Sofya Tolstaya - the wife of Leo Tolstoy: biography, years of life. Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya

September 23, 1862 Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy married Sofya Andreevna Bers. She was 18 years old at that time, 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 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. The love story and life of Count and Countess Tolstoy is recalled by AiF.ru.

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

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 blamed her for 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 the fact that she was 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.

Writer Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy with his wife Sophia. Gaspra. Crimea. Reproduction of a photograph from 1902. Photo: RIA Novosti 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 three daughters doctor of the Moscow palace office Andrey Bers and his wife Lyubov Bers, maiden name 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.

Writer Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy with his wife Sofya Andreevna, 1910. Photo: RIA Novosti

Sophia received a wonderful home education- the 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 was fond of writing stories from her youth and kept a diary, which would later be recognized as one of the outstanding examples of the 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, however for a long time They believed that Tolstoy would marry the elder Elizabeth. For some time, as is known, he himself doubted, but after next day, held with the Bers in Yasnaya Polyana in August 1862, made the 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 organized by the Bers 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 the hand of their daughter, having previously sent Sophia a letter to make sure that 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.

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 she was used to.

Leo Tolstoy with his wife Sophia (center) on the porch of a Yasnaya Polyana house on Trinity Day, 1909. Photo: RIA Novosti

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.

Writer Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy and his wife Sofya Andreevna drink tea at home in Yasnaya Polyana, 1908. Photo: RIA Novosti

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.

Russian writer Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (left) with his grandchildren Sonya (right) and Ilya (center) in Krekshino, 1909. Photo: RIA Novosti 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. Tolstoy's moral quest led him to the formation of the commandments by which his family should now 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. The death of her last child also crippled her, Vani, born in 1888, did not live to be seven years old. 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 consolation on the side. She took up music and began traveling to Moscow to take lessons from a teacher. Alexandra Taneyeva. 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. Photo: RIA Novosti. 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 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 arrived that the count, having caught a cold, was dying of pneumonia at the Astapovo station - the children and wife, whom he did not want to see even then, came to the sick man in the station superintendent's house. The last meeting of Lev Nikolaevich and Sofia Andreevna took place 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.

Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya-Yesenina is a woman of amazing destiny, who had a happy childhood, three marriages, a war, and, of course, a great love for the very bright, difficult person, the man of her whole life, Sergei Yesenin. Oksana Sukhovicheva, senior researcher at the permanent exhibitions department of the Yasnaya Polyana museum-estate, talks about the life of Sofia Tolstoy-Yesenina.

Oksana Sukhovicheva.

Sophia was born on April 12 (25), 1900 in Yasnaya Polyana, in the house of Leo Tolstoy. Sonya's father is Andrei Lvovich Tolstoy, her mother is Olga Konstantinovna Diterikhs, the daughter of a retired general, a participant in the Caucasian War. The girl was named after her grandmother, so Sonechka became her full namesake - Sofia Andreevna Tolstoy.

Grandfather Lev Nikolaevich and grandmother Sofya Andreevna adored the girl. Her grandmother even became her godmother.

Sonechka spent the first four months of her life in Yasnaya Polyana. Then Andrei Lvovich sold the lands in the Samara province, which went to him, his brother Mikhail and sister Alexandra through the division of family property in 1884, and bought the Toptykovo estate 15 versts from Yasnaya Polyana (it has not survived to this day).

Andrei Tolstoy with his wife Olga Konstantinovna and children Sonya and Ilyusha. 1903, Toptykovo. Photo of Sofia Andreevna Tolstoy. From funds State Museum L.N. Tolstoy in Moscow.

Olga Konstantinovna really liked Toptykovo - it was a small copy of Yasnaya Polyana, with an estate, fields, and gardens. Andrey, Olga and little Sonya moved there and lived amicably and happily. Three years later, a second child was born in the family - son Ilya. But soon everything went wrong... As Leo Tolstoy said about his son, he began to lead a “lordly lifestyle.” His friends often visited the estate, Andrei began to leave home... And one day the young count admitted to his wife that he had cheated on her. Olga did not forgive her husband and, on the advice of Lev Nikolaevich, left with her children for England, to live with her sister.

From the memoirs of Sofia Andreevna: “I spent the first four years of my life in Yasnaya Polyana, Toptykovo, Gaspra. I constantly saw my grandfather, but, having left for England, I did not retain any clear, definite memories of him. There was only a feeling of his being, and a very good one... From those around me I began to understand that my grandfather was something remarkably good and great. But I didn’t know what exactly and why he was so especially good...”

Andrei Tolstoy married a second time, and his daughter Masha was born in the marriage. Olga never remarried and devoted herself to raising children.

From England, Sonechka wrote to her grandparents. Many letters, postcards and drawings have been preserved. Grandmother also wrote to her a lot.

This is the postcard 6-year-old Sonechka Tolstaya sent to her
grandmother to Yasnaya Polyana from England. From the exhibition “If it burns, it burns, burning...” in the Yasnaya Polyana gallery.

Here is an excerpt from a letter from 1904: “Dear Sonyushka. I thank you for your letter and dear Aunt Galya for leading your hand. I often think about you and miss you. Now Uncle Misha’s children live here in the outbuilding... I think that your Ilyusha has now grown up and walks well and will soon talk, and you will have more fun with him. Kiss your mother and aunt Galya for me... And I tenderly hug you, my dear granddaughter, and Ilyushka too. Don’t forget your loving grandmother Sofya Andreevna.”

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy with his grandchildren, Sonechka on the right. May 3, 1909, Yasnaya Polyana. Photo by V. G. Chertkov from the collections of the museum-estate of L. N. Tolstoy “Yasnaya Polyana”.

In 1908, Olga and her children returned to Russia. They settled in Velyatinki and often came to Yasnaya Polyana. Sofya Andreevna wrote:

“...A few days later I was sent alone to YaP. There, after a common breakfast, they left me in the house to sit with my grandfather while he had breakfast. I sat on the end of the chair and froze with timidity. I watched as he released soft-boiled eggs into the oatmeal... He ate, chewed, and his nose rose in a terribly funny and cute way. He asked me about something, very simply and affectionately, and my fear began to go away, and I answered him something..."
Lev Nikolaevich loved his granddaughter very much. On July 15, 1909, he wrote “A Prayer to Granddaughter Sonechka” especially for her: “God commanded all people to do one thing, that they love each other. You need to learn this matter. And in order to learn this matter, you need to first: not allow yourself to think bad things about anyone, second: not to say bad things about anyone, and third: not to do to others what you don’t want to do to yourself. Whoever learns this will learn the greatest joy in the world - the joy of love."

Soon Olga Konstantinovna bought an apartment for herself and her children in Moscow, on Pomerantsev Lane. Descendants of the Tolstoys still live there.
Sonya grew up to be a very open, intelligent, enthusiastic girl. She got a good education, was fluent in foreign languages. Her character was similar not to her calm aristocratic mother, but to her father - she was just as emotional, active, energetic, she loved life very much.

Sergei Mikhailovich Sukhotin and Sofya Tolstaya (right) with friends. Moscow, 1921
Photo from the collections of the State Museum of Leo Tolstoy in Moscow.

Sophia entered Moscow University, but did not study there for even a year - the girl was in poor health and was often sick. Later, Tolstaya will successfully graduate from the Moscow Institute of the Living Word. In the meantime, Aunt Tatyana Lvovna invited her to live and receive treatment in Yasnaya Polyana.
At that time, in 1921, Sergei Mikhailovich Sukhotin, the adopted son of Tatyana Lvovna, worked as commandant in Yasnaya Polyana. Sergei and Sophia liked each other, began writing letters and dating. And in the fall they got married. Sergei was 13 years older than Sophia! He already had one unsuccessful marriage, war and prison behind him. He was even sentenced to death for economic crimes, but was granted amnesty. Apparently, these life events left an imprint on his health - in January 1922, 35-year-old Sergei Sukhotin suffered an apoplexy, and in the spring of 1923 - another one. Paralysis completely destroyed Sophia's husband. It was decided to send him to France for treatment.

Sergei Yesenin and Sofya Tolstaya, 1925

And very soon Sofya Andreevna met the biggest and main love all my life. From her memories: “Once I was with my literary friends in the Pegasus Stable. Then they talked a lot about this literary café of imagists... We were clearly lucky: soon after our arrival Yesenin began reading poetry. I had heard about Yesenin, around whose name already in those years the most contradictory “legends” began to emerge. I also came across some of his poems. But I saw Yesenin for the first time. It’s hard for me to remember now what kind of poetry he read then. And I don’t want to fantasize. What is this for? My memory forever retains something else from that time: the extreme nakedness of Yesenin’s soul, the insecurity of his heart... But my personal acquaintance with him happened later...”

And here is Sofia Andreevna’s entry in her desk calendar of 1925:
"9th of March. First meeting with Yesenin."

Sofya Andreevna recalls: “In the apartment of Galya Benislavskaya, in Bryusovsky Lane, where Yesenin and his sister Katya lived at one time, writers, friends and comrades of Sergei and Galya once gathered. Boris Pilnyak was also invited, and I came with him. We were introduced... I felt especially joyful and light all evening... Finally, I began to get ready. It was very late. We decided that Yesenin would accompany me. He and I went out into the street together and wandered around Moscow at night for a long time... This meeting decided my fate...”

Sofya Andreevna fell in love with Yesenin immediately, completely and irrevocably. The poet often came to the Tolstoys’ apartment on Pomerantsev Lane. They practically never separated. Already in June 1925 Yesenin moved to his chosen one.

“Parrot ring”, which Sofya Andreevna wore all her life. Until May 15, 2016, it can be seen at the exhibition “If it burns, it burns, burning...” in the Yasnaya Polyana gallery.

Once, during one of their walks, Sofya and Sergei met a gypsy woman with a parrot on the boulevard. They gave her some change for fortune-telling, and the parrot pulled out a large copper ring for Yesenin. The gypsy woman put this ring on Sergei Alexandrovich, and he soon gave it to Sonya. She adjusted the ring to her size and then wore it all her life between her other two rings.

Sergey Yesenin.

Apparently, it’s been this way forever,
By the age of thirty, having gone crazy,
Increasingly hardened cripples,
We keep in touch with life.
Honey, I'm turning thirty soon.
And the earth becomes dearer to me every day.
That's why my heart began to dream,
That I'm burning with pink fire.
If it burns, then it burns, burning.
And not for nothing in the linden blossom
I took the ring from the parrot, -
A sign that we will burn together.
The gypsy woman put that ring on me,
I took it off my hand and gave it to you.
And now, when the barrel organ is sad,
I can’t help but think, not be shy.
A swamp pool is wandering in my head.
And there is frost and darkness on the heart.
Maybe someone else
You gave it away with a laugh.
Maybe kissing until dawn
He asks you himself
Like a funny, stupid poet
You brought me to sensual poems.
So what! This wound will also pass.
It's just sad to see edge of life,
The first time for such a bully
The damned parrot deceived me.

When Yesenin proposed to her, Sophia was in seventh heaven. On July 2, 1925, she wrote to Tolstoy’s friend Anatoly Koni: “During this time, I experienced big changes- I'm getting married. Now my divorce case is underway, and by the middle of the month I will marry someone else... My fiancé is the poet Sergei Yesenin. I am very happy and very much in love.” Yesenin also proudly told his friends that his bride was Tolstoy’s granddaughter.

Life with a poet cannot be called sweet and cloudless. All relatives sympathized with Sophia because they understood how difficult it was for her with Yesenin. Constant drinking, gatherings, leaving home, drinking sprees, doctors... She tried to save him.

In the fall of 1925, the poet went on a terrible binge, which ended with a month of treatment in the Gannushkin psychiatric hospital. Sofya Andreevna understood that she was losing him. On December 18, 1925, she wrote to her mother and brother:

“...Then I met Sergei. And I realized that this was very big and fatal. It was neither sensuality nor passion. I didn't need him at all as a lover. I just loved all of him. The rest came later. I knew that I was going to the cross, and I walked consciously... I wanted to live only for him.

I gave myself all to him. I am completely deaf and blind, there is only him. Now he doesn't need me anymore, and I have nothing left.

If you love me, then I ask you never to judge Sergei in your thoughts or words or blame him for anything. What if he drank and tormented me while drunk? He loved me, and his love covered everything. And I was happy, incredibly happy... He gave me the happiness of loving him. And to carry within myself the kind of love that he, his soul, gave birth to in me is endless happiness...”

Yesenin's death on December 28, 1925 was very difficult for Sofya Andreevna. What saved her was that she immediately threw herself into work. I started collecting memories of Yesenin, manuscripts, photographs, his things. Already in December 1926, an exhibition dedicated to Yesenin was opened at the Writers' Union. And a year later - the Yesenin Museum. Sofya Andreevna was involved in the publication of poetry, conducted literary evenings his memory. In 1928, she began working at the State Tolstoy Museum in Moscow, first as a research assistant, and from 1933 as an academic secretary.

Sofya Tolstaya with her best friend Evgenia Chebotarevskaya, 1940. Photo from the collections of the Leo Tolstoy museum-estate “Yasnaya Polyana”.

In 1941 she became director of the United Tolstoy Museums. In the first months of the war, when the threat of occupation loomed over Yasnaya Polyana, Sofya Andreevna organized the evacuation of exhibits from Tolstoy’s house, which ended two weeks before the invasion of the Tolstoy museum by German troops.

Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya-Yesenina in a group of Soviet military personnel. Yasnaya Polyana, 1943. Photo from the collections of the State Museum of Leo Tolstoy in Moscow.

On October 13, 1941, 110 boxes with exhibits were sent first to Moscow and then to Tomsk. Only three and a half years later they returned to their original place. On May 24, 1945, Sofya Andreevna officially reopened the museum in a solemn ceremony. After the separation of Yasnaya Polyana from other Tolstoy museums, Tolstaya-Yesenina continued to hold the post of director of the State Museum of Leo Tolstoy in Moscow.

Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya-Yesenina and Alexander Dmitrievich Timrot on the terrace of a house in Yasnaya Polyana. Early 1950s Photo from the collections of the State Museum
L.N. Tolstoy in Moscow.

In 1947, 32-year-old handsome Alexander Timrot came to work in Yasnaya Polyana. And Sofya Andreevna fell in love again... In 1948 they got married.

Last years Tolstaya-Yesenina spent time in an apartment on Pomerantsev Lane. A few weeks before her death, Sergei Yesenin’s son Alexander (born in 1924 from the poetess Nadezhda Volpin) came to Moscow. But she refused to meet him - she didn’t want him to see her in this state. Sofya Andreevna died on June 29, 1957 in Moscow, and was buried near Yasnaya Polyana in the cemetery in Kochaki, in the Tolstoy family necropolis.

It was noted that the genius of Russian prose was incredibly lucky with his wife - it is unknown who else would have endured the pressure of such talent and character for half a century. In her memoirs, Sofya Andreevna herself seemed to ask forgiveness from her descendants for not becoming like-minded to the great writer and not living up to expectations.

Childhood and youth

Sofya Tolstaya, nee Bers, is the second daughter of a Moscow doctor, hereditary nobleman Andrei Evstafievich and heiress to the merchant fortune Lyubov Alexandrovna. The writer is Sonya and her sisters Tatyana and Elizaveta’s brother on their father’s side; Andrei Bers served as the family doctor for his mother Varvara Petrovna.

The girls received an excellent education at home, and Sofia also received a diploma from Moscow University, giving her the right to teach. From the age of 11 I kept a diary; this hobby eventually grew into a full-time writing activity.

Almost all the time the family lived in the capital, only moving to the village for the summer. One day in 1861, the young Count Tolstoy, who had known Lyubov Alexandrovna for a long time, visited the Bers. Leo has already been glorified by stories written during military operations in the Caucasus. The writer left military service and was looking for a life partner who would meet his high requirements - attractive, smart, simple and healthy, in order to give birth to equally healthy children.

The Berses saw the count as a contender for Elizabeth's hand. And by that time the crown nobleman Mitrofan Polivanov had wooed Sophia and even received preliminary consent. However, Tolstoy later wrote in his memoirs that he had no feelings for Lisa and did not want to marry just for convenience. In his message to Sophia, Lev Nikolaevich was frank: to believe that he was in love with Elizabeth was “a false view and injustice,” and immediately asked to marry him.

The father initially resisted, being offended for his eldest daughter. But Sophia, who had already learned how to subtly influence people, persuaded Andrei Evstafievich. The wedding took place a week after the official proposal.

Leo Tolstoy's wife

Marriage to the writer became a turning point in Sofia Andreevna’s life. From secular salons, an 18-year-old girl ended up in a village, where she was faced with previously unknown worries about maintaining a large estate, accounting and other matters. The count's house was surprisingly devoid of luxury, and Tolstoy was shocked at first by her husband's ascetic habits.

In the book "My Life" the smallest details the daily worries of the young countess are described. It got to the point that Sophia bought white caps and aprons and forced the cooks to wear them. The woman to some extent shared the material part of their life together with her husband, but did not agree to change spiritual values. An entry dated 1867 illustrates the structure that formed in the count’s family:

“Life became more and more closed, without events, without participation in public life, without arts and without any change or fun.”

Trying to live up to the ideals of Lev Nikolaevich, Sophia meekly endured the demands of a true house builder, created comfort, trying to keep everything simple, as the writer loved. She allowed herself to disagree with her husband when it came to children. Tolstaya gave birth to 9 boys and 4 girls, five never became adults, and she simply could not bear one child. Son Sergei, only when he grew up and read his mother’s notes, preparing for the publication of the book, realized how difficult Sofia Andreevna’s biography was.

Sophia raised her children without nannies and assistants; Lev was categorically against tutors. Tolstaya did not share her husband’s aspirations to be content with the minimum, to earn money through physical labor, and to distribute all valuables to those in need. She was faced with the task of giving her children an education, ensuring financial well-being, in order to look decent in the eyes of others. Lev Nikolaevich believed that excesses corrupt, external tinsel interferes with the search for a certain higher meaning.

In addition to solving pressing issues, the Countess found time to help the writer in his work. Sofya Andreevna replaced the wife of a personal secretary, translator, and editor. Tolstoy was the only one who deciphered Lev’s clumsy handwriting and rewrote drafts of works to which the author made endless edits. I copied War and Peace alone into a notebook 7 times.

Sophia, who in another situation would have shone at social events, turned out to be an excellent manager. Where there was a lack of knowledge, I consulted with friends. She met Anna Snitkina-Dostoevskaya, a widow who taught Tolstaya about book publishing and selling Lev’s works.

Over the years, constant disagreements alienated the husband and wife from each other. Lev Nikolaevich openly expressed dissatisfaction with the way life had turned out. Sofya Andreevna was rightly offended, because her works did not receive the expected assessment. She said that she did not understand when exactly the moment came that separated the spouses and how it was expressed.

In search of peace of mind, Tolstaya began taking music lessons from pianist and composer Sergei Taneyev. The musician brought the exhausted woman into a “wonderful state, it was a celebration of life.” Sophia herself defined this relationship as love. When Taneyev left, the countess hid her melancholy, by her own admission, behind feverish activity. Sister Tatyana, children Ilya, Alexandra and Maria reproached their mother for being too attached to a stranger. At times the countess had hope that from music lessons something bigger will grow.

Lev Nikolaevich also noticed a change in his wife; in his diaries, without naming names, he wrote that he did not sleep at night, worried, but “he felt sorry not for himself, but for her.” Subsequently, Taneyev, citing employment, ended this ambiguous connection.

The passing of Leo Tolstoy from this life made Sophia want to immediately join him. Despite everything, the Countess experienced “unbearable melancholy and remorse” towards her husband. Every day the woman visited the grave of her loved one and changed the flowers there.

Death

Sofya Andreevna outlived her husband by 9 years. And Leo Tolstoy’s wife devoted these years to preserving the writer’s creative heritage - she published a collection of works, letters that the spouses wrote to each other, and preserved personal belongings, which later became part of the museum collection. At the estate, Tolstaya became the first tour guide.

Sofia Tolstaya died in November 1919, most likely from natural causes. She was buried 2 km from Yasnaya Polyana, in the cemetery of the village of Kochaki, next to the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. In this necropolis there are the graves of his grandfather, parents and brother Lev Nikolaevich, Sophia’s sister Tatyana.

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, including family tree Tolstoy also intertwined branches of the Volkonskys and Golitsyns, Trubetskoys and Odoevskys, 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 fever when he was one and a half years old. The orphaned children were raised by aunts Tatyana Ergolskaya and Alexandra Osten-Sacken, and 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 the priest was with her. Of course, there was some exaggeration in these stories. But it was then that the ideal image of the one with whom he would like to connect his life took shape in Lev Nikolaevich’s imagination. 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: I composed fairy tales, 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, were “lovely.”

Lev Nikolaevich first fell in love relatively late, at twenty-two. The object of his feelings was his sister Masha’s best friend, 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 that 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 Alexandrovna at first thought that Tolstoy was interested in them eldest daughter, Liza, and gladly received 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. Tolstoy in the small living room was in such a state nervous tension, that he didn’t 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 XIX century, when mothers informed their daughters about the “marriage sacrament” before the wedding itself, 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 torn 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 Nikolayevich'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 the barnyard at all 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. My whole life during this time 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 adulthood. 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 the mother last time She kissed him - 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 had told her 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 had never been abroad, she could not even think about any social entertainment, balls or theaters, just like about outfits: she 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 needed in simple life. 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 spouses 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 in the process of giving birth, something happened between them. another quarrel. 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 hadn’t finished saying in 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 death of the child “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, he was a charming child, 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 only me, 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 outlook 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, Lev 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 their mother was mentally ill or just a painful reaction to aging. female body and it will pass with time.

Her greatest fear was to be remembered not as a kind genius and faithful assistant to Tolstoy, but as “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 delete everything from them. negative reviews About Me. 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 just stayed like that ideal wife in a 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 Nikolayevich 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 regret 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!” - she ran through the park to the pond and threw herself into the icy 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. Dying great writer 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 mother's 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 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.

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 ended up stepsister and Sofya Tolstoy, and Ivan Turgenev. 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 her publishing activities, releasing her correspondence with her husband, and completed the publication of the writer’s collected works. Sofya Andreevna spent the last years of her life in Yasnaya Polyana, where she died on November 4, 1919. She was buried at the Kochakovskoye cemetery, not far from Yasnaya Polyana.