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100 years without Tolstoy
Published: 20 November, 2010, 11:54
Edited: 21 November, 2010, 00:09
TAGS: Anniversary, Russia, Literature, History
It is one hundred years since the world lost one of its most-influential writers and thinkers. Leo Tolstoy's historic legacy, with works such as "War and Peace" still resonates today.
Leo Tolstoy liked his family estate because it was as far from the madding crowd as you could get – a place where he could feed ducks or get lost among birch trees without anyone disturbing him.
A century after his death it is anything but solitary. Group after group is filing into his house.
“Yasnaya Polyana has never had a shortage of visitors,” says Vladimir Tolstoy, director of the Tolstoy Museum at Yasnaya Polyana. “In fact, during the high season – summer, spring, and autumn – we have trouble handling the flow of tourists. It's pretty hard to get it. You have to call at a certain time to book a visit on a particular day; otherwise, you just won't get there.”
A great-great-grandson of the writer, Vladimir Tolstoy can recite many of his famous ancestor's novels by heart. But, he says, few of the museum’s visitors could do the same.
Russians are proud of Tolstoy, but more as a brand than a favorite author.
According to polls, only 11 per cent re-read Tolstoy's books after finishing high school.
“Unfortunately, most people never go back to classical literature after being forced to read it at school,” Vladimir Tolstoy says. “Instead, they prefer reading what's trendy and popular these days. There's nothing bad about that; it's just a pity that those people miss out on real literature.”
Just a few hundred meters from Tolstoy's estate, his philosophy still serves as a pillar of strength for this family.
Alfred and Elaine Podovinikoff belong to the Dukhobors, a Christian group that, with the help of Tolstoy, moved to Canada in the late 19th Century, fleeing persecution in Russia.
Ten years ago, their descendants came back, settling at a village where Tolstoy spent most of his life.
“What happened is that void that was in me disappeared and it is a spiritual void. I found myself here,” Elaine Podovinikoff says.
Like Tolstoy, who despised exploitation, Alfred and Elaine are building their new home all by themselves, even though it has already taken them a decade. Like Tolstoy, they strongly believe in pacifism and unity with nature. Above all, they see Tolstoy’s ideas as timeless.
“I think his ideas haven't yet been reached, that they are just starting to be tapped into. And that's why I think Russia has a great future,” Alfred Podovinikoff says.
A non-conformist throughout his life, Tolstoy became renowned for defying all sorts of postulates – including his own.
Leo Tolstoy once said death is terrible because it means the end of everything. But this does not apply to his legacy. During his lifetime, his readership was in the thousands, now it numbers in the millions. Last year War and Peace was named the greatest book of all time by Newsweek magazine, bringing an ultimate moment of peace to this literary warrior.
20.11.2010, 10:32
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20.11.2010, 14:53
6 comments
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Marzipan6, I think you put more things in the explanation (why Tolstoy is just a brand) then the reality is. It may be much more simple. Lets take me, for example. I have no problems with both Tolstoy's or Dostoevsky's philosophy and ideas. Not necessarily I use them in my life, though. But, the problem with their work for me -- Dostoevsky's novels are so physiologically intense, that reading them may put me in the depressed state. Tolstoy's work lacks dynamics which I need. Plus, I do not derive the optimism from their work, which I sometimes need. That dynamics and optimism which I could get from Pushkin or Lermontov. Or even from M.Gorky.
Also, the reason why Russians may "look at you vacantly" on your question about "a totalitarian nightmare" is because many of them didn't see that nightmare you are referring too. Even more, those who had chance to live back there and now and can compare things, may feel that the current life has more difficulties and nightmares than that "totalitarian life". This is the same as to ask Estonians: what have they done to ensure that their Nazi past never returns again? Sounds as absurd, probably. Because, many Estonians do not aware that "their Nazi past" even existed. So the "totalitarian nightmares" for many Russians.
The article states that "Russians are proud of Tolstoy, but more as a brand than as a favourite author." May I suggest a reason why?
In all their work, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Russia's two greatest novelists, insisted that only by full confession could crimes of the past be absolved and life become endurable again. Yet Russia as a nation and most Russians as individuals would just as soon willingly submit to having an eye gouged out as confessing to crimes of the past. Russians' rationale seems to be that because all Soviet state criminals were not Russians, therefore none were, and Russians have absolutely nothing to repent of, nothing to apologise for, and no one to bring before a court of law to answer for crimes against humanity that continued to be committed in the name of the Soviet State all the way until the earliest 1990s. If you listen to them, you will learn that their only connection with Soviet-era crimes was, they were the victims - always the victims, never the victimisers.
Ask a Russian, a leader or a common person alike, what he or she personally has learned from his country's Soviet experience, what steps they are personally taking and what accountabilities they are now insisting upon from people in authority to ensure that a totalitarian nightmare can never again befall their country, and most will look at you vacantly as if these were the strangest questions they have ever heard.
I f more Russians read, thought about and took to heart Tolstoy's writings, perhaps they and their country would be different today.
Bogdanov, Estonians know their history very well. They know their country had no affection for Nazis, and that it was only the impossible situation of being attacked by two giant totalitarian enemies that drove some of them to fight for their people in German uniform, and some in the just as hated Soviet uniform. This is why they find it insulting and offensive for their German occupation - you do know what "occupation" means, I'm sure - to be described as their "Nazi past."
But your question of what Estonians have learned from their Soviet, Nazi and renewed Soviet occupations is valid , and I am glad to answer.
Estonians would tell you they regret that in 1934 their elected president initiated a government coup by dismissing parliament and suspending the constitution and elections. He did this to prevent a right-wing party (which was neither fascist nor Nazi) from gaining power. Thus in the critical years leading up to Estonia's greatest crises as it faced the twin enemies of Germany and Russia, it did not have the wisdom of a broadly-based parliament answerable to the people to rely on, but only a small group of well-meaning but self-appointed leaders, and those leaders made some poor decisions. The second thing that Estonians deeply regret is that Estonia trusted the word of Russia and allowed it to establish bases there in 1939, and to invade it outright in 1940 without firing as much as a shot in defence. What followed was sixty years of occupation and oppression.
Estonians have learned never to allow internal politics to smother democracy in their country again - they simply will not allow this. They have learned never to trust Russia's word again, and to judge Russia strictly by its actions, never by its words. They have learned never to rely on neutrality again, as they did in 1939. And they have learned that if any country ever tries to bully them again, they will resist with all the force at their disposal.