Tolstoy

Tolstoy’s child-centred approach, then, was based on there being a complete freedom to learn. In addition to accounts of the activities of his schools, Tolstoy contributed lengthy articles about his teaching methods to the Yasnaya Polyana journal, arguing that the much-vaunted European system was fundamentally flawed, and inapplicable to Russia, which had to find its own way.⁸⁴ The journal issues were accompanied by supplements of reading matter for children. These contained stories written by the pupils at Tolstoy’s schools, or written down by their teachers, and brief articles written in a clear, simplified language on historical topics. Tolstoy invested an enormous amount of effort in his schools, and he loved all his peasant pupils. The feeling was mutual, and was helped by the fact that he had begun to dress like a peasant, and never stood on ceremony. He was a marvellous storyteller, of course, but he also threw himself into other extra-mural activities, such as snowball fights and tobogganing in the winter. For Shrovetide in 1862 Tolstoy invited 100 pupils from different villages to Yasnaya Polyana for bliny. At Easter the children received gifts of pencils, mouth-organs and pieces of calico which could be used by their mothers to make shirts for them.⁸⁵

While the Ministry of Education approved of Tolstoy’s pedagogical activities, the Ministry of Internal Affairs took a very different view. Along with Tolstoy’s adversaries amongst the landowners in his district, the Ministry of Internal Affairs perceived Tolstoy’s schools as hotbeds of anarchy and revolution. The arrival of radical students was the last straw, and a secret police file was opened on Tolstoy in January 1862. It detailed Tolstoy’s contacts abroad with dangerous figures like Herzen and Lelewel, his employment of politically active students and the trouble that had been caused by his actions as a Justice of the Peace. Tolstoy’s landowner neighbours were delighted to supply the police with regular denunciations, including the spurious charge that Tolstoy had set up an underground printing press. A fat file of evidence against Tolstoy started to build up.