Leo Tolstoy is a unique writer in Russian literature. It is very difficult to describe Tolstoy's work briefly. The writer’s large-scale thought was embodied in 90 volumes of works. The works of L. Tolstoy are novels about the life of the Russian nobility, war stories, short stories, diary entries, letters, and articles. Each of them reflects the personality of the creator. Reading them, we discover Tolstoy - a writer and a person. Throughout his 82-year-old life, he pondered what the purpose of human life was and strived for spiritual improvement.
We briefly became acquainted with the work of L. Tolstoy at school, reading his autobiographical stories: “Childhood”, “Adolescence”, “Youth” (1852 - 1857). In them, the writer outlined the process of forming his character, his attitude towards the world around him and himself. Main character Nikolenka Irtenev - sincere, observant, lover of truth Human. Growing up, he learns to understand not only people, but also himself. The literary debut was successful and brought recognition to the writer.
Leaving his studies at the university, Tolstoy began to transform the estate. This period is described in the story Morning of the Landowner (1857).
In his youth, Tolstoy was characterized by making mistakes (his social entertainment while studying at the university), and repentance, and the desire to eradicate vices (self-education program). There was even an escape to the Caucasus from debts, social life. Caucasian nature, the simplicity of Cossack life contrasted with noble conventions and enslavement educated person. The richest impressions of this period were reflected in the story “Cossacks” (1852-1963), the stories “Raid” (1853), “Cutting Wood” (1855). Tolstoy's hero of this period - searching man who is trying to find himself in unity with nature. The story "Cossacks" is based on an autobiographical love story. Disillusioned with civilized life, the hero is drawn to a simple, passionate Cossack woman. Dmitry Olenin reminds romantic hero, he seeks happiness in the Cossack environment, but remains alien to it.
1854 - service in Sevastopol, participation in hostilities, new impressions, new plans. At this time, Tolstoy was fascinated by the idea of publishing a literary magazine for soldiers, and worked on the series “ Sevastopol stories" These essays became sketches of several days lived among his defenders. Tolstoy used the technique of contrast in describing the beautiful nature and everyday life of the city’s defenders. War is terrifying in its unnatural essence, this is its true truth.
In 1855-1856, Tolstoy had great fame as a writer, but did not become close to anyone from the literary community. Live in Yasnaya Polyana, classes with peasant children fascinated him more. He even wrote “The ABC” (1872) for classes at his school. It consisted of best fairy tales, epics, proverbs, sayings, fables. Later, 4 volumes of “Russian books for reading” were published.
From 1856 to 1863, Tolstoy worked on a novel about the Decembrists, but when analyzing this movement, he saw its origins in the events of 1812. So the writer moved on to describe the spiritual unity of the nobility and the people in the fight against the invaders. This is how the idea of the novel - the epic "War and Peace" - arose. It is based on the spiritual evolution of the heroes. Each of them goes their own way to comprehend the essence of life. Scenes family life intertwined with the military. The author analyzes the meaning and laws of history through the prism of the consciousness of the common man. It is not commanders, but the people who are able to change history, and the essence of human life is family.
Family is the basis of another Tolstoy novel, Anna Karenina.
(1873 - 1977) Tolstoy described the story of three families, whose members treated their loved ones differently. Anna, for the sake of passion, destroys both her family and herself, Dolly tries to save her family, Konstantin Levin and Kitty Shcherbatskaya strive for a pure and spiritual relationship.
By the 80s, the worldview of the writer himself had changed. He is concerned about issues of social inequality, poverty of the poor, idleness of the rich. This is reflected in the stories “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” (1884-1886), “Father Sergius” (1890-1898), the drama “The Living Corpse” (1900), and the story “After the Ball” (1903).
The writer's last novel is Resurrection (1899). In the late repentance of Nekhlyudov, who seduced his aunt’s pupil, is Tolstoy’s thought about the need to change the entire Russian society. But the future is possible not in a revolutionary, but in a moral, spiritual renewal of life.
Throughout his life, the writer kept a diary, the first entry in which was made at the age of 18, and the last 4 days before his death in Astapov. The writer himself considered the diary entries to be the most important of his works. Today they reveal to us the writer’s views on the world, life, and faith. Tolstoy revealed his perception of existence in the articles “On the Census in Moscow” (1882), “So what should we do?” (1906) and in “Confession” (1906).
The last novel and the writer’s atheistic writings led to a final break with the church.
Writer, philosopher, preacher Tolstoy was firm in his position. Some admired him, others criticized his teaching. But no one remained calm: he raised questions that worried all of humanity.
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Count L.N. Tolstoy - a descendant of two noble noble families: Count Tolstoy and Prince Volkonsky (on his mother's side) - was born on August 28 (September 9), 1828 in the Yasnaya Polyana estate. Here he lived most of his life, wrote most of his works, including novels included in the golden fund of world literature: “War and Peace”, “Anna Karenina” and “Resurrection”.
The most important events of Tolstoy’s “pre-writing” biography are early orphanhood, moving with his brothers from Moscow to Kazan to live with his father’s sister, who was appointed their guardian, short and not very successful studies at Kazan University, first at the Eastern and then at the Faculty of Law (from 1844 . to 1847). After leaving the university, Tolstoy went to Yasnaya Polyana, inherited from his father.
From childhood, the future writer was fascinated by the idea of self-knowledge and moral self-determination. From 1847 until the end of his life, he kept a diary, which reflected his intense moral quest, painful doubts about the correctness of his life decisions, joyful moments of finding the meaning of existence and a bitter parting with what until recently seemed an unshakable truth... Entries in Tolstoy! diary became “human documents” that prepared the appearance of his autobiographical books. Cognition human soul Tolstoy began with himself, which lasted his entire life.
Tolstoy’s first literary experiments date back to 1850. Having arrived from Yasnaya Polyana to Moscow, he began work on the autobiographical story “Childhood”, a story from the life of gypsies (remained unfinished), wrote “The History of Yesterday” - a psychological “report” about one of his experiences days. Soon Tolstoy's life changed dramatically: in 1851 he decided to go to the Caucasus and join one of the army units as a cadet. An important role in this decision was played by one of the most authoritative people for young Tolstoy - his older brother Nikolai, an artillery officer who served in the army.
In the Caucasus, the story “Childhood” was completed, which became Tolstoy’s literary debut (published in Nekrasov’s Sovremennik in 1852). This work, together with the later stories “Adolescence” (1852-1854) and “Youth” (1855-1857), became part of the famous autobiographical trilogy, in which Tolstoy, who was carried away by the pedagogical ideas of the French educator J.-J. Rousseau while still studying at Kazan University, explores the psychology of the child, teenager and young man Nikolai Irtenyev.
In 1851-1853 a former student and aspiring writer took part in the war with the highlanders. During the Crimean War, he was transferred to the Danube Army, which fought the Turks, and then to Sevastopol, besieged by Allied troops. Army life and episodes of the Crimean War served as a source of unforgettable impressions and provided abundant material for military works—the stories “Raid” (1852), “Cutting Wood” (1853-1855), “Sevastopol Stories” (1855). They show for the first time the “undressy” side of the war. "Trench" truth and inner world a man at war - that’s what interested the warrior writer. For the courage and bravery shown during the defense of Sevastopol, he was awarded the Order of Anna and the medals “For the Defense of Sevastopol” and “In Memory of the War of 1853-1856.” Experience of a participant in the bloodiest war mid-19th century V. and the artistic discoveries made in war stories of the 1850s were used by Tolstoy a decade later in his work on his main “military” work, the novel “War and Peace.”
Tolstoy's first publications evoked sympathetic responses from critics and readers. Perhaps the most insightful description of the young writer’s work comes from the pen of N.G. Chernyshevsky. In the article “Childhood and adolescence. War stories gr. Tolstoy" (1856), the critic was the first to define with classical clarity the most important features of Tolstoy's work: "purity of moral feeling" and psychologism - attention to the most complex side of human existence, which Chernyshevsky called "dialectics of the soul."
In 1855, Tolstoy came to St. Petersburg, and in the fall of 1856 he retired, disappointed in military career. Work began on the previously planned “Novel of a Russian Landowner.” This work remained unfinished; only one of its fragments has survived - the story “The Morning of the Landowner,” the “echo” of which can be felt in all of Tolstoy’s novels.
In 1857, during his first trip to Europe (France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany), Tolstoy wrote the story “Lucerne.” Having created in it the image of Western “civilization”, he raised serious moral and philosophical problems. For the first time, the topic of human alienation was touched upon, continued in late creativity writer and in the works of his followers - writers of the 20th century. Tolstoy wrote with bitterness about how people, generally kind and humane, showed extraordinary spiritual callousness towards a specific person, but ended the story with an abstract philosophical conclusion about the “reasonableness” of the universe: “Infinite is the goodness and wisdom of the One who allowed and commanded exist for all these contradictions.”
In works of the 1850s. Tolstoy the artist avoided criticism of reality, coming into contact with, but not merging with, the critical trend in Russian realistic literature. The writer consciously went against the grain, believing that “the tendency to pay attention only to what outrages is a great vice, and specifically of our time.” He followed a moral maxim, which he formulated as follows: “Intentionally seek all that is good, kind, and turn away from what is bad.” Tolstoy sought to combine the accuracy of the realistic characteristics of the heroes, a deep analysis of their psychology with the search for philosophical and moral principles life. Moral truth, according to Tolstoy, is concrete and achievable - it can be revealed to a seeking, restless, dissatisfied person.
The story “Cossacks” (1853-1863) is an artistic “manifesto” of Tolstoy’s “Rousseauism”. Despite the “literary” nature of the plot, which goes back to the “Caucasian” works of Pushkin (“Gypsies”) and Lermontov (“Hero of Our Time”), the story became the result of the writer’s creative development over ten years. There was a significant convergence of three themes, important for subsequent work on the novel “War and Peace”: “natural man”, folk life and Tolstoy’s traditional theme of the moral quest of a nobleman (the image of Olenin). In "Cossacks" it's "fake" secular society contrasted with a harmonious community of people close to nature. “Naturality” for Tolstoy is the main evaluation criterion moral qualities and people's behavior. “True” life, in his opinion, can only be a “free” life based on an understanding of the wise laws of nature.
In the late 1850s, Tolstoy experienced an acute spiritual crisis. Dissatisfied with his work, disappointed in his secular and literary environment, he refused to actively participate in literary life and settled on the Yasnaya Polyana estate, where he took up farming, teaching and family (in 1862 Tolstoy married the daughter of a Moscow doctor S.A. Bers).
A new turn in the writer’s life significantly adjusted his literary plans. However, having retired from the literary “fuss,” he did not stop working on new works. Since 1860, when the novel “The Decembrists” was conceived, the plan for Tolstoy’s largest work of the 1860s gradually took shape. - epic novel "War and Peace". This work accumulated not only life and artistic experience, accumulated by Tolstoy in the 1850s, but also reflected his new interests. In particular, teaching activity, marriage and building his own family led to the writer’s close attention to the problems of family and education. “Family Thought” in the work, dedicated to events half a century ago, turned out to be just as important as “popular thought”, philosophical, historical and moral problems.
His ascetic work—the creation of “War and Peace”—ended in 1869. For several years, Tolstoy hatched the idea of a new work on the “central”, in his opinion, historical topic- the theme of Peter I. However, work on the novel about the Peter I era did not progress beyond a few chapters. Only in 1873, having gone through a new passion for pedagogy (the ABCs and Books for Reading were written), he began to seriously begin to implement a new plan - a novel about modernity.
The novel "Anna Karenina" (1873-1877), central work 1870s, - new stage V creative development Tolstoy. Unlike the epic novel “War and Peace,” dedicated to depicting the “heroic” era in the life of Russia, in the problems of “Anna Karenina” the “family thought” was in the foreground. The novel became a real “family epic”: Tolstoy believed that it was in the family that one should look for the core of modern social and moral problems. The family in his image is a sensitive barometer reflecting changes in public morality caused by changes in the entire post-reform way of life. Anxiety for the fate of Russia dictated the famous words of Konstantin Levin: “We now, ... when all this has turned upside down and is just settling down, the question of how these conditions will fit in, there is only one important question in Russia.” The hero understands that his fragile family happiness depends on the well-being of the country.
Love and marriage, according to Tolstoy, cannot be considered only as a source of sensual pleasure. The most important thing is moral responsibilities to family and loved ones. The love of Anna Karenina and Vronsky is based only on the need for pleasure, and therefore leads to the spiritual separation of the heroes, making them unhappy. The tragedy of Anna's fate is predetermined not only by the callousness of the man whom she married not out of love, but out of calculation, by the cruelty and hypocrisy of the world, by Vronsky's frivolity, but also by the very nature of her feelings. The conflict between pleasure, obtained at the cost of destroying the family, and duty to the son turned out to be insoluble. The highest judge for Anna Karenina is not “the empty world,” but her son Seryozha: “he understood, he loved, he judged her.” The meaning of the relationship between Kitty and Levin is different: the creation of a family, understood as a spiritual union of loving people. The love of Kitty and Levin not only connects them with each other, but also connects them with the world around them and brings them true happiness.
Each change in Tolstoy’s worldview was reflected in his everyday life and in his work. Submitting to new moral imperatives, he began to follow them in practice: he abandoned literary activity, losing interest in it, and even “renounced” works written earlier. But after some time, Tolstoy returned to literature - a new turn took place in his work. This was the case in the late 1870s.
Tolstoy came to the conclusion that the life of the society to which he belonged by birth and upbringing was deceitful and empty. Acuity social criticism combined in his works with the desire to find simple and clear answers to the “eternal” philosophical and moral issues. A thrill fleetingness human life, the defenselessness of man in the face of inevitable death pushed Tolstoy to search for new foundations of life, a meaning that would not be destroyed by death. These quests were reflected in the “Confession” (1879-1882) and in the religious and philosophical treatise “What is my faith?” (1882-1884). In “Confession” Tolstoy concluded that it is faith that gives meaning to life, helping to get rid of a false, meaningless existence, and in the treatise “What is my faith?” outlined in detail his religious and moral teachings, called “Tolstoyism” by his contemporaries.
A change in moral and aesthetic guidelines led to the appearance of the treatise “What is Art?” (started in 1892, completed in 1897-1898). In the work, with the directness and categoricalness characteristic of the late Tolstoy, two problems are posed and solved: the author sharply criticizes modern Art, considering it not just useless, but destructive for people, and expresses his ideas about what true art should be. Tolstoy's main idea: art should be useful, the task of the writer is to form the moral character of people, to help them in the search for the truths of life.
The story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” (1884-1886) is Tolstoy’s masterpiece, which influenced several generations of Russians and foreign writers, - first piece of art, written after a turning point in his worldview. Tolstoy placed his hero, a successful St. Petersburg official, in the face of death, that is, in a “borderline situation” when a person must reconsider his previous attitude to service, career, family, and think about the meaning of his life.
The life of the main character of the story, Ivan Ilyich, is “the most ordinary and the most terrible,” although everything he wanted came true in it. A reassessment of the past, which was revealed to him from a new perspective, moral self-criticism and a mercilessly sober look at the lies and hypocrisy of those around him helped Ivan Ilyich overcome the fear of death. In the moral enlightenment of the hero, Tolstoy showed the victory of true spirituality. Unlike the works of the 1850s - 1870s, Ivan Ilyich’s insight was not the result of a long search for the truth. The story clearly revealed a feature of Tolstoy’s late prose: the writer was no longer interested in the process moral development heroes, but a sudden spiritual transformation, the “resurrection” of a person.
The story “The Kreutzer Sonata,” written in 1887-1889, reflected the ideas of the late Tolstoy about the destructive power of sensual love, “lust.” Family drama Pozdnysheva, in the author’s interpretation, is a consequence of the “power of darkness,” that is, unhealthy, inflamed passions that displace the true basis of family and marriage relationships—spiritual intimacy. In the afterword to The Kreutzer Sonata, Tolstoy declared chastity and celibacy as the ideal of life.
For ten years (1889-1899) Tolstoy worked on last novel"Resurrection", the plot of which was based on a real court case. The main idea of this novel, unprecedented in its power of social criticism, is the spiritual “resurrection” of man. Social institutions, religion, morality and law - all modern life The writer showed what disfigures people from the standpoint of his religious and moral philosophy. Reflecting on the “end of the century,” Tolstoy summed up disappointing results XIX century, in which material civilization took precedence over spirituality, forcing people to worship false values. However, the writer is convinced that just as the unrighteous meaningless life Prince Nekhlyudov ended with his insight and moral “resurrection”; the true prospect of the existence of all people should be the overcoming of lies, falsehood and hypocrisy. On the eve of the 20th century. Tolstoy thought about the coming “spring” of humanity, about the triumph of life, which will break through the “slabs of stones” like the first spring grass.
While working on “Resurrection,” Tolstoy simultaneously wrote the stories “Father Sergius” (1890-1898) and “Hadji Murad” (1896-1904). Both works were first published (with censored notes) only in 1912. In 1903, the story “After the Ball” was written (published in 1911). A striking phenomenon in Tolstoy’s late work were the plays “The Power of Darkness”, “The Fruits of Enlightenment” and “The Living Corpse”.
Despite the fact that in the 1880s - 1890s. Tolstoy devoted a lot of time and effort to working on journalistic works, believing that writing “artistic” was “shameful”; his literary activity did not stop. The very presence of the patriarch of Russian literature had a beneficial effect on artistic and social life Russia. His works turned out to be in tune with the ideological and creative quests of young writers of the early 20th century.
V. Many of them (I.A. Bunin, M. Gorky, A.I. Kuprin, M.P. Artsybashev, etc.), like thousands of people on different continents, went through the passion for “Tolstoyism.”
Tolstoy was not only a true artistic authority, but also a “teacher of life”, an example of an ascetic attitude towards human moral responsibilities. His religious and moral teaching, which did not coincide with Orthodox dogma (in the early 1900s, the Holy Synod excommunicated Tolstoy from the church), was perceived as a clear program of life.
Tolstoy's departure from Yasnaya Polyana on October 27 (November 10), 1910 was not only the end of an acute family crisis. This was the result of the writer’s painful reflections, who had long ago renounced property, about the falsity of his position as a preacher in the living conditions of a master’s estate. Tolstoy's death is symbolic: he died on the way to a new life, unable to benefit from the fruits of his “liberation.” Having contracted pneumonia, Tolstoy died at the small railway station of Astapovo on November 7 (20) and was buried on November 10 (23), 1910 in Yasnaya Polyana.
Lesson-presentation "Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. Life and creative path"
Lesson objectives:
- introduce students to the life and worldview of the great Russian writer L.N. Tolstoy;
- arouse interest in the personality and work of the author;
- develop students’ ability to take notes: identify and write down main thoughts and theses.
Equipment:
- portrait of L.N. Tolstoy;
- PowerPoint presentation (Application);
- exhibition of books with works by L.N. Tolstoy;
- illustrations for the works of Leo Tolstoy.
"Tolstoy is the greatest and only
genius of modern Europe, the highest
pride of Russia, man, one name
whose fragrance is the writer
great purity and sanctity..."
A.A. Block
During the classes
- Organizing time
- Survey homework. The image of Raskolnikov in the novel “Crime and Punishment”
- introduction teachers.
This year would have marked the 185th anniversary of the birth of the great Russian writer Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy. His works have entered the treasury of world literature: they are studied in schools and universities, and are read by both Russian and foreign readers.
Today you will learn about the fate of this talented person. I hope that this acquaintance will awaken interest in the writer’s work and worldview, will provide an opportunity to better understand his works, and take a fresh look at works already read.
And I would like to start with the words of A.A. Blok, which are included in the epigraph to our lesson “Tolstoy is the greatest and only genius of modern Europe, the highest pride of Russia, a man whose one name is fragrance, a writer of great purity and holiness...”
- II. Recording the lesson topic and epigraph in a notebook.
III. Presentation of the biography of Leo Tolstoy- teacher's lecture. Class is short summary lectures.
Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy - a descendant of two noble noble families: Count Tolstoy and Prince Volkonsky (on his mother's side) - was born on August 28 (September 9) in the Yasnaya Polyana estate. Tolstoy was proud of his origins from the Rurikovich family, the founder of the family was Mikhail Rurikovich, Prince of Chernigov, on his father’s side. Here he lived most of his life, wrote most of his works, including novels that were included in the golden fund of world literature: “War and Peace”, “Anna Karenina”, “Resurrection”.
“The joyful period of childhood”
Slides 6–7.
Tolstoy was the fourth child in a large noble family. His mother, nee Princess Volkonskaya, died when Tolstoy was not yet two years old, but according to the stories of family members, he had a good idea of “her spiritual appearance”: some of his mother’s traits (brilliant education, sensitivity to art, a penchant for reflection and even portrait resemblance Tolstoy gave Princess Marya Nikolaevna Bolkonskaya ("War and Peace"). As a child, Tolstoy was a very vulnerable child, and because of this, in childhood he was called a crybaby. Leo Tolstoy's mother read him a bedtime story about the green stick. Main secret about how to make sure that all people do not know any misfortunes, never quarrel or get angry, but are happy,” the writer later recalled. The secret of the ball is written on a green stick, and the stick is buried on the edge of the Old Order ravine. Tolstoy’s father, a participant in the Patriotic War, who was remembered by the writer for his good-natured, mocking character, love of reading, and hunting (served as the prototype for Nikolai Rostov), also died early (1837). The children were raised by a distant relative, T. A. Ergolskaya, who had a huge influence on Tolstoy: “she taught me the spiritual pleasure of love.” Childhood memories always remained the most joyful for Tolstoy: family legends, first impressions of the life of a noble estate served as rich material for his works, and were reflected in the autobiographical story “Childhood.”
Kazan University
Slide 8
When Tolstoy was 13 years old, the family moved to Kazan, to the house of a relative and guardian of the children, P. I. Yushkova. In his youth, Tolstoy greatly respected the creativity and literary activity of V.G. Belinsky, and wore his portrait instead of a pectoral cross. While in Kazan, he began keeping a diary and, with some interruptions, kept it throughout his life for 30 years. In his diary, most of all, he condemned envy and laziness. At the age of 16, Tolstoy first read Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin”, read it twice and could not sleep all night.
In 1844, Tolstoy entered Kazan University at the Department of Oriental Languages of the Faculty of Philosophy, then transferred to the Faculty of Literature, where he studied for less than two years: his studies did not arouse keen interest in him and he passionately indulged in social entertainment, for which his friends nicknamed him a cheerful fellow. After a summer in the village, in the fall of 1846, Tolstoy went first to Moscow, then to St. Petersburg to take candidate exams at the university. But he changes his mind, leaving the university and returning to Yasnaya Polyana. It must be said that Tolstoy would never finish any educational institution. But thanks to his own knowledge, he will become an unusually educated person in various fields of knowledge.
“War and Freedom”
In 1854, Tolstoy sought a transfer to the Crimean Army, because the main historical events: the Russian-Turkish war began. In November 1854, Tolstoy was assigned to besieged Sevastopol. In Sevastopol, he learned what mortal danger and military valor are, how the fear of being killed is experienced and what courage consists of.
The Caucasian nature and the patriarchal simplicity of Cossack life, which struck Tolstoy in contrast with the life of the noble circle and with the painful reflection of a person in an educated society, provided material for the autobiographical story “Cossacks” (1852-63). Caucasian impressions were also reflected in the stories " Raid " (), "Cutting Wood" (), as well as in the later story "Hadji Murat" (1896-1904, published in 1912). Returning to Russia, Tolstoy wrote in his diary that he fell in love with this “wild land, in which the two most opposite things - war and freedom - are so strangely and poetically combined.” In the Caucasus, Tolstoy wrote the story "Childhood" and sent it to the magazine "Sovremennik" without revealing his name (published under the initials L.N.; together with the later stories "Adolescence", 1852-54, and "Youth", 1855– 57, compiled an autobiographical trilogy). Tolstoy's literary debut immediately brought real recognition.
In Crimea, Tolstoy was captured by new impressions and literary plans; here he began to write a cycle of “Sevastopol stories”, which were soon published and had enormous success (even Alexander II read the essay “Sevastopol in December”). Tolstoy's first works amazed literary critics the courage of psychological analysis and a detailed picture of the “dialectics of the soul” (N. G. Chernyshevsky “The need for education lies in every person,” Tolstoy wrote, “people love and seek education, just as they love and seek air to breathe.”
Write an essay on the topic: “The role of education in human life”
Among writers and abroad
The turning point years radically changed the writer’s personal biography, resulting in a break with the social environment and leading to family discord (Tolstoy’s proclaimed refusal to own private property caused sharp discontent among family members, especially his wife). The personal drama Tolstoy experienced was reflected in his diary entries.
In the late autumn of 1910, at night, secretly from his family, 82-year-old Tolstoy, accompanied only by his personal doctor D.P. Makovitsky, left Yasnaya Polyana. The journey turned out to be too much for him: on the way, Tolstoy fell ill and was forced to get off the train at the small Astapovo railway station. Here, in the station master's house, he spent the last seven days of his life. All of Russia followed reports about the health of Tolstoy, who by this time had already gained worldwide fame not only as a writer, but also as a religious thinker and preacher of a new faith. Tolstoy's funeral in Yasnaya Polyana became an event of all-Russian scale.
Final words from the teacher:
Leo Tolstoy is a brilliant artist of words, whose interest in his work not only does not wane over the years, but, on the contrary, grows. Having been in search of truth all his life, he shares his discoveries and experiences in his works. Tolstoy's works can be re-read repeatedly, each time finding more and more new thoughts in them. Therefore, I would like to end this lesson with the words of A. France: “With his life, he proclaims sincerity, directness, determination, firmness, calm and constant heroism, he teaches that one must be truthful and one must be strong... Precisely because he was full of strength , he was always truthful!”
Recording homework. Write an essay on the topic: “How do I imagine Tolstoy?”
References:
- Mayorova O.E. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy - Biography.
- Materials from the site www.yasnayapolyana.ru.
- A large encyclopedic reference book for schoolchildren on literature. – M., 2005
Leo Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828 in the Tula province (Russia) into a family belonging to the noble class. In the 1860s, he wrote his first great novel, War and Peace. In 1873, Tolstoy began work on the second of his most famous books, Anna Karenina.
He continued to write fiction throughout the 1880s and 1890s. One of his most successful later works is “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.” Tolstoy died on November 20, 1910 in Astapovo, Russia.
First years of life
On September 9, 1828, the future writer Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born in Yasnaya Polyana (Tula province, Russia). He was the fourth child in a large noble family. In 1830, when Tolstoy's mother, née Princess Volkonskaya, died, his father's cousin took over the care of the children. Their father, Count Nikolai Tolstoy, died seven years later, and their aunt was appointed guardian. After the death of his aunt, Leo Tolstoy, his brothers and sisters moved to their second aunt in Kazan. Although Tolstoy experienced many losses at an early age, he later idealized his childhood memories in his work.
It is important to note that elementary education in Tolstoy's biography, he received lessons at home from French and German teachers. In 1843, he entered the Faculty of Oriental Languages at the Imperial Kazan University. Tolstoy failed to succeed in his studies - low grades forced him to transfer to an easier law faculty. Further difficulties in his studies led Tolstoy to eventually leave the Imperial Kazan University in 1847 without a degree. He returned to his parents' estate, where he planned to start farming. However, this endeavor also ended in failure - he was absent too often, leaving for Tula and Moscow. What he really excelled at was keeping his own diary - it was this lifelong habit that inspired much of Leo Tolstoy's writing.
Tolstoy was fond of music; his favorite composers were Schumann, Bach, Chopin, Mozart, and Mendelssohn. Lev Nikolaevich could play their works for several hours a day.
One day, Tolstoy’s elder brother, Nikolai, during his army leave, came to visit Lev, and convinced his brother to join the army as a cadet in the south, in the Caucasus mountains, where he served. After serving as a cadet, Leo Tolstoy was transferred to Sevastopol in November 1854, where he fought in the Crimean War until August 1855.
Early publications
During his years as a cadet in the army, Tolstoy had a lot of free time. During quiet periods he worked on autobiographical story entitled "Childhood". In it, he wrote about his favorite childhood memories. In 1852, Tolstoy sent a story to Sovremennik, the most popular magazine of the time. The story was happily accepted, and it became Tolstoy's first publication. From that time on, critics put him on a par with already famous writers, among whom were Ivan Turgenev (with whom Tolstoy became friends), Ivan Goncharov, Alexander Ostrovsky and others.
After completing his story “Childhood,” Tolstoy began writing about his daily life at an army outpost in the Caucasus. The work “Cossacks”, which he began during his army years, was completed only in 1862, after he had already left the army.
Surprisingly, Tolstoy managed to continue writing while actively fighting in the Crimean War. During this time he wrote Boyhood (1854), a sequel to Childhood, the second book in Tolstoy's autobiographical trilogy. At the height of the Crimean War, Tolstoy expressed his views on the startling contradictions of the war through a trilogy of works, Sevastopol Tales. In the second book of Sevastopol Stories, Tolstoy experimented with relatively new technology: Part of the story is presented as a narration from the soldier's point of view.
After the end of the Crimean War, Tolstoy left the army and returned to Russia. Arriving home, the author enjoyed great popularity on the literary scene of St. Petersburg.
Stubborn and arrogant, Tolstoy refused to belong to any particular school of philosophy. Declaring himself an anarchist, he left for Paris in 1857. Once there, he lost all his money and was forced to return home to Russia. He also managed to publish Youth, the third part of an autobiographical trilogy, in 1857.
Returning to Russia in 1862, Tolstoy published the first of 12 issues of the thematic magazine Yasnaya Polyana. In the same year, he married the daughter of a doctor named Sofya Andreevna Bers.
Major Novels
Living in Yasnaya Polyana with his wife and children, Tolstoy spent much of the 1860s working on his first famous novel"War and Peace". Part of the novel was first published in “Russian Bulletin” in 1865 under the title “1805”. By 1868 he had published three more chapters. A year later the novel was completely finished. Both critics and the public debated the historical justice of the Napoleonic Wars in the novel, coupled with the development of stories of its thoughtful and realistic, but still fictional characters. The novel is also unique in that it includes three long satirical essays on the laws of history. Among the ideas that Tolstoy also tries to convey in this novel is the belief that a person’s position in society and the meaning of human life are mainly derived from his daily activities.
After the success of War and Peace in 1873, Tolstoy began work on the second of his most famous books, Anna Karenina. It was based in part on real events period of the war between Russia and Turkey. Like War and Peace, this book describes some of the biographical events in Tolstoy's own life, most notably in the romantic relationship between the characters Kitty and Levin, which is said to be reminiscent of Tolstoy's courtship with his own wife.
The first lines of the book “Anna Karenina” are among the most famous: “All happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Anna Karenina was published in installments from 1873 to 1877, and was highly acclaimed by the public. The royalties received for the novel quickly enriched the writer.
Conversion
Despite the success of Anna Karenina, after the completion of the novel, Tolstoy experienced a spiritual crisis and was depressed. The next stage of Leo Tolstoy's biography is characterized by the search for the meaning of life. The writer first turned to the Russian Orthodox Church, but did not find answers to his questions there. He concluded that Christian churches were corrupt and, instead of organized religion, promoted their own beliefs. He decided to express these beliefs by founding a new publication in 1883 called The Mediator.
As a result, for his unconventional and controversial spiritual beliefs, Tolstoy was excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church. He was even watched by the secret police. When Tolstoy, driven by his new conviction, wanted to give away all his money and give up everything unnecessary, his wife was categorically against this. Not wanting to escalate the situation, Tolstoy reluctantly agreed to a compromise: he transferred the copyright and, apparently, all royalties on his work until 1881 to his wife.
Late fiction
In addition to his religious treatises, Tolstoy continued to write fiction throughout the 1880s and 1890s. Among the genres of his later works were moral stories and realistic fiction. One of the most successful of his later works was the story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” written in 1886. The main character tries his best to fight the death hanging over him. In short, Ivan Ilyich is horrified by the realization that he wasted his life on trifles, but this realization comes to him too late.
In 1898, Tolstoy wrote the story “Father Sergius,” a work of fiction in which he criticizes the beliefs he developed after his spiritual transformation. IN next year he wrote his third voluminous novel, “Resurrection.” Got the job good feedback, but it is unlikely that this success corresponded to the level of recognition of his previous novels. Other late works Tolstoy's essays on art include a satirical play called The Living Corpse, written in 1890, and a story called Hadji Murad (1904), which was discovered and published after his death. In 1903 Tolstoy wrote short story“After the Ball,” which was first published after his death, in 1911.
Old age
During it later years, Tolstoy reaped the benefits of international recognition. However, he still struggled to reconcile his spiritual beliefs with the tensions he created in his family life. His wife not only did not agree with his teachings, she did not approve of his students, who regularly visited Tolstoy on the family estate. In an effort to avoid his wife's growing discontent, Tolstoy and his youngest daughter Alexandra went on pilgrimage in October 1910. Alexandra was the doctor for her elderly father during the trip. Trying not to expose their private lives, they traveled incognito, hoping to evade unnecessary questions, but sometimes this was to no avail.
Death and legacy
Unfortunately, the pilgrimage proved too onerous for the aging writer. In November 1910, the head of the small Astapovo railway station opened the doors of his house to Tolstoy so that the ailing writer could rest. Shortly after this, on November 20, 1910, Tolstoy died. He was buried in the family estate, Yasnaya Polyana, where Tolstoy lost so many people close to him.
To this day, Tolstoy's novels are considered one of the best achievements literary art. “War and Peace” is often cited as greatest novel ever written. In the modern scientific community, Tolstoy is widely recognized as having a gift for describing the unconscious motives of character, the subtlety of which he championed by emphasizing the role of everyday actions in determining the character and goals of people.
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Plan
I. Introduction. Justification for choosing the topic.
II. Main part. The creative path of L. N. Tolstoy.
1. The appearance of the writer in the literary world.
2. “Childhood”, “Adolescence”, “Youth”.
4. 3. Sevastopol stories. Artistic originality
story “Cossacks”.
5. Epic novel “War and Peace”.
a) creation of a work;
b) the statement in the novel of “popular thought”; c) the path of ideological and moral quest positive hero
Tolstoy;
d) depiction of the truth of war in the novel.
e) “War and Peace” is a book about the great renewal of life caused by terrible historical events.
6. “ABC” by Tolstoy.
7. “Anna Karenina” - a novel about modernity.
a) reflection of family life and the life of light in the book;
b) connection in the development of the destinies of Anna and Levin; c) “Signs of the times” in the content and artistic form
"Anna Karenina"
8. Tolstoy’s method of cognition and embodiment of the world through psychological analysis in “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.”
9. Review novel “Resurrection”.
10. The theme of the fight against autocratic despotism in the story “Hadji Murad”.
III. Conclusion. The value of a writer's artistic heritage.
“The artist’s goal is not to undeniably resolve the issue, but to make one love life in its countless, never-exhaustive manifestations. If they had told me that I could write a novel, with which I would undeniably establish views on all social issues that seem to me to be correct, I would not have devoted even two hours of work to such a novel, but if I had been told that what I would write would be If today’s children read it in 20 years and they will cry and laugh over it and love life, I would devote my life and all my strength to him...”
L.N. Tolstoy.
I chose to write an essay on the topic of L.N.’s work. Tolstoy, because his personality, deeply epochal, life-affirming, historical and philosophical literature, attitude to life, to finding one’s place in it are closest to me. Studying his life and work is an ideal way of self-education. In a painful search for answers to the countless questions that every sane person asks himself at a certain stage of his life, Leo Tolstoy wrote: “It’s funny for me to remember how I thought and how you seem to think that you can arrange a happy and honest little world for yourself, in in which one can live quietly and without mistakes, without repentance, without confusion and do slowly and carefully everything that is good. Ridiculous!... To live honestly, you have to struggle, get confused, struggle, make mistakes, start and quit, and always struggle and lose. And calmness is spiritual meanness.”
At the beginning of the twentieth century, L.N. Tolstoy was called “a teacher in life and art.” In subsequent decades, right up to the present day, the legacy of the brilliant artist continues to amaze with both his life and creative discoveries. Readers of any age will find answers to their questions here. And he will not just explain something incomprehensible to himself, but will “submit” to Tolstoy’s rare living heroes, perceive them as real people. Here he is a phenomenon writer. The wisdom of his understanding of man, era, country of all things comes to us in experiences close to everyone.
The desire for moral improvement, preaching love for one’s neighbor, kindness, and the search for the meaning of life are the leading ideological motives of the writer’s work. They represent the true path, the road to the reasonable, the good, the eternal. All these are universal human values.
Reading other famous, wonderful, Russian writers, such as A. S. Griboyedov, N. V. Gogol, N. A. Nekrasov, A. N. Ostrovsky, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, F. M. Dostoevsky... you feel some hopelessness. It seems that there is no way out of the network of endless problems both at the state and at the everyday human level.
Lev Nikolayevich not only angrily protests, denounces or stigmatizes the injustice, vices and imperfections of this world in general and the reality in Russian society in particular, but tries to understand the Russian people. This is a writer-philosopher. Writer, loving people and able to see bright sides life.
Tolstoy paints a picture of an entire era in the life of Russia. The writer's works are a reflection the smallest details real life that time. And he gives us the right to evaluate events.
L.N. Tolstoy was 24 years old when the story “Childhood” appeared in the best, leading magazine of those years, Sovremennik. At the end of the printed text, readers saw only the initials that meant nothing to them at the time: L.N.
When sending his first creation to the editor of the magazine, N.A. Nekrasov, Tolstoy enclosed money in case the manuscript was returned. The editor's response, more than positive, made me happy young author“to the point of stupidity.” Tolstoy’s first book, “Childhood,” along with the subsequent two stories, “Adolescence” and “Youth,” became his first masterpiece. Novels and stories created at the time of creative heyday did not obscure this peak.
“This talent is new and, it seems, reliable,” N.A. Nekrasov wrote about the young Tolstoy.
“Here, finally, is Gogol’s successor, not at all similar to him, as it should be...”, I. S. Turgenev echoed Nekrasov. When “Adolescence” appeared, Turgenev wrote that the first place among writers rightfully belongs to Tolstoy and awaits him, that soon “only Tolstoy will be known in Russia.”
The outwardly simple story about the childhood, adolescence and moral character of the hero, Nikolenka Irtenyev, opened new horizons for all Russian literature. The leading critic of those years, G. Chernyshevsky, reviewing Tolstoy’s first collections (“Childhood and Adolescence”, “War Stories”), defined the essence of the young writer’s artistic discoveries in two terms: “dialectics of the soul” and “purity of moral feeling.” Psychological analysis existed in realistic art before Tolstoy. In Russian prose - from Lermontov, Turgenev, young Dostoevsky. Tolstoy's discovery was that for him the instrument for studying mental life - the microscope of psychological analysis - became the main one among others. artistic means . N.G. Chernyshevsky wrote in this regard: “Psychological analysis can take different directions: one poet is most interested in the outlines of characters; another - influence public relations
and clashes of characters; third - the connection between feelings and actions; fourth - analysis of passions; Count Tolstoy most of all - the mental process itself, its forms, its laws, the dialectics of the soul, to put it in a definitive term.”
In the fair opinion of the researcher, “the ideas of the revival of man, people, humanity... constitute the pathos of Tolstoy’s work... Starting from his early stories, the writer deeply and comprehensively explored the possibilities human personality, her ability for spiritual growth, the possibility of her joining the high goals of human existence.”
“Details of feelings,” mental life in its internal flow come to the fore, pushing aside the “interest of events.” The plot is deprived of any external eventfulness and entertainment and is simplified to such an extent that in a retelling it can be summarized in a few lines. It is not the events themselves that are interesting, but the contrasts and contradictions of feelings, which, in fact, are the subject, the theme of the story.
“People are like rivers” - a famous aphorism from the novel “Resurrection”. While working on his last novel, Tolstoy wrote in his diary: “One of the greatest misconceptions when judging a person is what we call, we define a person as smart, stupid, kind, evil, strong, weak, and a person is everything: all possibilities, there are fluid substance." This judgment almost literally repeats the entry made in July 1851, that is, just at the time of “Childhood”: “To say about a person: he is an original person, kind, smart, stupid, consistent, etc. ... words that do not give any idea about a person, but pretend to describe a person, whereas often they only confuse.”
To capture and embody the “fluid substance” of mental life, the very formation of man - this is Tolstoy’s main artistic task. The idea of his first book is defined by its characteristic title: “Four Epochs of Development.” It was assumed that the internal development of Nikolenka Irtenyev, and in essence of every person in general, would be traced from childhood to youth. And it cannot be said that the last, fourth part remained unwritten. It was embodied in other stories of the young Tolstoy - “The Morning of the Landowner”, “Cossacks”.
One of Tolstoy’s most beloved and sincere thoughts is connected with the image of Irtenyev - the thought of the enormous possibilities of a person born for movement, for moral and spiritual growth. What is new in the hero and in the world that opens up to him day after day especially interests Tolstoy. The ability of Tolstoy’s favorite hero to overcome the usual framework of existence, to constantly change and renew himself, to “flow” contains a premonition and a guarantee of change, gives him moral support for confronting the negative and inert elements in his environment. In “Youth,” Tolstoy directly connects this “power of development” with faith “in the omnipotence of the human mind.”
The poetry of childhood - “a happy, happy, irrevocable time” is replaced by the “desert of adolescence”, when the affirmation of one’s “I” occurs in continuous conflict with the people around him, so that in a new time - youth - the world finds itself divided into two parts: one, illuminated by friendship and spiritual intimacy; the other is morally hostile, even if at times she is attracted to herself. At the same time, the accuracy of the final assessments is ensured by the “purity of the moral sense” of the author.
