Leo Tolstoy

A conventional biography usually starts with the family origins of its subject. In the case of Leo (Lev Nikolaevich) Tolstoy, this is both essential and redundant. It is redundant because one of Tolstoy’s greatest novels, War and Peace, provides such a powerful and memorable description of the writer’s ancestors that any reality is bound to pale in comparison. It is essential because Tolstoy’s family history informs the novel and in many ways defines his biography. In what is a hallmark of his writing, Tolstoy blurs the line between fiction and ‘real life’ by marginally changing the names of the characters. Thus the Volkonskys, the real family name of Tolstoy’s mother, transform into the Bolkonskys. The Volkonskys were one of the most aristocratic families of the land, stemming from the ninth-century Varangian prince Rurik, semi-legendary founder of Russian statehood. The wordplay on Tolstoy’s paternal family name is a bit more complex. In an early draft of War and Peace it appears as Tolstov and in later drafts changed into Prostov (‘The Simple one’ in Russian), but this name smacked too much of an eighteenth-century moralistic comedy. By omitting the first letter, Tolstoy arrived at Rostov, a surname sounding like the ancient Russian town, thus underlining the national roots of the family. This change notwithstanding, simplicity remains a fundamental feature of the Rostovs’ way of life in the novel.

Tolstoy in 1878–9.

To a modern reader, the title of count sits oddly with simple habits and democratic origin. However, this title had been awarded to Russian nobles only since the beginning of the eighteenth century and thus pointed to a relatively short family history. In fact, the marriage between Tolstoy’s parents – and the novel’s principal characters – was a misalliance: Princess Maria Volkonsky was a rich heiress; her husband, Count Nikolai Tolstoy, was on the brink of ruin, thanks to his father’s profligate lifestyle. She married at the age of 32, in 1822, a year after the death of her father. By the standards of her time she was already a spinster and, according to Tolstoy, ‘not good looking’. Her husband was four years her junior. In the novel Tolstoy does not conceal the practical reasons behind the marriage but these do not obscure the mutual love in a marriage made in Heaven. We don’t know whether the family life of Tolstoy’s parents resembled the blissful union portrayed in the Epilogue to War and Peace. Even if Tolstoy’s father’s reputation as a womanizer is unfair, we know that he spent most of the time away from home settling endless legal disputes in court or hunting in nearby forests. His wife, meanwhile, had built a special gazebo in the park where she would wait for her missing husband.

For Tolstoy, writing in his unfinished memoirs, his mother was a perfect wife who did not actually love her husband. Her heart fully belonged to her children, especially the eldest, Nikolai, and Leo, her fourth and youngest son. Born on 28 August 1828, Leo was barely two years old when his mother died a few months after the birth of her only daughter Maria.

This early loss had a profound impact on Tolstoy. He worshipped the memory of his mother and made a point of spending time in her favourite corner of the family garden. He would later insist that his wife deliver their children on the same sofa on which he was born and, most importantly, forever longed for the maternal love of which he had been deprived. Tolstoy could not remember his mother and was glad that no portraits of her were preserved by the family, except for a miniature silhouette cut from black paper. His ideal spiritual image of the person he loved most would thus remain untainted by material artefacts. Fighting temptations ‘in the middle period of his life’, Tolstoy recalled that he prayed to the soul of his mother and the prayers always helped.

In 1906, aged 77, Tolstoy wrote in his diary:

Was in the dull miserable state all day. By evening, this state changed to one of emotion – the desire for affection – for love. I felt as in childhood like clinging to a loving pitying creature, and weeping emotionally and being comforted. But who is the creature I could cling to like that. I ran through all the people I love – nobody would do. Who could I cling to? I wanted to be young again and cling to my mother as I imagine her to have been. Yes, yes, my dear mother whom I never called by this name since I could not talk. Yes, she is my highest conception of pure love – not the cold and divine, but a warm, earthly, maternal love. This is what attracts my better, weary soul. Mother dear, caress me. All this is stupid, but it is true. (Ds, pp. 395–6)