The Russian Century: A Hundred Years of Russian Lives

Things became very crowded in our house, more precisely in our room, just like in a railroad car. But extreme need did not violate the feelings of prudence and compassion and life went on its way. I occupied myself with the usual work and also with crafting wood, metal, and clay. The local youth treated me well, respectfully. I was known not only in our whole village but in the surrounding ones as well. The older peasants did not have any particular striving to understand the meaning of life. After a long and agonizing military experience and separation they had things to do and their household concerns engaged them totally.

But the young were not fully subject to life’s inertia. Their inquisitiveness led in many directions and some of them were even interested in religious questions. They started coming to see me, to talk and even asked for booklets to read. I gave whatever I had read, principally Leo Tolstoy. The clear and simple language of Leo Tolstoy was accessible to all. His words addressed life’s questions and they responded with concern and sympathy.

Yes, Tolstoy is a universal miracle. He emanates the light of a godly, virtuous life and raging human egoism is incapable of smearing him with mud or trampling him down. I can’t say anything about the future. Perhaps Tolstoy will yet be compelled to dwell in caves, covered by misunderstanding and anger. But at some point, this godsend will be found under heaps of stone and the new humanity will sigh joyously seeing the light emanating from underneath and dissipating the gathering darkness of ages.

Yes, the future will be as it must. For now we must be grateful that in our own lives, thanks to Tolstoy, we have perceived the truth.

Dimitrii Ivanovich Grishin agreed with me more than anyone. I told him of my plans to leave the village commune in spring, leave the peasant fields, which, due to a shortage of land, were always a source of unhappiness and enmity. I decided to go build myself a “castle” on the forested lands, at the edge of the forest, like that of any bird (except the cuckoo), to clear a garden, plant some fruit trees, and live off this. Mitia [Dimitrii] happily joined me. We decided to take nothing from our homes besides saws and axes and to leave all the household goods to our brothers.

One-and-a-half kilometers from the village there was a thicket with a swampy ravine near a stream. We picked this swampy place to drain and live on so as not to incur envy, that we had taken good land.

Vasilii Ianov, The Heart of a Peasant

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The work went full swing. We cleared the thicket, dug a garden, and built ourselves a “skyscraper”—four meters wide and six meters long. But at the very height of our labor we were both taken to the Briansk prison which was far stronger than our castle.

The prosecutor began interrogating us as to the basis of our violation of governmental laws—building a house, cutting wood. I replied that I was ashamed to realize that there were people who imagined that the whole world belonged to them. I did not wish to affirm their sick, abnormal opinion and ask their permission to weave my own nest of marshland brushwood in a foul swamp. Having said this, I stopped. We remained standing while the prosecutor and another person consulted quietly. Then the prosecutor turned to us and said:

“Well, go! But where will you be going and what are you going to do?”

“We are going to go to our nest, try and finish it before winter, and tend to the garden so that we have something to eat this winter.”

We left the office silently and were released from prison. By winter we truly did finish our “castle.” We cut some shingles, covered our roof, cut up boards for the floor, made bricks, and built a Russian stove. We harvested our garden and took in my sister and her children for the winter. The kids jumped for joy and chirped happily about me. Mitia, being cheerful, also paid attention to the children and our swamp nest became a corner of paradise.

Many of the curious came to see us to find topics for their idle chatter. They were not shy about giving us all kinds of advice, how we should live so that things would be even better. We lived thus for a year when I once accidentally heard a gossipy woman telling my sister:

“Yes, all would be fine if you had milk and meat. In the village, some neighbor could spare some. Here there is no one and you can’t get it from anybody.”

“Yes, in the village I could earn some money for milk and meat; here there is no one even to talk to,” she complained about her life isolated from any company.

In the summer, when the peasants began to reapportion land, I went to them and asked them to parcel out a farmstead for me. The commune measured one out for me with cheerful joking.

“Well, well, Vasilii Vasil’evich you’ve build yourself a dacha in the woods, now build a winter palace next to us,” they joked. “Sure, sure, we’re glad that you are not separating yourself from us.”