's political enemies craftily
insinuated that certain secret leaflets containing
appeals for cooperation could be printed only in the
printing office of a magazine published -- horrible
dictu! -- not in a town, as all respectable people would
have it done, but in the country. In fabricating this,
they only omitted to give a glance at the title-page,
where it was stated in big type that the review was
published in the most respectable printing office of M.
N. Katkov in Moscow. The denunciation, nevertheless,
created a real storm.
In the absence of Tolstoy, his house was being kept
by his elderly aunt, and his sister, also married to a
Tolstoy, was staying there with her children on a visit.
Our common friend, G. A. Auerbach, and myself were
spending the summer with our families at a distance of
about five versts from Yasnaya Polyana, in a house let to
us by a landowner in the same Raspberry Abattis where
Yasnaya Polyana was. One early morning a messenger from
Yasnaya Polyana arrived. We were requested to come as
soon as possible on important business. Auerbach and I
jumped into a wagonette and hurried on as hard as we
could. On our entering the courtyard, we were faced with
a real invasion; there were post chaises drawn by teams
of three horses with their bells, conveyances of local
inhabitants, the head of the police district, the
commissary of rural police, local policemen, witnesses,
and in addition to all this -- gendarmes. The colonel of
the gendarmes arrived with jingling and bustle at the
head of this fearful expedition into Tolstoy's peaceful
abode, to the great consternation of the village people.
After some difficulty, we succeeded in entering the
house. The poor ladies were almost fainting. Everywhere
there were watchmen, everything was opened, shifted
about, and turned upside down -- tables, drawers,
wardrobes, chests of drawers, boxes, caskets, etc.
Crowbars were used in the stables to lift the floors; the
ponds in the park were searched by means of nets in order
to catch the criminal printing press, instead of which
only innocent carp and crabs made their appearance.
It need hardly be said that in the first place, the
unfortunate school had been turned upside down; but,
finding nothing there, the searchers went in the same
noisy, bustling procession, with sounding bells, to pay
a visit apparently to all the seventeen schools of the
peace districts, everywhere turning over tables and
ransacking cupboards, carrying off exercise books and
school manuals, putting teachers under arrest, and
creating the wildest conjectures in the heads of the
peasants, who were generally unfavorable to schools. [3]
Prince D. D. Obolenskiy speaks of the same incident in his
reminiscences, with the addition of some interesting details:
[Prince D. D. Obolenskiy writes] The school of
Yasnaya Polyana was getting on splendidly. But as most
of the school teachers were students, the authorities did
not very much favor the institution and suspected that
there must be something politically unsound in Yasnaya
Polyana. Even an officer of the gendarmes called, but of
course could not find anything, for there was nothing to
find. Only in one room in the house of Yasnaya Polyana,
which was converted into a schoolroom, the attention of
the officer was attracted by a photographic apparatus.
In 1862 this was still a novelty, especially in the
provinces and villages. "What is that?" sternly inquired
the officer. "Whose photos are taken here?" The
students, of course, did not like his visit, and one of
them said for fun, "Kergen's, from nature." "How
Kergen?" inquired the officer. But the laughter
explained to him that it was a joke, and he left the
place biting his lips. [4]
Zakharyin Yakunin Tells the following in his "Reminiscences of
the Countess A. A. Tolstaya:
[Zakharyin Yakunin writes] Relating to her this
humiliating incident, Tolstoy added: "I often say to
myself, what a very lucky thing it is that I was not at
home! If I had been, I should by this time have been
tried for murder." It is easy to explain these strong
words used by Tolstoy forty-two years ago, if one
remembers the great shock suffered by his dearest friends
at the time -- his aunt and his sister. It is enough to
say that the Police Commissioner of Tula, Kobelyatskiy,
gave permission to Tolstoy's sister to leave the study
for the drawing room and then to go to bed only after he
had read before her, and in the presence of two
gendarmes, all those intimate letters which we mentioned
in their place, as well as Tolstoy's diary, and
everything Tolstoy had written and kept hidden from all
since the age of sixteen...
The owner of Yasnaya Polyana did not wish to leave
such unnecessary harshness unpunished, so he cut short
his medical treatment and went home. He wrote to
Countess A. A. Tolstaya immediately upon receiving news
of the police invasion and asked her to communicate all
the details of the affair to those in power who knew him
well and on whose protection he could rely, i.e., to
Count B. A. Perovskiy, Countess H. D. Bludova, and
others. What Tolstoy requested was not the punishment of
those who committed the outrage, but the restoration of
his good name in the eyes of the peasants around him and
security against similar incidents in the future.
This affair I positively do not wish to and cannot
leave alone," he wrote; "all the employment in which I
had found happiness and peace is spoiled. Auntie is so
ill from fright that she will probably not recover. The
people look upon me no longer as an honest man -- an
opinion, on their part, which I have earned during many
years -- but as a criminal, an incendiary, or a coiner,
who has escaped merely owing to his slyness...."
"Ah, friend! you have been caught...you needn't talk
to us any more about honesty and justice -- you have
almost been handcuffed yourself."
"As to the landowners, it goes without saying there
is one outburst of delight. Please tell me at once,
after consulting Perovskiy or Aleksey Tolstoy, or whom
you like, how I am to write and to transmit my letter to
the Emperor. I have no other choice than either to
receive a satisfaction as public as the insult (it is too
late for any redress), or else to expatriate myself, upon
which I have firmly decided. To Herzen I will not go;
Herzen has his own way, and I have mine. Nor will
conceal matters, but will loudly proclaim that I am
selling my estate in order to leave Russia, where it is
impossible to know for one minute what have to expect."
It is a long letter written on eight large pages.
In forming her at the end that the colonel of gendarmes
on leaving had threatened Yasnaya Polyana with a new
search till he should find out "what was hidden," Tolstoy
added:
"Loaded pistols are in my room, and I am waiting to
see how all this will end."
I remember Tolstoy telling me that he felt extremely
hurt by this meddling of the police in his affairs, the
more so as the visit and the search of the police were
made during his absence. He made up his mind to complain
of it to the Emperor Aleksandr II, and at the latter's
visit to Moscow, when he met him in the Aleksandrovsk
Garden, he personally handed him a petition. The Emperor
received his petition, and I believe sent one of his
adjutants to apologize.
But the authorities were far from pacified, and a
correspondence between the Ministers of the Interior and of
Instruction ensued on the subject of the review "Yasnaya Polyana."
We quote extracts from this correspondence printed in the
reminiscences of Usov:
[Usov writes] The Minister of Interior informed the
Minister of Instruction on October 3, 1862:
The careful reading of the educational review
"Yasnaya Polyana, edited by Count Tolstoy, leads to the
conclusion that this review, in preaching new methods of
tuition and principles of popular schools, frequently
spreads ideas which, besides being incorrect, are
injurious in their teaching. Without entering into a
full examination of the doctrines of the review, and
without pointing out any particular articles or
expressions -- which, however, could be easily done -- I
consider it necessary to draw the attention of your
Excellency to the general tendency and spirit of the
review, which very often attacks the fundamental rules of
religion and morality. The continuation of the review in
the same spirit must, in my opinion, be considered the
more dangerous as its editor is a man of remarkable and
one may say even a fascinating talent, who cannot be
suspected to be a criminal or an unprincipled man. The
evil lies in the sophistry and eccentricity of his
convictions, which, being expounded with extraordinary
eloquence, amy carry away inexperienced teachers in this
direction, and thus give a wrong turn to popular
education. I have the honor to inform you of this,
hoping that you may consider it useful to draw the
special attention of the censor to this publication.
Having received this report, the Minister of Instruction
issued an order for the examination of all the printed books of the
review "Yasnaya Polyana, and, on October 24th of the same year
[1862], informed the Minister of the Interior that in accordance
with the examination made by his subordinates, and the report
presented to him, he saw nothing dangerous or contrary to religion
in the review "Yasnaya Polyana." One only came at times across
extreme views upon the subject of education, which might very well
be criticized in scientific educational reviews, but not forbidden
by the censor.
[Minister of Public Instruction writes, 1862] On
the whole, I must say that Count Tolstoy's work as an
educationist deserves full respect, and the Minister of
Public Instruction is bound to help him and give him
encouragement, even though not sharing all his views,
which, after maturer consideration, he will probably give
up himself. [5]
The liberal Ministry of Public Instruction was mistaken.
Tolstoy did not give up his ideas; but all those attacks had
prevented the further development of his school work in Yasnaya
Polyana.
Footnotes[edit]
- ↑ a Tartar tent
- ↑ Cossack commander
- ↑ E. Makarov, "The Living Soul in School: Thoughts and Reminiscences of An Old Educationalist," "Messenger of Europe," p. 584, February 1900.
- ↑ "Sketches and Reminiscences by Prince D. D. Obolenskiy," "The Russian Archive, Book X, 1894.
- ↑ E. Solovev, "Leo tolstoy: His Life and Literary Activity," p. 73. Published by Pavlenkov, St. Petersburg, 1897.