Sofya Andreevna thick biography. The tragedy of the wife of Leo Tolstoy. Cookbook by Sofia Andreevna Tolstoy

The story of the love and life of Leo Tolstoy and his wife Sofia Andreevna, who lived with the writer for 48 years and bore him 13 children.

On September 23, 1862, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy married Sofya Andreevna Bers. At that time she was 18 years old, the count was 34. They lived together for 48 years, until Tolstoy’s death, and this marriage cannot be called easy or cloudlessly happy. Nevertheless, Sofya Andreevna gave birth to 13 children to the count, and published both his lifetime collection of his works and a posthumous edition of his letters. Tolstoy, in his last message, written to his wife after a quarrel and before leaving home for his last way to the Astapovo station, he admitted that he loved her, no matter what - but he couldn’t live with her.


Reproduction of the painting by artist Ilya Repin “Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy and Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya at the table.”

Sofya Andreevna, both during her husband’s life and after his death, was accused of never understanding her husband, not sharing his ideas, and being too down-to-earth and far from the count’s philosophical views. He himself accused her of this; this, in fact, became the cause of numerous disagreements that overshadowed the last 20 years of their life together. And yet, one cannot blame Sofya Andreevna for being a bad wife. Having devoted his entire life not only to the birth and upbringing of numerous children, but also to caring for the home, farming, solving peasant and economic problems, as well as preserving creative heritage great husband, she forgot about dresses and social life.

See you with your first and only wife Count Tolstoy - a descendant of an ancient noble family, in which the blood of several noble families was mixed at once - had already managed to make both a military and a teaching career, was famous writer. Tolstoy was familiar with the Bersov family even before his service in the Caucasus and his travels around Europe in the 50s. Sophia was the second of three daughters of the Moscow palace office doctor Andrei Bers and his wife Lyubov Bers, nee Islavina. The Bers lived in Moscow, in an apartment in the Kremlin, but often visited the Islavins’ Tula estate in the village of Ivitsy, not far from Yasnaya Polyana. Lyubov Alexandrovna was friends with Lev Nikolaevich's sister Maria, her brother Konstantin - with the count himself. He saw Sophia and her sisters for the first time as children, they spent time together and Yasnaya Polyana, and in Moscow, they played the piano, sang and even staged an opera theater once.

Sophia received an excellent education at home - her mother instilled in her children a love of literature from childhood, and later received a diploma as a home teacher at Moscow University and wrote short stories. In addition, the future Countess Tolstaya from her youth was fond of writing stories and kept a diary, which would later be recognized as one of the outstanding examples memoir genre. Returning to Moscow, Tolstoy no longer found the little girl with whom he had once staged home plays, but a charming girl. The families began to visit each other again, and the Berses clearly noticed the count’s interest in one of his daughters, but for a long time they believed that Tolstoy would marry the eldest Elizabeth.

For some time, as you know, he himself doubted, but after another day spent with the Bers in Yasnaya Polyana in August 1862, he made his final decision. Sophia captivated him with her spontaneity, simplicity and clarity of judgment. They parted for several days, after which the count himself came to Ivitsy - to a ball that the Berses organized and at which Sophia danced so that there was no doubt left in Tolstoy’s heart. It is even believed that the writer conveyed his own feelings at that moment in War and Peace, in the scene where Prince Andrei watches Natasha Rostova at her first ball.

On September 16, Lev Nikolaevich asked the Bersovs for their daughter’s hand in marriage, having previously sent Sophia a letter to make sure she agreed: “Tell me how fair man, do you want to be my wife? Only if with all your heart, you can boldly say: yes, otherwise it’s better to say: no, if you have a shadow of self-doubt. For God's sake, ask yourself well. I will be scared to hear: no, but I foresee it and will find the strength to bear it. But if I’m never loved by my husband the way I love, it will be terrible!” Sophia immediately agreed.

Wanting to be honest with his future wife, Tolstoy gave her his diary to read - this is how the girl learned about the groom’s turbulent past, about gambling, O numerous novels and passionate hobbies, including a relationship with a peasant girl Aksinya, who was expecting a child from him. Sofya Andreevna was shocked, but hid her feelings as best she could, nevertheless, she will carry the memory of these revelations throughout her life.
The wedding took place just a week after the engagement - the parents could not resist the pressure of the count, who wanted to get married as soon as possible. It seemed to him that after so many years he had finally found the one he had dreamed of as a child. Having lost his mother early, he grew up listening to stories about her, and thought that his future wife should be a faithful, loving companion, mother and assistant who fully shared his views, simple and at the same time able to appreciate the beauty of literature and the gift of her husband. This is exactly how he saw Sofya Andreevna - an 18-year-old girl who abandoned city life, social events and beautiful outfits for the sake of living next to her husband on his country estate. The girl took care of the household, gradually getting used to rural life, so different from the one to which she was accustomed.

Sofya Andreevna gave birth to her first child, Seryozha, in 1863. Tolstoy then began writing War and Peace. Despite the difficult pregnancy, his wife not only continued to do household chores, but also helped her husband in his work - she rewrote drafts completely.

Sofya Andreevna first showed her character after the birth of Seryozha. Unable to feed him herself, she demanded that the count bring a wet nurse, although he was categorically against it, saying that then the woman’s children would be left without milk. Otherwise, she completely followed the rules established by her husband, solved the problems of peasants in the surrounding villages, even treated them. She taught and raised all the children at home: in total, Sofya Andreevna gave birth to Tolstoy 13 children, five of whom died at an early age.

The first twenty years passed almost cloudlessly, but grievances accumulated. In 1877, Tolstoy finished work on Anna Karenina and felt deep dissatisfaction with life, which upset and even offended Sofya Andreevna. She, who sacrificed everything for him, in return received dissatisfaction with the life that she had so diligently arranged for him. Moral quest Tolstoy led him to formulate the commandments by which his family was now to live. The Count called, among other things, for the simplest existence, giving up meat, alcohol, and smoking. He dressed in peasant clothes, made clothes and shoes for himself, his wife and children, and even wanted to give up all his property in favor of the villagers - Sofya Andreevna had to work hard to dissuade her husband from this act. She was sincerely offended that her husband, who suddenly felt guilty before all of humanity, did not feel guilty before her and was ready to give away everything he had acquired and protected by her for so many years. He expected from his wife that she would share not only his material, but also his spiritual life, his philosophical views. Having had a big quarrel with Sofia Andreevna for the first time, Tolstoy left home, and when he returned, he no longer trusted her with the manuscript - now the responsibility for rewriting the drafts fell on his daughters, of whom Tolstaya was very jealous. She was also crippled by the death of her last child, Vanya, born in 1888 - he did not live to see the age of seven. This grief initially brought the spouses closer together, but not for long - the abyss that separated them, mutual grievances and misunderstandings, all this pushed Sofya Andreevna to seek solace on the side. She took up music and began traveling to Moscow to take lessons from teacher Alexander Taneyev. Her romantic feelings for the musician were no secret either to Taneyev himself or to Tolstoy, but the relationship remained friendly. But the count, jealous and angry, could not forgive this “half-betrayal.”

Sofya Tolstaya at the window of the house of the head of the Astapovo station I.M. Ozolin, where the dying Leo Tolstoy lies, 1910.

In recent years, mutual suspicions and resentments grew into almost manic obsession: Sofya Andreevna re-read Tolstoy’s diaries, looking for something bad that he could write about her. He scolded his wife for being too suspicious: the last, fatal quarrel took place on October 27-28, 1910. Tolstoy packed his things and left home, leaving Sofya Andreevna a farewell letter: “Don’t think that I left because I don’t love you. I love you and feel sorry for you with all my heart, but I cannot act differently from what I am doing.” According to the stories of her family, after reading the note, Tolstaya rushed to drown herself - they miraculously managed to pull her out of the pond. Soon information came that the count, having caught a cold, was dying of pneumonia at the Astapovo station - his children and wife, whom he did not want to see even then, came to the sick man’s house stationmaster. Last meeting Lev Nikolaevich and Sofia Andreevna occurred just before the death of the writer, who passed away on November 7, 1910. The Countess outlived her husband by 9 years, was involved in the publication of his diaries, and until the end of her days listened to reproaches that she was a wife unworthy of a genius.

She was 18, he was 34. Tolstoy was looking for an ideal, conquering women's hearts. And Sophia Bers was in love, young and inexperienced. Their love does not fit into the concept of “romance”; the word “life” is more suitable for it. Isn't this what Tolstoy himself wanted?

There is no couple in the history of Russia whose married life would be so actively discussed by society as the life of Lev Nikolaevich and Sofia Andreevna Tolstoy. There was never so much gossip about anyone and so many speculations were born about them as about the two of them. The most hidden intimate details the relationship between them was subject to close scrutiny.

And perhaps there is no woman in Russian history whose descendants so vehemently accused her of being a bad wife and almost ruining her brilliant husband. Meanwhile, she devotedly served him all her life and lived not as she herself would have liked, but as Lev Nikolaevich thought was right. Another thing is that it turned out to be not just difficult, but impossible to please him, because a person looking for an ideal is doomed to disappointment when communicating with people.

Love story and family life Tolstykh is the story of a clash between the sublime and the real, between the idea and everyday life, and the conflict that inevitably follows. But it’s impossible to say with certainty who is right in this conflict. Each spouse had their own truth.

Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on August 28, 1828 in Yasnaya Polyana. He was the heir of several ancient families; the branches of the Volkonskys and Golitsyns, Trubetskoys and Odoevskys were also woven into the Tolstoy family tree, and the genealogy was carried out from the 16th century, from the time of Ivan the Terrible. Lev Nikolaevich's parents got married without love. For his father, Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy, it was a marriage for the sake of a dowry. For the mother, Princess Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya, ugly and having already spent time as a girl, - last chance marry. Their marital relationship, however, was touching and blissful. The tenderness of this family happiness illuminated the entire childhood of Lev Nikolaevich, who did not know his mother: she died of a fever when he was one and a half years old. The orphaned children were raised by aunts Tatyana Ergolskaya and Alexandra Osten-Sacken, they also told little Leva about what an angel his late mother was - smart, and educated, and delicate with the servants, and caring for the children - and how happy he was with her Father. Of course, there was some exaggeration in these stories. But it was then that it took shape in the imagination of Lev Nikolaevich perfect image the one with whom he would like to connect his life. He could only love an ideal. Marrying - naturally, also only on an ideal.

But meeting the ideal is a tricky task, which is why he had numerous relationships of a prodigal nature: with female servants in the house, with gypsies, with peasant women from subject villages. One day, Count Tolstoy seduced a completely innocent peasant girl, Glasha, her aunt’s maid. She became pregnant, her aunt kicked her out, her relatives did not want to accept her, and Glasha would have died if Lev Nikolaevich’s sister Masha had not taken her in. After this incident, he decided to show restraint and made a promise to himself: “I will not have a single woman in my village, except for some cases that I will not look for, but I will not miss.” Of course, Tolstoy did not fulfill this promise, but from now on, bodily joys for him were seasoned with the bitterness of repentance.

Sofya Andreevna Bers was born on August 22, 1844. She was the second daughter of the doctor of the Moscow palace office, Andrei Evstafievich Bers, and his wife, Lyubov Alexandrovna, née Islavina; in total there were eight in the family; children. Once upon a time, Dr. Bersa was invited to the bedside of the seriously ill, practically dying Lyuba Islavina, and he was able to cure her. While the treatment lasted, the doctor and the patient fell in love with each other. Lyuba could have made a much more brilliant match, but she preferred a marriage of passion. And she raised her daughters, Lisa, Sonya and Tanya, so that they put feelings above calculation.

Lyubov Alexandrovna gave her daughters a decent education at home, the children read a lot, and Sonya even tried herself in literary creativity: she composed fairy tales and tried to write articles on literary topics.

The Bers family lived in an apartment near the Kremlin, but modestly, according to the memoirs of Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy - almost poor. He knew Lyubov Alexandrovna’s grandfather and once, while passing through Moscow, visited the Bersov family. In addition to the modesty of life, Tolstoy noted that both girls, Lisa and Sonya, are “lovely.”

Lev Nikolaevich first fell in love relatively late, at twenty-two. The object of his feelings was best friend Masha's sisters - Zinaida Molostova. Tolstoy offered her his hand and heart, but Zinaida was betrothed and had no intention of breaking her word to the groom. Treat broken heart Lev Nikolaevich went to the Caucasus, where he composed several poems dedicated to Zinaida, and began to write “The Morning of the Landowner,” the hero of which organizes schools and hospitals in his village, and his lovely wife is ready to do anything to help the unfortunate men, and everyone around - “ children, old people, women adore her and look at her like some kind of angel, like providence.”

Count Tolstoy fell in love for the second time in the summer of 1854, after he agreed to become the guardian of the three orphaned children of the nobleman Arsenyev, and his eldest daughter, twenty-year-old Valeria, seemed to him the long-awaited ideal. His meeting with Valeria Arsenyeva happened exactly a month after he first saw his future wife Sonya Bers... Valeria happily flirted with the young count, dreamed of marrying him, but they had very different ideas about family happiness. Tolstoy dreamed of how Valeria, in a simple poplin dress, would go around the huts and give help to the men. Valeria dreamed of how, in a dress with expensive lace, she would drive around in her own stroller along Nevsky Prospekt. When this difference was clarified, Lev Nikolaevich realized that Valeria Arsenyeva was by no means the ideal he was looking for, and wrote her an almost insulting letter in which he stated: “It seems to me that I was not born for family life, although I love her most of all.” light."

For a whole year, Tolstoy experienced a break with Valeria, the next summer he went to see her again, without experiencing any feelings: neither love, nor suffering. In his diary he wrote: “My God, how old I am!.. I don’t want anything, but I’m ready to drag out the joyless burden of life as long as I can...” Sonya Bers, his betrothed, turned twelve that year.

The next love of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy was the peasant woman Aksinya Bazykina. She was impossibly far from his highly spiritual ideal, and Tolstoy considered his feelings for her - serious, heavy - to be unclean. Their relationship lasted three years. Aksinya was married, her husband worked as a driver and was rarely at home. Unusually pretty, seductive, cunning and crafty, Aksinya turned men’s heads, easily lured and deceived them. “Idyll”, “Tikhon and Malanya”, “The Devil” - all these works were written by Tolstoy under the impression of his feelings for Aksinya.

Aksinya became pregnant around the time Lev Nikolaevich wooed Sonya Bers. A new ideal had already entered his life, but he was unable to break off relations with Aksinya.

In August 1862, all the children of the Bers family went to visit their grandfather on his Ivitsy estate and stopped in Yasnaya Polyana along the way. And then 34-year-old Count Tolstoy suddenly saw in 18-year-old Sonya not a lovely child, but a lovely girl... A girl who can excite feelings. And there was a picnic in Zaseka on the lawn, when the naughty Sonya climbed onto a haystack and sang “The key flows over the pebbles.” And there were conversations in the twilight on the balcony, when Sonya was timid in front of Lev Nikolaevich, but he managed to get her to talk, and he listened to her with emotion, and at parting he enthusiastically said: “How clear and simple you are!”

When the Berses left for Ivitsy, Lev Nikolaevich endured only a few days apart from Sonya. He felt the need to see her again. He went to Ivitsy and there, at a ball, he admired Sonya again. She was wearing a barge dress with purple bows. She was unusually graceful in dancing, and although Lev Nikolaevich told himself that Sonya was still a child, “the wine of her charm went to his head” - he later described these feelings in “War and Peace”, in the episode when Prince Andrei Bolkonsky dances with Natasha Rostova and falls in love with her. Outwardly, Natasha was modeled after Sonya Bers: thin, large-mouthed, ugly, but completely irresistible in the radiance of her youth.

“I am afraid of myself, what if this is a desire for love, and not love. I try to look only at her weak sides, and yet this is it,” Tolstoy wrote in his diary.

When the Berses returned to Moscow, he followed them. Andrei Evstafievich and Lyubov Aleksandrovna at first thought that Tolstoy was interested in their eldest daughter, Liza, and gladly accepted him, hoping that he would soon woo him. And Lev Nikolaevich was tormented by endless doubts: “Every day I think that it is impossible to suffer anymore and be happy together, and every day I become crazier.” Finally, he decided that it was necessary to explain himself to Sonya. On September 17, Tolstoy came to her with a letter in which he asked Sonya to become his wife, and at the same time begged her to answer “no” at the slightest doubt. Sonya took the letter and went to her room. In the small living room, Tolstoy was in such a state of nervous tension that he did not even hear when the elder Bers addressed him.

Finally Sonya came down, approached him and said: “Of course, yes!” Only then did Lev Nikolaevich officially ask her parents for her hand in marriage.

Now Tolstoy was absolutely happy: “Never have I imagined my future with my wife so joyfully, clearly and calmly.” But there was one more thing: before getting married, he wanted them to have no secrets from each other. Sonya had no secrets, her whole simple young soul was in front of him - in full view. But Lev Nikolaevich had them, and above all, a relationship with Aksinya. Tolstoy gave the bride to read his diaries, in which he described all his past hobbies, passions and experiences. For Sonya, these revelations came as a real shock. A conversation with her mother helped Sonya come to her senses: Lyubov Alexandrovna, although she was shocked by the prank of her future son-in-law, tried to explain to Sonya that all men of Lev Nikolaevich’s age have a past, it’s just that most grooms do not let their brides in on these details. Sonya decided that she loved Lev Nikolaevich strongly enough to forgive him everything, including Aksinya. But then Tolstoy again began to doubt the correctness of the decision made, and on the very morning of the appointed wedding, September 23, he invited Sonya to think again: maybe she didn’t want this marriage after all? Can’t she really, eighteen years old, tender, love him, “the old toothless fool”? And again Sonya cried. She walked down the aisle in the Kremlin Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in tears.

That evening, the young couple left for Yasnaya Polyana. Tolstoy wrote in his diary: “Incredible happiness... It cannot be that this all ends only in life.”

Family life, however, did not start out smoothly. Sonya showed coldness and even disgust in intimate relationships, which, however, are quite understandable - she was still very young and brought up in the traditions of the 19th century, when mothers informed their daughters about the “marriage sacrament” before the wedding, and even then in allegorical expressions. But Lev Nikolaevich was going crazy with passion for his young wife, and was angry with her for not receiving a response. Once, during his wedding night, he even had a hallucination: the count imagined that in his arms it was not Sonya, but a porcelain doll, and even the edge of his shirt was broken off. He told his wife about the vision - Sonya was scared. But she could not change her attitude towards the physical side of marriage.

Much of this disgust was a consequence of her reading her husband's diaries. Lev Nikolaevich's frankness became a source of torment for Sonya. She was especially tormented because of Aksinya, who continued to come to the manor’s house to wash the floors. Sonya was so desperately jealous that one day she dreamed of how she was tearing into pieces the child she gave birth to from Lev Nikolayevich Aksinya...

Sonya had a hard time with her first pregnancy. She was tormented by constant nausea, and, to the chagrin of Lev Nikolaevich, she could not go to school at all. barnyard and did not visit peasant houses - she could not stand the smell.

For pregnancy, they sewed “a short, brown, cloth dress” for her. Lev Nikolaevich himself ordered and bought it, saying that behind the crinoline (skirt with steel hoops) and behind the trains he would not find his wife; and such attire is inconvenient in the village.

In his “Confession” Tolstoy wrote: “The new conditions of a happy family life have completely distracted me from any search for general meaning life. During this time, my whole life was focused on my family, my wife, my children, and therefore on concerns about increasing my means of living. The desire for improvement, which had previously been replaced by the desire for improvement in general, has now been replaced by the desire to ensure that my family and I are as good as possible...”

Before her first birth, Sonya was tormented by constant fear, and Lev Nikolaevich did not understand this fear: how can you be afraid of what is natural? Sonya's fears turned out to be justified: her labor began prematurely and was very difficult and long. Lev Nikolaevich was next to his wife, trying to support her. Sonya later wrote in her memoirs: “The suffering continued all day, it was terrible. Lyovochka was with me all the time, I saw that he was very sorry for me, he was so affectionate, tears sparkled in his eyes, he wiped my forehead with a handkerchief and cologne, I was all sweaty from the heat and suffering, and my hair was sticking to my hair. my temples: he kissed me and my hands, from which I did not let go of his hands, now breaking them from unbearable suffering, now kissing them to prove to him my tenderness and the absence of any reproaches for this suffering.”

On July 10, 1863, their first son, Sergei, was born. After giving birth, Sonya fell ill, she had “baby sickness” and she could not feed herself, and Lev Nikolaevich was against taking a wet nurse for the baby from the village: after all, the wet nurse would leave her own child! He offered to feed the newborn Sergei from a bottle. But Sonya knew that often as a result of such feeding, babies suffer from abdominal pain and die, and Sergei was so weak. For the first time, she dared to rebel against her husband’s will and demanded a nurse.

A year after Seryozha, the young countess gave birth to Tatiana, another year and a half later - Ilya, then there were Lev, Maria, Peter, Nikolai, Varvara, Andrei, Mikhail, Alexey, Alexandra, Ivan. Of the thirteen children, five died before reaching their mature years. It so happened that Sofya Andreevna lost three babies in a row. In November 1873, one and a half year old Petya died of croup. In February 1875, Nikolenka, who had not yet been weaned, died of meningitis. .. During the funeral service, the deceased baby lay surrounded by candles, and when his mother kissed him for the last time, it seemed to her that he was warm and alive! And at the same time she felt a slight smell of decay. The shock was terrible. Later, throughout her life, during nervous overstrains, she would be tormented by olfactory hallucinations: the smell of a corpse. In October of the same 1875, Sofya Andreevna prematurely gave birth to a girl, whom they barely managed to christen Varvara - the baby did not live even a day. And yet then she had the strength to cope with her grief. Largely thanks to the support of her husband: for the first two decades of their life together, Lev Nikolaevich and Sofya Andreevna still loved each other very much: sometimes to the point of mutual dissolution. The lines from her letter dated June 13, 1871 testify to how Tolstaya valued communication with her husband: “In all this noise, without you it’s like without a soul. You alone know how to put poetry and charm into everything and raise everything to some height. This is how I feel, however; For me everything is dead without you. Without you, I only love what you love, and I’m often confused as to whether I love something myself or whether I’m the only one who likes something because you love it.”

Sofya Andreevna also raised her children herself, without the help of nannies and governesses. She sewed them, taught them to read and play the piano. Trying to live up to the ideal of a wife, which Tolstoy told her about more than once, Sofya Andreevna received petitioners from the village, resolved disputes, and over time opened a hospital in Yasnaya Polyana, where she herself examined the suffering and helped as far as she had enough knowledge and skill. Everything she did for the peasants was actually done for Lev Nikolaevich.

Sofya Andreevna tried to help her husband in his writing works, in particular, she copied manuscripts completely: she understood Tolstoy’s illegible handwriting. Afanasy Fet, who often visited Yasnaya Polyana, sincerely admired Sofia Andreevna and wrote to Tolstoy: “Your wife is ideal, add whatever you want to this ideal, sugar, vinegar, salt, mustard, pepper, amber - you’ll only ruin everything.”

In the nineteenth year of family life, after finishing work on Anna Karenina, Lev Nikolaevich felt the onset of spiritual crisis. The life he led, for all its prosperity, no longer satisfied Tolstoy, and even literary success did not bring joy. In his “Confession,” Tolstoy described that period as follows: “Before taking up the Samara estate, raising a son, writing a book, I need to know why I will do this... Among my thoughts about the farm, which occupied me very much at that time, I suddenly a question came to mind: “Okay, you’ll have 6,000 dessiatines in the Samara province, 300 heads of horses, and then?..” And I was completely taken aback and didn’t know what to think next. Or, as I began to think about how I would raise my children, I would say to myself, “Why?” Or, talking about how people can achieve prosperity, I suddenly said to myself: “What does it matter to me?” Or, thinking about the fame that my writings would gain for me, I said to myself: “Well, okay, you will be more famous than Gogol, Pushkin, Shakespeare, Moliere, all the writers in the world - so what!..” And I didn’t say anything. could answer..."

Sofya Andreevna spent nineteen years in Yasnaya Polyana practically without a break. Sometimes she visited her relatives in Moscow. The whole family also went to the steppe for kumys. But she has never been abroad, nor about any social entertainment, balls or theaters, I couldn’t even think about outfits: I dressed simply, in comfortable clothes village life"short" dresses. Tolstoy believed that a good wife does not need all this secular tinsel. Sofya Andreevna did not dare to disappoint him, although she, a city dweller, was sad in the village and wanted to taste at least a little of those pleasures that were not only allowed, but also natural for women of her circle. And when Lev Nikolaevich began to look for other values ​​and some higher meaning in life, Sofya Andreevna felt mortally offended. It turned out that all her victims were not only not appreciated, but were discarded as something unnecessary, as a delusion, as a mistake.

Sophia raised her children strictly. Young and impatient, she could shout and slap her on the head. Later she regretted this: “The children were lazy and stubborn, it was difficult with them, but I really wanted to teach them more about everything.”

On July 3, 1887, she wrote in her diary: “I have roses and mignonette on the table, now we will have a wonderful lunch, the weather is soft, warm, after a thunderstorm, there are cute children all around. In all this I found goodness and happiness. And so I rewrite Lyovochka’s article “On Life and Death,” and he points to a completely different good. When I was young, very young, even before marriage - I remember that I strived with all my soul for that good - complete self-denial and life for others, I even strived for asceticism. But fate sent me a family - I lived for her and suddenly now I have to admit that this was something different, that this was not life. Will I ever think of this?”

Sofya Andreevna simply had no time to delve into her husband’s new ideas, listen to him, and share his experiences. Too many responsibilities were entrusted to her: “This chaos of countless worries, interrupting one another, often leaves me in a dazed state, and I lose my balance. It’s easy to say, but at any given moment I am concerned about: studying and sick children, the hygienic and, most importantly, spiritual state of my husband, big children with their affairs, debts, children and service, the sale and plans of the Samara estate... new edition and 13 part with the forbidden “Kreutzer Sonata”, a petition for division with the Ovsyannikovsky priest, proofs of volume 13, Misha’s nightgowns, Andryusha’s sheets and boots; do not fall behind on house payments, insurance, name duties, people’s passports, keeping accounts, rewriting, etc. and so on. - and all this must certainly directly affect me.”

The first followers of Tolstoy's new teachings were his children. They idolized their father and imitated him in everything. Being an enthusiastic person, Lev Nikolaevich sometimes went beyond the bounds of reason. He demanded that younger children not be taught anything that is not necessary in simple folk life, that is, music or foreign languages. He wanted to give up his property, thereby practically depriving his family of their means of livelihood. He wanted to renounce the copyright to his works because he believed that he had no right to own them and make a profit from them. .. And every time Sofya Andreevna had to stand up to defend family interests. Disputes were followed by quarrels. The couple began to move away from each other, not yet knowing what torment this could lead to.

If earlier Sofya Andreevna did not dare to be offended even by Lev Nikolaevich’s betrayals, now she began to remember all the past grievances at once. After all, every time she, pregnant or just given birth, could not share the marital bed with him. Tolstoy became infatuated with the next maid or cook, or even sent, according to his old lordly habit, to the village for a soldier... Each time Lev Nikolaevich repented that he had again “fallen to sensual temptation.” But the spirit could not resist the “temptation of the flesh.” More and more often, quarrels ended in Sofia Andreevna’s hysterics, when she would sob on the sofa or run out into the garden to be alone there.

In 1884, when Sofya Andreevna was again pregnant, another quarrel occurred between them. Lev Nikolaevich tried to confess to her what he considered his guilt before humanity, but she was offended that he felt guilt before humanity, but never before her. Lev Nikolaevich, in response to her accusations, left the house overnight. Sofya Andreevna ran into the garden and sobbed there, crouching on a bench. Her son Ilya came for her and forcibly took her into the house. By midnight Lev Nikolaevich returned. Sofya Andreevna came to him in tears: “Forgive me, I’m giving birth, maybe I’ll die.” Lev Nikolayevich wanted his wife to listen to him, what he had not finished saying since the evening. But she could no longer physically listen... The house did not treat Sofia Andreevna’s next birth as an outstanding event. She always walked around either pregnant or nursing. A daughter, Sasha, was born, with whom Sofia Andreevna subsequently did not have a good relationship, and the older children believed that Sasha’s mother did not love her because she had suffered so much with her during childbirth. It seemed that the Tolstoy family would never have the same harmony again.

But in 1886, four-year-old Alyosha died. The grief brought the spouses so close that Tolstoy considered the child’s death “reasonable and good. We are all united by this death even more lovingly and closely than before.”

And in 1888, forty-four-year-old Sofya Andreevna gave birth to her last child, Ivan, who was called “Vanichka” in the family. Vanichka became everyone's favorite. According to general memories, it was adorable baby, gentle and sensitive, precocious. Lev Nikolaevich believed that it was Vanichka who would become the true spiritual heir of all his ideas - perhaps because Vanichka was still too young to express any negative attitude towards these ideas. Sofya Andreevna simply adored her son immensely. Moreover, while Vanichka was alive, the family lived relatively peacefully and calmly. Of course, there were quarrels, but not as serious as before Vanichka’s birth... And not as serious as those that began after the boy died of scarlet fever in February 1895, before reaching the age of seven.

Sofia Andreevna's grief was beyond description. Those close to her thought she was crazy. She did not want to believe in Vanichka’s death, she tore out her hair, banged her head against the wall, shouted: “Why?! Why was it taken from me? Not true! He's alive! Give it to me! You say: “God is good!” So why did He take it away from me?”
Daughter Maria wrote: “Mom is terrible with her grief. Here her whole life was in him, she gave him all her love. Dad alone can help her, he alone knows how to do this. But he himself suffers terribly and cries all the time.”

Lev Nikolaevich and Sofya Andreevna were no longer able to recover from this tragedy. Moreover, it seemed to Sofya Andreevna that her husband had stopped loving her. Lev Nikolaevich actually understood her feelings and was distressed that Sofya Andreevna was suffering so much. On October 25, 1895, Tolstoy writes in his diary: “Sonya and Sasha have now left. She was already sitting in the stroller, and I felt terribly sorry for her; It’s not that she’s leaving, but I feel sorry for her, her soul. And now I feel so sorry that I can hardly hold back my tears. I feel sorry for the fact that it’s hard, sad, and lonely for her. She has me alone, whom she clings to, and deep down in her soul she is afraid that I don’t love her, I don’t love her, as I can love with all my soul and that the reason for this is our difference in views on life. But you are not alone. I am with you, as you are, I love you and love you to the end in a way that you cannot love more.”

Sofia Andreevna Tolstoy's love for Sergei Taneyev lasted for several years, then weakening, then flaring up with renewed vigor.

On February 24, 1901, Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy was officially excommunicated from the church for false teaching. Sofya Andreevna did everything to support her husband at this difficult moment in his life. Perhaps the first months after excommunication were the last happy months in the Tolstoys’ married life: they were together again, and Sofya Andreevna felt needed. Then it was all over. Forever. Lev Nikolaevich began to withdraw deeper and deeper into himself. In myself - and from my family, from my wife. IN spiritual sense he already existed separately and spoke with Sofia Andreevna less and less. He dreamed of leaving this life - into some other one. Not necessarily to another world, but to another, more right life. He was attracted by wandering and foolishness, in which he saw beauty and true faith.

Sofya Andreevna was tormented by the lack of spiritual closeness with her husband: “He expected from me, my poor, dear husband, that spiritual unity that was almost impossible given my material life and worries, from which it was impossible and nowhere to escape. I would not have been able to share his spiritual life in words, and to bring it to life, to break it, dragging a whole large family behind me, was unthinkable, and even unbearable.”

After all, she still had to worry about the children, especially the older ones, whose lives were so bad. Her grandson, Lev’s son, little Levushka, died. The married daughters Tatyana and Masha suffered miscarriages one after another. Sofya Andreevna rushed from one suffering child to another, returning home mentally tormented. Sofya Andreevna was convinced that her daughters’ inability to prosperous motherhood was the result of their passion for vegetarianism, which was promoted by Lev Nikolaevich: “He, of course, could not foresee and know that they were so depleted of food that they would not be able to nourish in the womb their children."

Tatyana was still able to give birth to a child - after many miscarriages, at the age of forty. And Masha, her mother’s favorite, died of pneumonia in 1906. Sofya Andreevna was crushed by this loss. Insomnia, nightmares, neuralgic pains and, what is especially terrible, olfactory hallucinations returned again: the smell of a corpse. More and more often, Sofya Andreevna could not contain her emotions. Her adult children discussed among themselves whether the mother was mentally ill, or whether this was simply a painful reaction to the aging of the female body and would pass over time.

Her biggest fear was not being remembered. good genius and Tolstoy’s faithful assistant, and “Xanthippe”: that was the name of the wife of the great ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, who became famous for her bad temper. She constantly talked and wrote about this fear in her diary, and it became a real mania for her to look for Tolstoy’s diaries, which he was now hiding from her, in order to remove from them all the negative reviews about himself. If it was not possible to find the diary, Sofya Andreevna with tears begged her husband to erase from the diary all the bad things that he wrote about her in his hearts. There is evidence that Tolstoy actually destroyed some of the records.

Tolstoy understood that Sofya Andreevna - despite their terrible mutual misunderstanding - still did and continues to do a lot for him, but this “very much” was not enough for him, because Tolstoy wanted something different from his wife: “She was an ideal wife in in the pagan sense - fidelity, family, selflessness, family love, pagan, in it lies the possibility of a Christian friend. Will he show up in her?

The “Christian friend” did not appear in Sofya Andreevna. She remained just that - just an ideal wife in the pagan sense.

Finally, the moment came when Tolstoy no longer wanted to stay in Yasnaya Polyana. On the night of October 27-28, 1910, the last, fatal quarrel of the spouses took place, when Sofya Andreevna got up to check her husband’s pulse, and Lev Nikolaevich became furious because of her constant “spying”: “Both day and night, all my movements, words must be known to her and be under her control. More footsteps, carefully unlocking the door, and she passes. I don’t know why, but this caused me uncontrollable disgust and indignation... I can’t lie down and suddenly I make the final decision to leave.”

82-year-old Lev Nikolaevich was prepared for the trip by his daughter Alexandra, and was accompanied by doctor Makovitsky. From Shamordin, Tolstoy sent a letter to his wife: “Don’t think that I left because I don’t love you. I love you and feel sorry for you with all my heart, but I can’t do otherwise than what I’m doing.” Having received the letter, Sofya Andreevna read only the first line: “My departure will upset you...” - and immediately understood everything. She shouted to her daughter: “Gone, completely gone, goodbye, Sasha, I’ll drown myself!” - ran through the park to the pond and threw herself into ice water. She was pulled out. Having barely dried off and come to her senses, Sofya Andreevna began to find out where her husband had gone and where to look for him, but she encountered opposition from her daughter. Sofya Andreevna and Alexandra were never close, but these days they became enemies.

Meanwhile, Lev Nikolayevich was blowing on the train. Pneumonia began. The great writer was dying at the small Astapovo station, in the apartment of the station chief Ozolin. I didn’t want to see the children. A wife - and even more so. Then he relented and accepted his daughters Tatyana and Alexandra. Son Ilya Lvovich tried in vain to reason with his father: “After all, you are 82 years old and your mother is 67. The lives of both of you have been lived, but you must die well.” Lev Nikolaevich did not intend to die, he planned to leave for the Caucasus, Bessarabia. But he was getting worse. In his delirium, it seemed to him that his wife was following him and wanted to take him home, where Lev Nikolaevich did not want to go under any circumstances. But in a moment of clarity he said to Tatyana: “A lot falls on Sonya, we managed it poorly.”

From Astapov, bulletins were sent out throughout Russia about the state of health of Count Tolstoy.

In Yasnaya Polyana, Sofya Andreevna was petrified from grief and humiliation: her husband left, abandoned her, disgraced her in front of the whole world, rejected her love and care, trampled on her whole life...

On November 7, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy died. All of Russia buried him, although the grave - according to his will - was made very modest. Sofya Andreevna claimed that Lev Nikolaevich was buried in Orthodox rite as if she had managed to get permission. Whether this is true or not is unknown. Perhaps the thought that her beloved husband was buried without a funeral service, like a criminal, was simply unbearable for her.

After Tolstoy's death, general condemnation fell on Sofya Andreevna. She was accused of both the departure and death of the writer. They accuse her to this day, not understanding how unbearably heavy her burden was: the wife of a genius, the mother of thirteen children, the mistress of the estate. She did not justify herself. On November 29, 1910, Sofya Andreevna wrote in her diary: “Unbearable melancholy, remorse, weakness, pity to the point of suffering for my late husband... I can’t live.” She wanted to end her existence, which now seemed meaningless, unnecessary and pitiful. There was a lot of opium in the house - Sofya Andreevna thought about poisoning herself... But she didn’t dare. And she dedicated the rest of her life to Tolstoy: his legacy. She completed the publication of his collected works. I prepared a collection of Lev Nikolaevich’s letters for publication. She wrote the book “My Life” - for which she was also condemned as being false and deceitful. Perhaps, Sofya Andreevna really embellished her life with Lev Nikolaevich, and not only her behavior, but also his. In particular, she argued that Tolstoy never loved anyone but her, and “his strict, impeccable loyalty and purity towards women was amazing.” It's unlikely that she actually believed it.

While sorting out her late husband's papers, Sofya Andreevna found a sealed letter from him to her, dated in the summer of 1897, when Lev Nikolaevich first intended to leave. Then he did not carry out his intention, but he did not destroy the letter, and now, as if from another world, his voice addressed to his wife sounded: “... with love and gratitude I remember the long 35 years of our life, especially the first half of this time , when you, with the maternal self-sacrifice characteristic of your nature, so energetically and firmly carried what you considered yourself called to. You gave me and the world what you could give, you gave a lot of motherly love and selflessness, and one cannot help but appreciate you for this... I thank you and I remember and will remember with love for what you gave to me.”

Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya died on November 4, 1919 and was buried in the Tolstoy family cemetery near the Nikolo-Kochakivskaya Church, two kilometers south of Yasnaya Polyana. Daughter Tatyana wrote in her memoirs: “My mother outlived my father by nine years. She died, surrounded by children and grandchildren... She was aware that she was dying. She humbly waited for death and accepted it humbly.”

There are many errors in the article, all of them correctly indicated in the previous comments. The author needs to work more carefully!

It’s easier for us to justify S.A., since it’s difficult for us to understand L.N.: his ideas of philanthropy, “brotherhood of ants,” family happiness, he wanted to bring these ideas to life, he wanted his wife to be his accomplice in these matters, but she was material and realistic. Could two idealists live in a society that is far from ideal? This is probably the drama of their family - a huge discord in ideology. And the Idea was very high and pure. Maybe Tolstoy was way ahead of his time and even ours, perhaps our descendants will be able to create the society that L.N. dreamed of.

Sofya Andreevna also raised her children herself, without the help of nannies and governesses. Not true. There were nannies and governesses, in particular Hannah, an Englishwoman. Numerous teachers were invited. At the same time, S.A., of course, cut and sewed, taught reading and playing the piano.
And Masha, her mother’s favorite... Doesn’t correspond to reality. Maria S.A. did not love. S.A. Almost died giving birth to Masha in 1875. When the daughter grew up, she sided with her father. I accepted his worldview. This also caused a strong negative reaction from the mother. Daughter Tatyana extinguished conflicts between S.A. and Maria.
The first followers of Tolstoy's new teachings were his children. They idolized their father and imitated him in everything. Some kind of game. Not true. Supported the position of L.N. only daughters. The sons completely sided with their mother. Tolstoy's worldview theories were criticized in every possible way.

Tolstoy demanded an explanation, his wife Sofya Andreevna was touched: “What do you want from a 53-year-old woman.” The hero of the family quarrel, composer Taneyev, quipped: “Why did you all get along: Tolstoy, Tolstoy! I saw your Tolstoy in the bathhouse. Very bad." Great writer knew why all families are equally happy, but each is unhappy in its own way.

Golden Boy

Tolstoy took a long time to get married; he stayed in marriage until he was 34 years old. At sixteen, Lev chooses a diplomatic career for himself and enters the Kazan University at the Faculty of Oriental Studies. Despite the ability to study foreign languages, Tolstoy transferred to the Faculty of Law. After studying for three years and leaving the university, nineteen-year-old Lev returns to Moscow. From where, at the age of 12, together with three siblings and a younger sister, after the death of his father, his father’s sister Yushkova took him to Kazan.

The Yushkov house was one of the most cheerful in Kazan; All family members highly valued external shine. “My good aunt,” says Tolstoy, “a pure being, always said that she would want nothing more for me than for me to have a relationship with a married woman.” Grandson former governor Kazan was a welcome guest in many noble houses. A rake with a passionate nature, he led the life of the “golden youth” - he went out into society, caroused, danced, fenced, rode horseback, and often visited the gypsies, whose singing he loved. Even transported to family estate, Yasnaya Polyana, a whole camp. Songs, romances, carousing until the morning. The gypsies settled in the greenhouse that his grandfather Volkonsky had built and happily ate the greenhouse peaches intended for sale. The young count almost married a gypsy, and even learned the gypsy language. Among his fellow landowners, he gained a reputation as a “trifling fellow.” Tolstoy played cards a lot and lost a lot. His fortune was melting, sometimes there was nothing to pay off gambling debts with. Hiding from debts, in 1851 he “exiled himself to the Caucasus.” His elder brother Nikolai, an artillery officer, took him with him.

Caucasian twist

In the Caucasus, Leo Tolstoy takes part in military operations against the mountaineers. For bravery, he was presented with the St. George Cross, but lost it to a soldier - the award provided him with a lifelong pension.

However, you can’t escape from yourself: social drinking parties have been replaced by officers’ ones with the inevitable card games and billiards. Nevertheless, the war years radically changed Tolstoy's fate.

In November 1855, a young officer who arrived in St. Petersburg from Sevastopol received extraordinary attention. The powers that be sought his acquaintance and invited him to dinners. The success was not caused by military exploits; the public recognized the new rising star of Russian literature. The fame of Count Leo Tolstoy grew rapidly, as did interest in the stories written in the Caucasus “Raid”, “Cutting the Forest”, “Notes of a Marker”, “Cossacks”, “ Sevastopol stories" The famous novelist and playwright Pisemsky said: “This officer will peck us all, even if you throw down your pen...”

Instead of a wedding

At the end of 1856, Lev Nikolaevich took off his uniform and plunged into secular passions, even almost getting married. When visiting his estate, he often turned to neighboring Sudakovo to visit young Valeria Arsenyeva. The governess, who was raising the orphan, hatched a plan to marry Valeria to the young count. But then Tolstoy began to be overwhelmed by doubts, and he decided to experience the feeling of a two-month separation. Unexpectedly, I went “to St. Petersburg instead of church.” At a distance, Tolstoy admitted to himself that he did not love so much as he tried to arouse love for himself. The groom wrote about this in Sudakovo. The rejected young lady did not suffer for long; she soon got married and gave birth to four children.

Grandma Temptress

The young count went to Switzerland in 1857, where he spent a stormy time. In the poetic setting of the Swiss spring on the shores of Lake Geneva, he first became acquainted with distant relatives - Countesses Elizabeth and Alexandra Tolstoy. Both served at the court of Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna. Alexandra had a pleasant appearance and a magnificent voice. Tolstoy flirted with pleasure, considering his sweet “grandmother” to be head and shoulders above all the women he had ever met. But this rapprochement did not go beyond simple friendship. The Countess was older, he noticed the first wrinkles on her face and more than once in his diary, admiring his relative, he sadly exclaimed: “If only she were ten years younger!”

They subsequently separated due to religious disagreements. But even in the year of his death, Lev Nikolaevich, rereading his long-term correspondence with Countess Tolstoy, said to those around him: “Just as in a dark corridor there is light from under some door, so when I look back on my long, dark life, the memory of Alexandrine is always a bright spot.”

Cute girls

In 1859, while courting several young ladies in Moscow society, he finally decided to propose to one of them, Princess Lvova, but was refused. Other girls whom he courted found that being with him was “interesting, but difficult,” and besides, the candidate for grooms was not very attractive in appearance. An ugly face with a wide nose and thick lips was softened by the gaze of light gray, deep-set, kind, expressive eyes. The young count noted the first signs of impending old age and had almost given up family happiness. To the girls he met, he made high demands on intelligence, simplicity, sincerity, and beauty. At the same time, his wife must be a healthy mother of his children, look at everything through her husband’s eyes, and be his assistant in everything. Possessing a secular gloss, she is obliged to forget the world, settle with her husband in the village and devote herself entirely to her family.

Only strong passion could make him believe that he had met the personification of such an ideal. And it happened.

In the summer of 1861, having returned to Russia from his second trip abroad, Tolstoy stopped by the Bers family. The pretty daughters of the Kremlin doctor Bers bustled about, setting the table. In the evening in Moscow, Tolstoy wrote in his diary: “What lovely, cheerful girls.” Over the course of five years, the “cute girls” grew into beautiful young ladies. The two older ones had already passed their exams and wore long dresses and hairstyles. Lev Nikolaevich became a frequent guest in their house. Tolstoy played four hands with the sentimental Sonya and sat with her at chess. Once he brought with him Turgenev’s story “First Love”, after reading it aloud, he edifyingly said: “The love of a sixteen-year-old son, a young man, was true love, which a person experiences only once in his life, and the love of a father is abomination and depravity.”

Tolstoy once remarked to his sister: “If I marry, it will be to one of the Bers.”

“Well, marry Lisa,” answered the countess, “she will be a wonderful wife: respectable, serious, well-mannered.”

These conversations reached the Behrs family. Parents never dreamed of such a gift. Their daughter, without a dowry, could become a countess, the wife of a wealthy landowner, a famous writer.

Lev Nikolaevich, feeling the atmosphere being created, began to be burdened by this: “It’s a pleasant day at the Bersov’s, but I don’t dare marry Lisa,” and later: “Lisa Bers is tempting me; but that won't happen. Calculation alone is not enough, there is no feeling.”

He was much more attracted younger sisters, full of life and enthusiasm. “Tatyanchik” was still a child. But Sofya Andreevna became prettier every day. She passed the exams at Moscow University and began to go out into the world. A rosy-cheeked girl with dark brown big eyes and a dark braid, with a lively character that easily turned into sadness. She loved literature, painting, music, but did not show any special talents herself. From the age of 11, she carefully kept a diary and even tried to write stories.

Poor Sonechka

Sophia's first admirer was a student teacher. Lively and fast, he wore glasses and shaggy thick hair. One day, while helping Sonechka carry something, a desperate fellow grabbed her hand and kissed it.

- How dare you?! – she shouted, disgustedly wiping the place of the kiss with a handkerchief.

The nihilist was replaced by a high school cadet, Mitrofan Polivanov, from a wealthy noble family with well connected. This time, Sophia no longer took her hands away with disgust when the young man touched them during rehearsals for a home performance. Leaving for St. Petersburg, to the academy, Polivanov made an offer and received consent.

Meanwhile, Professor Nil Aleksandrovich Popov appeared in the Bers family. Sedate, with slow movements and expressive gray eyes. He willingly spent time in Sonechka’s company, never taking his eyes off the graceful figure and lively face of the young girl. I even rented a dacha not far from Pokrovsky. Unexpectedly, Tolstoy felt jealous. He began to appear in the family almost every day. Sonechka greeted him sometimes cheerfully and joyfully, sometimes sadly and dreamily, sometimes sternly. The eighteen-year-old girl deftly manipulated the brilliant writer.

“... She said about Professor Popov and the blouse... was all this really an accident?” “I’m in love like I didn’t believe it was possible to love. She is lovely in every way. And I am disgusting. We should have taken care first. Now I can’t stop.”

Tolstoy came to the Bers in the evening. He was worried and then sat down at the piano, without finishing what he started, got up and walked around the room, approached Sophia, and invited her to play four hands. She sat down obediently. Tolstoy's excitement confused and captured her. Tolstoy, not daring to speak, handed the letter to Sophia. “Sofya Andreevna! ...Your family's false view of me is that it seems to me that I am in love with your sister Lisa. This is unfair... I would have died of laughter if a month ago they told me that it was possible to suffer as I am suffering, and I am happily suffering this time. Tell me, as an honest man, do you want to be my wife? ...But if I never become a husband, loved the way I love, it will be terrible..."

Sophia approached the agitated Tolstoy, his face seemed paler than pale, and said:

- Of course, yes!

Old Doctor Bers, upset for eldest daughter, in the first minutes did not want to give consent. But Sonechka’s tears decided the matter. At Tolstoy’s insistence, they decided to get married in a week. In his diary he writes: “It’s unclear how the week went. I do not remember anything; just a kiss at the piano... Doubts about her love and the thought that she is deceiving herself.” Lev Nikolaevich dedicates her to his diary. Sophia read about his hobbies and cried bitterly over these “terrible” notebooks. They had everything: gambling debts, drunken parties, a gypsy with whom her fiancé intended to live, girls to whom he went with friends, the Yasnaya Polyana peasant woman Aksinya, with whom he spent summer nights and who became pregnant by him, the young lady Valeria Arsenyeva, with whom he did not marry, his aunt’s maid, the peasant woman Glasha who became pregnant from him, and Tolstoy’s promise: “I will not have a single woman in my village, except for some cases that I will not look for, but I will not miss.”

Tolstoy cell

On the wedding day, Lev Nikolaevich unexpectedly arrived in the morning, breaking tradition: the groom was not supposed to come to the bride. But Tolstoy needs the “last drop of truth”; he asks Sonya whether she loves him, whether her memories of Polivanov confuse her, and whether it would be more honest to separate.

The wedding took place in the court Kremlin church. The bride's face was tear-stained; one of her best men was Polivanov.

After congratulations, champagne, and ceremonial tea at Dr. Bers, Sofya Andreevna changed into a dark blue traveling dress for the trip to Yasnaya Polyana. There, on two floors of the outbuilding, the young people settled down. Not the slightest trace of luxury. The table setting is more than modest. The husband immediately exchanged his magnificent Sharmer dress for a warm blouse, which later became his suit.

His habits surprised his young wife. For example, he slept on a dark red morocco pillow, reminiscent of a carriage seat, and did not even cover it with a pillowcase. There was not a single flower in the garden, around the house there were burdocks, on which the few servants threw out rubbish.

From the first day, Sofya Andreevna tried to “help her husband.” But she liked riding threes more. Tolstoy also joined in the fun. And then the two of them, like little children, amused themselves with each other - and were happy.

We love as much as we can

Three and a half months after the wedding (January 5, 1863), Tolstoy writes in his diary: “Family happiness consumes me entirely...”. “I love her when I wake up at night or in the morning and see: she looks at me and loves me. And no one - most importantly I - prevents her from loving, as she knows, in her own way. I love it when she sits close to me, and we know that we love each other as best we can; and she will say: “Levochka!”... and stop: “Why are the pipes in the fireplace laid straight?” or “why do horses take a long time to die?” “... I love it when I see her head thrown back, and her serious, and frightened, and childish, and passionate face; I love it when...”

Everyone admired Tolstoy's idyll. But fits of jealousy began. They were both jealous and suffered deeply. Sofya Andreevna refused to even introduce herself in writing to Countess Alexandra Tolstoy, as she was jealous of her husband’s “dear grandmother.” In Moscow, Sophia does not want to go to Princess Obolenskaya, whom Tolstoy was once fond of. Later she notes in her diary: “We also went to Princess A.A. Obolenskoy, M.A. Sukhotina and E.A. Zhemchuzhnikova. The first two sisters took a tone of contempt for ... the wife of their former admirer."

It would seem that in the wilderness of the village there is no one to be jealous of. But as soon as her cousin Olga Islenyeva, who was visiting Yasnaya Polyana, played four hands with Lev Nikolaevich, Sophia was already jealous and hated the guest.

The husband was even more jealous. Polivanov's presence in Moscow in January 1863 was “unpleasant” to him. He is jealous of the teacher of the Yasnaya Polyana school or of an almost unfamiliar young guest.

Dreams Come True

“I often dream about having an apartment in Moscow on Sivtsev Vrazhek. Send a convoy along the winter route and live for 3-4 months in Moscow. Your world, theater, music, books, library and sometimes exciting conversation with someone new smart person, these are our deprivations in Yasnaya. But the deprivation that is much stronger is counting every penny, being afraid that I won’t have enough money. Wanting to buy something and not being able to. Therefore, until I am able to save so much for a trip to Moscow, until then this dream will be a dream,” he wrote to Sophia’s father. And Tolstoy rolls up his sleeves. Sophia is responsible for the office, settlements with hired workers, household management, barns, and cattle breeding. Until the last days of pregnancy, she ran around the estate with a large bunch of keys at her belt, carrying Lev Nikolaevich breakfast two miles away to the beekeeper, or to the field or garden. Tolstoy was happy. He begins work on War and Peace. The novel took Tolstoy five years of hard work, but brought the writer fame and money.

By the end of the seventies, Tolstoy was quite wealthy. to his literary work he significantly increased his fortune. In the early 80s, he estimated it at 600 thousand rubles. All the elements of “good, honest happiness,” as Tolstoy understood it at that time, were present. Glory such as no Russian writer ever enjoyed during his lifetime; funds are more than sufficient; The family is friendly and cheerful.

Children

The Tolstoys' first child was born on June 28, 1863. The birth was difficult. Tolstoy was nearby, wiping his wife’s forehead and kissing her hands. The count wanted to name the premature, weak boy Nikolai. But Sofya Andreevna was scared. This name did not bring happiness to anyone in the family: Tolstoy’s grandfather, father, brother, and even nephew who bore it, all died early. In the end, we settled on Sergei. “Sergulevich,” Lev Nikolaevich called him.

Sonya could not feed - her breasts hurt very much, and the doctors did not allow it. Tolstoy was angry about this. “The pain weighs me down to death. Leva is murderous... Nothing is cute. Like a dog, I got used to his caresses - he grew cold... I’m bored, I’m alone, completely alone... I’m satisfaction, I’m a nanny, I’m familiar furniture, I’m a woman,” she writes. “...Sonya, my dear, it’s my fault, but I’m disgusting... I have a great person in me who sometimes sleeps. Love him and don’t reproach him,” he replies.

His family consumed him. At the end of 1865, he interrupted his diary for 13 years. Happy spouses have no secrets.

Lev Nikolaevich demanded emphasized simplicity: the boy should wear a canvas shirt. He treated his little daughter cordially, but could not stand kisses, caresses and tenderness. He kept a decent distance from newborns.

“Something like convulsions is happening to me, I’m so afraid to hold small children in my arms...

Ten years after their marriage, the Tolstoys had six children. Sergey, Tatyana, Ilya, Lev, Masha, Peter. Parents took an active part in their upbringing. Sofya Andreevna taught them Russian literacy, French and German languages, dancing. Lev Nikolaevich taught mathematics. Later, when his eldest son needed to learn Greek and there was no suitable teacher, Tolstoy dropped everything and took up the Greeks. Not even knowing the alphabet, he quickly overcame the difficulties and after six weeks he could read Xenophon fluently.

The father also taught the children to swim, trained them in horse riding, and arranged a skating rink on the pond and ice slides. In jumping, running, and gymnastics, Lev Nikolaevich knew no opponents and infected not only the children, but also everyone present. Although he himself hardly remembered his mother's love. His mother, from the old Volkonsky family, passed away when the boy was not even two years old.

In the first fifteen years of his family life, Tolstoy devoted a lot of energy to raising his children. He brought a lot of humor into their lives. For example, “the run of the Numidian cavalry”: Lev Nikolaevich jumped out of his chair, raised his hand up and, waving it above his head, galloped around the table; everyone followed him, repeating his movements. After running around the room several times and out of breath, everyone sat down in their places cheerful, boredom and tears forgotten.

Love cuts

Quarrels happen in every family. “You know, Sonya,” Tolstoy once said, “it seems to me that a husband and wife are like two halves of a blank sheet of paper. Quarrels are like cuts. Start cutting this leaf from the top and... soon the two halves will separate completely.”

Over the years, when the number of children increased, Sofya Andreevna less often played the piano four hands with her husband. Nevertheless, the wife became attached to her husband’s work. Bent over the paper and peering with myopic eyes at Tolstoy’s scribbles, she sat there until late at night. Sofya Andreevna rewrote the enormous novel “War and Peace” seven times.

Even after 12 years of marriage, she and Tolstoy were one.

In 1871, Lev Nikolaevich felt unwell and went to Samara province to be treated with kumis. In six weeks, he wrote 14 letters to his wife, full of “more than love.”

“Every day that I am apart from you,” he wrote, “I think more and more anxiously, and more passionately about you, and it becomes more and more difficult for me. You can’t talk about this...” “I couldn’t read your letters without tears, and I was shaking all over, and my heart was beating...”

Amid this happiness, Tolstoy is sometimes overcome by sad thoughts about death. Over time they appear more and more often. He is attracted to people who stand on the very edge of life. He writes about this “Notes of a Madman.” The ghost of death cut happy life Tolstoy. One and a half year old son Petya died. Sofya Andreevna became seriously ill. Tolstoy contemplates suicide. He stopped going hunting with a gun so as not to be tempted by the too easy way of ridding himself of life. The fits of melancholy were caused not only by the fear of death, but also by the horror of the meaninglessness of life ending in death. So he suffered for three years.

By the beginning of Lev Nikolaevich’s mental crisis, Sofya Andreevna was already over thirty. With his disappointments, Tolstoy became boring, gloomy, irritable, often quarreled with his wife over trifles, and from the former cheerful and cheerful head of the family turned into a strict preacher and accuser. He creates a sobriety society, becomes a vegetarian, and quits smoking.

Two people come together to interfere with each other

In the summer of 1881, Sofya Andreevna was nursing the last months of her eleventh pregnancy. The eldest son was entering university, and it was time to take his daughter out into the world. In 1882, Tolstoy bought a famous house in Moscow on Khamovnichesky Lane. At the same time, he remarks about life in the capital: “Unfortunate ones! No life. Stench, stones, luxury, poverty, debauchery. The villains who robbed the people gathered, recruited soldiers and judges to guard their orgies, and feasted. The people have nothing else to do but, taking advantage of the passions of these people, lure them back of the loot. Guys are better at this. Women are at home, men scrub floors and bodies in bathhouses and drive as cabs.”

When the bearded men of the family (father and sons) were playing vint, Sofya Andreevna gave birth to Alexandra, her twelfth child.

The older Tolstoy gets, the more often he expresses his opinion about women. “Only their husbands recognize women (when it’s too late). Only their husbands see them behind the scenes. ...They pretend so skillfully that no one sees them for what they really are, especially while they are young.” Tolstoy's views on women did not prevent his sons from marrying; the last of them got married in 1901. And the daughters, when their time came, got married: Maria Lvovna in 1897 to Prince Obolensky, and Tatyana Lvovna in 1899 to the landowner Sukhotin.

Tolstoy remained with his wife and youngest daughter. On March 31, 1888, at forty-four, Sofya Andreevna gave birth to her last child, Vanechka, who died six years later. She couldn't bear it.

– You stopped being my wife! - the count shouted. - Who are you? Mother? You don't want to have any more children! Friend of my nights? You even make a toy out of this to take power over me!

In his diary at the end of 1899, he wrote: “Marriage is lured by sexual desire, which takes the form of a promise, a hope for happiness, which supports public opinion and literature; but marriage is... suffering with which a person pays for satisfied sexual desire. main reason of this suffering is that what is expected is what does not happen, and what is not expected is what always happens.” “Marriage is more like the intersection of two lines: as soon as they crossed, they went in different directions.”

Thus they destroyed the last remnants of love in each other. Sofya Andreevna is perplexed in her autobiography: “I can’t keep track of when exactly we broke up with him. And what?..” “I felt powerless to follow his teachings. The personal relationship between us was the same: we loved each other just as much, and it was just as difficult to part.” These comments are sincere. Over the nineties, for example, Tolstoy wrote about 300 letters to his wife. They are full of friendliness, caring, concern. “With your arrival, you left such a strong, cheerful, good impression, too good for me, because I miss you more. My awakening and your appearance is one of the most powerful, joyful impressions I have experienced, and this at 69 years old from a 53-year-old woman!..”

A little later, Tolstoy told his wife that he wanted to divorce her and go to Paris or America. “I got tetanus, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t cry, I kept wanting to talk nonsense, and I’m afraid of this and I’m silent, and I’m silent for three hours, for the life of me I can’t speak. Melancholy, grief, breakup, a painful state of alienation - all this remains in me. For what?"...

Treason

Sofya Andreevna was saved by music - and especially by Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev, composer and professor. The relationship between the Countess and Taneyev was platonic, but his wife’s spiritual betrayal caused Tolstoy enormous suffering. He spoke and wrote to her about this more than once, but she only became offended: “I am an honest woman!” And she continued to receive Taneyev or went to see him herself. To questions about what was happening between the spouses, Sofya Andreevna answered with a grin:

- Yes, absolutely nothing! It’s even embarrassing to talk about jealousy towards a 53-year-old woman.

Everyone guessed that Sofia Andreevna was in love, except Taneyev himself. They never became lovers. In her diary, Sofya Andreevna wrote: “I know exactly this painful feeling when love does not light up, but fades. God's peace“When it’s bad, you can’t – and you don’t have the strength to change it.” Before her death, she told her daughter Tatyana: “I only loved your father.”

At the end of his life, Tolstoy suffered a collapse. His ideas about family happiness collapsed. Lev Nikolaevich was unable to change the life of his family in accordance with his views. He wrote “The Kreutzer Sonata”, “Family Happiness” and “Anna Karenina” based on the experience of his own family life.

Family business

In accordance with his teachings, Tolstoy tried to get rid of attachment to loved ones, tried to be even and friendly to everyone. He asked Sofya Andreevna to manage the property - house, land, writings. “Inexperienced, without a penny of money,” she recalled, “I energetically began to study the business of publishing books, and then selling and subscribing to Tolstoy’s works...” She consulted with numerous friends and even met Dostoevsky’s widow, who, while her husband was still alive, took the publication of his works into her own hands. Things went brilliantly. Sofya Andreevna published herself since 1886. Things also went well with the management of the estates. There was no longer any spiritual closeness and mutual understanding between the spouses. Sofya Andreevna took care of the financial support of the children. Until Vladimir Chertkov appeared in the Tolstoys’ house.

Uninvited guest

The son of the Governor-General, a handsome man, a brilliant officer who drove ladies crazy, Chertkov led a stormy life, caroused, played cards. Having learned about new philosophy writer, “the example of all Tolstoy’s virtues” came to him. Having gained trust, the head of the publishing house “Posrednik” Chertkov little by little became the complete owner of Tolstoy’s works. Sofya Andreevna could not come to terms with the fact that family capital was used to enrich a stranger. Two warring camps formed around the decrepit Tolstoy, tearing him apart.

The family that Sofya Andreevna loved more than anything in the world already consisted (with all the grandchildren) of 28 people. The moment came when the countess's health could not withstand the unrest. On June 22, 1910, Tolstoy, who was visiting Chertkov, received an alarming telegram and returned to Yasnaya Polyana. He found his wife in terrible condition. She was nervously ill. Sofya Andreevna was sixty-six years old. Behind were 48 years of married life and thirteen births.

All hell broke loose in the Tolstoys' house. The unfortunate woman lost all power over herself. She eavesdropped, spied, tried not to let her husband out of her sight for a minute, rummaged through his papers, looking for a will or records about herself and Chertkov. Tolstoy thought more and more persistently about leaving this “madhouse”, from the people who exchanged him for rubles. Sofya Andreevna resolutely promised her husband to commit suicide on the day of his departure.

Loved you until the end

Tolstoy, pitiful, weak, staggering, went on the run. He went to Shamordino to visit his sister, a nun, from there he went on foot to Optina Pustyn, but he did not dare enter the monastery where the elders lived, fearing that they would not want to talk to him. I got on the train and got sick there. The head of the Astapovo station gave up his apartment to the patient. Tolstoy died 7 days later.

“The doctors let me in to see him,” recalled Sofya Andreevna, “when he was barely breathing, lying motionless on his back, with his eyes already closed. I quietly spoke into his ear with tenderness, hoping that he still heard, that I was there all the time, in Astapov, that I loved him to the end... I don’t remember what else I told him, but two deep sighs, like caused by a terrible effort, they answered my words, and then everything calmed down.”

Sofya Andreevna wrote in her diary: “Unbearable melancholy, remorse, weakness, pity to the point of suffering for my late husband... I can’t live.” She wanted to commit suicide.

8 years have passed. Sofya Andreevna turned 74 years old. Tall, slightly hunched over, and much thinner, every day she walked a mile to her husband’s grave and changed the flowers on it. Lev Nikolaevich was buried in Yasnaya Polyana on the edge of a ravine in the forest, where as a child he and his brother were looking for a “green stick” that held the “secret” of how to make all people happy. At the end of her life, Sofya Andreevna confessed to her daughter: “Yes, I lived with Lev Nikolaevich for forty-eight years, but I never found out what kind of person he was...”

Larisa Sinenko

(nee Bakhmeteva, in her first marriage - Miller)

Countess, wife of a poet, prose writer and playwright. Friendship and meetings with Tolstoy are one of the brightest pages in the last years of Dostoevsky’s life. Tolstoy was an extraordinary woman. She graduated from one of the closed women's colleges educational institutions, knew 14 languages, was on friendly terms with many outstanding people of her time: , etc., who visited her literary salon, had an excellent knowledge of world history and literature, was well versed in art, had extraordinary musical abilities. Famous French writer and the literary historian wrote in 1895 about his work on the study and translation of Russian writers: “If I was able to grasp some features; constituting the essence of their genius, if their books became clear to me after diligent study of their authors, I owe this to a person of rare merit: Countess Tolstoy, who died a few months ago, the widow of the most subtle poet Alexei Konstantinovich. She combined all the qualities that we are accustomed to finding among the Russian intelligentsia. I can’t imagine how a foreigner, a Westerner, would be able to understand the confused souls and thoughts of Dostoevsky or Aksakov, if these vague geniuses had not shone with a bright light, having been passed through the diamond prism of the mind of this an extraordinary and versatile woman. It was she who inspired me with the idea of ​​​​acquainting the French public with works so distant and so unusual, and she helped me overcome the fear of my undertaking.”
Tolstoy's St. Petersburg salon, according to contemporaries, stood out favorably from other secular salons: in the atmosphere of genuine art, the ease and nobility of tone inherent in the hostess herself reigned here.
Dostoevsky treated Tolstoy with great respect and there were always friendly relations between them. The writer’s archive contains a note from Tolstoy to him, most likely dating back to 1878 (they met in the second half of the 1870s): “Fyodor Mikhailovich, please, please come to us at least for a minute - or today at 10 I'll be home at about 10 o'clock in the evening, or tomorrow morning - I really want to see you. I really regret that I didn’t see your wife - I hope we’ll meet you another time. Goodbye, isn't it? S. Tolstaya».
It was Tolstaya who sent Dostoevsky a collective telegram from admirers of his talent in connection with the triumph of his Pushkin speech. In response, Dostoevsky sent Tolstoy a letter on June 13, 1880, which indicates that he always treated her with great respect and warmth. The letter ended with the words: “Please accept, dear Countess, my deeply cordial greetings. I value your affection towards me too, too much and therefore I am yours forever.”
recalls: “But most often in the years 1879-1880, Fyodor Mikhailovich visited the widow of the late poet, Count. Aleksey Tolstoy, Countess Sofia Andreevna Tolstoy. She was a woman of enormous intelligence, very educated and well-read. Conversations with her were extremely pleasant for Fyodor Mikhailovich, who was always amazed at the countess’s ability to penetrate and respond to many subtleties philosophical thought, so rarely available to any woman. But, in addition to his outstanding mind, gr. S.A. Tolstaya had a tender, sensitive heart, and all my life I remember with deep gratitude how she once managed to please my husband.” And then A.G. Dostoevskaya talks about how Tolstaya fulfilled Dostoevsky’s cherished desire - to have a good reproduction of his favorite work - Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna”. Tolstoy’s gift was infinitely dear to Dostoevsky; he “was touched to the depths of his soul by her heartfelt attention,” writes A.G. Dostoevskaya - and that same day I went to thank her. How many times in the last year of Fyodor Mikhailovich’s life did I find him standing in front of this great picture in such deep emotion that he did not hear me enter, and, so as not to disturb his prayerful mood, I quietly left the office. My heartfelt gratitude to Countess Tolstoy is understandable because with her gift she gave my husband the opportunity to bear several enthusiastic and deeply felt impressions in front of the Madonna!”
A more detailed description of the salon was left by Tolstoy, who apparently visited it after the death of her father or learned about it from her mother: “Of the literary salons in St. Petersburg, visited by Dostoevsky in the last years of his life, the most significant was the salon Countess Tolstoy, widow of the writer Alexei Tolstoy<...>. The Countess was one of those inspirational women who, although not creative themselves, are able, however, to inspire writers with wonderful ideas. Alexey Tolstoy valued his wife’s intelligence very highly and did not publish anything without her advice. Having become a widow, the Countess settled in St. Petersburg<...>. Having settled in St. Petersburg, Countess Tolstaya began to receive in her house all her husband’s former friends, poets and writers, and tried to make new literary acquaintances. Having met my father, she hastened to invite him to her place and was very kind to him. Her father dined with her, attended her evenings, and agreed to read several chapters from The Brothers Karamazov in her salon before their publication. He soon became in the habit of visiting Countess Tolstoy during his walks to exchange news of the day. Although my mother was somewhat jealous, she did not object to Dostoevsky’s frequent visits to the countess, who at that time had already passed the age of a seductress. Always dressed in black, with a widow's veil on her gray hair, and her hair simply combed, the countess tried to captivate only with her intelligence and kind demeanor. She very rarely went out and by four o'clock she was always already at home, ready to offer Dostoevsky the usual cup of tea. The Countess was very educated, she read a lot on everything European languages and often drew my father’s attention to some interesting article published in Europe. Dostoevsky spent a lot of time creating his novels and, naturally, could not read as much as he would have liked. Count Alexei Tolstoy was in poor health, and he spent more than half of his life abroad. He made numerous friends there, with whom the Countess maintained constant correspondence. They, in turn, sent their friends to her who came to St. Petersburg, and they became zealous visitors to her salon. Thanks to conversations with them, Dostoevsky came into contact with Europe, which he always considered his second fatherland. The polite and amiable tone that reigned in the countess's salon pleasantly distinguished it from the triviality of other literary salons. Some of his old friends from Petrashevsky’s circle became rich and now willingly invited the famous writer to their place. The father accepted these invitations; but he did not like the intrusive luxury of newly acquired wealth; he preferred the comfort and discreet elegance of Countess Tolstoy’s salon.
Thanks to his father, this salon soon became fashionable and attracted many visitors. “When Countess Sophia invited us to her evenings, we came if we had no more interesting invitations; when she wrote: “Dostoevsky promised to come to one of us,” then all other evenings were forgotten, and we made every effort efforts to come to her,” one woman recently told me old lady from high society St. Petersburg society, who fled to Switzerland. Admirers of Dostoevsky, who belonged to the highest circles of St. Petersburg society, asked Tolstoy to introduce them to their father. She always agreed, but it wasn't always easy. Dostoevsky was not a secular person and did not try at all to seem amiable to people he did not like. Meeting benevolent people, pure and noble souls, he was so nice to them that they could never forget him and even twenty years after his death they repeated the words spoken to them by Dostoevsky. If his father found himself in front of one of the snobs with whom the St. Petersburg salons were full, he remained stubbornly silent. In vain did Countess Tolstoy try to break his silence by skillfully asking him questions; the father answered absentmindedly “yes”, “no” and continued to regard the snob as an amazing and harmful insect. With such intolerance, my father made many enemies, which usually did not bother him much. This arrogance of Dostoevsky was in striking contrast to the exquisite politeness, the admirable courtesy with which his father answered letters from his admirers from the provinces. Dostoevsky knew that all his thoughts, his advice were received with reverence by rural doctors and teachers public schools and priests from small parishes, while the St. Petersburg veils were interested in him only because he was in fashion.”
Judging by the memoirs of the wife of the estate manager A.K. Tolstoy's Pustynka, although not entirely reliable, Dostoevsky was in the second half of the 1870s. at Tolstoy's in this estate Pustynka near St. Petersburg. In Dostoevsky’s notes for 1880 there is an entry: “To stop by before leaving to gr. Tolstoy."

Tolstaya Sofya Andreevna is the wife of Leo Tolstoy.

Sofya Andreevna is the second daughter of the doctor of the Moscow palace office Andrei Evstafievich Bers (1808-1868), who was descended from German nobles on her father’s side, and Lyubov Alexandrovna Bers (nee Islavina). In his youth, her father served as a doctor for the Moscow lady Varvara Turgeneva and had a child with her, Varvara Zhitova, who thus turned out to be the half-sister of both Sofya Tolstoy and Ivan Turgeneva. The other children of the Bers couple were daughters Tatyana Andreevna Kuzminskaya (partial prototype of Natasha Rostova) and Elizaveta Andreevna Bers (prototype of her sister Vera Berg) and two sons.

Sophia was born in a dacha rented by her father, near the Pokrovskoye-Streshnevo estate, and until Sophia’s marriage, the Berses spent every summer there. Having received a good education at home, Sophia in 1861 passed the exam for the title of home teacher at Moscow University, and stood out with her Russian essay, submitted to Professor Tikhonravov, on the topic “Music.” In August 1862, she and her family went to visit her grandfather Alexander Mikhailovich Islenyev to the estate of his legal (unlike her natural grandmother Sofia Petrovna Kozlovskaya ur. Zavodovskaya) wife Sofia Alexandrovna Isleneva (ur. Zhdanova) in the village of Ivitsy, Odoevsky district, Tula province, and visited along the way at L.N. Tolstoy's in Yasnaya Polyana. On September 16 of the same year, Tolstoy proposed to Sofya Andreevna; a week later, on the 23rd, their wedding took place, after which Tolstaya became a resident of the village for nineteen years, occasionally traveling to Moscow.

The first years of their married life were the happiest. In the 1880-1890s, as a result of Tolstoy’s change in views on life, discord occurred in the family. Sofya Andreevna, who did not share her husband’s new ideas, his desire to renounce property and live by his own, mainly physical labor, still understood perfectly well to what moral and human heights he had risen.

From 1863 to 1889, Tolstaya bore her husband thirteen children, five of whom died in childhood, the rest lived to adulthood. For many years, Sofya Andreevna remained her husband’s faithful assistant in his affairs: a copyist of manuscripts, a translator, a secretary, and a publisher of his works.

Sofya Andreevna was a great personality in her own right.” Possessing a subtle literary sense, she wrote novels, children's stories, and memoirs. Throughout her life, with short breaks, Sofya Andreevna kept a diary, which is described as a noticeable and unique phenomenon in memoirs and literature about Tolstoy. Her hobbies were music, painting, photography.

The departure and death of Tolstoy had a hard effect on Sofya Andreevna, she was deeply unhappy, she could not forget that before his death she had not seen her husband conscious. On November 29, 1910, she wrote in the Diary: “Unbearable melancholy, remorse, weakness, pity to the point of suffering for my late husband... I can’t live.”

After Tolstoy's death, Sofya Andreevna continued publishing activities, having released her correspondence with her husband, completed the publication of the writer’s collected works. Last years Sofya Andreevna spent her life in Yasnaya Polyana, where she died on November 4, 1919. She was buried at the Kochakovskoye cemetery, not far from Yasnaya Polyana.