Message about military service l n tolstoy. Lev Tolstoy. Officer Writer. Tolstoy L.N. (military service)

Military service of Tolstoy in the Caucasus. Participation in the heroic defense of Sevastopol.

In 1848-1851, rural solitude alternated with periods of noisy, as Tolstoy himself defined, "disorderly" life in the capital - in Moscow, in St. Petersburg. The young man was received in high society, attended balls, musical evenings, and performances. Everywhere he was received affectionately, as the son of worthy parents, of whom a good memory was preserved. In Moscow, Lev Nikolayevich visited the family of the Decembrist P. I. Koloshin, whose daughter Sonechka he was in love with in childhood. Under the name of Sonechka Valakhina, she is depicted in the story "Childhood".

Literary pursuits increasingly attracted Tolstoy, he conceived a story "from gypsy life", but scattered secular life interferes with concentrated work. Dissatisfaction with himself, the desire to drastically change his life, to change the empty chatter of secular living rooms for a real business led him to a sudden decision to leave for the Caucasus.

Nikolai Nikolaevich, returning to the regiment, invited his brother to go with him, and they set off. Tolstoy recalled this trip as "one of better days own life". From Saratov to Astrakhan they sailed along the Volga: “... they took a kosovushka (large boat), put a tarantass into it and, with the help of a pilot and two rowers, went somewhere by sail, where by oars downstream the water.”

For the first time he observed the nature of the southern steppes and their inhabitants - the Kirghiz, read a lot on the road. May 30, 1851 Tolstoy arrived in the Cossack village on the left bank of the Terek River - Starogladkovskaya. An artillery brigade was located here, in which Nikolai Nikolayevich served. Here began the military service of Lev Nikolaevich. The daguerreotype (a photographic image on a silver plate) dates back to this time, depicting the Tolstoy brothers.

Tolstoy first participated in hostilities as a volunteer (volunteer), then successfully passed the fireworks exam and was enlisted as an ensign, that is, a junior artillery officer, for military service. Independent in everything, he wanted to determine his own life path, choosing the difficult service of an artillery officer. Characteristically, he refused a letter of recommendation to the governor of the Caucasus, Prince M. S. Vorontsov, which was intended to be written by an old friend of the Tolstoy family, their relative A. I. Gorchakov. Tolstoy simply left without saying goodbye to the old prince.

Military service in the Caucasus in those days was dangerous: there was a war with detachments of mountaineers, who united under the leadership of Shamil. Once (it was in 1853) Tolstoy was almost captured by the Chechens. when their detachment moved their fortress Vozdvizhenskaya to Groznaya.

Under Tolstoy there was a very frisky horse, and he could easily gallop away. But he did not leave his friend Sado Miserbiev, a peaceful Chechen whose horse lagged behind. They successfully fought back and rode to Groznaya for reinforcements.

In the officer society, which was not distinguished by high spiritual interests, Lev Nikolaevich felt lonely. He was more attracted to the soldiers, in them he was able to appreciate the simplicity, kind heart, stamina and courage. But the free life of the Cossacks was especially attractive to him. He made friends with the old Cossack hunter Epifan Sekhin, listened to and wrote down his stories, Cossack songs. The character traits of Epifan Sekhin are captured in the image of Uncle Broshka in The Cossacks (the story began in the Caucasus, finished in 1862).

Military service could not occupy Tolstoy entirely. A feeling of confusion, dissatisfaction with himself does not leave him in the Caucasus either. On his birthday, August 28, 1852, Tolstoy writes in his Diary: “I am 24 years old, and I have not done anything yet. I feel that it is not for nothing that for eight years now I have been struggling with doubt and passions. But what am I assigned to? It will open the future." It so happened that the next day he received a letter from N. A. Nekrasov from St. Petersburg, containing praise for the manuscript of his first completed story, Childhood.

In the Caucasus, Tolstoy made his most important choice in life - he became a writer. “Remember, kind aunt, that you once advised me to write novels; so I listened to your advice - my studies, which I tell you about, are literary. I don’t know if what I am writing will ever appear, but this work amuses me,” Tolstoy wrote from the Caucasus to Yasnaya Polyana to Tatyana Alexandrovna Yergolskaya. He conceived the novel “Four Ages of Development”, in which he wanted to depict the process of a person’s spiritual growth, “to sharply outline the characteristic features of each era of life: in childhood, warmth and fidelity of feeling; in adolescence skepticism, in youth the beauty of feelings, the development of vanity and self-doubt.

In the Caucasus, the first part of the planned novel, Childhood, was written; later Boyhood (1854) and Youth (1856) were created; the fourth part - "Youth" - remained unwritten.

Penetratingly, subtly and accurately, the writer opens the world of childhood in his story. Before us is an artistic study of the formation of the human soul. Creating images of the heroes of the story, the writer used his personal impressions and experiences, but the story is only partly autobiographical. In the images he created, the typical was concentrated, which is characteristic of a realistic depiction of life. No wonder the author objected to the title "The Story of My Childhood", under which the story was published in Sovremennik. He claimed that he wrote not only about his childhood, but about what is in the childhood of every person.

Therefore "Childhood" is immortal. It is interesting and important to successive generations of readers around the world. Tolstoy was able to reveal how in a stream of various, sometimes fleeting impressions of being, the human in a person crystallizes. In this process, he noted an essential side: good influence on the formation of the children's soul of people from the people. With what warmth and love, along with the image of Maman, the image of the old housekeeper Natalia Savvishna is depicted.

Servants in the Irtenevs' house, other people from the people with their simplicity and sincerity of feelings are closer to children than the society of the living room, where selfishness and falsehood are hidden under well-mannered manners.

Thus, already in Tolstoy's first work, the theme of opposing the people's and the master's life arises, and the democratic orientation of his work is clearly revealed.

In the Caucasus, stories were written about the everyday life of the army - "Raid", "Cutting down the forest." In them, truthfully, with great warmth, the writer described the images of Russian soldiers, their unostentatious courage, devotion to military duty.

When in 1853 the war began between Russia and the combined military forces of England, France and Turkey, Tolstoy filed a petition to be transferred to the active army, as he later explained himself, "out of patriotism." He was transferred to the Danube army, and he participated in the siege of the Turkish fortress of Silistria.

Conscious historical meaning events taking place before his eyes, Tolstoy wrote in his Diary: "... Russia must either fall, or be completely transformed." The defeats of the Russian army made it obvious to him the need for decisive and quick transformations in the whole way of life. public life Russia.

In 1848-1851, rural solitude alternated with periods of noisy, as Tolstoy himself defined, "disorderly" life in the capital - in Moscow, in St. Petersburg. The young man was received in high society, visited balls, musical evenings, performances. Everywhere he was received affectionately, as the son of worthy parents, of whom a good memory was preserved. In Moscow, Lev Nikolaevich visited the family of the Decembrist P. I. Koloshin, whose daughter Sonechkuon was in love with in childhood. Under the name of Sonechka Valakhina, she is depicted in the story “Childhood.” Tolstoy is increasingly attracted to literary pursuits, he conceives a story “from gypsy life,” but scattered secular life interferes with concentrated work. Dissatisfaction with himself, a desire to drastically change his life, to change the empty chatter of secular living rooms for a real business led him to a sudden decision to leave for the Caucasus. Nikolai Nikolayevich, returning to the regiment, invited his brother to go with him, and they set off. Tolstoy recalled this trip as "one of the best days of my life." From Saratov to Astrakhan, they sailed along the Volga: “... they took a kosovushka (large boat), put a tarantass into it, and with the help of a pilot and two rowers, we went somewhere by sail, where by oars downstream the water.” He first observed the nature of the southern steppes and their inhabitants - the Kirghiz, read a lot on the road. May 30, 1851 Tolstoy arrived in the Cossack village on the left bank of the Terek River - Starogladkovskaya. The artillery brigade, in which Nikolai Nikolaevich served, was located here. Here began the military service of Lev Nikolaevich. The daguerreotype (a photographic image on a silver plate) dates back to this time, depicting the Tolstoy brothers. Tolstoy first participated in hostilities as a volunteer (volunteer), then successfully passed the fireworks exam and was enlisted as an ensign, that is, a junior artillery officer, for military service. Independent in everything, he at all costs wanted to determine his life path himself, choosing the difficult service of an artillery officer. Characteristically, he refused a letter of recommendation to the governor of the Caucasus, Prince M. S. Vorontsov, which was intended to be written by an old friend of the Tolstoy family, their relative A. I. Gorchakov. Tolstoy simply left without saying goodbye to the old prince. Military service in the Caucasus at that time was dangerous: there was a war with detachments of mountaineers who united the waters under the leadership of Shamil. One day (this was in 1853) Tolstoy was almost captured by the Chechens. when their detachment moved from the Vozdvizhenskaya fortress to Groznaya. Under Tolstoy there was a very frisky horse, and he could easily gallop away. But he did not leave his friend Sado Miserbiev, a peaceful Chechen whose horse lagged behind. They successfully fought back and galloped to Groznaya for reinforcements. In the officer society, which was not distinguished by high spiritual interests, Lev Nikolaevich felt lonely. He was more attracted to the soldiers, in them he was able to appreciate the simplicity, kind heart, stamina and courage. But the free life of the Cossacks was especially attractive to him. He made friends with the old Cossack hunter Epifan Sekhin, listened to and wrote down his stories, Cossack songs. The character traits of Epifan Sekhin are captured in the image of Uncle Broshka in "The Cossacks" (the story began in the Caucasus, finished in 1862). Military service could not completely occupy Tolstoy. The feeling of confusion, dissatisfaction with himself does not leave him in the Caucasus either. On his birthday, August 28, 1852, Tolstoy writes in his Diary: “I am 24 years old, and I have not done anything yet. I feel that it is not for nothing that for eight years now I have been struggling with doubtful passions. But what am I assigned to? It will open the future." It so happened that the next day he received a letter from N. A. Nekrasov from St. Petersburg, containing praise for the manuscript of his first completed story, Childhood. In the Caucasus, Tolstoy made his most important choice in life - he became a writer. “... Remember, kind aunt, that you once advised me to write novels; so I listened to your advice - my studies, which I'm talking about, are literary. I don’t know if what I am writing will ever appear, but this work amuses me,” Tolstoy wrote from the Caucasus to Yasnaya Polyana to Tatyana Alexandrovna Yergolskaya. He conceived the novel “Four Epochs of Development”, in which he wanted to depict the process of a person’s spiritual growth, “sharply identify the characteristic features of each era of life: in childhood, warmth and fidelity of feeling; in adolescence, skepticism, in youth, the beauty of feelings, the development of vanity and self-doubt. The first part of the planned novel, Childhood, was written in the Caucasus; later, Boyhood (1854) and Youth (1856) were created; the fourth part - "Youth" - remained unwritten. Penetratingly, subtly and accurately, the writer opens the world of childhood in his story. Before us is an artistic study of the formation of the human soul. Creating images of the heroes of the story, the writer used his personal impressions and experiences, but the story is only partly autobiographical. In the images he created, that typical thing was concentrated, which is characteristic of a realistic depiction of life. No wonder the author objected to the title "History of my childhood", under which the story was published in Sovremennik. He claimed that he wrote not only about his childhood, but about what is in the childhood of every person. Therefore, "Childhood" is immortal. It is interesting and important to successive generations of readers around the world. Tolstoy was able to reveal how in the stream of diverse, sometimes fleeting impressions of being, the human in a person crystallizes. In this process, he noted an essential side: a good influence on the formation of the children's soul of people from the people. With what warmth and love, along with the image of Maman, the image of the old housekeeper Natalia Savvishna is depicted. the theme of opposing people's and master's life arises, and the democratic orientation of his work is revealed with all obviousness. In the Caucasus, stories about the everyday life of the army were written - "The Raid", "Cutting the Forest". In them, truthfully, with great warmth, the writer described the images of Russian soldiers, their unostentatious courage, devotion to military duty. out of patriotism. He was transferred to the Danube army, and he participated in the siege of the Turkish fortress of Silistria. Recognizing the historical significance of the events taking place before his eyes, Tolstoy wrote in the Diary: "... Russia must either fall or be completely transformed." The defeats of the Russian army made it obvious to him the need for decisive and rapid transformations in the entire structure of social life in Russia. On the way from the Danube army to Sevastopol, Tolstoy notes in the Diary the patriotic enthusiasm of the people, their "great moral strength", the mass heroism of soldiers and sailors, and at the same time the mediocrity of the tsarist generals , their inability to lead, general confusion: "... The sad state of the army and the state." He is determined to act against what he considers evil, "with a pen, word and force." On November 7, 1854, Tolstoy arrived in Sevastopol. Under the strong impression of what he saw, Lev Nikolayevich wrote a letter to his brother Sergei. The accuracy of the description, the depth of patriotic feeling make the modern reader perceive this piece of family correspondence as a wonderful documentary monument of the era. “The spirit in the troops is higher than any description,” writes Tolstoy. - In ancient Greece, there was not so much heroism. Kornilov, circling the troops, instead of: “Great, guys!” - said: “You need to blame, guys, will you die?” - and the troops shouted: “We will die, Your Excellency! Hurray!..” and already 22,000 have fulfilled this promise. A company of sailors almost rebelled because they wanted to be removed from the battery, on which they stood for thirty days under the bombs. The soldiers pull out the tubes from the bombs. Women carry water to the bastions for the soldiers ... A wonderful time ... I did not manage to be in business a single time, but I thank God that I saw these people and live in this glorious time. ”Soon Tolstoy was appointed to 3- light battery of the 11th artillery brigade to the 4th bastion, which covered access to the city center - one of the most dangerous and responsible sectors of the Sevastopol defense, which was constantly set on fire by the enemy. Life in difficult conditions, side by side with soldiers and sailors, despite the danger, Tolstoy liked . He showed here outstanding personal courage, endurance, courage. Comrades in the service on the 4th bastion recalled him: “He was in the full sense the soul of the battery ... He was a rare comrade, an honest soul, and it is absolutely impossible to forget him.” At the 4th bastion, Tolstoy studied the character of the Russian soldier well. He liked the soldier's gaiety and daring, when, for example, rejoicing in the spring, the soldiers built a flying kite and launched it over enemy trenches, causing rifle fire on themselves. What he saw and understood, he described in the story "Sevastopol day and night." Tolstoy intended to publish the story in "Military List" - a magazine for soldiers, which he intended to publish with a group of like-minded officers. However, the democratic direction of the magazine was "not in the views of the government", the publication was not allowed. The story was published under the title "Sevastopol in December" in No. 6 of Sovremennik for 1855. Following the first story, "Sevastopol in May" and "Sevastopol in August 1855" were written. The stories shocked contemporaries with the harsh truth about the war.; In "Sevastopol Tales", the writer for the first time formulated the principle that he remained true to throughout his entire career: "The hero of my story is true." He managed to show heroic deeds without halo heroism, presented not the front side of the war, but its everyday life "in blood, in suffering, in death." Already in the "Sevastopol Tales" Tolstoy spoke out against the war as an inhuman phenomenon, alien to reason, "Sevastopol Tales" are small, but they capture a wide panorama of events and many faces: here are soldiers, sailors, line officers and aristocratic officers, children. These images are authentic, like life itself. Among them is 17-year-old Volodya Kozeltsov, touching and attractive with integrity, sincerity, purity of moral feeling, who died on Malakhov Kurgan, from the story "Sevastopol in August 1855". Tolstoy's hero outlived his time. Many years later, one day at his acquaintances, Lev Nikolaevich heard how one of the boys who played war called himself Volodya Kozeltsov. During the years of the Great Patriotic War the exploits of the heroes of the Sevastopol stories "inspired Soviet soldiers. In the besieged Sevastopol, Tolstoy comprehended the truth that the main driving force of history is the people. The hero of the epic of Sevastopol was for him the Russian people. Together with the people, soldiers, sailors, he experienced the joy of struggle and the bitterness of defeat. What he experienced in the days of the fall of Sevastopol left an indelible mark on his soul forever. In 1902, during his serious illness in the Crimea, Tolstoy was delirious and repeated: “Sevastopol is on fire! Sevastopol is on fire...” The military and historical experience of Sevastopol helped Tolstoy create in War and Peace such realistic pictures of the war as world literature had not yet known.

The history of the creation of the novel "War and Peace"

It was difficult for Tolstoy to approach "War and Peace" - however, there were no easy paths in his life.

Tolstoy brilliantly entered into literature with his first work - the initial part of the autobiographical trilogy "Childhood" (1852). "Sevastopol stories" (1855) strengthened the success. The young writer, yesterday's army officer, was joyfully greeted by St. Petersburg writers - especially from among the authors and employees of Sovremennik (Nekrasov was the first to read the manuscript "Childhood", highly appreciated it and published it in the magazine). However, the commonality of views and interests of Tolstoy and the capital's writers cannot be overestimated. Tolstoy very soon began to move away from his fellow writers, moreover, he emphasized in every possible way that the very spirit of literary salons was alien to him.

To Petersburg, where the "advanced literary community" opened its arms to him, Tolstoy arrived from Sevastopol. In the war, in the midst of blood, fear and pain, there was no time for entertainment, just as there was no time for intellectual conversations. In the capital, he is in a hurry to catch up - he divides his time between carousing with gypsies and conversations with Turgenev, Druzhinin, Botkin, Aksakovs. However, if the gypsies did not deceive expectations, then "conversations with smart people“After two weeks, Tolstoy ceased to be interested. In letters to his sister and brother, he angrily joked that he liked “smart conversation” with writers, but he was “too behind them”, in their society “I want to fall apart, take off my pants and blow my nose in the hand, but in a smart conversation you want to lie nonsense. "And the point is not that one of the St. Petersburg writers was personally unpleasant to Tolstoy. He does not accept the very atmosphere of literary circles and parties, all this near-literary fuss. : one on one with a sheet of paper, with his soul and conscience. No incoming circle interests should influence what is written, determine the position of the author. And in May 1856, Tolstoy "runs" to Yasnaya Polyana. From that moment on, he only left it for a short while, never striving to return to the light.There was only one path from Yasnaya Polyana - to even greater simplicity: to the asceticism of a wanderer.

Literary affairs are combined with simple and clear occupations: building a house, farming, peasant labors. At this moment, one of the most important features of Tolstoy appears: writing seems to him a kind of departure from the real thing, a substitution. It does not give the right to eat bread grown by peasants with a clear conscience. This torments, oppresses the writer, makes him spend more and more time away from the desk. And in July 1857, he finds an occupation that allows him to constantly work and see the real fruits of this work: Tolstoy opens in Yasnaya Polyana school for peasant children. The efforts of Tolstoy the teacher are not directed towards elementary educational program. He seeks to awaken in the guys creative forces, activate and develop their spiritual and intellectual potential.

Working at school, Tolstoy got used to the peasant world more and more deeply, comprehended its laws, psychological and moral foundations. He contrasted this world of simple and clear human relationships with the world of the nobility, the educated world, taken away by civilization from the age-old foundations. And this opposition was not in favor of the people of his circle.

The purity of thought, the freshness and accuracy of the perception of his barefoot students, their ability to assimilate knowledge and creativity forced Tolstoy to write a sharply polemical article on the nature of artistic creativity with a shocking title: “Who should learn to write from whom, peasant children from us or us from peasant children?”

The question of the nationality of literature has always been one of the most important for Tolstoy. And turning to pedagogy, he penetrated even deeper into the essence and laws of artistic creativity, searched for and acquired strong "support points" of his writer's "independence".

Parting with St. Petersburg and the society of the capital's writers, the search for his own direction in creativity and a sharp refusal to participate in public life, as revolutionary democrats understood it, to study pedagogy - all these are features of the first crisis in Tolstoy's creative biography. The brilliant beginning is a thing of the past: everything written by Tolstoy in the second half of the 1950s (Lucerne, Albert) is not successful; in the novel "Family Happiness" the author himself is disappointed, he leaves the work unfinished. Experiencing this crisis, Tolstoy strives to completely rethink his worldview in order to live and write differently.

The beginning of a new period marks the revised and completed story "Cossacks" (1862). And so, in February 1863, Tolstoy began work on the novel, which would later become known as War and Peace.

"Thus began the book, on which seven years of incessant and exceptional labor will be spent under the best conditions of life." The book, which combined years of historical research ("a whole library of books") and family legends, the tragic experience of the Sevastopol bastions and the little things of Yasnaya Polyana life, the problems raised in "Childhood" and "Lucerne", "Sevastopol Tales" and "Cossacks" (Roman LN Tolstoy "War and Peace" in Russian Criticism: Collection of Articles - Leningrad, Publishing House of Leningrad University, 1989).

The begun novel becomes an alloy of the highest achievements of Tolstoy's early work: the psychological analysis of "Childhood", the truth-seeking and deromanticization of the war "Sevastopol Tales", the philosophical understanding of the world "Lucerne", the nationality "Cossacks". In this complex basis the idea of ​​a moral-psychological and historical-philosophical novel was formed, an epic novel in which the author sought to recreate a true historical picture of the three eras of Russian history and analyze their moral lessons, comprehend and proclaim the very laws of history.

The first ideas for a new novel came to Tolstoy at the end of the 50s: a novel about a Decembrist who returned with his family from Siberia in 1856: then the main characters were called Pierre and Natasha Lobazov. But this idea was abandoned - and in 1863 the writer returned to it. “As the idea moved, an intense search for the title of the novel went on. The original, “Three Pores,” soon ceased to correspond to the content, because from 1856 and 1825 Tolstoy went further and further into the past; the focus was only on one “time” - 1812. This is how a different date appeared, and the first chapters of the novel were published in the journal "Russian Messenger" under the title "1805". new version, no longer concretely historical, but philosophical: "All's well that ends well." And, finally, in 1867 - another title, where the historical and philosophical formed a certain balance - "War and Peace" ... (L.N. Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace" in Russian criticism: Collection of articles. - L.: Publishing House of Lehning University, 1989).

What is the essence of this consistently developing idea, why, starting from 1856, Tolstoy came to 1805? What is the essence of this time chain: 1856 - 1825 -1812 -1805?

1856 for 1863, when work on the novel began, is modernity, the beginning of a new era in the history of Russia. Nicholas I died in 1855. His successor on the throne, Alexander II, granted amnesty to the Decembrists and allowed them to return to central Russia. The new sovereign was preparing reforms that were supposed to radically transform the life of the country (the main one was the abolition of serfdom). So, a novel about modernity, about 1856, is being thought about. But this is modernity in a historical aspect, for Decembrism brings us back to 1825, to the uprising on Senate Square on the day of taking the oath to Nicholas I. More than 30 years have passed since that day - and now the aspirations of the Decembrists, although partially, are beginning to come true, their cause, for which they spent three decades in prisons, "hard labor holes" and in settlements - lively. With what eyes will the Decembrist see the renewing Fatherland, having parted with it for more than thirty years, withdrawn from active public life, knowing real life Russia Nikolaev only from a distance? What will the current reformers seem to him - sons? followers? strangers?

Leo Tolstoy during the Crimean War

Oleg Sapozhnikov

What kind of officer was Tolstoy? The question is not idle. Obviously, if he had not served in the Caucasus and Sevastopol behind him, neither the Cossacks nor the Sevastopol Tales would have appeared, and we would hardly have had the pleasure of reading War and Peace. Meanwhile, the luggage of personal psychological experiences, constant and deep moral and ethical introspection, as well as close observations of the behavior of people around in the war, attempts to unravel them and their own internal motivation formed the basis of bright psychological images that still amaze the grateful reader.

It seems to us that with regard to Tolstoy's military service (especially her Sevastopol period), mass literature is dominated by some hagiographic character, which is characteristic of the description of the biographies of famous people in general. In these descriptions, the undoubted greatness of Tolstoy the writer is automatically transferred to other, in this case non-writer's, circumstances of his life: the great Tolstoy was on the 4th bastion ergo The 4th bastion is "great" because Tolstoy was on it.

Stele in memory of a participant in the defense of Sevastopol in 1854-1855. L. N. Tolstoy at the fourth bastion

Such semantic constructions are undoubtedly spectacular, easy for ordinary perception, thanks to them, mutual enrichment with fame occurs between the writer and the circumstance of his biography, but these constructions are unlikely to contribute to a better understanding of the life of the writer, and in the end they in no way cloud the understanding of his work. In addition, the smoothing of corners inherent in hagiography, the incantation of uncomfortable moments, caused by the fear of incurring accusations of shortcomings and even more so vices on a celebrity, hides the obvious idea that a celebrity, no matter how great she may be, remains a person with all his inherent passions, mistakes and experiences.

Without trying to describe Tolstoy's entire long and rich non-writing life, we decided to confine ourselves to the time of his service in officer ranks, more specifically, the period of the Crimean War, guided by the fact that it was during this relatively short period that Tolstoy made the final choice in favor of literature as his main life. field.

We have at our disposal a lot of materials that are sources of information on this topic. First of all, these are materials written by Tolstoy himself - his correspondence, diaries, notes of those years and, of course, his artistic and journalistic works of that time. Secondly, these are official documents - reports, official correspondence regarding Tolstoy's service. Thirdly, these are the memories of his acquaintances, including direct colleagues, as well as relatives. In addition, the memoirs and letters of officers of the Sevastopol garrison (mainly artillerymen) were involved, although they did not mention Tolstoy, but were with him in almost similar circumstances of service. The last group of materials is of particular value when comparing the behavior, impressions and thoughts of these officers with the behavior and thoughts of Tolstoy himself.

It is not our task to describe Tolstoy's two-year service in the Caucasus. We confine ourselves to pointing out that even then he showed those properties of his nature that accompanied him throughout military career. On the one hand, this is the unconditional courage shown by him in battle, for which the cadet Tolstoy was repeatedly presented to the soldier's St. George's Cross. On the other hand, this is a disregard for discipline, for the performance of official duties, which prevented him from receiving an award, including those vital in war conditions. So, for example, Junker Tolstoy was even arrested for leaving his post during the guard. And finally, even in the Caucasus, such a trait of Tolstoy's character as a weak ability to get along in established teams manifested itself. (This last quality is especially important for an officer, whose circle of official contacts is determined not by his own choice, but by the will of his superiors and the requirements of the service.)

Tolstoy and his brother Nikolai before leaving for the Caucasus, 1851

In January 1854, having passed the exam for an officer's rank, Tolstoy left the Caucasus and was transferred to the Danube army, acting against the Turks. Tolstoy learns about promotion to officers from newspapers on his way to the army.

The Danube campaign began in June 1853, when the Russian army under the command of Prince M. D. Gorchakov entered the territory of the Danube principalities. During the summer-autumn, the Russian army occupied almost the entire territory of Moldova and Wallachia on the left bank of the Danube. Bucharest was also occupied, where the headquarters of the Russian army was located.

Danube Campaign of the Crimean War

Ensign Tolstoy joined the army on March 12, just as the crossing of the Danube began, and was assigned to Light Battery No. 8 of the 12th Artillery Brigade. But he did not stay there for long - less than a month later he became an orderly under the head of the Headquarters of the artillery of the Southern Army, General A. O. Serzhputovsky. In his diary on this occasion, Tolstoy writes retrospectively on June 15, 1854:

“Three months of idleness and a life that I cannot be satisfied with. I spent three weeks at Scheidemann's, and I regret not staying. I would get along with the officers, and I would be able to get along with the battery commander. On the other hand, bad company and hidden malice from my unsplendid position would have had a good effect on me ... I was seconded to the Headquarters at the very time when I quarreled with the battery commander, and flattered my vanity.

The conflict with the battery authorities had its consequences. Firstly, battery commander K.F. Scheidemann immediately announced a penalty to Tolstoy:

“At present, the service is difficult, and the officers must be at their places, I reprimand you severely for your unauthorized stay in Bucarest for more than a certain period, I order you to immediately arrive at the battery after receiving this.”

And secondly, Tolstoy and Scheidemann crossed paths a year later, when the latter became the head of artillery in Sevastopol. And their relationship, spoiled even at the first meeting, was tense almost until the end of the war, sometimes it came to public scenes.

Thus, Tolstoy's first experience as an officer in integrating into the service team should be recognized as unsuccessful. This episode, in addition to the conflict with the authorities, is also notable for the fact that Tolstoy calls army officers like himself "bad society." Such snobbery, which unflatteringly characterizes Tolstoy as a comrade, is hardly explainable, especially considering the fact that gunners (along with military engineers and sailors), due to the circumstances of the service, which requires large volume special and scientific knowledge, belonged to the most educated part of Russian society. And it is unlikely that the officers of the Danube army could be very different from their colleagues who fought in the Caucasus and were familiar to Tolstoy from several years of joint service.

The very transfer to the headquarters of yesterday's junker with a complete lack of officer experience is explained by the fact that Tolstoy initially sought to avoid serving in the ranks and, visiting relatives and friends on the way to the Danube army, managed to obtain the necessary recommendations.

Lev Tolstoy. 1854

So, immediately upon arrival in the army, Tolstoy paid a visit to the commander, Prince M. D. Gorchakov. On March 17, 1854, in a letter to his aunt T. A. Ergolskaya, Tolstoy writes:

“He received me better than I expected, just like a relative. He kissed me, invited me to dinner every day, he wants to keep me with him, although this has not yet been completely decided.

“Thank God you are at the pier; I was sure that the prince would receive you in a kindred way, based on his friendly disposition towards your father, and it can be hoped that he would not refuse you his patronage. If he does not leave you with him, then he has good reasons for this and recommends you to someone who has weight in his eyes; this is how he always treats relatives in whom he is interested.

The strength of the patronage, however, was only enough to appoint Tolstoy to the "secondary" Artillery Headquarters, but it was not enough to be transferred to the main Headquarters. Tolstoy was actually "imposed" on the commander of artillery, General Serzhputovsky, as orderlies, which created tensions between them. The general was clearly a burden to the inexperienced orderly, whom he could not send back to the unit, and Tolstoy felt dissatisfied with the status in which he resides. Obviously he expected more. Tension, turning into hostility, arose almost immediately, and already at the beginning of July 1854 Tolstoy reflects on the reasons:

“It was as if I allowed my general too much ... Having thought it over carefully, it turns out, on the contrary, that I allowed myself too much with him.”

Be that as it may, relations between the general and his orderly deteriorated so much that Serzhputovsky even stopped greeting Tolstoy in public. Tolstoy writes about this with irritation in his diary on July 21, 1854:

“The silly old man irritated me again with his manner of not bowing. I'll have to give him a chic."

It is not known whether Tolstoy gave the "chic" to his general, but a week later a new entry: "The old man still does not bow to me."

As a result, reconciliation did not come, and even when Tolstoy was near Sevastopol, his colleague K. N. Boborykin wrote to him on January 26, 1855 from the Main Apartment in Chisinau: “Serzhputovsky, as you know, does not like you very much.”

It cannot be said that Tolstoy was heavily burdened official duties during the Danube campaign. There was a lot of free time, and Tolstoy generously spent it on reading, revelry and entertainment, sometimes not always decent (see, for example, an entry dated July 29, 1854: “Walking from dinner, Tyshk[evich] and I stopped at a bardeli, and we were covered by Kryzhanovsky"), as well as literature classes. It was during his stay in the Danube army that Tolstoy completed Boyhood and Woodcutting. Junker's story.

Service at the headquarters was generally comfortable and easy, although, perhaps, monotonous. In a letter to T. A. Ergolskaya on May 24, 1854, Tolstoy writes:

“I am ashamed that you think that I have been exposed to all the dangers of war, and I have not yet smelled Turkish gunpowder, but I live quietly in Bucharest, walk, play music and eat ice cream. In addition to the two weeks that I spent in Oltenitsa, seconded to the battery, and one week spent traveling through Moldavia, Wallachia and Bessarabia on the orders of General Serzhputovsky, I am with him "on special assignments", I lived in Bucharest; I frankly admit that this somewhat absent-minded way of life, completely idle and expensive, is terribly not to my liking.

But, I think, in this case, Tolstoy was cunning, not wanting, perhaps, to annoy his dear aunt. He also had to make dangerous business trips, sometimes lasting several days, in units and subunits of the Danube army.

Half a century later, in a conversation with A. B. Goldenweiser, Tolstoy recalled:

“The orderly is constantly exposed to great danger, and he himself rarely participates in shooting ... I was an orderly in the Danube army, and it seems that I never had to shoot. I remember once on the Danube at Silistria we stood on our bank of the Danube, and there was a battery on the other side, and I was sent there with some kind of order. The commander of that battery, Shube, seeing me, decided that here is a young graph, I'll play with him! And he drove me along the entire line under the shots, and deliberately murderously slowly. I passed this exam outwardly well, but the feeling was very bad.

If you briefly characterize Tolstoy's attitude to the war at that time, then it can be called contemplative and a little detached. He observes, remembers impressions. At that time, Tolstoy does not even have a hint of pacifism, there is no appeal to the humanistic ideals that have become integral part his later image. On the contrary, he likes the aesthetic side of war. Being present together with the headquarters during the siege of Silistria, on July 5, 1854, Tolstoy wrote in a letter to his aunt:

“To tell the truth, it is a strange pleasure to watch people kill each other, and between that morning and evening I watched it for hours from my wagon. And I'm not alone. The spectacle was truly remarkable, and especially at night. Usually at night, our soldiers worked in the trenches, the Turks attacked to prevent this work, and you should have seen and heard this shooting!

In this letter, Tolstoy describes the culminating episode of the Danube campaign - the siege of Silistria. Back in May 1854, the Russian army laid siege to this large port city on the banks of the Danube. An assault was scheduled for June 20, the success of which no one doubted, but a few hours before the attack an order was received to retreat. The reason was the exacerbation international situation, and in particular the threat of Austria to enter the war on the side of Turkey. The Russian army began the evacuation of the Danubian principalities.

Tolstoy, even during the retreat, does not stop fussing about being transferred to Gorchakov's headquarters. In this sense, the already cited letter to T. A. Ergolskaya dated July 5, 1854 is very significant. It contains such undisguised flattery to the commander, obviously too detailed in a private letter, that suspicion involuntarily creeps in: the letter was written with the expectation of transferring its contents to the prince himself - either through an aunt, or through censorship of military censorship (personal letters sent to Russia from the current armies, as a rule, were perused at the border). Thus, speaking of Gorchakov, Tolstoy writes:

“I am becoming an admirer of the prince (however, one must listen to how officers and soldiers talk about him - not only I have never heard of him bad word, but everyone adores him) ... It is clear that he is so immersed in the general course of affairs that neither bullets nor bombs exist for him, he is exposed to danger with such simplicity, as if he is not aware of it, and involuntarily becomes more terrible for him than for myself; gives orders clear, precise and at the same time always friendly with everyone and everyone. This is a great man, that is, capable and honest, as I understand this word - a man who devoted his whole life to the service of the fatherland, and not out of ambition, but out of duty ... Dear aunt, I would like your prediction to come true. My strongest desire is to be the adjutant of a man like him, whom I love and revere from the depths of my soul.

However, all the efforts were in vain - the transfer to the Main Apartment did not happen.

Tolstoy's position was aggravated by the fact that at first, in addition to tense relations with his immediate superiors, he failed to build equal relations with his colleagues - other adjutants. So, for example, on July 25, 1854, he writes in his diary: “I went to the old man and found him with a company of field marshal’s adjutants, in which it was unbearably hard for me,” and a day later he again mentions “adjutants, who, it seems to me, , shy of me as disgracié". And this despite the fact that Tolstoy really wanted to get into the circle of these “aristocrats”, “bashi-bouzouks” (this is how the staff youth, especially adjutants, were called mockingly and contemptuously in the army). He openly admits this: “The so-called aristocrats arouse envy in me. I am incorrigibly petty and envious." But it was not easy for Tolstoy to get close to them.

There were several reasons. These young people are Tolstoy's peers. But they, for the most part, went through the St. Petersburg military educational institutions or served together in the guards (or both), they compared with Tolstoy had much more military and administrative experience. Finally, they were old comrades bound by close ties of common Petersburg acquaintances, interests, and memories. And the provincial Tolstoy, with his two years of secluded Caucasian junkers, of course, was not easy for them to become their own.

But there was another reason - the main one. From the very beginning, Tolstoy chose the wrong tone in his communication with his comrades.

“I am too honest to deal with these people. It is strange that only now I noticed one of my important shortcomings: insulting and arousing envy in others - a tendency to show off all my advantages.

he writes on July 24, 1854 in his diary. Realizing the abnormality and injustice of his behavior, he, as if hiding envy, treated his comrades deliberately arrogantly, condescendingly. He got irritated when there seemed to be no reason:

“Bashi-bouzouki - as if on purpose, agreed to be especially nice, but I had too much bile. And again he insulted Tyshkevich. In general, I rarely remember that I, in all respects, was in such a terrible position as now. Sick, irritated, completely alone, I managed to disgust everyone, in the most indecisive and bad official position and without money. We need to get out of this situation. To be treated more closely, to endure the unpleasantness of a new rapprochement with comrades ”(record dated July 26, 1854).

The Caucasus played an important role in the development of Leo Tolstoy as a writer. A short period of Tolstoy's life passed here: two and a half years. But it was in the Caucasus that the first literary works and conceived much of what was written later.

Being already a well-known writer, he said that, while living in the Caucasus, he was lonely and unhappy, and that “here he began to think in a way that only once in a lifetime do people have the power to think.” At the same time, Tolstoy calls the Caucasian period "a painful and good time", noting that he never, either before or after, reached such a height of thought.
“And everything that I found then will forever remain my conviction,” he later wrote.

But the beginning of everything 1851. Lev Nikolayevich was in his 23rd year. It was a time of scattered life in the circle of high-society youth. Tolstoy admitted that "he lived very carelessly, without service, without employment, without purpose." Deciding to put an end to all this, he goes to the Caucasus with his brother Nikolai Nikolaevich, who served in the artillery. His twentieth brigade stood in the middle of the last century on Terek under Kizlyar.

The brothers went down the Volga from Saratov through Kazan and arrived in Astrakhan on May 26, 1851.

And then three days of travel by post, that's the Caucasus.

Mountains... Who has not experienced a feeling of joy, delight when meeting with them!

Tolstoy conveyed his feelings experienced at a meeting with the majestic nature of the Caucasus through the perception of the hero of the story. "Cossacks" Venison.

“Suddenly he (Olenin. - A.P.) saw pure white masses with their delicate outlines and a bizarre, distinct aerial line of their peaks and the distant sky. And when he realized all the distance between him and the mountains and the sky, all the immensity of the mountains, and when he felt all the infinity of this beauty, he was afraid that this was a ghost, a dream. He shook himself to wake up. The mountains were the same.
"Now it has begun," a solemn voice seemed to tell him. And the road, and the line of the Terek visible in the distance, and the villages, and the people - all this now seemed to him no longer a joke. Look at the sky and remember the mountains. He will look at himself, at Vanyusha, and again the mountains. Here are two Cossacks on horseback, and the guns in the cases are evenly wound behind their backs, and their horses are mixed with bay and gray legs, and the mountains ... Behind the Terek, smoke is visible in the village; and the mountains... The sun rises and shines on the Terek, visible from behind the reeds; and the mountains ... A cart is coming from the village, women are walking, beautiful women, young; and the mountains... Abreks roam the steppe, and I'm going, I'm not afraid of them, I have a gun and strength, and youth; and the mountains...

Tolstoy, like his hero, left Moscow with a joyful feeling. He is young, full of strength and hope, although he already knew a lot of disappointments. He does not know where to apply his strength. Overwhelmed by such a rush of activity, which only happens in youth, he goes to the mysterious for him, unknown to the Caucasus. There, precisely there, he will begin a new, joyful, free life. May 30, 1851 the Tolstoy brothers arrived in the village Starogladkovskaya.
"How did I get here? Don't know. For what? Too, ”Lev Nikolayevich wrote in the same day in the evening in his diary.

The village of Starogladkovskaya, which was part of the Kizlyar district, is located on the left bank of the Terek, overgrown with dense reeds and forests.

On the left bank there were other villages, between which a road was laid in the forest for a cannon shot - a cordon line. On the right "non-peaceful" side of the Terek, almost opposite the village of Starogladkovskaya, there was a Chechen village Hamamat-Yurt. In the south, beyond the Terek, the Cossack villages bordered on Greater Chechnya, in the north - on the Mozdok steppe, with its sandy breakers.

The houses in the village of Starogladkovskaya were wooden, covered with reeds. The village was surrounded by fences and a deep moat. Its population was Terek Cossacks; They were mainly engaged in cattle breeding, gardening, fishing and hunting. Carried out guard duty. Three versts from the village there was a guard post, also fortified with wattle; there was a soldier's guard station.

In the first half of the 19th century, the Caucasus was an arena of fierce struggle; it was also a place of exile for the progressive people of Russia - Lermontov and many Decembrists were exiled there. Pushkin, Lermontov, Marlinsky sang its extraordinary, enchanting nature. Even under Ivan the Terrible, Russians tried to penetrate the Caucasus, this desire was especially intensified under Catherine II. The best lands of the Caucasian plain were settled by the nobility. The local population of the Caucasus desperately resisted the penetration of the Russians. The fight against the highlanders took on an increasingly fierce and protracted character.

IN 1834 the struggle of the highlanders against the Russians led Shamil which gave it a religious character. Using the religious fanaticism of the Muslims, Shamil created a large army, calling into it all men from sixteen to sixty years old.

Trying to delay the advance of the Russians, Shamil constantly made unexpected attacks, exhausting the Russian troops and constantly threatening the Russian border population.

Beginning in 1845, the Russian command undertook a large expedition against Shamil. Wide clearings were cut through the forests, along which the Russian troops advanced, and the highlanders were forced to move further into the mountains. The campaigns of the Russians against the highlanders were often of the most cruel nature.

Tolstoy believed that the Russians were waging a just war, but he was against the cruelties applied by the Russians to the highlanders. Almost every day there were skirmishes between the Cossacks and the highlanders. As soon as the enemy's crossing over the Terek was noticed, beacons were lit along the entire cordon line.

An alarm was sounded, and from all the nearest villages soldiers and Cossacks on horseback hurried without any order to the place of attack.

The Russian command undertook campaigns and sorties against the highlanders, stormed mountain fortresses along the way.

At first, life in the Caucasus made a not entirely pleasant impression on Tolstoy. He did not like the village of Starogladkovskaya, he did not like the apartment without the necessary amenities. He wrote to T. A. Ergolskaya:
“I expected this region to be beautiful, but it turned out that it wasn’t at all. Since the village is located in a lowland, there are no distant views.
Tolstoy did not find in the Caucasus what he expected to find, having read the romantic stories of Marlinsky.

A week later he and his brother moved to Old Yurt- a small Chechen village, a fortification near Goryachevodsk. From there he writes to Aunt Tatyana Alexandrovna:
“As soon as he arrived, Nikolenka received an order to go to the Staroyurt fortification to cover the sick in the Goryachevodsk camp ... Nikolenka left a week after his arrival, I followed him, and for three weeks now, as we have been here, we have been living in tents, but since The weather is beautiful and I am gradually getting used to these conditions, I feel good. Here are wonderful views, starting from the area where the springs are; a huge stone mountain, the stones are piled on top of each other; others, torn off, form, as it were, grottoes, others hang at a great height, crossed by streams hot water, which break loose with a roar in other places and cover, especially in the morning, the upper part of the mountain with white steam, continuously rising from this boiling water. The water is so hot that eggs are boiled (hard boiled) in three minutes. In the ravine on the main stream there are three mills one above the other. They are built here in a very special way and are very picturesque. All day long the Tatar women come to wash clothes above and below the mills. I need to tell you what they wash with their feet. Like a burrowing anthill. The women are mostly beautiful and well built. Their oriental attire is charming, although poor. The picturesque groups of women and the wild beauty of the area is a truly charming picture, and I often admire it for hours. (translated from French).

It was not the Tatars but the Chechens who lived in the Old Yurt, but the Terek Cossacks, and after them Tolstoy called all the highlanders - Muslims in general - Tatars.

Tolstoy fell in love with the Caucasus. He decides to stay here in the military or civil service, “it doesn’t matter, only in the Caucasus, and not in Russia,” although he cannot forget those who remained in Moscow. In the Caucasus, he is still full of impressions last days held in Kazan. Before him stands the image of Zinaida Molostvovoy.
"Will I never see her again?" he thinks. And on the very first day of his arrival in the Caucasus, he writes in a comic form to A. S. Ogolin in Kazan:

Mr Ogolin!
Hurry, Write
About all of you
To the Caucasus
And is Molostova healthy?
Borrow Leo Tolstoy.

A month later, in a letter to him, he again recalls those who remained in Kazan, regrets that he spent little time with them, and asks to tell Zinaida that he does not forget her.

Whether Tolstoy admires the beauty of nature, whether he admires the daring of the highlanders, in all that is beautiful he sees her, Zinaida, sees her deep look. The Bishop's Garden and a side path leading to the lake rise in front of him. He remembers how he and Zinaida walked along the shady path of the park. They walked in silence. So she did not hear about what the heart of the young man Tolstoy was full of.

And that's exactly what he did not express his feelings, but kept as something sacred, it was this unspoken that he remembered for the rest of his life.

In the summer of 1851, together with his brother Lev Nikolaevich, he volunteered to raid the highlanders. This was his first baptism of fire. During the campaign, Tolstoy observed the life of soldiers and officers; I saw how the detachment settled down to rest by the stream, and heard funny jokes and laughter. "I could not see a trace of anxiety in anyone" before the start of the battle.

Returning from a trip to the Old Yurt, Tolstoy takes up his diary. Enters in the diary and the ripe idea to write a novel "Four epochs of development"; three parts of it made up the story "Childhood", "Boyhood", "Youth", the last part, "Youth", Tolstoy did not succeed.

He does not part with his notebooks, writes in them everything that he sees around, in the hut, in the forest, on the street; rewritten, corrects. He makes sketches of landscapes, types of officers, writes down plans for planned works. Now he is going to describe the gypsy life, then write good book about his aunt Tatyana Alexandrovna, he proposes to write a novel. To this end, in diaries and in translations, he exercises his style; develops an outlook on writing, on artistic mastery.

In August 1851 Tolstoy returns to Starogladkovskaya village, which this time makes a completely different impression on him. He likes the life and life of the Cossacks, who never knew serfdom, their independent, courageous character, especially among women. He studies the Kumyk language, which is the most common among Muslim highlanders, and writes down Chechen folk songs, learns to ride horses. Among the highlanders, Tolstoy finds many wonderfully courageous, selfless, simple and close to nature people. In the village of Tolstoy, he met the ninety-year-old Grebensky Cossack Epifan Sekhin, became friends with him, fell in love with him.

The brother of Lev Nikolaevich, Nikolai Nikolaevich, was also familiar with Epifan Sekhin. In his essay "Hunting in the Caucasus" he says about Epishka:
“This is an extremely interesting, probably already the last type of the old Grebensky Cossacks. Epishka, in his own words, was a fine fellow, a thief, a swindler, he drove herds to the other side, sold people, led Chechens on a lasso; now he is almost a ninety-year-old lonely old man. What has this man not seen in his life! He was in the casemates more than once, and he was in Chechnya several times. His whole life is a series of the strangest adventures: our old man never worked; his service itself was not what we are now accustomed to understand by this word. He either was a translator, or performed such assignments that, of course, only he alone could perform: for example, to bring some abrek, living or dead, from his own sakli to the city; set fire to the house of Bey-bulat, a well-known leader of the highlanders at that time, bring to the head of the detachment of honorary old people or amanats from Chechnya; go hunting with the boss...
Hunting and carousing are our old man's two passions: they were and still remain his only occupation; all his other adventures are only episodes."

Sitting over a bottle of chikhir, Uncle Epishka told Lev Nikolaevich a lot about his past, about the former life of the Cossacks. With him, Tolstoy spent whole days hunting, went to wild boars. He wrote to his brother Sergei:
“Hunting here is a miracle! Clean fields, swamps filled with hares ... "

Despite his advanced age, Uncle Epishka loved to play the balalaika, dance and sing. Tolstoy portrayed him in The Cossacks as Uncle Eroshka.
“I haven’t grieve in my life, and I won’t grieve either ... I’ll go out into the forest, I’ll look: everything is mine that is around, and when I come home, I sing a song,” Eroshka said to himself.

Uncle Eroshka's view of life is quite simple.
“The end will come - I will die and I won’t go hunting, but as long as I’m alive, drink, walk, my soul rejoice.”
He is against the war:
“And why does it, the war, exist? Either way, they would live peacefully, quietly, as our old people used to say. You come to them, they come to you. So side by side, honestly and flattering, they would have lived. But the fact that? He beats that one, he beats that one ... I wouldn’t order that.”

When Tolstoy was leaving Starogladkovskaya, he gave Uncle Epishka his dressing gown with silk laces, in which Epishka liked to walk around the village.

Already after the death of Tolstoy, the local residents of the village told the journalist Gilyarovsky about Uncle Epishka:
“And he never offended anyone by word or deed, unless he calls him “shvinya”. He was friends with the officers and said “you” to everyone. He did not serve anyone, but everyone loved: there was something to listen to, something to tell ... Then he sings songs. The voice is strong and resonant. He did not go to stanitsa gatherings, did not touch public affairs ... He loved Tolstoy very much. They were kunak, they didn’t take anyone with them except Tolstoy for hunting. It used to happen that kulesh was cooking kulesh in the garden near his hut - and Tolstoy was with him. Together they cook and eat ... "

Tolstoy struck up a strong friendship with the young Chechen Sado Misorbiev. In a letter to Tatyana Aleksandrovna Ergolskaya, Tolstoy wrote about him:
“I need to tell you that there is a village not far from the camp where Chechens live. One young Chechen Sado came to the camp and played. He did not know how to count or write down, and there were scoundrel officers who swindled him. So I never played against him, I discouraged him from playing, saying that he was being cheated, and suggested that he play for him. - He was terribly grateful to me for this and gave me a wallet. According to the well-known custom of this nation to give back, I gave him an inferior gun, which I bought for 8 rubles. To become a kunak, that is, a friend, according to custom, firstly, exchange gifts and then take food in the kunak's house. And then, according to the ancient folk custom(which is preserved only by tradition), become friends for life and death, and whatever I ask him for - money, a wife, his weapons, everything that he has the most precious - he must give me, and equally I can't refuse him anything. — Sado called me to his place and offered to be a kunak. I went. Having treated me according to their custom, he offered me to take what I liked: a weapon, a horse, whatever I wanted. I wanted to choose something less expensive and took a bridle with a silver set; but he said that he would consider this an insult, and forced me to take a checker, the price of which was at least 100 r. ser. His father is a wealthy man, but his money is buried, and he does not give his son a penny. In order to get money, the son steals horses or cows from the enemy, sometimes risks his life twenty times in order to steal a thing that is not worth even 10 rubles; he does this not out of self-interest, but out of daring ... Sado either has 100 silver rubles, or not a penny. After my visit, I gave him Nikolenka's silver watch, and we became bosom friends. “Often he proved his loyalty to me by exposing himself to various dangers for me; they consider it as nothing - it has become a habit and a pleasure. - When I left the Old Yurt, and Nikolenka stayed there, Sado came to him every day and said that he was bored and did not know what to do without me, and he was terribly bored. “Having learned from my letter to Nikolenka that my horse was ill and that I was asking you to find me another in the Old Yurt, Sado immediately came to me and brought me his horse, which he insisted that I take, no matter how I refused.”

Tolstoy admired Grebensky women - strong, free, independent in their actions. They were complete mistresses in their home. Tolstoy admired their beauty, their healthy build, their elegant oriental attire, courageous character, stamina and determination.

Tolstoy so loved the life and free life of the Cossacks, their closeness to nature, that he even seriously thought, just like his hero Olenin, “to join the Cossacks, buy a hut, cattle, marry a Cossack woman ...”

Life in the Caucasus ordinary people and rich nature had a beneficial effect on Tolstoy. What happened in the Caucasus with the hero of the story, Olenin, can be attributed to some extent to Tolstoy himself. He feels fresh, cheerful, happy and wonders how he could have lived so idly and aimlessly before. Only now it became clear to Tolstoy what happiness is. Happiness is being close to nature, living for others, he decides.

Tolstoy also liked the general structure of life of the Cossacks; with his militancy and freedom, he seemed to him an ideal for life and the Russian people. In 1857 Tolstoy wrote:
"The future of Russia is the Cossacks: freedom, equality and compulsory military service for everyone."

But, no matter how much Tolstoy admired the people and nature of the Caucasus, no matter how much he wanted to connect his fate with these people, he still understood that he could not merge with the life of the common people. He cannot become a Cossack Lukashka. He decides to enter the military service, earn an officer's rank, awards. But he was still not enlisted in the military, and this worried him greatly. He was not enrolled in active service, since he was still registered in the civil service in the Tula Nobility Assembly, although he had already filed a petition for dismissal a long time ago. Tolstoy shared his experiences with his aunt Tatyana Alexandrovna, who wanted to see her favorite as an officer. To receive the appointment, Tolstoy in October 1851 made a trip to Tiflis.

Tolstoy is holding exam Name junker: in arithmetic, algebra, geometry, grammar, history, geography and foreign languages.

For each subject, he receives the highest mark - 10. And before receiving documents on exemption from civil service January 3, 1852 issued by decree fireworks IV class into battery No. 4 battery 20th Artillery Brigade, with the fact that upon receipt of documents, he will be enrolled in active service "from the day he was used in the service with the battery." Tolstoy was glad to finally throw off his civilian coat, made in St. Petersburg, and put on a soldier's uniform.

In Tiflis, Tolstoy had to stay for several months - there he fell ill. He felt lonely, but, despite this, he read a lot, worked on the story "Childhood" that he had begun. He wrote to Tatyana Alexandrovna:
“Remember, good aunt, that you once advised me to write novels; so, I took your advice; my pursuits, of which I am telling you, are literary. I don't know if what I'm writing will ever be published, but this work amuses me, and I've been doing it so long and hard that I don't want to quit.

In Tiflis, Tolstoy also studied music, which he missed very much; visited theaters, went hunting; I thought a lot about my life. Having no funds for the return trip, he was looking forward to sending money from the manager of Yasnaya Polyana. Debts also tormented him, especially an old debt to officer Knoring, to whom he lost five hundred rubles. And how glad Tolstoy was to receive a letter from his brother Nikolai Nikolaevich, in which there was a torn promissory note for the five hundred rubles lost to Knoring! His friend Sado won this bill from Knoring, tore it up and gave it to Nikolai Nikolaevich. Now Tolstoy was freed from the burden of this debt that weighed on him. A few days later Tolstoy left Tiflis and went to the Starogladkovskaya village.

A lonely life in Tiflis inspired Tolstoy's thoughts about family life, he is seriously thinking about marriage. He perfectly understands that the desire to stay in the Caucasus, to marry a Cossack woman is only a dream, a fantasy; his family nest should be built there, in Yasnaya Polyana. Isn't it time to calm down, he thinks, and start life "with the quiet joys of love and friendship"? How good it would be, Tolstoy dreams, to live in Yasnaya Polyana, together with my aunt, to tell her about what he had to endure in the Caucasus. He will have a meek, kind wife, children, they will call Tatyana Alexandrovna grandmother. Sister Mashenka and older brother, old bachelor Nikolenka, will also live with them, Nikolenka will tell stories to children, play with them, and his wife will treat Nikolenka to his favorite dishes.

Returning to the village of Starogladkovskaya, Tolstoy found the beginning of new decisive hostilities against Chechnya. He takes in them Active participation, acts in campaigns. The campaign on the Dzhalka River was successful. There he shows courage, fearlessness. Tolstoy especially distinguished himself in the battle during the attack of the enemy on the river michike. In this battle, he was almost killed by a cannonball that hit the wheel of the cannon he was pointing.
“If the muzzle of the cannon, from which the cannonball flew out, had been deflected 1/1000 of the line in one direction or another, I would have been killed,” he wrote.

With the ensuing lull, Tolstoy again lives in Starogladkovskaya. He again listens to Uncle Epishka's stories, goes hunting, plays chess, and continues to work on Childhood.

Finally March 23, 1852 the long-awaited military enlistment order. But this already did little to please Tolstoy - the company of officers, occupied most of all with drinking parties, playing cards, became alien to him. Among the officers, he felt alone. Subsequently, one officer said of him:
“He was proud, others drink, walk, and he sits alone, reading a book. And then I saw more than once - all with a book ... "
In the Caucasian period of Tolstoy's life, more and more captures artistic creativity, he is working hard and hard on "Childhood", he has new ideas.
“I really want to start a short Caucasian story, but I do not allow myself to do this without finishing the work I have begun,” he writes.
A short story turned out to be then a story "Raid". At the same time, Tolstoy contemplates writing "The novel of the Russian landowner".

Increasingly, he asks himself what his purpose is.
“I'm 24 and I haven't done anything yet. - I feel that it is not without reason that for eight years now I have been struggling with doubt and passions. But what am I assigned to? This will open the future,” he writes in his diary.

A few days later, again referring to the diary, he argues:
“You have to work mentally. I know that I would be happier not knowing this job. But God put me on this path: I must follow it.”

Tolstoy begins to realize his true purpose - to be a writer.

The story "Childhood" was Tolstoy's first printed work. Tolstoy worked on it at the Kazkaz for more than a year, and, as we know, he started it back in Moscow. He revised it four times, rewrote it three times. Now he liked her, then he didn’t like her, sometimes he even began to doubt his own feelings. creativity, in his talent.

True, he definitely liked some chapters of "Childhood", more than others touched the chapter "Woe" and, re-reading it, he cried.

IN July 1852 from Pyatigorsk Tolstoy sends to the editor of the Sovremennik magazine N. A. Nekrasov his first letter and manuscript "Childhood" signed with the initials "L. N.". Tolstoy asks Nekrasov to review the manuscript and make his own judgment about it.
“In essence, this manuscript is the 1st part of the novel - four epochs of development; the appearance of the next parts will depend on the success of the first. If, due to its size, it cannot be printed in one issue, then I ask you to divide it into three parts: from the beginning to chapter 17, from chapter 17 to 26, and from 26 to the end.
If it were possible to find a good scribe where I live, then the manuscript would be rewritten better and I would not be afraid for the extra prejudice that you will now certainly receive against it, ”he wrote to Nekrasov.

"Childhood" made a favorable impression on Nekrasov, and he informed the then unknown author:
“I don’t know the continuation, I can’t say decisively, but it seems to me that there is talent in its author. In any case, the direction of the author, the simplicity and reality of the content are the inalienable merits of this work. If in further parts(as expected) there will be more liveliness and movement, then it will be good romance. Please send me a sequel. Both your novel and talent interested me. I would also advise you not to hide behind letters, but to start typing right behind your last name. Unless you are a random guest in literature.

"Childhood" was printed in 9th book Sovremennik in November 1852 entitled "The Story of My Childhood". Tolstoy was pleased with the first printed work, he was pleased to read commendable reviews about his story. He recalled:
“I’m lying on the bunk in the hut, and here is my brother and Ogolin (officer), reading and reveling in the pleasure of praise, even tears of delight stifle me, and I think: no one knows, even here they are, that they praise me so much.”

But at the same time, the first work upset Tolstoy. He was dissatisfied with the title: "The Story of My Childhood." “Who cares about my childhood story?” - he wrote to Nekrasov, and in the introduction to "Memoirs" he said: "My idea was to describe the story not of my own, but of my childhood friends" - he wanted to give a typical image of childhood.

Tolstoy found many changes and abbreviations in his published story; he was dissatisfied with the fact that they released the love story of Natalia Savishna, and generally considered his story mutilated. Tolstoy was then still unaware that many reductions and distortions were made not by the editors, but by the censors.

Tolstoy said that he would calm down only when the story was published as a separate book. A separate book "Childhood" was published four years later, in 1856. The appearance of the story made a great impression.

Everyone wanted to know who this new talented author was. The liveliest interest was shown by Turgenev, who at that time lived in Spassko-Lutovinovo. He kept asking Maria Nikolaevna, Lev Nikolaevich's sister, if she had a brother in the Caucasus who could be a writer. It was assumed that the story was written by Tolstoy's elder brother, Nikolai Nikolaevich. Turgenev asked to be welcomed. “I bow and applaud him,” he said.

Turgenev, like Nekrasov, believed that "this is a reliable talent."

Aunt Tatyana Alexandrovna was delighted with the appearance of the story. She found that F. I. Ressel and Praskovya Isaevna, whom she knew well in life, and especially the scene of her mother's death, were very truthfully described. “... it is described with such a feeling that one cannot read it without excitement, without partiality and without flattery I will tell you that one must have a real and very special talent in order to give interest to a plot so little interesting as childhood... "- she wrote to L. N. Tolstoy.

With amazing skill, the noble estate where the heroes lived is presented in the story "Childhood"; its furnishings and way of life are very similar to Yasnaya Polyana. Russian nature is picturesquely depicted in the story, so close and dear.

The story describes the life of a child of an old noble family. Although Tolstoy claimed that he did not write the history of his childhood, nevertheless, the experiences and moods of the main character, Nikolenka, many events from his life - games, hunting, a trip to Moscow, classes in the classroom, reading poetry - resemble Leo's childhood. Nikolaevich. Some characters the stories are also reminiscent of the people who surrounded Tolstoy in childhood. Volodya - brother Seryozha, Lyubochka, with whom Nikolenka loved to play so much - sister Masha, the image of the grandmother is very reminiscent of Lev Nikolayevich's own grandmother, Pelageya Nikolaevna, the boy Ivin is Tolstoy's childhood friend Musin-Pushkin. Nikolenka's father is reminiscent of Tolstoy's neighbor, the landowner Isleniev, and Nikolenka's stepmother is his wife. Nikolenka's mother is the image of his mother formed in Tolstoy's imagination based on the recollections of those around him. According to Tolstoy, in the story "Childhood" there was an "incoherent mixture of truth and fiction", a mixture of the events of his childhood with the events of the life of his friends Islenyevs.

Following the story "Childhood" Tolstoy writes a military story "Raid". In October 1852, he writes in his diary: “I want to write Caucasian essays for the formation of style and money,” and outlines a plan for his essays.

Back in July, Tolstoy conceived the idea of ​​writing The Novel of a Russian Landowner, thought over the plan, and in October began work on it.

In December, Tolstoy wrote to his brother Sergei Nikolaevich:
“I have begun a serious, useful affair, according to my concepts, and I intend to use all my strength and abilities on it. I call this novel a book, because I believe that it is enough for a person in life to write at least one, short, but useful book, and I told Nikolenka, as we used to draw pictures: I will draw this picture for 3 months.

IN November 1852 Tolstoy begins work on the second part of the trilogy - "Boyhood". He worked on it with great enthusiasm, but she was given to him with difficulty. The same characters remained in it as in "Childhood", the events that began there developed, but in the new story there was less autobiography, but more fantasy. If in "Childhood" Tolstoy liked the chapter "Woe", then here - "Thunderstorm"; he considered the place "superb". Three times Tolstoy had to rewrite his story "Boyhood".

December 1852 Tolstoy ends the story "Raid" and sends him to Nekrasov's Sovremennik. In this story, he depicted a raid in which he personally took the site. Main character story, Captain Khlopov, is a brave and unshakable man. The character traits of Captain Khlopov are similar to the character of the writer's beloved brother, Nikolenka.

In "The Raid" Tolstoy without embellishment depicts the destruction of the mountain village, robberies, murders of the local population, encouraged by the Russian command. Tolstoy is clearly on the side of the highlanders, he sympathizes with them.
“Carabinieri, why did you do this?..” asks the author of the carabinieri who killed a mountain woman with a child in her arms. He reminds the soldier of his wife and son, who he left behind. “What would you say,” asks the author of the carabinieri, “if your wife and child were attacked?”

In this passage of the story, Tolstoy condemns senseless murders, wars, and for the first time speaks of the brotherhood of peoples.

In one version of the story "The Raid", Tolstoy wrote:
“How good it is to live in the world, how beautiful this world is! I felt, “how vile people are and how little they know how to appreciate him,” I thought. This not new, but involuntary and sincere thought was evoked in me by all the nature around me, but most of all by the resonant carefree song of the quail, which was heard somewhere far away, in the tall grass.
It is true that she does not know and does not think about whose land she sings on, whether on the Russian land or on the land of the recalcitrant highlanders, it cannot even enter her head that this land is not common. She thinks, stupidly, that the earth is one for all, she judges by the fact that she flew in with love and song, built her green house where she wanted, fed, flew wherever there was greenery, air and sky, brought out children. She has no idea what rights, humility, power are, she knows only one power, the power of nature, and unconsciously, meekly submits to it.

"The Raid" was published in 1853 year in 3rd room magazine "Contemporary", as well as "Childhood", signed "L. N.".

In early January 1853, Tolstoy again took part in the campaign against the highlanders. After a monotonous life in the village, the campaign gave Tolstoy a detente, he felt cheerful, joyful, was full of militant poetry, admired the majestic nature of the Caucasus. He wanted to get down to business as soon as possible, but the Grozny detachment lingered for a long time in the fortress.

Tolstoy endured the idle, inactive life with difficulty.
“Everyone, especially my brother, drinks,” he writes, “and this is very unpleasant for me. War is such an unjust and bad deed that those who fight try to drown out the voice of conscience in themselves.

For the first time, Tolstoy begins to doubt the correctness of his participation in the hostilities against the highlanders.

In mid-February, the assault on Shamil's positions located on the Michika River began. Tolstoy commanded a battery platoon. With a shot from his gun, he knocked out the gun of the enemy. For this, he was promised a reward - the St. George Cross. Tolstoy really wanted to receive this award, mainly to please his relatives.

Shamil's troops, having been defeated, randomly retreated.

For a successful battle on the Michika River, many of its participants received awards, but Tolstoy did not receive the promised St. George Cross. On the eve of the issuance of awards, he was so carried away by playing chess that he did not appear on guard on time, for which he received a reprimand and was put under arrest. And the next day, when the St. George crosses were handed out, he was under arrest.

“The fact that I did not receive the cross made me very sad. Apparently, I am not happy. And I confess that this stupidity would greatly console me, ”he wrote.

Tolstoy also had a second opportunity to receive the St. George Cross - for a successful battle on February 18, 1853. Two St. George crosses were sent to the battery. The battery commander, turning to Tolstoy, said: "You deserve the cross, if you want - I will give it to you, otherwise there is a very worthy soldier who deserves the same and is waiting for the cross as a means of subsistence." The George Cross gave the right to a lifelong pension in the amount of a salary. Tolstoy yielded the cross to the old soldier.

After Shamil's retreat, the Russian troops, approaching the Gudermes River, began to break through the canal, and Tolstoy with his battery returned to the village of Starogladkovskaya. There, letters and the March issue of Sovremennik were waiting for him, in which the story "The Raid" was printed. Tolstoy was again delighted, but at the same time upset - the story was mutilated by censorship. On this occasion, Nekrasov wrote:
“Please do not lose heart from these troubles common to all our gifted writers.” Not jokingly, your story is still very alive and graceful, and it was extremely good. Don't forget Sovremennik, who is counting on your cooperation."

Despite Nekrasov's sympathetic review of The Raid, Tolstoy could not come to terms with the distortion of the story: each work is a particle of his soul.

“Childhood” was spoiled,” he wrote to his brother Sergei, “and the “Raid” disappeared from censorship. Everything that was good is thrown out or mutilated.

Approving reviews of "The Raid" caused a creative upsurge in Tolstoy. He writes "Christmas Night", but this story remained unfinished. He is working with enthusiasm on "Adolescence". At the same time he is considering the plan of "Youth".

In June, during a trip to the Vozdvizhenskoye fortress, Tolstoy was almost captured by the Chechens.

It was a hot summer day. Tolstoy, Sado Miserbiev and three officers separated from their detachment and rode forward. As a precaution, they split into two groups: Tolstoy and Sado rode along the upper road, and the officers along the lower one. Beneath Tolstoy there was a fine dark gray pacer of the Kabardian breed, he trotted well, but was weak for a fast ride. And Sado has a clumsy, lean, long-legged horse of the steppe Nogai breed, but very fast. Tolstoy and Sado exchanged horses and rode carelessly admiring the views of nature.

Suddenly, in the distance, Sado noticed Chechens rushing towards them, about thirty people. Tolstoy let the officers traveling along the lower road know about this, and he himself rushed with Sado to the fortification of Grozny. Tolstoy could easily have ridden on a fast horse, but he did not want to leave his friend.

The Chechens were approaching. The fort noticed it. A detachment of cavalrymen was sent out, and the Chechens took to flight. The danger for Tolstoy and Sado passed, and only one of the officers escaped.

This case was used by Tolstoy in the story "Prisoner of the Caucasus".

Returning to Starogladkovskaya, Tolstoy falls into despondency, he is dissatisfied with himself, he had a period of "cleansing of the soul", as he called this state of mind. He makes a promise to himself to do good as much as possible, to be active, not to act lightly. Again he thinks about the purpose of life and defines it as follows:
“The purpose of my life is known - the good that I owe to my subjects and my compatriots. I owe the first that I own them, the second - that I own talent and mind.

Tolstoy clearly recognizes talent already in himself, he is not an accidental guest in literature. He has ideas for new works, he thinks of writing "The Diary of a Caucasian Officer", "The Fugitive" (these are the future "Cossacks").

He is hard at work on a sequel to Boyhood.
"Work! Work! How happy I feel when I work,” he writes in his diary.
Immersed in reading, rereading Turgenev's Notes of a Hunter, which still make a strong impression on him. “It is somehow difficult to write after him,” Tolstoy notes in his diary.

Despite the hard work, he still felt some dissatisfaction with his life. It seemed to him that he was not fulfilling his mission, which was not yet entirely clear to himself, that he was not fulfilling a high calling. On July 28, he writes: “Without a month, twenty-five years, and still nothing!”

From Pyatigorsk, Tolstoy traveled to Kislovodsk, Zheleznovodsk to conduct a course of treatment with baths there. In Zheleznovodsk, he had an idea to write "The Caucasian Story", and August 28, on his birthday, he begins a story, which he then calls "The Fugitive" and which appeared the first draft of the famous story"Cossacks". In total, Tolstoy worked on The Cossacks for ten years with interruptions.

About the works of Tolstoy dedicated to the Caucasus, R. Rolland wrote:
"Above all these works rises, the likeness of the highest peak in the mountain range, the best of the lyrical novels created by Tolstoy, the song of his youth, the Caucasian poem "Cossacks". The snowy mountains, looming against the background of the dazzling sky, fill the whole book with their proud beauty. "

The ancestors of the Cossacks came to North Caucasus from the Don at the end of the 16th century, and under Peter I, when defensive line from the attack of mountaineer neighbors, were relocated to the other side of the river. Here stood their villages, cordons and fortresses. In the middle of the 19th century, there were a little more than ten thousand Grebensky Cossacks. During the time of Tolstoy, the Grebensky Cossacks - "belligerent, beautiful and rich Russian population"- lived on the left bank of the Terek, on a narrow strip of wooded fertile land. In one of the chapters of his story, Tolstoy tells the story of this "little people", referring to an oral tradition that in some bizarre way connected the resettlement of the Cossacks from the Grebny with the name of Ivan the Terrible .

Tolstoy heard this legend when he himself, like the hero of the "Cossacks" Olenin, lived in a Cossack village and was friends with the old hunter Epifan Sekhin, depicted in the story under the name of Uncle Eroshka.

Tolstoy worked on "Cossacks" intermittently, ten years. In 1852, immediately after the story "Childhood" was published in Sovremennik, he decided to write "Caucasian essays", which would include Epishka's "amazing" stories about hunting, about the old life of the Cossacks, about his adventures in the mountains.

The Caucasian story began in 1853. Then for a long time the idea of ​​the novel was preserved, with an acutely dramatic development of the plot. The novel was called "The Fugitive", "The Fugitive Cossack". As can be judged from the numerous plans and written passages, the events in the novel developed as follows: in the village, an officer clashes with a young Cossack, Maryana's husband; a Cossack, having wounded an officer, is forced to flee to the mountains; There are various rumors about him, they know that he, together with the highlanders, is robbing the villages; yearning for his native home, the Cossack returns, he is seized and then executed. The fate of the officer was drawn in different ways: he continues to live in the village, dissatisfied with himself and his love; leaves the village, looking for "salvation in courage, in an affair with Vorontsova"; dies, killed by Mariana.

How far is this fascinating love story from the simple and deep conflict of "Cossacks"!

Leaving Moscow and getting to the village, Olenin discovers new world, which first interests him, and then irresistibly attracts him.

On the way to the Caucasus, he thinks:
"To leave completely and never come back, not show up in society." In the village, he is fully aware of all the abomination, disgust and lies of his former life.

However, a wall of misunderstanding separates Olenin from the Cossacks.

He performs a kind, selfless deed - he gives Lukashka a horse, and this causes surprise among the villagers and even increases distrust:
"Let's see, let's see what will come of it"; "What a squeamish people of the yunkirs, trouble! .. Just set it on fire or something."
His enthusiastic dreams of becoming a simple Cossack are not understood by Maryana, and her friend, Ustenka, explains:
"And so, he's lying, what has come into his mind. Mine doesn't say anything! Just spoiled!"
And even Eroshka, who loves Olenin for his "simplicity" and, of course, is the closest to him of all the villagers, catching Olenin writing a diary, without hesitation advises to leave an empty case: "What slander to write!"

But Olenin, sincerely admiring the life of the Cossacks, is alien to their interests and does not accept their truth. In the hot season of cleaning, when hard, incessant work occupies the villagers from early morning until late evening, Olenin, invited by Maryana's father to the gardens, comes with a gun on his shoulder to catch hares.
"Is it easy to go looking for hares at work time!" - Granny Julitta rightly remarks. And at the end of the story, he is unable to understand that Maryana is grieving not only because of Lukashka's wound, but because the interests of the entire village have suffered - "the Cossacks have been killed." The story ends with a sad recognition of the bitter truth that neither Olenin's passionate love for Maryana, nor her willingness to love him, nor his disgust for secular life and his enthusiastic desire to join the simple and dear Cossack world can destroy the wall of alienation.

The artistic effect of Maryana's words is such that when they are spoken, we perceive them both as unexpected and as the only ones possible for her in her position. We suddenly (precisely suddenly!) begin to understand with all clarity that Maryana, with her inherent simplicity and naturalness of character and behavior, otherwise simply could not have answered. How surprisingly organic and appropriate for her in that calm and obviously cheerful mood in which she is, this unexpectedly simple and in its own way very true:
“Why not love you, you are not crooked!” How natural and psychologically true is the attention that she first of all pays to Olenin's hands: "white, white, soft, like a kaimak."
She herself does not have them white, and Lukashka's, too, and other Cossacks. She draws attention to what, in her eyes, most of all distinguishes Olenin from people she knows well. These and similar words of Maryana exactly correspond to her character and well convey in her the properties of her personality, her individually unique. They seem to highlight it in front of us, help to create a lively, very plastic image. And not only alive and plastic - beautiful.

In none of Tolstoy's works, thoughts about self-sacrifice, about happiness, which consists in doing good to others, were expressed with such force of feeling as in The Cossacks. Of all the heroes of Tolstoy, striving for moral self-improvement, Olenin is the most ardent, unconsciously surrendering to a young spiritual impulse and therefore especially charming. This is probably why it is the least didactic. The same impulse of youthful forces that drew him to self-improvement very soon destroys the inspired moral theories and leads to the recognition of another truth: "He who is happy is right!" And he greedily seeks this happiness, although in the depths of his soul he feels that it is impossible for him. He leaves the village, rejected by Maryana, alien to the Cossacks, but even more distant from his former life.

The title - "Cossacks" - accurately conveys the meaning and pathos of the work. It is curious that, while choosing different names in the course of his work, Tolstoy, however, never stopped at "Deer".

Turgenev, who considered Olenin an extra person in The Cossacks, was, of course, wrong. The ideological conflict of the story would not have happened without Olenin. But the fact that in the life of the Cossack village Olenin is an extra person, that the poetry and truth of this life exists and is expressed independently of him, is beyond doubt. Not only for existence, but also for self-consciousness, the Cossack world does not need Olenin. This world is beautiful in and of itself.

In the clash of the Cossacks with the abreks, in the wonderful scenes of grape cutting and the stanitsa holiday, in the war, labor and fun of the Cossacks - Olenin acts as an outside, albeit very interested observer. From the lessons of Eroshka, he learns both the philosophy of life and the morality of this amazing and so attractive world for him.

In an 1860 diary, Tolstoy wrote:
"It will be strange if this adoration of work of mine goes in vain."
In the story, the simple, close to nature, working life of the Cossacks is affirmed as a social and moral ideal. Labor is the necessary and joyful basis of people's life, but labor is not on the landowner's, but on one's own land. So Tolstoy decided in the early 60s the most topical issue of the era.

"The future of Russia's Cossacks is freedom, equality and compulsory military service for everyone," he wrote at the time of his work on The Cossacks. Later, he developed his idea of ​​a free land and said that the Russian revolution could be based on this idea. No one better than Tolstoy expressed in his work this dream of the Russian peasant, and no one more than he built utopian theories, especially in later years, about peaceful ways to achieve it.

What are the "Cossacks" in this sense? Dream or reality? Idyll or real picture? It is obvious that the patriarchal-peasant idyll lives only in the memoirs of Eroshka. And at the first meeting with Olenin, and then many times he repeats:
"You have passed, my time, you will not return"; "Today there are no such Cossacks. It's bad to look ..."

Eroshka is the embodiment of a living history, a living legend, alien to the new village. Everyone treats him either hostilely or mockingly, except for Olenin and Lukashka's nephew. Eroshka was "simple" in his time, he did not count money; the current typical representative of the Cossack society - the cornet - pulled off his brother's garden and is having a long political conversation with Olenin in order to bargain for the extra for a stay.

It is no coincidence that it is the old man Eroshka who represents the human, humane look in the story. He loves and pities everyone: the child killed in the plundered aul, and the horseman shot by Lukashka, and the wounded animal, and the butterfly foolishly flying into the fire, and Olenin, whom the girls do not like. But he himself is unloved.
"Unloved we are with you, orphans!" - crying, he says to Olenin.

The story affirms the beauty and significance of life itself. None of Tolstoy's creations is imbued with such a youthful faith in the elemental power of life and its triumph as The Cossacks. And in this sense, the Caucasian story outlines a direct transition to War and Peace.

For the first time in his work, Tolstoy did not create sketches in The Cossacks folk types, but whole, brightly outlined, original, dissimilar characters of people from the people - the majestic beauty Maryana, the daring Lukashka, the sage Eroshka.

In Pyatigorsk Tolstoy writes a story "Marker Notes" with which he is very pleased. He wrote it in four days. It was a confession of the soul of a young writer, a story about what worried and tormented him.

Tolstoy stayed in Pyatigorsk for three months. He has fond memories of that time. Only service failures worried him, since the spring he began to think about leaving the military service. The reason for this was the resignation of brother Nikolai Nikolaevich and the expiration of the term of stay in the Caucasus, which Tolstoy appointed himself; He was tired of the empty society around him. The desire to retire matured, but, not hoping to get it right away, Tolstoy in the spring of 1853 submits a report on leave for a trip to his homeland. However, already in June, circumstances changed dramatically: relations between Russia and Turkey became aggravated. Nicholas I issued a manifesto, according to which the Russian troops were to occupy Moldavia and Wallachia, which were under the dependence of Turkey.

In connection with the outbreak of hostilities, resignations and leave from the army were prohibited, and Tolstoy turned to the commander of the troops located in Moldavia and Wallachia, M. D. Gorchakov, who was his second cousin, with a request to send him to the army.

Sadly meets Tolstoy new, 1854. He rereads the letter he had just written to Aunt Tatyana Alexandrovna:
“For some time now I have been very sad and cannot overcome this in myself: without friends, without classes, without interest in everything that surrounds me, the best years of my life go fruitless for myself and for others; my situation, perhaps tolerable for others, becomes for me, with my sensitivity, more and more painful. “I pay dearly for the misdeeds of my youth.”

Tolstoy's request was granted: in January 1854 he was transferred by fireworks to the active army in Bucharest.

Before leaving for the army, Tolstoy decides to visit Yasnaya Polyana, but before going there, he takes an exam for the first rank of an officer. Although the exam was a mere formality, Tolstoy passed it well. According to the twelve-point system, he received from 10 to 12 points in eleven subjects for each. Tolstoy so wanted to go to Yasnaya Polyana as an officer that he tried on an officer's uniform the very next day.

At the last minute, Tolstoy felt sorry to part with the comrades with whom he got along, many of whom he fell in love with. All the comrades gathered to see him off, some officers shed tears even at parting.

If you imagine history big life lived by Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, and his rich creative biography in the form of a huge, voluminous, thousand-sheet book, then this folio will contain several very remarkable pages that connect the name of the great writer of the Russian land with our region, with the quiet Don.

We remember from childhood folk tale written by Leo Tolstoy.
- It was, it says in it, that old Ivan had two sons: Shat Ivanovich and Don Ivanovich. Wayward Shat was older and stronger, and Don, the younger son, was weaker. At first they lived with their father, but the time came to part - their sons to torture their fate. Their father took them out of the village, ordered them to listen in everything, and showed the way to everyone. Only Shat did not listen to his father. Hot and strong, he rushed ahead, and - lost his way, got lost in the swamps. And Don Ivanovich - quiet and submissive - went where his father punished, and went through all of Russia, paved the way to the southern sea, became noble and glorious ...

Rivers carry in their waves the history and life of peoples. If you cast a glance into the distant past, it turns out that not the Volga, but the Don was considered the main river in Rus'. It was here that the Russians went out to fight to the death with their enemies: the Don banks remember Svyatoslav and Igor, the Battle of Kulikovo and the battle on Kalka. It was on the Don that the Russian fleet was born, the fires of Razin and Pugachev blazed. And Tolstoy could not but be interested in this. But only once did Lev Nikolaevich visit the Don. Somewhere near the mouth Bystraya river, lost steppe farm Belogorodtsev. Today, it cannot be found on any map, and a hundred years ago, a pit tract passed through it and a horse-post station was located in the farmstead. Blizzard in winter 1854 Tolstoy turned out to be her guest.

He then rode on the messenger from the Caucasus to Yasnaya Polyana. Just before leaving, Lev Nikolayevich received the rank of ensign and hurried to see his relatives in order to go to the Danube front. In the travel suitcase lay the manuscript of a new story - "Boyhood", also for "Contemporary". He was in a hurry, generously endowed the coachmen with tips, drove even at night and got lost. The following entry can be found in the writer's diary:
“January 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 was on the road. 24 in Belogorodtsevskaya. 100 miles from Cherkassk, wandered all night. And I got the idea to write the story "Snowstorm".
This story was published in the third, March book of Sovremennik for 1856.

Then the writer S.T. Aksakov, who read it, wrote to Turgenev: “Please tell Count Tolstoy that "Blizzard" excellent story...

But let's get back to the story itself. It starts like this:
“At seven o’clock in the evening, having drunk tea, I left the station, whose name I no longer remember, but I remember, somewhere in the Land of the Don Army, near Novocherkassk” ...

IN Novocherkassk, as established by local historians, the writer was January 24, 1854 He rested here in the European Hotel. By evening, he had already passed through the Kadamovsky farm, where he changed horses, and arrived at Klinovskaya. From Klinovskaya, “having drunk tea”, at seven o’clock in the evening, despite the good “advice of the caretaker, it’s better not to drive, so as not to get lost all night and not freeze on the road,” the writer went further, to station Belogorodtsevskaya. But after a quarter of an hour the coachman had to stop the horses and look for a way.
“It was clear,” said Tolstoy, “that we were going, God knows where, because, after driving for another quarter of an hour, we did not see a single milestone.”
Until the very morning, twelve hours in a row, wandering continued "in a completely bare steppe, what is this part of the Earth of the Don army." Fortunately, everything turned out well, and Tolstoy got to Belogorodtsevskaya. He will be on the road for two weeks. Will ride through farm Astakhov on the Deep River Nizhne-Lozovskaya, Kazan, then through the lands of the Voronezh province. On February 2, already in Yasnaya Polyana, he writes in his diary:
“Exactly two weeks was on the road. The only amazing thing that happened to me was a blizzard…”

But it will be another two years before Tolstoy writes a story about it. He will visit Sevastopol, take part in the battles there. And yet, the impressions of what he experienced in the snow-covered Don steppe are so deeply engraved in his memory that he cannot help but take up the pen.

And it will not be just landscape painting - the reader will see coachmen, postmen, truck drivers doing their difficult and sometimes dangerous work calmly, in a businesslike way, even with some kind of cheerful excitement (as we say the driver Ignashka). Their lives, their destinies - the reader can see it visibly - are inextricably merged with the hard fate of their native land. Russian land.

"Blizzard" will be the first, but by no means the only work of the great writer, which is associated with our region. From his youth and until his last days, Tolstoy was interested in the Donshchina, its originality, Cossack liberties. And this entry appears in the diary.
“The whole history of Russia was made by the Cossacks. No wonder the Europeans call us Cossacks. The people want to be Cossacks...
This was said in the sense that the Russian people strive for freedom, will and justice.

No matter how many disappointments and failures life in the Caucasus brought him, nevertheless this time, by his own admission, was one of the happiest periods of his life and brought him many benefits.

Subsequently, Tolstoy will say that the Caucasus is war and freedom, i.e. a test of the strength and dignity of the human character, on the one hand, and admiration for the life of the Caucasian peoples who did not know serfdom, on the other. Having left for the Danube army, to another place of service, he writes in his diary:
“I begin to love the Caucasus, although posthumously, but with a strong love. This wild land is really good, in which two most opposite things are so strangely and poetically combined - war and freedom.

Life in the Caucasus gave Tolstoy rich material for reflection.
“I began to think in a way that only once in a lifetime do people have the power to think. I have my notes of that time, and now, re-reading them, I could not understand that a person could reach such a degree of mental exaltation that I reached then. It was both painful and good times. Never before or since have I reached such a height of thought, have I looked into there, as at this time, lasting 2 years. And everything that I found then will forever remain my conviction.- he wrote five years later to A. A. Tolstoy.

And his anguish, his inexplicable anxiety and sometimes incomprehensible sadness - all these were signs, as Tolstoy himself said about it, "the birth of high thought, attempts at creativity."

In the Caucasus, Tolstoy develops his own view of writing, of artistic mastery.
“It seems to me,” he wrote, “that it is actually impossible to describe a person; but you can describe how it affected me. To talk about a person: he is an original, kind, intelligent, stupid, consistent person, etc. ... words that do not give any idea about a person, but have a claim to describe a person, while often they only confuse.
A little later, he wrote in his diary: “The most pleasant are those (works. - A.P.), in which the author seems to be trying to hide his personal view and at the same time remains constantly faithful to him wherever he is found. The most colorless are those in which the gaze changes so frequently that it is completely lost.
Tolstoy follows these rules when depicting the characters of heroes in his works.

In the Caucasus, Tolstoy first found his true calling, “not invented, but really existing, corresponding to his inclinations,” is a literary work. He is now systematically engaged in it, developing the principles of artistic mastery.

“When rereading and correcting an essay,” he writes, “do not think about what needs to be added (no matter how good the passing thoughts are), unless you see ambiguity or understatement main idea, but to think about how to throw out as much as possible from it without violating the thought of the composition (no matter how good these extra passages are).

Creativity should bring joy to the artist, and he achieves this only if, says Tolstoy, if the subject he writes about deserves attention and is vital, serious.

The theme of the Caucasus runs through many of Leo Tolstoy's works, up to the very latest. The writer never again visited the Caucasus, but he retained his love for this region until the last days of his life.

One cannot say about Tolstoy's life: "in his declining years." The last decade of his life, ten years after the novel "Resurrection", was filled with work, searches, literary ideas. Tolstoy was old in years, but not in creative power. In him and in his old age, until the end of his days, there was an amazing fullness and richness of mental, spiritual life.

Hadji Murad - the hero of the story by L.N. Tolstoy "Hadji Murad" (1896-1904)- a real historical person, famous for his courage Naib (authorized) Shamil, in 1834-1836. one of the rulers of the Avar Khanate. In 1851, he went over to the side of the Russians, then he tried to flee to the mountains to save his family, which remained in the hands of Shamil, but was overtaken and killed. Tolstoy said about H.-M.: "This is my hobby." Most of all, the artist was captivated by the energy and strength of H.-M.'s life, the ability to defend his life to the last. And only 45 years later, in 1896, Tolstoy began work on the story.

What prompted Tolstoy to start work on the story, we read in his diary entry dated July 19, 1896:
“Yesterday I was walking along the pre-war black earth fallow. Until the eye takes a look - nothing but black earth - not a single green grass. And now, on the edge of the dusty, gray road, a Tatar bush (burr), three shoots: one is broken, and a white, polluted flower hangs; the other is broken and spattered with mud, the black stalk is broken and soiled; the third sprout sticks out to the side, also black with dust, but is still alive and reddens in the middle.” He reminded Hadji Murad. I would like to write. He defends life to the last, and alone among the whole field, somehow, he defended it.
This entry formed the basis of the prologue to the story.

Tolstoy wrote:
"Well done! I thought. And some feeling of cheerfulness, energy, strength seized me. That's how it should be, that's how it should be."
In the image of H.-M., in addition to courage, love of freedom, pride, Tolstoy especially emphasized simplicity (H.-M. did not come from a rich family, although he was friends with the khans), almost childish sincerity. In the story, the hero is given a childish smile that seduces everyone and is preserved even on a dead head (this detail is not in any of sources read by Tolstoy at work; according to expert estimates, these sources over 170). Consciousness of one's dignity is combined in H.-M. with openness and charm.

He charms everyone: the young officer Butler, and Loris-Melikov, and the simple Russian woman Marya Dmitrievna, and the Vorontsovs' little son Bulka. In December 1851, Tolstoy wrote to his brother Sergei Nikolaevich from Tiflis:
“If you want to show off the news from the Caucasus, then you can tell that the second person after Shamil, a certain Hadji Murad, recently handed himself over to the Russian government. He was the first scorcher (jigit) and well done in all of Chechnya, but he did meanness.
Working almost fifty years later on the story, Tolstoy thought quite differently. First of all, because he denied war, any war, for people, all people are brothers and are obliged to live in peace.

The war turns out to be necessary only for two persons - Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich and the inspirer " holy war"against the Gentiles to Imam Shamil. Both are cruel, treacherous, power-hungry, immoral despots, equally harshly condemned by Tolstoy.

Kh.-M. is their victim, like the Russian soldier Petrukha Avdeev, who fell in love with Kh.-M. While working on the story, Tolstoy had the idea to show one negative trait in Kh.-M. - "deception of faith." Instead of the title "Burp" appeared, it was, "Khazavat", but in the first copy from the autograph, in 1896, the final one was recorded: "Hadji Murad". The hero is not at all peculiar to religious fanaticism. The daily prayer of Muslims - prayer, performed several times a day - all that is said about the commitment of H.-M. to your faith. In 1903, speaking to the American journalist James Creelman about his work, Tolstoy said:
“This is a poem about the Caucasus, not a sermon. The central figure - Hadji Murad - folk hero, who served Russia, then fought against it along with his people, and in the end the Russians cut off his head. This is a story about a people who despise death.

The image of H.-M. full of true poetry. Mountain legends, legends and songs that Tolstoy admired long before writing the story (correspondence of the 1870s with A. A. Fet); wonderful descriptions of nature, especially the starry sky - all this accompanies the life and death of H.-M. The unsurpassed artistic power of these descriptions delighted M. Gorky. According to the poet N. Tikhonov, when the story was translated into Avar language and it was read by people, among whom some remembered Shamil, they could not believe that it was written by a count, a Russian officer:
“No, he didn’t write it… God wrote it…”
Ch. Aitmatov, for his part, admires the psychological insight into the essence of another national character:
“Both Hadji Murad and his naibs are written in such a way that you see them and believe their real existence. I happened to speak with the descendants of Hadji Murad, and they claim that Tolstoy created a reliable, accurate character. How did he do it? Secret, great mystery artist. This is the secret of the huge heart of Leo Tolstoy, who possessed the understanding of "man in general."

After the memorable January blizzard of 1854, Leo Tolstoy never again visited our area, but he was keenly interested in the events that took place on the Don. He corresponded with his readers from Rostov, Taganrog, Novocherkassk, villages of Veshenskaya, Razdorskaya, Bagaevskaya, villages and farms of the Don.

Tolstoy has a series of stories for children: a story about Pugachev “How an aunt told her grandmother about how the robber Emelka Pugachev gave her a dime”(1875), short story "Ermak"(1862). The writer conceived a novel about the era of Peter I. And in his epic "War and Peace" Tolstoy worthily notes the military deeds of the sons of the Don steppes - Ataman Platov, Major General Grekov, Count Orlov-Denisov, their captains, cornets, and just ordinary Cossacks .

And one more trace of the Don in the fate of Leo Tolstoy: having broken with his family and the environment that burdened him, Tolstoy on the night of October 28, 1910 left Yasnaya Polyana, where he spent a significant part of his life, and at the Volovo station of the Ryazan-Ural railway took the ticket to Rostov-on-Don. Tolstoy was about to come to Novocherkassk to his niece E. S. Denisenko. But on the way he fell seriously ill and December 7, 1910 died at the station Astapovo.

List of used literature:

1. Burnasheva, N. I. Early work of L. N. Tolstoy: text and time / N. I. Burnasheva. - Moscow: MIK, 1999. - 336 p. : ill.
2. Maymin, Evgeny Alexandrovich (1921-). Leo Tolstoy: The Writer's Way / E. A. Maimin; resp. ed. D.S. Likhachev. - 2nd ed. - Moscow: Nauka, 1984. - 191 p. - (From the history of world culture).
3. Popovkin, Alexander I. L. N. Tolstoy /A. I. Popovkin. - Moscow: Detgiz, 1963. - 287 p., 16 sheets.
4. Tolstoy, Lev Nikolaevich (1828-1910). Cossacks; Hadji Murad: [tales] / L. N. Tolstoy; ill. E. Lansere. - Moscow: Fiction, 1981. - 304 p. : ill., tsv. ill.

Filmography:

• Caucasian story [Video recording]: based on the story of L.N. Tolstoy "Cossacks" / dir. Georgy Kalatozov. - Moscow: Kinovideoobedinenie " Close-up"- 1 electronic optical disc (DVD-ROM) (2 hours 11 minutes): sound, color; 12 cm, in a container. - (Domestic cinema of the XX century) - Output data. Georgia-film, 1978

Tolstoy L. N. and the Caucasus

10:57 — REGNUM

What kind of officer was Tolstoy? The question is not idle. Obviously, if he had not served in the Caucasus and Sevastopol behind him, neither the Cossacks nor the Sevastopol Tales would have appeared, and we would hardly have had the pleasure of reading War and Peace. Meanwhile, the baggage of personal psychological experiences, constant and deep moral and ethical introspection, as well as close observations of the behavior of people around in the war, attempts to unravel them and their own internal motivation formed the basis of vivid psychological images that still amaze the grateful reader.

It seems to us that with regard to Tolstoy's military service (especially her Sevastopol period), mass literature is dominated by some hagiographic character, which is characteristic of the description of the biographies of famous people in general. In these descriptions, the undoubted greatness of Tolstoy the writer is automatically transferred to other, in this case non-writer's, circumstances of his life: the great Tolstoy was on the 4th bastion ergo The 4th bastion is "great" because Tolstoy was on it.

Such semantic constructions are undoubtedly spectacular, easy for ordinary perception, thanks to them, mutual enrichment with fame occurs between the writer and the circumstance of his biography, but these constructions are unlikely to contribute to a better understanding of the life of the writer, and in the end they in no way cloud the understanding of his work. In addition, the smoothing of corners inherent in hagiography, the incantation of uncomfortable moments, caused by the fear of incurring accusations of shortcomings and even more so vices on a celebrity, hides the obvious idea that a celebrity, no matter how great she may be, remains a person with all his inherent passions, mistakes and experiences.

Without trying to describe Tolstoy's entire long and rich non-writing life, we decided to confine ourselves to the time of his service in officer ranks, more specifically, the period of the Crimean War, guided by the fact that it was during this relatively short period that Tolstoy made the final choice in favor of literature as his main life. field.

We have at our disposal a lot of materials that are sources of information on this topic. First of all, these are materials written by Tolstoy himself - his correspondence, diaries, notes of those years and, of course, his artistic and journalistic works of that time. Secondly, these are official documents - reports, official correspondence regarding Tolstoy's service. Thirdly, these are the memories of his acquaintances, including direct colleagues, as well as relatives. In addition, the memoirs and letters of officers of the Sevastopol garrison (mainly artillerymen) were involved, although they did not mention Tolstoy, but were with him in almost similar circumstances of service. The last group of materials is of particular value when comparing the behavior, impressions and thoughts of these officers with the behavior and thoughts of Tolstoy himself.

It is not our task to describe Tolstoy's two-year service in the Caucasus. We confine ourselves to pointing out that even then he showed those properties of his nature that accompanied him throughout his military career. On the one hand, this is the unconditional courage shown by him in battle, for which the cadet Tolstoy was repeatedly presented to the soldier's St. George's Cross. On the other hand, this is a disregard for discipline, for the performance of official duties, which prevented him from receiving an award, including those vital in war conditions. So, for example, Junker Tolstoy was even arrested for leaving his post during the guard. And finally, even in the Caucasus, such a trait of Tolstoy's character as a weak ability to get along in established teams manifested itself. (This last quality is especially important for an officer, whose circle of official contacts is determined not by his own choice, but by the will of his superiors and the requirements of the service.)

In January 1854, having passed the exam for an officer's rank, Tolstoy left the Caucasus and was transferred to the Danube army, acting against the Turks. Tolstoy learns about promotion to officers from newspapers on his way to the army.

The Danube campaign began in June 1853, when the Russian army under the command of Prince M. D. Gorchakov entered the territory of the Danube principalities. During the summer-autumn, the Russian army occupied almost the entire territory of Moldova and Wallachia on the left bank of the Danube. Bucharest was also occupied, where the headquarters of the Russian army was located.

Ensign Tolstoy joined the army on March 12, just as the crossing of the Danube began, and was assigned to Light Battery No. 8 of the 12th Artillery Brigade. But he did not stay there for long - less than a month later he became an orderly under the head of the Headquarters of the artillery of the Southern Army, General A. O. Serzhputovsky. In his diary on this occasion, Tolstoy writes retrospectively on June 15, 1854:

“Three months of idleness and a life that I cannot be satisfied with. I spent three weeks at Scheidemann's, and I regret not staying. I would get along with the officers, and I would be able to get along with the battery commander. On the other hand, bad company and hidden malice from my unsplendid position would have had a good effect on me ... I was seconded to the Headquarters at the very time when I quarreled with the battery commander, and flattered my vanity.

The conflict with the battery authorities had its consequences. Firstly, battery commander K.F. Scheidemann immediately announced a penalty to Tolstoy:

“At present, the service is difficult, and the officers must be at their places, I reprimand you severely for your unauthorized stay in Bucarest for more than a certain period, I order you to immediately arrive at the battery after receiving this.”

And secondly, Tolstoy and Scheidemann crossed paths a year later, when the latter became the head of artillery in Sevastopol. And their relationship, spoiled even at the first meeting, was tense almost until the end of the war, sometimes it came to public scenes.

Thus, Tolstoy's first experience as an officer in integrating into the service team should be recognized as unsuccessful. This episode, in addition to the conflict with the authorities, is also notable for the fact that Tolstoy calls army officers like himself "bad society." Such snobbery, which unflatteringly characterizes Tolstoy as a comrade, is hardly explainable, especially considering the fact that gunners (along with military engineers and sailors), due to the circumstances of the service, which requires a large amount of special and scientific knowledge, belonged to the most educated part of Russian society. And it is unlikely that the officers of the Danube army could be very different from their colleagues who fought in the Caucasus and were familiar to Tolstoy from several years of joint service.

The very transfer to the headquarters of yesterday's junker with a complete lack of officer experience is explained by the fact that Tolstoy initially sought to avoid serving in the ranks and, visiting relatives and friends on the way to the Danube army, managed to obtain the necessary recommendations.

So, immediately upon arrival in the army, Tolstoy paid a visit to the commander, Prince M. D. Gorchakov. On March 17, 1854, in a letter to his aunt T. A. Ergolskaya, Tolstoy writes:

“He received me better than I expected, just like a relative. He kissed me, invited me to dinner every day, he wants to keep me with him, although this has not yet been completely decided.

“Thank God you are at the pier; I was sure that the prince would receive you in a kindred way, based on his friendly disposition towards your father, and it can be hoped that he would not refuse you his patronage. If he does not leave you with him, then he has good reasons for this and recommends you to someone who has weight in his eyes; this is how he always treats relatives in whom he is interested.

The strength of the patronage, however, was only enough to appoint Tolstoy to the "secondary" Artillery Headquarters, but it was not enough to be transferred to the main Headquarters. Tolstoy was actually "imposed" on the commander of artillery, General Serzhputovsky, as orderlies, which created tensions between them. The general was clearly a burden to the inexperienced orderly, whom he could not send back to the unit, and Tolstoy felt dissatisfied with the status in which he resides. Obviously he expected more. Tension, turning into hostility, arose almost immediately, and already at the beginning of July 1854 Tolstoy reflects on the reasons:

“It was as if I allowed my general too much ... Having thought it over carefully, it turns out, on the contrary, that I allowed myself too much with him.”

Be that as it may, relations between the general and his orderly deteriorated so much that Serzhputovsky even stopped greeting Tolstoy in public. Tolstoy writes about this with irritation in his diary on July 21, 1854:

“The silly old man irritated me again with his manner of not bowing. I'll have to give him a chic."

It is not known whether Tolstoy gave the "chic" to his general, but a week later a new entry: "The old man still does not bow to me."

As a result, reconciliation did not come, and even when Tolstoy was near Sevastopol, his colleague K. N. Boborykin wrote to him on January 26, 1855 from the Main Apartment in Chisinau: “Serzhputovsky, as you know, does not like you very much.”

It cannot be said that Tolstoy was heavily burdened with official duties during the Danube campaign. There was a lot of free time, and Tolstoy generously spent it on reading, revelry and entertainment, sometimes not always decent (see, for example, an entry dated July 29, 1854: “Walking from dinner, Tyshk[evich] and I stopped at a bardeli, and we were covered by Kryzhanovsky"), as well as literature classes. It was during his stay in the Danube army that Tolstoy completed Boyhood and Woodcutting. Junker's story.

Service at the headquarters was generally comfortable and easy, although, perhaps, monotonous. In a letter to T. A. Ergolskaya on May 24, 1854, Tolstoy writes:

“I am ashamed that you think that I have been exposed to all the dangers of war, and I have not yet smelled Turkish gunpowder, but I live quietly in Bucharest, walk, play music and eat ice cream. In addition to the two weeks that I spent in Oltenitsa, seconded to the battery, and one week spent traveling through Moldavia, Wallachia and Bessarabia on the orders of General Serzhputovsky, I am with him "on special assignments", I lived in Bucharest; I frankly admit that this somewhat absent-minded way of life, completely idle and expensive, is terribly not to my liking.

But, I think, in this case, Tolstoy was cunning, not wanting, perhaps, to annoy his dear aunt. He also had to make dangerous business trips, sometimes lasting several days, in units and subunits of the Danube army.

Half a century later, in a conversation with A. B. Goldenweiser, Tolstoy recalled:

“The orderly is constantly exposed to great danger, and he himself rarely participates in shooting ... I was an orderly in the Danube army, and it seems that I never had to shoot. I remember once on the Danube at Silistria we stood on our bank of the Danube, and there was a battery on the other side, and I was sent there with some kind of order. The commander of that battery, Shube, seeing me, decided that here is a young graph, I'll play with him! And he drove me along the entire line under the shots, and deliberately murderously slowly. I passed this exam outwardly well, but the feeling was very bad.

If you briefly characterize Tolstoy's attitude to the war at that time, then it can be called contemplative and a little detached. He observes, remembers impressions. At that time, Tolstoy did not even have a hint of pacifism, there was no appeal to the humanistic ideals that became an integral part of his later image. On the contrary, he likes the aesthetic side of war. Being present together with the headquarters during the siege of Silistria, on July 5, 1854, Tolstoy wrote in a letter to his aunt:

“To tell the truth, it is a strange pleasure to watch people kill each other, and between that morning and evening I watched it for hours from my wagon. And I'm not alone. The spectacle was truly remarkable, and especially at night. Usually at night, our soldiers worked in the trenches, the Turks attacked to prevent this work, and you should have seen and heard this shooting!

In this letter, Tolstoy describes the culminating episode of the Danube campaign - the siege of Silistria. Back in May 1854, the Russian army laid siege to this large port city on the banks of the Danube. An assault was scheduled for June 20, the success of which no one doubted, but a few hours before the attack an order was received to retreat. The reason was the aggravation of the international situation, and in particular the threat of Austria to enter the war on the side of Turkey. The Russian army began the evacuation of the Danubian principalities.

Tolstoy, even during the retreat, does not stop fussing about being transferred to Gorchakov's headquarters. In this sense, the already cited letter to T. A. Ergolskaya dated July 5, 1854 is very significant. It contains such undisguised flattery to the commander, obviously too detailed in a private letter, that suspicion involuntarily creeps in: the letter was written with the expectation of transferring its contents to the prince himself - either through an aunt, or through censorship of military censorship (personal letters sent to Russia from the current armies, as a rule, were perused at the border). Thus, speaking of Gorchakov, Tolstoy writes:

“I am becoming an admirer of the prince (however, one must listen to what officers and soldiers say about him - not only have I never heard a bad word about him, but everyone adore him) ... It is clear that he is so immersed in the general course of affairs, whatever bullets and bombs do not exist for him, he is exposed to danger with such simplicity, as if he were not aware of it, and involuntarily becomes more terrible for him than for himself; gives orders clear, precise and at the same time always friendly with everyone and everyone. This is a great man, that is, capable and honest, as I understand this word - a man who devoted his whole life to the service of the fatherland, and not out of ambition, but out of duty ... Dear aunt, I would like your prediction to come true. My strongest desire is to be the adjutant of a man like him, whom I love and revere from the depths of my soul.

However, all the efforts were in vain - the transfer to the Main Apartment did not happen.

Tolstoy's position was aggravated by the fact that at first, in addition to tense relations with his immediate superiors, he failed to build equal relations with his colleagues - other adjutants. So, for example, on July 25, 1854, he writes in his diary: “I went to the old man and found him with a company of field marshal’s adjutants, in which it was unbearably hard for me,” and a day later he again mentions “adjutants, who, it seems to me, , savage me like disgracie". And this despite the fact that Tolstoy really wanted to get into the circle of these “aristocrats”, “bashi-bouzouks” (this is how the staff youth, especially adjutants, were called mockingly and contemptuously in the army). He openly admits this: “The so-called aristocrats arouse envy in me. I am incorrigibly petty and envious." But it was not easy for Tolstoy to get close to them.

There were several reasons. These young people are Tolstoy's peers. But they, for the most part, went through St. Petersburg military schools together or served together in the guards (or both), they, compared with Tolstoy, had much more army and administrative experience. Finally, they were old comrades bound by close ties of common Petersburg acquaintances, interests, and memories. And the provincial Tolstoy, with his two years of secluded Caucasian junkers, of course, was not easy for them to become their own.

But there was another reason - the main one. From the very beginning, Tolstoy chose the wrong tone in his communication with his comrades.

“I am too honest to deal with these people. It is strange that only now I noticed one of my important shortcomings: insulting and arousing envy in others - a tendency to show off all my advantages.

he writes on July 24, 1854 in his diary. Realizing the abnormality and injustice of his behavior, he, as if hiding envy, treated his comrades deliberately arrogantly, condescendingly. He got irritated when there seemed to be no reason:

“Bashi-bouzouki - as if on purpose, agreed to be especially nice, but I had too much bile. And again he insulted Tyshkevich. In general, I rarely remember that I, in all respects, was in such a terrible position as now. Sick, irritated, completely alone, I managed to disgust everyone, in the most indecisive and bad official position and without money. We need to get out of this situation. To be treated more closely, to endure the unpleasantness of a new rapprochement with comrades ”(record dated July 26, 1854).

To all appearances, Tolstoy managed to “endure the unpleasantness of getting close to his comrades,” and already on July 31, 1854, he writes: “My relations with my comrades are becoming so pleasant that I feel sorry for leaving the headquarters.”

Moreover, an informal group of young officers and adjutants of the Headquarters of the Southern Army is gradually taking shape, who, in addition to service and entertainment, find time to discuss serious socio-political, moral and ethical issues (see, for example, the entry dated June 24, 1854: “Chatted until the night with Shubin about our Russian slavery. It is true that slavery is evil, but extremely sweet evil.")

This circle included Tolstoy himself, captains A. D. Stolypin and A. Ya. Fride, staff captains L. F. Balyuzek and I. K. Komstadius, lieutenants Shubin and K. N. Boborykin. It is worth noting that these were outstanding and active people - four will reach the ranks of generals, three will become governors (and A. D. Stolypin, the father of the future Chairman of the Council of Ministers P. A. Stolypin, will even become governor general). In the late summer and early autumn of 1854, the idea arose in the circle to create a society with the aim of "distributing enlightenment and knowledge among the military in general and soldiers in particular." Pretty quickly, the idea evolved into a magazine project.

No opposition direction, which was later hinted at by some admirers of the image of Tolstoy the rebel, was not supposed. On the contrary, the founders planned a well-intentioned educational publication with elements of propaganda. Here is how Tolstoy himself outlined the goals of the Soldier's Bulletin (later renamed the Military List):

"1. distribution between the soldiers of the rules of military virtues: devotion to the Throne and the Fatherland and the holy performance of military duties;

2. distribution between officers and lower ranks of information about modern military events, ignorance of which gives rise to false and even harmful rumors among the troops, about feats of courage and valiant deeds of detachments and individuals in all theaters of a real war;

3. dissemination among the military of all ranks and branches of service of knowledge about special subjects of military art;

4. distribution of critical information about the dignity of military writings, new inventions and projects;

5. delivering entertaining, accessible and useful reading to all ranks of the army;

6. improvement of the soldier’s poetry, which is his only literature, by placing in the Journal of songs written in a clear and sonorous language, inspiring the soldier with the correct concepts of things and more than others filled with feelings of love for the Monarch and the Fatherland.

The publication, in which Tolstoy was assigned the role of editor, was supposed to be financed from the funds of the founders and subscriptions. In fact, the investors were to be Tolstoy and Stolypin, who then became very close and were on friendly terms throughout the Crimean War. It is noteworthy that, unlike the really wealthy Stolypin, who had estates in several provinces, Tolstoy was a landowner of an average hand, if not poor. The state was also greatly upset by Tolstoy's huge gambling debts. To finance the proposed publication, Tolstoy even had to sell his family nest - manor house in Yasnaya Polyana. (And even then, immediately after receiving these funds, Tolstoy lost cards and “magazine” money, and several thousand more in debt, which caused him to become depressed).

The army command reacted favorably to the idea, the plan for publishing the journal was approved by Gorchakov, and moreover, several generals agreed to take part as authors of articles. On October 16, 1854, Gorchakov sent an attitude on this issue to the Minister of War for a report to Nicholas I. A trial issue was even prepared, the authors of the articles in which were Tolstoy and the headquarters captain N. Ya. Rostovtsev who joined the circle (later also the general and governor) . But the answer of the Minister of War, received at the headquarters of the Southern Army on November 21, 1854, when Tolstoy was already in Sevastopol, completely destroyed these plans:

“His Majesty, doing full justice to the well-intentioned purpose with which it was supposed to publish the said journal, deigned to admit it was inconvenient to allow the publication of it, since all articles relating to the military operations of our troops, previously placed in magazines and newspapers, are initially published in the newspaper Russky Disabled” and from it are already being borrowed into other periodicals.

We are not inclined, like some accusers of Nicholas I, to see in this decision of the emperor a desire for censorship and some kind of "fear of the living word." Just in time for the unofficial, creative part of the planned publication, the authorities had no questions. The objection was caused by the official part, namely, the proposed publication of orders, reports, decisions of military courts, etc. The fact is that it was the Russian Invalid, which was a charitable publication, that had a monopoly on the exclusive publication of this information, all the profits from which went to the Committee on August 18, 1814 (later the Alexander Committee on the Wounded), which was engaged in helping the wounded, sick and elderly veterans and their families. In addition, on the eve of the war, the Committee suffered serious losses due to large-scale theft, and Nicholas I, who painfully perceived this whole scandalous story, zealously followed the replenishment of the Committee's fund. The publication of official documents not in the "Russian Invalid", but on the pages of other publications, undermined the competitive advantages of the publication and ultimately deprived it (and, consequently, the "Committee of the Wounded") of income.

The collapse of the idea of ​​the "Military Herald", oddly enough, had colossal consequences for the fate of Tolstoy and all Russian literature. Firstly, after the rejection of the magazine, Tolstoy agreed with N. A. Nekrasov on the publication of stories and essays by failed publishers in Sovremennik. Tolstoy himself became, in fact, a military correspondent for a literary magazine, and the Sevastopol Tales he later wrote were the direct result of his correspondent duties. Secondly, the story "Sevastopol in December" was published not only in Sovremennik, but also reprinted (in abbreviation) in the same official Russian Invalid, which made Tolstoy even more famous in Russia. And, thirdly, by order of the emperor, "Sevastopol in December" was transferred to French and published in a number of foreign publications that were under the control of the Russian government (in particular, in the Belgian magazine LeNord). And, if the initial interest of the European public was caused undeniable relevance topics in the conditions of the Crimean War, then, having satisfied their curiosity, readers could not help but draw conclusions about the literary merits of the story and the talent of the author. In such a bizarre way, the collapse of the "Military List" and the related actions of the government contributed to Tolstoy's world fame.

With the end of the siege of Silistria and the retreat of the Southern Army to Russia, active operations in the Danube theater actually ceased. Back in July 1854, during the period of aggravation of the conflict with his boss Serzhputovsky, Tolstoy filed his first report on transfer to Sevastopol. Then the petition had no effect. But after the Anglo-French-Turkish landing near Evpatoria in September, the center of the war finally shifted to the Crimea. It no longer made sense to detain Tolstoy in the Southern Army, and the report was given a go. But Tolstoy stayed at the Headquarters himself - it was necessary to complete the draft "Military leaflet" for transmission through Gorchakov to the emperor. And only after the completion of the project in the last days of October Tolstoy goes to Sevastopol, where he arrives on November 7, 1854.

In a letter to his brother S. N. Tolstoy dated November 20, 1854, he summarizes his participation in the Danube campaign:

“In general, my entire stay in the army is divided into two periods, a bad one abroad - I was sick, and poor, and lonely, - pleasant within the borders: I am healthy, I have good friends, but still poor, - the money keeps climbing ... For Silistria, as it should be, I was not represented, but I received a second lieutenant along the line, which I am very pleased with, otherwise I had too old a distinction for an ensign, I was ashamed.

On September 6, 1854, Tolstoy, according to the text of the official list, was "promoted to the vacancy as a second lieutenant." It is possible that his short secondment to the light battery No. 6 of the 12th artillery brigade in late September - early October 1854 is connected with this production. Subsequently, Tolstoy went through almost the entire war with the rank of second lieutenant, unlike his comrades, who mostly ended it as colonels and lieutenant colonels.

Tolstoy himself reported different things about the motives for asking for a transfer to Sevastopol. So, in a letter to S. N. Tolstoy dated July 5, 1855, he writes:

“From Chisinau on November 1, I asked to go to the Crimea, partly in order to see this war, partly in order to break out of the Serzhputovsky Headquarters, which I did not like, but most of all out of patriotism, which at that time, I confess, strongly found on me".

And in his diary, in an entry dated November 2, made on the way to Sevastopol, he says something else about the reasons for the transfer:

“Among the useless victims of this unfortunate affair, Soimonov and Comstadius were killed. They say about the first that he was one of the few honest and thinking generals of the Russian army; the second one I knew quite intimately: he was a member of our society and the future publisher of the Journal. His death most of all prompted me to ask for Sevastopol. I felt ashamed of him."