Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy sent the completed novel to Nekrasov accompanied by a letter marked by his characteristic mixture of extreme shyness and thinly veiled arrogance. He included in the envelope money to pay for return delivery in case of rejection and, in case of acceptance, asked for his initials to be used instead of his full name. He agreed in advance to any cuts Nekrasov would like to make, but insisted that his novel should be published ‘without additions and changes’ (TP, I, p. 50). Nekrasov’s reaction was more than obliging. He immediately published Childhood in the next issue of Sovremennik, expressed his interest in the following parts of the book and praised it highly in a letter to Turgenev, who also quickly came to admire the young writer’s talent.

The critics were equally enthusiastic. Reading the reviews in a peasant hut, Tolstoy, as he later told his wife, was ‘strangled by tears of rapture’.³ In his diaries, apart from reproaching himself for idleness, gambling and sensuality, ‘that did not give him a moment’s peace’, Tolstoy recorded his new belief in a ‘brilliant literary career that is open’ to him if he can ‘work hard’ (Ds, p. 56) and abstain from sex. He was to prove right on one score, even if sexual abstinence remained beyond his power. Tolstoy’s work on Boyhood, a continuation of Childhood, was very intensive, but this did not prevent him from feeling a ‘hopeless aversion’ both to his story and to himself. Boyhood, published in Sovremennik in October 1854, was received with nearly the same kind of acclaim as Childhood. The public was eagerly awaiting new work from this already famous author. Tolstoy would not fail to satisfy their expectations. The new work that was to take his fame to a new level would emerge at a different period in his life when he had lived through sea changes in Russian history that would enrich his experience.

In 1853 the ailing emperor, Nicholas I, declared war on Turkey believing that he could realize a long-cherished imperial dream of establishing Russian control over the parts of the Ottoman Empire located in Europe, their Orthodox populations and the straits leading to the Mediterranean. The emperor failed to make allowance for the strength of European opposition to Russian expansion. This allowed Britain and France to forgo their ancient rivalry and back the Turks in a united military coalition. An Anglo-French army invaded the Crimea and besieged Sebastopol, Russia’s main naval port on the Black Sea.

Decaying autocrats hoping to bury their failures beneath a wave of popular enthusiasm will often go to war. The strategy invariably works well at the early stages of the adventure. Russia in the 1850s was no exception. Tolstoy himself was not immune to outbursts of patriotic feeling. When the start of the Crimean War found him in the Caucasus far from the main battlefields, he applied to be transferred and was sent to the Russian army fighting in Romania. Having found out that nothing of real importance was happening there as well, he applied again for a transfer and, in November 1854, joined Russian troops in the Crimea. His first impressions were favourable. He admired the heroic spirit of the common soldiers and junior officers and was certain the enemy would not be able to capture the city. Within two weeks, however, he had changed his mind and became ‘more convinced than before that Russia must either fall or be completely transformed’ (Ds, p. 83). He considered proposing far-reaching military reforms, but then reverted to the activity he knew best.

Tolstoy’s new military experience was different. In the Caucasus, where the Russian army had an overwhelming edge over the tribesmen, both in numbers and weapons, he had participated only in sporadic raids. Mortal danger was always present and real, but could be reduced, if not avoided, by reasonable caution. The actual casualty rate was relatively low. In Sebastopol Russian officers, soldiers and even the ordinary inhabitants of the city had to withstand regular artillery fire from an enemy using the most sophisticated military technology. Death and mutilation were a daily routine and a matter of pure chance. Those who survived on a given day were just more fortunate than those who were killed or maimed. They remained subject to the same kind of dreadful lottery the next day.

By March 1855, two months after the demise of Nicholas I, apparently broken by military setbacks, Tolstoy finished the first of his Sebastopol stories. It was published in Sovremennik in June under the title ‘Sebastopol in December’. Afraid of losing face, the new emperor Alexander II prolonged the war before finally capitulating in 1856. By this time Tolstoy had published two more stories in Sovremennik: ‘Sebastopol in May’ and ‘Sebastopol in August’.