HISTORICAL AND IDEOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE PROSE AND DRAMATICSWORKS OF A. N. TOLSTOI by NICHOLAS.SERGE TYRRAS B.A., University of Waterloo, 1969 M.A., University of Waterloo, 1971 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in the Department of SLAVONIC STUDIES We accept th i s thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA A p r i l 19 78 Nicholas Serge Tyrras, 197 8 In presenting th i s thes is in p a r t i a l fu l f i lment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the Univers i ty of B r i t i s h Columbia, I agree that the L ibrary sha l l make it f ree l y ava i lab le for reference and study. I fur ther agree that permission for extensive copying of th i s thesis for scho la r l y purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by h is representat ives . It is understood that copying or pub l i ca t ion of th is thes is fo r f i n a n c i a l gain sha l l not be allowed without my wr i t ten permission. Nicholas Serge Tyrras Department of Slavonic Studies The Univers i ty of B r i t i s h Columbia 2075 Wesbrook Place Vancouver, Canada V6T 1W5 Date 3 May 1978 ABSTRACT In large measure the l i t e r a r y reputation of Aleksei Nikolaevich T o l s t o i (1883-1945) rests on the h i s t o r i c a l novel Peter the F i r s t . Before the novel and during i t s writing, he also wrote stories and plays set i n the past. However, l i t e r a t u r e written intthe Soviet Union very often needs to be considered against the background.of.current events, and h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n e s p e c i a l l y cannot be regarded apart from state ideology or the fluctuations i n the p o l i t i c a l climate. Between 1917 and 1945, Soviet interpretation of the Russian past changed from contentious class-consciousness and d i a l e c -t i c a l r e j e c t i o n , to a determined r e h a b i l i t a t i o n of select p e r s o n a l i t i e s whose l i f e and accomplishments were supposed to inculcate Soviet patriotism. With his heightened sense of hi s t o r y , T o l s t o i often sought, to r a t i o n a l i z e contemporary conditions through repre-sentations of analogous periods i n Russian h i s t o r y , and i n thi s manner some of the works which are discussed i n th i s study may be viewed as r e f l e c t i o n s of current events. On the other hand, altered p o l i t i c a l perspectives-of the Russian past required him to make r a d i c a l modifications i n works written a few years e a r l i e r , and to make is:omes d i s t o r t i o n s of history i n works he was about to write. But i n addition to h i s t o r i c a l , c u l t u r a l and p o l i t i c a l considerations, the discussion of T o l s t o i ' s separate works w i l l demand as well that some attention be paid to the writer's use of the Russian language as an instrument for creating a sense of the past. To f a c i l i t a t e the discussion of T o l s t o i ' s h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n in t h i s study, the works are grouped by genre and then arranged i n chronological order. Chapter I, however, offers a biographical sketch of A. N. T o l s t o i . This i s important for the thesis because the writer's views and attitudes provide a key for a better understanding of the e x t r a - l i t e r a r y influences which affected his work. In the second chapter, short stories are discussed, beginning with the anecdotes from 1909, i n which there i s l i t t l e history save for the description of costumes and manners. But stories written during and immediately after the Russian revolution r e f l e c t T o l s t o i ' s i n i t i a l h o s t i l i t y to the Bol-sheviks, then his apparent loss of i n t e r e s t i n the p o l i t i c a l antagonisms between the White Emigre's and the Reds, and f i n a l l y his gradual acceptance of the Soviet regime. After his return to Soviet Russia, the s t o r i e s assume an almost b e l l i g e r e n t , Marxist tone. Tolstoi's magnum opus i s discussed in the t h i r d chapter. Peter the F i r s t i s presented i n context of the h i s t o r i c a l novel i n general, the contemporary Soviet h i s t o r -i c a l novel, rand f i n a l l y i n 'context-of contemporary c r i t i c i s m . i v A glimpse into the Petrine theme i n Russian l i t e r a t u r e i s also offered as a further contrast to Tolsto vi's novel. H i s t o r i c a l plays are reviewed in the fourth chapter, o f f e r i n g the best i l l u s t r a t i o n of that p o l i t i c a l f l u c t u a t i o n that so blatantly forced the writer to change his work and to a l t e r history as well. Chapter V concludes the study with a general and chronological summation of the works discussed; i t demonstrated1 that i n .spite of the various e x t r a - l i t e r a r y influences, Aleksei T o l s t o i remains a major and talented figure among twentieth-centurya.?Russian writers. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE " i'-i '1' 50 7J U ^ "V x Ql-f INTRODUCTION . . . . 1 CHAPTER I. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 7 A. To Is,toils Early Years . . . . . . . . . . 7 B. The Revolutions of 1917 17 C. Emigration: 1919-1923 22 D. Smena vekh 26 E. RefeUin. M s§©^iet R u s s i a . . 37 II. SHORT STORIES 48 A. H i s t o r i c a l F i c t i o n Before 1917 . . . . . . 49 B. The Revolution and Peter the Great . . . . 58 C. Stories of Fantasy . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 D. "Povest* smutnogo vremeni" . . . 77 E. Stories Written i n Soviet Russia . . . . . 83 II I . THE NOVEL PETR PERVYI . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 A. The Hero, i n a H i s t o r i c a l Novel 9 5 B. Peter, the Great i n Russian Literature . . 9 8 (i) N. M. Karamzin . . . . . . . . . . . 100 A. Pushkin 103 ( i i i ) L. T o l s t o i 106 (iv) D. Merezhkovskii . . . 109 C. The S o v i e t . H i s t o r i c a l Novel . . . . . . . I l l v v i CHAPTER ' PAGE D. Petr Pervyi and Contemporary C r i t i c i s m . . 113 E. The Novel Petr Pervyi 124 IV. THE PLAYS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 A. Smert' Dantona 183 B. L i u b o v 1 — Kniga z o l o t a i a . . . . . . . . . 194 C. Three Versions of Petr I 203 D. Ivan Groznyi 224 V. CONCLUSION'. . . . . . -. . ;. . . . . . . . . . 234 NOTES TO INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . 243 NOTES TO CHAPTER I . . . . . . . . . . . • 244 NOTES TO CHAPTER II 248 NOTES TO CHAPTER III 251 NOTES TO CHAPTER IV - 255 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . 2 60 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my appreciation to my adviser, Dr. M. F u t r e l l for his counsel; to the readers from the Depart-ment, Dr. B. Monter, Dr. C. Turner and Dr. N. Poppe, and to Dr. G. Good from the ©.rpg-r^mmet-infC6ropa.gS4tMeLi4i*afeure'-; I am gratef u l for t h e i r many valuable suggestions; I wish to acknowledge as well the h e l p f u l i n t e r e s t shown by Professor V . Revutsky. Research -for t h i s study also included the academic year 1974-75 i n Moscow. I wish to acknowledge my indebted-ness to three persons whom I met then, a l l of whom contrib-uted to a spec i a l insight into the writer: Madame Liudmila I l ' i n i c h n a T o l s t a i a , the late I u r i i Aleksandrovich Krestin-s k i i , who was Tol s t o i ' s secretary at one time, and the late A r s e n i i Vi&adimirovich Alpatov, who was a T o l s t o i s p e c i a l i s t and my study adviser at MGU. To Marika Kahle ,1 express my thanks for t r a n s l a t i n g from the German.a passage which helped me to understand better the dramatist Geprg Buchner. I extend a spec i a l thanks to Ruby Toren for a l l the care and attention to d e t a i l that she applied i n typing t h i s t h e s i s . And f i n a l l y , I acknowledge with gratitude the material and moral support of my parents. v i i INTRODUCTION When a student scans a l i s t of Soviet writers he w i l l c e r t a i n l y take note of the name Aleksei Nikolaevich T o l s t o i (1883-1945). Who was thi s Soviet T o l s t o i , t h i s so-called " t h i r d T olstoi"? Described by the Soviets as a l i n k i n Russian l i t e r a t u r e that joined the old order to the new, he has also been damned with f a i n t praise by such emigre writers as Zinaida Gippius, Ivan Bunin, Razumnik Ivanov-Razumnik, and Gleb Struve. The study that follows w i l l not presume to end the controversy that surrounds his name or to re h a b i l i t a t e him completely i n the eyes of scholars of Russian l i t e r a t u r e i n the West, but i t w i l l endeavour at least to present Aleksei T o l s t o i i n a more objective l i g h t , for the fact remains that he has made a substantial and, i t i s generally agreed, a very respectable contribution to Russian l i t e r a t u r e of the Soviet period. In his long l i t e r a r y career which began i n 1907 and continued without interruption u n t i l his death, T o l s t o i wrote poetry, f o l k - t a l e s , children's s t o r i e s , short narratives, plays, science f i c t i o n , and novels from contemporary l i f e . His reputation, however, rests, primarily on a book that has since become a c l a s s i c , the h i s t o r i c a l novel Petr Pervyi (Peter the F i r s t ) . Indeed, had T o l s t o i written nothing else, he would s t i l l be l i s t e d among the best writers i n Soviet l i t e r a t u r e . Of course, he i s also well known for another 1 2 S o v i e t c l a s s i c , Khozhdenie po mukam (The Road to C a l v a r y ) , but though t h i s t r i l o g y d e a l s w i t h the Russian r e v o l u t i o n and c i v i l war, s t r i c t l y speaking i t cannot be c o n s i d e r e d a h i s t o r i c a l n o v e l . But what e x a c t l y c o n s t i t u t e s a h f r i s t o r i c a l novel? One s c h o l a r , H. B u t t e r f i e l d , d e f i n e s the genre i n these words: L i k e a song, i n which music and poetry are i n t e r -l o c k e d , and become one harmony, the h i s t o r i c a l n o v e l i s a f u s i o n . I t i s one of the a r t s t h a t are born o f the marriage o f d i f f e r e n t a r t s . A h i s t o r i c a l event i s "put to f i c t i o n " as a poem i s put to music: i t i s turned i n t o a s t o r y as words are turned into, a song.^ A. T. Sheppard o f f e r s a more c o n c i s e d e f i n i t i o n : "An h i s t o r -i c a l n o v e l must of n e c e s s i t y be a s t o r y of the p a s t i n which o i m a g i n a t i o n comes t o the a i d of f a c t . " A l e k s e i T o l s t o i ' s own d e f i n i t i o n of h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n echoes Sheppard's views but he carefaDly- d i s t i n g u i s h e s the w r i t e r from the h i s t o r i a n . "In every l i t e r a r y work," s t a t e d T o l s t o i i n 193 8, i n c l u d i n g the h i s t o r i c a l n o v e l and the h i s t o r i c a l s h o r t s t o r y , we vaifeue above a l l e l s e the author's fantas y which can r e c o n s t r u c t a l i v i n g p i c t u r e , which can t h i n k out an epoch from only a fragment of a s u r v i v i n g document. Herein l i e s the fundamen-t a l d i f f e r e n c e between a w r i t e r and a h i s t o r i a n or r e s e a r c h e r . A s c h o l a r r e q u i r e s a c h a i n of sequen-t i a l f a c t s to t e l l the t r u t h . A w r i t e r has the d a r i n g or a u d a c i t y to speak b o l d l y and c o n v i n c i n g l y about an epoch based on j u s t a fragment of some i n s i g n i f i c a n t i n f o r m a t i o n , and h i s f a n t a s y and i n t u i t i o n . 3 Sheppard a l s o mentions the d e f i n i t i o n of a h i s t o r i c a l n o v e l g i v e n by Jonathan N i e l d . "A n o v e l i s rendered h i s t o r i c a l , " wrote Nield, "by the introduction of dates, personages, or 4 events, to which i d e n t i f i c a t i o n can be readily given." But were this so, then what happened f i v e minutes ago or yester-day, or l a s t year to a well-known figure could be considered to belong to history. From this point of view a novel l i k e Khozhdenie po mukam could certainly, be considered h i s t o r i c a l However, although such a view seems to f i t the phrasing of the d e f i n i t i o n , i t does not r e a l l y agree with i t s intent. To avoid such complications, i t i s best to agree with John Buchan, another writer mentioned by Sheppard, who explained that "an h i s t o r i c a l novel i s simply a novel which attempts to reconstruct the l i f e , and recapture the atmosphere, of an 5 age other than that of the writer." Khozhdenie po mukam, therefore, w i l l not be discussed in this study. But Petr Pervyi was not Tol s t o i ' s only work of hi s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n and thi s study w i l l also consider his s t o r i e s as well as his plays which deal with the h i s t o r i c a l past. "What attracted me to the epic Peter the F i r s t ? " wrote T o l s t o i i n 1943. "Probably I chose that epoch because I could make a conjecture about the present," he explained. For the same reason I am drawn to the depiction of four epochs: the epoch of Ivan the T e r r i b l e , Peter the Great, the c i v i l war of 1918-1920, and the present war, unheard of i n scope and si g n i f i c a n c e . ^ This study w i l l i l l u s t r a t e how current events through which To l s t o i ' s l i f e passed found t h e i r -Eeflection i n his choice 4 of h i s t o r i c a l topics. In discussing these various works, several factors w i l l be considered. F i r s t of a l l we must note the writer's a b i l i t y to recapture, and reconstruct the atmosphere of a past era. Not only the external environment, that i s the dress, and furnishing, but also the s p i r i t u a l conditioning of the personages appearing i n the work i n question must. correspond with the h i s t o r i c a l period, and the reader must be convinced of the realism of the description. Helen Cam, in an address to the B r i t i s h H i s t o r i c a l Association, explained the importance of atmosphere i n h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n i n these words: The h i s t o r i c a l n o v e l i s t with a proper respect for hi s t o r y has a very s t i f f task before him; not only must his facts and his concrete d e t a i l s be consis-tent with, those established by research; but the atmosphere of b e l i e f , the attitudes and assumptions of society that he conveys, must be in accordance with what i s known of the mental and emotional climate of the place and period.^ A good i l l u s t r a t i o n of a writer's successful convey-ance of h i s t o r i c a l atmosphere may be found i n Henryk Sienkiewicz. As his h i s t o r i c a l t r i l o g y was o r i g i n a l l y published i n installments, Sienkiewicz often received l e t t e r s from readers beseeching him to spare one or another of his endangered characters. Sometimes even.mass was served for those who were k i l l e d i n the narrative. To achieve such a degree of v e r i s i m i l i t u d e , the writer must possess an intimate 5 knowledge of the s o c i a l customs, p o l i t i c a l and economic h i s t o r y , as w e l l as a f i n e i n s i g h t i n t o the s p i r i t of the p e r i o d 'about which he w r i t e s . Second, a t t e n t i o n must be giv e n t o the language which c o n t r i b u t e s so much to t h a t atmosphere. To cr e a t e the e f f e c t of a p a s t epoch the w r i t e r may be tempted t o use too much a r c h a i c language. Though a p p r o p r i a t e t o the p e r i o d , the language would be hard to understand and the reader would q u i c k l y t i r e of the e f f o r t . I f the w r i t e r , however, chose to use the modern•idiom, the reader would e a s i l y understand the t e x t but the i l l u s i o n of a h i s t o r i c a l atmosphere would be l o s t . An a p p r o p r i a t e balance must be s t r u c k between a r c h a i c and contemporary language; an obvious requirement i s t h a t the w r i t e r must take care t o keep neologisms out of the speech of h i s c h a r a c t e r s and archaisms out of h i s own n a r r a t i v e . F i n a l l y , c o n s i d e r a t i o n must be g i v e n t o the p o l i t i c a l c l i m a t e i n which T o l s t o i was w r i t i n g , e s p e c i a l l y s i n c e h i s h i s t o r i c a l works are very o f t e n a r e f l e c t i o n of c u r r e n t s i n the contemporary m i l i e u . L i t e r a t u r e p u b l i s h e d i n the S o v i e t Union, and i n p a r t i c u l a r h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n , cannot be regarded apa r t from s t a t e i d e o l o g y or the f l u c t u a t i o n s i n the p o l i t i c a l atmosphere. The S o v i e t view of Russian h i s t o r y i n the decade f o l l o w i n g the r e v o l u t i o n was a v a c i l l a t i o n t h a t appeared as t o l e r a n c e of non-Marxist h i s t o r i a n s . But t h i s 6 s i t u a t i o n came to an end i n 192 8, when every segment of Soviet l i f e was subordinated to communist supervision and was harnessed to support the implementation of the f i r s t five-year plan. It was at t h i s time that M. N. Pokrovskii, whose views could be reduced to his well-known proclamation — history i s p o l i t i c s immersed i n the past —— emerged as the head of Soviet historiography. By 193 6, however, the needs of the Soviet regime had sh i f t e d away from Pokrovskii's d i a l e c t i c a l r e j e c t i o n of Russia's past to a determined r e h a b i l i t a t i o n of s e l e c t p e r s o n a l i t i e s whose l i f e and achievements were supposed to c u l t i v a t e Soviet patriotism. These e x t r a - l i t e r a r y aspects, which T o l s t o i understood and heeded, w i l l be discussed i n t h i s study. Consequently, the investigation into the short s t o r i e s , the novel Petr Pervyi, and the plays has necessitated modest ventures into a l l i e d d i s c i p l i n e s such as the history of Russia as well as that of i t s p o l i t i c a l and c u l t u r a l changes. CHAPTER I BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH CMHTan Ba>KHefiiiiHM ycJioBHeM nJioflo-TBOPHOrO pa3BHTHH TBOp^eCTBa T e C H y i O C B H 3 B J I H T e p a T y p H C 2XH3HBI0, MU He MOXCeM He HHTepeCOB aTBCH $aKTaMH 6Horpa$Hfi xyitoscHHKOB, He M O K e M He BCMaTpHBaTfcCH B Te OGCTOHTeJIBCTBa H C 0 6 H T H H H X 5KH3HH, KOTOpbie OKa3aJIH Ha H H X BJIHJIHHe. A. B. AJinaTOB.l This study begins with a biographical sketch for two main reasons. F i r s t , t h i s i s the " t h i r d T o l s t o i , " the most recent member of that i l l u s t r i o u s family of writers, but one whose l i f e so far i s l i t t l e known.in the West. Therefore, i t should prove useful to glimpse into the l i f e of a man whose works are considered to be c l a s s i c s of Soviet Russian l i t e r a t u r e . And second, T o l s t o i ' s l i f e , and some of his views and attitudes are esp e c i a l l y important for a discussion of works of h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n . A. T o l s t o i ' s Early Yeafcs. Born on January 10, 1883 (December 29, 1882 by the old calendar), Count Aleksei Nikolaevich T o l s t o i was d i s t a n t l y related to two famous f a m i l i e s , the Tol s t o i s and the Turge-nevs. His father, N i k o l a i Aleksandrovich T o l s t o i (whose great-great-grandfather was a brother to the great-grand-father of both Lev Nikolaevich and Aleksei Konstantinovich 8 T o l s t o i ) , was a boor and a m i s f i t who was f o r c i b l y r e t i r e d from the army. In f a c t , he was so offensive as to be 2 forbidden to l i v e in either St. Petersburg or Moscow. A. N. Tol s t o i ' s mother, nee Aleksandra Leontevna Turgenev, was the niece of Ni k o l a i Ivanovich Turgenev, the Decembrist emigre. A fine and sensitive woman, her marriage to Count T o l s t o i was a cruel probation which lasted ten years,.and when she discovered that she was pregnant with Aleksei, she decided to make a complete and f i n a l break with her husband. When she l e f t him, she l e f t as well her three children, E l i z a v e t a aged eight, Aleksandr aged three, and Mstislav aged two. It was an enormously d i f f i c u l t step to take, considering the r i g i d i t y of s o c i a l standards of the time, and even members of her own family would not forgive her. But Aleksandra Leontevna T o l s t o i now went to the man with whom she had f a l l e n i n love, Aleksei Apollonovich Bostrom, and the future writer was born i n the home of his step-father. Unhappily, because of heraapparent desertion, the e c c l e s i a s t i c a l court which divorced the Tol s t o i s ruled i n favour of the Count, and t h i s decision prevented Aleksandra Leontevna from being l e g a l l y married to Bostrom. To l s t o i ' s early childhood was spent at Sosnovka, Bostrom's. rather rundown estate, some two days' ride from Samara (now ca l l e d Kuibyshev). Sosnovka provided that r u s t i c material which T o l s t o i l a t e r successfully incorporated 9 into his autobiographical novella Petstvo N i k i t y . At the same time, the family c i r c l e provided a c u l t i v a t e d background that moulded the future writer's outlook. In that c i r c l e the progressive thinkers of the 1860's were held i n respect and Russian c l a s s i c s were read aloud i n the l i v i n g room, often leading to heated discussions. T o l s t o i ' s mother, herself an authoress, hoped that her son would also take up 3 l i t e r a t u r e . In her l i f e t i m e , however, he showed l x t t l e promise of becoming a writer. U n t i l the.age of nine, T o l s t o i ' s education was con-ducted by his mother. After that the family moved to Samara, where he was enrolled i n a private school, and Sosnovka was used thereafter only as a summer home. Then, since his parents wished him to enter a technical school instead of a c l a s s i c a l gymnasium, a tutor was engaged to prepare him for entrance to the t h i r d grade. But a f t e r two years, the unfor-tunate but kindly tutor was dismissed: Bostrom complained to T o l s t o i ' s mother that his language tutoring ". . . i s simply blunting L e l i a ' s [Tolstoi's pet name] more or less innate l i t e r a r y a b i l i t i e s , as well as those he acquired from you and from reading."^ A f t e r f a i l i n g the entrance examinations i n Samara in May 1897, T o l s t o i studied a l l summer and gained admission to a s i m i l a r school i n Syzran 1, a nearby town on the Volga, where he and his mother l i v e d for a year. Having successfully completed the fourth grade i n Syzran', he f i n a l l y 10 obtained permission to continue his technical education back in Samara. By this time, Bostrom, who had t r i e d to run h i s , estate according to Marxian theories, had been, forced to s e l l i t ; and the family's permanent home was situated henceforth i n Samara. It was i n the Samara public l i b r a r y that the young T o l s t o i was f i r s t introduced to the fan t a s t i c and adventurous worlds-of Jules Verne and Feaimore Cooper. His f i r s t i n t r o -duction to history occurred at t h i s time with his reading of Hugo's famous novel about the Notre Dame Cathedral. "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," he wrote, "was my f i r s t lesson i n French mediaeval history; probably that's how I got my taste 5 for h i s t o r y . " An anecdote related by Alpatov also t e l l s of such an early i n t e r e s t i n histo r y . One of Tol s t o i ' s class-mates r e c a l l e d that when t h e i r teacher asked what the students would l i k e to write about, young Aleksei T o l s t o i r e p l i e d , "I want.to write about. Peter the Great." It i s int e r e s t i n g to note here that his f i r s t short story mentions Peter I, and the s t o r i e s written immediately after are also set i n eighteenth-century Russia. It was i n Samara, too, that T o l s t o i began writing as a hobby. At f i r s t i t was only verses jotted i n the albums of f r i e n d s , but soon he was writing regularly i n his own notebooks. By 1899 he had ventured into prose, and even took to wri t i n g small plays. During his year i n Syzran', he had joined an amateur theatre group, and now i n Samara he continued to p a r t i c i p a t e i n amateur productions. When his father died i n 1900, young T o l s t o i received t h i r t y thousand roubles, and this sum made i t possible for him to study at the St. Petersburg Technological I n s t i t u t e . But f i r s t he had to prepare for yet another set of entrance examinations. This he did at a preparatory school near St. Petersburg, which s p e c i a l i z e d i n tutoring provincials in mathematics, physics, and the Russian language. I t i s s i g n i f i c a n t that in T o l s t o i ' s notebook for the Russian language there were many essays composed on h i s t o r i c a l themes, some i n the form of l i t e r a r y sketches, others as meditations, with such t i t l e s as "Consequences of the Tatar Rule," and "A Country's Influence on the Character and L i f e of Its Inhabitants." There was also a plan for an essay on 7 the f a l l of the Roman Empire. In 1902, at the end of his f i r s t year at the I n s t i -tute, Aleksei T o l s t o i married I u l i a Vasilevna Rozhanskaia, whom he had met i n Samara. A year l a t e r a son was born to them. To l s t o i ' s i n t e r e s t in his studies soon waned, and when the schools were closed because of the events of. 1905, the young family moved to Kazan' to be with the elder Rozhan-s k i i S i I t was in a Kazan' paper that T o l s t o i f i r s t appeared i n p r i n t , with the publication of three poems. During the next several years he continued to write poetry, and i n A p r i l 12 19 0 7 he published (at his own expense) a c o l l e c t i o n of his verse under the t i t l e L i r i k a . However, his growing i n t e r e s t i n art and l i t e r a t u r e led to a r i f t between him and his wife. A few months l a t e r , while t r a v e l l i n g . i n Europe, the couple quarrelled seriously, and T o l s t o i returned to St. Petersburg alone. On his return he enrolled i n an art school, which was also attended by. S o f i a Isaakovna Dymshits , the woman who was at least partly responsible for his divorce. Their l i f e together allowed her t o witness T o l s t o i ' s f i r s t steps into what he described as "the murky waters of l i t e r a t u r e . " According to her, i t was L. Bakst, the famous painter and t h e i r painting i n s t r u c t o r , who suggested that T o l s t o i give up the easel for the pen, which held greater promise of 8 success for him. This explanation seems more plausible than the reason offered by T o l s t o i . i n his l a s t autobiographical sketch. There,he suggested that he plunged into l i t e r a t u r e because he had only one hundred roubles, and, with his formal 9 studies unfinished, he had notother profession. Although he had destroyed a l l the copies of L i r i k a he could f i n d , T o l s t o i continued to write mainly poetry for the next few years. In a l e t t e r from Pari s , he explained to his stepfather, "For the time being, I have stopped writing prose. I t i s too early for me to write that which demands s o l i t a r y contemplation and reasoning." Another l e t t e r , .. also to Bostrom, indicates that T o l s t o i ' s poetry was well received by the Russian poets who were, then l i v i n g i n the French c a p i t a l ; he writes: In the l a s t two weeks there was a series of triumphs. Voloshin, Bal'mont, Val. Briusov, M i n s k i i , V i l k i n a , Vengerov, Ol'shtein a l l said that I Have an o r i g i n a l and major talent. Imam not boasting, because a talent i s something contained within us, something about which we may speak objectively. They are sending my things to several journals. . . . If you could hear my things then you and mother would take pride i n the knowledge that you protected against bad influences, and guarded and nourished that tender flower which I now possess.H The "triumphs" to which he referred were.his successful readings i n the cafes of Montmartre, and the f a i r l y regular publication of his works i n a wide variety of p e r i o d i c a l s : Luch, Obrazovanie, Zhizn', Niva, Apollon, S a t i r i k o n , Vesy. In 1909 he finished writing his second — 'and l a s t — book of verse, Za sihaimi rekami. In 1909 Voloshin i n v i t e d him to spend some time at his dacha i n the Crimea. It was there, wrote S o f i a Dymshits i n her memoirs, that T o l s t o i began to experiment with h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n : Using Voloshin's l i b r a r y , he f i r s t began tes t i n g his a b i l i t y i n the h i s t o r i c a l genre by studying the epoch of Catherine II and the l i n g u i s t i c culture of that period.12 This i s confirmed by the following excerpt from T o l s t o i ' s l a s t autobiographical sketch, written in 1943: 14 To my a s s o c i a t i o n w i t h the poet and t r a n s l a t o r M.M. V o l o s h i n I am indebted f o r the s t a r t of my work i n n o v e l l a s . . . . I was s t r u c k by the r e l i e f q u a l i t y of the images [ i n h i s t r a n s l a t i o n s ] . The S y m b o l i s t s , w i t h t h e i r s e arch f o f . f o r m , and such aesthetes as R^gnier p r o v i d e d me w i t h a b e g i n n i n g , w i t h t h a t which I d i d not have then, and without which.there can be no c r e a t i v i t y : form and technique.13 V o l o s h i n r e c o g n i z e d T o l s t o i ' s . t a l e n t f o r n a r r a t i o n , and urged him to d i r e c t h i s e f f o r t s towards prose i n s t e a d of p o e t r y . He suggested t h a t some s t o r i e s by H e n r i Regnier might serve as models, adding, "You are probably the l a s t i n l i t e r a t u r e 14 s t i l l c a r r y i n g t h e o l d t r a d i t i o n s of noblemen's n e s t s . " This counsel r e s u l t e d i n T o l s t o i ' s f i r s t h i s t o r i c a l anecdotes. From 1909 u n t i l the Great War, however, most of h i s s t o r i e s , p l a y s , and novels were based not on h i s t o r y but on f a m i l i a l s t o r i e s , most of which were p r o v i d e d by h i s aunt, M a r ' i a L e o n t i e v n a Turgeneva. "A Week i n Turenevo," perhaps the most famous of h i s s t o r i e s from t h a t p e r i o d , belongs to t h a t group of f a m i l y c h r o n i c l e s which together comprised the 'jZavolzh'e" c y c l e . In these s t o r i e s T o l s t o i d e s c r i b e d the d i s m a l e x i s t e n c e of t h a t v a n i s h i n g c l a s s , the p r o v i n c i a l gentry. In c o n t r a s t t o Ivan Bunin, who wrote on such themes w i t h n o s t a l g i a , T o l s t o i o f t e n i n j e c t e d a s a t i r i c a l tone i n t o h i s h a r r a t i v e s . One c r i t i c observed, f o r example: The r e a l i t y and r u t h l e s s n e s s of the exposure of the degenerating n o b i l i t y s h a r p l y c o n t r a s t e d T o l s t o i w i t h h i s contemporary w r i t e r s , who drew the e s t a t e s i n e l e g i a c tones. The reasons f o r the d e c l i n e of 15 the land-owning class T o l s t o i finds i n i t s moral-e t h i c a l decomposition. . . . That i s why a l l e f f o r t s of his heroes to occupy•themselves with any. sort of p r a c t i c a l a c t i v i t y appear f o o l i s h and end in f a i l u r e . ^ Another c r i t i c saw i n T o l s t o i ' s writing a Slavophile's evaluation of contemporary Russia: Young To l s t o i ' s c r i t i c i s m of the pre-revolutionary order r e f l e c t e d his impressions of l i f e and the best t r a d i t i o n s of Russian r e a l i s t l i t e r a t u r e , as well as a Slavophile r e j e c t i o n of capitalism and the c a p i t a l i s t c u l t u r e . ^ In 1912 T o l s t o i moved to Moscow and began to concen-trate on writing plays which were, i n f a c t , dramatizations of the Zavolzh'e s t o r i e s . The direc t o r of MKhAT, V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, was very c o r d i a l and encouraged T o l s t o i i n his wri t i n g , although he never accepted any of Tol s t o i ' s plays. He fared better with A. I. Iuzhin, the dir e c t o r of the Malyi Theatre, who accepted the play which was to become To l s t o i ' s f i r s t big success: Nas11'niki. Its premiere was on September 30, 1913. Aleksandr Blok wrote of i t : "A good idea, good language,.traditions, but a l l i s spoiled by hooliganism, by immature attitudes towards l i f e , 17 and the absence of the a r t i s t i c mean." The exposure of the samodurs (petty tyrants) of the p r o v i n c i a l gentry on the stage of the Malyi caused such regular uproars that the play was banned from the stages of a l l Imperial theatres after . only ten performances. Occasionally, police authorities f e l t obliged to ban i t from p r o v i n c i a l theatres as w e l l . 16 By 1914 his s t o r i e s , novels (Khromoi barin, Chudaki) and plays had almost exhausted T o l s t o i ' s l i t e r a r y resources of personal observations and family anecdotes. This so worried him that he considered abandoning l i t e r a t u r e . With the declaration of war, however, he set.off for the front as a reporter for the Moscow paper Russkie vedomosti. This turn in his l i f e was of importance both in personal and i n l i t e r a r y terms. The war brought T o l s t o i i n contact with the Russian masses. "I saw r e a l l i f e , " he wrote, "I began to p a r t i c i p a t e in i t , having torn o f f my t i g h t l y buttoned, black symbolist 18 jacket. I saw the Russian people." What T o l s t o i wrote of the war, say Soviet c r i t i c s , was p a t r i o t i c , even t r u t h f u l , but li m i t e d : Class r e s t r i c t i o n s did not allow T o l s t o i to compre-hend the anti-national essence of the war, or see the caste difference, the d i v i s i o n s between the noble-of farcea; part and the common l i n e part of the t s a r i s t army. . . . But along with t h i s highly erroneous appraisal of the essence and meaning of the i m p e r i a l i s t war, T o l s t o i was s t i l l able to say a t r u t h f u l word about the high patriotism and the s e l f - s a c r i f i c e of the Russian s o l d i e r , to show the f o r t i t u d e , manliness and heroism of the Russian people who "went to war not for glory, not from hatred, but for the common cause."19 T o l s t o i ' s "erroneous" b e l i e f was that i n the f i r e of b a t t l e a l l s o c i a l i n e q u a l i t i e s were being erased, and that somehow the s p i r i t of the alienated i n t e l l i g e n t s i a was being cleansed. For example, i n his s t o r i e s ."Obyknovennyi chelovek" (An, 17 Ordinary Man), "Na Kavkaze" (In the Caucasus), "Na gore" (On the H i l l ) , "Sharlota" (Charlotte), T o l s t o i drew a rather i d y l l i c picture of the Russian s o l d i e r whose sim p l i c i t y and moral superiority were admired by fashionably l i b e r a l i n t e l -l e c t u a l s . After the purifying experience of the war, he believed, a new Russian society would emerge, and Russia would thus f u l f i l l her Slavophile mission i n the world. B. The Revolutions of 1917. The f a l l of the monarchy i n February 1917 was greeted e n t h u s i a s t i c a l l y by the i n t e l l i g e n t s i a . T o l s t o i wrote: A new era of ultimate l i b e r a t i o n , of complete freedom has arrived, when not only heaven and earth w i l l become equal for a l l , but when the very soul of man w i l l f i n a l l y leave i t s dark, stuffy con-finement. In March, T o l s t o i was appointed commissar for the registry of the press i n Moscow. It was at t h i s time, wrote Natal'ia Vasil^evna Krandievskaia i n her memoirs, that he became keenly interested in Russian his t o r y . He began to read S. M. Solov'ev's famous multi-volumed history, and to meet Professor V. V. Kallash, who provided him with a valuable piece of h i s t o r i c a l material: At the head of the divan on which T o l s t o i slept was a night table on which lay Professor Novombergskii's book, "Slovo i delo" (notes made during interroga-tions by scribes at the end of the seventeenth century). T o l s t o i was reading that book and making notes. In t h i s way • "Den'•:"Pe:tra!1'. a^'^Nava'zKdenie" were ^ prepared.21 18 The summer of 1917 was a time of depressing news from the front, of noisy meetings, and of growing anxiety that Russian honour would be stained i f a separate peace were made with Germany. Then the Bolshevik coup i n Petrograd was followed by six. days o f f i g h t i n g i n the streets of Moscow. At the entrance to the house i n which T o l s t o i l i v e d , the tenants kept a samovar heated for the convenience of cold and t i r e d cadets, i for around the Arbat where T o l s t o i l i v e d , the population was mostly.opposed to the Bolsheviks. When the f i g h t i n g ceased and the T o l s t o i family ventured out into the s t r e e t s , there occurred a scene which T o l s t o i long remembered. A crowd had gathered to read a proclamation issued by the v i c t o r s . An e l d e r l y gentleman read the poster and sighed, "Russia i s fi n i s h e d . " A young man standing nearby responded j o y f u l l y , "For you, dad, i t ' s f i n i s h e d . 22 For us i t ' s just beginning." * * * To l s t o i ' s l i f e i n Russia during the period 1917-1919 is not very well documented. On the one hand, Soviet biog-raphers generally choose to pass over this period i n his l i f e , saying only that he was evidently under "the influence of h o s t i l e l i t e r a r y elements" who affected his decision to leave Moscow for the "white" t e r r i t o r i e s , and f i n a l l y to go into e x i l e . On the other hand, there are c o n f l i c t i n g records which, i f they can be held to show anything at a l l , 19 simply show T o l s t o i ' s ambivalent attitude towards the new order. One night in Moscow during the winter of 1917-1918, T o l s t o i and some friends were returning home from a l i t e r a r y evening. At one i n t e r s e c t i o n a group.of people stood around a f i r e , l i s t e n i n g to someone declaiming poetry. "Ah, Count!" a voice c a l l e d out, and T o l s t o i recognized Maiakovskii. "Please, come to the proletarian f i r e , your excellency! Make yourself, at home." After a pause, Maiakovskii pointed at T o l s t o i and then delivered t h i s impromptu d i t t y : H cna6ocTb K T H T H J i a M nHTaio, H 3TOT rpa some w r i t t e n i n the rhythm of a popular dance,. and as a whole pr e t e n d i n g t o be some-t h i n g Russian and popular i n the extreme. . . . Blok's i n t e n t i o n was to reproduce i n t h i s 'poem' of h i s the language and the f e e l i n g s of the people, but what came out is.clumsy and v u l g a r beyong measure. And as a ' c u r t a i n l i n e ' he f l i n g s out a p a t h o l o g i c a l blasphemy: C h r i s t d a n g l i n g a bloody banner, with a crown of white roses on His head, i n f r o n t of a l l those b e a s t s , robbers and murderers: 1 They march w i t h s o v e r e i g n t r e a d , a hungry dog behind them and Jesus C h r i s t ahead, a b l o o d - r e d banner i n h i s hands, white roses on h i s head.'" W i t h t h i s I f i n i s h e d my speech. And i t was then t h a t T o l s t o i k i c k e d up a row. He turned on me l i k e a f i g h t i n g cock and y e l l e d i n t h e a t r i c a l tones t h a t he would never f o r g i v e me t h a t speech: t h a t he, T o l s t o i , was a B o l s h e v i k h e a r t and s o u l , whereas I was a r e t r o g r a d e , a c o u n t e r - r e v o l u t i o n a r y , and so f o r t h . 2 5 L i k e the B o l s h e v i k s , T o l s t o i was unscrupulous, suggested Bunin. When they met some months l a t e r i n Odessa, T o l s t o i e x p l a i n e d t h a t he had defended "The Twelve" t o deceive the Moscow a u t h o r i t i e s so t h a t he could f l e e t o the south. But Bunin continued to be suspicious, even,claiming that T o l s t o i was connected with a s i n i s t e r gambling den i n Odessa. However, T o l s t o i 1 s ~ l i t e r a r y works were the best indicator of his feelings during those years. They r e f l e c t e d a man whose naivete 1 and idealism clashed with the bloody r e a l i t y of the time. From h i s f f e r v e n t l y p a t r i o t i c writings about, the war, he now turned to anxious tales of contemporary Russia undergoing a ruinous upheaval. A.frequently c i t e d story, "Rasskaz proezzhego.cheloveka" (Story of a Passerby), expresses c l e a r l y his concern for Russia, but also his b e l i e f that no war, no revolution could destroy her. Pro-fessor Novombergskii's Slovo 1 delo gosudarevy prompted him at this time to write three h i s t o r i c a l s t o r i e s set i n the period of the Petrine revolution.' These s t o r i e s , "Pervye_ t e r r o r i s t y " (The F i r s t Terrorists) ", "Navazhdenie" (Delusion) , and "Den* Petra" (Peter 1s Day), ddw.express i n some degree To l s t o i ' s h o s t i l i t y toward the,Bolsheviks. In Odessa, the subject of the Russian revolution occupied a much smaller place i n T o l s t o i ' s writings. The one work .which re i t e r a t e d his anti-Bolshevik sentiments (indeed, i t expressed regret for the passing of the monarchy) was Smert' Dantona (The Death of Danton). Other works, set i n the h i s t o r i c a l past, were a comedy, Ljubov'— kniga z o l o t a i a (Love Is a Golden Book), and "Graf K a l i o s t r o " (Count C a g l i o s t r o ) , a short story of mystery and romance. Both of these were set i n the period of Catherine the Great. Another story, " S i n i t s a " (The Titmouse), was set i n ancient Rus' and r e f l e c t e d T o l s t o i ' s i n t e r e s t i n f o l k l o r e . His w r i t i n g thus far can be said to have prepared the author for his future l i t e r a r y monuments. During his e x i l e , his h i s t o r i c a l concepts had to be modified i n order to accommodate his optimistic patriotism. C. Emigration: 1919-1923. T o l s t o i and his family s a i l e d from Odessa i n mid-April 1919. After some ten days aboard ship, they were f i n a l l y allowed to disembark on an i s l a n d near Constantinople, to await the next development i n t h e i r fate. A month l a t e r , they were permitted to immigrate to France, and s e t t l e d at the outskirts of Paris , i n the l a t t e r h a l f of June. In just a fortnight T o l s t o i began work on what was to become the great t r i l o g y , Khozhdenie po mukam. It was a sense of moral obligation to work that made him begin writing immediately. To do nothing, he s a i d , was almost criminal. Khozhdenie pommukam was planned i n i t i a l l y as a history of the "raspylenie n a t s i i " or the scattering of the Russian nationiu It became, i n f a c t , an examination of the r e l a t i o n between the i n t e l l i g e n t s i a and the revolution. In t h i s way, To l s t o i ' s desire to rationaaiizeethe recent upheaval produced what V. R. Shcherbina has c a l l e d a "roman ispoved'," that i s , a novel of confession, and not merely an.account of the events leading up to the revolution. However, what i s pertinent here i s T o l s t o i ' s changing viewpoint.. Russia, past and present, had been at the centre of attention i n a l l of To l s t o i ' s writings since the f i r s t revolution in. 1 9 1 7 . As governmental authority eroded, and as Russian statehood seemed to casumble, he asked himself, "What i s happening to Russia?" Having f l e d from Moscow to Odessa, and thence to Paris, he discovered that he was s t i l l tormented by the same question, only now he had nowhere to go. At this point i t i s important to stress the fact that T o l s t o i ' s opposition to the Bolsheviks did not stem from any support of another p o l i t i c a l f a c t i o n , but rather from his. b e l i e f that the Bolshevik theorists were bent on conducting a s o c i a l experiment, an experiment which was destroying Russia. He believed that, for the Bolsheviks, the most important thing was to test t h e i r theories by experiment, and they regarded a l l of Russia as th e i r laboratory. "A man, an i n d i v i d u a l , people, the happiness of these same Ivanovs and Petrovs i s of no i n t e r e s t or concern to them. "27 Two months e a r l i e r the Treaty of V e r s a i l l e s had been signed, and the hopes of the Russian.emigres were raised with the expectation that the A l l i e s would now d i r e c t t h e i r forces towards terminating the Bolshevik "experiment." Their hopes of course, came to naught. To l s t o i ' s professional needs as an established writer 24 and even more p a r t i c u l a r l y his unremitting love for Russia, edged him towards a r e c o n c i l i a t i o n . His l i t e r a r y talents could not be nourished and sustained^in an a l i e n environment such as Paris. Undoubtedly, too, there was some anxiety concerning his future. As one scholar observed, A writer, with a place i n the l i t e r a r y l i f e of his native land, finds i t more d i f f i c u l t to adjust himself to e x i l e than, l e t us say, an engineer or a chemist. Enamored with the very sound of his native language, the writer draws his emotional sustenance from his nation's culture and i s unable to face the future with the same composure as exiled members of other professions or occupations. He i s more sensi-t i v e to transplantation to a foreign s o i l , because he anticipates his doom as a creative a r t i s t and the extinction of his s o c i a l and c u l t u r a l role i n an a l i e n environment.28 Years l a t e r , r e f e r r i n g to his autobiographical novella Detstvo N i k i t y , which was written i n 1920, T o l s t o i expressed the importance of the language, and i t s part i n his l i f e during the emigre" period with these words: It i s a Russian book and i t i s written i n the Russian language. . . . I t i s the Russian language which i s spoken in the Samara countryside. That Russian language was luring me home to the Bolsheviks.^9 By 1920 To l s t o i ' s a r t i c l e s , which were appearing i n emigre papers, had noticeably altered i n tone. For example, in Poslednie riovosti (The Latest News) for 20 September 19 20, T o l s t o i no longer mentions the wicked Bolshevik experiments, but speaks instead of the need for r e c o n c i l i a t i o n between the Whites and the Reds. "On the contrary," wrote T o l s t o i , 25 If we s h a l l believe that i n every Red Army man's cap, that underneath every muzhik's s o i l e d s h i r t there i s a robber and a scoundrel, or that everyone wearing a cockade of the White Guard was involved i n pogroms, or i s a reactionary, or that underneath every worn jacke>tlo-f au'RussiannintMaectuaiLhthere beats a flabby rabbit's heart, then I ask, how can there be any good anywhere?30 In another a r t i c l e , written only nine days l a t e r , T o l s t o i ' s feelings were expressed more bluntly than ever before. With respect to Russia there could be only two attitudes, he suggested: either i t s t o t a l a nnihilation and o b l i t e r a t i o n from the pages of his t o r y , or a passionate f a i t h i n i t s 31 a b i l i t y to survive. This was a major step away from the position which T o l s t o i had held i n the summer of 1919. About a year l a t e r , i n August 1921, he finished w r i t i n g the o r i g i n a l version of Khoz hd enie pornmukam, that i s , "Sestry." What i s noteworthy about i t s ending i s the apparent reference to the defeat of Baron Wrangel and the implied ideology of Smena vekh or "change of landmarks." "See what happened. . . . So even now we s h a l l not be l o s t . . ." says Telegin, one of the heroes of the novel, "Great Russia was l o s t ! But the grandsons of these same ragged muzhiks, who with pitchforks went to rescue Moscow, defeated Charles XII, drove the Tataes 'S over the Perekop, brought Lithuania to heel, s t r o l l e d in bast shoes on the shores of the P a c i f i c Ocean. . . . And the grandson of that boy who was f o r c i b l y brought to Moscow i n a s l e i g h , b u i l t Petersburg! . . . Great Russia i s l o s t ! If one county i s l e f t to us, then even from that w i l l arise the Russian land.32 For Tolstoi's 1, readers i n 1921, the reference to Perekop, 26 Lithuania and the P a c i f i c was a clear but unhappy reminder of the recent events of the c i v i l war. But the l a s t sentence — that Russia could be raised from the smallest patch of land — rei t e r a t e d the appeal made by the "change of land-marks" group to come to the assistance of the Bolsheviks i n rebuilding the Russian state. D. Smena vekh. An important l i t e r a r y event took place i n 1921 which was to exert a powerful influence upon T o l s t o i and many of his contemporaries. This was the appearance of Smena vekh, a book of essays by diverse hands. Although i t appeared i n July 1921, i t i s probable that T o l s t o i became acquainted with i t before he finished writing the concluding chapter of Khozhdenie po mukam. His wife r e c a l l e d the nervous i r r i t a -tion that T o l s t o i expressed at the time. When he was going to the publisher with the completed manuscript he exclaimed: "Understand, . . . Europe i s a cemetery. . . . Not only can I not work here, I can't breathe here. . . . We must f l e e 33 from here." Then, only two weeks l a t e r , he sent his family ai-letter:clearly!:stating_his-.desire :to return: L i f e has s h i f t e d from dead centre. It has caused a great commotion i n our friends' salons. That's exciting. I'm burning a l l my bridges, I must be born anew. My work demands immediate decision. Do you understand the categorical meaning of these words? Come back. Give up our apartment. We are going to B e r l i n , and i f you wish, then even further.34 The cause of the commotion to which T o l s t o i referred was the sensational publication i n Prague, the academic centre of the emigres, of Smena vekh.. The contributors to this book did not constitute a p o l i t i c a l l y u n i f i e d group although, as Gleb Struve observes i n Russkaia l i t e r a t u r a v izg n a n i i (Russian Literature, i n E x i l e ; 1956), they were from the right wing of the p o l i t i c a l spectrum. They advocated a u n i f i e d attitude towards Russia, an approach that offered T o l s t o i a most g r a t i f y i n g release for his own sentiments. Essentially.the Smena vekh group proposed that the Russians who had f l e d during the.revolution resign themselves to the fact that the c i v i l war had been l o s t and that they must go to the assistance of the only r e a l government i n Russia. For.example, S. S. Chakhotkin, one of the.group, described two important tasks that a repentant emigre1 could perform on . his return to Russia:. 1) vWitheevery e f f o r t a s s i s t i n the enlighten-ment of the common masses, and support with every possible means a l l , t h a t the new Russia undertakes in t h i s endeavour; yourself show^the most intensive, the broadest i n i t i a t i v e ; 2) Most a c t i v e l y p a r t i c i p a t e i n the economic restoration of our Fatherland.^ 5 Among some emigres Smena vekh was interpreted as a desperately n a t i o n a l i s t document, but as such i t offered Aleksei T o l s t o i a reply to the constantly-nagging question: What i s happening to Russia? In October 1921 he moved to B e r l i n , the l i t e r a r y centre of the emigres, and soon aft e r 28 joined the e d i t o r i a l s t a f f of the Smena vekh paper, Nakanune (On the Eve). To elucidate further that sentiment which attracted T o l s t o i to the "change of landmarks" movement, i t may be h e l p f u l to mention at this point the a r t i c l e by the h i s t o r i a n N. V. Us t r i a l o v , which appeared i n the f i r s t issue of Nakanune i n March 1922: The speaking-trumpet of the revolution was the Bolshevik party, also without doubt the Russian i n t e l l i g e n t s i a , who were, as we have already seen, the most orthodox, the most Russian by t h e i r cast of mind and temperament. . . . In the Bolsheviks and through Bolshevism the Russian i n t e l l i g e n t s i a surmounts i t s h i s t o r i c a l estrangement from the people and i t s psychological estrangement from the government.^ ^ Such a statement appealed to T o l s t o i ' s patriotism, and i t made his decision to return to Soviet Russia seem more l i k e a natural, h i s t o r i c a l development i n the evolution of the i n t e l l i g e n t s i a . Under a Bolshevik government, i t seemed to the "change of landmarks" group, the Russian i n t e l l i g e n t s i a could end i t s paradoxical condition of being at once i s o l a t e d from the people and i n opposition to the government. More-over, by joining the "change of landmarks" group, Aleksei T o l s t o i was joining an exceptional company of men who contin-ued to look at Russia through the eyes of nineteenth-century Slavophiles, which explained at least i n part t h e i r discom-f o r t in Europe and t h e i r wish to return. "A small minority of emigres ," writes Maurice Friedberg, i 29 these people appear t o have been d r i v e n t o t h e i r d e c i s i o n by the t r i b u l a t i o n s of refugee e x i s t e n c e , by homesickness, and i n the case of a h a n d f u l of i n t e l l e c t u a l s l i n k e d With the change o f landmarks group (Smena lyekh) , by a b e l i e f i n the M e s s i a n i c r o l e of. R u s s i a , r e g a r d l e s s of the i d e o l o g y o f i t s present r u l e r s . 3 7 Another c o n t r i b u t o r t o the Smena vekh i d e o l o g y , A. V.• Bobrishchev-Pushkin, e x p l a i n e d Russia's l e a d i n g r o l e , f o r example, i n these p a s s i o n a t e words which echo Blok's B o l s h e v i k p a t r i o t i s m : From a. n a t i o n a l Russian p o i n t of view we can say: "We are now the most r e v o l u t i o n a r y country i n Europe. So we w i l l l e a d the r e v o l u t i o n . " . . . F a i t h , but not orthodoxy. Firm a u t h o r i t y , but not autocracy. N a t i o n a l i s m , but not i n o p p o s i t i o n t o other n a t i o n s , but f u s i n g w i t h them, l e a d i n g them. Blok's C h r i s t leads the Red Army men w i t h a bloody banner — - the o n l y C h r i s t i n which one can s t i l l b e l i e v e i s the new Rus', i f one can s t i l l b e l i e v e i n C h r i s t at a l l . 3 8 I t w i l l be shown i n the next chapter t h a t T o l s t o i ' s i n i t i a l o p p o s i t i o n t o the B o l s h e v i k s was based on h i s view of them as an a n n i h i l a t i n g f o r c e which was d e s t r o y i n g Russia and a l l t h i n g s Russian. But t h i s view had changed completely and he now regarded them as guardians of the n a t i o n a l h e r i t a g e ; S o v i e t R u s s i a appeared as a c u l t u r a l counterweight t o a Europe which he, as a n a t i o n a l i s t , a l s o d i s l i k e d . Understandably, the m a j o r i t y of emigre w r i t e r s con-t i n u e d t o express h o s t i l i t y towards the new regime; but i t i s s i g n i f i c a n t t o observe how G o r k i i ' s views d i f f e r e d at t h i s time from those of T o l s t o i . While the l a t t e r ' s thoughts 30 were occupied with abstractions such as statehood,. the superpower nature of Russia, i t s national t r a d i t i o n s , i t s culture, Gorkii's thoughts were concentrated on human problems and.questions of everyday l i f e . A short time before his departure from Russia, for example, Gorkii expressed his apprehension that the revolution had turned r u r a l Russia.against urban centres, and he feared for the l i v e s of the remaining nine thousand i n t e l l e c t u a l s . After conceding that the Soviets represented the only force capable of overpowering Russian i n e r t i a , he added, "Mais toute ma structure mentale f a i t que je ne puis etre d'accord avee 39 1'attitude du pouvoir sovi^tique envers 1 ' i n t e l l i g e n t c i j a . " Then, writing from B e r l i n in June,1922, Gorkii expressed the same anxiety for the fate of the i n t e l l i g e n t s i a i n a l e t t e r to the American, Jane Addams: They are the best brains of the country, the creators of Russian science and culture, people more needed i n Russia than i n any other country. Without them i t i s impossible to l i v e , as i t i s impossible to l i v e without a soul. These people are a precious thing on a worldwide, general and human scale. In a l l Russia there are only 9,000 of them — a n i n s i g n i f i c a n t number for s© huge a land and for the c u l t u r a l work needed in Russia. These 9,,000 most precious people are gradually dying, without having succeeded i n creating those who should replace them. 4 0 The d i f f e r i n g concerns of the two writers at t h i s juncture have been i n c i s i v e l y stated by Guy Verret: Gorki j avait .quitte' l a Russie, malade et pessimiste, Alexis Tolstoj- s'appretait a y retourner avec une 31 ardeur de converti, pour y d^penser ses forces bouillonnantes; Gorkij pensait au sort des i n t e l - . l e c t u e l s , Alexis Tolstoj a sa terre n a t a l e t 4 1 -This c l e a r l y explains the sentiment that drove T o l s t o i towards early r e p a t r i a t i o n . Unfortunately, Verret proceeds to conclude, from th i s difference there followed, a d e f i n i t e cooling i n t h e i r r e l a t i o n , and perhaps even outright h o s t i l -i t y . Soviet sources claim just the opposite. Boris Leonov, in an a r t i c l e published i n 1973, refers to an unpublished autobiographical sketch by Aleksei T o l s t o i i n which he s p e c i f i c a l l y says that his meeting with Gorkii i n the spring of 1922 decided his fate. His crossing "to the other shore" 42 was apparently encouraged by G o r k i i . In P a r i s , the p o l i t i c a l centre of the emigres, Count To l s t o i ' s crossing "to the other shore," that i s , his c o l -laboration with the smenavekhovtsy, his involvement i n t h e i r pro-Bolshevik paper Nakanune (Tolstoi edited the -literary supplement), and f i n a l l y the Soviet government's favourable response to the Smena vekh movement, caused a de r i s i v e reaction. (Incidentally, the Soviet government understood very well that the "change of landmarks" movement did not constitute a force capable of functioning as a p o l i t i c a l a l l y , but since the movement had expressed a desire to par-t i c i p a t e i n the post-war reconstruction of the country, the new regime was prepared to reap any benefits that these repentant emigres could offer.) An example of the h o s t i l i t y 32 of the Paris emigres i s the following d i a t r i b e i n verse which appeared in Poslednie Novosti on A p r i l 13, 1922: Hx HeMHoro... HO ecTB B HX K p y r y ^eJ iOBeK, y KOToporo-HMH! — H eMy H npocTHTB He Mory, ^ T O H OH O^ySHJICH MeX HHMH . OKyHyjtcH B 6OJTOTO. . . K ^ eMy? 3a coBeTCKHH c e p e S p e H H K , *ITO JIH, BpOCHJI CJiaBHOe HMH BO TBMy JiHiieMepHH, o6MaHa, HeBOJiH? HeyaceJiH nncaTejiB, „ T B o p e u ; " B neHB rpKflyiiJiHH npoHHKHyTB He MoaceT, — H He. BHflHT, 1TO 6J1H30K KOHeUi H I T O T e H y n „HM" He noMoxeT? 4 3 Writing his memoirs i n his eighty-second year, I v a n Bunin restated this same unforgiving attitude. "He [Tolstoi] was remarkable i n many.respects," wrote Bunin, but what made him a.truly astonishing figure was his exceptional lack of moral sense (which after, his return to Russia made him an equal of his immoral colleagues, who, l i k e himself, had taken up the p r o f i t a b l e career of.service to the Soviet Kremlin) . . , 4 4 I t . i s i n t e r e s t i n g to.contrast-Tolstoi's feelings with regard to Bunin and Kuprin. In an interview published i n the Moscow magazine Zhizn' Iskusstva (The L i f e of Art) i n May 1923, T o l s t o i expressed the opinion that these two writers were being held captive by Merezhkovskii,. whose . 45 negative influence* ; was keeping them out of Russian l i t e r a t u r e . For p o l i t i c a l reasons, suggested T o l s t o i , the two writers 46 had stopped working. But i n addition to c r i t i c i s m s of To l s t o i ' s collaboration which were pouring out of the emigre press i n Pari s , there was also a demand for an explanation from the emigre estab-lishment. N. V. Chaikovskii, the former supreme commander of the northern government during the B r i t i s h intervention in Murmansk, and P.N. Miliukov, the former foreign minister under Kerenskii, wrote to T o l s t o i asking how they were to understand his collaboration with the blatantly pro-Bolshevik 47 paper, Nakanune. To l s t o i ' s response was contained i n his "Open l e t t e r to N. V. Chaikovskii" which was f i r s t printed in Nakanune on A p r i l 14, 1922, and then in I z v e s t l i a on A p r i l 25, 1922. For the purposes of t h i s study, the impor-tance of the l e t t e r to Chaikovskii l i e s i n i t s unambiguous testimony to T o l s t o i ' s change of heart.towards the Bolsheviks and the new Soviet Russia. The aim of the paper Nakanune, explained T o l s t o i , was not to s p l i t the emigres, but to defend Russian gosudarst-vennost'v(statehood). Further, as members of the Smena vekh group, the contributors worked for the restoration of the economy and the reassertion of Russia's ve1ikoderzhavie (imperial greatness). The c i v i l war had ended, continued T o l s t o i , the Whites had l o s t , and i t was the Bolsheviks who now formed the actual government that protected Russian f r o n t i e r s , supported Russian interests i n Genoa, and guarded Russian-unity. In contrast to t h i s r e a l i t y , the emigres continued to l i v e under the i n e r t i a of past combat, they persisted i n waiting for the collapse of the Bolsheviks, but time a f t e r time the date of that cojbjhapse was postponed u n t i l t h e i r hopes had degenerated into fantasy. For T o l s t o i , the decision to collaborate with Nakanune was a pa i n f u l and d i f f i c u l t one, for he had been on the side of the Whites. "I hated the Bolsheviks p h y s i c a l l y , " he wrote, I considered them the destroyers of the Russian state, the cause of a l l woe. In those years my two brothers died; one was cut down, the other died of wounds. Two uncles were shot, eight r e l a t i v e s died of disease and famine. My family and I suffered t e r r i b l y . I had reason to hate.^8 But now violence and terro r were i n the past and what Russia needed was rest and quiet, l i k e a patient recovering from a serious operation. In the process of healing, as NEP was beginning to show, coarse and r a d i c a l theoretics was being replaced with simple empiricism. Blood-letting and v i v i s e c -t i o n would stop, concluded T o l s t o i , and the form of govern-ment would r e f l e c t the wisdom and the w i l l of the Russian people. This optimism was the element that formed the core of T o l s t o i ' s p o l i t i c a l explanation for joining the Smena vekh movement. But T o l s t o i offered as well two other reasons for "changing landmarks." These were, f i r s t , the war with Poland, and next, the famine: I was among the many, many others who could not sympathize with the Poles, who had conquered Russian land; I could not wish for the return of the boundaries of. I 772 nor for tK? .•irr~:i r_vr of ' 35 the boundaries of 1772 nor for the surrender of Smolensk to the,Poles. Four hundred years ago i n exactly the same s i t u a t i o n Smolensk was defended by Shein while a Polish army, also c a l l e d i n by Russians, lay seige to the c i t y . With a l l my being I wished the Reds v i c t o r y . What a paradox...49 Clearly T o l s t o i ' s change of sentiment with respect to the Bolsheviks was generated by a f e e l i n g of the i n v i o l a b i l i t y of Russian borders. Thus, at a time of war between Poland and Soviet Russia., Tolstoi''s patriotism drew him towards a r e c o n c i l i a t i o n with the new regime. Famine was the other consideration which swayed T o l s t o i to jo i n the Smena vekh and Nakanune. "The time i s ripe for another t r i a l , " he wrote, These are the times of the apocalyptical Russian famine. Russia i s dying out. Who i s to blame? What does i t matter who i s to blame, when children's corpses are p i l e d up l i k e stacks of wood at railway stations, or when human fl e s h .is eaten. A l l , a l l of us together, c o l l e c t i v e l y share i n the blame since long ago. But, of course, some i r r e c o n c i l -ables are to be found. The famine i s t e r r i b l e , they say, but we w i l l not reconcile ourselves to the bandits who have usurped power i n Russia. We w i l l not allow a single carload of grain to enter Russia i f that carload w i l l extend the Bolsheviks' power by a single day. Happily such persons are few. Grain was brought into Russia, and the starving were fed.50 A natural and understandable sense of pit y for his own people, therefore, also contributed to T o l s t o i ' s decision to return. And since he had now come round to the view that the Russian state had not perished, and the population of Russia was not at a l l concerned with the question of whether 36 or not some p o l i t i c a l group outside of Russia agreed or disagreed with the government i n Russia, the emigres had only three ways, he said, to achieve a common aim: "the preservation and a s s e r t i o n N o f Russian statehood." The f i r s t was to e n l i s t the aid of a foreign govern-ment and invade Russia to force the Bolsheviks out of power. But, T o l s t o i , objected, neither i s there such a government, nor could further f i g h t i n g and dying be tolerated by any conscientious Russian. The second choice was an economic boycott of Russia. However, T o l s t o i pointed out, that would cause the starving people even greater suffering while the rulers of the country would remain unaffected. The iast-choice, which would preserve Russian statehood, was simple recognition and resignation to the fact that Russia was ruled by the Bolsheviks. This simple but far-reaching decision offered the emigres the opportunity to p a r t i c i p a t e in t h e i r country's a f f a i r s and i n some .way influence the future course of i t s development. Therefore, T o l s t o i advised the emigres, Having recognized this f a c t , do everything to a s s i s t the l a s t phase of the Russian revolution to go i n the d i r e c t i o n of enrichment of Russian l i f e , i n the d i r e c t i o n of extraction from the revolution a l l that i s good and jus t , and to assert that good; to go i n the d i r e c t i o n of destroying a l l that i s e v i l and unjust which was also brought i n by the same revolution; and f i n a l l y , to go i n the d i r e c t i o n of preserving our q u a l i t i e s of a mighty state. I choose th i s t h i r d way.51 Having himself selected the t h i r d way, T o l s t o i c a l l e d upon the emigres not to hide i n t h e i r Parisian c e l l a r s , but to come to terms with p o l i t i c a l r e a l i t i e s , and to come to the aid of the new Russia. He concluded. And my conscience bids me not to descend into the c e l l a r , but to go to Russia and drive at least one n a i l into the splintered ship of state. Just as..jr.' Peter d i d . 5 2 Of course, the Soviet government was pleased to see such a pronouncement, es p e c i a l l y since i t came from an established l i t e r a r y f igure. When the l e t t e r was reprinted in I z v e s t i i a i t was accompanied by.an a r t i c l e e n t i t l e d "Raskol emigratsii" (A S p l i t Among the 'Emigres)- which c l e a r l y 53 r e f l e c t e d governmental s a t i s f a c t i o n . T o l s t o i ' s l e t t e r to Chaikovskii was, i n f a c t , his passport to Soviet Russia. In the spring of 1923, he went alone to Moscow and Petrograd i n order to s e t t l e personal a f f a i r s ; then on August 1, 1923, he and his family stepped off the ship i n Petrograd to begin once again t h e i r l i f e i n Russia. E. Return losSoviet Russia "The years from 1924 to 1929 were for Aleksei T o l s t o i 5 4 years of formation of a new outlook." A writer with an established reputation, T o l s t o i held great promise for Soviet l i t e r a t u r e . But these f i r s t years were not easy. A former emigre, a follower of the dubious Smena vekh, an admirer of the a p o l i t i c a l Serapion Brotherhood, and s e t t l i n g comfortably, 38 A. N. T o l s t o i was quickly noticed, l a b e l l e d a fellow t r a v e l -l e r , and pe r s i s t e n t l y c r i t i c i z e d by many.enemies. Attacks on him gradually subsided after the di s s o l u t i o n of RAPP, his acquaintance with I . V. S t a l i n , and his elec t i o n to the Supreme Soviet as a deputy from Staraia Russa. Shortly after his return, T o l s t o i stated i n an i n t e r -view that he would begin work immediately on two projects: f i r s t an adaptation of K. Capek's play R. U. R., and second, a sequel to the novel he had written i n Paris, Khozhdenie po mukam. The play, Bunt mashin (The Revolt of the Machines) was completed shortly, but the continuation of the epic novel was delayed almost four years because the Soviet authorities found the author's views unacceptable. F i r s t of a l l , T o l s t o i s t i l l regarded the revolution as a chaotic whirlwind which was indiscriminate i n i t s destruction. But i n addition to t h i s , T o l s t o i ' s patriotism, which often reached passionate heights, was completely out of step with the times. Perhaps the best i l l u s t r a t i o n of the sentiment with which he returned to Russia i s found i n the preface to the 1922, B e r l i n e d i t i o n of Khozhdenie.po mukam: Blessed be thy name, Russian Land. Great suffering gives b i r t h to great good. Those who have walked the road to Calvary know that l i f e i s l i v e d not through e v i l , but through good: through a w i l l to l i f e , a w i l l to freedom, and a w i l l to charity. Neither for death, nor for destruction i s the great Slavic expanse, but for l i f e , for the happiness of a free people. 5 39 No, T o l s t o i could not write l i k e that i n the 1920's. Instead he t r a v e l l e d about European Russia, speaking of the decadent West, of the c a p i t a l i s t world's hatred for the new. Russia, and of - the demoralized White emigres. His writings i n the f i r s t years after his return deal with these same topics and can be found i n such stories as "Rukopis naidennaia pod krovat'iu" (A Manuscript Found Under the Bed), and "Ubiistvo Antuana Ribo" (The Murder of Antoine Ribeau), "Chernaia p i a t n i t s a " (Black Friday), "Mirazh" (Mirage), "Pokhozhdenie Nevzorova i i i Ibikus" (The Adventures of Nevzorov or Ibikus), "Soiuz p i a t i " (The Union of Five). I t i s tempting to jump to the conclusion that T o l s t o i wrote such stories i n order to ing r a t i a t e himself with the Soviet a u t h o r i t i e s . But were that^the^case,'" theno.the impor-tance, of the Smena vekh sentiments that were so c r u c i a l to Tol s t o i ' s reasoning would be completely ignored. To ignore those sentiments would be to i n s i s t on suspecting To l s t o i ' s change of heart with no d e f i n i t e objective support for such a suspicion. We have seen e a r l i e r that his emigration and his return were based upon his love for Russia, and while after his return he could not expressnhis often extreme feelings toward his native land, he ce r t a i n l y could continue to express his d i s l i k e of the West, i n which he was neither alone nor prompted by his pro-Soviet stand. As R. C. Williams has observed, to the Russian emigres i n general the 40 West, meaning England, France and Germany, was i n a moral 56 ' . and c u l t u r a l decline. Being a Slavophile, T o l s t o i f e l t . that Russia, having passed through pu r i f y i n g f i r e s of war and revolution, was morally superior to the West; and the same feelings had always nourished his preference for Russian culture. Thus, any appraisal of his writings must also take into account his strong.feelings of nationalism. To a man l i k e T o l s t o i , the West had appeared to be "rotten" .even before the Bolsheviks came to power and framed an a n t i -western p o l i c y . But while T o l s t o i was writing stories about contem-porary conditions abroad, he was also making small jaunts into the recent past. The Russian revolution was r e f l e c t e d in several works before 192 8, the year that he completed "1918" — t h e second part of Khozhdenie po mukam. One of the e a r l i e s t works i n which a great deal of h i s t o r i c a l documentation was u t i l i z e d was a play written together with P. E. Shchegolev, Zagovor imperatritsy (The Conspiracy of the Empress). Because the manuscript.of the play has been l o s t , biographers have not been able to determine how much of the play was written by T o l s t o i and how much by Shchegolev, but i t i s generally believed that T o l s t o i took the material which his f r i e n d provided and then dramatized i t . Shchegolev was a historianjjandd after the February revolution, a member of the Extraordinary Investigating Commission which met to look into the criminal machinations committed at the.Imperial Court. He edited the transcripts of the investigation, which were published i n seven volumes e n t i t l e d Padenie tsarskogo rezhima (The F a l l of the T s a r i s t Regime). At the time of the writing of the play, however, only three volumes of Padenie had been published. The play had i t s premiere i n Moscow i n January 1925, and i t i s s t i l l staged today. . However, t h i s i s not to say that i t i s a good play; rather Zagovor imperatri.tsy\ f u l f i l l e d an i n s t r u c t i o n a l need by exposing the corruption which surrounded Nicholas I I . The playwright received two percent of the.receipts from every.performance, and since the play was staged i n most c i t i e s of the USSR, T o l s t o i received, to use Alpatov's expression, "sacks of money." The revolution also serves as the f o c a l point in the st o r i e s , "Drevnii put 1" (The Ancient Route), written i n 1927, and "Gobelen Marii Antuanetty" (The Tapestry of Marie Antoinette), written i n 192 8. While gathering material for "1918" i n southern Russia, Tolstoi.came across some documents and ruins dating back to the period of Peter the Great. This rekindled his i n t e r e s t i n Tsar Peter, and in the f a l l of 1928, just a f t e r the completion of the second part of Khozhdenie po mukam, T o l s t o i began writing the play Na dybe (On the Rack). Com-pleted i n December of that year, the play became the f i r s t 42 of three versions of the play subsequently t i t l e d Pet r I. Despite the most severe c r i t i c i s m , this f i r s t variant of the play remained on the stage u n t i l 1934, when T o l s t o i replaced Na dybe with a modified version. How did Na dybe survive i f i t was so severely c r i t i c i z e d ? "The MKhAT-II production of the f i r s t variant of Peter," wrote T o l s t o i , "was greeted with bayonets by RAPP c r i t i c s , but i t was saved by comrade 57 S t a l i n . . ." Indeed, according to R. Ivanov-Razumnik, S t a l i n was present at the dress rehearsal of Na dybe, and contrary to everyone's expectation he expressed great s a t i s -5 8 faction with the play. I t may be presumed that S t a l i n took a l i k i n g to T o l s t o i from that time. In 1930, for example, when plans were being made for writing a history of the c i v i l war i n Russia, S t a l i n wrote to Gorkii and s p e c i f i -c a l l y asked that Aleksei T o l s t o i be included among i t s 59 authors. Then a few years l a t e r , as a member of o f f i c i a l delegations that had t r a v e l l e d abroad, T o l s t o i had the opportunity to meet S t a l i n at s o c i a l gatherings.. At one such meeting S t a l i n and T o l s t o i exchanged pipes. As a head of state, S t a l i n was f l a t t e r e d by any comparison between him and Peter the Great. This may be gleaned from the interview S t a l i n gave Emile Ludwig. That i s why, no doubt, S t a l i n l i k e d T o l s t o i , and allowed Na dybe to play i n spite of persistent accusations that T o l s t o i was a Russian chauvinist and even a monarchist. 43 Early i n 19 29, T o l s t o i began writing the novel that was to become one of the c l a s s i c s of twentieth-century Russian l i t e r a t u r e , Petr Pervyi (Peter the F i r s t ) . However, the f i r s t installment, which appeared i n the July issue of Novyi mir, introduced the work as a povest', or story, and no one, not even the author himself, then expected Petr Pervyi to expand as i t did. Book One was fini s h e d i n May 1930. In March 1932, T o l s t o i made his f i r s t jaunt into Europe since his return to Soviet Russia. The purpose of the t r i p was to v i s i t Gorkii i n Sorrento and to make a s t a r t on the second volume of Peter the F i r s t . Correspondence at this time between the two writers reveals nothing but the most c o r d i a l r e l a t i o n s , and although they were never close friends, T o l s t o i appears to have sought Gorkii's professional opinion on several occasions. In any case, T o l s t o i did not begin his second volume i n Sorrento, but instead rested for three weeks at Gorkii's, and then returned to Russia. However, i n his plans for the second volume of the novel, which he began only toward the end of 1932, T o l s t o i used some impressions obtained during the t r i p to contrast a . Europe racked by severe economic depression and a Soviet 60 " ^ c~ Russia rushing toward i n d u s t r i a l i z a t i o n . The second volume of Petr Pervyi wal completecl In A p r i l 193 4. With the completion of the second part of the novel, however, T o l s t o i did not put aside the subject of Peter the Great. By the end of the year he had produced a new variant of the play Petr I, and at the. same time he had begun work on a scenario for a f i l m version of Peter the F i r s t . In 1935, T o l s t o i wrote the l i b r e t t o for Iu. A. Shaporin's opera Dekabristy (The Decembrists). T o l s t o i now faced the. problem of the unfinished t r i l o g y , Khozhdenie po mukam. The epic of the revolution began to appear as a problem because, inhhis own words, "certain h i s t o r i c a l errors" had crept into the f i r s t two p a r t s . ^ The "errors" to which T o l s t o i was r e f e r r i n g were his f a i l u r e to take note of the role played by K. E. Voro-s h i l o v and S t a l i n in the defense of Tsaritsyn during the 6 i v i l war. The plans for the continuation of Khozhdenie po mukam at t h i s time show uncertainty and indecision as to how the novel should proceed. At one point, T o l s t o i thought that the t h i r d part would consist of four sections: "Oborona Tsaritsyna" (The Defense of Tsaritsyn), "Respublika v opas-n o s t i " (The Republic i n Danger), "Plan Sta l i n a " (Stalin's Plan), and "Nachalo pobed" (The Beginning of V i c t o r i e s ) . Together these four parts would comprise the t h i r d volume of the t r i l o g y , which would be t i t l e d "Po koniam!" (Mount Your Horses!). A l l these plans came to naught, and having promised a book dedicated to the twentieth anniversary of the October Revolution, T o l s t o i described the defense of Tsaritsyn in the book that came to be t i t l e d Khleb (Bread), and which was finished i n October 1937. In addition to his l i t e r a r y work, T o l s t o i was active in public a f f a i r s as wel l . At f i r s t he was elected to the Soviet of Detskoe Selo i n 1933, and a year l a t e r he was elected to the Leningrad Soviet. In December 1937 he was elected to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR as a deputy representing Staraia Russa. At the f i r s t conference of the Union of Soviet Writers i n 1934, he was one of the delegates from Leningrad, and when the conference closed, he was elected to the presiddi.umooft'theUUn-ion. Between 193 5 and 1937 T o l s t o i made several t r i p s to Europe to attend i n t e r n a t i o n a l a n t i - f a s c i s t congresses. In the summer of 1935, for example, he was among the delegates to a writers' conference for the defense of culture. He remained abroad for two months, and i n addition to attending the conference i n P a r i s , he also v i s i t e d London, Hamburg and the Netherlands. That autumn T o l s t o i was also among Soviet writers who v i s i t e d Czechoslovakia. Having seen i n Prague Smetana's comic opera The Bartered Bride, he asked a Czech j o u r n a l i s t f r i e n d to make a Russian t r a n s l a t i o n of the l i b r e t t o . The t r a n s l a t i o n did not s a t i s f y T o l s t o i completely, so i n Lenin-grad he approached V. Rozhdestvenskii and together they rewrote the l i b r e t t o . The opera had i t s premiere on May 31, 1937 i n the Leningrad Malyi Theatre. In 1936 T o l s t o i went to another peace congress i n Brussels. Afterwards he v i s i t e d Paris again and i t was on this occasion that he met b r i e f l y w i t h Bunin. In his memoirs Bunin mentioned that T o l s t o i had asked him to return to 6 2 Russia, but of course nothing came of i t at the time. During that same v i s i t to Paris, T o l s t o i also saw A. I. Kuprin and helped to arrange his return to Soviet Russia. A f t e r P a r i s , T o l s t o i stopped o f f in London where he spoke about contemporary Russian l i t e r a t u r e , and i t was on thi s occasion that he met H. G. Wells and Aldous Huxley. Early i n 1937 he was i n v i t e d to London again, to attend a meeting for "Peace and Friendship with the USSR." On t h i s occasion he met Beatrice and Sidney Webb, George Bernard Shaw, and H. G. Wells again. In the summer of 1937 T o l s t o i was off to the second in t e r n a t i o n a l writers' conference for the defense of culture, hosted t h i s time by republican Spain. The conference met i n Valencia and Madrid, but because of the deteriorating m i l i t a r y s i t u a t i o n i t was forced to conclude i t s session i n Paris. This was To l s t o i ' s l a s t journey abroad. T o l s t o i received several honours i n recognition of his l i t e r a r y and c u l t u r a l services. One of the f i r s t awards, presented to him i n 1938, was the Order of Lenin for the scenario for.the f i l m Petr I. In 1939 he was admitted to the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. He received the S t a l i n Prize (now ca l l e d the State Prize) for the novel Petr Pervyi 47 in 1941, and in 1943 for the t r i l o g y Khozhdenie po mukam." On his s i x t i e t h birthday, T o l s t o i received the Order of the Red Banner. During the Second World War, T o l s t o i had ;lyery l i t t l e time for his own l i t e r a r y work. Just two months after the German invasion, when the f i r s t A l l - S l a v i c Congress met in Moscow in.August 1941,.he acted as chairman, and i n subse-quent meetings of the Congress he was the president of the Russian section. In 19 42 he assumed his l a s t governmental appointment as a member of the standing committee i n v e s t i -gating Nazi war crimes. Perhaps i t i s not too surprising that i t was during these d i f f i c u l t years of the war that T o l s t o i gained his greatest readership. A p u b l i c i s t whose a r t i c l e s appeared i n every paper of the Soviet Union, T o l s t o i strove i n his writings to expand the s p i r i t of patriotism with numerous h i s t o r i c a l asides. This, his contribution to the war e f f o r t , necessarily cut into his l i t e r a r y plans. As a r e s u l t he managed only to write a two-part play about Ivan the T e r r i b l e , and barely to make a s t a r t on the t h i r d volume of Peter the F i r s t . In 19 44 i t became known that he was dying of cancer, and he passed away on February 23, 1945. CHAPTER II SHORT STORIES HoBejuia — .ny^ inaH uiKOJia HJIH nncaTejiH. — A. H. TOJICTOK. Before he began his epic about Peter the Great i n 1929, T o l s t o i had published i n the preceding two decades a number of short s t o r i e s on h i s t o r i c a l themes. But what influenced him to write as he did and, equally important, what was his purpose i n writing these stories? At f i r s t he had l i t t l e seriousness of purpose for his chief motive was, as we s h a l l see presently, one of c u r i o s i t y about manners rather than h i s t o r i c a l causes and processes. Then, as we have seen in the preceding chapter, the revolution of 1917 supplanted this s u p e r f i c i a l i n t e r e s t in the past with a more serious concern about Russia and her future. By 1919 T o l s t o i sought to escape from the gloomy themes engendered by the revolution and the c i v i l war by writing s t o r i e s of fantasy and the power of love. But t h i s was a period of rapid change, as much for the nation as for the i n d i v i d u a l , and i t was at t h i s time that T o l s t o i began to re-examine the s o c i a l r e a l i t i e s he had so far taken for granted. When he resumed his l i t e r a r y career i n Soviet 48 Russia, his pessimistic view of Russian history was replaced with an affirmative one. But, no matter how his views or extraneous influences changed, there remained always one distinguishing feature which was evident from the beginning, and that was his g i f t for narration. In a l e t t e r to the Ukrainian writer M. M. Kotsubinskii i n 1910, Gorkii praised. Tol s t o i ' s f i r s t book of short s t o r i e s . "I am drawing to your attention," wrote G o r k i i , "Aleksei T o l s t o i ' s book i n which many of his sto r i e s have a winning q u a l i t y . He promises to become a f i r s t rate writer, r e a l l y ; " 1 A. H i s t o r i c a l F i c t i o n Before 1917. As has been noted in the preceding chapter, T o l s t o i marked the beginning of his prose writing from the summer spent i n 1909 at Voloshin's dacha. When T o l s t o i arrived there, his host was tra n s l a t i n g novellas written by the French symbolist, Henri de Regnier. How much Voloshin admired Regnier may be gleaned from the a r t i c l e he wrote i n the January, 1910 issue of Apollon i n which he heralded the appearance of a new l i t e r a r y synthesis between symbolism and impressionism. The r e s u l t of such a union Voloshin c a l l e d neo-realism, and i t s master craftsman was Henri de Regnier, But, Voloshin added, there were already neo-realists among. Russian writers: In novels and sto r i e s by Andrei B e l y i , Kuzmin, Remizov, A l e k s e i . T o l s t o i , we have already the beginnings of neo-realism, and Henri de Regnier's example w i l l help to orient ourselves. 2 50 Further, Voloshin explained that the most suitable mode of expression in neo-realism i s the anecdote, because i n just a single stroke i t can give the f u l l c h a r a c t e r i s t i c of a personality; the anecdote i s , he wrote, an instrument of the new realism. F i n a l l y , Voloshin pointed out that Regnier's favourite topic i s the eighteenth-century French aristocracy with i t s d e l i c a t e culture, sad elegance, pastoral g e n t i l i t y , and evening melancholia. In the majority of such writings, however, Voloshin observed that there i s l i t t l e mention of h i s t o r i c a l or p o l i t i c a l events; instead the " h i s t o r i c a l centre" rests on persons whose intimate l i v e s characterized the France of the ancien regime. T o l s t o i , of course, had heard t h i s expounded in the previous summer, and he acknowledged his debt to Voloshin on more than one occasion. For example, i n one of his e a r l i e s t autobiographical sketches, written in 1916, T o l s t o i r e l a t e s : He was tr a n s l a t i n g novellas written by Henri de Regnier; I was so astounded by them that I wrote three small novellas set i n the eighteenth century, s t y l i z i n g the language and the images. From the s t a r t I had found my own s t y l e . ^ T o l s t o i considered his s t a r t i n prose to be the s t o r i e s "Sorevnovatel'" (The Rival),and "Iashmovaia tetrad'" (The Jasper Notebook). These two stories he wrote at Volo-shin 's dacha, while the t h i r d , i n i t i a l l y t i t l e d "Poet zloschastnyi" (The Unfortunate Poet), was written a month or two l a t e r i n St. Petersburg. The influence of Voloshin's. 51 translations of Regnier i n these f i r s t h i s t o r i c a l anecdotes i s evident from t h e i r general eighteenth-century settings; another fact to note i s that the t i t l e of Regnier's f i r s t c o l l e c t i o n of s t o r i e s was La canne jaspe or, as i t translates into Russian, "Iashmovaia t r o s t 1 . " However, the s i m i l a r i t i e s between Regnier and T o l s t o i end here, for whereas the French author wrote i n a tone f u l l of hopeless longing for the graceful past, young T o l s t o i made a parody of this by in s e r t i n g amusing twists into his narratives. Being designed as anecdotes, these short pieces have no elaborate p l o t s , since each describes only a single i n c i -dent; there i s no development of character, and c e r t a i n l y no expression of h i s t o r i c a l concepts. In f a c t , T o l s t o i o ffers in his e a r l i e s t pieces only costume hi s t o r y , and i n t h i s respect they may be considered only p a r t i a l l y h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n . "Sorevnovatel'" and "Iashmovaia t e t r a d 1 " were published together i n the almanac Liubov' (Love), i n 1909, under the j o i n t t i t l e , "Two anecdotes about the same thing." In addition, there was a dedication to K. A. Somov, the painter who drew i d y l l i c scenes from eighteenth-century l i f e . This, f a c t also may explain the s a t i r i c a l humour in T o l s t o i ' s f i r s t h i s t o r i c a l anecdotes, since Somov, who belonged to the Mir iskusstva group, esp e c i a l l y l i k e d to i d e a l i z e in his paintings the l i f e - s t y l e of eighteenth-century gentry. 52 In "Sorevnovatel'" T o l s t o i ' s humour i s reminiscent of Gogol', p a r t i c u l a r l y i n some passages of lengthy, peripheral information. Consider the following example: — H 6 p a T , flypaK, a T H , 6 p a T , B f l B o e , H O H e ropiofi — B moptf. BtJBefly. H. MHoro3HaiHTeJ ibHO noMaxaJi TpySKoK, K O T o p a n , K a K H B e e B HHnioiiiKHHOM flOMy, 6bma K p e n K a H HBycMbicneHHa: e i o 6 H B a j i O H 6ypMHCTpa, o c e H b i o o f l H a x f l a p a c n p a B H J i c n H a npoceno^Hoft nopore c T p e M H MyjKHKaMH, H o f l H a ^ c f l b i 3 a e 3 ) K H f t scHBonHceu H3o6pa3HJi ero BepacanpiM 3 T y T p y 6 K y , K a K K o n b e , npHflaB Bcewy Buny ero O T B a r - y H BbicoKoe ^ y B C T B O . 4 There i s humour as well i n the very s i t u a t i o n that T o l s t o i has set up for his protagonists. Narcissus, a nephew who would l i k e to seduce the pretty Nasten'ka, has a r r i v a l s in his stout uncle Kobelev, a charactonym meaning a He-dog. Bows, sighs, heads carried with a s l i g h t t i l t to the shoulder, costumes, a l l r e f l e c t . t h e grace i n Regnier's stories or i n Somov's paintings. T o l s t o i , however, adds to this exterior s i m i l a r i t y some elements which simply ruin that elegant atmosphere. After an embrace, for example, a guest takes out his handkerchief to dry his cheek; Kobelev twists his moustache and croaks; to demonstrate his a g i l i t y the uncle r o l l s up his sleeves to wave a sword at his Narcissus; then he lumbers on his horse, but instead of leaping over a fence, he manages only- to knock i t down. Then to show his marksman-ship, the pudgy man shoots at a cat s i t t i n g on a gatepost, and f i n a l l y , being at a loss how else to entertain his guests, 53 Kobelev f i r e s a small brass cannon. But Kobelev loses Nas ten'ka to Narcissus anyway-. In "Iashmovai-a^jteitar^ history. Instead, there i s a pointed contrast between the strained and a r t i f i c i a l melancholia of the nobleman s t r o l l i n g about his. well-groomed lawn, and the peasants f r o l i c k i n g n aturally i n the hay across the pond. In the comical meeting between the saddened gentleman and the.simple, gay baba, T o l s t o i creates an excellent parody.of. the pastoral love which was so often depicted i n art and l i t e r a t u r e : — - B e p i o H B 3arpo6HyK) HCH3HB? —r- BooflynieBHCb 3ai30BOpHJl flBOpHHHH , A X , HHKTO He 3 H a e T , ^TO C HaMH CTaHeT nocjie .ne^aJibHoii K H S H H . riOKHHyB HH3Koe Kpec.no, OH 3axoflHJi no n a p K e T y H roBopHJi rop j rao H M H o r o , KaK HHKorna, a 6 a 6 a cj iyiuaj ia . .m. flaBaft-.yMpeM, yMpeM BMeeTe, cjiyyaKHan MOH n o f l p y r a , — . BOCKJiMKHyji OH> HaKOHeu , H. noxtOKHJi Ha ee nJie^H xojieHbie pyKH. E a 6 a ; B c n n e c H y j i a e B .H 3aroxiocHJia: )KaJIOeTHblft' TBI MOft, COKOJIHK, HTOflKa MaJlHHOBaH, c H p o T . K a 6ecTajiaHHaH. BpOBH ee nOOTPBIEHBaJIH, .JTHE.O paCCTpOHJIOCB , OflHH HOC He y^acTBOBaJi. B odmeft CKOPSH , B3HepHyBumcB KaK SyflTO erne B e c e j i e e . — YMpeM, yMpeM! j i e n e T a n XIBOPHHHH,., H Hey^ep-acHMO noTHHyjio e r o Ha y q a c T J i H B y i o : r p y f l B W 5 T o l s t o i ' s f a m i l i a r i t y with the Russian peasants' language, which l a t e r became one of his much-lauded a r t i s t i c d i s t i n c -tions , i s c l e a r l y evident i n this early anecdote. Not only i s there humour in the contrast between . the nobleman's a r t i f i c i a l i t y and the baba's naturalness, but t h e i r dialogue i s the chief instrument of that contrast. In addition, t h i s dialogue characterizes the two figures p e r f e c t l y . This second anecdote "about the same thing" concludes with the peasant woman seducing the nobleman, and thi s too becomes a parody of the works by R^gnier and Somov. "Zloschastnyi" was also written i n 1909, but was published in 1910 i n a l i t e r a r y supplement to the paper Kopeika. This anecdote i s related to the preceding two i n that i t too parodies R^gnier's sad heroes, but without contrasting them with anyone else. The narrative device i n "Zloschastnyi" i s s i m i l a r to Gogol's "Nos." An o f f i c e r , who dabbles i n poetry — thus suggesting the o r i g i n a l t i t l e , "Poet zloschastnyi" — dozes o f f into a dream. On waking he i s relieved to discover that what has happened was only a dream. At the end, the reader i s led to understand that the o f f i c e r only saw a ha l l u c i n a t i o n and that was because the poor fellow had not eaten for three days. The exaggerated fe e l i n g of a sad and f u t i l e love i s abruptly dashed i n the concluding sentence with the o f f i c e r ' s p e t i t i o n to his father asking for t h i r t y - f i v e roubles. "Katen'ka," written i n 1910, i s another love story and i n this respect may be considered thematically related to the preceding anecdotes. It was conceived about the same time as the others, that i s , i n the summer of 1909. In Voloshin's l i b r a r y T o l s t o i discovered the memoirs of a P. S. 55 Runich e n t i t l e d "Pugachevskii bunt" (The Pugachev Revolt), published i n an 1870 copy of Russkaia s t a r i n a . T o l s t o i borrowed from the account Runich's journey to a small and distant f o r t somewhere i n the steppe and his encounter with the fo r t ' s commandant. His i n t e r e s t . i n t h i s account led T o l s t o i to borrow also from Kapitanskaia Oochka. Somewhat l i k e Grinev i n Pushkin's novel, T o l s t o i ' s hero drives into the open f o r t to f i n d an old veteran s o l d i e r k n i t t i n g a sock; in.Grinev's case, the old sol d i e r was sewing a patch on his jacket. There i s a further s i m i l a r i t y with Pushkin i n that the s u b t i t l e "From an o f f i c e r ' s notes," enabled T o l s t o i to narrate his story i n the f i r s t person. But this i s not to suggest that Aleksei T o l s t o i wrote l i k e Alexander Pushkin. These are merely external s i m i l a r i t i e s , but they mark a s h i f t away from parodying Regnier to emulating Russian master narrators such as Pushkin. The s a t i r i c humour of the .previouseaneedotesaisoalsoe 'ahdiwhen mention i s made of the j o y f u l anguish of the heart, i t i s not a comical exclamation, but rather an i n t e g r a l part of the,narrator's character. Although i t has been said above that "Katen'ka" i s closely related to the preceding anecdotes, th i s judgment must be limited to t h e i r themes. In contrast to the three anecdotes, "Katen'ka," as a short story, has a broader scope and i s not confined to a single incident or to one episode. Moreover, since i t i s written as a memoir composed by one of the participants i n the action of the story, "Katen'ka" marks a further step i n T o l s t o i ' s developing narrative technique in h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n . As an excerpt from a memoir, the narrative begins with the date May 18, 1781. But as an adventurous story of how the o f f i c e r found a f a i t h f u l wife, "Katen'ka" has few indications of the h i s t o r i c a l past save references to costumes and manners contemporary to the narrator. Here i s one small excerpt from the story: Ha cjieflyiomee yTpo, BoxtHyncB, H T i n a T e x i B H o 3anjiexi KocHay, nepeBe3aB ee JieHTOH, BBI6PHJTCH H, oxopai iMBan MyHflHp, Haflyiiraj i ycb i . B CTonoBoB y caMOBapa cnp,ejia MO» B^epauiHHH BO3JII06JieHHaH , B TOM 5Ke P03 0 B O M nJiaTBe , CKPOMHO o n y c T H B r j i a 3 a . BHCOKO n o r j x B a ^ e H H b i e ee BOJIOCBI 6HIJIH H a n y n p e H H , y r j i u noHBeHeHHoroTpTapnpKnOfiH'HTfai^ HaHa jieBoK mene y Heft SHJIO' MaJieHBKoe poflHMoe IIHTHO. There follows an intrigue against the poor commandant, a clash of swords, and the winning of the lady's hand. And according to the narrator, they l i v e d happily ever after.' The material for "Portret" (Thex Portrait) , published i n 1912, i s once more a borrowing from Gogol'. Employing here the f i r s t - p e r s o n s t y l e of narration, Tolstioi, h o w e v e r , • adds a new twist. F i r s t , the author explains to the reader how, while browsing in the private l i b r a r y of the once well-to-do Count Ostaf *ev, he found a serf's diary 'containing, he discovered, an i n t e r e s t i n g history of the Count's p o r t r a i t . 57 ;: A f t e r this introduction, T o l s t o i proceeds to read d i r e c t l y from the diary, and i n thi s way the reader has now a story within a story. Such a device, s i m i l a r to the introduction to Pushkin's "Tales of Belkin," encourages the reader to think that the diary i s an authentic h i s t o r i c a l document. There i s dramatic irony i n the serf's description of a stranger, in whom the reader recognizes Gogol'. This too adds to the atmosphere of authenticity. UnMke the memoir "Katen'ka," where a happy past i s rec a l l e d , the a r t i s t ' s diary reveals his anguish which springs from the knowledge that upon completion of his work in St. Petersburg he must return to his previous bondage. In this way T o l s t o i has given a new dimension to his story by unveiling, even though b r i e f l y , the inner world of his a r t i s t - s e r f : H 3acHyji TOJIOBOH Ha TeTpaflH. CBe^a HaropeJia TPH6OM. . . B nonHo^b H npocHyjicH, CHHJI CO CBeiH, 3anyji ee K Jier, 3Han, ^TO HO yxpa 6yflyT MV^IHTB CHH. BeflB CKOJIBKO yroflHo H Mory BHfleTi ce6n BO cHe CBo6oflHbiM, BHfleTL ce6H cJiaBHbiM npyroM caMoro HBaHOBa... TeM xysce 6yneT npo6y»fleHHe . . . ^ On the other hand, a sense of re a l history i s created with the appearance of Gogol' After he becomes acquainted with the a r t i s t ' s s i t u a t i o n , he promises to come again, as he does. E a r l i e r , the reader might have thought that T o l s t o i ' s stranger was rather l i k e Gogol', but after his second v i s i t t h i s becomes perf e c t l y clear. The d i a r i s t "5.'8 continues: H nocnenmji B b i p a 3 H T B xHBeftinyio paflocTL ero n p H x o n y , HO rocTB nepeSHJi MeHH: — Bbi nocJiyinaflTe nepByio ^ a c T B n o B e c T H , oHa eine n e p e n e j i a e T C H MHoro p a 3 . . . — HacynHBiuHCB, OH n o r j i H f l e j i H a MeHH, noflOflBHHyjr n o f l C B e i H H K , KanuiHHyji H npo^eji r j i y x H M TOJIOCOM: — „ I I o p T p e T " . . . „ I I o p T p e T " , — noBTopHJi'OH , ^y f lHo y c M e x a n c B . ..HHrne CTOJIBKO H e ocTaHaBJiHBajiocB Hapo,n;a, KaK nepen KapTHHHoio jiaBKOw Ha HJyKHHOM flBope. flnn MeHH AO CHX nop 3 a r a f l K a — KTO nocTaBJ ineT cwfla CBOH npoH3BefleHHH, KaKHe mop,n, KaKoio ueHoio. . . By reproducing the f i r s t lines of the o r i g i n a l "Portret," T o l s t o i i d e n t i f i e s the stranger as N i k o l a i Vasiltemch Gogol 1 without having to actually name him. But this dramatic irony.does not continue for long, and the serf soon discovers his v i s i t o r ' s i d e n t i t y . By means of a clever introduction to the diary,- and such a seemingly accidental revelation of a h i s t o r i c a l personage, T o l s t o i offers his readers an imaginary history of how Gogol' came to write his "Portret." B. The Revolution and Peter the Great. Afte r "Portret," h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n as a part of T o l s t o i ' s writing was put aside temporarily, for having found what he considered to be his own theme, T o l s t o i began to concentrate on the Zavolzh'e s t o r i e s , and similar plays and novels. These are merciless portrayals of contemporary samodur (petty tyrant) types who s t i l l populated the Russian provinces. By the time T o l s t o i began to exhaust his /„v Zavolzh'e theme, the f i r s t world war broke out. T o l s t o i saw b a t t l e as a newspaper correspondent, and t h i s experience offered him a temporary topic for his l i t e r a r y sketches. These short pieces reveal a man who admired and sympathized with the f r o n t - l i n e s o l d i e r s . Moreover, he. hoped that the suffering of the war would regenerate Russian society and that this in turn would allow Russia to f u l f i l l at l a s t i t s Slavophile mission. The inept t s a r i s t regime disappointed T o l s t o i i n t h i s respect and that i s why he welcomed the collapse of the monarchy and ha i l e d the Provi-s i o n a l Government. But the ensuing anarchy and revolution drew T o l s t o i to h i s t o r y , and s p e c i f i c a l l y to the topic of Peter the Great. He explained that he was attracted to Peter i n s t i n c t i v e l y rather than consciously because he was seeking at the time "an answer to the puzzle of the Russian 9 people, and Russian statehood." On d i f f e r e n t occasions T o l s t o i gave d i f f e r e n t dates for the b i r t h of his i n t e r e s t i n Tsar Peter. For example, in his l a s t autobiographical sketch, written i n 1943, he informed the reader that "In the f i r s t months following the February revolution I turned to the theme of Peter the Great.""^ In 1929, however, he gave a d i f f e r e n t time. "At the end of 1916," he wrote i n an a r t i c l e , "Kak my pishem" (How we write)> the late h i s t o r i a n V. V. Kallash, having learned of my plans to write about Peter I, provided me with a book. This was Professor Novombergskii's compilations •60 ' of notes taken during tortures i n the seventeenth century, the so-called "Slova i dela. It i s i n t e r e s t i n g to note that T o l s t o i said i n t h i s a r t i c l e that i n 1916 he planned to write a novel about Peter, whereas what he started to write i n 1929 was i n fact a povest' or novella. With respect to Novombergskii 1s book, however> i t i s d i f f i c u l t to underestimate i t s value to T o l s t o i . In recording the exact, or nearly exact, utterances of a poor wretch suspended from a rack, the scribes performed, i n a manner of speaking, a major l i t e r a r y task: In the transcripts of t r i a l s (tortures), the language was precise; there they did not shy away from "lowly" speech. There the popular Rus' t o l d i t s s t o r i e s , groaned, l i e d , howled from pain and fear. The language was clear, simple, exact, picturesque, supple, as i f purposely created for great a r t . I was excited by the discovery of this treasure, and so I decided to try an experiment, and I wrote the story "Navazhdenie" (Delusion) . -*-2 • Unfortunately, Aleksei T o l s t o i frequently neglected to date.his manuscripts and t h i s has resulted i n a measure of uncertainty as to the exact time of t h e i r writing. While-both l u . A. K r e s t i n s k i i and A. V. Alpatov agree on the order i n which the f i r s t stories on the Petrine theme were written, they cannot give any s p e c i f i c dates. The accepted order i n which the stories are supposed to have been written has been established as "Pervye t e r r o r i s t y , " "Navazhdenie," and "Den' Petra." This sequence i s suggested by the progressive com-plex i t y of each story, "Pervye t e r r o r i s t y " being described by Alpatov as almost a raw document, and."Den1 Petra" as an example of the subtlest l i t e r a r y treatment. Then, judging from the information given i n N. V. Krandievskaia's memoirs, T o l s t o i probably wrote "Pervye t e r r o r i s t y " either i n the summer or i n the f a l l of 1917. The time of writing of "Navazhdenie" and "Den' Petra," however, i s much more d i f f i c u l t to determine. From what has been established, one must conclude that T o l s t o i was i n error when he claimed that "Navazhdenie" was his f i r s t story since his reading of Novombergskii's book of t r a n s c r i p t s . This conclusion i s further supported by the account he offered concerning the history of "Navazhdenie": This story I read at public lectures during my travels about c i t i e s i n the f a l l of 1918. But the manuscript was l o s t and two months l a t e r , when preparing a book of sto r i e s for publication in Odessa, I r e c a l l e d the story completely (leaving out just one part of a few l i n e s ) . ! 3 It may very well be that 'Tolstoi forgot a l l about his f i r s t "experiment," "Pervye t e r r o r i s t y " since i t was published only once during the writer's l i f e t i m e . Its second publica-t i o n occurred only i n 1957 i n a book dedicated to the works of A. N. T o l s t o i . 1 ^ "Pervye t e r r o r i s t y " was f i r s t published in the,Moscow paper Vecherniaia zhizn' on A p r i l 16, 1918. "Navazhdenie," say the editors of the book A. N. T o l s t o i : seminarii, was o r i g i n a l l y published in theamagazine Vozrozhdenie, No. 6, on June 8, 1918. For some reason, though, other Russian scholars ignore th i s information and state that the f i r s t publication of "Navazhdenie" was indeed, in the Odessa book of T o l s t o i ' s stories whose t i t l e was, i n c i d e n t a l l y , Navazhdenie: rasskazy 1917-1918 gg. "Den' Petra" was o r i g i n a l l y published in the,Petrograd almanac Skr i z h a l ' , No. 1, in July 1918, although i t too was included intthe book, Navazhdenie: rasskazy 1917-1918gg. "Pervye t e r r o r i s t y " carries the s u b t i t l e "Izvlecheniia i z del Preobrazhenskogo prikaza" (Excerpts from cases of the Preobrazhensk O f f i c e ) , which reveals at once that the source for t h i s story was Novombergskii's book, Siovo 1 delo gosudarevy. Although the content of th i s story i s s i m i l a r to a case found i n Slo.vo 1 delo i t shows, nevertheless, T o l s t o i ' s judicious use of the language. Taking examples of idiomatic speech from a few case h i s t o r i e s , he was able to modify the language in such a way that i t echoes the h i s t o r i c a l past, but at the same time remains comprehensible to the contemporary reader. Further, T o l s t o i retained to a high degree that impersonal, o f f i c i a l s t y l e and tone that characterizes the tr a n s c r i p t s of the Tsar's secret chancellery: K npnKa3HOMy flBHKy ®OKHHy B npeo6pa>KeHCKHH npHKa3, 1T O Ha JlK)6HHCKOfi, HBHJICH CaflOBHHK T a H K a PH6HUIHH, KpHKHyji 3a CO6OH CJIOBO H HeJio rocynapeBO, H noflaJi nHCbMO, cepoB SyMarn, noflMo^eHHoe H noMHToe.^ 63 The l e t t e r , which was c i r c u l a t e d by a wandering p r i e s t , instructed how to r i d the country of the Tsar and his Tsarevich, explaining: HbiHe HyacHo rocyflapH H 3 B e c T H , a TO Bee 6yfleM ero xoJionaMH, H BOJIBHUX jnoflefi He Synei, a BOJiBHbie jaojxa 6yffi/T HeMeuKHe H ro'JinaHflCKHe, H Bee MH nponafleM.^^ After the possessors of the l e t t e r were brought to the chancellery, and after the proper tortures were applied to the accused, as well as to the informer, the case was closed: EpaTBeB TeJIBHblX Ka3HHTB CMepTBB OTpySHTB roJiOBbi, a HMeHbe HX H ECHBOTBI B3HTB B K a 3 H y . OeflOCBK) 6HTB KHVTOM HeiHaflHO H COCJiaTB B XCeHCKHH MOHacTbipb H a rofl. H3BeT^HKa, TaHKy PH6HiiiHHa, Harpaf lHTB H BbmaTb eMy na^nopT H a Bee ^eTbipe CTOPOHBI . BbimeynoMHHyToro yme 6poflH^:ero nona AxieKceH p a 3 b i c K a T B , H, Haiif l f l aaKOBaTb B KaHflajibi H Becra e BeJiHKHM 6epe)KeHHeM B ripeobpaaceHCKHH n p H K a 3 , Ha KoeK po3bicK BbinaHo Ka3eHHbix neHer nHTB pySxieB H TPH rpHBHbi I t i s an i n d i c a t i o n of the author's keen sense of language that "Pervye t e r r o r i s t y " reads l i k e an authentic document. The dated syntax, frequent conjunctions which lengthen sentences, and expressions such as, Ka3HHTB CMepTbio, WHBOTH B3HTB B K a 3 H y , H 3 B e T i H K a . . . HarpaflHTB H BbiflaTB eMy n a i n o p T Ha B e e *ieTbipe CTOPOHH, n H T B py6JieB H TPH TPHBHH, create, by t h e i r obsolescence, an atmosphere of a distant past. But i t must be stressed that this was not achieved by simply copying from Novombergskii, but rather by c a r e f u l l y blending contemporary Russian with the o f f i c i a l s t y l e of the 6 4 e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y c h a n c e l l e r y . In Novombergskii 1s book, the case headed "Delo ob ieromonakhe Sevskogo monastyria Nikadore, prislannom i z Monastyrskogo v P r e o b r a z h e n s k i i P r i k a z , v s l e d s t v i e ob'iav-l e n i i a im za soboiu gosudareva d e l a " (The Case of ther;mdnk Nikador from the S e v s k i i monastery who was brought to the Ereoba?azhensk o f f i c e because he had some i n f o r m a t i o n concerning the Tsar) was the source f o r T o l s t o i ' s second s t o r y of t h i s p e r i o d , "Navazhdenie." But u n l i k e "The F i r s t T e r r o r i s t s , " t h i s s t o r y i s n a r r a t e d i n the f i r s t person, thus a l l o w i n g T o l s t o i t o employ an easy, c o n v e r s a t i o n a l s t y l e . The f i r s t - p e r s o n s t y l e of n a r r a t i o n a l s o allows him to use the language c o n t a i n e d i n the t r a n s c r i p t , but without t h a t o f f i c i a l , impersonal tone. In t h i s manner, the n a r r a t o r not only r e l a t e s a s t o r y , but a l s o r e v e a l s something of h i m s e l f : BbiJi H B T y n o p y nocjiyniHHKOM B C n a c c K O M MOHacTbipe, neji Ha Kjrapoce TOHKHM TOJIOCOM. 3HMy nponoeniB — HH^ero, a nocjie BeraiKoro nocTa — MaeTa: OT nJioTH Kosca o c T a H e T C H H a KOCTHX. CTOHHIB, CTOHIIIB BCIO HOIB H a KJiHpoce, — H n o n j i b i B e T nyuia nap, C B e ^ a M H , K a K KJiy6 J i a ^ a H a . . . H cnaf lKo H 3Hato,. r p e x . A 3a OKH3MH 6epe3bi Ha6yxjiH, HOMB 3Be3f lHaH, — B e c H a K caMOMy . xpaMy noflCTynnjia. MOIH H e T ! ^ " The n a r r a t o r , a n o v i c e monk, r e l a t e s how once by chance he had met Kochubei, and had become momentarily i n f a t u a t e d w i t h h i s daughter, Matrena. But although i n the n a r r a t i v e there appear such h i s t o r i c a l personages as hetman Mazepa, Kochubei, 65 his wife and his daughter, and although they may remind the reader of Pushkin's "Poltava," the h i s t o r i c a l events associ-ated with these people are moved to the background i n To l s t o i ' s story. By pivoting the plo t around the young monk's att r a c t i o n to Matrena, T o l s t o i s h i f t s the emphasis i n the document and gives an e n t i r e l y d i f f e r e n t treatment to the h i s t o r i c a l material at his disposal. The following extracts w i l l serve to i l l u s t r a t e how the writer's imagina-tion enhances the "raw document." The f i r s t i s taken from the actual testimony of the monk i n Slovo i delo gosudarevy: . . . H npHiueE B E a T y p H H , ceitH Ha 6a3ape, Ha nxtoinaflH, 3a ropoflOM, B03Jie 3eMJisHoro BaJiy, Ha CKdMBHX, KOTOpHe 6blJIH B TOprOBOe BpeMH B LUHHKaXJ H yBH^ H HX c^epKauieHHH 6aTypHHCKHH Ka3aK, a HMeHH H npo3BHiua He 3 H a e T , a y3HaeT B nnu,o, H npHinen K HHM cnpocHJi: KTO OHH TaKOBBi H OTKyfla? H OHH eMy CKa3a-JIHCB H3 CeBcna C n a c c K o r o MOHacTbipn, 6BIJIH B K n e B e . H TOT fle Ka3aK no3Baji HX K HaKa3HOMy reTMaHy K BacHJTBio KynySeio, a TOBOPHJI HM, ITO OH reTMaH K y y y 6 e H , K CTpaHHbIM H npOXOHCHM JlIOflKM MHJIOCTHB H nOflaeT noflanHHe MHJIOCTHIHIO. H OHH, no TeM cjioBaM npHiueB K BacHJibeBy flOMy Ky^ySen, . . . 2 0 T o l s t o i takes t h i s material, t h i s simple testimony, and through dialogue converts i t into v i v i d drama: . . . q e r o TOJIBKO H e T B BaTypHHe! BeK 6bi TSK npocHfleji Ha JiaBKe. noflxoflHT K HaM Ka3aK HeSojiBiuoro p o c T a , xynoinaBHH: cexi pHflOM Ha JiaBKy, TJIKHHT, yc Ha^ iaJi aceBaTB. A BHHa y Hac B CKJiHHKe eiqe nonoBHHa ocTajiacB. —Bbi, — cnpauiHBaeT KasaK, — He 3fleuiHHe, MocKajiH? H eMy OTBe^aw TOHKHM TOJIOCOM, BexniHBo: — CoBepmeHHO B e p H o ; MH H3 BeJiHKOH POCCHH, CTpaHHbie JiiOflH, HfleM B nemepbi, K CBHTHTCJTHM. — A BHHO, — cnpauttiBaeT K a 3 a K , — BH noieM y uiHHKapn 6pajiH? TyT eMy HHKanop OTBe^aeT erne oname: — Ha KoneftKy SpaJ iH, CHHOK. A TH He TOMHCB, OTKymaft c HaMH. H nonaeT eMy BHHO H pbi6bio roJiOBy no>KeBaTb. Ka3aK P,0 flOHBIUJK a CKJIHHKy BblTHHyjI, CTpHXHyjI KartJIH B T p a B y , pbi6bio roJiOBy nosceBaji H nonceji dJiuxe: —' Bnyny H , — flonofljraHHO BBI JTK>,OH HyxoBHbie , o6bi^aH y B a c He BopoBCKoii, He TH^cejibiH. Ha^o 6H BaM K HauieMy aTaMaHy 3 a H T H . OH no CTpaHHUx xaoflen MHJIOCTHB H nOflaeT MHJIOCTfcJHK) . ^TQ 3Ke , eCJTH MHJIOCTHB, MO)KHO H 33HTH K a T a M a H y , — TOBOPHT HHKaflop. — C o 6 H p a H , P y 6 a H K a , KPOIIIKH B MemoK . 2 J-"Navazhdenie" was hardly altered since i t s f i r s t w r i t i n g . The t i t l e T o l s t o i used o r i g i n a l l y was "Lunnyi svet (Moonlight), a suggestion perhaps of the story^s romantic atmosphere. But i n 1918 the author crossed out "Lunnyi svet and gave the story i t s present t i t l e . In Slovo i delo, the two monks delivered Kochubei's denunciation of Mazepa to Moscow, and from Moscow they were transferred-for further interrogation to Smolensk. In his manuscript, however, T o l s t o i has the monks taken from Moscow to St. Petersburg. Choosing St. Petersburg may mean that T o l s t o i was already planning his next story, which was set i n the new c a p i t a l . In any event, when i t came to publication, he again changed the locale f o r theiinterrogation of the monks to Smolensk. It has been noted that T o l s t o i said that he was drawn to the Petrine period because he saw i n i t a key to under-standing the present, to understanding the Russian people and Russian statehood. The question then arises: What can be discerned from these two s t o r i e s : The answer i s , as far as " F i r s t t e r r o r i s t s " and "Delusion" are concerned, very l i t t l e , because the two stories represent To l s t o i ' s i n t e r e s t i n the language of the period rather than i t s history i n a broader sense. Nevertheless, the reader can f i n d signs i n the stories that point to the author's antipathy to the Bolsheviks. F i r s t of a l l , the very appearance of a story i n a paper i n A p r i l 1918, with a headline reading " F i r s t t e r r o r i s t s " must have seemed to many as an obvious a l l u s i o n to the contemporary s i t u a t i o n . There was a further p a r a l l e l suggested by the reference to the disappearance of freedom for Russians while German and Dutch intruders would become masters. In the spring of 1918, when so much Russian t e r r i -tory was under German occupation, "Pervye t e r r o r i s t y " must have seemed l i k e a close p a r a l l e l indeed. In "Navazhdenie" the narrator&spp.e'rs'onalsexperiences reveal the dangers and hardships i n the time of Peter I. But though he was pressed into the army and cr u e l l y beaten for desertion, he s t i l l managed to gain l i t e r a c y . "B TO BpeMH MO)KHO 6bl.no H3 npOCTblX B JIMflH B b l X O f l H T B , H H n e p B V K ) HaiUHBKy noJiy^HJi B 6aTajiHH, Korna M H 6HJIH r e H e p a j i a J l eBeHraynTa," he 22 adds. This l a s t admission r e f l e c t s in a small way the e g a l i t a r i a n element that was present in Peter's reign as well . In the next story, "Den' Petra," T o l s t o i paints on a 6 8 broader h i s t o r i c a l canvas with a more c l e a r l y expressed p a r a l l e l with current events. In an interview given in 1933, T o l s t o i explained that his f i r s t story about Tsar Peter was patterned after D. S. Merezhkovskii 1s book, - A n t i k h r i s t (Petr i A l e k s e i ) , reminding his audience that there was i n "Peter's Day" a heavy concen-t r a t i o n on the Tsar's negative t r a i t s . It should be pointed out, however, that while Merezhkovskii drew attantion to Peter's bad q u a l i t i e s , he d i d not r e a l l y deny Peter his attributes as a h i s t o r i c a l personage. For T o l s t o i , though, Merezhkovskii's concept of history was more important, and that was that history moved in cycles and repeated i t s e l f . This notion of history repeating i t s e l f suited T o l s t o i ' s l i t e r a r y purpose. To accomplish this purpose T o l s t o i could not l i m i t himself to the depiction of the Tsar as, f o r example, Boris P i l n i a k d i d inhhis story "Ego velichestvo, Kneeb P i t e r Komondor" which was published in 1919. In his story, T o l s t o i broadened the background by r a i s i n g the pro and contra of the polemic - surrounding Peter the Great. This may be seen i n the d u a l i t y of the chief protagonist. On the one hand, Peter i s depicted as a cruel and coarse man, but on the other hand, there i s a d i s c e r n i b l e sense of i n e v i t a b i l i t y and even a f e e l i n g of h i s t o r i c a l progress brought to Russia through the e f f o r t s of t h i s same Peter. 69 "Den1 Petra," as the t i t l e suggests, describes a single day i n the l i f e of the Tsar, but the general impres-sion created by T o l s t o i i s not so much one of a working monarch, but rather one of a s e l f i s h and s o l i t a r y tyrant. T o l s t o i frequently i n t e r j e c t s into his narrative h i s t o r i c a l commentaries which generally tend to support the negative image of Peter. And yet there i s a substantial difference between Tolstoi's Peter and P i l n i a k ' s . That difference i s found i n the fact that P i l n i a k refused to concede anything to his central f i g u r e , stressing exclusively the Tsar's extremes: H M n e p a T o p , SoJiBine B c e r o XOO6HBUIHH n e 6 o n i , MceHHBiunHCH Ha npocTHTyKe, HaJioscHHu,e MeHBuiHKOBa, — •yejiOBeK c HfleajiaMH K a s a p M . Tejio 6bino orpoMHbiM, He^HCTbiM, O^eHB nOTJXHBblM, H e C K J i a f l H b l M , K O C O J i a n H M , T O H K O H O r H M , npoefleHHHM axiKoroJieM, T a 6 a K O M H CH$HJIHCOM. C roflaMH Ha K p y r j i o M , K p a c H O M , 6 a 6 B e M JiHije O6BHCJIH taeKH, OBPH6JIH KpacHbie r y 6 b i , CBHCJIH KpacHbie — B C H $ H J l H C e SB e K H , H e 3 aKpblBaJlHCB n J I O T H O , H H 3 ~ 3 a HHX rjiHflejiH 6 e 3 y M H H e , nBHHbie, flHoe, aeTCKHe r . n a 3 a , TaKHe-ace, KSKHMH rnnflHT peSeHOK Ha KoniKy, BKaJibiBaH B Hee Hrjiy . . . T o l s t o i , on the other hand, never goes to the l i m i t s reached by P i l n i a k : B T e M H o f i H HH3KOH K O M H a T e 6HJI cjibiuieH x p a n , r y C T O H , TpVflHblH, C n p H C B H C T a M H , C K J l O K O T a H H e M . Ilaxjio T a 6 a K O M , BHHHBIM neperapoM H acapKo H a T o n -jreHHOH ne^BK). BHe3anHo xpaneBiiiHH CTaJi 3 a 6 n p a T B HHace, xpHrrae H o 6 o p B a j i ; 3a ^ M O K a j i r y S a M H , 3 a 6 o p M a T a j i , H Ha^aj icH KanieJiB, T a 6 a ^ i H b i H , nepenoftHbifl. OTKanuiHBiiiHCB, • "ipnoHyji: K.VH:-Ha :aacfcpHn.eBiaea: K P O B a T H ceji ^ejioBeK. B eflBa 3a6pe3>KHBiueM CBeTe, CKBO3B flJiHHHoe H y 3 K o e OKOIUKO c vacTbiM nepenJ ieTOM, MOXCHO 6HTIO pac-CMOTpeTb o6pK>3raiee, 6oJibinoe JIHUO B KOJinaK-e, npHflH TeMHHx canbHbix BOJIOC H MHTyw pySaxy, paccTer-HyTyio Ha p p y f l H . 2 4 T h i s i n t r o d u c t i o n t o P e t e r , f o l l o w e d b y t h e o b s e q u i o u s b e h a v i o u r o f h i s m i n i s t e r s , t e n d s t o e v o k e an u n s y m p a t h e t i c i m p r e s s i o n o f t h e T s a r . B u t f r o m s u c h a b e g i n n i n g i n w h i c h P e t e r ' s p e r s o n a l q u a l i t i e s a p p e a r c o a r s e a n d u n a t t r a c t i v e , T o l s t o i p r o c e e d s t o m i t i g a t e t h a t i m p r e s s i o n b y l i s t i n g t h e many t a s k s t h a t P e t e r h a d t o a t t e n d t o p e r s o n a l l y . T h e v a r i e t y o f t h e s e t a s k s s u g g e s t s t o t h e r e a d e r t h a t P e t e r i s t h e s i n g l e d r i v i n g f o r c e b e h i n d t h e t r a n s f o r m a t i o n o f R u s s i a . T h u s , w h i l e P i l n i a k c o n c e n t r a t e s h i s c r i t i c i s m on t h e T s a r ' s s e n s e l e s s l i f e , h i s " p l a y i n g a t E u r o p e , " T o l s t o i ' s c r i t i c i s m 25 i s much l e s s s u b j e c t i v e . T o l s t o i f o u n d P e t e r ' s m o t i v e s f o r r e f o r m i n g R u s s i a q u e s t i o n a b l e , a n d c l a i m e d t h a t he was j e a l o u s o f t h e E u r o p e a n m o n a r c h s whom he h a d v i s i t e d . H o w e v e r , T o l s t o i a l s o h i n t s a t t h e h i s t o r i c a l n e c e s s i t y f o r t h e c h a n g e s t h a t P e t e r i n t r o d u c e d : [,fla noJiHo 6biTb B HaBOJKfleHHH — xoTe j i JIH .ijodpa POCCHH u a p b n e r p ? ] ITO Sbina POCCHH e M y , uapio , x o 3 H H H y , 3aropeBiueMycH HOcaflOH H peBHOCTbio: KaK STO — flBop e r o n CKOT , SaT-paKH H Bee XO3HHCTBO xyxce, r j i y n e e c o c e f l C K o r o ? [0 n o 6 p e JIH nyMaji XO3HHH, Korf la ] c nepeKoiueHHbiM OT r-HeBa H HeTepneHHH JIHUOM npHCKaKaj i XO3HHH H3 roj inaHflHH B M o c K B y , B cTapbift, J ieHHBHH, npaBOCJiaBHHH TOpOfl , C KOJIOKOJIbHblM THXHM 3BOHOM, C nOBaJIHBIUHMHCH 3 a 6 o p a M H , C K a JIH H aMH H , IteBKaMH y B O P O T , C KHTaHGKHMH , HHflHHCKHMH, nepCHfl-CKHMH KynUaMH y KpeMJieBCKOH CTeHbl, C KOpOBaMH H ApaHHMH nonaMH Ha nJioinaflHx, c npeMynpHMH 6onpaMH, CO CTpe.JIbU.OBCK OH , BOJTHHUeH . [Pa3Be MHJIOH 6bijia e M y , poflHoft — POCCHH? C J1106OBB10 H CK. op 6 BIO npHineJi OH?] HajieTeji flocaflHHH, [ K a K H C T p e 6 ] — Hiiib y r o f l b e KaKoe n o c T a J i o c b B yp,en, He TO, ^TO y Kyp$ iopcTa S p a H n e H b y p r c K o r o , y TOJI-j i a H n c K o r o n r r a T r a J i B T e p a ; 2 6 The pdtcifeutrp . t h a t ' T ^ t e t b i ;e©njures up i s s u c h that the r e a d e r f e e l s some s y m p a t h y for Peter's d e s i r e to' c o n v e r t h i s old, Orthodox, r a g g e d Russia into a n e a t , c l e a n , and c i v i l i z e d HSlland. But b y posing s u c h r h e t o r i c a l questions as, "Did Peter wish Russia w e l l ? " and "What was Russia to h i m , t h e t s a r , t h e master?" T o l s t o i a l s o s u g g e s t s t h a t Peter did n o t l o v e the c o u n t r y whose l o t i t was to f a l l i n t o h i s h a n d s . I t i s w o r t h y of note t h a t the published version of the passage q u o t e d a b o v e h a s deleted s e v e r a l of the p h r a s e s w h i c h t e n d e d to make Peter appear i n a grimmer l i g h t . T h u s t h e question of whether o r n o t Peter loved t h e c o u n t r y he ruled i s made l e s s poignant without a f f e c t i n g t h e central issue: did Peter's revolution accomplish any good? T o l s t o i a n s w e r s i n t h e n e g a t i v e . Using Pushkin's m e t a p h o r , "The axe of the t s a r c u t a w indow o n t o Europe," he a d d s t h a t i t was c u t " t h r o u g h the v e r y b o n e s and f l e s h of t h e p e o p l e , " t h u s 2 7 s a c r i f i c i n g t h e i r w e l f a r e to t h e i n t e r e s t s of t h e s t a t e . But Peter's e f f o r t s r e s u l t e d i n f a i l u r e : " Ho Bee «e cjiyMKJiocb He TO, i e r o xoTeji ropjJBiH I l eTpj POCCHH He BoniJia, HapHflHan H cHJibHan,HHannppBBe.HHKHX flepacaB,. A noflTHHyTan HM 3a BOJIOCBI, oKpoBaBJieHHan H o6e3yMeBuiaH OT yacaca H oT^anHHH, npef lCTaj ia HOBBIM pOflCTBeHHHKSM B 5KaJlKOM H HepaBHOM BHfle paSOHTs. 7 2 H C K O J i B K p 6ta H e rpeMejra rpo3Ho pyccKHe nyuiKH, noBejrocB, ^TO pa6cKOH H yHHaceHHOH 6buia nepef l BceM MHPOM BeJIHKaH C T p a H a , paCKHHyBIIiaHCH OT BHCJIBI flO KHTaHCKOH CTeHbl. [BO TJiaBy HMnepHH JierjIH H e H a B H C T B , K P O B B , H p a 6 C T B O.]28 I t was a noble e f f o r t , concludes T o l s t o i , but i t was doomed to f a i l u r e because Peter had assumed "a superhuman task: one for a l l . " The Tsar's opposition to the people i s highlighted by the scene of Varlaam's interrogation i n the Secret Chan-c e l l e r y . The old-believer, who was t e l l i n g the people that Peter was an impostor and the A n t i c h r i s t , when asked by the Tsar to name his friends, could only reply, " A l l Russia i s my fr i e n d . " Here again, language i s an important means for re-creating the h i s t o r i c a l past. By manipulating language, p a r t i c u l a r l y the d i r e c t speech of peasant labourers, T o l s t o i i s able to demonstrate the h o s t i l i t y o f the people toward Peter: BpeuiB! r o c y n a p n Hamero y HeMueB noflMeHHJiH, a STOT He r o c y ^ a p B , a a B e ^ a c a M BHflejr, — y H e r o JiHua H e T , a JIHUO y H e r o He ^ e j r o B e ^ e c K o e, H OH roJ iOBy flepraeT H rjia3aMH B e p i H T , H ero 3eMJiH He flepacHT, r H e i c n . Befla, 6eua Bceft 3 e M J i e pyccKofi! 06MaHyjiH H a c , npaBoc j iaBHHe 1 . . . 2 ^ T o l s t o i provides another sample o f l i n g u i s t i c history by i n s e r t i n g a couple of Peter's own proclamations: BblTB B C e M , CKaKaTB n o n My3BIKy BOJIBHO, n H T B , KypHTB T a S a K , a 6yflH, KTO He HBHTCH — n.apcKHH r H e B JHOTBIH. HHIJ; nepef l r o c y f l a p e M , HAH no e r o r o c y f l a p e B O H H a n o 6 -HOCTH, H e n a f l a T B , a CHHTB iummy, H, CTOH, r ^ e OCTaHOBHJICH , 6bITB B npHCTOHHOM BHfle , IIOKyna O H , rocynapB, npoHTH He HBBOJIHT.^O This i n v i t a t i o n to a b a l l and an ordinance concerning 1J. behaviour i n the presence of the sovereign may be at once recognized as written i n the o f f i c i a l , bureaucratic language of the Petrine period. Although T o l s t o i presents Peter's strength of w i l l and tremendous energy as commendable q u a l i t i e s , his f i n a l judgment i n "Peter's Day" remains c r i t i c a l and accusatory. Peter's sweeping reforms appear i n the story as i c o n o c l a s t i c p o l i c i e s with anti-national features. The people, as they are presented i n T o l s t o i ' s i n t e r j e c t i o n s , appear p r a c t i c a l l y as guardians of those national c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s that the Tsar wishes to destroy. In this story T o l s t o i did much more than simply relate a day's a c t i v i t y in the l i f e of Tsar Peter. By choosing St. Petersburg at the time of i t s construction, he succeeded i n emphasizing the extreme hardships that had become the l o t of the Russian people. In tr y i n g to explain the background and the cause of these hardships and suffer-ings , T o l s t o i attempted a broad generalization of l i f e during the reign of Peter the Great. He addressed the reader d i r e c t l y by means of a series of rhetorical^coften emotionally-charged questionswwihichcco.uEdjtjiustaaseeas'ily be applied to what was happening i n Russia i n 1918. In thi s fashion, T o l s t o i drew a p a r a l l e l between Peter's destruction of Muscovite Rus' and the Bolshevik destruction of the Russian s t a t e . C. Stories of Fantasy: " S i n i t s a " (The Titmouse) i s another story that was written about the same time as the preceding one. Dedicated to his wife, "Grafine N. V. T o l s t o i " (she had recently given b i r t h to a son, N i k i t a ) , "The Titmouse" i s a s t o r y of a mother's love and s a c r i f i c e for her beloved son. It was published f o r the f i r s t time i n 1918, i n book one of the magazine Epokha. This i s unusual as a piece of h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n f or two reasons. I t i s the only one T o l s t o i wrote i n which the story takes place i n Kievan Rus', and i t i s told i n a s t y l e reminiscent of an o r a l folk t a l e , or skazka, as i t i s c a l l e d i n Russian: HH^iero He acajieJi HJIH HaTaJ iBH, HJIH MHJIOH CBoen XOTH, KHH3B ^[ypHJi: BbicTpoHJi T e p e M nocpeflH ropoflHina, Ha 6yrpe Me^ny C T a p u x KJieHOB; nocTaBHJi H a BHTBIX CTOJi6ax BfaicoKoe KPHUIBIJO, rjj;e c n f l e T t . 6HJIO He c K y i H O , ynpacHJi ero 30JIOTOH MaKOBKofi , ^TO6H H3flaJieKa r o p e j i a O H a , K a K 3Be3Jj;a, nap. KHHTHHHHOH CBeTJiHuen. B TepeMe 3a*iajia HaTaJiBH H poflHJia xo3HHHy CHHS 3apncJiaBa. EMJIO eMy HbiHe TPH 3HMbi H TPH jiyHHbix MecHna. JIKI6HJI KHH3B aceHy H CHHS H uiyMHoro cJiOBa, HM He CKa3aJi BO BOO 6HTHOCTB.31 The a r c h i t e c t u r a l d e scription, with words such as "terem." " s v e t l i t s a , " the names of the prince and the boy, and the 75 manner i n which his age i s given, a l l suggest the Kievan period. But as i n a f a i r y t a l e , h i s t o r i c a l elements recede and elements of the Skazka dominate i n " S i n i t s a . " The narration i s terse, interspersed with b i t s of dialogue. T o l s t o i also weaves elements of the supernaturaiLiinto the r e a l i s t i c f a b r i c of the story. As a loving mother, Princess Natal'ia suffers three deaths for the sake of her son. F i r s t she dies i n an attack on the town by the Chud'. Then, in order to bring Prince C h u r i l back from the hunt quickly so that he may rescue t h e i r son, the Princess' s p i r i t i s transformed into a deer, and the animal s a c r i f i c e s i t s e l f to Prince C h u r i l . F i n a l l y , to be near her son, the s p i r i t enters a titmouse, but the b i r d too i s accidentally k i l l e d , and by her own Zariaslav, much to his g r i e f . In Odessa, where he had f l e d in the summer of 1918, T o l s t o i returned -to the theme of revolution only i n the play Smert' Dantona (The Death of Danton). He also wrote the play Liubov'—— kniga z o l o t a i a (Love Is a Golden Book), the plo t otfr which i s based on an anecdote taken from the time of Catherine the Great. During the same period, T o l s t o i made a st a r t on another.play which was to be t i t l e d "Graf K a l i o s t r o " (Count C a g l i o s t r o ) , but i t was completed as a snort story i n Paris, in ly21. I n i t i a l l y t i t l e d "Lunnaia syrost'" (Moonlit Dampness), i t was f i r s t published i n B e r l i n . i n 1922. Like the play Liubov'—• kniga z o l o t a i a , this story i s b u i l t upon an anecdote taken from the l a t t e r h a l f of the eighteenth century, and r e f l e c t s once more the s o c i a l and costume history of that period. I t i s possible that the source for this story was again the magazine Russkaia starina, which had already been used by T o l s t o i for "Katen'ka." In this case, the account of the I t a l i a n charlatan's success among the aristocracy of St. Petersburg was related in issue No. 12 for 1875. The s a t i r i c humour found i n T o l s t o i ' s f i r s t anecdotes re-emerges i n thi s story. Like the e a r l i e r anec-dotes, i t has an i d y l l i c s e t t i n g : the estate of the young Aleksei Alekseevich Fediashev, which has a park, a pond with islands, fountains, and peasant g i r l s dancing. But the deliberately inept descriptions of the estate reveal a mocking attitude towards such un-Russian surroundings'; KpoMe T o r o , B pa3Jin*iHbix yroJTKax n a p n a M O T H O 6bino HaTKHyTBCH Ha 32 • • KaMeHHyw HceHiquHy co CTpeJiofi. T o l s t o i d e l i berately uses such unsophisticated expressions to r e f l e c t the p r o v i n c i a l , or stock Russian's incomprehension of these foreign adorn-ments. S i m i l a r l y , the mansion appears every b i t as comfort-able and stat e l y as anything e x i s t i n g in France, but when Fediashev l o o k s out the window of his l i b r a r y he sees a t y p i c a l l y domestic scene: 3a OKHOM, Kyrta OH cMOTpeji co C K y x o H , Ha H B o p e , nopocmeM KyjjpHBOft TpaBoft , CTOHJI PBDKHH TejieHOK H c o c a j i y flpyroro TejieHKa y x o . 3 3 The contrasts / the general tone; and. the choice of w o r d s a l l suggest the author's p r e f e r e n c e f o r n a t i v e Russian s i m p l i c i t y over a f f e c t e d G a l l i c p r e t e n s i o n s . F o r example, Fediashev's aunt addresses him by h i s French name " A l e k s i s , " even though she speaks no French. For t h i s reason, too, she does not understand at f i r s t who t h e i r guest i s . Fediashev then proceeds t o e x p l a i n : — B TOM-TO H jxe.no, ^TO He OeHHH, a rpa$ $ e H H K C , — caM K a j i H o c T p o . OeflOCBH HBaHOBHa UIHPOKO pacKpbina r j i a 3 a H B c n j i e -cHyj ia nyxjibiMH pyKaMH. Ho OenocBH HBaHOBHa Sbina p y c c K a a aceHmHHa, H nosTOMy H 3 B e c T H e , ^ITO B flOMe HX — 3HaMeHHTbiH KOJiflyH, nopa3H.no ee c HHOH CTOPOHBI: T e T y n i K a B f l p y r n J i i o H y j i a . — B y c y p M a H , H e x p n c T B , n p o c T H r o c n o f l H , — CKa3axra oHa c 0Mep3eHHeM, — BCIO nocyny T e n e p b CBHTOH BOHOH M b l T B npHfleTCH H KOMHaTfal CBHTHTB 3 a H O B O . . . BOT , He SbUTO 3a6oTBi...34 "Graf K a l i o s t r o , " as may be observed from the above e x c e r p t , i s f u l l of dramatic elements which add g r e a t l y t o c h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n . The scope of h i s t o r i c a l d e s c r i p t i o n s , however, i s l i m i t e d t o costumes and manners, and the mention of a few contemporary h i s t o r i c a l f i g u r e s . C a g l i o s t r o , though h i m s e l f a r e a l h i s t o r i c a l personage, i s endowed w i t h s u p e r n a t u r a l powers, and t h i s mixture of r e a l i t y and f a n t a s y f u r t h e r r e l e g a t e s h i s t o r y t o the background. D. "Povest' smutnogo vremeni" In the next s t o r y , f i r s t p u b l i s h e d by G e l i k o n (Moscow B e r l i n ) i n 1922, T o l s t o i r e t u r n e d to broad h i s t o r i c a l d e p i c -t i o n s . O r i g i n a l l y t i t l e d . "Kratkoe zhizne o p i s a n i e i blazhennog 78 N i f o n t a " ( B r i e f Biography of the B l e s s e d N i f o n t ) , i t was renamed "Povest' smutnogo vremeni (Iz r u k o p i s n o i k n i g i k n i a z i a Tureneva)" (A Story of the Time of T r o u b l e s : From the Notebook of P r i n c e Turenev). The f i r s t t i t l e was deemed i n a p p r o p r i a t e because the s t o r y i s only p a r t i a l l y a z h i t i e , or vita(? of the "Blessed N i f o n t , " w h i l e the g r e a t e r p o r t i o n i s devoted to Turenev's d e s c r i p t i o n s of the Time of T r o u b l e s , or the smuta. By u s i n g P r i n c e Turenev i n t h i s manner, T o l s t o i r e v e r t s t o the f i r s t - p e r s o n s t y l e of n a r r a t i o n , and the p r o x i m i t y of the n a r r a t o r to the events d e s c r i b e d helps 3 5 to c r e a t e what G o r k i i c a l l e d "the psychology of the epoch." In h i s s e v e n t i e s , P r i n c e Turenev r e s o l v e d to put down i n w r i t i n g a l l t h a t he had heard and seen of the smuta as a boy. As the p e r s o n a l account of a f i c t i t i o u s nobleman, the "Povest'" moves w i t h i n a r e s t r i c t e d p e r i m e t e r , but from the b e g i n n i n g of the smuta t o the enthronement of the f i r s t Romanov, t h a t perimeter i s f r e q u e n t l y penetrated by Naum (Ni f o n t ' s name b e f o r e he became a monk), and by well-known events of the, p e r i o d : the appearance of the f i r s t F a l s e -D i m i t r i i , the death of Boris. Godunov, the second F a l s e -D i m i t r i i , the P o l i s h o c c u p a t i o n of Moscow, and f i n a l l y the end of the smuta and the e l e c t i o n of T.sar M i k h a i l . Much of t h a t h i s t o r y u n f o l d s i n the background, but P r i n c e Turenev g i v e s c o n c i s e and dramatic summaries of events as they had o c c u r r e d . In a d d i t i o n , such summaries g i v e a sense of the 7.5 p a s s i n g of time: Eme MHHyjio 6oJiee rofly. Bcex 6efl H He 3anoMHHiiib. U,apb Eopnc yMep: ceji yacHHaTb, H JionHyjia y Hero y T p o 6 a , H30 pTa noTeKJia r p H 3 b . BoeBOfla EacMaHOB c o BceM BOSCKOM nepeflajifa Ha CTopoHy u,apeBH^a AHMHTPHH . B MocKBe Ha BoJiOTe uapeBH^eBbi TaftHbie nocJibi, HnemeeB H IlyniKHH, ^iHTajiH nepef l HaponoM r p a M O T y , . — cyjiHJiH BeJiHKHe MHJIOCTH . Hapofl B3HJI i e x nocJ iOB, noBeji Ha KpacHyio nJioiuaflb, H TSM OHH ^HTaJiH r p a M O T y BO BTOPOH p a 3 . H SOHpHH-KHH3b BaCHJIHH HBaHOBHI UlyHCKHH KpH^aJT c JIoSHoro MecTa, *ITO y 6HT B yjiH^ie nonoBCKHii CHH . Hapofl 3aKpH^aJi: „CBITH MH rof lyHpBHMH!" y,rtapHJTH B Ha6aT . KHHyjlHCb B KpeMJlb, noSHJIH KOJIbHMH CTpeJIbltOB y K p a c H o r o KpbiJibua, B o p B a n n c b B naj iaTbi , cxBaTHJiH u,apH Oef lopa c u a p n u e H H noBOJioKJiH ^ e p e 3 Kpbuibua H nepexonbi B CTapbiH roflyHOBCKHH HOM. CKHHyjiH uapn.36 Although th e r e i s no d i f f i c u l t y i n understanding the vocabulary used i n t h e n a r r a t i v e , there i s nonetheless a d e f i n i t e f e e l i n g t h a t t h e narrator i s from the d i s t a n t p a s t . Short sentences, uncommon syntax, together w i t h grammatically o b s o l e t e e x p r e s s i o n s l i k e uapeBHieBHi TafiHbie nocJibi, dated e x p r e s s i o n s such as c o BceM BOHCKOM n e p e f l a n c H , as w e l l as such v e r n a c u l a r phrases as cyjiHJiH BeJiHKHe MHJIOCTH, ynapHJiH B H a 6 a T , and CKHHyjiH uapn h e l p t o c r e a t e a c o n v i n c i n g atmos-phere from the pas t . H i s t o r i c a l personages a r e , however, c o n f i n e d t o t h e background because they are riot i n t h e s o c i a l c i r c l e w h i c h would have been a c c e s s i b l e t o the b o y Turenev. H i s t o r i c a l commentary, on t h e o t h e r hand, i s o f f e r e d as h i n d s i g h t by the n a r r a t o r and i s i n t e r e s t i n g because i t r e v e a l s t h e s p i r i t u a l despondency a n d subsequent r e g e n e r a t i o n o f Russia i n the f i r s t decade o f t h e seventeenth century: 80 norH6ajra pyccKan 3eMnn. . . . . CTajiH MBI BCHTB B norpe6ax, no HMSM, O6POCJIH KOPOCTOH. TenepB pyKSMH pa3BOJJ[Hiiib, — ; KaK Ha ceMH-To ocTaJiocB pyccKoro Hapona. Ho, BHflHMo, HacTynan npeneji MyKH ^ ejioBe^iecKOH. noMoiuiH acflaTB 6BIJIO HeoTKyrta. He B Koro BepHTB, He H a *ITO HafleHTbCH. OHecTo^HJiHCB BepjJHa. H pyccKHe JHOHH B3HJIH, HaKOHeu, MocKBy H BouiTiH B onoraHeHHHH, KpeivuiB. H caM BH/aeJi, KaK co CTeHBi CKHABIBaim B MocKBy-peKy 6OHKH C ^ejioBe^Beft COJIOHHHOH. A Korna B xpaMbi BomnH — TOJIBKO MaxHyjiH, 3anJiaKajiH. CMyTa KOH^HJiacB. Ho partocTH 6BIJTO Majio: KpyroM, Kyna He n o e 3 » c a H , — HH ceji, HH roponoB —- kycTBiHH, norocT.3^ What i s also i n t e r e s t i n g about this excerpt i s that i t seems to be r e i t e r a t i n g the smena vekh b e l i e f that despite catas-trophes Russia can survive. There i s , too, a d i r e c t l i n k between "Povest 1 smutnogo vremeni" and the ending of the f i r s t volume of Khozhdenie po mukam. There Telegin opens at random S. M. Solov'ev's history of Russia and reads a passage that coincides with the events described by Prince Turenev. It i s worthynoting here that T o l s t o i ' s f r i e n d , the h i s t o r i a n V. V. Kallash, who had recently edited a six-volume history of Russia from the Time of Troubles to the twentieth century, also believed that the smuta was a kind of watershed d i v i d i n g old " A s i a t i c " Rus' from the new "European" Russia. This was very much the view of T o l s t o i too, who believed at that time — t h a t i s , when he was l i v i n g i n B e r l i n — that the revolution marked the end of old t s a r i s t Russia and the beginning of a new one. T o l s t o i ' s source materials were not only h i s t o r i e s of Russia. He also drew from the . f o l k - l o r e repertoire of the. 81' s k o m o r o k h i , o r p e a s a n t m i n s t r e l s . T o l s t o i ' s r e n d i t i o n o f a d i t t y i s t a k e n f r o m I . Z a b e l i n ' s D o m a s h n i i b y t r u s s k i k h t s a r e i > ( D o m e s t i c L i f e o f t h e R u s s i a n T s a r s ) . The r e n d i t i o n d i s p l a y s t h e w r i t e r ' s a b i l i t y t o u s e l a n g u a g e f o r a d d e d h i s t o r i c a l c o l o u r i n g . Naum, who h a d j o i n e d t h e s k o m o r o k h i , g i v e s t h e n e w l y - e l e c t e d T,sar M i k h a i l a s u m m a t i o n , a c o m m o n e r ' s v i e w o f t h e d e v a s t a t i o n w r o u g h t i n . t h e p r e c e d i n g y e a r s . S p e a k i n g as i f h e w e r e an e l i g i b l e b r i d e , t h e s k o m o r o k h Naum l i s t s w h a t r e m a i n s o f h i s d o w r y : 4 3 a MHOH n p H f l a H O r O : B O C e M B ffBOpOB KpeCTBHHCKHX, npoMeac Jle6eflHHH, H a CTapofi K a 3 a H H , n a BoceMB ABOPOB 6o6buiBHX, B HHX n o j i T o p a ^ e j i o B e K a c * i eTBepTBio , u e T B e p o B 6 e r a x n a flBoe B S e ^ a x . . A x o p o M H o r o CTpoeHHH flBa CTOJl6a B6HTO B 3eMJII0, TpeTBHM ) n p H K p b i T o . fla c T e x ABOPOB CXOHHTCH Ha BCHKHH rofl H a c H n H o r o x j ieSa BoceMB aMSapoB 6e3 3aflHnx c T e H pa ^ e T b i p e nyf la KaMeHHoro M a c j i a . fla B T e x flBopax c^eJ iaHa KOHIOIUHH, a B H e n ^ e T b i p e scypaBJ in C T O H J i b i x , OHHH KOHB r H e f l , a uiepcTH Ha HeM H e T . fla c T e x ace BBopoB CXOHHTCH Ha BCHKHH ron. 3 a n a c y — no c o p o K a n i e c T O B co6a^iBHx XBOCTOB na no copoKa KanynieK coJieHux J iHrynieK" . Rhyme a n d t h e r e p e t i t i o n o f w o r d s a n d s o u n d s c r e a t e s a m u s i c a l q u a l i t y r e m i n i s c e n t . o f t h e poems o f t e n s u n g d u r i n g t h e l a t e M i d d l e -Ages by t h e s k o m o r o k h i . A l t h o u g h T o l s t o i d r a w s a g e n e r a l p i c t u r e o f t h e t u r b u l e n t f i r s t d e c a d e o f t h e s e v e n t e e n t h c e n t u r y , t h e s t o r y a b o u t Naum g i v e s t h e n a r r a t i v e u n i t y and c o h e s i o n . A t t h e b e g i n n i n g o f h i s n o t e s , P r i n c e T u r e n e v e x p l a i n s : IIoJioacHJi H Bee ace Ha^aTb T p y n rpeuiHbiH H Ha^HHaw HeTOponJ IHBblM p a C C K a 3 0 M O H e o 6 b I K H O B e H H O M 5KHTHH 6 J i a a c e H H o r o H n c ^ o H T a . ^ ^ 82 In the body of the n a r r a t i v e Naum s u r f a c e s p e r i o d i c a l l y i n a variety of roles. At f i r s t he appears to the reader as a w a n d e r i n g p r i e s t f r o m Kolomna, then as an a g i t a t o r s u p p o r t i n g the F a l s e - D i m i t r i i , and l a t e r as a cossack opposing h i m . When the Time of Troubles passes, Naum joins the skomorokhi. "Povest 1" concludes with Naum being sent to a monastery w h e r e his s p i r i t i s completely t r a n s f o r m e d , and the f o r m e r v i l l a g e p r i e s t , the rabble-rouser, the p a t r i o t i c cossack, the p e a s a n t buffoon becomes a monk, the blessed Nifont, i whose t r a n q u i l , t a l l , thin and ic o n - l i k e i m a g e resembles very much the p i c t u r e of Russian s p i r i t u a l i t y as portrayed in the p a i n t i n g s of M. V. Nesterov: MecTO M y n e c H o e : nycTbiHb — Ha p e i H O M Sepe.ry, B 6 e p e 3 0BOM J i e c y , 3 a BHCOKOH 6ejioH cTeHofi, noKoft H THIIMHa. . . . EJiasceHHbiH ineji H3 6epe30Bofi POIHH , 6HJI xyH, BHCOK H npHM, B * iepHOH no 3eMJiH p a c e , B KJioSyKe c 6eJibiM K p e c T O M . Uleji J i e r K o . H3-nofl KJ ioSyKa rjiHJjeJi Ha Hac cBeTJibiMH, KaK C B e T , yace He STOH 3eMJiH HCHJiBua, 6Jia»ceHHbiMH r j i a 3 a M H . IIOHOHHH B HaM, o c T a H o -BHJICH, noKJioHHJicH HH3KO H npouiej i , 6yflTO TpaBbI He Kacaacb HoraMH.^ In 192 7, "Povest 1 s m u t n o g o v r e m e n i " was m e n t i o n e d again i n Gorkii's correspondence. Writing to A. P. Chapygin in May of that y e a r , Gorkii p r a i s e d T o l s t o i ' s story by c o n t r a s t i n g i t with h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n w r i t t e n by such e m i g r e s as M. A. Aldanov, D. S. Merezhkovskii, and S. R. Mintslov: But the l i t t l e t h i n g by Aleksei T o l s t o i , "The L i f e of the Blessed Nifont" c o n t a i n s more a r t i s t r y and more h i s t o r i c a l truth than i n those by a l l three novelists mentioned above.^ Gorkii did not remember the correct t i t l e of T o l s t o i ' s story, but he did r e t a i n , i t appears, a general impression that could not be matched by the writings of the emigres. He also noted i n the same l e t t e r that i n Merezhkovskii's book about ancient Egypt and the pharaoft Tutankhamon the charac-ters speak as i f they had just stepped out of the Arbat quarter of Moscow. In contrast, T o l s t o i ' s story maintains h i s t o r i c a l atmosphere through a unity between h i s t o r i c a l background and.the language of the past. The descriptions and comments, as they are presented by T o l s t o i ' s narrator, Prince Turenev, reveal the h i s t o r i c a l past i n a physical as well as a s p i r i t u a l context. This i s accomplished by means of an impartial narrator whose viewpoint remains throughout the story that of an observer rather than a p a r t i c i p a n t . "Povest' smutnogo vreminti" remains a good example of the proper balance between content and language which makes i t , as Gorkii suggested, an exemplary h i s t o r i c a l short story. E. Stories Written in Soviet Russia. I t i s a l l the more sur p r i s i n g , therefore, that i n the next two stories t h i s d e l i c a t e balance i s upset. Written i n 1927 and 1928, "Drevnii put*" (The Ancient Route), and esp e c i a l l y "Gobelen Mar i i Antuanetty" (The Tapestry of Marie Antoinette), s t r i v e to express a Marxist view of the 84 h i s t o r i c a l process.„•_'., 3. "Dreynii put 1" i s based in part on T o l s t o i ' s r e c o l l e c -tions of his s a i l i n g from Constantinople to Marseilles. The story describes visions from ancient history seen by a French o f f i c e r , Paul Taurain, as he s a i l e d from Odessa to Marseilles.. Wounded and gravelyaii'M after serving with the French forces sent to intervene i n the Russian C i v i l War, Taurain begins to ponder on the. f u t i l i t y and foolishness of wars which, i t seems to him, have been the scourge of western man ever since the beginning of c i v i l i z a t i o n . By following his thoughts, T o l s t o i i s able to switch e a s i l y from scenes aboard the Carcovado to scenes i n Paul Taurain's mind without disrupting the natural flow of the story. As the ship glides p a s t 7 A s i a Minor, Taurain gets up from his couch and !gazes at the low shore, the mountains of Phrygia, the mounds where Hector and Patroclos perhaps l i e buried, and the shore where once the Achaean ships drew up. On that p l a i n , thinks Taurain, stood Troy. Having pointed out the landscape that the Frenchman saw, T o l s t o i then proceeds to construct the v i s i o n that appeared i n the o f f i c e r ' s mind: B ToproBbie flHH- Ha 6a3ap — nepen BBICOKHMH cTeHaMH . . ropona — e x a n H C K p H n y w e ap6bi c x j i e 6 o M H roionaMH; BepoJioMHbie o n a B H H e c rpaHHU, OpaKHH BeJiH SeuieHHbix K O H e H , . . . npHe3»aJiH Ha 6oraTbix KOJiecHHuax xeTTbi H3 B o r a 3 K e n c . T O B a p a M H , cflejiaHHbiMH no .ny i^uHM e r n n e i -CKHM 06pa3UaMJ OpHrHHUH H :JIHflHHU,bI B KOHCaHblX KOJinaKax THaJiH c T a n o K p y T o p y H H b i x S apaHOB; $HHHKHficKHe Kynubi C HaKJiaflHfalMH 6 o p O J i a M H , B , C H H H X BOHJIO^HBIX OfleMCflaX nonroHHJiH 6H*iaMH tiepHbix pa6oB c TioKaMH H rJIHHHHBIMH 85 a M $ o p a M H j no^TeHHbie M o p c K H e pa3 6oftHHKH, BOopyaceHHHe O6OI0HOCTpblMH CHKHpaMK, npHBOflHJIH KpaCHBEJX pa6bIHb H co6jia3HHTejibHHx Majib^HKOB; acpeu,H pacKHj^biBanH noJiaTKH H CTaBHJIH aJITapH, BblKPHKHBaH HMGHa 6orOB , . . . CO CTeH Ha cyeTy 6a3apa rjiHflejiH BOHHH, oxpaHHBuiHe BopoTa. . . 4 2 Here T o l s t o i draws a l i v e l y c o l o u r f u l scene f u l l of sounds, the scene of a market outside the walls of ancient Troy. The fe e l i n g of the past i s suggested by the many names of people and places from the ancient world: the Sclavs, Phracia, H i t t i t e s , Byzacium/ Phrygians, Lydians, Phoenicians. These names and such objects as chariots and slaves do not, how-ever, convey a deep f e e l i n g of the past because the central figure of the story proceeds to give the history of Troy an i d e o l o g i c a l rather than a Homeric interpretation. The impoverished Greeks were envious of the wealth that went to Troy and so for economic reasons they decided to raze the c i t y . As everyone knows, thinks Taurain, there i s nothing easier than to fi n d a pretext for war, and so Helen was dragged i n , A c h i l l e s was promised half of the booty, and thus began the chronicle i n hexameters of three thousand years of European hist o r y . There i s a note of cynicism as well i n the observation that the ancients at least were not hampered by the hypocrisy found in contemporary books about humanism. T o l s t o i aimed some cyni c a l remarks at the emigre passengers as w e l l , among whom were singled out p r o s t i t u t e s , 86 White Guard criminals, a Polish card shark, the family of a former sugar magnate, and a man who was previously involved in public a f f a i r s : BbinOJI3 H3 TpiOMa p y c C K H H OSlHeCTBeHHblH fleHTeJTB, aHrjio<|)HJi : B n e H C H e , c p a c i p e n a H H O H . SoponoH, r,n.e 3ace j i a . c o j i o M a , —- H CTa j i HaBOflHTb n a H H K y , flOKa3bi-Bafl, ^TO cpeflH 3 y a B b B . — nepeoneTbie . areHTbi l e K a H He MHHOBaib. n o r p o M a . HHTexuiHreHTiiHH Ha. n K a p K O B a n o " . 43 The man who "crept" out of the hold could,be at once known as an anglophile, T o l s t o i suggests, by the mere fac t that he had a place i n public l i f e , and was thus an anglophile by d e f i n i t i o n , as i t were. The straw in his beard, which i s repeatedly used as an i d e n t i f y i n g feature, also reveals the author's contemptuous attitude toward such superfluous i n t e l l e c t u a l s with apparent narodnik, or populist, leanings. The presence of these emigres on board i s used by T o l s t o i to l i n k the present with the recent past. C a l l i n g to mind his own experiences i n Russia during the interven-t i o n , Paul. Taurain comes around to the view that somewhere along the way history made a wrong turn and from there i t has continued to follow a path which leads to an abyss; and he has been an unwitting servant t o those who are leading Europe to destruction. Paul remembers being asked b y a Bolshevik: r — 3 a i e M . ace TH Ha HX c i o p o H e . . . ? OHH oTpaBHJiH Te6n raaoM, 3apa3HJiH ;fi.Hxopaja;KOH, npoH3HJiH TBOIO r p y f l B . . . . OHH pacTJiHJiH Bee CBHTHHH. . . . IIppBeflH p y n o H no" r j i a 3 a M , CHHMH nayTHHy' BCKOB . . . . n p O C H H C B . . . . IIpOCHHCB, I l O J l B . . . 4 4 87 The new s o c i a l order introduced i n Russia w i l l break the vicious c i r c l e i n which European history has been confined; such ds the moral of thi s story where•the dark past and the promise of a bright future are juxtaposed. "Gobelen Marii Antuanetty',*" written i n 1928, follows the s t r u c t u r a l pattern of the preceding story; that i s , i t s beginning and i t s end are se t - i n the present while the central portion of the narrative i s set i n the past. This central part concerns the history of the tapestry, which originates in France on the eve of the revolution i n 17 89.. and eventually came to a museum i n Detskoe Selo. Once more the story i s t o l d in the f i r s t person, but this time T o l s t o i chooses to make the narrator an inanimate object, the tapestry i t s e l f . Though the tapestry i s decorated with a p o r t r a i t of Marie Antoinette, i t does not speak with the queen's voice, nor i n the s t y l e of any past age. Perhaps because i t has been looking upon people dressed i n sheepskin coats, f e l t boots, and kaftans, the narrator's account sounds very much l i k e a pamphlet prepared for proletarian v i s i t o r s to the museum. The discrepancy between the speaker and i t s language forms the major flaw i n t h i s story. The tapestry r e c a l l s how on the eve of the French revolution Marie Antoinette was "nof ymifcLB ^xJionOT^ax&^iri playing a milkmaid on her toy farm i n V e r s a i l l e s . Louis XVI 88 p r a y e d t h a t an "y'na^ -HaH -BO^ ciBa." The n a r r a t o r also remembers t h e r e v o l u t i o n , Robes-p i e r r e , a n d t h e Reign o f Terror but, adds t h e speaker w o v e n into the tapestry, "Byp»c"yaaya?oMHJiHCB,, xyke -peflEKH HM Ha'floejiH :peBOJiibiJiHH'i ".'.' A century l a t e r , when presenting the tapestry t o t h e Empress Alexandra, the French president shuffled about, "nopK.p'HHMB.aH^.6yj]^ From the wall i n the Aleksandrovskii palace, the narrator could observe the d u l l l i f e of the Tsar and h i s f a m i l y and t h e i r o c c a s i o n a l v i s i t o r s : . Kpoivie KaK no nejiy, y HHX MaJio KTO 6biBaJi: npnneT jiio6HMaH cfpeHJiHHa, noiiejiyeT p y i K y ; HJIH IIO3BOHHT no Tejie$oHy, nonpocHTCH npaexaTB OAHH d p o n n r a H3 6bIBWHX KOHOKpaflOB , nyxoBHbiH MyacH^OK: HBHTCJI — B noflfleBKe, B jiaKOBbix c a n o r a x , — noiteJiyeTcn: c o meKH Ha meKy, caneT H BpeT, ^TO B rojioBy BJie3eT, mypn npoflyBHbie 3 e H K H , a uapB H u a p H u a MOJiHTBeHHO. rjiHflHT eMy Ha MacjieHyw 6oporj;y, He CMewT M o p r H y T B . 4 5 By u s i n g such a t o n e , w h i c h r e m i n d s us v e r y much o f t h e skaz t e c h n i q u e , T o l s t o i w i s h e s to c o n v e y t h e history t h a t t h e p o r t r a i t h a d witnessed, but the l i n k b e t w e e n t h e p o r t r a i t of Marie Antoinette a n d i t s m e s s a g e r e m a i n s unconvincing. The m o r a l of the story, contained i n the l a s t sentence, i s , a c c o r d i n g t o present - d a y Soviet c r i t i c s , t o show a revolutionary continuity i n the h i s t o r i c a l process. In the words of a museum guide as she leads a group t o t h e tapestry: „A 3TO o6pa3eu, nponyKTa KpenocTHoro npoH3BOf lCTBa , 89 oTHOcnmHHCH K caMOMy H a ^ a j i y 6opB6fcJ Mexgry 3 eMJieaeJiB-^ecKHM KanHTaJioM H KanHTaJioM TOPTOBO—npoMBmineHHbiM."46 But T o l s t o i ' s narrator i s inexplicably class-conscious and omniscient, a fact that creates, i n addition t o the incon-gruity between the language and the speaker, a further imbalance between realism and f a n t a s y . In aiilater?stor.yyyTo,Istoi'-retur.ned'-ioncesmore.-to the theme o f Peter the Great. In the summer o f 1928 he began writing Na dybe (On the Rack), which was t o become the f i r s t o f three variants o f the play about Peter. One scene taken from the play was reproduced as a separate work and was published i n 1931 i n a volume o f T o l s t o i ' s short s t o r i e s . But t h i s story, "Marta Rabbe," was probably written before T o l s t o i began writing the novel Petr Pervyi i n February 1929. The author's fantasy coupled with his s k i l l f u l use o f language creates a sense o f the past and provides the reader with a plausible account o f how Menshikov's mistress, Marta Rabbe, became the f i r s t empress o f Russia, Catherine I. Although the story i s free o f the r h e t o r i c a l s t y l e o f '"Deni'i Petra," the description o f the Tsar reminds one o f the characterization attempted in 1918: IfeTp nonejioBaji MeHbniHKOBa B ry6Bi Kpenno, H KaK 6bui B HaroJiBHOM pacTerHyTOM KoscaHe noBepx Ka$TaHa, B $HHCKOH MOPCKOH n ianKe, ce j i K cTOJ iy . CBeTJibie * i y j i K H H SaiuMaKH ero B r p H 3 H , p y K H — B CMOJie. K p y r j i o e JIHUO, C MaJieHBKHM TBepflblM HOCOM, C O^ieHB MaJieHBKHM PTOM H BBIflaiOmHMHCH xcejiBaKaMH c 6OKOB pTa, OSBeTpeHHO H niepiiiaBo. O H c e f i ^ac ace H a j i H j i cTaKaH BHHa, He pa36Hpan KaKoro, BbinKJi, K p H K H y j i H o6epHyjicH. 47 9 0 As i n the e a r l i e r story, here too the Tsar i s portrayed as a d i r t y and coarse man. But T o l s t o i i s interested not so much in Peter o r his reign as i n describing one incident i n his private l i f e . Since this story was l i f t e d d i r e c t l y from a play, a large portion o f i t i s given i n dialogue, which becomes an important means o f characterization. For example, just before Peter makes his appearance, Menshikov, his unscrupulous confidant, instructs his mistress t o f l i r t with the Tsar: — LJapio x o T H T e no f l cyHyTB? A XOTH 6bl T d K . . . ^ T O B 3TOM XyflOrO? y Mapfbi p y K H BbineTejiH H3-non nepe.n.HH'qKa. y n e p j i a c B B K p y T o e 6enpo. — rocnof lHH r p a $ , 6BITB BaiueH poace S H T O H . . . K a K -HHKaK, a yac 3Toro C T e p n e T B H e B 0 3 M o r a o : Mapniajia 6HTB no poace, no6e.nHTe.nH uiBenoB H JinOJiHHflueB, n e p B o r o poccHHCKoro r p a$a! — BBITB Moeft poace 6HTOH? V>K He TO6OH JIH? :,Io.~.X"IIofloiuejioBHJioTB9P3aopaJi.) — B nonnoJTBe nocaacy He i i e n B ! — Hnoro OT B a c H acnaTb He^cero, — H acxiaTB H e i e r o OT TOTO, KTO nuporaMH T o p r o B a j i . . Marta's provocative stance and the coarse language used by both reveal t h e i r callous and self-indulgent p e r s o n a l i t i e s . Menshikov 1s machinations succeed t o a large extent, for Peter becomes attracted t o Marta. Returning from the bedroom where she has l e f t the Tsar, Marta walks up t o Menshikov and slaps him hard across the face. Menshikov a t f i r s t turns red with rage r but quickly understands; bowing 91 low he takes Marta's hand and kisses i t , KaK SyflTo n e p e n HHM CTOHJia yxce He MapTa Pa6e, a E K a T e p H H a A j i e K c e e B H a , HMrcepaTpHua BcepoccHf iCKaH . ^9 The ent i r e story i s b u i l t around this one incident; i.t^conc'1'udesbw.ith thecab6ve tableaury, A3i.though : theresare no h i s t o r i c a l ^ probiemsep.esed i n "Marta Rabbe" as there are in "Den1 Petra," this story has value as an etude which stands as a bridge joining the theme of Peter I i n drama to Peter I in the novel. * * * * * * * T o l s t o i began writing h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n at a time when he was making a t r a n s i t i o n from poetry to prose. He was encouraged i n th i s move by his fri e n d M. Voloshin, who offered him Henri de Regnier as a writer to emulate. Regnier's stories revealed to T o l s t o i a form which led him to use language in such a way that i t r e f l e c t e d the period, s e t t i n g and character. He also used language to contrast the s t i l t e d speech of the p r o v i n c i a l gentry of the eighteenth century with the natural s i m p l i c i t y of the speech of peasants. In this way T o l s t o i ' s f i r s t anecdotes were i n fact parodies of the depiction by Regnier and K. A . Somov of the pastoral l i f e of the n o b i l i t y . T o l s t o i was able to reproduce the outward appearance of that i d y l l i c l i f e , but by contrasting i t with the s i m p l i c i t y of the stock Russian character, he made a parody of Regnier's and Somov's portrayals. 92 The use of fir s t - p e r s o n narration i n "Katen'ka" and "Portret" allowed T o l s t o i to r e f l e c t the viewpoint of the narrators. Writing as i f he were reproducing extracts from memoirs and d i a r i e s , he was able to add, to the external descriptions of the past, elements which also revealed the mental state of the narrators. The events of 1917 with which the Russian Empire ended made T o l s t o i seek i n the h i s t o r i c a l past analogous situations which could t e l l himssomething about the people and the Russian state. In the enormous changes,, indeed, in the revolution forged by Peter the Great, he saw a p a r a l l e l to the contemporary revolution. At the time of his writings on Peter, T o l s t o i r e l i e d heavily upon the records of the Secret Chancellery which were compiled by Professor Novom-berg s k i i i n his book Slovo i delo gosudarevy. Thus, the circumstances that motivated him to write, plus his chief source of material, combined to leave a negative impression of Peter. On the other hand, Slovo i delo gosudarevy further aided T o l s t o i i n his use of the Russian language as an instrument for conveying a sense of the past. In "Den' Petra," T o l s t o i expanded the h i s t o r i c a l scope by i n t e r j e c t i n g r h e t o r i c a l questions throughout the narrative. Together with the portrayal, these questions served to strengthen the negative impressions of the Tsar and of his reign. In "Povest' smutnogo vremeni" he reverted to the f i r s t - p e r s o n s t y l e of narration. As a witness to the events described, the narrator makes the reader see and f e e l a l l his hardships and sufferings without d i r e c t commentary by the author. As an excerpt from a notebook written by a man who had l i v e d through the Time of Troubles, the story i s presented i n a language which evokes that period. Descrip-tions of crowds and individuals as well as the narrator's personal remarks are a l l expressed i n a manner that r e f l e c t s the confusion and chaos and, as Gorkii so aptly put i t , "the psychology of the epoch." T o l s t o i also introduced elements of the f a n t a s t i c into some h i s t o r i c a l s t o r i e s . S t y l i n g " S i n i t s a " as an o r a l folk t a l e , the events of which take place i n the Kievan Rus' period, he successfully reproduced a skazka with a mixture of realism and supernatural. A.mother's s p i r i t which enters a titmouse i n order to be close to her son i s pe r f e c t l y acceptable i n thiscjgenre. "Graf K a l i o s t r o , " l i k e the e a r l i e s t s t o r i e s , i s b u i l t around an elaborate anecdote. Though the Count was a r e a l person, t h i s story too contains an element of the super-natural. Nonetheless, the narrative remains within the framework of the period, thus creating an impression of Russia i n the time of Catherine the Great. In "Gobelen Mari i Antuanetty," T o l s t o i , perhaps to appease his RAPP" c r i t i c s , abandoned a l l r e s t r a i n t s of h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n , and made an inanimate object created in the past speak i n the d i r e c t , conversational manner of an omniscient narrator of the twentieth century. Moreover, the skaz technique of narration seems wholly inappropriate for the French queen's p o r t r a i t , thus only adding to the incongruity of the s i t u a -tion i n the story. Far more successful i s "Drevnii put'" in which T o l s t o i t r i e d to create a p o l i t i c a l l y - o r i e n t e d a t t i -tude. Using a d i s i l l u s i o n e d French o f f i c e r as his central figure, T o l s t o i followed his stream of consciousness to i l l u s t r a t e the view that economic greed i n western c i v i l i z a -t i on was bringing Europe ever closer to the brink of disaster. It could be averted, on the other hand, by following the example set by the Bolsheviks i n Russia. T o l s t o i ' s h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n shows a d i s c e r n i b l e progression from simple anecdotes to more sophisticated narratives such as "Povest 1 smutnogo vremeni." By 1928, he f e l t that he had gained s u f f i c i e n t experience i n conveying a convincing f e e l i n g of the past and that he could embark upon a h i s t o r i c a l novel. As Maksimilian Voloshin had described Regnier's La-Canne jaspe as a musical overture to the novels that followed, so these stories by A. N. T o l s t o i may be also regarded as an overture to what was to appear i n a major genre. CHAPTER III THE NOVEL PETR PERVYI PoMaH AneKceH TojicToro „neTp nepBbiH'." 6eccnopHo HBjineTCH He TOJIbKO OflHHM H3 KpynHeHIUHX jiHTepaTypHo-xynoxcecTBeHHbix jj;ocTH»ceHHH coBeTCKoro nepnofla, HO H OflHHM H3 3aMe^aTeJlbHHtX co3flaHHH Bceft p y c c K O H xynoscecT-BeHHo-HGTopH^ecKOH JiHTepaTypbi BOo6ine. — R. fl. Ejiaroft. A. The Hero i n a H i s t o r i c a l Novel. In this chapter some q u a l i t i e s that make the novel Petr Pervyi an outstanding piece of Soviet h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n w i l l be discussed. The general features of a h i s t o r i c a l novel have been mentioned e a r l i e r , but since h i s t o r i c a l novels also involve h i s t o r i c a l p e r s o n a l i t i e s , we need to say a few words about t h e i r role i n the novel. As Georg Lukacs has observed, before S i r Walter Scott there existed l i t e r a t u r e which cannot be considered t r u l y h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n but rather a l i t e r a t u r e of romantic hero worship i n which history served only as an external theme and dress. The manners, psychology of the characters, the general atmosphere r e f l e c t e d more the writer's period than anything from the past., The standards for a modern h i s t o r i -c a l novel have been established by Scott, i n whose works the central character has been assigned a s p e c i a l r o l e . History i s comprised of a series of c r i t i c a l periods that f i n d t h e i r resolution i n compromise or a middle way, explains Lukacs, and Scott uses these select periods i n history to demonstrate that compromise. Ivanhoe, for example, i s a device for r e c o n c i l i a t i o n between the Saxon and Norman elements that populated England i n the Middle Ages. H i s t o r i -c a l atmosphere i s achieved through a description of Ivanhoe 1s sympathies as they fluctuate between one and.then another antagonistic elementKi„ Thus, i n the pattern for a h i s t o r i c a l novel that Scott had established, the middle way can be best i l l u s t r a t e d by a f i c t i o n a l hero. The fluctuations must end, however, and produce a general movement which i s concentrated within a h i s t o r i c a l personality which plays the role of standard bearer. For t h i s reason S i r Walter Scott reduces a h i s t o r i c a l personality to a secondary character i n the novel. Lukacs explains i t in t h i s way: The broad and many-sided picture of an epoch, i t s very essence can only be extracted from the depths of l i f e , and i t s expernal appearance may be drawn only through portrayals of everyday l i f e of a people, through the joy and g r i e f , the fl u c t u a t i o n and stormy, experience of "average" people. An outstanding and h i s t o r i c a l l y leading personality who expresses the mainstream of s o c i a l thinking, of necessity must be expressed as an ab s t r a c t i o n . 2 Another obvious reason why a no v e l i s t would choose a f i c t i t i o u s character for his hero i s that the reader i s usually acquainted with the h i s t o r i c a l events described i n the book. Therefore, to make the p l o t more absorbing for the reader, the writer makes the chief protagonist an unknown entity whose fate depends e n t i r e l y upon the author's imagination. In contrast to such a scheme, Aleksei T o l s t o i ' s Petr Pervyi i s a h i s t o r i c a l novel i n which the main character i s the monumental figure of Peter the Great. And whereas I'-,'•• Scott's formula prescribes that a h i s t o r i c a l personality play a passive r o l e , T o l s t o i gives Tsar Peter an active part to play i n the unfolding h i s t o r i c a l events. In part, of course, T o l s t o i was i n agreement with Scott's p r i n c i p l e when he expressed the view that a h i s t o r i c a l personality acts as 3 . . . an instrument of an epoch. The Russian n o v e l i s t believed that certain q u a l i t i e s of a person appear i n response to s p e c i a l demands posed by a p a r t i c u l a r period i n h i s t o r y . However, and here l i e s the chief difference from the general h i s t o r i c a l novel, Aleksei T o l s t o i dares to assume "A tremen-dous venture to write of the intimate thoughts and experi-ences of the great . . . to guess at the motives of t h e i r 4 actions." This i s accomplished in Petr Pervyi by building on a s k e l e t a l structure of facts detailed but fabricated episodes that actually complement the h i s t o r i c a l f a c t s . "Can one 'invent' a biography for a h i s t o r i c a l person?" asked T o l s t o i . "Absolutely;^, he proceeded to reply. "But i t must be done credibly so that i f i n fact i t did not happen, then i t should have happened." For t h i s reason, i n Petr Pervyi T o l s t o i pays much more attention to the Tsar as an i n d i v i d u a l than as a statesman. In addition, the reforms which most a t t r a c t T o l s t o i ' s notice are far more important for t h e i r dramatic e f f e c t than for t h e i r h i s t o r i c a l s i g n i f i -cance. Thus, decrees governing changes i n the fashion of dress, c i v i l manners, and shaving beards become more .': important than any other reforms. In this respect Petr Pervyi must stand out.as a h i s t o r i c a l novel because the Tsar occupies the .central position i n the narrative. There i s , of course, another famous novel where Peter also occupies a leading role and that i s D. S. Merezhkovskii's A n t i k h r i s t (Petr i Aleksei) about which more w i l l be said shortly. B. • Peter the Great,in Russian.Literature. Peter the Great occupies such an important place in Russian history because he played so decisive a role in transforming mediaeval Muscovy into Russia, a modern state that has continued, ever since his time, to play a part of the f i r s t consequence i n world a f f a i r s . "Certainly no h i s t o r i c a l theme i s for us more s i g n i f i c a n t , " wrote B. H. Sumner i n Peter the Great and the Emergence of Russia, f than the double transformation that has taken place — of Muscovy into Russia and of Russia into the Soviet Union, a transformation linked indissolubly both by contemporaries and by posterity with the names of Peter the Great and Lenin.^ Indeed, Peter's reforms were so r a d i c a l , they brought about such i r r e v e r s i b l e changes to Russia and Russian l i f e i n general, that they may be j u s t l y considered a revolution from above. This period of enormous change, some three decades of Peter's reign, has attracted men of l i t e r a t u r e from Peter's time to our own. However, i n the three cen-turies that separate us from Peter, only two authors, D. S. Merezhkovskii and A; N. T o l s t o i , have made the Tsar the central figure of t h e i r respective novels. Other novelists introduce Peter into t h e i r works only as a secondary character, a l b e i t an important one. Furthermore, l i t e r a r y attitudes towards Peter the Great fluctuate between monarchist i d e a l i z a t i o n s and post-revolutionary class-conscious r i d i c u l e . Only Aleksandr Pushkin's I s t o r i a Petra I stands as an exception to these two extreme views of Peter, and the writer whose portrayal of Peter I i s closest to Pushkin's i s Aleksei T o l s t o i himself. Peter's contemporary, Feofan Prokopovich, was the f i r s t man of l e t t e r s to support the Tsar i n his e f f o r t s to bring change to Russia. In his drama Vladimir, Prokopovich seemed to suggest a p a r a l l e l between Kiev's Prince Vladimir, who by introducing* Byzantine C h r i s t i a n i t y to Russia had brought progress and learning to his realm, and Tsar Peter, who by introducing European industry and science to Russia 100 brought the country into the mainstream of European l i f e . In the.same vein, the writer of the heroic epic of "Petr V e l i k i i , " M. V. Lomonosov, enhanced the central figure by giving Peter t i t a n i c features, p o s i t i v e personal q u a l i t i e s such as love of work, modest tastes and needs, and the wisdom to introduce rfar-sighted reforms that brought western culture to a dark and savage land. In contrast to these admirers of Peter, Aleksandr Nikolaevich Radishchev, the father of the Russian i n t e l l i -gentsia as a c l a s s , was the f i r s t man who dared to o f f e r some cautious c r i t i c i s m of Peter the Great. Writing i n his "Letter to a fr i e n d residing i n Tobolsk" on the day following the unveiling of Falconet's monument "The Bronze Horseman," Radishchev observed that while there were j u s t i f i c a t i o n s for the appellation "the Great," Peter deserved to be rebuked for mercilessly i n t e n s i f y i n g the bondage of the s e r f s . But these were only general comments that were amplified a few years l a t e r i n his Journey from Petersburg to Moscow; the f i r s t serious c r i t i c i s m aoimed at Peter the Great was mdde in 1811 by Nikolai Mikhailovich. Karamzin i n the work t i t l e d Zapiska p.drevnei i novo! Ros s i i (Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia). (i) N. M. Karamzin Karamzin's h i s t o r i c a l t r a c t , which he submitted to Alexander I, inaugurated the conservative reaction against 1.01 the l i b e r a l i z i n g — and seemingly un-Russian — d i r e c t i o n i n which the country was heading. And the turn i n the wrong d i r e c t i o n , Karamzin believed, was forced on Russia by ?V-Peter I. Karamzin's evaluation of Peter the Great and of his reign formed the basis for the Slavophile view of Russia that was to make i t s appearance some years l a t e r . Since the establishment of Romanov rule i n Russia, a gradual introduc-ti o n to a European l i f e - s t y l e . h a d been i n progress. Peter the Great, charged Karamzin, became determined to transform Russia overnight into another Holland. Moreover, the Tsar was completely indiscriminate i n choosing the aspects of Europeanizatibn to be adopted i n Russia. "The Russian dress, food, and beards did not i n t e r f e r e with the founding of schools," objected Karamzin. And he continued, Two states may stand on the same l e v e l of c i v i l enlightenment although t h e i r customs d i f f e r . One state may borrow from another useful knowledge without borrowing i t s manners. These manners may change naturally, but to prescribe statutes for them i s an act of violence, which i s i l l e g a l also for an autocratic monarch. . . . In this realm, the sovereign may equitably act only by example, not by decree.^ In addition, the greatest disservice that Peter' did for Russia, Karamzin suggested, was the s p l i t t i n g of national unity. The Tsar's wicked campaign r i d i c u l i n g ancient customs and t r a d i t i o n s , and obligatory adoption of western ones made the upper crust of Russian society f e e l ashamed of t h e i r 10,2 un-European manners. As they strove to acquire European politesse and to absorb western culture, they discarded t h e i r own c u l t u r a l heritage, leaving i t to the common people. Furthermore, Karamzin detected a moral decline i n the onrush of Russian society toward westernization. He wrote: Russian women ceased to blush at the indiscre e t glances of men, and European freedom supplanted A s i a t i c constraint. . . . As we progressed i n the acq u i s i t i o n of s o c i a l virtues and graces, our families moved into the background; for when we have many acquaintances we f e e l less need of friends, and s a c r i f i c e family t i e s to s o c i a l obligations. . . . It must be admitted that what we gained i n s o c i a l virtues we l o s t i n c i v i c v i r t u e s . . Our. ancestors, while assimilating many advantages which were to be found i n foreign customs, never l o s t the conviction that an Orthodox Russian was the most perfect c i t i z e n and Holy Rus' the foremost state in the world. Let thi s be c a l l e d a delusion. Yet how much i t did to strengthen patriotism and the moral f i b r e of the country! Would we .have today the audacity, after having spent over a century i n the school of foreigners, to boast of our c i v i c pride? Once upon a time we used to c a l l a l l other Europeans i n f i d e l s ; now we c a l l them brothers.9 Peter's celebrated reforms, concluded Karamzin, were very often harmful to national i n t e r e s t s , but they succeeded because of t h e i r ruthless execution and the p i t i l e s s character of the Tsar. St. Petersburg, Karamzin reminded Alexander I, was l i t e r a l l y b u i l t on the bodies and bones of serfs who were driven there i n chains. The chief issue of Peter's transformation of Russia^was that "Autocracy became more es s e n t i a l than ever for the preservation of order. n ±® Thereafter, the theme of Peter the Great acquired 103 polemical q u a l i t i e s which soon led to the formation of two opposing camps, the Slavophiles and the Westerners. The former followed the l i n e of c r i t i c i s m i n i t i a t e d by Karamzin, while the l a t t e r defended Peter's innovations and even wished Russia to follow the European model s t i l l more closely. Ultimately, i t began to be f e l t that a l l major questions in nineteenth-century Russia could be reduced to th e i r r e l a t i o n to Peter I and his impact on Russian l i f e . ( i i ) AwsP.ias.hkin Pushkin's inte r p r e t a t i o n of Peter the Great, as he appears i n the poet's l i t e r a r y works, d i f f e r s considerably from the image of the Tsar that emerges from his preparatory notes for a history of Peter's reign, I s t o r i i a E B e tE a I T . In his l i t e r a r y treatment of Peter, Pushkin speaks mainly of the Tsar's noble ambitions as the r u l e r of a country, and his successes as a m i l i t a r y commander. But i n the History of Peter I, Pushkin added to these p o s i t i v e q u a l i t i e s another c h a r a c t e r i s t i c which was not so complimentary. Concerning Peter's place i n Russian history, Pushkin found that he must be regarded on two l e v e l s , and the poet wrote i n his notebook: It i s worth wondering at the difference between the state i n s t i t u t i o n s of Peter the Great and his short-term decrees. The f i r s t are f r u i t s of a broad mind, f i l l e d with good w i l l and i n t e l l i g e n c e , the second are c r u e l , capricious and written, i t seems, with a knout. The f i r s t were written for eternity, or at l e a s t f o r the future, the second s p i l l e d out from an impatient and s e l f - w i l l e d l a n d l o r d . i l 10.4 Pushkin considered such a duality i n Peter to be comparable to personages involved i n the French revolution, namely Robespierre and Napoleon. By div i d i n g the reign of Peter the Great into two periods, Pushkin explained how the need for reforms became evident, and how the reforms were then secured. The i n i t i a l part of Peter's reign was indeed bloody and cruel and could be compared to the Reign of Terror under Robespierred With regard to the period that followed, however, the Tsar might be compared to Napoleon, who i n s t i t u t i o n a l i z e d a l l the benefits gained i n the preceding period. Thus, Pushkin developed the view i n his I s t o r i a that the people suffered severely during Peter's "revolutionary" period and to many of them he was t r u l y the A n t i c h r i s t . However, with the f i r s t f r u i t s of the new reforms, explained Pushkin, the people reconciled themselves, to Peter and the new Russia. In the f i n a l analysis, Pushkin concluded, the creation of a new Russian empire was a necessary and b e n e f i c i a l development. But the c r i t i c i s m expressed i n Pushkin's history was unacceptable to Nicholas I, and the History of Peter I was withheld from publication. After his death, friends of the poet t r i e d to expurgate the offensive passages from the manuscript, but somehow the work was l o s t , and was published for t h e . f i r s t time only i n 193 8. The portrayal of Peter as wicked i n a personal sense and wise i n matters of state was 105 to re-emerge nearly a century after Pushkin, i n Aleksei 12 T o l s t o i ' s novel. The new, and — i n comparison with the e a r l i e r charac-t e r i z a t i o n — improved image of Peter in T o l s t o i ' s novel can be appreciated only from an o v e r a l l view of the work. This i s because the author now describes an evolving character. In some eight hundred pages T o l s t o i follows his main hero only from the year 1682 to 1704, or the years of Peter's youth and early adulthood. And while i t i s true that To l s t o i ' s untimely death prevented him from portraying Peter in his "Napoleonic" period, he succeeded nonetheless i n showing the Tsar i n considerably more h i s t o r i c a l d e t a i l ; that i s , T o l s t o i described the h i s t o r i c a l circumstances which demanded the appearance of a resolute man, and t h i s fact alone put the Tsar in a more favourable l i g h t . Then, ohee that man emerged from the h i s t o r i c a l background, his own strength of w i l l , his own force of character began to a f f e c t the development of future events. This matter of an individual's influence on h i s t o r i c a l events was successfully resolved i n Petr Pervyi. When he was asked to explain how Tsar Peter could have succeeded i f he was acting alone, Aleksei T o l s t o i r e p l i e d : Peter's personality was extraordinary and i t began to influence the epoch, . . . The epoch required a man, he was sought, and the man i n his turn was seeking an outlet for his energies; there was an interdependence between the two.13 106 ( i i i ) L. T o l s t o i At t h i s point i t i s es s e n t i a l to contrast Aleksei T o l s t o i ' s views on the role of the i n d i v i d u a l i n history with those held by Lev Nikolaevich T o l s t o i . The l a t t e r made over twenty st a r t s on a novel about Peter the Great, but an unwillingness to a l t e r his concepts of history forced him to abandon the project completely. In his extensive essay on Lev T o l s t o i ' s views.of h i s t o r y , I. B e r l i n explained how T o l s t o i denied the i n d i v i d u a l any decisive role i n the unfurling of histo r y . "Tolstoy's central thesis," wrote B e r l i n i n The Hedgehog and the Fox, i s that there i s a natural law whereby the l i v e s of human beings no less than those of nature areddeter-mined; but that men, unable to face t h i s inexorable process, seek to represent i t as a succession of free choices, to f i x r e s p o n s i b i l i t y for what occurs upon persons endowed by them with heroic virtues or heroic vices, a l l c a l l e d by-them "great men." What are great men? they are ordinary human beings, who are ignorant and vain^renough to accept r e s p o n s i b i l -i t y for the l i f e of.society, individuals who would rather take the blame for a l l the c r u e l t i e s , i n j u s t i c e s , disasters j u s t i f i e d in t h e i r name, than recognize t h e i r own in s i g n i f i c a n c e and impotence i n the cosmiic flow which pursues i t s course irrespec-t i v e of t h e i r w i l l s and i d e a l s . ^ 4 Thus, when such a concept of the h i s t o r i c a l process was applied to Peter I, a contradiction arose which Lev T o l s t o i was not able to resolve. L. M. Poliak wrote, for example: The active and v o l i t i o n a l work of the tsar-reformer entered into contradiction with L. To l s t o i ' s idea 107 of h i s t o r i c a l fatalism, with his understanding of the role of the i n d i v i d u a l i n h i s t o r y , with his philosophical concepts. I n e v i t a b i l i t y , the predes-t i n a t i o n of h i s t o r i c a l events simply did not t i e with the image of Peter, the mover.of history, the man who a c t i v e l y i n t e r f e r e d i n l i f e . - ' - 5 I n i t i a l l y , however, Lev T o l s t o i , who began trying to write about Peter-in 1872, had been tremendously interested in the period and very favourably disposed toward the Tsar. In his notebooks, for example, one may find expressions which point unequivocally to his p o s i t i v e evaluation of Peter I,: He was the instrument of the time, . . . he was selected by fate to draw Russia into contact with the European world. ... . In Peter's time power and truth were on the side of the reformers, and the defenders of ancient customs were f r o t h , they were a mirage.-^ Then l a t e r , i n December 1872, though s t i l l maintaining an i n t e r e s t i n Peter, he began to express his i n a b i l i t y to make a proper s t a r t on the novel. "I am surrounded by books on Peter I," he wrote to N. I. Strakhov, i I read, I take notes, I want to write, but I cannot. But what an epoch for an a r t i s t ! Wherever you look, there i s a problem, a puzzle, the solution for which may be gained only through poetry. The whole secret of Russian l i f e i s s i t t i n g r i ght there. x^ But very soon Lev T o l s t o i began to grow more and more h o s t i l e toward Peter. The author of War and Peace came to believe that the Tsar's celebrated reforms were not motivated by a desire to improve conditions i n Russia, but rather by a 10 8 general a t t r a c t i o n to western decadence. At the same time a Tsar who l i t e r a l l y imposed his^pleasure on matters pertaining to s o c i a l behaviour, state i n s t i t u t i o n s , national r e l i g i o n , simply could not be made to f i t T o l s t o i ' s concept of h i s t o r i c a l fatalism. And f i n a l l y , Lev T o l s t o i ' s change i n attitude toward Peter the Great may be explained, at least i n part, by his growing i d e a l i z a t i o n of the peasantry; and since they had borne most of the weight of Peter's reforms, T o l s t o i ' s bias naturally turned against the Tsar. This new attitude on the part of the famous writer, as A. V. Alpatov suggests, steered the projected h i s t o r i c a l novel on Peter I more in the d i r e c t i o n of moral and e t h i c a l questions and consequently 18 forced history into the background. Very soon, Lev T o l s t o i abandoned a l l e f f o r t s to write about Peter, and instead busied himself with the writing of Anna Karenina. However, his l a s t impression of Peter the Great never mellowed. When D. S. Merezhkovskii's book A n t i k h r i s t (Petr i Aleksei). appeared i n 1905, N. N. Gusev discussed i t with Lev T o l s t o i who, responding to the comment that Merezhkovskii had portrayed Peter in a l l his cruelty, retorted, "In my opinion, he was not only c r u e l , but he was a drunken f o o l as well. He v i s i t e d the Germans and he l i k e d 19 how they drink there." 109 (iv) D. Merezhkovskii D. S. Merezhkovskii's novel A n t i k h r i s t (Petr i Aleksei) has already been mentioned i n connection with Aleksei T o l s t o i ' s story "Den' Petra." The novel by Merezh-kovskii deserves some attention, e s p e c i a l l y so because i t s influence on T o l s t o i s t i l l continued into the 1920's. B r i e f l y , i t may be said that Merezhkovskii t r i e s to i l l u s t r a t e his own peculiar view of the world through examples of certain periods i n history. He believes not only t h a t history repeats i t s e l f , but that at the same time i t progresses toward a period which he c a l l s the t h i r d king-dom, that is, a kingdom of the Moly S p i r i t . The preceding two kingdoms were, Merezhkovskii believes, the kingdom of paganism, and the kingdom of C h r i s t i a n i t y . Furthermore, Merezhkovskii divides mankind into two categories: f l e s h and s p i r i t , or good and e v i l , C h r i st and A n t i c h r i s t . Thus, in the t r i l o g y C h r i s t and A n t i c h r i s t , which comprises Death of the Gods (Julian the Apostate), 1895, The Resurrected Gods (Leonardo da V i n c i ) , 1901, and A n t i c h r i s t (Peter and A l e k s e i ) , 1905, Merezhkovskii wishes to demonstrate the c o n f l i c t 2 0 between these two opposites. As far as Peter the Great i s ,concerned, Merezhkovskii very simply believes that the Tsar was the A n t i c h r i s t who deformed the s p i r i t of the Russian people and in the end would bring ruin to Russia. However, the clash between the old and the new, between Holy Rus' and l i p Russia, between Peter and Aleksei, i s not posed as a h i s t o r -i c a l question, but rather as a mystical abstraction meant to i l l u s t r a t e the writer's philosophical concept. The following excerpt may serve to show how Merezhkovskii.envelops his novel about.the Tsar i n mystical and symbolic language: Suddenly, at the very edge of the sky, the sun flashed through the clouds as i f blood had spurted from a wound. And the s t e e l clouds, the s t e e l waves became stained with blood, and that bloody sea became both wondrous and frightening. "Blood! Blood!" thought Peter, and he remembered his son's prophecy. "The blood of a son, the blood of Russian tsars w i l l be s p i l l e d upon the block by you f i r s t . That . blood s h a l l pass from head to head, to the l a s t of the t s a r s , and our family w i l l perish i n blood. And because of you, God w i l l punish Russia." "No, Lord!" prayed Peter again as he did then when he prayed before the old icon with a darkened face, when Peter prayed past the Son, addressing himself to the Father who was s a c r i f i c i n g His Son. "Do not l e t that be! His blood i s on me, on me alone! Punish me, God, but spare Russia!" "There' l l be a storm!" the old skipper repeated, thinking that the Tsar had not heard him. "I t o l d Your Highness some time ago. It's better to turn back." "Fear not," responded Peter with a smile. "Our ship i s new and strong: i t w i l l ride out the storm. God i s with u s . " 2 1 In his attempt to make history f i t his preconceived notions, Merezhkovskii uses a method which has been described 2 2 as "metaphysical hindsight." The centre of the author's attention i s occupied by the struggle between the father and the son, or as Merezhkovskii would have the reader believe, I l l between secular and s p i r i t u a l forces, or between Ch r i s t and A n t i c h r i s t . As the A n t i c h r i s t , Peter i s weighed down with negative characteristics:, for example, he s a d i s t i c a l l y whips Aleksei to death; but his contributions i n matters of state receive l i t t l e attention from Merezhkovskii. C. The Soviet H i s t o r i c a l Novel. The h i s t o r i c a l novel took on new importance after the Bolshevik revolution. As i t was f e l t that h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n written i n pre-revolutionary Russia expressed the ideology of the r u l i n g c l a s s , novels written i n the Soviet period were supposed to reveal the suppressed history of the downtrodden, with p a r t i c u l a r emphasis on the class struggle. In this ,way, the October Revolution was to be j u s t i f i e d through a presentation of Russian history as a series of rebellions and uprisings which f i n a l l y culminated i n a S o c i a l i s t victory i n 1917. In such a schematic l i t e r a t u r e , h i s t o r i c a l figures ' who had led i n the struggle against the tsars c l e a r l y had to appear as central characters. One of the e a r l i e s t and very successful h i s t o r i c a l novels of t h i s sort was Aleksei Chapygin's Razin Stepan (1927). Razin, a seventeenth-century h i s t o r i c a l figure celebrated i n Russian f o l k l o r e , i n the treatment of Chapygin i l l o g i c a l l y embraces republicanism, atheism, and twentieth-century revolutionary class-conscious-ness. This kind of modernization of a seventeenth-century 112 cossack, together with a burdensome number of archaic words and references to ancient unfamiliar objects, makes for serious flaws in Razin Stepan. I u r i i Tynianov's Kiukhlia (1925) i s another type of h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n that appeared i n the early years of the Soviet regime. However, i n this- sort of novel, the fr->- •.. author follows h i s t o r i c a l documents so clcbsely that the SifeorybofsthepDeeembrist uprising of 1825 i n Tynianov's book resembles a montage of memoirs and h i s t o r i c a l records. The writer's imagination has l i t t l e scope amid the overwhelming amount of documentation, so that the novel appears to be merely a r e - t e l l i n g of history. The work of Aleksei T o l s t o i , i n contrast to such examples of Soviet h i s t o r i c a l novels, shows a proper balance i n a l l the essentials of the h i s t o r i c a l novel. Although a monarch i s offered as a hero, and one who i s f a i r l y guarded against expressing modern sentiments, the language i s at. once both contemporary and appropriate to the characters, and f i n a l l y , T o l s t o i i s very careful to keep actual documents to the bare minimum. Unencumbered by detailed accounts of public events, the writer's imagination i s free to soar, and T o l s t o i ' s Peter i s presented most often with his private thoughts and personal a f f a i r s . And yet Petr Pervyi offers \ the reader a panoramic view of l i f e i n Russia at the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries, 113' a view that spans the s o c i a l and s p a t i a l distances between the Kremlin palaces i n Moscow and the decrepit izbas i n remote corners of the country. Such breadth .of description, as well as depictions of a whole -gallery of characters, helps to explain those circumstances that were pressing for the Europeanization of Russia. But at the same time, the characterization of Peter i s calculated to demonstrate how the strength of his personality was able to influence events to such a degree that the epoch now bears his name. D. Petr Pervyi and Contemporary C r i t i c i s m . On many occasions T o l s t o i expressed his views -on the question of how to write. To begin with, he never prepared a detailed plan f o r any projected l i t e r a r y work. The most that he would jot down before actual writing began would be a general statement of purpose. The characters that he would introduce came to l i f e and acted almost independently of the author's wishes. Characterization was accomplished through experiences gained as a playwright, explained T o l s t o i i n an interview with Smena. Of course, i n addition to dialogue, what he was r e f e r r i n g to here was the language of gesture which, as he explained i t , acted as a physical l i n k between thought and a r t i c u l a t i o n . Such a language of gesture becomes more the language of the character than of the writer; by thi s means T o l s t o i draws the reader into the narrative and r e l i e s on his imagination to complete the 114 picture. "My task i s to create - a^worclid"wwr-dfeelTols t o i , and l e t the reader into i t . There he w i l l asso-ciate with the characters on his own, not through my words, but through those unwritten, inaudible words which he w i l l understand through the language of gestures. 2^ To the Petrine theme T o l s t o i returned i n 1928 with Na dybe, the f i r s t of three plays about Peter I, which was followed immediatecliy.yby the story "Marta Rabbe." While he was s t i l l w riting Na dybe i n the f a l l of 1928, he wrote a l e t t e r to V. P. P o l o n s k i i , the editor of Novyl Mir, stating that he expected to f i n i s h the play by December, and that soon after he wanted to s t a r t on a novel about Tsar Peter which he would l i k e to o f f e r the magazine for publication. The novel that was to become Petr Pervyi was started i n February 1929, but i n subsequent l e t t e r s to P o l o n s k i i , T o l s t o i referred to his work not as a novel, but as a povest', or story. When the f i r s t installment of Petr Pervyi appeared i n the July 1929 issue of Novyl Mir i t c a r r i e d the s u b t i t l e povest'. Judging frTaHbi, npoKop-M H T b H e H a c b i T H y f o o p a B y , — HyacHbi He n p e x c H n e n e H B r a . B nepeBHHHbix H36ax xcHTb CTaJio HenpHJiH^Ho. npexene 6OHPHH HJIH 60HPHHH Bbie3)KaJIH C O ffBOpa B C a H H X n a oflHOH jiomaflH, xo j ion cHrteji BepxoM, no3aflH flyrH, Ha xoMyT, Ha y3fle*iKy, Ha uijieio HaBeiiHBaJiH j i n c b H x X B O -C T O B , V T O 6 H I JUORK 3aBHjj;oBaJiH . Tenepb — B B i n n C H B a n H3 BaHunra 30Jio^eHyio KapeTy, 3 a n p n r a n ee ^ e T B e p H e n , — HHaie HeT ^ecra. A me / J t e H b r n ? Tyro, BecbMa p r o . [57] "Tugo, v e s ' m a t u g o " e m p h a s i z e s t h e c o n v e r s a t i o n a l t o n e o f this p a r a g r a p h . The v e r n a c u l a r q u a l i t y i s c o n v e y e d by - s u c h e x p r e s s i o n s as " p o r o t a i a z a d n i t s a " and " u r o z h a i s a m - t r i — s l a v a t e b e g o s p o d i . " In t h i s p a r a g r a p h , w i t h o u t d i s c u s s i n g commerce o r h i s t o r y , T o l s t o i d raws a p i c t u r e o f f e u d a l Muscovy. One s e n s e s t h a t there w a s , as Karamzin f i r s t n o t e d , a c e r t a i n c o h e s i v e q u a l i t y i n p r e-Petrine t i m e s ; a t home t h e b o i a r s l u r p e d c a b b a g e soup w i t h s a l t p o r k j u s t l i k e t h e 1 2 9 wretched peasant wi t h the whipped behind. S i g n i f i c a n t l y though, i t i s the b o i a r s who now express j e a l o u s y o f t h e i r European c o u n t e r p a r t s and no ledger l i s the wish to f o l l o w the west a j e a l o u s whim of the Ts a r , as i t was suggested i n the 1918 s t o r y , "Den' P e t r a . " Instead, t h i s passage shows t h a t the e s t a b l i s h e d n o b i l i t y , who i n the p a s t were content t o guard .their honour and to pray, were now begi n n i n g t o envy the wealth of t h e i r western peers. The kuptsy, or merchants, were a l s o grumbling because of the steady d e c l i n e i n t h e i r t r a d e : ToproBJiHiiiKa nJioxan. CBoeMy MHor.o He npoflauiB, C B O H — r o j i . 3a r p a H H u y He noBe3euiB, — he H a * i e M . Mopn ^yxtfie. Bee T o p r a c 3arpaHHiJ,eH n p H 6 p a J i H K p y K a M HH03eMUBi. A nocJiymaeuiB, K a K TopryioT B H H H X 3eMJiHx, rojioBy 6 H pa36HJi c flocaflfai. ^ I T O 3a P O C C H H , 3aKJiHTan C T p a H a , — K o r a a ace T b i c M e c T a CHBHHeiUBCH? [58] With t h i s r h e t o r i c a l q u e s t i o n T o l s t o i prepares the main task f o r the c e n t r a l f i g u r e of the n o v e l . He has shown t h a t there e x i s t e d a n e a r - u n i v e r s a l d i s s a t i s f a c t i o n w i t h the s t a t u s quo, and i t i s a t t h i s p o i n t t h a t he i n t r o d u c e s the view t h a t a l l t h a t was r e q u i r e d was a man who could s a t i s f y the common wish f o r a change. Having prepared the background i n t h i s manner, T o l s t o i next proceeds t o p o r t r a y a man w i e l d i n g enormous p o l i t i c a l power, a man of g r e a t i n t e l l e c t , a man w i t h a prepared t r e a t i s e f o r l i t e r a l l y r e v o l u t i o n a r y changes, but a t the same time a man completely unable t o cope wi t h the r e a l i t i e s which reduce t h i s man, P r i n c e V a s i l i i i3G V a s i l e v i c h Golitsyn, to impotency. Dressed i n fine French lace, breeches, and buckle shoes, Golitsyn, speaking i n Lati n , explains to a foreign v i s i t o r how he would free the ser f s , give them land, while with the gentry he would f i l l government posts and create a regular army. He would also send the youth from the n o b i l i t y abroad to study, he would est a b l i s h an academy of sciences, and i n general work for the enrichment and enlightenment of both the people and the country. But Prince Golitsyn, a h i s t o r i c a l character, i s most graphically portrayed by T o l s t o i i n an imaginary private conference with the regent S o f i a , Peter's elder ".half-sister. Golitsyn's character i s not equal to the challenge posed by the existing conditions i n Russia, and though he i s i n many respects far more progressive i n his schemes than Peter, he lacks Peter's s i m p l i c i t y and strength of w i l l , and especially his ruthlessness. Golitsyn's weakness i s best conveyed to the reader through the eyes of his mistress, S o f i a : BacHJiHfj BacHJibeBH^: noTporaJi najibueM ycbi, . . . Co CocpbH^noKocKJiacB-HaDHepo: ox^.CKpacHB, ox, "MyKa M O H . . . fla — C J i a 6 , S C H J I H — s c e H C K H e . . . B K p y a c e B a BbipHflHJICH . . . — TaK - T O , 6aTK>niKa M O H . . . K H H T H T B I q H T a T b ropa3,n. H n n c a T b ropa3H, M H C J I H cBeTJMe, — 3Haio c a M a . . . A B^ i e p a noc j i e Be^epHH flHHKMKa HBaH Mnxaf i-J I O B H M npo Te6n roBopnn: „qHTaJi, M O J I , MHe BacHjiHH BacHJiBeBH'y H3 TeTpaflH npo CMepflOB, npo MyacHKOB, — nOflHBHJICH H : y»C 3flOpOB J I H TOJIOBKOH KHH3K)UIKa-TO?" H 6onpe CMenJiHCB... KaK fleByniKa, BcnbixHyji BacHJiHH BacHJiBeBHM, . . . 131 — He fljiH H X y M a n H c a H o ! — fla ym KaKne H H Ha e eTb, — yMHee ejiyr H S M He j j ;a j j ;eHo.. . CaMa Tepruno: MHe 6bi B O T o x o T a nJincaTB, KaK n o J i b C K a H KopoJieBa njiniueT, . . . HHMero He Mory, — - cKaacyT: e p e T H ^ K a . . . . — 5KHBeM cpenH M O H C T P O B , — n p o n i e n T a J i BacHJiHH BacHJibeBH^:. — B O T }iio T e 6 e CKascy, 6aTK>iiiKa. . . C H H M H — K a T H KpyxceBa, ^ y j i o ^ K H , rta HaneHb enaH^iy noxoHHyw, B O 3 B M H B p y K H c a 6 e j i b K y . . . n o K a a c H B e J i H K H e n e j i a . . . [ 8 2 ] The d i a l o g u e r e v e a l s G o l i t s y n ' s p a s s i v e nature as w e l l . The use of d i m i n u t i v e s and the very f a c t t h a t S o f i a regards him as r a t h e r e f f e m i n a t e s t r e s s a l l the more the P r i n c e ' s i n a b i l i t y t o change anything i n the country's c o n d i t i o n . Furthermore, G o l i t s y n ' s incompetence i n p r a c t i c a l matters, h i s meeK acceptance of a commission to l e a d a f u t i l e campaign a g a i n s t the Turks i n the Crimea, h i s . i n d e c i s i o n d u r i n g the c o n f r o n t a t i o n between S o f i a and P e t e r , and f i n a l l y h i s s u p e r s t i t i o u s b e l i e f i n p r e d e s t i n a t i o n r e s u l t i n h i s being merely dragged along and f i n a l l y j u s t swept a s i d e by h i s t o r i c a l circumstances. Meanwhile, i n c o n t r a s t .to the Muscovite splendour of S o f i a ' s Kremlin p a l a c e s , the banished Tsar Peter grows i n t o manhood i n the nearby v i l l a g e of Preobrazhensk. Excluded from c o u r t a f f a i r s and denied the a t t e n t i o n t h a t h i s s t a t i o n would warrant, P e t e r , w i t h only meagre t u t e l a g e from the. drunkard N i k i t a Zotov, develops i n t o an independent and s t r o n g - w i l l e d youth. P l a y i n g a t war, w i t h the v i l l a g e muzhiks and boys of h i s own age, Peter f i r s t uses wooden cannons 132 f i r i n g only steamed vegetables and apples.. But gradually he demands and receives r e a l weapons for his games. Such a picture of the young Tsar e a s i l y coincides with the common impression of Peter's youth i n Preobrazhensk. What T o l s t o i does to enhance the picture of i s o l a t i o n and to show how Peter has changed since the reader f i r s t saw him as a frightened " k i t t e n " with the Hat of Monomakh s l i d i n g over his ear, i s to add at th i s point a small h i s t o r i c a l document which contributes to the general.impression of the past and which characterizes both Peter and his mother: H,apHij;a O T C K Y K H B 3 H J i a nOTHT.aTb neTpyniHHy yqe6Hyio Teipaflb. ApH$Me.THKa. TeipanB — B ^epHHJiBHbix nHTHax, HanncaHo — B K P H B B H B K O C B , Hepa3 6op^HBo: „ I l p H M e p a f l H U H H . . . . f loJiry M H o r o , a fle.Hex y MeHa MeHiue T O B O floxiry, H Haflo6aeT BbraecTB T M H O T O J I H e3^o nJiaTHTB. H T O CTaBHCH T a K : flOJir B b i m e , a nofl H U M nenm, u BbiHeMaioT BCHKoe ncnof lHee C J I O B O H C BepkHeBa. . . . " H,apHu.a 3esHyjia, — H e T O e c T B x o i e T C H , He T O eme q e r o - T o . . . [71] Adapting a document found i n a c o l l e c t i o n t i t l e d Pis'ma i bumagi Petra Velikogo (Letters and Papers of Peter the Great), T o l s t o i uses i t s bespattered appearance and crooked writing with i t s misspelled words to complete a picture i n the reader's mind of Peter's nervous and impetuous nature. In addition, the document i l l u s t r a t e s how the written language d i f f e r e d from the spoken Russian. The d i f f u s e s t y l e i n which the arithmetic function i s described r e f l e c t s the prescribed formality of the written language i n the past. 133 F i n a l l y , t o demonstrate f u r t h e r the b a r r e n q u a l i t y of the c o u r t at Preobrazhensk, the passage ends wi t h the T s a r i n a ' s yawn. On the other hand, . the;.reade'ruiiahofferedia , ; d i f f e r e n t p e r c e p t i o n as viewed from the Kremlin. The regent S o f i a , complaining to P r i n c e G o l i t s y n , notes t h a t Peter i s no longer a harmless " k i t t e n " : " V y t i a n u l s i a v kolomenskuiu v e r s t u , " she adds. Moreover, i t has not escaped her n o t i c e t h a t Peter i s now u s i n g r e a l weapons i n h i s war games, and she confesses to her l o v e r t h a t she has been t h i n k i n g about 47 what happened to D i m i t r & i at U g l i c h . Thus, without d w e l l i n g on the matter, T o l s t o i shows how P e t e r , banished though he i s , grows i n power and comes to pose a t h r e a t to S o f i a ' s regency. T h i s i s a l s o a way of e x p l a i n i n g P eter's p a t h o l o g i c a l f e a r and h a t r e d f o r the r e b e l l i o u s s t r e l ' t s y who had k i l l e d h i s maternal u n c l e , and who now formed S o f i s 1 a c h i e f support. What compensates f o r P eter's l a c k of a formal e d u c a t i o n i s h i s c l o s e a s s o c i a t i o n and f r i e n d s h i p with some members of the "German" colony i n Moscow. They capture the young T s a r ' s i m a g i n a t i o n w i t h t h e i r v a s t knowledge, espe-c i a l l y i n n a v a l and m i l i t a r y matters, and t h i s e a r l y acquaintance w i t h the West engenders h i s d e s i r e to modernize Muscovy. Among the f o r e i g n e r s , i t i s Franz L e f o r t , Peter's d r i n k i n g companion, who proves t o be the most i n f l u e n t i a l , 0 , . c « s r ( , t*.*e T s a r 13 4 and who o f f e r s the Tsar the bes t c o u n s e l : IleTp HHBHJicH p a 3 y M H o c T H c e p f l e ^ H o r o j j ;pyra ;y.. .. . . " . " When a t l a s t P e ter emerges v i c t o r i o u s from h i s c o n f r o n t a t i o n w i t h S o f i a , a l l those elements i n the popula-t i o n who want changes t h a t would improve c o n d i t i o n s i n Russia p i n t h e i r hopes on the new Tsar . In t h i s way T o l s t o i prepares the reader f o r the a c t i v e r o l e t o be play e d by Peter i n b r i n g i n g about the t r a n s f i g u r a t i o n of mediaeval Muscovy 13 5 , into a modern European state. In other words, the author draws a picture of Russia.as a country i n which h i s t o r i c a l circumstances have ripened to the point where i t i s evident to many that things must change. And yet there remain so many formidable and fundamental obstacles on the road to change that require an extraordinary personality to surmount them. Peter i s such a man, whose ruthless character i s equal to the challenge posed by conditions i n Russia. In a short time his p a r t i c u l a r q u a l i t i e s enab'leIhimehot only to set i n motion the changes that were anticipated by some, but also to influence futufetdevecllopments i n Russian h i s t o r y . One of the f i r s t examples of Peter's strength i s given i n the interview between the Tsar and the Patriarch Ioakim. The growing presence of Europeans i s noted by the Patriarch and,cited as the cause of moral decline among the Russian people. "We were the Third Rome," says he, "but now we have become the second Sodom arid Gomorrah." Even the recent f a i l u r e of Golitsyn's campaigns against the Crimean Tatars Ioakim attributes to the presence of foreigners:,,. 3anpeTHTB, ^ T O S H B nojiKax npoKJiHTbie epeTHKH 6BIJIH HaMaJiBHHKaMH. . . K a K a n OT H H X npaBocjiaBHOMy B O H H -CTBy MoaceT 6 B I T B .n o J i B 3 a ? T O J I B K O 6 O ) K H H r H e B H a B O f l H T Ha^caJiBCTBvioT B O J I K H Ha a rHeubi ! JJpyxcHTB 3 a n p e T H T B npaBOCJiaBHbiM c epeTHKaMH ... [214] As b e f i t s the head of the church i n Russia, the Patriarch's speech contains B i b l i c a l references and Old Church Slavoni-cisms, which help to create the atmosphere and to i d e n t i f y the speaker. The reference to the negative moral influence of the westerners upon the Orthodox population also c a l l s to mind the c r i t i c i s m f i r s t expressed by Karamzin: i n his Zapiska. What Peter learns from Lefort concerning the proper conduct of p o l i t i c s serves him well i n his f i r s t encounter with the determined opposition of :the church.. As a conces-sion to the Patriarch's e c c l e s i a s t i c a l demands, he permits him to burn at the stake the Dutch heretic Kuhlman. But because he needs the foreigners he c a t e g o r i c a l l y refuses to banish them or to close t h e i r churches. In t h i s conference between Peter and Ioakim, there i s a clear i n d i c a t i o n that the Tsar i s now^seeking to model Russia on western countries not from a s e l f i s h caprice —^ - as T o l s t o i had implied i n "Den' Petra" — but from a desire, worthy of a true leader, to raise his country to the economic l e v e l of Europe. Here to© he displays an a b i l i t y to follow his own.course,.with small compromises where necessary, but without losing slight of his main goal. The Tsar's obstinate character enables him to achieve his f i r s t m i l i t a r y success. A f t e r the i n i t i a l f a i l u r e to take the Turkish fortress at Azov, he appears.to be no more competent to lead an army than the unfortunate Golitsyn. And yet, unlike the Prince, Peter refuses to retreat. Once more T o l s t o i describes the furious state of the Tsar i n i n d i r e c t terms: 13 7: K I leTpy S O H J I H C B nof lxof lHTB. O H caM Hannca j i ( B K P H B B H B K O C B , n p o n y c K a n .6yKBbi, 6pbi3ran ^epHHJiaMH) npHKa3, •^TO6 He n o 3 n . H e e KOHiiaeero Mecn i i a 6tJTb oSineMy n p H C T y n y c Bortbi H c y u m . . - .SoHcBdH'GKaMeBe'JIeHdOBe- , H.enoBeflaTBCH H n p n i a c T H T B C H, H Bee T O T O B H J I H C B K c M e p T H . [302] Peter's crooked w r i t i n g , m i s s p e l l e d words, and s p l a t t e r e d ink serve once more t o r e i n f o r c e the impression of h i s turbu-l e n t c h a r a c t e r . Having r e t r e a t e d up the Don t o Voronezh, he begins t o p r e p a r e . f o r another a t t a c k on Azov. In t h i s case the d e s c r i p t i o n i s r e m i n i s c e n t of T o l s t o i ' s p i c t u r e of the hardships t h a t the people s u f f e r e d i n "Den* P e t r a " : Tyf la c o Been P O C C H H Ha*ia.nH C T O H H T B paSo^Hx H peMec-Tie'HHHKOB . no OCeHHHM flOpOraM nOTHHyjIHCB 0603bl. B j i e c a x no BopoHeacy H floHy 3aKa^aj iHCb non, TonopaMH BeKOBbie flySbi. CTpoHJTHCb B e p $ H , aM6apbi, 6apaKH. xtaarKopaeJ iH, nBafl i iaTB T P H raj iepbi H *jeTbipe SpaHflepa 3a j io»tHj[H Ha CTaneJ iHX. 3HMa Bbinajia C T y n e H a n . B c e r o He XBaTaJio. Jhopys. TH6J1H C O T H H M H . B O cHe He yBHflaTb TaKOH HeBOJiH, 6e»caBiiiHX — J I O B H J I H , KOBajiH -B » c e j i e 3 0 . BbK»KHbiH B e T e p pacKa^HBaJ i Ha BHcejiHijax Mep3Jibie T p y n b i . OTMaHHHbie mopn noxtstHrajiH xieca KpyroM B o p o -He)Ka. MyscHKH, Hrtyinne c o 6 o 3 a M H , pe3aj iH eo j i r jaT- . K O H B O H P O B ; pa3rpa6HB I T O M O H C H O , yxoflHJiH Ky_n.ar .na3a rJiHHHT.. . B flepeBHHx Kaxte^HJiHCB, pySHJin na.nbu.bi, HTo6bi He H H T H nop, BopoHeac. y n n p a j i a c b B C H P O C C H H , —— BOHCTHHy npHiiuiH aHTHxpHCTOBbi B p e M e H a : Mano Quno npeacHen T H T O T U , KaSaJibi H 6apmHHH, T e n e p B B O J I O K J I H Ha HOByw HenoHHTHyw p a 6 o T y . [305-306] Azov i s taken i n the second a s s a u l t . P eter's r u t h -l e s s n e s s has p a i d o f f , e x p l a i n s T o l s t o i , and t h i s v i c t o r y has s p e c i a l s i g n i f i c a n c e , f o r "Kukui has won over Moscow." But t h i s i s not t o suggest t h a t the Peter i n the no v e l i s the same i c o n o c l a s t as p o r t r a y e d i n the s t o r y of 1918. Now T o l s t o i takes care t o demonstrate the Tsar's s e n s i t i v i t y t o 138 the European view of Russia. In Arkhangel 1sk, for example, the foreigners are not "svoi, ruchnye" or the tame sort that he had encountered i n the German quarter of Moscow. From t h e i r huge ocean-going vessels these Dutch, German and English seamen d i s d a i n f u l l y regarded Peter as i f he were no better than "someone from Madagascar," "a tsar.of barbarians." Glancing at Lefort at that moment i t seems to Peter that even he remains e s s e n t i a l l y a scornful European: Jle<|>opT, HapnxtHbiH, K a K B c e r j j a , n o c T y K H B a j i T P O C T O ^ I -K O H , — nop ycuKdMH — CJiaflKan yjibi6o^Ka, B n p u n y x i i i H X BeKax —- yjibi6o*iKa, Ha HanynpeHHOH ;m.eKe — H M o ^ K a . . . HoBOJieH, B e c e J i , c ^ a c T H H B . . . I leTp 3aeoneJi, — — po xoro B f l p y r 3axoTeJiocB part B M o p j j y cepne^HOMy Bpyry OpaHuy... [244] The diminutives. The diminutives — " u s i k i , " "ulybochka," "iamochka," "tro-• stobhka" — a l l reveal how Peter's feelings are aroused by the s e l f - s a t i s f i e d delicacy of posture of his Swiss f r i e n d . But Peter's innate i n t e l l i g e n c e and his "aziatskaia k h i t r o s t * " (As i a t i c cunning) enables him to turn the s i t u a t i o n i n his favour by su r p r i s i n g the sneering- Europeans. With exagger-ated glee he gazes at t h e i r ships, stamps his feet i n excitement, slaps the foreigners on the back, and loudly proclaims that he w i l l personally b u i l d a ship and that his boiars w i l l hammer the nails.. His djeigned enthusiasm and apparent s i m p l i c i t y amaze the v i s i t i n g merchants; t r u l y they have never before met -such a monarch. At t h i s point i t may be noted that i n Petr Pervyi a l l 1 3 9 the E u r o p e a n s who come i n c o n t a c t w i t h t h e T s a r s e r v e t o d e m o n s t r a t e t h e n e e d f o r m o d e r n i z i n g R u s s i a . B u t a t t h e same t i m e , t h e y a l s o s e r v e t o i l l u s t r a t e P e t e r ' s s e n s i t i v i t y t o t h e i r f r e q u e n t l y u n s y m p a t h e t i c a n d s o m e t i m e s c o a r s e c r i t i c i s m s . H a v i n g a s k e d f o r c a n d i d i m p r e s s i o n s o f l i f e i n M o s c o w , f o r e x a m p l e , P e t e r l i s t e n s t o w h a t S i d n e y , t h e B r i t i s h m e r c h a n t h a s t o s a y , and t h e n s h o u t s i n r e p l y : TCMEawHJiBTOH(,pnepe.BeflHyeMy. . . •• ( H c r p o M K o , Bi^yxo CHflHew, CTaJi KpHMaTb no-pyccKH.) CaMH Bee B H H H M . . . Mbi H e XBajiHMCH, * i T o y Hac xop.oiuo. . . . HaM a3, 6 y K H , BextH — B O T c * i e r o Hano Y ^ I H T B C H . . . Tbi B r j i a 3 a K O J i e u i b , — H H K H , H H H I H , n y p a K H na 3 B e p n . . . 3 H a i o , ^ e p T ! Ho noroflH, noroflH... O H BCTaJ i , OTiiiBHpHyji CTyj i no flopore. [ 2 0 9 ] F u r t h e r , P e t r P e r v y i c o n c l u d e s w i t h t h e n R u s s i a n viicfe'eryaatnNarva„in lr70_4;--a 'v.ictpry.dachiev.edwin^large measure t h r o u g h t h e e x e c u t i o n o f a s t r a t e g y d e v i s e d b y F i e l d M a r s h a l O g i l v i e . I n p l a n n i n g h i s c a m p a i g n , h o w e v e r , O g i l v i e h a d a r r a n g e d t o l a y a t h r e e - m o n t h s i e g e t o N a r v a b e c a u s e , as he e x p l a i n s i t , t h e R u s s i a n m u z h i k i n t h e army c a n n o t be c o n s i d e r e d t o be a r e a l s o l d i e r : . . . P y c c K H H coJ i saT 3 T O n o K a eme H e coJ i f laT, H O MyjKKK c pyxcbeM. y H e r o eme HeT H H MaJieHinero noHHTHH o nopHflKe H flHCUHnJiHHe. HyxcHo eme MHoro o6JiOMaTb naJioK o e r o c n H H y , *iTo6bi 3acTaBHTb e r o I I O B H H O B a T B C H 6e3 paccyacf leHHH, KaK H O J D K H O coJ i f laTy. T o r f l a H M o r y 6biTb y B e p e H , * I T O O H , no MaHOBeHHB M o e r o xce3Jia, B03bMeT J iecTHHuy H nop. rpaf lOM nyjib no j ie3eT Ha C T e H y . . . [ 8 2 4 ] F o r a l l h i s h a t r e d o f t h e R u s s i a n p a s t , P e t e r r e m a i n s a l w a y s 140 s e n s i t i v e to t h e pompous s u p e r i o r i t y d i s p l a y e d b y some E u r o p e a n s . I n c i d e n t a l l y , i n v i e w o f t h e f a c t t h a t t h i s e x c e r p t was w r i t t e n i n 1944, i t i s a l i k e l y c o n j e c t u r e t h a t T o l s t o i c o u l d n o t r e s i s t t h e t e m p t a t i o n . t o d r a w a t t e n t i o n to t h e German o f f i c e r ' s i d e a l o f a s o l d i e r who b e h a v e s e x a c t l y l i k e a d e - h u m a n i z e d a u t o m a t o n . .EbUiOrOwing O g i l v i e ' s l e n g t h y b u t e l o q u e n t d i s q u i s i t i o n , w h i c h s e r v e s t o i d e n t i f y t h e s p e a k e r as a E u r o p e a n , T o l s t o i g i v e s one o f h i s m o s t g r a p h i c p o r t r a i t s o f P e t e r when h i s i r e i s r a i s e d i n d e f e n s e o f t h e • R u s s i a n m u z h i k : C T H J I B B H c ynoBOJiBCTBueM anyiuaji caMoro ce6n, KaK n T H i i a , npHKpbiBan r j i a 3 a B e x a M H. HIacJ>HpoB nepeBonHj: Ha pa3yMHyw p y c c K y w p e ^ B e r o MHoroonoKHue flHflaKTH-i e c K H e n o c T p o e H H H . K o r n a y&e O T H J I B B H , O K O H H H B , B3rJiHHyji Ha I leTpa A n e K c e e B H ^ a , T O Hecopa3MepHO c o C B O H M flOCTOHHCTBOM SblCTpO mQff.G&P^S£ni- BOTH nOfl CTyJI , y6paji J K H B O T H onycTHJi p y K y c T P O C T B K ) ? ; JIHUO. neTpa S B I J I O CTpauiHoe, — - men 6ynTo BflBoe B U T H H y j i a c B , B3flyjiHCB CBHpenbie jscejiB.aKH c 6 O K O B p T a , H3 pacniH-peHHbix r j i a3 roTOBH- O B I J I H — He flan 6 o « e , He flaB 6o » e BbipBaTBCH $ y p H H . . . * O H TH^eJIO ' XJBIIIiaJI. EOJIBIIiaH >KHJiHCTaH p y K a c K O P O T K H M p y K a B O M , JiexcaBiuan c p e n n H O X J T H X K a p a M o p , HCKajra I T O - T O . . . HamynaJia r y c H H H o e n e p o , C J i o M a j r a . . . BOT K a K , BOT K a K , pyCCKHH COJlflaT My»HK c pyscBeM! — n p o r o B o p n j i O H onaBJieHHHM r o p j i o M . — ILnoxoro He BH^cy. . . P y C C K H H MyacHK — y M e H , CMbiuuieH, C M e j r . . . A c pyneM cTpauieH B p a r y . . . 3a Bee c n e naxiKOH ne 6BK>T§ nopHnica He 3HaeT? 3HaeT O H nopHHOK. A K o r n a He 3HaeT — He O H n n o x , ocjmuep nJiox. . . A Korna Moero coJiflaTa Hano naxiKOH 6 H T B , — TaK 6 H T B e r o 6yrry H , a T H e r o 6 H T B He SyxjeniB. . . [824-825] T h e - s h o r t s e n t e n c e s i n P e t e r ' s r e p l y r e v e a l h i s a n g e r . B u t t h e c h a n g e i n O g i l v i e ' s p o s t u r e f r o m one s h o w i n g c o m p l a c e n c y 141 to one showing t i m i d i t y or even fear (dropping his hand which was resting on a cane, drawing his feet under the chair, and p u l l i n g in his stomach), plus the change in Peter's f a c i a l expression, and his groping hand give an even clearer indication of his barely-controlled rage. But though Peter takes offense at Ogilvie's remarks, the F i e l d Marshal i s retained as one of the Tsar's chief m i l i t a r y advisors. That Peter values what he has learned from the Europeans around him i s demonstrated by the r e s t r a i n t rhe; shows in" the -scene immediately..following, the storming of Narva. Here he consciously s t r i v e s to behave in a manner b e f i t t i n g a European monarch. Peter's thoughts, his majestic posture, a l l reveal how much he has learned about proper behaviour from such foreigners as Lefort and O g i l v i e , and also how he has changed from his youth when he freely gave vent to every impulse. To learn first-hand about western l i f e , Peter joins the great embassy to Europe. The journey through " s t a r a i a dobraia Germaniia" (old, good Germany) once again points to the backwardness of Russia, not only i n economy, but also in c i v i l culture. By describing things that surprise the t r a v e l l e r s , T o l s t o i , i n d i r e c t l y but e f f e c t i v e l y , reveals everyday l i f e i n Russia i n greater d e t a i l . For example, here i s a description of the embassy's f i r s t look at western Europe: 142 BbexanH B K e H H r c S e p r B c y M e p K a x , KOJieea 3arpeMej iH no 1HCTOH MOCTOBOH. HH 3a6opOB., H H ^ aCTOKOJIOB , M T O 3a flHBo! floMa npsMO — JIHU.OM H a y j i n u y , p y K O H n o n a T b O T 3ejvuiH HJiHHHbie oKHa c M O J I K H M H cTeKJ iaMH. IIOBCiOfly npHBeT JIHBblH C B e T . flBepH OTKPUTBI. JlWJJH X O H H T 6e3 o n a c K H . . . XoTeJ iocB c n p o c H T b — n a KaK xce BU r p a b e s c a He 6 o H T e c b ? HeyxcTO H pa36oHHHKOB y Bac HeT? / B- K y n e i e e K O M flOMe, rrte C T a J i H , — onHTB — H H i e r o He cnpHTaHO, xoponine Bemn JiexcaT O T K P H T O . flypaK He yHece-T. I l eTp , orjiHJjbiBaH T e M H o r o .rryba cTOJioByio, 6oraTo ydpaHHyw KapTHHaMH, nocynoH, TypbHMH poraMH, T H X O CKa3aJi AJieKcaniKe: — npHKaacH B c e M HacTporo, ec j iH K T O X O T B Ha Mejio^b n o 3 a p H T C s , — n O B e w y Ha B o p o T a x . . . — H npaBHJibHo, M H H xepu, , MHe H T O 6 o H 3 H o c T a . n o . . . n o K y f l a He n p H B H K H y T , H Bejno KapMaHbi BceM 3auiHTb... Hy> He flafi 6 o r c nbHHbix-TO rjia3 . . . [316] T h e s h o r t s e n t e n c e s m i r r o r w h a t t h e y s e e f r o m t h e p a s s i n g c a r r i a g e a n d w h a t f i r s t s t r i k e s t h e e y e i n t h e m e r c h a n t ' s d i n i n g r o o m . C l e a n s t r e e t s , o r d e r l i n e s s and s e c u r i t y a r e n o t q u a l i t i e s o f l i f e t o be f o u n d i n R u s s i a , i t a p p e a r s . M o r e o v e r , t h e c o n v e r s a t i o n a l t o n e o f t h i s p a s s a g e s u g g e s t s how members o f t h e p a r t y r e a c t t o t h e s e s i g h t s . I d i o m a t i c p a r l a n c e , f o r e x a m p l e , " n e u z h t o i r a z b o i n i k o v u v a s n e t , " o r " d u r a k n e u n e s e t " s e r v e s t o e m p h a s i z e t o w h a t d e g r e e t h e R u s s i a n s a r e i m p r e s s e d by w h a t t h e y s e e i n K o e n i g s b e r g . T h e s e i m p r e s s i o n s a r e f u r t h e r c o n f i r m e d by t h e e x c h a n g e b e t w e e n P e t e r and M e n s h i k o v ; and w h a t t h e T s a r s a y s s e r v e s as a n o t h e r e x a m p l e o f h i s i m p e r i o u s c h a r a c t e r . The d a i n t y homes a n d g a r d e n s o f H o l l a n d , c l e a n a n d w e l l - k e p t , a r e n o t e d w i t h s p e c i a l i n t e r e s t b y t h e R u s s i a n s . S a i l i n g a l o n g a c a n a l , P e t e r t u r n s t o l e c t u r e t h o s e i n h i s .143 entourage: Ha H H O M xtBope B M O C K B S y Hac npocTopHHe.. . A B 3 H T B MeTJiy, na noflMecTH A B O P , na oropofl nocaf lHTB 3ejio n p H H T H H H H nOJie3HBIH'—— H B MB1CJ1HX HH y KOPO H e T . . . CTpoeHHe BaJiHTCH, H T O B B I , flbHBOJiu, c ne^H He cn cJ ie3HTe noflnepeTB, — H B a c 3 H a i o . . . flo BeTpy JieHB C X O A H T B B npHJiH^Hoe MecTO, raflHTe npHMO y nopora. . . OT^ero cne? C H A H M ,Ha B e j i H K K X npocTopax H — H H i q n e . . . HaMSTo B B e j i H K y i o nocafly... rjiHflHTe — 3 f l e c B 3eMjno co flHa M o p c K o r o flocTajin, Kaacfloe flepeBo H a n o n p n -Be3TH na nocaflHTB. H y c T p o e n H C T H H B I H ' napa f lH3 . . . [330] What i s important to note in the above paragraph are examples of old and new words used with v e r n a c u l a r expressions, a mixture which r e p r e s e n t s the changes i n the language t h a t were, o c c u r r i n g at the time. For example, " z e l o " i s an obsolete adverb meaning "very," while the word " p a r a d i z " r e p r e s e n t s the r e c e n t borrowing from European languages which en t e r e d the Russian language as p a r t of the c u l t u r a l w e s t e r n i z a t i o n . "Skhodit*.do v e t r u , " on.the other hand, i s a p u r e l y Russian v e r n a c u l a r idiom of which the Tsar, i t seems, ce©u6JHO C T P O H T B K o p a 6 j i H . . . ranepa nIIpHH-KHnHyM" O T Ma^Tbi 1 4 4 P.O KHJIH BOT 3 T H M H pyKaMH n O C T p o e H a .i(K,UbIH SeilieHBIM c T a H e T. . . B POCCHH B e e HyscHo J i o M a T B , — B e e 3aHOBO, ,, A yac JHOHH y Hac ynpHMbi! - — na HHOM MHCO flo KOCTeH non KHyTOM c j i e 3 e T . . . 3 a n H y j i c H , B 3 r j i H H y j i B TJ ia3a sceHiqHH H yjibiSHyjicH HM BHHOBaTo . . . [ 3 2 7 ] Again short and d i s j o i n t e d sentences, punctuated by gestures and f a c i a l expressions, reveal Peter's excitement and at the same time contribute to his characterization. His calloused hands and his reference to whipping with a knout expose graphically that d u a l i t y i n the Tsar's character which was mentioned e a r l i e r . From such passages i t becomes evident that T o l s t o i attempts i n t h i s novel to demonstrate both the need for r a d i c a l changes i n . a l l spheres of Russian l i f e , and the '.-b e l i e f that a strong i n d i v i d u a l was required to accomplish those changes.. Prince Golitsyn's sophisticated solutions for the country's problems are shown to be i l l - s u i t e d even for the task of s t i r r i n g Russia in the d i r e c t i o n of change. Moreover, his genteel nature prevents him from doing anything beyond writing a t r e a t i s e aimed at ra i s i n g Russia's economic and c u l t u r a l l e v e l . . Peter's strong, f o r c e f u l and tempestu-ous personality, exacting obedience sternly as i t did, when contrasted with that of the i n e f f e c t u a l Golitsynlf., appears both appealing and the sort that could force the country to submit to change. But at the same time T o l s t o i does not 145 ignore Peter's negative t r a i t s , which are best revealed through his passion for coarse, Bacchic amusements. His drunken r e v e l r i e s appear incomprehensible and c r u e l . His parades of cows, yelping dogs, and squealing pigs drawing wagons and sleighs f i l l e d with drunk and :unronscious boiars who are forced to play the f o o l and accompany the young Tsar, only encourage the b e l i e f among the people that he i s not an Orthodox tsar, but the A n t i c h r i s t . The wretched host whose misfortune i t i s to receive Peter prepares f o r the event as i f for his own funeral, for many do not survive the Tsar's s o c i a l c a l l : KHH3H- BeoioceJ ibCKoro 3a C T P O I I T H B O C T B pa3HeJTH HarniuoM H T O J I H M ero ry3HOM S H J I H KypHHHbie H-ftiia- B JioxaHH. Eo6opHKHHa, B cMex Han T V ^ I H O C T B I O ero, npoTacKHBaJiH CKB03B CTyjIBH , TXte HeB03M03KHO H XVflOMy npOJ ie3TB. KHH3K) BoJiKOHCKOMy C B e i y 3a6HJiH B npoxon H , 3axcrH, nejiH BOKpyr ero H P M O C B I , n o K y n a Bee He noBajiHJiHCB co C M e x a . . . . flBopHHHHa HBaHa- AKaKHeBHia M a c H o r o HaflyBaxiH MexoM B 3aflHHH n p o x o n , O T i e r o O H BCKope H n o M e p . [242] Then, c i t i n g notes from a diary kept by the Dutchman Jacob Noeman, who recorded Peter's v i s i t to Holland, T o l s t o i gives further examples of the Tsar's character, showing him to be not only cruel but often s p i t e f u l : Korna PKJHUI C H H J I npocTbiHio c pa3HHToro ryiH aHaTOMHH flpyroro Tpyna, i i a p B 3aMeTHJi OTBpameHHe Ha JiHiiax. C B O H X CnyTHHKOB H , THeBHO 3aKPH-^iaB Ha HHX, npHKa3aJi H M 3y6aMH S p a T B'H pa3PbiBaTB MycKyjibi T p y n a . . . [339] By using h i s t o r i c a l documents, such as the diary, and by describing how Peter caroused about Moscow, T o l s t o i gives 146 ample evidence of the Tsar's negative q u a l i t i e s . But i t i s also important to note how the two foregoing excerpts d i f f e r , although both deal with the same aspect of Peter's character. The f i r s t , an i n t e g r a l part of the narrative, has '§yntax which i s uncommon, by today's l i t e r a r y standard. By begin-ning most sentencesvvwii.tih the d i r e c t object, T o l s t o i reproduces the vernacularttaarae which once more i s used to create the i l l u s i o n of the past. The words "nagishom" and "golym . . . guznom" and "on vsfeore i pomer" are well-suited to the coarse actions described i n the paragraph. On the other hand, whenever T o l s t o i incorporates i n his narrative a speech or a written account given by a European, the syntax follows the common pattern, that i s the sequence of subject, predi-cate and object, and the vocabulary i s free of archaisms or substandard expressions. From Europe Peter sends to Moscow more and more foreigners, who appear impudent to the Russians, and a l l sorts of jars and crates containing freaks of nature, stuffed b i r d s , crocodiles, pieces of s t e e l , wood, marble... Hapofl nepe6HBaeTCH c xjie6a Ha KBac, H H U J H X noxiHa MocKBa, p a 3 6 0 H H H K H H T e c roJiofla n y x H y T , a T y T B e 3 y T l . . A T y T rjiaflKHe, p,ep3KHe H H 0 3 e M U b i H a c K a K H — B a i o T . . . fla y>K H e 3aniej i J I H y uapn y M 3a pa3yM? [341] The mood of popular protest i s expressed i n simple language but with.added folk sayings, "perebivat'sia s khleba na kvas" and "zashel urn za razum," the hunger and the doubts about 147 the Tsar's sanity are made to appear widespread among the people. When the r e v o l t of the s t r e l ' t s y breaks out, they read aloud some of t h e i r grievances against Peter. They blame his fr i e n d Franz Lefort fsbrst for the i n i t i a l defeat and then for the Pyrrhic v i c t o r y at Azov. T o l s t o i employs th e i r written p e t i t i o n to add further to the h i s t o r i c atmosphere: „Ero »c, O p a H ^ H M K H , VMbiuiJieHHeM BceMy H a p o n y ^ H H H T C H H a r j i o c T t . , H 6pajj;o6pHTHe, H KypeHne Ta6aKy B O Bceco-BepmeHHoe HHcnpoBepxceHHe .npeBHero 6Jiaro^ e c T H H . . . [350] The long sentence, containing such a pompous phrase as "vsesovershennoe nisproverzhenie drevnego blagochestiia," the Slavonicism "bradobritie" and the obsolete verb " c h i n i t f s i a , " i s meant to re-create the l i t e r a r y s t y l e of the period, a s t y l e sharply contrasting with the spoken language. The Viennese ambassador to Moscow, Johann Korb, was witness to protracted executions, and T o l s t o i quotes passages from Korb's diary for two reasons. F i r s t , as an eye-witness account of events viewed through the eyes of a western diplomat, i t serves to emphasize the horror of the tortures and executions. Second, using excerpts from d i a r i e s i s a convenient way of advancing the narrative by condensing events, and o f f e r i n g possible explanations and motives for 148 the Tsar's actions: 2 7 O K T H S P H . . . 3 T a Ka3Hb pe3KO OTJiH^aeTCH O T npenbiflymeH. OHa coBepmeHa pa3JiH*iHbiMH cnoco6aMH a nOUTH HeB epOHTHblMH . . . T p H C T a TpHf lUaTt ^leJIOBeK 3apa3 o6arpHJiH K P O B B I O KpacHyio nJioinaHB. 3 T a r p o M a f l -Han K a 3 H B Mor j ia 6 B I T B HcnoJiHeHa T O J I B K O n o T O M y , I T O Bee 6onpe, ceHaTopbi u a p c K O H flyMbi, B B H K H — no n o B e -jieHHK) u a p n — H O J I X C H B I 6BIJIH B 3 H T B C H 3a p a S o T y na.na*ia. MHHTeJiBHocTB ero KpafiHe o6ocTpeHa'j KaaceTCH, O H nOJJ|03peBaeT BCeX B C O ^ y B C T B H H K Ka3HHMbIM MHTeXCHHKSM. O H npHflyMaJi C B H 3 a T B KpoBaBofi: nopyKOH B c e x 6onp. . . Bee 3 T H BBicoKopoflHbie r o c n o f l a H B H J I H C B Ha njiomajjB, 3apaHee npoxca O T npeflCToamero HcnbiTaHHH. IlepeR KaxflbiM H 3 H H X nocTaBHJiH no n p e c T y n H H K y . KaxcjtbiH jj;oJi»ar¥w-i:feh OoeeW4r6nal archaic Slavonicisms, the l i t e r a r y language of today i s reserved for the non-Russians. The novel contains just one exception to this p r a c t i c e , and that exception i s meant to i l l u s t r a t e j u s t how European-i z a t i o n was beginning to permeate the speech of some highly-placed Russians. The author's distant ancestor, Petr 149 A n d r e e v i c h T o l s t o i , was a s u c c e s s f u l c o u r t i e r who t r a v e l l e d much i n E u r o p e and w h o l e h e a r t e d l y e m b r a c e d w e s t e r n c u l t u r e . T h i s i s e x h i b i t e d i n h i s R u s s i a n s p e e c h , w h i c h now r e f l e c t s t h e w o r d y and o r n a t e s t y l e o f t h e member o f a E u r o p e a n c o u r t : — C npHSbiTHeM K BofitCKy r e H e p a J i a KapjiOBHtia BoeHHbie fleiicTBHH, c j iasa-6ory, noJiy^HJiH Ha^aJio, — p a c c K a 3 b i -Baxt neTp AHflpeeBH^; , Mopma 6pHTbie r y S b i , oSJnoSoBbiBan c j i o B a . — Ho B e H y c H E a x y c , y B H , He-pjiHxce H a C B H C T n y j i e K : reHepa J i OjieMHHr HineT 6 H T B 6onee acapKHx. BMecTO n o f l d y n o B K uiBeflaM xpa6po no f lCTynaeT K cJjopTeiiHH npeKpacHOH noJ iBKH, — yxce y B e 3 e e B flpe3fleH, H TaM C K O P O CBaxt&6a... [547] T h e m e n t i o n o f V e n u s and B a c c h u s , and t h e r e f e r e n c e s t o G e n e r a l F l e m i n g ' s a p p r o a c h t o t h e f o r t i f i c a t i o n s o f t h e P o l i s h l a d y h a v e n o n e o f t h e c r u d e q u a l i t i e s o f v e r n a c u l a r R u s s i a n , b u t r a t h e r e c h o t h e g r a c i o u s a n d c u l t u r e d s p e e c h o f a E u r o p e a n . M o r e o v e r / t h e s u b j e c t m a t t e r and t h e m a n n e r o f p a u s i n g o v e r w o r d s s u g g e s t a d e l i b e r a t e i m i t a t i o n o f s a l o n c o n v e r s a t i o n . T h u s , P . A . T o l s t o i i s t h e o n l y R u s s i a n c h a r a c t e r whose s p e e c h i s s t y l i z e d t o s o u n d l i k e t h a t o f a f o r e i g n e r . I n t h e f i r s t v o l u m e o f t h e n o v e l , T o l s t o i t r a c e s t h e e a r l y . l i f e o f P e t e r t h e G r e a t , s h o w i n g t h e m i l i e u i n w h i c h h i s c h a r a c t e r was m o u l d e d . W h i l e t h e T s a r i s n o t g l o r i f i e d , h e i s d e p i c t e d as an i n s t r u m e n t b y w h i c h t h e e s s e n t i a l r e f o r m s i n R u s s i a w o u l d be a c c o m p l i s h e d . T h e l a s t s e n t e n c e s o f Book I a l r e a d y h i n t a t t h e d a w n i n g o f a n e w , P e t r i n e R u s s i a : 1 5 0 CTapoe 3 a 6 H J i o c B no TeMHbiM y r j i a M . KoH^iaJiacB BH3aH— T H H C K a H P y C B . B MapTOBCKOM B e T p e ^yxtHJTHCB 3a SaJiaJHHCKHMH noeepexcbHMH n p H 3 p a K H ToproBbix Kopa6J ief i . [ 3 6 5 ] Unlike a h i s t o r i a n , T o l s t o i does not deal with the many separate reforms that Peter introduced. Instead, the remaining two books of Petr Pervyi deal more with the s p i r i t u a l e f f e c t of Peter's actions on Russian society. As a consequence, f i c t i t i o u s characters occupy.an important place i n the novel, but by no means do they i n f r i n g e upon Peter's central position. "In my novel the central figure i s Peter I," wrote T o l s t o i . "The other figures who accompany Peter i n the novel, depending on t h e i r . r e l a t i v e importance, 48 are depicted i n l e s s e r - d e t a i l and c l a r i t y . " The greatest amount of d e t a i l i s devoted to two f i c t i t i o u s f a m i l i e s , the Brovkins and the Buinosovs, but even they act primarily as a f o i l to the Tsar. The peasant Ivashka Brovkin and his family serve as a symbol of the merging of the old and the new i n Peter's Russia. His son Aleshka, who as a boy sold piroshki i n the streets of Moscow with Menshikov, l a t e r r i s e s in the ranks of the,Preobrazhensk regiment and in this way helps to r a i s e his e n t i r e family i n the s o c i a l scale. In addition, Peter, acting as a matchmaker, comes to the Brovkin household and on behalf of t h e i r former master, V a s i l i i Volkov, arranges his marriage to San'ka Brovkina. This i s one of several e x a m p l e s o f T o l s t o i ' s n a r r a t i v e s k i l l by w h i c h h i s t o r i c a l a n d f i c t i o n a l c h a r a c t e r s a r e b r o u g h t t o g e t h e r . M o r e o v e r , s u c h e p i s o d e s v i v i d l y p r e s e n t t h e s e c o n d a r y f i g u r e w h i l e t h e y a l s o a d d t o t h e i m p r e s s i o n o f P e t e r d e v e l o p i n g i n t h e m i n d o f t h e r e a d e r : — O T B O P H H ! 6emeHO Kpn^ajra 3a B o p o T a M H , TpemaJIH flOCKH . B P O B K H H o p o6eji. CyHyj icH K KaJ iHTKe, — pyKH TPHCJIKCB. EflBa- GTBaJIHJl 3 a C O B , BOpOTa paCKHHV-J I H C B , H B texaJ iH BepxoKOHHbie, . G o r a T o opeTbie, c ca6JiHMH H a r o j i o . 3a H H M H qeTBepHKOM 30JioHeHHH KapeTa, — Ha 3 anHTKax apanta •—!- K a p j i B i . 3a KapeTOH B OflHOKOJlKe — i i apb IleTp c JlecfopTOM,' B TpeyrOJTBHblX i m i H n a x H B l a n a n a x O T J J O P O X C H O H r p H-3H. . . T o n o T , X O X O T , KPHKH... y BpOBKHHa n O f l C e K J l H C B HOrH. . . . I l e T p , B30HflH c JlecJjopTOM Ha K P H U I B I I O , 3aKpHHaJi 6 a c o M : — r « e X O S H H H ? IloxtaBaa ciofla M B o r o H J I H M e p T B o r o ! HB'aH ApTeMHi 3aMO^JHJi nopTKH . T y T ' . e r o 3aMeTHJiH, nOflCKO^KJIH , MeHBUM KOB H' CblH AJieilia", nOJJHHJIH nort p y K H , nOTamHJiH K K p b i n B i i y . H nepjicaJiH, * I T O 6 Ha KOJieHH He BCTaBan. BMecTo S H T B H , H J I H eme qero x y a c e , — IleTp C H H J I uiJ iHny H H H S K O noKjioHHJicn e M y : 3 x i p a B C T B y H f C B a T - 6 a T i o i i i K a . . . MBI • npocJ ibimaJ iH — y T e 6 n KpacHbiH TOBap. . . Kyraia npHB ;e3JiH.. . . 3a iieHOH He nocTOHM... [278-279] I n t h i s d r a m a t i c s c e n e T o l s t o i i l l u s t r a t e s P e t e r ' s f r e e a s s o c i a t i o n w i t h p e r s o n s d r a w n f r o m e v e r y s o c i a l s t r a t u m , as w e l l as h i s a d h e r e n c e t o t h e a n c i e n t t r a d i t i o n o f b a r t e r i n g f o r a b r i d e . H i s b r u s q u e manner o f s p e a k i n g g i v e s us y e t a n o t h e r e x a m p l e o f h i s v o c i f e r o u s c h a r a c t e r . B r o v k i n ' s w e t t i n g h i s p a n t s i s a l s o a g r a p h i c i l l u s t r a t i o n o f a m u z h i k ' s f e a r o f t h e T s a r . B u t b y t h e f a c t t h a t h e i s 152 prevented from kneeling before Peter, the reader i s informed of the new ordinance forbidding the Byzantine custom of prostrating oneself before a sovereign. Gradually the peasant Brovkin r i s e s , f i r s t as a supplier of hay for.the- Preobrazhensk regiment, and then as the owner of a t e x t i l e m i l l . A f t e r Peter's i n i t i a l defeat at Narva, Brovkin i s found among the wealthy kuptsy who finance the formation of a new army. His daughter San'ka i s transformed into Aleksandra Ivanovna, the boiarynia Volkova, a nobleman's wife who eagerly accepts the western l i f e - s t y l e . - Though ultimately she becomes a great success i n the highest European c i r c l e s — so much so that T o l s t o i even planned to devote a whole chapter to her v i s i t to Paris — she also exemplifies the amusing e f f e c t produced by the decreed adoption of'Western culture: 3TO MyXCHK , C KOpOBbHMH HoraMH — - c a T H p . . . B b l , Ojibra, HanpacBo KocopoTHTecB: y H e r o — J I H C T (puroBbiH, — T a K B c e r f l a n u m y T . KynHjj;oH xo^eT K O J I O T B ee C T p e j i o a. . . OHa, H e c i a c T H a a , r u i a ^ e T , — C B e T H e M H J I . Cepne^HbiH apyr cnejiaji eft a M y p H ynjiuji — B H n H T e — napyc... Ha3UBaeica — „ A p H a f l H a 6po-meHHaH" . .. Haflo 6H BaM S T O Bee 3 a y ^ i H T b . KaBajiepbi n o c T O H H H O T e n e p B C T a n H c n p a u i H B a T B npo rpeiecKHx - T o 6 o r o B. 3 T O — He npouuibift ron. [467] The reader can understand from the topic of conversation that already some changes have taken e f f e c t . But there i s humour i n th i s scene which i s achieved through the vernacular language used i n a gawky way to describe such terms from c l a s s i c a l antiquity as "satyr" and "cupid," and to render 15.3 g e n t l e m e l a n c h o l y as " s v e t ne m i l . " In c o n t r a s t , to e x p l a i n the painting of "Ariadne Forsaken" w i t h the words "serdechnyi d r u g s d e l a l e i amur i u p l y l " c r e a t e s a f e e l i n g t h a t t h i s i s a r e c i t a t i o n of a lesson, and t h e French w o r d " a m o u r " i s used to raise the qua l i t y of the speaker's language. S i m i l a r l y , s o c i a l manners which h a v e b e e n e q u a l l y brusquely f o r c e d upon higher s o c i e t y appear i n T o l s t o i ' s d e p i c t i o n as c l u m s y movements s t i l l l a c k i n g the graceful ease and g e n t i l i t y t h a t t h e y h a d b e e n i n t e n d e d to d e m o n s t r a t e . Says San ' k a to the boiaryshn'iuB.udnpsovs : — IIpe3aHTe M O B O MJiafluiero ~6paTa ApTaMomy. fleBfai JieHHBO noKHB aJiH B H C O K K M H H a n y f l p e H H H M H n p n -lecKaMH . ApTaMOH no Bcefi Hayxe n o n H T H J i c n , n o T o n a j i H O T O H , noMaxaJi pyKOH, 6yflTO n o J i o c K a J i 6 e J i B e . C a H b K a npeflCTaBJiHJia: „KHHacHa AHTOHHHa, KHHacHa OJ iBEa , KHHacHa HaTaJTbH" . Kaacflan fleBa, noflHHBiiiHCB, n p u c e j i a , — nepen KaacflOH^ Ap.TaMOH nonoJiocKaJi p y K O H . OcTopoacHo ce j i K cTOJiy. 3aaca.n p y K H Meatfly KOJieHHMH'. Ha c n y j i a x 3aropejiHCB n s T H a . C T O C K O H noflHHJi r\na3a Ha c e c T p y . CaH-BKa yrposcarome cflBHHyjia 6 P O B H . — Kan i a c T o flextaeTe nJie3Hp? — 3anHHancB , c n p o -C H J I O H HaTaJiBK). OHa-HeBHHTHo npomenTaJ ia . O j iBra 6 O H K O oTBeTHJ ia : — T p e T B e r o flHa TaHueBaJiH y HapbnuKHHHbix, T P H p a 3 a nJiaTBH MeHHJia. TaKOH QOKce , T a K a n acapa 6bina. A B a c o T i e r o HHKorf la He B H H H O ? — MoJiofl eme. CaHbKa CKa3ajia: — BaTioniKa 6 O H T C H — 3a6aJiyeTCH. B O T aceHHM, Torfla nycKaft.. . Ho TaHueBaTb O H yacacHo J I O B K H H . . . He r j iHf lHTe , * I T O po6eeT... EMy no-paHn,y3CKH 3 a r o -B O P H T B , — He- 3HaeiiiB, K y f l a.rjra3a fleBaTB. [467-468] It i s evident from the fact t h a t these movements are accomplished "po v s e i n a u k e " that they are s t i l l q u i t e 15.4 deliberate actions,-lacking the^spontaneity of the Europeans. Movements described by such words as "potopal nogoi" and "pop'oloskal rukoi" c a l l to mind movements and actions t o t a l l y unrelated to elegant gestures, and this makes the entire scene comical. The awkward mixture of French with Russian idiomatic speech adds to the comedy of the s i t u a t i o n , as do the grumblings of the parents who are looking on: " B O J I H aapetfaH^ j*---- inny-Teg..aaaEBpoHbfty a' floop-a;6oJiBnior.o He.xflH TacKetTb- no. soMaM fieBOK." This b r i e f reference to a trans-gression against the ancient Domostroi (household order) segregation of the sexes reminds the reader once again of Karamzin's c r i t i c i s m s that have been mentioned e a r l i e r i n the present study in connection with the changes.in Russian social;-customs as decreed by Peter. However, To l s t o i ' s comical descriptions of the t r a d i t i o n a l customs and manners suggest a clear vindication of the Tsar's s o c i a l reforms. Representative of the old established n o b i l i t y — of whom the majority followed Peter's various decrees only reluctantly — i s the boiar Roman Buinosov. With his f i r s t appearance, T o l s t o i shows some of the c u l t u r a l changes that have entered a boiar's l i f e i n Peter's Russia. What follows i s perhaps one of the f i n e s t passages i n the novel, one which exemplifies T o l s t o i ' s graphic language, and one which characterizes very well the attitudes of the old n o b i l i t y toward the new reforms. The excerpt given below can be 155 d i v i d e d i n t o t h r e e s e c t i o n s . . -: The..-f i r s t r . d e s c r i b e s t h e boiar just a f t e r h e h a s a w a k e n e d , as he i s s i t t i n g on the e d g e o f h i s b e d and s t a r i n g o u t the w i n d o w . From this p o i n t T o l s t o i d e p a r t s i n t o the p a s t to d e s c r i b e how Buinosov's d a y w o u l d h a v e begun i n the p r e-Petrine period. F i n a l l y , the t h i r d p a r a g r a p h y r e v e a l s Buinosov's t h o u g h t s as t h e y o c c u r t o h i m , a n d the reader i s thus able to look i n t o the b o i a r ' s m i n d . The c h o i c e o f words" t o o , a n d f o r e x a m p l e , t h e o b j e c t of his d i s d a i n a Dutch painting of a s c a n t i l y - d r e s s e d woman — a r e c a l c u l a t e d t o make the r e a d e r l a u g h at t h e c o a r s e p a s t , and o n c e more t o j u s t i f y t h e Tsar's Europeani-z a t i o n of Russian society. The i n f o r m a l t o n e of t h e language creates w:aheatmospher-.e"esuggestive of t h e p a s t . KHH3B POMaH, KHHXt E o p H C O B , CfalH ByHHOCOB , a nO~ HOMaiuHeMy — PoMaH B O P H C O B H ^ , B O J J ; H O M HcnoflHeM cHfleji Ha Kpaio . n o c T e j i H , K P H X T H , n o ^ e c H B a j i c n — H rpyffb H non MHUiKaMH. no CTapofi npHBbrqKe Jie3 B 6opo «y , H O oTflepr-HBaJi p y K y : 6 P H T O , K O J T K O , I I P O T H B H O . . . y a - x a - x a - x a - a - . . . — no3eBBiBaJi , T J I H A H Ha He6oJibiuoe 9 K O H u e . C B e T a j i o , • M Y T H O H c K y ^ H o . B npeacHHe rona B S T O T ^ a c PoMaH B O P H C O B H ^ ysc BfleBaJi 6u B p y n a B a K Y H B I O my6y, c ^ecrb io HaflBHrajr H O 6poBeil 6o6poByio u i anKy, — uiecTBOBaJi 6bi c B H I C O K O H TpocTbK) no CKpHny^iHM n e p e x o n a M Ha K P H J I B U O . I 1 ; B O P H H flym n o J T r o p a c T a , K T O y B03Ka — nepacaT KOHef i , K T O 6eacnT K BopoTaM. BeeeJio pBajiH iuanKH, K J i aHHJ iHCb noHCHbiM M a x o H , a Te K T O C T O H J I no6JiHHce, Jio6bi3anH HoacKH S o n p H H y . . . lion. p y ^ K H , non 6O * I K H ' noflcaacHBaJiH B B030K... Kaacfloe y T p o , B O BCHKyio norony, exaJi PoMaH BopHcoBH^i B O flBopeu, acaaTb, K o r n a r o c y n a -peBbi CBeTJibie O ^ H (a noc j ie — uapeBHHHbi O ^ I H n p e c B e T -jibie) o6paTHTCH Ha H e r o , H He pa3 T o r o c n y ^ a n HOMCHBaJICH ... ' Bee MHHyjio! npocHenibCH — SaTioiiiKH! HeyacTO MHHyjlO? flHKO H B C I I O M H H T B Z 6bIJIH K O r f l a - T O nOKOH H 156 ^ecTB... B O H B H C H T Ha TecoBofi cTeHe — vp,e 6 H HH^eMy He BHceTB — r o J i n a H f l C K a K . , pana axucKoro co6Jia3Ha nHcaHHan, nacKyjjHan neBKa c 3a,n;paHHbiM noflOJioM. IlapB Bejieji B ono^HBanBHe noBecHTB He T O Ha CMex., He T O B HaKa3aHHe. TepnH.. . K H H S B PoMaH B O P H C O B H ^ I .yrpMMO norJiHJjeJi H a n J i a T B e , 6poiueHHoe c Beiepa vHa J i a B K y : inepcTHHbie, 6a6bH, nonepen nojiocaTbie * i y . n K H , KaK H3 xcecTH, Ka$iaH c rajiyHOM. Ha rB03Jj;e — B O P O H O H napHK, H 3 Hero najiKaMH nujiB-To He B H I K O J I O T H I I I B . 3aieM Bee S T O ? [373-374] In general i t must be observed that although the Brovkins and Buinosovs receive approximately the same amount of attention from T o l s t o i , they serve d i f f e r e n t purposes i n Petr Pervyi. The Brovkins exemplify the rapid r i s e , through service to the state and through education, from the lowest s o c i a l l e v e l to one of the most powerful. Buinosov, on the other hand, who has a l l the fine q u a l i t i e s of an Oblomov, finds that i n the new order hdi.s influence and importance have been greatly reduced. While Brovkin's fortunes con-tinue to r i s e , Buinosov suffers the humiliation of playing the Tsar's f o o l , and t h e i r respective attitudes toward the new order are also transmitted to t h e i r sons. The contrast between the young men. shows best the modernization of Russia where hereditary, unearned power and prestige are replaced by the achievement of s o c i a l status through the power of learning. The youngest Brovkin, Artamosha (who marries Natal'ia Buinosova, i n c i d e n t a l l y ) , surprises Peter with the many foreign languages he has learned, causing the Tsar to exclaim, "I s h a l l grant t i t l e s for i n t e l l i g e n c e . " By c i ; v 157 contrast, the Buinosov"s youngest son prefers playing the ba l a l a i k a with the muzhiks i n the stables to studying mathe-matics, which his mother fears w i l l only hurt his head. Like Fonvizin's Mitrofanushka, Mishka Buinosov i s not encouraged to study. Growls the old Prince Buinosov: Bee- paBHo MaBo MHiiiKy MaTeMaTHKe He^Hay^iHiiiB, nocTa-BJieHa- MocKBa 6e3 MaTeMaraKH, S C H J I H , cJiaBa 6ory, nflTBCOT J i e T 6e3 MaTeMaraKH J iy^uie HHHeuiHero. [ 6 6 9 ] Buinosov's appearances throughout the novel serve to mark the progress of various c u l t u r a l changes. To supplant Russian customs, Peter issues decrees governing the most minute d e t a i l s of everyday l i f e . Not only does Buinosov suffer the discomfort of western dress, but he i s obliged to brush his teeth i n the mornings, drink coffee for breakfast, put up with a German major-domo, and f i n a l l y t r a v e l with the entire family beyond Moscow's c i t y l i m i t s to distant Voronezh, a feat unprecedented in the family's hi s t o r y . Understandably, the established n o b i l i t y , jealously guarding t h e i r p r i v i l e g e d s o c i a l positions, bemoan the appearance i n t h e i r midst of some parvenu intruder. One such person whose meteoric r i s e i s the cause of much envy — and fear as well — i s Aleksashka or, as he comes to be known, Aleksandr Danilovich Menshikov. But although he i s Peter's constant companion, he receives considerably less attention from T o l s t o i than do either the Brovkins or the •158 Buinosovs. More i s seen of Menshikov i n the f i r s t book — where he i s a homeless urchin s e l l i n g piroshki i n Moscow — than i n the rest of the novel, where he becomes a mere adjunct to Peter. Their f i r s t meeting, described as an informal exchange between two boys, serves to characterize the entire history of the rel a t i o n s h i p between Menshikov and the Tsar. Aleksashka brashly demands: — H C M O T P I O , Tbi He Ham J I H i i a p B . A? u e . Hy — u ,apb. A T e 6 e I T O ? — KaK * I T O . . . A B O T T B I B 3 H J I bbi na H npHHec HaM caxapHbix npHHHKOB. . . . E H 6 o r y , c 6 e r a H , npHHeceiiiB — ojjHy X H T P O C T B Te6e nonaxcy. — AJieKC,aiiiKa C H H J I uianKy, H3-3a nojiKJiaflKH BHTaniHJi n r j i y . T J I H J J H — n r j i a ajiH HeT? Xo^eiub — nr.ny C K B O B B meKy npoTamy c H H T K O H , H H H M e r o H e 6 y j j e T Eme 6bi Te6e i i apb Seraji 3a- npHHHKaMH, — Bop-^aJiHBO CKa3aJi O H , A 3a r t e H b r n n r j i y npoTamnniB? — 3a c e p e 6 p H H y i G jjeH&ry T P H p a 3 a npoTamy, H H H i e r o H e 6yxi;eT. [63] Throughout the novel Menshikov continues to use his position v i s - a - v i s Peter for personal advantage. Through gr a f t and p r o f i t a b l e partnerships he accumulates wealth and power. But even though he shares Peter's desire for reforming and westernizing Russia, i n t h e i r personal relations Menshikov i s not above spying on the Tsar. The beginning of the Marta Rabbe a f f a i r can serve to i l l u s t r a t e how l i t t l e he has changed i n some six hundred pages, or twenty years after t h e i r f i r s t meeting on the Iauza r i v e r : MeHBiiiHKOB B H n e j i , n o M H H x@gi$ Bec&Ma HyjKflaeTCH B 159 xceHCKOH J i a c K e . D,apcKHe xteHinHKH (Bee y MeHbumKOBa Ha acaJioBaHHH) H O H O C H J I H , * I T O n e T p AJ i exceeBH^ rmoxo cnHT no HonaM., o x a e T , C T V M H T B CTeHy KoneHKaMH. EMy HyxcHa 6buia He n p o c T O 6a6a, -.— floSpan n o f l p y r a . Ceft^iac AJieKcaiiiKa 3anycTHJi npo AHHy M O H C T O J I B K O H J I H n p o B e p K H . n e T p . — HHKaK.1? ? . . — AjieKcauiKa B n p y r Ha^aJi CMeH-rfiGH-npov..Ge:6H:vv K P Y T H T B T O J I O B O H . TTeTp — eMy — . x o n o f l H o : yflHBJIHMCb, KaK H Te6H- B C e - T a K H Tepnjno, — He 3 HaK) . . . A H T O H ? . . fla;: eft-eft... Bo B C H - K O M nejie Te6e HenpeMe-HHo- Haflo yKpacTB... H ceft^iac KpyTHii iBCH, — BHxey. . . [660-661] That Peter has changed, has matured toward the end of the novel, has developed a sense of r e s p o n s i b i l i t y , i s demonstrated through a contrast with the same Menshikov, who i s presented as s t i l l very much the happy-go-lucky r a s c a l . At the siege of Narva, for example, Menshikov loses the honour of leading the f i r s t attack against the Swedish fortress through his foolhardy behaviour. Says Peter angrily: — 3 a n o M H H , flaHHJibrq:, HCTHHHbift 6or — yBH)Ky eme TBoe nypauKoe merojiBCTBO., uiKypy cnymy nneTKOft , . . . C p a M O T a ! Bee eme He MOJKeuiB 3a6biT& 6a3apH M O C K O B -C K H e ! Bee inyTHTB xo^euiB, KaK y M e H H 3a C T O J I O M ! A Ha ;T.e6n E B p o n a C M O T P H T , ,n;ypaK! M O J I M H 1 , He oTBe^iaft. #73 6-737] The tendentious descriptions of two other monarchs, Augustus II of Poland and Charles XII of Sweden, provide another contrast to Peter. In this respect, T o l s t o i may be, faulted for drawing these h i s t o r i c a l personages almost as caricatures, devoid of any redeeming q u a l i t i e s . E s s e n t i a l l y , 160 h e p o r t r a y s t h e k i n g o f P o l a n d as a m i n d l e s s p o p i n j a y , and t h e k i n g o f Sweden as an o b s e s s e d w a r - m o n g e r . The r e a d e r s e e s A u g u s t u s a s a k i n g more c o n c e r n e d w i t h h i s own a p p e a r -a n c e , more i n t e r e s t e d i n a t t r a c t i v e l a d i e s , i n g o o d f o o d a n d f i n e w i n e , t h a n i n t h e e x h a u s t i n g b u s i n e s s o f w a r a g a i n s t S w e d e n . O b l i g e d t o l e a d h i s t r o o p s i n t o C o u r l a n d , he s u f f e r s f r o m t h e d i s c o m f o r t s o f p r o v i n c i a l l i f e , t h e d r e a r y w e a t h e r , t h e p l a i n p r o v i n c i a l w o m e n . a n d t h e b o r i n g p r o v i n c i a l g e n t r y . I n s h o r t , A u g u s t u s i s on t h e v e r g e o f m e l a n c h o l i a . W r i t i n g i n a s a t i r i c t o n e , T o l s t o i c h a r a c t e r i z e s A u g u s t u s t h r o u g h h i s s p e e c h a n d m a n n e r i s m s : A B r y c T , xcyn cJ>apiu.HpoBaHHoro 3aHu.a, M Y T H O norjiHJJbi-BaJi Ha n a M . noTpecKHBa j iH j j p o B a . EapoHbi H- 6apoH'eccbi He nieBejiHJiHCB, o^eBHf lHo, o n a c a n c b HenpmumHbix 3 B y K O B B BHfle COneHHH. MOJPiaHHe C J T H U J K O M 3 a T H H y j l O C b . A B r y c T , o 6 J i o K O T H C b , BbiTep r y 6 H , y p o H H J i H a C T O J I caJi(|)eTKy. — MenaM H ' M e c b e , H He y c T a H y noB-TopHTB o T O M B H C O K O M ynoBJieTBopeHHH, KOTopoe HcnHTbiBaio, Syzty^EH rocTeM Bamero n p e K p a e H o r o r o p o n a . (IIoHTBepnHJi S T O J ierKHM HBHHCeHHeM K H C T H pyKH . ) Hy»CHO C T a B H T b B npHMep BucoKHe HpaBCTBeHHbie K a ^ e c T B a KypjiHHflCKoro A B o p H H C T B a : c dJiaropoflHbiM 06pa30M MHCJiefl O H O caacTJTHBO coeflHHaeT T p e 3 B y i o npaKra^HocTb. E a p O H b l flOCTOHHO H a K JIOHHJIH n a p H K H H3 K O H C K O r O BOJ ioca , 6 a p o H e c c b i , noMenjiHB HecKOJibKO (Tan KaK nJioxo noHHMaJiH <|)paHuy3KyK) pe^b) , npHnortHHJiH nbmiHbie 3ajJbi , npHceJiH. [550] T h e s i l e n c e o f t h e b a r o n s a n d t h e r i s e a n d f a l l o f t h e " S l a v i c s p r e a d " o f t h e b a r o n e s s e s , cco^-^as^te'd.twd-feh-e.tH'e " e l o q u e n t s p e e c h and g e s t u r e s o f t h e k i n g , i n t h e b e s t F r e n c h f a s h i o n , c o m b i n e t o c r e a t e a c o m i c a l t a b l e a u . T h e k i n g ' s F r e n c h 161 speech i s conveyed by an elevated and l i t e r a r y tone in the contemporary Russian. In each of his appearances, Augustus i s portrayed as a man with great s a v o i r - f a i r e which i s , nonetheless, somehow out of place i n the immediate milieu. He would have been better suited as a patron of the arts, a king whose court could have been no less c u l t i v a t e d than the courts at V e r s a i l l e s or Vienna, were i t not for Charles XII, whom Augustus contemptuously describes as "that ferocious urchin in a dusty frock-coat." But i t i s the figure of the Swedish king that i s the main target of T o l s t o i ' s rather pointed s a t i r e . Believing himself to be a m i l i t a r y genius, an equal of Alexander the Great and Ju l i u s Caesar, Charles follows an extremely Spartan routine, and any "deviation from that order, or any insubordination to his w i l l , drives him into a rage: C J I O B O „ B e p c e p K H e p " , — H J I H onepacHMbiH 6eineHCTBOM, — HfleT H 3 r j i y 6 o K O H j j p e B H o c T H , O T o6brqaH ceBepHbix JIIOIieH OnBHHHTBCH r p H © O M MVXOMOpOM. BnOCJiertCTBHH , B cpenHHe B e K a , SepcepKHepaMH y HopMaHOB Ha3biBajiHCB B O H H B I , ojjepxcHMbie 6emeHCTBOM B Sow, — O H H cpaxcajiHCB 6e3 K O J i B ^ y r n , mHTa H uiJieiyta, B O B H H X X O J I I H O B B I X py6axax H 6buiH TaK CTpamHbi, n o , no npenaHHio, H a n p H M e p , HBeHaxmaTB S e p c e p K H e p o B , ChiHOBeH K O H y H r a K a H y T a , — njiaBaJiH na OTJjeJiBHOM Kopa6Jie, TaK KaK caMH H O P M S H H SOHJIHCB H X . npHna/JOK SemeHCTBa, CJiy^HBiiiHHCH c KopoJieM KapxiOM, M03KHO 6bIJIO TOJIBKO Ha3BaTB . S e p c e p K H e p C T B O M , flO TaKOH CTeneHH Bee npHflBopHbie, •SbiBuiHe B S T O BpeMH B ero uiaTpe , 6biJiH HcnyraHBi H nojjaBJieHbi, a rpacp IlHnep xtaace He ^aHJi o c T a i B c a S C H B B I M . . . [756] Such a lengthy explanation of. the word berserk and the sug-gested p a r a l l e l between Charles and some frenzied Norsemen 162" from the Middle Ages i s hardly d e s i g n e d to be complimentary to the k i n g . A f t e r his victory o v e r Peter a t Narva i n 1700, Charles t u r n s against Augus:tus:i?r.n.^ s t r a t e g i c move, b u t s i m p l y b e c a u s e t h e r e i s more glory i n b a t t l i n g a g a i n s t Saxon t r o o p s t h a n i n p u r s u i n g Peter ' s " f l e a - b i t t e n " a r m y . Whereas Augustus i s r i d i c u l e d ' as a somewhat precious person who suffered from uncouth c o m p a n y , cheap w i n e , a n d t h e s i m i l a r d e p r i v a t i o n s of a m i l i t a r y c a m p a i g n , Charles i s s a t i r i z e d as a man l i t e r a l l y enamoured with everything that has to dotwi'fehrwarTheTKelfO'l'lowingcexperptliaiiustEatesEhis m i l i t a r i s t i c n a t u r e . Awakened b y t h e c r o w i n g o f a c o c k , Charles c o n t i n u e s to l i e on h i s cot l i s t e n i n g to t h e t h r i l l i n g s o u n d s o f a w a k i n g m i l i t a r y camp. Suddenly, y caMoro maTpa 3aTHBKaJia co6aiOHKa, no roJiocy — flPHHb, H3 T e x , n o flaMbi- B O 3 H T c C O S O H B K a p e T e . . . K T O - T O I U H K H V J I Ha H e e , co6a*ioHKa xcajio6Ho B 3 B H 3 r H y j i a . KopoJib OTMeTHJi: „ y 3 H a T b OTKyjj;a coSa^ioHKa" . HenoflaJieKy y . K O H O B H 3 H 3a6HJiHcb jiouiann,' O H H O H H K O 3aKpH-qaJia. KopoJib oTMeTHJii"" M5Kajib, H O B H H H M O , „ H e n T y H a " npHflercH' O X O J I O C T . H T B " . . . . Han naJiaTKOH npoHecj iHCb n T H i i a , p a 3 p e 3 a n co C B H C T O M B03n.yx. OTMeTHJi: nEy,n;eT noroxcHH . n e H b " . 3ByKH H roJioca CTaHOBHJiHCb Bee oT^ieTJiHBee. CJiaine B c e x B H O J I , ap$, KJiaBeCHH SHJia 3TO 60HpaH , MJpKeCTB eHHMH My3bIKa npo6y»cjj;aiomerocH Jiarepn. KopoJib ^yBCTBOBaJ i ce6n O T J I H ^ H O noc j ie K o p o T K o r o c H a Ha noxoHHoti nocTeJiH, ' nofl inHHeJibio, naxHymen flOpOXCHOH nbUIbK)- H KOHCKHM nOTOM. O fla, 6bIJIO 6bl B TbicH^y p a s npHHTHee n p o c H y T B C H . O T neTyuiHHHoro K p H K a , Kor f l a no T y C T o p o H y noJin C T O H T HenpHHTeJib H B C B I P O M TyMaHe OTTyrta TSHeT H B I M K O M ero K O C T P O B . . . Toma — OflHHM npbKCKOM C nOCTejIH B 6opT$OPTbI. , H Ha K O H H . . . H cnoKOHHbiM: m a r o M , cflepxcHBaH 6JiecK r j ia3 , BbiexaTB K CBOHM B O H G K S M , KOTOpbie y»Ce nOCTpOHJTHCB nepe j j 6oeM H C T O H T , ycaTbie, cypoBbie. . . [714-715] The terse notations made by Charles, the appearance of some miserable lapdog i n his camp, and f i n a l l y the decision to castrate Neptune, a l l point to the disdain in which the Swedish king holds everyone and everything which d i s t r a c t s his men (or his horses) from m i l i t a r y a f f a i r s . F i n a l l y , Charles, as described by one of his own generals, i s portrayed as absolutely i n d i f f e r e n t to the way his troops are fed, and completely unmoved, by the death of any of his men.. But such an extreme portrayal i s far from giving an accurate picture of a King who was, i n f a c t , a great m i l i t a r y s t r a t e g i s t . I t i s obvious that T o l s t o i characterizes Augustus a n d Charles in such a deliberately distorted manner i n order to enhance the image of Peter as a monarch who involved himself in almost every aspect of c i v i l i a n and m i l i t a r y l i f e . For example, on the eve of the Swedish v i c t o r y at Narva i n 1700, i t appears that Peter knows that he .w i l l lose the b a t t l e . He confesses to Menshikov: — He c T o r o K O H i r a B 3 H J I H C B . . . HHKyfla S T O ne.no eiqe He roJXHTCH. ^ T O G 3flecb nyuiKa BUCTpej iHJia , ee HaflO B MOCKBe 3apHJj;HTB. . . . — CKaKaTB co uinaroH — nocjiejjHee J j e j i o . . . [599] Foreseeing the rout at Narva, Peter flees to Novgorod where at once he begins to prepare a new army. To replace 1 6 4 his l o s t cannons, the Tsar b r a z e n l y order t h a t church b e l l s be hauled down and melted into new a r t i l l e r y . Then w i t h the main enemy f o r c e somewhere i n Poland, h i s new army r e c e i v e s t r a i n i n g i n a c t u a l combat d u r i n g s m a l l r a i d s a g a i n s t Swedish positions. How much the times have changed since Peter's reign began may be observed by comparing the d e s c r i p t i o n s of Moscow streets at the begi n n i n g of the novel and toward the end. The f i r s t e x c e r p t i s r e m i n i s c e n t o f the Moscow d e s c r i b e d by T o l s t o i i n the s t o r y "Povest' smutnogo vremeni." The s t r e e t s are n o i s y and d i r t y , f i l l e d w i t h pushing, shoving, q u a r r e l l i n g , f i g h t i n g people, and f r i g h t e n e d , r e a r i n g h o r s e s : nepeexaJik M O C T u e p e 3 Hygy,/ nfle Ha Kpy.T-.oM eepery B e p T e J I H C B COTHH- He60JIBIUHX MeJIBHHII. PblCBK) BCJiejJ 3a caHHMH H o6o3aMH ftpoexaJiH no ixnomairH B J J O J I B 6eJioo6Jie-3JIOH CTeHbl S. KBaXtpaTHHMH SaUIHHMH nVUIKaMH Mesc 3y6UOB. B MHCHHUKHX HH36HbKHX BopoTax —— KPHK, p y r a T B , i i a B K a , — KascxjOMy Haflo6Ho • npocKOMHTb nep-BOMy, 6 B K ) T C H KyjianaMH, j ieTHT manKH, TpetqaT c a H H , jToniartH jie3yT Ha J J B I S H . Hart B O P O T S M H Tenj iHTCH HeyracHMaa JiaMnajja- nepext TeMHbiM J I H K O M . AJieniKy HCXJiecTaJin K H y r a M H , noTepHJi nianKy, — KaK TOJIBKO X C H B OCTaJICH ! BbiexaJtH Ha MHCHHLIKyiO. . . BfaiTepaH K P O B B c Hoca, O H rjiHfleJi no CTopoHaM: ox Tbi! Hapojj BanoM BanHJi B J J O J I B y 3 K O H HaBosHOK yjiHiiu. H 3 JtomaTbix jraB^oHOK neperHgaHCb, KpimajiH Kyn^Hi i iKH, J I O B H J I H 3a nojibi, c npoxoxnx pBaJiH i n a n K H , — 3a3biBaJiH K c e 6 e . 3a B H C O K H M H 3a6opaMH — KaMeHHbie H36bi, KpacHbie, cepeSpHHbie KpyTbie K P H I I I H , n e c T p u e aepKOBHbie M3KOBKH . IJepKBeH ' TblCH^IH . H 60JIbUIHe nHTHrJiaBbie , H MaJieHbKHe — Ha nepeKpecTKax . . . Ty^n raJiOK Hap; uepKByniKaMH. . . EjjBa npoxipaJiHCB 3a JIy6HHKy, . . . [17] Peter's various reforms and m i l i t a r y levies emptied 165 Moscow o f much o f i t s p o p u l a t i o n , and t h e n e w c l d e s c r i p t i o n o f t h e o l d c a p i t a l i s e x a c t l y o p p o s i t e t o t h e one a b o v e . T h e c o n t r a s t i s a l l t h e more e v i d e n t s i n c e T o l s t o i s p e c i f i c a l l y draws a t t e n t i o n t o t h e a b s e n c e o f t h o s e n o i s y and c o l o u r f u l e l e m e n t s w h i c h he h a d d e s c r i b e d o r i g i n a l l y . I n s t e a d o f a m a r k e t s q u a r e w h e r e waves o f p e o p l e s t r e a m p a s t , we now h a v e d e s e r t e d s t r e e t s w h e r e o n l y h o m e l e s s d o g s w a n d e r s n i f f i n g h e r e and t h e r e t h e g a r b a g e s t r e w n a b o u t : C K V ^ H O CTaj io B M o c K B e . B o6efleHHyio n o p y — B H K D J I B C K H H 3HOH OflHH 6e3flOMHHe C06aKH 6pOHHJIH no KPHBHM yJIHD;aM, O n y C T H B X B O C T b l , npHHIOXHBaH BCHKyK) JjpHHB, KOTOpyK) JOOJJJI BH6P0CHJIH' 3a HeHaflOfiHOCTbH) 3a B o p o T a . He S B I J I O npexcHeft T O J I K O T H H H K p u K a Ha nJiomaflHx, Korrta y H H O T O n o ^ T e H H b r o * ie j ioBeKa noj iu O T o p B y T , 3a3biBaH K n a n a T K a M , H J I H BbiBepHyT KapMaHbi, paHBUie qeM O H * I T O — HH6y,n.b KynHT Ha T a K O M B e p T H i e M M e d e . npeac-fle y Kascfloro 6 o n p c K o r o flBopa, y B O P O T , 3 y 6 o c K a J i H j i H HarjiBie HBopoBbie-xojionbi B iuanKax, C 6 H T H X Ha yxo, HrpaJiH B C B a f t K y , M e T a J i H .neHBry H J I H npocTO — He naBaJiH npoxofly H H K O H H O M y , H H nemeMy, — X O X O T , 6 a j i o B C T B O , xBaTaHBe p y K a M H . HbiH*ie BopoTa 3 a K p u T b i Harjiyxo, H a U I H P O K O M flBope — T H X O , JiionHiiiKH B3HTBT Ha BOHHy, SOHpCKHe CBIHOBBH H 3HTBH JIH60 B nojinax y H T e p -o$ H i J , e p a M H -, J I H 6 O ycjiaHbi 3a Mope, HeflOpOCJIH OTflaHBI B UIKOJIbl y i H T B C S H a B H r a U H H , MaTeMaTHKe H $OpTHHKaL[;HH CaM 1 SOHpHH CHf lHT 6 e 3 xtejia y pacKpuToro OKonie^Ka, pan, * I T O X O T B Ha MaJioe BpeMH- n a p B n e T p , 3 a OTte3 f lOM, He H C B O J I H T ero K y p H T B TaSaK, C K O 6 J I H T B 6opojj;y H J I H B SejiBix ^yjiKax no KOJieHO, B napHKe H3 6a6BHX B O J I O C — RO nyna — BepTeTB H n e p r a T B H o r a M H . [66 8-669] B u t w h i l e t h e r e i s a c o n t r a s t i n the d e s c r i p t i o n s of the two M o s c o w s , i t i s important t o draw a t t e n t i o n y e t again t o t h e g e n e r a l u n i t y o f l i n g u i s t i c s t y l e i n the n o v e l . B o t h 166 passages contain examples of vernacular speech (for example, rJiHXten no c r o p o H a M : ox T H ! , npoJxpaJiHCB 3 a JIio6HHKy, B H S P Q C H J I H 3 a H e H a f l o 6 H o c T b » 3a B o p o T a , i iapB I l eTp , 3a OTBe3Jj ; oM, He HeBOJTHT ero. . . , C K O 6 J I H T B 6opo,ny) , which maintain a flavour of the past. The depiction of the two scenes above also contains humour. It i s created at the expense of the disor-derly, even chaotic, l i f e of the past, and i n the second excerpt at the expense of the momentary quiet enjoyed by the boiar who dreads the establishment of a western l i f e - s t y l e . In t h i s new Russia, the Brovkins and Menshikov are representatives of common folk who have been able to grasp the opportunities offered by Peter's reforms and r i s e from t h e i r lowly positions. But what of the masses? How does T o l s t o i deal with them? In the 1920's and 1930's, Soviet writers of h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n were expected to i l l u s t r a t e the leading role of the people in the h i s t o r i c a l process. This was to be i n contrast to pre-revolutionary writers, who were referred to as "dvorianski-burzhuaznye," or writers from the bourgeoisie-n o b i l i t y , who, i t was said, reduced h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n to stor i e s about tsars, princes and m i l i t a r y heroes. In such works the r e a l movers of history, that i s the people, were a l l but ignored. But in thi s very matteriofIdepicting the peopieeas moverstof_history./ePetr Pervyi must stand apart from other h i s t o r i c a l novels of that period because the 167 mover of history remains the monarch. Post-war monographs on A. T o l s t o i concede to the c r i t i c s of the 1930's that he does not write much about the oppression of the people, but at the same time they now add that he does not misrepresent 49 the r e l a t i o n between the people and the Tsar. But i t i s important to add that instead of a heroic struggle of the people against tsarism, T o l s t o i describes t h e i r opposition to Peter and his reforms in such a way that i t often seems comical, and serves as yet another i l l u s t r a t i o n of Russia's backwardness. I n f f a c t , the two expressions of massive resistance to Peter in the novel, namely, the revolt of the s t r e l ' t s y and of the self-immolating Old Believers who c a l l Peter the A n t i c h r i s t , are shown to be p o l i t i c a l l y reactionary actions. How T o l s t o i would have written about the Bulavin uprising, which was to have appeared in the unfinished t h i r d volume, i s d i f f i c u l t to say. But a conjecture can be made 50 on the basis of an important discovery by A. V. Alpatov. In T o l s t o i ' s notebook Alpatov found a l i s t of names that the author was preparing to use for cossack characters who were to appear i n that uprising. Among, the names was a certain Bludov, which also happens to be the surname of the dragoon who was, as Peter discovers i n the l a s t pages, the s o l d i e r who captured and l a t e r sold Marta Rabbe to Sheremet'ev! Perhaps by introducinggsuchhaapersonal linkkbetween the Tsar 168 a n d the Bulavin cossack u p r i s i n g , T o l s t o i meant to b l u n t t h e p o l i t i c a l s i g nificance of t h a t p o p u l a r r e v o l t . a g a i n s t a u t o c r a c y . Be that as i t . may,-the f a c t remains t h a t t h e r e s i s -t a n c e of the people to Peter's r e f o r m s d o e s not indicate, as i t did i n some e a r l i e r w o r k s ( s u c h as the f i r s t o f . T o l s t o i ' s plays a b o u t Peter), a n a t i o n a l resistance against c a p r i c i o u s Europeanization. Instead, T o l s t o i d r a w s a picture of g e n e r a l discontent b u t shows no d i r e c t c o n f r o n t a t i o n between the people and the Tsar. Furthermore, the p e o p l e's opposi'-1 -t i o n to Peter and h i s i n n o v a t i o n s i s d e p i c t e d o n l y through examples w h i c h c a n n o t e v o k e the r e a d e r's sympathy. For instance, the Russian merchants c a n n o t understand a n d a r e t h e r e f o r e s u s p i c i o u s of t h e new w a r e s t h a t they m u s t c a r r y i n t h e i r s h o p s : — fe'TafiaK? B KaKHX KHurax M H T S H O — •yejioBeKy r j i o T a T b jjbiM? y K o r o J J B I M - T O H3 n a c T H ? l a B o ? 3a c o p o K 3 a BoceMb TbicH'q: pySJieB Bee ropoxta H C H 6 H P B B C H OTjjaHbi Ha O T K y n aHrj iH^aHHHy KapMapTeHOBy — n p o i i a B a T b T a S a K . H y K a 3 , H T O 6 H 3 T y ancKyio T p a B y -HHKoiiHaHy KypHJiH.. . ^ B H X pyK 3 T O rte.no? A ^ a f i , a Ko$eH? A K a p T O B b , — T b $ y , ,6,yxtb oHa npoKJiHTa 1 IlOXOTb aHTHXpHCTOBa, KapTOBb ! Bee 3 T O 3ejibe — H 3 - 3 a Mopfl, H Topry ioT MM y Hac xuoTepaHe H K a T O J i H K H . . . l a a K T O nbeT —- OT^aeTca... K T O K O $ e f l nbeT — y T o r o Ha rtyiue K O B . . . fla — T b $ y ! — cjjoxHy J iy^uie, i e M B xiaBKy ce6e B03BMy T a K o e . . . [370] Ukaz fo1lowsuufeaz and the people's grumbling continues. Peter d e c r e e s , for e x a m p l e , that a l l Russians must now c e l e -b r a t e the New Year not on the f i r s t of September, b u t as the 169 Europeans do, on January f i r s t . In. a d d i t i o n , the years are t o be c o u n t e d s i n c e t h e b i r t h o f C h r i s t , and n o t s i n c e t h e creation of the world, and therefore, s t a r t i n g with January f i r s t n e x t , t h e y e a r s h a l l be-1700. Moreover, f o l l o w i n g t h e European custom, each New Year s h a l l be greeted w i t h m e r r y -m a k i n g , t h e e x c h a n g e o f v i s i t s a n d c5f g i f t s . As i f t h e s e changes were not enough, Peter d e c r e e s a new f a s h i o n i n dress: y B O P O T KHTan H Ee J ioro r o p o j j a npH6HJTH B T O P O H i i apcKHH y K a 3 : „ E o H p a M , uapeflBopiraM., cjiyxcHJibiM J H O J J H M npHKa3HbIM H TOprOBbIM XOJJHTb OTHblHe H 6630TMeHHO B B e H r e p c K O M n j i a r b e , BecHoft ace, Kor j j a CTaHeT O T M O P O 3 0 B xier^e, H O C H T B c a n c o H C K H e K a $ T a H b i " . Ha KpiOKaX BblBeCHJIH 3TH Ka$TaHbI H iLUTHnbl. COJIJjaTH, oxpaHHBiune H X , T O B O P H J I H , M T O CKopo- j j e npHKaacyT Bcein K y n ^ H x a M , CTpeJib^iHxaM, nocaj jcKHMxoeHKaM, nonajjBHM H JJ.bHKOHHU.aM XOJJHTb npOCTOBOJIOCblMH , B HeMeilKHX KOPOT-K H X io6Kax H non n\naTBeM HaKJiaxJbiBaTB. H-a 6oKa KHTOBbie p e 6 p a . . ~ . y BOPOT CTOHJIH TOJinbl B CMyiqeHHH , B CMyTHOM C T p a x e. nepejjOBajiH menoTOM, 6yj jTo HeB-e-jjoMbiH ^e j ioBeK c TpeMH K o i e p r a M H 3aKHJjaJi KaJiOM T S K O H see B O T Ka$TaH Ha KpwKe. H KpHHaJi:V „ C K O P O He BejiHT n o - p y c c K H p a 3 r o -B a p H B a T b , xcjJHTe! noHaej jyT pHMCKHe- H JnoTepcKHe nonbi nepeKpeiqHBaTB B e c B HapoJj . noca j j cKHX oTJjaxryT HeMuaM B B e i H y K Ka6aJ iy . MocKBy Ha30ByT no-HOBOMy — - ^ e p T o -r p a j j . B C T a p H H H H - X K H H r a x o T K p b u i o c b : i i a p b - n e n e T p — 3KHJJOBHH H3 KOJieHa flaHOBa" . Ka-K- OblJIO He BepHTB TaKHM CJIOBaM . . . [512] Although i n t h e s e two e x c e r p t s T o l s t o i r e v e a l s the people's i g n o r a n c e , t h e i r deep-rooted s u s p i c i o n and a f e a r bordering on x e n o p h o b i a , he does so i n a way t h a t s a t i r i z e s the ancient v i e w s and b e l i e f s . The l a s t sentence, "How c o u l d one n o t b e l i e v e s u c h w o r d s , " e m p h a s i z e s the s a t i r i c quality o f t h i s tableau. The vernacular language with which 170 European staples that Peter introduces to Russia — tobacco, tea, coffee, and potatoes — are cursed adds to the humour since they appear to the Russians as f r u i t s of carnal degradation offered by the A n t i c h r i s t . Furthermore, the depiction of an awe-struck crowd gaping at the newly pre-scribed fashion of dress, and even the tone of the decree, "kogda stanet ot morozov legche," creates a comica-l p i c t u r e . The whispered rumour passing, .through the crowd, together with the s o l d i e r ' s explanation of how Russian women w i l l soon have to wear whale-bones underneath t h e i r strange German dresses, further adds to the comedy of the whole s i t u a t i o n . In s l i g h t l y more serious vein, T o l s t o i writes about two men, Andriushka Golikov and Fed'ka Umoisia G r i a z ' i u , who symbolize those peasants who bear the f u l l burden of Peter's reforms. Golikov, an icon-painter from Palekh, i s a sensi-t i v e seeker after beauty, truth, and the meaning of l i f e . He flees to the north to the Old Believers, but f a s t s , beatings, and burnings soon drive him back to Petrine Russia. There he i s pressed into the army; but after deserting he i s sentenced to work on the construction of St. Petersburg. Fortunately he i s able to a t t r a c t the Tsar's attention to his a r t i s t i c t a l e n t , and earns his freedom and a promise to be sent abroad to study. How Fed'ka Umoisia Griaz'iu d i f f e r s from his friend 171 may be gathered from the following exchange. Says Golikov: — orudishones.ty. ^Thus ,iintthe.. f i n a l analysis, the mover of history i s Peter the Great. * * * "I know better" can be considered the central thesis i n Petr Pervyi. Everything and everyone i s deployed around the figure of Peter I who, accepting the challenge as one whose time has come, works to change a mediaeval Muscovy into a European state. Theggulf which separated pre-Petrine 177 Rus 1 and.Europe was evident to many people before Peter embarked on his p o l i c y of westernization. But while changes were desired by many, none could ever turn, the country to face in the d i r e c t i o n of the necessary reforms. Peter's character, which developed outside the constraining Byzantine pomp and ceremony of the t s a r i s t court, proved to be exactly the sort that could break the resistance entrenched i n long-established customs, and force the country to submit to his w i l l . That i s , to accomplish the changes which were demanded by h i s t o r i c a l circumstances, an exceptionally strong person-a l i t y was required. The emphasis here must be on force of character, on will-power, rather than on goodwill or i n t e l -ligence. The career.of Prince Golitsyn i l l u s t r a t e s the case of a highly-educated man f u l l of noble purpose, who recog-nizes the d i f f i c u l t i e s which have beset Muscovy, who has excellent proposals for correcting them, and yet i s in e f f e c -t i v e and powerless against the ex i s t i n g order because he has none of. the strength of personality, the consuming urge to bend a l l to his w i l l that forms Peter's chief t r a i t . Peter succeeded, as Karamzin had noted, only because of his tyran-n i c a l subordination of everyone and everything to the needs of the state, and his dogged resolve to transform Muscovite Rus' assured the success of what.might well be,termed a revolution. In these circumstances, the Tsar's personal f a u l t s , while neither denied nor concealed i n the novel, can 17 8 be tolerated•in view of the fact that he saved Russia from ruin. Furthermore, the contrast between Peter's l i f e of service-on the one hand, and the dandyism of Augustus and Charles' s e l f i s h pursuit of m i l i t a r y glory on the other, serves to mitigate Karamzin's c r i t i c i s m and to brighten the image of the Tsar. Moreover, T o l s t o i ' s conception of Peter does not correspond with the Slavophile view that the Tsar stood i n di r e c t opposition to the people's national t r a d i t i o n s . Nor does the Peter i n the novel have much i n common with Boris Pi l n i a k ' s Tsar,, who i s depicted as b l i n d l y and ch a o t i c a l l y following the west. And ce r t a i n l y T o l s t o i ' s Peter i s f a r from resembling D..Merezhkovskii's Tsar-Antichrist. In contrast to such portrayals of Peter I, T o l s t o i paints a figure thrown up by the currents of history, i n response to demands of the period, and yet one whose strength of character very soon began to a f f e c t the course of history. E s s e n t i a l l y , then, i n To l s t o i ' s view, Peter was not only an agent of h i s t o r i c a l forces, he was one of those rare individuals at whose hands history takes shape. As D. D. Blagoi wrote, the novel Petr Pervyi i s one of the f i n e s t examples of h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n i n a l l Russian l i t e r a t u r e . This position of the novel may be attributed largely to T o l s t o i ' s graphic language, which conveys so ea s i l y and so well the f e e l i n g of a past era. Having learnt 1-79 from Novombergskii 1s Slovo i . delo gosudarevy to reduce the Russian language to i t s basic, vernacular l e v e l , that i s , freeing i t from both Church Slavonicisms and European borrow-ings; and by a l t e r i n g the syntax, by frequently i n s e r t i n g dialogues, T o l s t o i keeps a l i v e a sense of the past throughout the novel. With appropriate costumes and furnishings added to the language, T o l s t o i prepares the stage for the appears, ance of characters. He i s always careful t o control t h e i r behaviour, t h e i r thinking and t h e i r speech so that everything should correspond to the Petrine period. A l l these elements together create that oftentimes elusive h i s t o r i c a l atmosphere. For this success, i t i s ultimately T o l s t o i ' s personal experi-ences and his s e n s i t i v i t y toward them that are responsible. Wrote Aleksei T o l s t o i : I think that i f I had been born i n a c i t y and not i n the country, and did not know from my childhood a thousand things, that wintry b l i z z a r d i n the steppes, i n the decrepit v i l l a g e s , the yuletide, the izbas, f o r t u n e - t e l l i n g , skazki, the lighted s p l i n t e r s , the storage sheds with t h e i r s p e c i a l odour, then probably I could not have described old Moscow. Pictures of old Moscow l i v e d i n me with my childhood memories. And from this appeared the sensation of the epoch, i t s . materialization.51 This i s why the novel succeeds so notably i n r e l a t i n g the image of the country with the image of i t s central character. A l l the secondary characters, both imaginary and r e a l , serve e s s e n t i a l l y to add to the characterization of Peter at the same time as they make Peter's Russia l i v i n g and r e a l . I t - ,e creation 180 i s the creation of a world of f i c t i o n that has f u l l h i s t o r i c authenticity', inhabited by people among whom towers one of the most remarkable h i s t o r i c a l p ersonalities of the world, that makes th i s novel a great work of h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n . On the occasion of T o l s t o i ' s twenty-fifth anniversary as a writer, i n 1933, Maksim Gorkii said of the novel, "Petr i s 52 the f i r s t r e a l h i s t o r i c a l novel i n our l i t e r a t u r e . " CHAPTER IV THE PLAYS B CO B e T C K y i o snoxy . ueHxpaJiBHoe M e c T o B npaMa.TyprHH T o j r c T o r o 3aHHJia H C T o p H ^ e c K a f l T e M a . — A. JI. CoKOJ ibCKan. 3st,djs hatur.alr fehafe:a p;roMT-fire writer such as T'ojrstoi, with his heightened i n t e r e s t i n his t o r y , should have explored the dramatic genre as a l i t e r a r y medium. He had gained a considerable reputation as a playwright even before the revolution, but his f i r s t h i s t o r i c a l drama was inspired by his o r i g i n a l h o s t i l i t y to the coup i n October 1917. Written in Odessa i n 1918, Smert' Dantona (The Death of Danton) was Tol s t o i ' s most poignant expression of revulsion against the di r e c t i o n taken by the Bolshevik leadership. Soon after t h i s , he wrote a comedy, Liubov' — kniga zol o t a i a (Love i s i a Golden Book), which, though this too was written i n Odessa, dealt not with contemporary issues, but instead with the gay and carefree l i f e of the eighteenth-century Russian gentry. The theme of Peter the Great occupies perhaps the mag:or sport ion of T o l s t o i ' s complete works. After the f i r s t s t o r i e s were written at the time of the revolution, almost a whole decade passed before he returned to the Petrine theme, th i s time dealing with i t in a h i s t o r i c a l drama e n t i t l e d Na 182 dybe (On the Rack). This was immediately followed by Volumes I and II of the novel Petr Pervyi, and then i n 1935 there appeared a second version of Na dybe, now call e d Petr I. For reasons peculiar to that decade in Soviet Russian l i t e r a r y h i s t o r y , T o l s t o i re-wrote the play again i n 1938. F i n a l l y , during the years of the second world war, he wrote a play which he described as a personal response to the sufferings of his country at the hands of the invading Nazis. This was a two-part drama about Ivan the T e r r i b l e . It i s a r e f l e c t i o n of the changing p o l i t i c a l climate that the plays were written at that time. The task confronting a writer of h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n becomes more d i f f i c u l t i n the dramatic genre than i n the novel. The reason for t h i s d i f f i c u l t y , as T o l s t o i explained, i s that in a novel or any other major piece of prose, charac-ters have time to develop, to come to l i f e as i t were, and, following the l o g i c of t h e i r own development, to act almost independently of the author's wishes. This i s an e f f e c t d i f f i c u l t to achieve in a play, where physical limitations of time and space force the writer to compress development, clima-xaandQrese-!ufei6n---Of :thespi6ttint6oassihgl-e3per jf ormance. In an a r t i c l e , "How I Write," T o l s t o i noted the difference between a novel and a play: It i s d i f f e r e n t i n the theatre. We have here the consideration of time. The tragedy of l i f e , world events, the broadest canvas must unfold i n one hour 183 and f o r t y - f i v e minutes of reading. It i s es s e n t i a l to work your brains d e c i s i v e l y . F i r s t , the play-wright must know i n advance the beginning of the f i r s t act, and the ending of the l a s t , the f i n a l e . He must know precisely what i s the pivot of the intr i g u e , the i n t e r r e l a t i o n s of the characters, and the fate of the person (or group of persons) who expresses the author's w i l l , passion, and purpose. 1 We must therefore see how T o l s t o i himself "works his brains d e c i s i v e l y . " A. Smert' Dantona. As noted i n preceding chapters, Aleksei T o l s t o i greeted the February revolution e n t h u s i a s t i c a l l y . But grow-ing disorders i n the summer of 1917 aroused i n him a f e e l i n g of apprehension, and i t was at t h i s time that a p a r a l l e l between the French revolution and the current events occurred to him. For example, he had attended a meeting i n the Bolshoi Theatre at which Kerensky had given a speech threat-ening the use of brute force to protect the Provisional 2 Government. T o l s t o i responded to Kerensky's speech with an a r t i c l e published i n Russkoe Slovo on August 20, 1917, i n which he wrote: Exactly one hundred and twenty years ago these same words, guarding the republic from the guns of kings and the daggers of underground assassins, were pro-nounced i n the T u i l e r i e s theatre. And then, just as now, the threat of terro r came not from the person of the d i c t a t o r , but only through him the people growled, tormented by treason, hunger and Blood.3 It may be stretching the p a r a l l e l too far to suggest that 184 T o l s t o i thought Kerensky to be the Danton of the Russian revolution. But i t i s c e r t a i n l y very clear that his thinking was moving i n the d i r e c t i o n of constructing some kind of p a r a l l e l between the two revolutions. At-the request of the Korsh Theatre i n Moscow, he began to re-work Dantons Tod (Danton's Death), a play by the German dramatist Georg Buchner (1813-1837). T o l s t o i ' s play, Smert' Dantona was completed i n Odessa on September 25, 1918. Though i t remained, i n essence Dantons Tod, the Russian playwright s h i f t e d the emphasis s l i g h t l y so that the o v e r a l l impression had a more d i r e c t s i gnificance for the Moscow viewer i n 1918. In the b r i e f introduction toSSmeiyt' Dantona he wrote: In the writing of t h i s play I used, i n addition to h i s t o r i c a l material, Buchner's play of the same name. From i t I took the plans for the f i r s t three scenes and the concluding words of Camille's wife. The stimulus and then the pathos for my play was seeing i n the characters of the distant past our own revolution, but more bloody and.more t e r r i b l e . 4 Smert' Dantona was staged b r i e f l y i n October 1918, but i t s anti-revolutionary tenor was not tolerated by the new authorities and the play was taken o f f the stage. In an unsigned a r t i c l e e n t i t l e d "K s n i a t i i u 'Smerti Dantona'" (For the Removel of The Death of Danton), I z v e s t i i a for October 20, 1918 fumed: Either supporting or.arousing among the complacent population antipathetic feelings -toward the p-185 proletariat, which i s gathering a l l i t s strength for the struggle, i s considered an anti-revolutionary act. In t h i s sense, A. T o l s t o i ' s rendition of the play The Death of Danton and i t s performance by the Korsh theatre group i s to.be considered an a n t i -revolutionary act. . . . An anniversary date i s approaching. The Russian p r o l e t a r i a t i s preparing to immortalize one of i t s forebears in the struggle, Robespierre. But ithe Korsh theatre offers Moscow workers a Robespierre as found i n The Death of Danton. This consideration.alone ought to be suf-f i c i e n t for the theatre to remove th i s play before i t i s ordered to do so. 5 Although Robespierre i s no longer presented as a hero, Soviet commentary to the play, some half a century l a t e r , remains fundamentally unchanged, as can be gleaned from any monograph on A. N. T o l s t o i . The prime objection to Smert' Dantona i s based on i d e o l o g i c a l grounds. I t i s considered to lack h i s t o r i c a l v e r i s i m i l i t u d e simply because T o l s t o i has t r i e d to draw in i t a d i r e c t analogy between the French and the Russian revolutions. This i s a p o l i t i c a l faux pas since by Soviet standards the two revolutions are i d e o l o g i c a l l y incompatible. Furthermore, what T o l s t o i has done with this play i s to reduce the entire s i g n i f i c a n c e of the revolution to a f u t i l e and chaotic whirlwind. As he wrote in 1917: The revolution only begins by toppling tyranny. Its further development i s a series of popular waves, one sweeping aside a n o t h e r . . . . . From philosophical heights, the Revolution drops to c i t y squares.6 In t h i s respect only a cursory acquaintance with Georg Buchner and his Dantons Tod w i l l s u f f i c e to e s t a b l i s h the difference between the o r i g i n a l and To l s t o i ' s Smert 1 l8'6 Dantona. Buchner's play, written i n 1835, seeks to demon-strate the tragedy of p o l i t i c a l idealism, and in this sense, i t too may be interpreted as a strongly anti-revolutionary drama. G. Lukacs, the Marxist c r i t i c whose view concerning t h i s play i s echoed i n the USSR, euphemistically explains, for example, that Danton lacked the proper understanding of the revolutionary process and that i s why he was swept away.^ But though Dantons Tod can be e a s i l y accepted as a straight p o l i t i c a l drama, there i s reason to interpret i t as something more than just that, e s p e c i a l l y i f one were to take into consideration Buchner's concepts of history and h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n . As he wrote to his parents: In my eyes the dramatic poet i s more than a writer of h i s t o r y . But he stands above the l a t t e r i n that he recreates history and instead of giving a, bald narration transplants us d i r e c t l y into the l i f e of another age. He gives us c h a r a c t e r s n o t charac-t e r i s t i c s ; human figures, not description. His highest task-is to get as close as he can to history as i t actually happened^ In other words, the dramatist, l i k e the h i s t o r i a n , must be impartial and must f a i t h f u l l y reproduce those personalities and events which comprise his play. But while in actual fact the c o n f l i c t between Danton and Robespierre was founded on p o l i t i c a l grounds, Buchner t r i e s to emphasize a clash of p e r s o n a l i t i e s i n the struggle between a moderate who wanted to stop the revolutionary process and an extremist who wanted the revolution to advance s t i l l further. By.$his,rexpressed 18.7 b e l i e f i n h i s t o r i c a l fatalism, Buchner further strays from his dictum, thus casting serious doubt on his o b j e c t i v i t y . His f)'ers©nal- concept of history, which i s si m i l a r to that held by L. N. T o l s t o i , Buchner revealed i n a private l e t t e r to the woman he loved but never l i v e d to marry: But I f i n d i t impossible to write a single word. I was studying the history of the Revolution. I fe&t astthough I had been destroyed by the ho r r i b l e fatalism of hi s t o r y . I am finding a t e r r i b l e : uni-formity i n human nature, an unavoidable power i n human relations which i s given to everyone and to no one. A single man i s only the foam upon a wave, greatness i s pure coincidence, rule of genius i s only puppet play, to fi g h t against this iron law i s ri d i c u l o u s , to acknowledge i t i s the highest achieve-ment, to dominate i t i s impossible. It would not occur to me anyi^©!E4i;t>obb:©w before these parading horses and paragons of history. My eyes have become accustomed to blood. But I am not the blade of the g u i l l o t i n e . "Must" i s a word of condemna-t i o n , the word with which a man i s baptized. With the utterance of that word, there has to come a calamity, but woe to the one through whom i t comes. What makes us l i e , murder or steal? I do not wish these thoughts to develop further. Oh, i f I could rest my cold tortured heart upon your breast. 9 There i s an apparent contradiction expressed i n t h i s and the previous l e t t e r . On the one hand, Buchner believed that his objective as a dramatist was absolute f i d e l i t y to, his t o r y , but on the other hand, he expressed a b e l i e f i n the complete f u t i l i t y of human e f f o r t s to d i r e c t the course of histor y . This l a t t e r supposition must of necessity, then, give a biased tinge to his re-creation of h i s t o r i c a l events. To a large degree, both of these aspects of Buchner's Weltan-s i c h t are evident in Dantons Tod. For example, a l l the - 188 speeches made by Robespierre and Danton before the Convention and the Tribunal were taken from h i s t o r i c a l sources. However, the private conversations between the chief protagonists were created s p e c i f i c a l l y to expound Buchner's view of h i s t o r i c fatalism. The notion of h i s t o r i c a l fatalism i s easy to discern in Dantons Tod. "We didn't make the revolution, the revolu-t i o n made us," muses Danton. As the German playwright presents him, Danton resembles an introspective Hamlet in his reluctance to take any action to save himself from Robespierre. "The man on the Cross took the easy way out: 'It must needs be that offenses come, but woe to the man by whom the offense cometh!'" broods Danton. And he continues: Who w i l l curse the hand on which the curse of must has fallen? Who spoke that must? What i s i t in us that l i e s , whores, s t e a l s , and murders? We are puppets and unknown powers p u l l the s t r i n g s . In ourselves, nothing, the swords with which s p i r i t s f i g h t — only the hands are i n v i s i b l e , as i n f a i r y tales...10 As previously stated, T o l s t o i ' s version s h i f t s the emphasis so as to make a closer t i e with the revolution i n Russia. This s h i f t i s most evident in the encounter between Danton and Robespierre. In the o r i g i n a l play, Buchner stresses not so much the p o l i t i c a l differences between the two men as the differences i n t h e i r respective moral and e t h i c a l values: ROBESPIERRE. The s o c i a l revolution i s not yet accomplished. 189; To carry out a revolution by halves i s to dig your own grave* The society of the pr i v i l e g e d i s not yet dead. The robust strength of the people must replace t h i s u t t e r l y effete class. Vice must be punished, virtue must rule through Terror. DANTON. I don't understand the word 'punished.' You and your v i r t u e , Robespierre! You've taken no money, you've run up no debts, you've slept with no women, you've always worn a decent coat and never got drunk. Robespierre, yourare i n f u r i -atingly righteous. I would be ashamed to wander between heaven and earth f o r t h i r t y years with such a priggish face, for the miserable pleasure of finding others less virtuous than myself. Is there no small, secret voice i n you whispering just occasionally: 'You are a fraud'? ROBESPIERRE. My conscience i s clear. DANTON. . . . You aim to turn the g u i l l o t i n e into a washtub for other people's stained l i n e n , to use human heads as soap-cakes for d i r t y clothes — now have you any right to do that just because your own coat i s brushed and clean? . . . Are you God's policeman? ROBESPIERRE. You.deny the existence of virtue? DANTON. And of vice. There are only Epicureans, coarse ones and fine ones. C h r i s t was the f i n e s t . That's the only difference between men that I've been able to discover. Everyone acts according to his own nature... ROBESPIERRE. Danton, there are periods when vice i s high.treason.il There i s a strong undercurrent, hidden beneath p o l i t i c a l references to the revolution and the Reign of Terror, which suggests that Robespierre, c a l l e d the Incorruptible, i s perhaps s l i g h t l y envious and yet feels prudish revulsion at Danton's pursuit of Epicurean pleasure and sensual g r a t i f i -cation. In contrast, T o l s t o i ' s depiction of t h i s very same scene p r a c t i c a l l y ignores Danton's sensuality, although i t appears elsewhere in Smert' Dantona. Rather, the two men disagree on the necessity to continue the Terror: flAHTOHi. IIoKyrta rajiBOTHHa pa6oTaeT, B p a r n 6yjxyT n\no-flHTBCH. 3 T O caMooSMaH, KpoBaBHft.. MHpaac — - B p a r a ! yHH^Toacb-JBce HaeejieHHe -OpaHiiHH. H- nocjienHHii ocTaB-IIIHHCH •qejiOBeK noKaaceTCH T e 6 e CSMHIM 'CTpaniHHM Bpa-roM. Teppop HOJiaceH K O H ^ H T B C H , O H He yHH^TOKaeT, a . naonJioxtHT-aBparoB. POBECIIbEP. . . . M H He MoxceM He T O J I B K O npeKpaTHTB. H O flaace na oflHH neHB ocjia6HTB Teppopa -^- PeBOJirouHH eiqe He K O H ^ e H a . 11AHT0H. JloacB! Korxja naJiH X C H P O H J X H C T H H cJextepaTH — pe-BOJiH>it'H-Hi5iKOHTiHJiacB..CB'f,CegHasaHjae,T,eSopB'6a63 a3BJiae:T.Bv . • . . . . . . . . . POEECTIbEP. KoH*iH.nacB peBOJUOLiHH noJiHTH^ecKan H Ha^axiacB coiiHaJiBHan peBOJnouHH. T H 3 T o r o H H K o r n a He Mor noHHTB, flaHTOH., T H 6HJI BepumHoa yace j jaBHo O K O H -:^FeH3ieHHT©HKH-aCH3aCHTOft-ra • ocTaJicH j jaxteKO n o 3 a r j ; H . flAHTOH. Hapoxty Hyacen M H P H ycnoKoeHHe* O H c T O H e T O T T B O H X TeopeTHieCKHX BHKJia f lOK . POEECIIEEP. Hapony HyacHo H3acHTB:BCK> TOJimy THCH^ieJieTHeft HecnpaBef l J iHBOCTH , ocymecTBHTB Bee B03nejieHHH JJO KOHiia. Korna i e p e 3 3aJiy KoHB.eHTa npoftJxeT n o c J i e r t H H H a c a J i o 6 m H K , H e r p a M O T H B i f i . 6aTpan, H ckaaceT: H flOBOJieH, — Torrta peBOJTfori,HH K O H ^ H T C H : . HacTaHeT 3 0 J I O T O H BeK CnpaBeJXJTHBOCTH H J J 0 6 p O J j e T e J I H . flAHTOH. (3axoxoTaJi) H T H eme -BepHiiiB B. T O , * I T O B O T 3 T H M H pyKaMH JjepaCHIUB. B 0 3 M COIIHaJIBHOH peBOJBOLIHH H HanpaBJiHeiiiB. oiiHy ^eJioBe^ecKyio BOJiHy 3a jxpyroft ^epea 3ajry KoHBeHTa, rxte 3 T a CBOJIO^IB y T O J i n e T C B O H KJiaccoBHH BoacxtejieHHHi T H - n o c i H r HCTopHiecKHe 3aKOHH, BHBoxtHiiiB '(fopMyjiH, nepoM H a 6yMare B H ^ H C -JIHeiUB. CPOKH. H CTaBHIUB T O I K H . MaTeMaTHKa, JiorHKa, OHJIOCOCIJHH. JIa i e r o caMOHajjenH• -vejroBe^ecKHfl pa3yM. . . . POBECIIBEP. MoaceT 6H T B H otuHSycB H 3anJ i a^y 3 a B T O rOJIOBOH, HO MHOH pyKOBOflHT- HpaBCTBeHHaH TOCTOTa, cnpaBertJiHBOCTB H pa3yM. . . . H 3 Hemp Hapona nOrtHHMaHDTCH Ba-JTH OflHH 3 a JXpyrHM H pa36HBaK)TCH o TBepnHHK)' rocynapcTBeHHOH BJiacTH. . . . T O J I B K O BHcoKHfi pa3.yM,. nbcTHrHyB, MoaceT:OBJianeTB S T O H TeMHOH CTHXHefi. H TdKHe J E O f l H , KaK Tbl, scaflHue RO HaGJ iaacxteHHH, noHHMaio iuHe peBOJnonHio l y B C T B e H H o — noJie3Hbi B en Ha^aJie H BpeflHbi B KOHue. Mta H O J E K H H 6e3nOIHaflHO 6 0 P 0 T b C H C * i y B C T B e H H O C T b I 0 , c nopoKOM H C yTBepXCflaiOmeH C e 6 H J IH^HOCTbK) . . . . J J a H T O H , SbiBaioT BpeMeHa, Korna qyBCTBeHHocTB — rocynap-CTBeHHSH H3MeHa.l2 Tol s t o i ' s version echoes the g i s t of the o r i g i n a l , but i n his play there i s considerably more relevance for the Moscow viewer of 1918. For example, he makes clearer the d i s t i n c t i o n between the p o l i t i c a l -revolution and the s o c i a l revolution, or, as i t may be e a s i l y interpreted, between the February and the October revolutions. This d i s t i n c t i o n i s less evident i n the German play. And whereas Buchner attempts to give the dialogue a philosophical tone, T o l s t o i makes i t much more of a d i r e c t p o l i t i c a l confrontation' between a moderate and a demagogue. Tol s t o i ' s Robespierre makes a passionate appeal for complete s a t i s f a c t i o n of each p a r t i c u l a r hatred nursed by the common man that has accumu-lated i n the thousands of years of oppression. Only when the l a s t v ictim of the oppressors has been avenged — only then may the revolution be considered completed, he believes. I t i s possible that for T o l s t o i t h i s was a reference to Lenin's c a l l to turn the war against the Kaiser's Germany into a war against the Russian p r i v i l e g e d classes. But i n both plays, Danton sees i n Robespierre's scheme for the creation of a golden age of t o t a l equality only a demagogue's craving for power. In both plays too, the Paris mob, which 19 2 i s l o y a l to Danton at f i r s t , i s shown as being manipulated e a s i l y by Robespierre, who equates wealth and Epicurean morality with p o l i t i c a l treachery. However, T o l s t o i stresses not only the mob's f i c k l e and e r r a t i c character, but also i t s anarchic q u a l i t y . These elements r e f l e c t T o l s t o i ' s own view of the path traced by the progression of events i n a revolution. The anti-revolutionary element i n both plays i s strongly emphasized, p a r t i c u l a r l y i n the curtain l i n e , "Long l i v e the King." This reinforces the conclusion at whi>ch:~ the reader must a r r i v e , and1 that i s that bloody revolutions, t e r r o r , and class antagonisms cannot bring the people material well-being, that they continue to go cold and hungry no matter who i s executed. In t h i s respect T o l s t o i followed Buchner very closely; however, the Russian playwright i n t e n s i f i e d the anti-revolutionary tone of his play by s t i l l another v a r i a t i o n on the theme. To l s t o i ' s Smert' Dantona d i f f e r s from Buchner's o r i g i n a l i n respect of the character sketches attached to the dramatis personae, descriptions not found i n Dantons Tod. This i s an important difference since, for the reader at l e a s t , i t reveals the moral bias of the play even before i t actually begins. Thus, T o l s t o i introduces the main protag-onist with this accompanying commentary: flAHTO'H BOJKJJB. MOHTaHbHpOB , MHHKCTp. K)CTHIJ,HH , ^JTeH KoMHTeTa 0 6 m e c T B e H H o r o C n a c e H H H , BfloxHOBHTeJiB 193 O S O P O H H -OepeHTHbiMH j ceHTH6pBEKaHppe3HH ,nnp:©HEm.e;igmaHnnpHeeEo y ^ a c T H , ecj iH He npHMo H M ycTpoeHHan- ( H C T O P H H He naeT TOMHoro OTBeTa) 7 cnacjia H 3 a i e M nory6HJia peBOJnounio, 6bIJia nOCTOHHHOH KPOBOTOHHBOH p a H O H , H a ^ a J I O M pexcHMa Ka3Heft; Bee BeJiHKHe .neHTejiH peBOJnouHH, Bee BeJiHKHe HfleH 3axjrre6HyjiHCB B S T O H K P O B H . 1 3 T h i s was the o n l y v e r s i o n t o be performed i n a t h e a t r e . I t i s i n t e r e s t i n g to note, however, t h a t some time a f t e r h i s r e t u r n to S o v i e t R u s s i a , T o l s t o i re-wrote h i s v e r s i o n of Buchner *s p l a y t o make i t a t l e a s t readable f o r ithe S o v i e t c i t i z e n r y . P r e d i c t a b l y , i n the second v e r s i o n he made Danton "the unmistakable v i l l a i n of the French r e v o l u t i o n whose romantic i l l u s i o n s are condemned by R o b e s p i e r r e , the r e v o l u t i o n ' s s a v i o u r . The c o n c l u d i n g scene was a l t e r e d so t h a t the c u r t a i n l i n e was n e i t h e r spoken nor even i m p l i e d by anyone. The extent of the change made i n the second v a r i a n t may be gleaned from t h i s s h o r t e x c e r p t taken from the exchange between Danton and R o b e s p i e r r e : POBECIIbEP. . . . BOT HMeHHO; -— TaKHe JUOflH , KaK T B I , jKaflHbie no H a c J i a » c j j ; e H H H , JB06KT peBcmouHio, K a K jno6oBHHU,y, H , K o r n a npecbiTHJiHCB, oTii iBBipHBaiOT ee I1HHKOM. T a K H e , KaK TH, HeHaBHflflT B . p e B O J U O U H H jiorHKy H H p a B C T B e H H y i o ^ H C T O T y . fla, MoxceT 6 H T B , K oniH6ycB VL norH6Hy, HO: H no KOHua. 6yny 6 O P O T B C H 3a cnpaBennHBOCTb, H He nepecTaHy BepnTB B BBICIUHH p a 3 y M peBOJiiouHH. MBI C TO6OK> JIIOHH pa3HBix s n o x . TBI-6BIJI HyaceH BHa^aJie. MnpaSo noHM6OB-H H T O H H cynpyMcecKHfi cJiOBapB, no a36yyHOMy nopnxtKy pa3noJioaceHHbiH", ..floMauiHue c p e n c T B a . O T pa3Hbix H e n p n -HTHocTeft B JDO6BH H 6 p a K e " . x 7 T o l s t o i took Gromov's book and made i t the p i v o t a l p o i n t of h i s c o m e d y . As a g i f t f r o m C a t h e r i n e I I t o P r i n c e s s D a r ' i a , t h e Empress' god-child,' the Golden Book's i n s t r u c t i o n s a n d . r e m e d i e s a r e n a i v e , b u t t h e y a r e a p p l i e d w i t h u l t i m a t e s u c c e s s . But f o r the P r i n c e , D a r ' i a ' s h u s b a n d , the b o o k becomes a s o u r c e of t r i b u l a t i o n w h i c h f i n a l l y r e d u c e s t h e o l d man to w e a r i n g h o r n s . Resheto, t h e f o o l , asks,, t h e P r i n c e i f t h e Golden Book i s f o r s p i r i t u a l n e e d s . The P r i n c e opens i t at. r a n d o m and r e a d s : , , H BOHTTa, • KOTopyio T H MHHUIB J H O 6 o B H H i i e H , cnpauiHBaeT T e 6 n , K>HbiH 3 p a c T : n o Taicoe K a H a n s ? O T B e T : icaHans ^^6Mec.33:Ob]H3np6jieHH©e©^ — flHBaH, T O J I B K O noycaflHciee, H xtBoe, B 6J I H 3 K O M X O T H COnpHKOCHOBeHHH , HO •MOryT yflOSHO Ha HeM SHfleTB, H MHorne B T O M yjjoGHbiH H J I H pa3Hbix maJiocTefi a 3 a 6 a B CJiy^afi HaxoflHTb; J i i o 6 o B H H K a M C H H BeiqB npenno^THTej iB-Hee nocTejiH, — K O J I B C K O P O nocTejiB CMHHaeTCH K o r n a c Hen BCTaiOT, KaHans He CMHHaeTCH, H O BBinpnMJIHPT — : 6 e p H ace3Ji C B O H H n o c n H H e O H H M ynapHH ee T O M K O He npH^HHHH coKpyuiHTeJibHoro. ^JieHOBpeacfleHHH. IIpHHeCH BHUIHeByiO. TPOCTB . (UlyT C K p H B a e T C H . ) Ceft T p o c T b i o Rep. MOK 6 a 6 K y y ^ H J i , H MaT.yniKa He pa3 , O H O H .y^eHa B pa3cyacfleHHH'HO6POTOJIK).6HOH X C H3H H . TaK y»c T H He o c y f l H , KHHrHHyuiKa, r o p b K o H O6HJJ;HO, H O HOJir^ BHnoJiHHTb o6H3aH,: a- T a M — M T O Eor noiuneTSil 9 As i n t h e e a r l y a n e c d o t e s a n d s t o r i e s , Tolstoiymocks the a r t i f i c i a l i t y . o f the. Russian n o b i l i t y t h r o u g h c o n t r a s t s . U n l i k e t h o s e e a r l i e r w r i t i n g s , however, w h e r e the p e a s a n t s ' s i m p l i c i t y w a s j u x t a p o s e d w i t h the g e n t r y ' s a f f e c t a t i o n s , i n t h i s p l a y i t i s the h u s b a n d ' s n a t i v e Russian s i m p l i c i t y t h a t i s p l a c e d i n a p p o s i t i o n to the w i f e ' s pretentious European-i z a t i o n . . Much o f t h e . h u m o u r i n Liubov ' - r — k n i g a z o l o t a i a l i e s p r e c i s e l y i n P r i n c e s s D a r ' i a ' s i n e p t e f f o r t s t o create o n h e r Russian e s t a t e s o m e t h i n g r e s e m b l i n g Mount Olympus. For. e x a m p l e , h e r c o m p l a i n t s a g a i n s t the m u z h i k M i k i t a f o r n o t p l a y i n g t h e s a t y r , t o h e r s a t i s f a c t i o n a p p e a r a l l the more comical when c o n s i d e r e d i n c o n t e x t w i t h the r e s p o n s e 19.7 made b y h e r w e l l - i n t e n t i o n e d h u s b a n d : KHHrHHH (C rHeBOM K H H 3 B K ) ) . 06BHCHHTe, OGBHCHHTe STOMy raxtKOMy MaJiB^HiiiKe, KaK O H MeHH o r o p^iaeT. A y MeHfl H CJIOB dOJIBIIie HeT . KHH3B (MHKHTe) . H y-Ka TBI nof t f lH-Ka , 6paTeii M O H , Ha KOHK>UIHK), xta K CKaacH T a M , ^ T O 6BI Te 6H BbinopoJiH. . . K H H r H H H . OnHTB Bama r p y S o c T B l . H y»ce CKa3axta, * J T O 6 H j i ecHHx 6 o r o B , B c e x , o S o e r o n o j i a , O T nopKH OCB060XMTB. 20 " G o t o t h e s t a b l e , b r o t h e r , and a s k t o be w h i p p e d " i s w h a t t h e P r i n c e s a y s t o M i k i t a . T h i s h a r d l y s o u n d s l i k e t h e command o f a t y r a n n i o i l m a s t e r , b u t r a t h e r l i k e a w e l l -w i s h i n g r e c o m m e n d a t i o n . T h e humour i n t h i s s c e n e i s e x t e n d e d as w e l l . b y t h e P r i n c e s s ' d e t a i l e d i n s t r u c t i o n s t o M i k i t a , by h e r . p r e t e n t i o u s n e s s i n c a l l i n g h e r p e a s a n t g i r l S a n ' k a b y a F r e n c h name , and by t h e a p p a r e n t i n d i f f e r e n c e o f t h e " n y m p h s " t o t h e i r m i s t r e s s ' c a p r i c e a n d t h e i r " u n p o e t i c " f l i g h t , f r o m m o s q u i t o e s . T h e Pr i'ncessb^ c^eES^ lk . i^ : -3 a B T p a , KaK coJiHiie B C T a H e T , y MeHH noxt O K H O M B c n p e H H H r p a T B H a p o m e , p o r a-cKB03B J I H C T B H K a 3 a T B , H K 0 3 J 1 0 M SJieHTB TpH p a 3 a T H X O , A Korrta O K H O pacKpoK) , SeacaTB 3a H H H $ O H , J I O B H T B , c n a n o -CTpacTHo B3npan Ha npexiecTH oHoft f i 3aBTpa H H H C J J O H —-' j jeBKa HaTauia . C T y n a n . ( M H K H T ^ , noKJioHHBiiiHCB, yxoJXHT.) PyKH onycfeaioTCH c S T H M HapoflOM. He^iero CKa3 aTB — 60JIBUiaH npHHTHOCTB J K H T B y Hac Ha JJOMy. Tzte n o 3 3 H H , r n e 3a6BeHHe? (BbiTHpan rjia3a nJio-T O I K O M . ) JKaHeTTa! (CaHBKa nojj;6eraeT.) A I T O H H H $ B I ? CAHbKA. HHHcpbi B 6aHK> 3a6HJiHCB, C H J X H T no ceft l a c , He BBiroHHM. KoMapBi 3aejiH.21 There i s additional humour i n the difference between the language used by the Princess Dar'ia and by the peasant g i r l 198 San'ka. In an e f f o r t to acquire the graceful manners of a western noblewoman, the Princess t r i e s to use refined language. Thus, "SeacaTb 3a HHHOH, J I O B H T B , onanocTpacTHo B3Hpafl. Ha n p e n e c T H O H O H " t r i e s to reproduce a l i t e r a l but cultured depiction of a satyr f r o l i c k i n g with a nymph. However> that these are p l a i n Russian peasants and not mythological beings i s brought into.sharp focus by San'ka's curt explanation about the Princess* nymphs: " B 6aHK> 3a6HJIHCB . . . He BbirOHHM. KOMapbl 3aeJTH." The a r r i v a l of a handsome young o f f i c e r , who announces that Catherine w i l l arrive shortly, allows the Princess to commence her a f f a i r as recommended i n the Golden Book. The si t u a t i o n i s made more complicated, however, when i t i s discovered the next day that the o f f i c e r , Valer'ian, i s also Catherine's loverw But when the Empress sees that he and the Princess have f a l l e n i n love, she graciously withdraws and further f a c i l i t a t e s her god-child's love a f f a i r by sending the old Prince o f f to the Crimea. Omnia.viricit amor, the moral of this l i g h t comedy, i s drawn from Catherine's f i n a l speech. Says the Empress to the young o f f i c e r : A Bee »ce, BaJ iepbHH, B H He HcnopTHJiH MHe c^acTJiH-B o r o flHH. (EepeT K H H T H H I O 3 a nofl6opoflOK.) MHe jiHUib .yflajiocb c n e j i a T b oTKptaTHe, M T O B O T Tanan c o p o K a OKa3biBaeTCH nocHJibHee K O P O H H P O C C H H C K O H H M n e p H H . 2 2 T o l s t o i read Liubov' — kniga zo l o t a i a to the a c t for s and actresses of the Moscow Art Theatre i n 1922 when the 199 troupe was v i s i t i n g B e r l i n . According to Serafima Birman, a leading actress of the company, everyone loved i t from the 23 f i r s t reading. It was decided to admit i t into the theatre's repertoire, and the play had i t s premiere on January 3, 1924. Even though i t engoyed immense popularity at the box o f f i c e and, according to Birman, played to a f u l l house for s i x t y performances, the o f f i c i a l c r i t i c s succeeded in t h e i r demand that the play be banned for i t s i d e o l o g i c a l c u l p a b i l i t y . It was deemed unacceptable Because of i t s i d e a l i z a t i o n of the past. As I. Trainin put i t , i n a review in Pravda: This work by A. T o l s t o i from beginning to end simply drools with sentimentality, and i s so completely without substance that by comparison other plays which are analogous in content or theme . . . may be considered masterpieces and revolutionary creations.24 S p e c i f i c a l l y , what was resented in the comedy was the por-t r a y a l of the peasants' uncomplicated l i f e , as well as the implication of t r a n q u i l and harmonious relations between masters and s e r f s , and the portrayal of Catherine II as an amiable and loving godmother. Trainin was further offended by the actual production of the play whlehy.'--he f e l t , "drew the -.Theatre "-.down- by i t s .excessiveunaturalism. " •-' •"" ;>Thus , i n addition to i d e o l o g i c a l considerations, Liubov' — kniga zolotaia was regarded.as being rather exceedingly suggestive of improper behaviour. Though the l y r i c a l thread i n the 200 play was dominant, explained Birman., there was some "coarse humour." In the f a l l of 1936, T o l s t o i re - w r o t e the comedy making several appropriate adjustments. The complete a l t e r a t i o n o f Catherine's c h a r a c t e r w a s one of the r a d i c a l changes t h a t he introduced i n the new version. Instead of surrendering Valer'ian to her god-child, T o l s t o i n o w has the Empress command t h e o f f i c e r t o r e m a i n with her. She explains to the Princess: Pa3pemaio Te6e K J I H C T B CBOK) cyflB6y. yTeumnibCH C K O P O B IleTepSypre, T S M yTeuiHTejin Haftf lyTCH. Pa3peuiaio c^HTaTB MeHH rapaHKOH. CBeT nOJTOH HH30CTef i . JlKiflH HeH3M0HHH. H JIHU.O aceHIUHHH B n f l T b f l e C H T J i e T OKpyaceHO CHHHHeM He3eMHOH K p a c o T b i , ecJiH oHa — pacTo^HTeJ iBHHua 3eMHbix 6Jiar. H ynepacajia T B o e r o B03Jno6JieHHoro O T rjiynocTen. 0, KaK 6bi O H acajieji B n o c J i e f l C T B H H , I T O 3a O H H H nouejiyft T B o e r o KyKOJibHoro " p o T H K a oTHaJi BCIO yna^iy » C H3H H . O H r j i y n TaK ace, KaK H T H , . H O O H K p a c H B , CMej i , — 3aqeM ry6HTb e r o ? B H H H U I B , H yace He T a K o e yyflo=H BHine. K H H 3 H - T B o e r o 6epy B K P H M . , T H cnpocHiiiB — ' 3 a ^ e M ? HHKorf la .He 6yflB C M e n i H o f t , — B O T ,3aKOH CBeTa. *fepe3 Heflejno BecB M O A H B O P 6y,neT 3HaTB O npHKJno-yeHHHX^ B 3 T O & 3 J i o c ^ : a c T H o f t y c a f l B 6 e . . T a K n y c T B CMeiOTCH Harj; T B O H M KHH3eM, a He xHXHKaioT B H o c o B H e n J i a T K H Hap J I I O S O B H H M H Hey j j ; a^aMH aceHinHHH, HMeiomeH oflHy JIHUIB Hey/j;a i^y — BpeMH, npoKJTHToe BpeMH 3a n j i e ^ a M H . . IIpomaH.27 From the kind a n d amiable r e l a t i v e t h a t she was i n the o r i g i n a l , Catherine i s t r a n s f o r m e d i n t o a c a l c u l a t i n g w o m a n who i s conscious o f h e r autocratic power a n d does n o t hesitate to use i t to s a t i s f y her personal appetite. In this fashion T o l s t o i s h i f t s the centre of t h e comedy away from love and cuckoldry, and directs i t more toward the 201 r e v e l a t i o n of Catherine's Machiavellian n a t u r e . Apart from the a l t e r a t i o n that renders Catherine unattractive, another basic change made i n the play i s to, remove the semblance of good, p a t r i a r c h a l relations b e t w e e n the peasants and t h e i r masters. This can be observed p a r t i c u l a r l y w i t h.regard to the peasant Fedor, who.is ordered by his mistress to p l a y a r o l e i n t h i s f a t u o u s game of romance. "The Princess had ordered you to be the goblin," San'ka e x p l a i n s to him. Fedor's response i s a reminder of the feudal conditions under which the peasantry l i v e d i n e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y Russia: C a H H , H y - K a K o f i H Jienmfi? . . B O T K p e c T , TJIHAH . . . rocnoflH!.. fla 3 a I T O ? Ha 6apinHHy * i a c y He 3 a n a 3 -.nbiBaio... IIopy6Ka B Jiecy ^H C J I H T C H 3 a MHO&? H e T . K y p e H K a fta rocnoncKyio 3eMJiio He Bbinymy. . . . . . C a H H , H H B JiafloiiiH-TO 6HTB He yMeio, H H xoxoTaTb-T O He Mory. . . . . . AAx, 6aTK>uiKH, I T O ace S T O OHH BHflyMaJTH ? 1 2 8 To, put still!', greater d i s t a n c e , between the peasants- and . t h e i r m i s t r e s s , T o l s t o i i n t r o d u c e d . i n the second,v e r s i o n his own v e r s e s , whose r h y t h m i s v e r y much l i k e -Russian f o l k s o n g s rather than the Greek hymns that are demanded by the Princess. Through s u c h s o n g s T o l s t o i s a t i r i z e s the g e n t r y's posing as Europeans. The Russian g i r l s cannot help but s t r a y b a c k to t h e i r peasant s t y l e of singing: "Ha nepeBeHCKHfi jiafl c6HBaK>TCH," San'ka e x p l a i n s h a l f - a p o l o g e t i c a l l y , as t h e y sing: 202 KaK B O r p e ^ e c K O M Jiecy. fla Ha n a p H a c e , HHM$a n r o f l y SpaJ ia , T P H 6 U c o S H p a J i a . . . Ax, 3eBec T H , M O H 3eBec, TJIHHB Ha MHJiyio c H e 6 e c . HHM$a ^ J S J I O T I K O M npe j ibmeHa, — CJiaflKHH njiofl oTKyuiaTb c e f t . . . Bjrpyr c a T H p — O S H K H O B S H H O — CMeJIO KHHyJICH O H K Heft, fla, K Heft... HHM$a — ax! — H O p e 3 B H H O T H O T CHTHpa He c n a c y T . . . 3J I O H uiaJiyH c x B a T H J i , o 6orH, 06a B .TpaBy yna/ryT. . . . O H — c H e n . . . 2 9 The' senfeimenfeair fed'nge *thmch-: colou.red:. .the: . f d r s t v a r i a n t o f L i u b o v ' — k n i g a z o l o t a i a ds. a l m o s t t o t a l l y a b s e n t f r o m t h e 193 6 v e r s i o n . H e r e t h e p e a s a n t s a r e s e t a p a r t f r o m t h e ma i n p e r s o n a l i t i e s i n o r d e r t o draw a t t e n t i o n t o t h e i n j u s -t i c e s o f s e r f d o m . C a t h e r i n e i s now p o r t r a y e d as an a u t o c r a t who i s made u n a p p e a l i n g n o t o n l y i n a p o l i t i c a l s e n s e b u t a l s o as an i n d i v i d u a l . F i n a l l y , l o v e does n o t c o n q u e r a l l i n t h i s comedy-, b u t i s m i s e r a b l y c r u s h e d by an e x p o s i t i o n o f r e a l i t y i n i t s r e v o l u t i o n a r y d e v e l o p m e n t . D e s p i t e c o r r e c -t i o n s made b y - T o l s t o i , n e i t h e r L j u b o v ' — k n i g a z o l o t a i a n o r Smert' D a n t o n a was s t a g e d a g a i n . O n l y t h e o r i g i n a l s , t h a t i s , t h e v e r s i o n s ' w r i t t e n b e f o r e h i s r e t u r n t o S o v i e t R u s s i a , e v e r saw p r o d u c t i o n . S i n c e t h e r e a s o n f o r t h i s i s c l e a r l y t h e i r . i d e o l o g i c a l s l a n t , i t i s i n s t r u c t i v e t o examine t h o s e d r a m a t i c works by T o l s t o i i n w h i c h i d e o l o g y i s more o b v i o u s l y 2 03 the central concern, namely, the h i s t o r i c a l plays on Peter the Great. C. Three Versions of Petr I. In writing about the Tsar> a Soviet writer faces a serious quandary: what constitutes the correct Marxist interpretation of Peter? Since Karl Marx made only a f l e e t i n g remark about him, which was that Peter the Great conquered Russian barbarism with barbarism, Soviet historians have b u i l t on this generalization several successive i n t e r -pretations, compelling writers to make changes appropriate to the i d e o l o g i c a l modification. Wrote C. E. Black: In considering the evolution of Soviet h i s t o r i o g -raphy on thi s subject, i t i s int e r e s t i n g to note that i n the f i e l d of l i t e r a t u r e the pressure of the party l i n e was also conspicuous. The best example of t h i s i s the work of Alexey Tolstoy on P e t e r . 3 0 As stated e a r l i e r , T o l s t o i f i r s t wrote about Peter I in 1918, and then returned to.this subject i n 1928 with the. play-Na dybe. Though a complete decade separates the story "Den' Petra" from Na dybe, and though the writer of the play no longer espoused the sentiments which prompted him to write the story, the two works reveal e s s e n t i a l l y i d e n t i c a l perceptions of the Tsar. The single major difference between the two works i s that the 1918 Slavophile notion of the super i o r i t y of pre-Petrine Rus" i s not recreated i n the play. In other aspects, T o l s t o i had very l i t t l e to a l t e r , since 20 4 his o r i g i n a l aversion to Peter now seemed to coincide with Mikhail Pokrovskii's stand and the current Marxist view. In Pokrovskii's opinion, The bankruptcy of Peter's system lay not i n the fact that "at the.price of the ruin of the country Russia.was raised to the rank of a European power" but i n the fact that, 'regardless of the ruin of the country, t h i s goal was not attained.31 This i d e o l o g i c a l coincidence acts as a l i n k joining the story w i t h the f i r s t play Na dybe. But i t i s misleading to claim, as R. Ivanov-Razumnik does, that Petr Pervyi preceded the writing of the play, and i t i s deceptively simple to suggest that T o l s t o i f e l l from the a r t i s t r y of the novel to 32 the mediocrity of the plays. As i n "Den" Petra" so i n the f i r s t version of the play about Peter, the Tsar i s shown to be impatient to Europeanize his realm, i s o l a t e d and alone i n his endeavours, and-cruelly oppressive. The twelve tableaux which comprise Na dybe a l l contribute to the generally bleak picture of the period, and the dark image of.Peter reminds one very much of Pokrovskii's characterization. In her book on T o l s t o i and Soviet theatre, P. A. Borozdina s t r i v e s to minimize Pokrov-33 s k i i ' s influence on the play. But the f a c t remains that the negative portrayal of Peter i n this version r e i t e r a t e s the g i s t of Pokrovskii's popular edition of Russian history which offered only "a four-sentence biographical sketch of Peter concerned exclusively with l u s t , torture and s y p h i l i s . " 205 T o l s t o i p r e p a r e s h i s a u d i e n c e f o r P e t e r ' s f i r s t a p p e a r a n c e on s t a g e w i t h s o u n d s and c r i e s o f t h e e x e c u t i o n o f t h e s t r e l t s y . T h e n t h e T s a r e n t e r s , b u t b e f o r e h e c a n e v e n u t t e r a s o u n d , h e s u f f e r s a c o n v u l s i o n : yjj;apHi, K P H K . noHBJiHeTCH neTp. O H B npeo6paxbH. He T O M H C B noc j i e 6 a H H — T O . . . HafleHB T a , 6 a a a a -TiomKa, uiTaHbi npaBocj iaBHBie . B HeMeuKHX T e 6 e T e C H O . JIOIiyXHH. O I I H T B — flypa: npH anoHsceBOM n a p H K e , npH 207 cJpaHiiyscKOM Ka$TaHe — a : n o p T K H H a f l e J i . . . COQbfl.. fla Bertb — C B H T K H , V B H H H T — CKaxcyT: p H x c e H H H . . . JlOIiyXHH. Tbi;6; B o p o H a , noHMH: B c e H a T MeHH i iapB xo^eT nocjiaTB, c e H a T o p o M Syjxy, X O T B KaKaa H H Ha e c T B — M e c T B . . . noceMy jiOMaiocB B y 3 K O M roiaTbe, — H H c e c T B , H H npHKJ ioHHTBCH.. . H B O T T e 6 e Moe pacno-PHsceHHe , C O $ B H CTenaHOBHa: B Hextemo BCK> pyxjiHflB cJioacHTB H Ha nojxBOJJH y B H 3 a T B : BceM flOMOM e x a T B T e 6 e B . CaHKTnHTepSypx Ha B e ^ H o e scHTejiBCTBO. COObH (3aBbiJia) . Jly^ine B. 3eMjno MeHH B MocKBe 3aKonaHTe, — - He noeny Ha S O J I O T O HCHTB . JlOIiyXHH. IlaKH H naKH flypa C T a H O B a a . . . Uap'b n p H K a 3 a n . 3 aMOJi^H .37 The contrast between Lopukhin's European, dress and S o f i a ' s t r a d i t i o n a l Russian dress, coupled with t h e i r unsophisticated vernacular speech, symbolizes the beginning of, that loss of national unity which Karamzin attributed to Peter's h u r t l i n g westernization of the upper classes. The same incongruity between the s t y l i s h dress and the simple speech of the boiar couple creates the humour i n thi s scene. To the Tsarevich Aleksei, Lopukhin continues to complain about the d i f f i c u l t y of l i f e since the introduction of European industry, lamenting: fla, XCHJIH, nHJiH. . . A T e n e p B , KaK xojionbi, C J I V E C H M , Pann i i a p c K o r o BOHCKa na $JioTa — MBI Bee Ha K a T o p r e MaJio eme r o p n — HbiHe xcejie3Hbie 3aBOJJBi C T P O H T , jja noJioTHHHbie, noTauiHbie, CT .eKOJib-Hbie, fla eme myT H X 3HaeT K a K n e . . .. T O J I B K O Hapofl 3pn Kajie^iaT, MyxcHKa O T flejia o T p w B a i o T . . . JKpaTB C T a j i o . H e i e r i o , — cTeKJio flyeM... Kopa6flHKH C T P O H M . TBcpyl38 From Lopukhin's complaints the audience learns of the estab-lishment of an army and a navy, and of the intorduction of 208 various industries. But though he i s aggrieved by Peter's innovations, he does not evoke any sympathy. On the con-trary , since i t i s only h i s i s lamKekajH^nf xi'S" tgneec.ifeha^v has been disturbed — "Yes, we used to l i v e , drink, but now we work l i k e slaves" — the boiar's vexation merely adds humour to the play. With such a ludicrous, opposition r a l l y i n g about him, the .Tsarevich Aleksei appears i n Na dybe: more as a frightened son than as a serious p o l i t i c a l opponent to Peter. By mini-mizing the threat from t h i s quarter, T o l s t o i makes Aleksei's execution appear a l l the more dastardly. The manner i n which the Tsarevich i s k i l l e d reminds one,of Merezhkovskii*s novel i n which the mystic n o v e l i s t drew a p a r a l l e l between the Tsar and the A n t i c h r i s t . In Na dybe, Peter enters the c e l l to ask forgiveness, kisses his son on the forehead, and then walks out. Menshikov, Petr T o l s t o i , and the guard Pospelov lunge at the Tsarevich. In t h i s manner T o l s t o i makes the death of Aleksei resemble a common murder rather than a p o l i t i c a l execution, and this serves to blacken Peter's image s t i l l further. The severity and impulsive nature of the reforms introduced by Peter alienate him from both the plebeian and the p a t r i c i a n segments of the population. Furthermore, T o l s t o i suggests that the Tsar i s alienated from a l l the people by his tyrannical nature. Accompanied by his 209 "All-Drunken Synod," for example, Peter v i s i t s homes of the n o b i l i t y and plays cruel t r i c k s on them. On one occasion, dressed as a physician, he gleefullyjyanks his host's teeth. On another occasion, before a Moscow crowd, he forces his ministers to kiss the bare buttocks of the All-Drunken Synod's "prince pope." By this exhibition T o l s t o i shows yet another example of the Tsar's bru t i s h disregard for his subjects. It i s only too apparent that Peter i s i n s e n s i t i v e to the feelings of his subjects, who see a mortal i n s u l t i n t h i s irreverent display. A shout rises•from the crowd: CbiHa y6HJi ! . . 3a*ieM uiyTHiiiB. . . y r o M O H y Ha T e 6 n H e i , KyTHJ iKa . . . EpaTirbi , c roJioxty yMHpaeM, a y HHX n y 3 0 OT roaHba J ionHyj io . T p a S H T e j i H . . . Kp OB onH HUH . . . 3 9 Thus, Peter i s hated not only because of the hardships that his reforms have brought, but also because of his personal coarseness which so often degenerates into cruelty. But Peter i n T o l s t o i ' s f i r s t variant of the play i s not merely c r u e l , he i s t r a g i c as w e l l . Alienated from the nobles and commoners, who either. do , ,ndt support him or else a c t i v e l y r e s i s t him, Peter i s > S'pifitually i s o l a t e d even from members of his entourage. Menshikov, his favourite, i n addition to being a t h i e f , i s already p l o t t i n g to form a triumvirate with Catherine and Mons as soon,as the Tsar dies. Catherine, who i s d e l i b e r a t e l y paired o f f with Peter exactly as i n the story "Marta Rabbe," commits the inevitable 210 i n f i d e l i t y . P e t e r ' s t o t a l i s o l a t i o n i n t h e p l a y c a l l s t o m i n d t h e g e n e r a l t o n e o f t h e s t o r y " D e n 1 P e t r a , " i n . w h i c h t h e l a s t s e n t e n c e s t a t e s t h a t t h e T s a r h a d a s sumed " a s u p e r h u m a n t a s k : one f o r a l l . " E x a c t l y t h e same t h o u g h t i s p r o n o u n c e d b y t h e T s a r ' s u n c l e i n Na d y b e : T b i H a r o p y of lHH-caM THHeitiB, a . n o n r o p y — MHJIJIHOHbl T H H y T . . . HenOMepHBlft Tpyf l B3HJI Ha C' ce6n, cbiHOK. . .40 Na d y b e c o n c l u d e s w i t h t h e " s u p e r h u m a n t a s k " w h i c h P e t e r h a d a s s u m e d a p p a r e n t l y u n f u l f i l l e d . I n t h e l a s t s c e n e , as i f t o e m p h a s i z e t h e f a i l u r e a n d t h e s u g g e s t i o n . t h a t f a t e h a d n o t i n t e n d e d h i m t o s u c c e e d , T o l s t o i i n t r o d u c e s a d e v a s -t a t i n g s t o r m . " C u e Bbiciue C H J I ^ e j i o B e ^ i e c K H x , " l a m e n t s one a d m i r a l . L e f t a l o n e , P e t e r c a n b e q u e a t h h i s new E m p i r e o n l y t o a few i n i m i c a l i n d i v i d u a l s , and he c h o o s e s h i s u n f a i t h f u l C a t h e r i n e . J!Bcfeh$e-6e^©"-®aa'wf^ es-a^ -stene-^ .^ M©the -curtain speech, H r o c y n a p c T B O H c e f l r o p o f l ' 6 e n c T B e H H H H . . . Bcio HecHocHyio T H P O T Y * H 3 H H M o e f t . . . H 6o.nee — TOBOPHTB c T O 6 O H He xo^iy . y H X t H . . . . YMHpaTB Syxty — Te6H He no30By. HHKoro He n o 3 0 B y . Cepflue Moe w e c T O K o e , H n p y r a MHe ! B ce,H ra3HH .0: ••• 6H T B He M o a c e T . . . (IJeJiyeT ee JIO6, 3anHpaeT 3 a Heft flBepb. C a f l H T C H K - e T O J i y , rnnxjuT- B O K H O . ) JJa.. B o n a npft6biBaeT. CTpaiueH kOHeu.41 R e v i e w s o f t h e p l a y , w h i c h h a d i t s p r e m i e r e on 23 F e b r u a r y , 1930 u n d e r t h e t i t l e P e t r I , w e r e m o s t u n f a v o u r a b l e . T o s u g g e s t , as d o e s S p e n c e r E . R o b e r t s , t h a t t h e n e g a t i v e r e v i e w s w e r e g e n e r a t e d o n l y by t h e c r i t i c i s m i m p l i e d i n S t a l i n ' s comment t h a t t h e T s a r h a d n o t b e e n p o r t r a y e d i n a heroic l i g h t , i s to overestimate the weight of the personal-i t y c u l t i n 1930, and to give too much credence to the 4 2 testimony of Ivanov-Razumnik. If his r e c o l l e c t i o n s are accurate, then S t a l i n ' s remark was made at a dress rehearsal of the play. One would expect that, i f the c u l t of person-a l i t y was. indeed so strong i n 1930, the leader's comments would have been immediately taken into consideration and a l l necessary alterations made before any public performance. But while some reviewers did c r i t i c i z e T o l s t o i for charac-t e r i z i n g Peter only as "a despot, b u l l y , and s y p h i l i t i c [which is] superfluous because Soviet audiences know the true worth of personality i n hi s t o r y , " s t i l l many others appear to have ignored S t a l i n ' s expressed o p i n i o n . ^ For example, V. Mlechin, writing i n Vecherniaia Moskva, accused T o l s t o i of portraying Tsar Peter just as he had been charac-te r i z e d by pre-revolutionary bourgeois.idealists: T o l s t o i i s s t i l l captivated by the bourgeois i d e a l i s t i c conceptions which regard the h i s t o r i c a l process mainly from the point of view of deeds accomplished by tsars and "heroes." This leads the playwright to a "heroic" portrayal of Peter which shows -how completely a l i e n to the writer i s the d i a l e c t i c a l essence of the h i s t o r i c a l p r o c e s s . 4 4 Another indicat i o n of the apparent disregard for Sta l i n ' s caveat i s the mere fac t that the-MKhAT production °f Na dybe omitted the Poltava scene. Peter's greatest m i l i t a r y v i c t o r y , which could have u p l i f t e d the inglorious figure of the Tsar, -was l e f t out e n t i r e l y , i n spite of 212 , St a l i n ' s ominous hints as reported by Ivanov-Razumnik! Moreover, K r e s t i n s k i i noted that the actor who played Peter followed Pokrovskii's interpretation rather than T o l s t o i ' s , thereby darkening a l l the more an already unappealing image. Ideological c r i t i c i s m s were also hurled at T o l s t o i . In the Pravda a r t i c l e by L. Cherniayskii, i t was noted that the playwright completely ignored any mention of "the s p i r i t of commercial, c a p i t a l which enveloped.the reforms of Peter and whose influence was the d r i v i n g force behind his 46 • reforms." Far more pointed was the attack on T o l s t o i which appeared i n Komsomol'skaia Pravda.i Its author, I. Bachelis, reminded readers that the playwright, as a former count, was the eulogist for the defunct Russian gentry, and Na dybe he interpreted as a t a c i t incitement to counter-revolution far more dangerous than M. Bulgakov'e Dni 47 Turbinykh or Bagrovyi ostrov. Furthermore, Bachelis was i r r i t a t e d by the apparent p a r a l l e l drawn between the Petrine era and Soviet Russia. In the words of Roberts, commenting on.this review: Audiences .were to take home with them the impres-sion that the s a c r i f i c e s of m i l l i o n s of well-to-do peasants under the F i r s t Five-Year Plan was a h i s t o r i c a l necessity, just as were the harsh measures taken by Peter. 48 Indeed, i t was impossible to miss the p a r a l l e l between the two epochs, says A. V. Alpatov, p a r t i c u l a r l y since the raised curtain revealed a second, gauze-ilike curtain i 213 49 depicting St. Petersburg covered with s c a f f o l d i n g . To the 1930 viewer th i s was,a most obvious•reference to t h e i r own rush toward c i v i c construction. Na dybe remained in the repertoire of the Soviet theatre from 1930 until 1934, when T o l s t o i re-wrote the play. Thus, despite the generally h o s t i l e response from the press, the f i r s t version continued to be staged because, as T o l s t o i put it., i n his autobiographical sketch of 1943, "the play was saved by Comrade S t a l i n . " In explaining why he was w r i t i n g i t anew i n 1934, he s a i d , "The f i r s t version of 50 'Petr' smells of Merezhkovskii." What thi s c l e a r l y implied was that a new and improved image of Tsar Peter was to be expected i n the second version. Pokrovskii's interpretation of Peter's character had begun to be challenged while Na dybe was being written, and i t i s evident that T o l s t o i ' s own understanding of his central character soon began to change su b s t a n t i a l l y . Although his detractors/ such as Ivanov-Razumnik accuse him of rushing with the new play to f l a t t e r S t a l i n , one ought not to ignore the very important fact that \ T o l s t o i had completed the second volume of the novel Petr Pervyi i n A p r i l 1934, while his reconditioning of Na dybe began only i n the f a l l of that year. And the characteriza-tion of Peter i n the novel, i t i s generally agreed, i s quite a balanced one. Besides, T o l s t o i ' s re-working of Na dybe i s not quite the brazen about-face that his c r i t i c s would have 214 us b e l i e v e . A l t h o u g h he s a i d t h a t he was w r i t i n g an e n t i r e l y new p l a y , P e t r I (1935) c l o s e l y r e s e m b l e s t h e p r e c e d i n g v e r s i o n , and t h e changes t h a t were i n t r o d u c e d s e r v e t o s o f t e n t h e T s a r ' s image r a t h e r t h a n t o m a n u f a c t u r e a new one. The new p l a y , a l s o c o n t a i n i n g t w e l v e s c e n e s , i s d i v i d e d i n t o f o u r a c t s , o f w h i c h t h e f i r s t t h r e e s p a n P e t e r ' s l i f e and a r e c o n c e r n e d w i t h h i s r e f o r m s , t h e r e s i s t a n c e o f t h e n o b l e s , and t h e d e g e n e r a t i o n o f t h e new a r i s t o c r a c y . The f o u r t h a c t i s a s o r t o f e p i l o g u e d e s i g n e d t o c r e a t e a s e n s e o f p e r s p e c -t i v e . Once more t h e p l a y opens w i t h t h e e x e c u t i o n o f t h e s t r e l ' t s y , b u t P e t e r i s k e p t o u t o f t h i s s c e n e . H i s f i r s t a p p e a r a n c e i s made o n l y i n t h e s e c o n d s c e n e , where he i s d e p i c t e d w o r k i n g as an a p p r e n t i c e i n a b l a c k s m i t h ' s shop. W i t h s u c h an i n t r o d u c t i o n , T o l s t o i s u c c e s s f u l l y e r a s e s t h e d a r k i m p r e s s i o n made w i t h t h e T s a r ' s f i r s t e n t r a n c e i n Na dybe. I n f a c t , t h e s i g h t o f t h e T s a r engaged i n manual l a b o u r h e l p s b r i n g h i m c l o s e r t o t h e p e o p l e , and h i s f i r s t a p p e a r a n c e p r e p a r e s t h e v i e w e r f o r a more s y m p a t h e t i c c h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n . A n o t h e r s i g n i f i c a n t d i f f e r e n c e i s t h a t P e t e r i s no l o n g e r d i r e c t l y l i n k e d t o t h e s u f f e r i n g o f t h e p e o p l e e v e n t h o u g h t h e o p p r e s s i o n t h a t comes, w i t h i n d u s t r i a l -i z a t i o n i s n o t removed i n t h e s e c o n d v e r s i o n . Mbi c rojioxta nyxHeM. . . Xyxce CKOTHHBT enHM. . . BceM TyT c f loxHyTB. Ha TBoeft p a S o T e . . . . . • .s roDOP nponan, eMy nepB.OMy nponacTB 0 j, • 215 report n p o n a j i , e M y nepBOMy nponacTB... Bepn ero, pe6HTa... Ben ero...51 However s i m i l a r these protestations may seem, to those made in Na dybe, i t i s important to note that these c r i e s are no longer directed at the Tsar, but at the owner of a private factory, so that the r e s p o n s i b i l i t y for the people's s u f f e r i n g may be s h i f t e d away from the central figure to a secondary o n e . In t h i s fashion the Tsar's oppression of the people i s relegated to the background. The opposition to Peter, which now includes such lowbrows as the boiar Buinosov (who i s c a l l e d Lopukhin in Na dybe, a n d i s taken from the novel) , i s now focused primarily on. the old n o b i l i t y which i s again gathered about the Tsarevich Alekse i . In t h i s version of the play, i n contrast to the previous one, Aleksei appears as an e v i l . f o r c e bent on destroying a l l the gains made-by "hula." father. He promises the boiars: npHxteT MOH i a c . v Bee B a M 6yrteT. O T I I O B C K H M M H H i c e T p a M r o J i o B B i OTpy6.rao... Byrty XCHTB H a MOCKBe, T H X O , 6Jiaro*iHHHo, c KOJIOKOJIBHBIM nepe3BOHOM. . . B o e B a T B He ciaHy, cojixtaT pa3nymy,. K o p a 6 J i H coacry. . . IlHTepdypx nycKaB ursenbi Sepyr, — MecTo npoKJiH-roe . . . (CxBaTHJi E B a p n a K O B a .) E B apJiaKOB, He BbixtauiB? K p e c T H C B . . . Te6e onHOMy C K a s c y . . . CMep-EH ero xo^y... 5 2 Coupled with t h i s more substantial danger from Aleksei i s Peter's increased devotion to the state. T o l s t o i i l l u s t r a t e s t h i s q u a l i t y by-expanding considerably; the Tsar's explanation for executing Al e k s e i , a n d although i t again resembles a simple murder, i t carries in Petr I clear p o l i t i c a l motives. 216 A l e k s e i i s t o l d : BceM H 3 B e e T H O , T H HeHaBHflHi i iB j jejia . M O H . . . H no MHe pa3opHTejieM B c e x fleji M O H X b y n e i i i B . . . M O J I ^ H 300H, Jiy^me • — cnyinaa. .. . npH MoeM oTi ie 6HJI y H a c enHHCTBeHHHH ; Kopa6J iB , T H M J I Ha B o j i r e . HHHe HauiH $ J I O T H nxiaBawT B T p e x M G P H X . . : . HenpHHTejiH 60HTCH H a C . . . HeCHOCHHMH TpyjjaMH yCTpOHJIH pa3HHe MaHyctaKTypn. . . Ha raoneH CTaJiH n o x o a t H . . . E o n p , jiioSesHHX Te6e 6paflaMH fla JieHBio, flySHHOH TOHIO c -n e ^ H 3a Mope y ^ K T B C H . . . KymjH Haiim T e n e p B , cxtaBa 6 o r y , H e nooneflHHe 3 a rpaHHB,eH H a Snpacax. . . B c e x C H X fleji T H.pa3opHTejieM 6yfleiii£.:. . M c m i H , 3 0 0 H , - — 6oJiee BepHTB T e 6 e He M o r y . . . X O T H 6H H C T H H H O T H - 3 a x o T e J i flena M O H Sepe^ib., T e 6 n npHHyflKT K.pa3opeHHK) O H H X 6oJiBiiiHe 6paflH> 6onpe fla n o i m — paflH TyHeHflCTBa-cBoero... H60 T H paBHOflyineH. HeJIB3H 6 H T B , 3 0 0 H , HH PH60H H H • M H C O M... H He maflHJi jnoflen, H H - c e 6 n He maflHJi . . . . q e r o He A O M H -C J I H J I , * I T O flypHO flejian, — * I T O XC! — BHHOBaT... Ho 3a O T e i e c T B O , 3a JTKUXH H X C H B O T a C B o e r o He scaJieJi H He noacajiew. noMHCJiH/ KaK. M o r y Te6H, H e n o T p e S -H o r o , noacaxteTB? . . 53 W h i l e t h e T s a r 1 s c o n t r i b u t i o n - t o w a r d , s t r e n g t h e n i n g t h e s t a t e ' s m i l i t a r y and e c o n o m i c power now r e c e i v e s g r e a t e r a t t e n t i o n , T o l s t o i d o e s n o t r e v e r s e h i m s e l f t o p a i n t h i m a l l w h i t e . P e t e r b e h a v e s l e s s v i o l e n t l y t o w a r d members o f h i s e n t o u r a g e a n d , as R o b e r t s h a s o b s e r v e d , consumes s m a l l e r q u a n t i t i e s o f v o d k a . The A l l - D r u n k e n S y n o d i s much more s u b d u e d as w e l l . B u t i n t h i s v e r s i o n t o o , P e t e r ' s r e i g n i s deemed t o h a v e b e e n a f a i l u r e . The new s o c i e t y , w h i c h a t f i r s t c o m i c a l l y e m b r a c e s t h e d e c r e e d w e s t e r n i z a t i o n , b e g i n s t o w a r d t h e e n d o f t h e p l a y - t o s h u n t h i n g s R u s s i a n j u s t b e c a u s e t h e y a r e u n - E u r o p e a n . A s i n Na d y b e , M e n s h i k o v and P e t e r ' s o t h e r i n t i m a t e s a r e shown t o b e , g r e e d y , c o r r u p t , and s p i r i t u a l l y alienated, from him. F i n a l l y , with Catherine's 217 adultery, the Tsar i s once more t o t a l l y i s o l a t e d . Says Menshikov gloomily: Saxo^ieuib. po3HCK i H H H T b , nj ieTefi H e , X B S T H T . . . Cyj^HTB xo^euib — • C V B H B c e x . . . Ka3HHiub — c OflHHMH lepHblMH JHOflBMH . OCTaHeilJBCH . O f l H H . . . 5 4 In t h i s excerpt from Menshikov's speech T o l s t o i gives yet another example of how the distance between the common people — chernye l i u d i — and Peter has been lessened. Petr I (1935) efTdS-ju-asSd ids tlied fifes .feV vS§ § Son-o© f .t the play, with Peter bequeathing the new state to his u n f a i t h f u l Catherine. However, the pessimism which, i n Na dybe, was reinforced by the.destructive flooding of St. Petersburg, i s cl e a r l y missing i n t h i s variant. In fa c t , the ultimate success or f a i l u r e of Peter's reign i s not determined con-c l u s i v e l y . This ambivalence i s detected i n t h e Tsar's l a s t exchange with Catherine: q/ro MHe jjeJiaTB? Y M r a c H e T , Hay^iH. (VKa3biBaeT Ha 3a j i . ) Ka6OBHHKOB T B O H X , fljiH-paflH B e c e j i b H IIIJUOX T B O H X • HanyflpeHH H X ? ropofl ceil nocTaBJ ieH Ha ^e j ioBe^iecKHX K O C T H X . Jinn K o r o ? OTBeMaft! . . . C H H AjieKceft x o T e j i 6e3 MyyHTeJIbCTBa CHfleTB B KpeMJie, flOJIflOHHTB B K O J I O -KOJia, KaK O T U B I H fleflbi. MoaceT, AineKceH yMHee MeHH? MosceT H y6nn e r o HanpaeHO? O T B e ^ a f i . . . C K O J I B xcanoK ecTB ^ e j i o B e K . 5 5 Decidedly, there can be no answer to these r h e t o r i c a l ques-tion s , and T o l s t o i uses them to avoid a f i n a l v e r d i c t . As 218 far as his characterization of Peter i s concerned, T o l s t o i portrays in Petr I (1935) a balanced figure by reducing the Tsar's personal flaws while making his concern for Russia's well-being more evident. The second variant was staged by Leningrad's Pushkin Academic Theatre of Drama. I t had i t s premiere on May 25, 1935 and was also performed at the Leningrad International Drama F e s t i v a l i n June. The Soviet press gave this second version of the play p o l i t e reviews, lauding especially the 56 performance of the actors. In 1938, T o l s t o i wrote a t h i r d — and this time r a d i c a l l y d i f f e r e n t — version of Petr I. Developments i n European p o l i t i c s were by th i s time making i t clear that war was imminent. Perhaps because of this s i t u a t i o n abroad, there took place a sharp turn i n the USSR toward a national-i s t i c and p a t r i o t i c interpretation of pre-revolutionary Russian his t o r y . As one essayist wrote: It was now necessary to acclaim a l l manifestations of successes and strengthening of the Russian state, and the significance of defense as a cause of u n i f i -cation was emphasized. At the same time, the elements of "class struggle" i n this period were not p a r t i c u l a r l y stressed.57 Indeed, i n a review of the new play's premiere, Pravda purred, "In the play those feelings which are dear to us, feelings of patriotism and hatred for enemies and t r a i t o r s 5 8 of the motherland, are i n t e n s i f i e d . " On the other hand, 219 the new play's s i m p l i s t i c presentation of Peter, hailed then, i s now regarded as T o l s t o i ' s due paid to the " c u l t of person-a l i t y . " In discussing the three version in 193 8, I. Oksenov praised T o l s t o i ' s characterization of Peter as i t appears in the l a s t play because "Peter i s the p e r s o n i f i c a t i o n of state wisdom and national w i l l which w i l l stop at nothing i n 59 guarding the interests of the people and the state." Aleksandr Dymshits, writ±hg::.iniMolodaia Gvardiia, saw i n T o l s t o i ' s portrayal of Peter a head of state who was "a m i l i t a r y leader of genius," "a leader of the people," and even "a beloved commander of the people." The t h i r d version, continued Dymshits, following as i t did T o l s t o i ' s f i l m scenario of Peter the F i r s t , incorporates a l l the d i d a c t i c q u a l i t i e s viewed on the screen: The successes of the scenario permitted the creation, i n the best meaning of the words, of a h i s t o r i c a l l y p a t r i o t i c , greatly popular f i l m which inspired in our viewers heroic feelings of pathos, great love for the motherland, and national pride. These feelings have been multiplied i n the new variant for the theatre.^° In the p o s t - S t a l i n i s t period, understandably, T o l s t o i has not been praised for his l a s t variant of the play. In a 19 60 monograph, L. M. Poliak wrote: In the f i n a l variant of his play (193 8) A. N. T o l s t o i , i n portraying the personality of Peter : . . undoubtedly paid his dues to the c u l t of personality... As a r e s u l t of the pervading atmosphere of "the c u l t , " there appeared i n the f i n a l redaction a discernible smoothing over of 22-0 c o n f l i c t s and removal of sharp contradictions i n Peter's work, and a portrayal of Peter as almost a people's tsar.61 An immaculate characterization of the Tsar does make t h i s version of the play the least convincing. Shortened to ten scenes, i t i l l u s t r a t e s a near t o t a l harmony between Peter and his surrounding company. His minister, Menshikov, and Catherine, are i n a l l instances his l o y a l friends who share his devotion to the state. Concerning Catherine, for example, T o l s t o i no longer suggests, as he did i n the two preceding versions, that she i s sent to Peter with Menshikov's connivance. Then the matter of theooppressed. labourers i s also completely reversed. They suffe r neither from Peter, as i n Na dybe, nor from c a p i t a l i s t factory owners, as in Petr I (1935). Instead, the contented workers on the Neva embankment receive from Peter a round of vodka with p i c k l e s , for which they cheerfully shout, "Thank you, Petr Aleksee-vi c h " ! What opposition there i s to Peter among the Russian people i s f i n a l l y reduced to the boiar. Buinosov, the f a m i l i a r and comical nobleman who complains about the new decrees ..for brushing teeth, brewing "odourous" coffee, and dressing i n non-Orthodox and uncomfortable breeches. Tsarevich Aleksei, however, i s made s t i l l more s i n i s t e r since he i s now por^---trayed as seeking foreign assistance to return Russia to her former backward condition. At his son's t r i a l for treason, 221 Peter declaims: rocnorta, c e H a T ! HaM flOBejiocB nocTOBepHo y3HaTB o npoTHBHBix 3aMbicjiax HeKOTopbix eBponef iCKHx rocy-flapeH.- Hae ^ T y T 3a B a p B a p o B , K O H M He MecTo 3 a Tpane3QH HapoflOB. eBponeftcKHx. Hauie cTpeMJieHHe K nporiBeTaHHio MaHycpaKpyp, K T o p r o B J i e , K B C H K H M HaynaM c^HTaioT F I P O T H B H B I M e c T e c T B y . . . . (Pac-KpfaiBaeT K H H r y , MHTaeT.) „He T O K M O iUBexga, H O H jxpyrne HaponM e B p o n e n c K H e HMeic-T HeHaBHCTB Ha Hapofl p y c c K H H H TiijaTCH O H H K coxtepjKHTB B npextHeM p a S c T B e H HeHgKyccTBe, O C O S J T H B O >K B B O H H C K H X H M O P C K H X jjrejiax, xia6bi CHK> KaHaJiBio He T O K M O opyxcneM, HO H nJieTBMH C O B C e r O C B e T a . B b i r O H f l T B . . , . . H rocyxtapcTBo poccHHCKoe pa3rceJiHTB. na MaJibie KHnxce-c T B a H BoeBOflGTBa". ( E p o c a e T KHHry Ha C T O J I . ) . . . CBIH M O H AJieKcefi xo^eT Toro see.. E C T B C B H -xteTeJiBCTBO, I T O nncaJ i O H K pHMCKOMy H M n e p a T o p y , n p o c H B O S C K O , xia6fai 3aBoeBaTB O T ^ H H npecTOJi — iieHoip Hamero yMajieHHH H p a 3 o p e H H H . fla6Bi r o c y n a p -C T B O p o c c H H C K o e BepHyTB K HeBesceeTBy H C T a p H H e . . . H6o flapoM B O H C K O eMy He nanyT. . CBIH M O H AxteKcen roTOBHJicH n p e a a T b . O T e ^ e c T B o , . . . O H noztnescHT cyxty. CaM H He 6epyc& JieuHTB CHIO cMepieJiBHyio 6ojie3HB. Bpy^aio AneKeen I l e T p o B H i a BaM, r o c n o n a c e H a T . CyjXHTe H npnroBopHTe, H 6H T B no ceMy...62 While no doubt appealing to the national pride of the Russian audiences, t h i s passage may also be interpreted as a n t i -f a s c i s t propaganda because of i t s a l l u s i o n to the proposed di s s o l u t i o n of the Russian state in H i t l e r ' s Mejn Kampf. In any case, t h i s piece of oratory presents Peter as a b e n e v o ^ lent leader concerned with c u l t u r a l and i n d u s t r i a l progress, while opposition i s reduced to pl a i n treason. S i g n i f i c a n t l y , Aleks.ei i s turned over to the senate for sentencing, whereas in the two e a r l i e r variants he i s quite l i t e r a l l y murdered by members of the Tsar's entourage. The senate's t r i a l of Aleksei i n e f f e c t removes from Peter the r e s p o n s i b i l i t y for h i s s o n ' s d e a t h . I n t h e . f i n a l s c e n e T o l s t o i r e d u c e s h i s p l a y t o a v a u d e v i l l e s k i t . B e f o r e a l o w e r e d c u r t a i n s t a n d a p a i r o f h e r a l d s who a l t e r n a t e i n r e a d i n g an i n v i t a t i o n f o r t h e p u b l i t o c e l e b r a t e t h e c o n l c l u s i o n o f t h e w a r w i t h Sweden by c o m i n g t o t h e T s a r ' s f e a s t i n T r o i t s k i i S q u a r e . T h e c u r t a i n t h e n r i s e s . r e v e a l i n g a c h o r u s o f s o l d i e r s who. b u r s t i n t o s o n g . P e t e r s t r o l l s t o c e n t r e s t a g e a c c o m p a n i e d by h i s m e r r y w i f e C a t h e r i n e a n d h i s gay c o n f r e r e M e n s h i k o f , who i m m e d i a t e l y g r a b s a t r a y o f p i r o s h k i a n d p r o c e e d s t o k i c k up h i s h e e l s i n t h e s t y l e , o f a R u s s i a n folift d a n c e . P e t e r , m i n g l i n g w i t h t h e p e o p l e , i s i n t r o d u c e d t o a. c e n t e n a r i a n w h o , when t h e T s a r a s k s a b o u t l i f e i n t h e r e i g n o f T s a r M i k h a i l , r e s p o n d s , " O x , nxtoxo X C H J I H . " A n d how was l i f e , u n d e r T s a r A l e k s e i ? " O x nJioxo 5KHJIH," t h e o l d m a n - r e p e a t s , a n d B e t e r e m b r a c e s h i m . I n t h e c u r t a i n s p e e c h ; P e t e r p r o c l a i m s : B c e 2 eiacTJiHBBiH fleHiOOKOHqaHHfl B O H H B I , CeHaT n a p o B a n MHe 3BaHHe o n i a o i e M e c T B a . CypoB H 6BIJT c B a M H , xteTH M O H . He JXJIH ce6n H 6BIJI c y p o B , H O j j o p o r a SfciJia MHe P O C C H H . M O H M H H BaniHMH TpyxtaMH yBeH^axiH MBI Hame OTe^ieeTBO c j i a B O H . HKRopaSJiH p y c c K H e nJibiByT yxte no B c e M M O P H M . He HanpacHbi 6uxiH HauiH TpyjjBi-, H noKOJieHHHM HauiHM Harj;jie»cHT CJiaBy H S o r a T C T B O o T e i e c T B a Hamero Sepe^B H MHO»CHTB. BHBaT ! nyi l lKH, T p y 6 b l , KPHKH . 3 A H A B E C 6 3 T o l s t o i i n P e t r . I. (193 8) p o r t r a y e d t h e c h i e f p r o t a g o -n i s t as i f he w e r e i n d e e d a " p e o p l e ' s t s a r , " as i f h e r u l e d over a country whose population understood and supported a l l his endeavours. The transference of opposition to Europe,, and the appearance of Aleksei as an instrument of some foreign power led one to in t e r p r e t the play as a vindication of S t a l i n ' s purges,and t r i a l s of " t r a i t o r s . " A Tsar surrounded by a l o y a l cadre of sober and sombre ministers, a Tsar playing with his daughter Elizabeth and loved by his Catherine, a Tsar who i s a successful m i l i t a r y commander, a man without personal flaws and accorded the epithet "father of the fatherland," could not but appear to Soviet audiences in the late 1930's as a mirror image of t h e i r own leader. One may well wonder what further concessions to the c u l t of personality might, have been forthcoming i n the fourth version of Petr I, commissioned i n 19 40. This, however, never materialized. In T o l s t o i ' s three versions of the play about Peter, the—Tsar's- characterization goes from one extreme to another. In Na- dybe, -Tolstoi continues to stress the Tsar's personal fault s much as he did in "Den' Petra," Peter i s portrayed as a wicked, even- s a d i s t i c tyrant surrounded by s e l f i s h and greedy i n d i v i d u a l s . The fe@f1© are shown r e s i s t i n g Peter's schemes because the schemes only bring more.suffering. The Tsar, i s o l a t e d from every segment of Russian society, deser-vedly suffers ruin and defeat. In Petr I (1935) there i s a more agreeablei characterization.of Peter.. There are fewer examples to show him as an oppressive despot, and more to show him as a statesman. More blame i s placed on the emerging c a p i t a l i s t class for the people&sss€fferingtthan on the Tsar. In general i t may be s.-aid that i n th i s second play Peter's characterization i s the most balanced. The f i n a l version appears to be just a required contribution from T o l s t o i to the growing fund o f . l i t e r a t u r e f a l s i f y i n g h istory which appeared.in the USSR, on-the eve of World War II. Peter i s depicted as a beloved leader who rules for the undisputed betterment of the state, i n which task the unswerving support of the masses assures his success. This l a s t play about Peter, and the next one about Ivan the T e r r i b l e .were written i n that s p e c i a l period when every a r t i s t i c genre was subordinated.to a dual purpose, and that was to express l o y a l t y t o . S t a l i n and to nurture a sense of patriotism, for.- the Soviet Union. Such a prescribed task could not f a i l to r e s u l t in assevere d i s t o r t i o n of hist o r y . The c a l l upon..writers to bend the i r powers to the service of the state i s further demonstrated by T o l s t o i ' s treatment of that other towering figure from Russia's past, Ivan the T e r r i b l e . D. Ivan Groznyi. Ivan Groznyi, a two-part "dramatic narrative," as T o l s t o i c a l l e d i t , was. his l a s t work written for the stage. The two parts, "Orel i o r l i t s a " (The Eagle and His Mate) and "Trudnye gody" (The D i f f i c u l t Years), were written between 1941 and 1943 i n a s p i r i t of l a patrie en danger, and ought to be regarded primarily as T o l s t o i ' s contribution to the war e f f o r t . I t i s d i f f i c u l t to determine exactly when T o l s t o i f i r s t thought of writing about Ivan the T e r r i b l e . The e a r l i e s t known mention was made by.V. D. Bonch-Bruevich i n 193 5. While gathering material on Peter the Great, remarked Bonch-Bruevich i n a l e t t e r to G o r k i i , T o l s t o i came upon the notion that Peter's s p i r i t u a l predecessor was Ivan. In 1940 T o l s t o i made an agreement with the ministry of culture to write a play about that Tsar, but 1 the actual writing did not begin u n t i l October 1941. "I believed in our vi c t o r y even in the darkest days of October-November 19 41," hepwrote at the end of 1942. And then, in Zimenki (not far from the c i t y of Go r k i i , on the banks of the Volga) I began the dramatic narrative Ivan the T e r r i b l e . I t was my response to the humiliation to .which my country was subjected by the Germans. From non-existence. I ca l l e d back to l i f e : t h e great and passionately Russian soul of Ivan the Te r r i b l e , ' i. :.65 The circumstances i n which the play was written, as well as the purpose for which i t was written, make i t very contrived and s i m p l i s t i c . When the f i r s t part was completed early i n 1942, T o l s t o i offered i t to the Insti t u t e of History at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.for their.perusal. Whatever were 226 the comments made by the.historians, T o l s t o i appears to have heeded the counsel given by S t a l i n , who also read the 6 6 manuscript. The advice that S t a l i n passed.on to T o l s t o i was• presumably'the same as&that given to the di r e c t o r of the fi l m Ivan•Groznyi, Sergei Eisenstein, i n 1947. N i k o l a i Cherkasov, the actor who. played the t i t l e r o le i n the f i l m , paraphrased Stalin's comments i n these words: • Comrade S t a l i n made a series of extremely i n t e r e s t -ing and valuable remarks concerning .the epoch of Ivan the T e r r i b l e . He c a l l e d Ivan "a great and wise r u l e r , " who guarded the country against foreign penetration and influence, and who worked to unify Rus'. I.V. S t a l i n noted as well the progressive role of the oprichnina, adding that i t s leader was a major m i l i t a r y commander who died a hero's death in the war against Livonia. Touching upon.Ivan's errors, I. V. S t a l i n observed, that they lay in the fact that Ivan was unable to liquidate the f i v e remaining large feudal f a m i l i e s , that he did not bring to a conclusion the struggle against the feudal lords, and that had he succeeded i n t h i s , there would not have been a Time of Troubles i n Russia... Ivan should have acted more, decisively.67 To accommodate such views T o l s t o i decided, i n the spring of 19 42,,to expand the play into a , t r i l o g y . When.the second part was completed early i n 1943, however, he came to f e e l that the concluding t h i r d part.should not be written while the war was. s t i l l raging. Once vi c t o r y had been achieved,'it could then be shown how Ivan's e f f o r t s to gain access to the B a l t i c Sea had f a i l e d , but for the time being 6 8 the dramatization of his f a i l u r e was deemed inopportune. Though "Orel i o r l i t s a " underwent three revisions and 227; "Trudnye gody" four, not a l l the changes were made in d i r e c t response to.Stalin's remarks. After the f i r s t part was staged, b r i e f l y at the Malyi Theatre i n October 1944, L. I l ' i c h e v , writing i n Pravda, pointed with d i s s a t i s f a c t i o n to the rather comical portrayal of the boiar opposition and to the f a c t t h a t Prince Andrei Kurbskii was not expressly shown 69 to be the t r a i t o r that he was supposed to be. T o l s t o i agreed with this c r i t i c i s m , and in, the f i n a l versions the opposition i s made more s i n i s t e r , while Kurbskii i s now a v i l l a i n o u s t r a i t o r . The corrected redaction of the f i r s t part was again staged at the Malyi i n March 1945; the second had i t s premiere only i n June 1946 at,the Moscow Art Theatre. The play as i t remains now spans the years between 1553 and 1571,. or the time from Ivan's i l l n e s s to the, burning of Moscow by the Crimean T-ataESs , Several h i s t o r i c a l inac-curacies can be observed and, though they may not be serious in themselves, taken i n context they gain importance because they contribute to the d i s t o r t i o n of Ivan.. For example, that the Zemskii Sobor met i n 1572, that i s , outside the chronological frame of the play-, i s i n i t s e l f i n s i g n i f i c a n t . But that T o l s t o i makes the clergy and boiars in the Zemskii Sobor oppose the Tsar i n his decision to r e j e c t the Lithuan-ian terms for peace i s a blatant f a l s i f i c a t i o n of history designed to make Ivan appear as the only one with p a t r i o t i c feelings. In f a c t , history shows that the boiars with 228 M e t r o p o l i t a n P i m e n a s k e d t h e T s a r t o r e f u s e . w h a t t h e y c o n s i d e r e d t o b e s h a m e f u l t e r m s p r o p o s e d . b y t h e L i t h u a n i a n s , and p r e s s on w i t h t h e w a r . S i n c e T o l s t o i w i s h e d t o c o n v e y an i m a g e o f I v a n , as a p r o g r e s s i v e t s a r w i t h . g o o d i n t e n t i o n s , i t became n e c e s s a r y . t o show h i s a l l i a n c e w i t h t h e common, p e o p l e a g a i n s t t h e r e a c t i o n a r y n o b i l i t y . T h e p e o p l e ' s s u p p o r t o f I v a n i s w e l l e x e m p l i f i e d i n . t h e T s a r ' s f i r s t a p p e a r a n c e i n " O r e l i o r l i t s a . " V a s i l i i , t h e h o l y f o o l , i s u s h e r e d i n t o I v a n ' s c h a m b e r s i n t h e K r e m l i n , w h e r e he h a n d s t h e T s a r a c o i n e x p l a i n i n g , "MHe Jiic-flH B e J i e J i H . . . np.sa.ft, CKa3aJ iH, uapio 70 .neHexcKy — M H M O 6 o n p . " T h i s s y m b o l i c g e s t u r e , T o l s t o i w o u l d h a v e t h e ' v i e w e r s b e l i e v e , d e m o n s t r a t e s u n i t y b e t w e e n I v a n a n d t h e p e o p l e , w h i l e a t t h e same t i m e s u g g e s t i n g t h e b o i a r s ' m a l e v o l e n c e b o t h r t o w a r d t h e T s a r p e r s o n a l l y and t o w a r d h i s r u l e o f - R u s s i a . T h e i r r e a c t i o n a r y a n d t r e a c h e r o u s p o s i t i o n v i s - a - v i s I v a n i s f u r t h e r i l l u s t r a t e d b y t h e T s a r ' s a n n o u n c e m e n t o f h i s d e c i s i o n t o l e a v e M o s c o w . f o r A l e k s a n d r o v -s k a i a • S l o b o d a . S t a n d i n g a t L o b n o e m e s t o i n Red S q u a r e , w i t h t h e b o i a r s d e l i b e r a t e l y p u s h e d o f f t o t h e T s a r ' s l e f t and t h e common p e o p l e on h i s r i g h t , I v a n , as i t w e r e , unmasks t h e t r e a s o n o u s i n t e n t i o n s o f t h e b o i a r s and o t h e r members o f t h e n o b i l i t y : K H T H H - HaM B MocKBe 6oJiee He c T a j i o . . . C K O J I B H H rp03HJI H H HH Bpa3yMJIHJI, B p a r H M O H , HeJtoSpOXOTbl •moflCKHe . . . 0 6 0 MHe, r o c y / i a p e , o r o c y r t a p c T B e 229 HaineM, 0 6 0 B c e M n p a B o c n a B H O M xpucTHaHCTBe paxteTB , He 3axoTejiH. . . . noroipaioT 6Jiaro^ecTHe nym C B O H X paflH cpe6oJno6HH, paflH cjianocTH MHpa c e r o , MHMOTeKymero. A 3axo* iy H n o r o K a 3 H H T B , — MHJibie M O H ! fla.. KpHK-Ta, jja inyM-Ta! EnncKonbi zta n o n a , cjioscaeb. c 6onpaMH na c K H H 3 B H M H , HavHyT ne^aJio-BaTBCH O B O p e - T O . y»C H flJIH HHX JieB-KpOBOHfleil , H HJIH H H X flBHBOJI 3JIOnBIXaiOmHH. .-. TBepjJBlHH a/aoaaoBa H M caMonepxcaBHoe r o c y n a p c T B O H a u i e . . . XOTHT 5KHTB n O ~ C T a p O M y , KaSCJJOMy CHXteTB Ha CBOeH BOT^HHe, C BOHCKOM CBOHM, KaK npH T3TapCKOM Hre, Ha xtpyr y n p y r a ye3ziBi OTTarHBaTb. .. Pa3yMa HeT y H H X H oTBeia HeT nepext 3eMJieH p y c c K O H . . . Tocy-H a p c T B y HameMy B p a r n c y T B , H 6 O , c o r j i a c H C B MBI SCHTB no c T a p H H e , H JlHTBa, H IIoJiBiiia, H-HeMUbi opxteHCKHe, H KpblMCKHe T a T a p b l , H CyJTTaH KHHyjIHCB 6 H Ha Hac i e p e 3 0 B e e yKpaHHbi, pa3opBaJiH 6u. Teno Haine, nyuiH HatuH norygHJiH. . . Toro X O T H T K H H S B H H 6 o n p e , ^ ; T O 6 H nprH6'Jio i i a p c T B O p y c c K o e . . . ^ ! It i s i n t e r e s t i n g t o n o t e the s i m i l a r i t y i n the c o n t e n t o f t h e a b o v e e x t r a c t and Peter's a d d r e s s to the s e n a t e i n the p r e c e d i n g p l a y . In b o t h c a s e s t h e t s a r s w a r n o f d i r e c o n s e q u e n c e s i f t h e c o u n t r y r e t u r n s t o i t s f o r m e r c o n d i t i o n , a w a r n i n g t h a t i m p l i e s t h e p r o g r e s s i v e c h a r a c t e r of b o t h r e i g n s ; and - i n b o t h c a s e s o p p o s i t i o n i s d i r e c t l y linked w i t h t r e a s o n and the p a r t i t i o n o f Russia. This i s , o f c o u r s e , c r a s s o v e r s i m p l i f i c a t i o n . In "TMudnye g o d y " T o l s t o i makes the s a c k i n g o f Novgo-r o d a p p e a r as a p o p u l a r r e b e l l i o n o f t h e mas se s a g a i n s t t h e b o i a r s and the clergy who we're i n t e n d i n g to s u r r e n d e r t h e c i t y to Sigismund. As i f to u n d e r l i n e , the p o p u l a r s u p p o r t t h a t t h e " r e b e l l i o n " e n j o y e d among the p e o p l e , T^ o l s t o i i n t r o d u c e s i n t o his play a Russian folk hero, V a s i l i i Buslaev. Scaling t h e walls of t h e Novgorod Kremlin, t h i s b o g a t y r 230. accosts.Metropolitan Pimen and demands to know: "^epTbiiiiKa! 72 3a^ e M HoBropo f l npof laeuib?" The antagonism-between the.Tsar and the boiar opposi-tion culminates i n an attempted assassination of Ivan. S i g n i f i c a n t l y , the boiars h i r e a German assassin for the deed, but the attempt f a i l s when the holy f o o l V a s i l i i T shields Ivan -from the deadly shaft! Such a crude device to make the boiars seem a l l the more treacherous i s an example of how T o l s t o i altered the i n i t i a l l y comical opposition to one of a decidedly s i n i s t e r character. Captured German knights, on the other hand, are treated l i g h t l y and are shown to be frivolous adventurers rather than serious m i l i t a r y adversaries. In a h i s t o r i c a l play, one.does not necessarily expect an absolutely accurate reconstruction of h i s t o r i c a l f a c t s , but rather a plausible and a convincing rendition of the s p i r i t of the epoch and i t s characters. In his e f f o r t to make Ivan IV appear primarily as. a p o l i t i c a l and m i l i t a r y leader concerned only with Russia's sovereignty, T o l s t o i f a l s i f i e s history i n order to give a well-varnished image of the Tsar; Designed to raise the s p i r i t s of the viewing public during the war years, and coincidentally f i t t i n g very n i c e l y into the precepts of s o c i a l i s t realism, Ivan.Groznyi concludes with the burning of Moscow, but nonetheless i t concludes o p t i m i s t i c a l l y . The l a s t speech of the play 231 belongs to Ivan, who g a z e s upon t h e b u r n i n g "Third Rome," b u t assures the a u d i e n c e : T O P H T , ropHT TpeTHft P H M . . . Cna3aHo — * ieTBepTOMy He 6bITb . . . TOPHT H He C r O p a e T , KOCTep HeTJieHHblH H o r H B H e y r a c a e M H H . . . Ce — npaBna pyccKan, poflHHa ^extOBeKaM... 73 EDn an a r t i c l e d a t e d Leningrad Front, May 1944, Aleksandr Dymshits wrote of t h e p l a y ' s i n s p i r a t i o n a l q u a l i t i e s . The w a r s p u r s u e d by Ivan w e r e , he w r o t e : . . . w a r s of l i b e r a t i o n a i m e d a t c l e a r i n g Russian lands from foreign o c c u p i e r s . . . . The e n e m i e s of Ivan IV, t h e enemies of Russia a r e correctly p o r t r a y e d as r a p a c i o u s o c c u p i e r s who conduct b a n d i t -l i k e and u n j u s t w a r s . Such a r e the Tartar khans, s u c h a r e t h e Livonian k n i g h t - c u r s , the a n c e s t o r s o f contemporary German fascists."74 Ivan Groznyi i s a play f i r m l y p l a n t e d i n Soviet Russian w a r l i t e r a t u r e . But t h o u g h there are many serious t r a n s g r e s s i o n s a g a i n s t history, there i s one good feature in the play that may be pointed out, and that i s the l a n g u a g e , w h i c h h e l p s t o c r e a t e a f e e l i n g o f Russia i n Ivan ' s t i m e . If the two passages q u o t e d a b o v e c a n s e r v e as i l l u s t r a t i o n s , t h e n i t becomes e v i d e n t how a r c h a i s m s c o n t r i b u t e to c r e a t e t h a t f e e l i n g o f t h e p a s t . For e x a m p l e , s u c h w o r d s as HefloSpoxoTbi, pafleTb, nonnpaTb, cp.e6po)Jno6He, CJioacacb c 6onpaMH are v e r y seldom f o u n d i n contemporary Russian. Furthermore, expressions associated with r e l i g i o n , such as MHpa cero MHMOTeKywero , ABHBQJI 3JionbixaioiqHH, TBepxtbiHH aflOBa seem to su i t Ivan v e r y w e l l s i n c e he revealed himself i n c l i n e d to s u c h 232 expressions i n his famous correspondence with Prince Kurbskii. F i n a l l y , the grammatically obsolete B p a r n c y T b , o r H B , and *ie.noBeKH contribute convincingly to create an i l l u s i o n of that distant past. But the.idealized portrayal of Ivan and the crass inversion of h i s t o r i c a l evidence detract from the quality of this work. Taken as a whole/ Ivan Groznyi resembles some=r thing l i k e a morality play i n which Ivan IV i s transformed by T o l s t o i into an a l l e g o r i c a l national hero.. Since the c u l t of personality was denounced, the-play has been removed from the Soviet.stage. Spencer Roberts mentions, however, that the production of Ivan Groznyi was rather spectacular: In i t , Russian history (seen through rosy glasses, but dramatically presented) and,early Muscovite l i f e are set in a strikingly.colourful.atmosphere and acted by three-dimensional characters. . . . Costumes, painstakingly reproduced from museum pieces and.executed i n magnificently r i c h c l o t h , ..innumerable complex, full-r-stage, heavy settings on which no expense was spared, and b r i l l i a n t acting (a b i t melodramatic at times, yes, but then that i s part of the Russian style) a l l united to make a production of which the Soviets could t r u l y be proud.75 Roberts, or anyone else who had seen the play, may have been dist r a c t e d by the elaborate production. Judging by what i s available to the reader, Ivan Groznyi can be ranked high among those plays that were adapted to the s p i r i t u a l needs of Soviet war-time audiences. ( I t i s f a i r to conclude i n general that the content of 233 T o l s t o i ' s plays.,:. :ln-iithfeir;rvarip.usJ-ed'itions and productions, gives a f a i r l y accurate r e f l e c t i o n ' of the changing p o l i t i c a l environment i n Soviet Russia between 1918 and 1945. Begin-ning, with Smert' Dantona, which had the shortes'.ts.s.tage] l i f e , and ending with Ivan Groznyi, which had one of the longest, the h i s t o r i c a l . p l a y s mentioned here also, give an i n d i c a t i o n of T o l s t o i ' s response to contemporary events, as well as to the varying Soviet interpretations of pre-^revolutionary h i s t o r y . CHAPTER V CONCLUSION This thesis endeavours to draw attention to the i n t e r r e l a t i o n between writings on h i s t o r i c a l topics and the varying extraneous factors which have been largely ignored i n past studies. But Soviet l i t e r a t u r e i n general, and Soviet h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n i n p a r t i c u l a r , cannot be separated from p o l i t i c a l considerations, and for. this reason, an unbiased assessment of the s t o r i e s , the novel and the plays on h i s t o r i c a l topics, a l l of which have made the greatest contribution toward T o l s t o i ' s l i t e r a r y reputation, must be viewed against the p o l i t i c a l background i n which he was enmeshed. To l s t o i ' s biography shows how, with his sense of history, he often drew an association between the past and the present. His e a r l i e s t paJose, his anecdotes and short s t o r i e s , were modelled after the French neo-realist of the f i n de sidcle., Henri de Regnier. But unlike Regnier, who wrote with nostalgia about the graceful and melancholic French aristocracy of the ancien regime, T o l s t o i s a t i r i z e d the affected speech and inept posturing of the r u r a l Russian gentry of Catherine's time. A comic e f f e c t was achieved by contrasting the s i m p l i c i t y of speech and manners of the Russian peasants with the awkward a r t i f i c i a l i t y of the n o b i l i t y . During the f i r s t world war, T o l s t o i worked as a cor-respondent for Russkie Vedomosti. His a r t i c l e s and stories about the common f r o n t - l i n e fAght^ngm^^^&^nn&.tm^e^&ly p a t r i o t i c but also Slavophile leanings. He accepted the February revolution as the answer to Russia's f a l t e r i n g conduct of the war, and, l i k e so many i n t e l l e c t u a l s , he placed great hopes i n the Provisional Government for a speedy vict o r y and a bright e g a l i t a r i a n future. The October revolution he rejected at f i r s t because he saw i n the Bolsheviks a subversive faction that betrayed those hopes, and a regime that was more concerned with a s o c i a l experiment than with national honour. In such a gloomy frame of mind, T o l s t o i turned to the past to express his anxiety for Russian statehood. He saw i n the r a d i c a l changes made by Peter I a p a r a l l e l with the current upheaval. Moreover, since his primary source for the stories "Pervye-terroristy," "Navazhdenie" and "Den' Petra" was Slovo i delo gosudarevy, Professor Novombergskii's compilations of the wicked interrogations and tortures conducted i n the Tsar's secret chancellery, T o l s t o i ' s depictions of the Petrine era, and indeed of Peter himself, were dark and ominous. P a r t i c u l a r l y in the story "Den' Petra" his r h e t o r i c a l questions — for 236 example, "Did Peter wish Russia well?" — r e v e a l his antipathy toward the Bolshevik reforms that were changing contemporary Russia. The h o s t i l i t y that T o l s t o i f e l t towards the violence of the October revolution and the subsequent c i v i l war i n Russia was most c l e a r l y expressed i n his adaptation of Georg Buchner's play Dantons Tod. T o l s t o i ' s Smert' Dantona was staged only b r i e f l y in the Korsh Theatre i n Moscow i n October 1918, to be quickly suppressed by the new authorities because of i t s alleged bias against revolutionary zealots. Perhaps agreeing with Buchner's b e l i e f i n h i s t o r i c a l fatalism and the utter helplessness of individuals to a f f e c t the course of events, T o l s t o i turned away from contemporary issues and.fin 1919, while l i v i n g i n White-held Odessa, wrote a comedy, Liubov' — k n i g a aolotaia, and a short story, "Graf K a l i o s t r o . " The content of the play and the story deals with courtship, love and cuckoldry among the r u r a l gentry of eighteenth-century Russia and, as i n the f i r s t anecdotes, he pokes fun at the e f f o r t s of some nobles to assume the a i r s and customs of European n o b i l i t y . The play was f i r s t staged i n French by a Parisian theatre group, and in 1924, after T o l s t o i ' s return to Roviet Russia, i t was accepted by MKhAT. Although i t was a popular success, i t too was forced off the stage for p o l i t i c a l reasons. In a period of sen s i t i v e class-consciousness and at a time when 2 37 the authorities were tr y i n g very hard to break a l l t i e s with the c a p i t a l i s t past, the portrayal of a kind and gracious Empress Catherine the Great was completely out of step with the times. Similarly., the peasants i n the comedy were not depicted as oppressed s e r f s , and t h i s too offended the proletarian reviewers. This play, as well as Smert' Dantona, T o l s t o i re-wrote, making.the changes that were demanded of him; however, no e f f o r t was made to stage the corrected versions. Thus, Smert' Dantona and Liubov'^— kniga zol o t a i a were performed only i n t h e i r o r i g i n a l versions. His period of voluntary e x i l e , which lasted from 1919 to 1923, i s important because i t holds the key to understand-ing his subsequent writings on h i s t o r i c a l topics. His concern for Russian statehood, which he i n i t i a l l y feared was threatened by the Bolsheviks, was gradually dissipated by the war with Poland, the famine, and by the p a r t i a l d i p l o s matic recognition gained by the Soviets. The ship of state, T o l s t o i declared i n an open l e t t e r to a leader of the Russian emigres i n Pari s , was again, on course with the Bolsheviks at the helm and, "following the example set by Peter," the emigres should return and. a s s i s t i n its- navigation. He was encouraged in t h i s b e l i e f by the smena vekh (change of land-marks) group, which advocated the notion that now — t h e i r book of essays appeared i n 1921 — the Russian i n t e l l i g e n t s i a wage confronted with a unique opportunity to end i t s h i s t o r i c 238 i s o l a t i o n from the people and the government by coming to the assistance of the Bolsheviks and working for the economic and c u l t u r a l recovery of Russia. Enveloped i n t h i s i d e a l i s -t i c s p i r i t , T o l s t o i quit his association with the White emigres i n Paris and moved to B e r l i n , where he could meet with Russians from "the other shore." In B e r l i n he renewed his acquaintance with Maiakovskii, and for the f i r s t time he met Maksim G o r k i i . Reflecting this o p t imistic turn of mind, T o l s t o i published "Povest' smutnogo vremeni" (A Story of the Time of Troubles), i n 1922 i n B e r l i n . It i s a story of Boris i Godunov, the two False Dmitriis=r. the Polish occupation-of Moscow,c.and the enthronement of the f i r s t Romanov tsar. This story c l e a r l y reveals T o l s t o i ' s f a i t h i n Russia?s a b i l i t y to survive. In 1928 T o l s t o i returned to h i s t o r i c a l topics and p a r t i c u l a r l y to Peter I i n the play Na dybe (On the Rack). in many respects this play follows the negative portrayal of the Tsar that was already established i n "Den' Petra" a decade e a r l i e r . As T o l s t o i admitted some time l a t e r , both works followed Merezhkovskii's concentration on the coarse personal q u a l i t i e s of Peter the Great. In addition, Peter's reforms were presented as inconsequential and assumed to have produced nothing but widespread suffering and ruin. The opposition headed by the Tsarevich Aleksei i s more 23 9 comical than dangerous, and Peter's reaction, e s p e c i a l l y the murder of his son, serves further to blacken the' Tsar. But Soviet historiography at the time of the.writing of th i s play maintained a. universally disparaging regard for the tsars and-emphasized s t r o n g l y t h e i r oppression of the people. Na 'dybe,a.the'refore, coincided with the current interpretation of Russian history as i t was taught by the so-called school of Pokrovskii. Immediately following the composition of the play, T o l s t o i started to. write the novel Petr Pervyi. In contrast to Na dybe, which spans p r a c t i c a l l y a l l of. Peter's l i f e , the depth and d e t a i l of the unfinished t r i l o g y , which could ultimately span only the years from his.minority to 1704, combine to present a balanced.characterization of Peter. The panoramic setting i n which the spectacle of the epoch was played.out i s presented convincingly by T o l s t o i . His graphic descriptions also serve to bring, f o r t h a g a l l e r y of characters representing every stratum, of.society i n Muscovite Rus'. The reader i s led inside a muzhik's decrepit izba, across a nobleman's yard, he i s j o s t l e d i n the crowded, noisy, winding streets of old Moscow, ushered into the closeted abode of a boiar, and f i n a l l y guided through the vast chambers of the Kremlin. The r e s u l t i s that the reader i s directed toward the conclusion that someone with a l l of Peter's ruthless q u a l i t i e s and his merciless subordination 240 of everyone and everything to the r e s u s c i t a t i o n of a stag-nating Russia.was not a manifestation of personal cruelty, but the• embodiment of a h i s t o r i c necessity. The p a r a l l e l between Peter's general Europeanization and the contemporary rush to i n d u s t r i a l i z a t i o n under the Soviet five-year plans i s inescapable. But T o l s t o i i n s i s t e d that Petr l e r v y i i s not a novel about the present,dressed i n eighteenth-century costume. The s i m i l a r i t y i s to be limited only to a general outburst of human energy coupled with a general wish to become, s e l f - s u f f i c i e n t and independent of foreigners. The second variant of the play was written just a few months afte r T o l s t o i had completed the second volume of Petr Pervyi. Therefore, the new and — -in comparison to Na dybe — improved image of Peter is. achieved i n the new play Petr I (19 35) through greater concentration on the Tsar's e f f o r t s on behalf of the state and correspondingly less concentration on his personal flaws. The oppression of the people i n t h i s version of the play i s deflected away from Peter to the r i s i n g c a p i t a l i s t c l a s s , while Tsarevich Aleksei i s presented as a more serious opponent of Peter's innovations. Such modifications make the second variant of the plays about Peter the Great the most convincing. The l a s t two plays were written in extraordinary conditions which greatly reduced t h e i r a r t i s t i c value and led to t h e i r f a l s i f i c a t i o n of history. In the f i r s t place, 241 the c u l t of S t a l i n had reached t r u l y monumental proportions by the late t h i r t i e s , so that every artistic.medium was directed toward an e v e r - r i s i n g . g l o r i f i c a t i o n of the leader. Second, i n view of the deterioration, i n international r e l a -tions , the Soviet government had now begun' to tone down or even,to eliminate the class struggle.from the arts, while at the same time indulging i n a massive restoration of national "heroes" i n order to bolster patriotism and a sense of continuity between the old and the new Russia. Thus", i n Petr I (1938) absolutely no flaws are revealed i n the Tsar's character; nothing i s said or shown to blemish his private l i f e , and p a t r i a r c h a l relations between the autocrat-and the people assure Russia a v i c t o r -ious and prosperous future.. S i g n i f i c a n t l y , opposition to Peter i s moved outside the borders of Russia, and Tsarevich Aleksei i s made to appear, i n the f i n a l variant of the play, as an agent f o r the European,,powers that aspire to dismember Russia and.return.it to a weak and backward condition. The l a s t play was written during the war years and, as may be expected, h i s t o r i c a l accuracy was once more s a c r i -f i c e d . However, the author d i d not conceal the fact that the immediate impulse for writing Ivan Groznyi was the humiliating success of the Nazi war. machine against Russia i n the winter of 1941-42. Commendable as t h i s e f f o r t for the cause of victory may be, i t s narrow purpose resulted i n a crude whitewash of Ivan IV and a generally f a l s e presen-tation of sixteenth-century Russia. As i n Petr I (1938) , so i n Ivan Groznyi, the Tsar i s the pe r s o n i f i c a t i o n of patriotism, a head of state loved by the people, but feared and hated by the reactionary boiars. In both these plays i t i s evident that T o l s t o i was not so much trying to present a h i s t o r i c a l s e t t i n g as to foster a feeling.of patriotism and boost the sagging morale of his audiences. In the l a s t year of his l i f e he resumed the writing of the novel Petr Pervyi, but i l l n e s s was rapidly draining his strength and he completed barely six chapters of the third.volume. A. N. T o l s t o i ' s l i t e r a r y reputation rests c h i e f l y on his works of h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n . The breadth.of his in t e r e s t i n this f i e l d of l i t e r a t u r e includes short stories and plays as well as the novel Petr Pervyi. In these writings he often sought to r a t i o n a l i z e the present through representations of analogous periods from Russian.history. As th i s study has attempted to show, these representations took shape i n re-sponse to changes i n both the personal concepts of the author and the p o l i t i c a l environment i n which he.worked. While the the v a l i d i t y of his ideology may well c a l l forth c o n f l i c t i n g c r i t i c a l judgments., there can be no doubt that i n Russian Soviet l i t e r a t u r e Aleksei T o l s t o i deservedly occupies a place of honour for his g i f t as a raconteur and his masterly use of the Russian language. NOTES TO INTRODUCTION "^ H. Butter f i e l d , The H i s t o r i c a l Novel (Cambridge, The University Press, 1924), p. 6. 2 A. T. Sheppard, The Art and Practice of H i s t o r i c a l F i c t i o n (London, Humphrey Toulin, 1930), p. 15. 3. pis'ma A. Nv-Toistoi, O l i t e r a t u r e : s t a t ' i , vystupleniia, (Moskva, Sovetskii p i s a t e l ' , 1956), p. 323. 4 Sheppard, p. 15. 5 Sheppard, p. 15. 6 T o l s t o i , 0 l i t e r a t u r e , p. 408. 7 H. Cam, H i s t o r i c a l Novel (Cambridge, University Press, 1924), p. 6. o M. K r i d l , A Survey of Polish Literature and Culture, trans. Olga Scherer-Virski (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1967), p. 381. NOTES TO CHAPTER I XA. Alpatov, "Ocherk.zhizni i tvorchestva Alekseia Tolstogo," Voprosy Li t e r a t u r y , No. 9, 1960, 206. 2 l u . A. K r e s t i n s k i i ' s A. N. T o l s t o i : zhizn' i tvor- chestvo remains the only comprehensive biography of the writer. Additional information may be found i n t h i s book. 3 In 1882 she published a novel, Neugomonnoe serdtse, but she was best known for her children's stories Podruzhka, which were published under the pseudonym Aleksandra Bostrom. 4 l u . A. K r e s t i n s k i i , A. N. T o l s t o i : zhizn 1 i tvor-chestvo (Moskva: Izd. Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1960),lp. 16. 5 A. N. T o l s t o i , Sobranie sochinenii v d e s i a t i tomakh, X (Moskva: GIKhL, 1961), 282. Reported by-A. V. Alpatov, Moscow, February 1975. 7 A. N. T o l s t o i ' s archive No. 4/3, at the A. M. Gorkii I n s t i t u t e of World Literature — IMLI. .. Hereinafter IMLI. Z. A. N i k i t i n a , L. I. T o l s t a i a , eds., Vospominaniia ob A. N. Tolstom,(Moskva: Sovetskii p i s a t e l ' , 1973), p. 61. 9 T o l s t o i , Sobranie soch i n e n i i , X, 129. S. Rozhdestvenskaia, A. G. Khodiuk, eds., A. N. T o l s t o i seminaii (Leningrad: Gos.Uch.Ped.Iz., 1966), p. 127. 1L, . , Ibid. 12 N i k i t i n a , T o l s t a i a , p. 74. 13 T o l s t o i , Sobranie sochinenii, I, 56. In'her book, D m i t r i i Merezhkovskii, zT Gippius mentions that i n 1920, or 19,21, she, her husband and A. T o l s t o i attended a dinner at the International Club i n Paris. She mentions, among the Frenchmen present, the symbolist writer Henri de R£gnier. It i s not known, however, whether T o l s t o i and R^gnier became acquainted. 14 K r e s t i n s k i i , p. 57. 15 V. R. Shcherbina, "A. N. T o l s t o i , " I s t o r l i a russkoi sovetskoi l i t e r a t u r y , II (Moskva: Nauka, 1967), 24. •j C M. Charnyi, Put' Alekseia Tolstogo (Moskva: GIKhL, 1961), p. 26. 196 •P. A. Borozdina, A^ N. T o l s t o i i teatr (Voronezh: Izd. Voronezhskogo u n i v e r s i t e t a , 1974), p. 23. 18 T o l s t o i , Sobranie sochinenii, I, 57. 19 • A. Volkov, Ocherki russkoi l i t e r a t u r y kontsa XIX l nachala XX veka (Moskva: GIKhL, 19 55), p. 401. 20 T o l s t o i , Sobranie sochinenii, X, 201 21 N i k i t i n a , T o l s t a i a , p. 116. 2 2 I b i d . , p, 119. 23 Ibid., p. 121. 24T, ., Ibid. 2 5 Ivan Bunin, Memories and P o r t r a i t s , trans. Vera T r a i l l , Robin Chancellor (London: John. Lehmann, 1951), pp. 161-164. V. R. Shcherbina, "A. N. T o l s t o i , " i n A. N. T o l s t o i , Sobranie soc h i n e n i i , I, 22. . 2 7 V. Baranov, R e v o l i u t s i i a i sud'ba khudozhnika: A. T o l s t o i i ego put' k sotsialisticheskomu.realismu (Moskva: Sovetskii p i s a t e l ' , 1967), p. 94. The quotation i s from an a r t i c l e by T o l s t o i i n the emigre paper. Obshchee Delo, Paris, August 20, 1919. 2 8D. F. White, "An. A r i s t o c r a t at Stalin's Court," American S l a v i c and East European.Review, No. 3 (1950, IX), 210. 29 Baranov, pp. 101-102. 3 0 I b i d . , p. .102. 31 K r e s t m s k n , p. 131. 32 A. N. T o l s t o i , "Khozhdenie po mukam," Sovremennye Zapiski, VII, 1921, 40. 33 . . N i k i t i n a , T o l s t a i a , p. 123; my i t a l i c s . 34 Ibid.., pp. 12 4-125; my i t a l i c s . N 2 46 35 Gleb Struve, Russkaia l i t e r a t u r a y l z g n a n i i : opyt istoricheskogo obraza zarubezhnoi l i t e r a t u r y (New York: Izd. iriu Chekhova, 1956), p. 31. 3 6 Baranov, p. 109. 37 Maurice Friedberg, "The USSR and Its Emigres," Russian Review, No. 2 ( A p r i l , 1968), 132. 38 R. C. Williams, Culture i n E x i l e : Russian Emigres in Germany 1881-19 41 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972), pp. 269-270. 39 Guy Verret, "Maxime Gorkij et Alexis Tolstoj a l a crois£e des chemins (1921-1923)," Revue, des Etudes slaves, XXXIV, 1957, 148. 40 Bertram D. Wolfe, The Bridge and the Abyss: The Troubled Friendship of Maxim Gorky and V. I. Lenin (London: P a l l Mall Press, 1967), p. 138. 4 f e r r e t , 149., 42 "BecHofi 22-ro rop,a, . . . BCTpe^ia c MaKCHMOM FOPBKHM peuiHJia MOH BH6OP: H nepeiueji Ha 3 TOT Seper, . . . " B. Leonov, "Oktiabr' skaia r e v o l i u t s i i a mne dala vse ':> . . ," Oktiabr', No. 1, 1973, 196. 43 Baranov, p. 114. 44 Bunin, p. 148. 45 T o l s t o i , O l i t e r a t u r e , p. 35. 46 This i s not e n t i r e l y true. B. Leonov, i n Oktiabr', No. 1, 1973, gives Kuprin's explanation for his i n a b i l i t y to write i n France: IIpeKpacHbiH H a p o f l , . . . HO He TOBOPHT no£cpyccKH, B JiaBO^Ke H B nHBHOH — B o o n y He no-HanieMy. . . A 3HaiHT 3TO BOT 1TO nOSCHBeiUB, nOSCHBeUIB fla H -nncaTB n e p e c T a H e u i B . E C T B , KOHeiHo, n n c a T e j i H T a r a e , *ITO HX XOTB Ha MaxtaracKap nocbiJiaH Ha B e i H o e nocejieHne — OHH H TaM 6yHyT nncaTB poMaH 3a poMaHOM. A MHe Bee Haflo ponHoe, BCHKoe - — xopowoe, nJioxoe — TOJIBKO poflHoe. 47 Chaikovskii and Miliukov headed the Executive Committee for Assistance to Emigre" Writers, and The Union of Russian Writers and Jo u r n a l i s t s , respectively. 1 247 4 8 T o l s t o i / Sobranie sochinenii, X, 34. 49 Ibid.., 35. 5 0 . i , , Ibid. 5 1 lb id.. , 37. 5 2 I b i d . , 38. 53 . • P. S. Kogan, the author of the a r t i c l e , predicted that T o l s t o i ' s l e t t e r to Chaikovskii would be remembered i n the same way,as B e l i n s k i i ' s l e t t e r to Gogol'. 54 A. V. Alpatov, Tvorchestvo Tolstogo (Moskva: Gos. Uch. Ped. Izd., 1956), p. 42. 55 A. N. T o l s t o i , Polnpe sobranie, sochinenii v 15 tomakh, VIII (Moskva: GIKhL, 19 47), 667-668. ^ W i l l i a m s , Culture i n E x i l e ; see Chapter IV, "The Way Out to the East," pp. 2 42-28'!. 57 T o l s t o i , Sobranie sochinenii, I, 61. 58 R. Ivanov-Razumnik, P i s ate1'ski e sud'by (New York: L i t e r a t u r n y i fond, 1951), p. 40. More w i l l be said on t h i s i n the fourth chapter. 59 . . . . V. R. Shcherbma, A. N. T o l s t o i : k r i t i k o - b i o g r a f l -cheskii ocherk,(Moskva: GIKhL, 1955), p. 89. ^IMLI., Archive 57. 61 T o l s t o i , Polnoe sobranie, VIII, 668. 6 2 K r e s t i n s k i i , Tolstoi's•secretary, said i n a private conversation that, just on the eve of the war, T o l s t o i received a postcard from Bunin with the words "Khochu domoi." T o l s t o i then wrote a l e t t e r on Bunin's behalf and K r e s t i n s k i i personally took i t to the Kremlin. After the war, Bunin changed his mind. 63 NOTES TO CHAPTER II 1M. G o r k i i , Pis'ma o l i t e r a t u r e (Moskva: Sovetskii p i s a t e l ' , 1957), p. 192. 2M. Voloshin, "Henri de Regnier," Apollon, N6X.4, 1910, 25. 3IMLI, Archive 6237. ^ T o l s t o i , Sobranie sochinenii, I, 76. 5 I b i d . , 85. 6 I b i d . , 290-291. 7 I b i d . , I I , 11. 8 I b i d . , 12. 9 I b i d . , I, 58. 1 0 I b i d . 1 1 T o l s t o i , O l i t e r a t u r e , p. 112. 1 2 I b i d . , p. 113. Ibid. 1 4A. V. Alpatov, L. M. Poliak, eds., Tvorchestvo A. N. Tolstogo: sbornik s t a t ' e i (Moskva: Moskovskii gosudarst-vennyi u n i v e r s i t e t , 1957). 15 Rozhdestvenskaia, Khodiuk, p. 141. 1 r Alpatov, Poliak, p. 217. 1 7 I b i d . , p. 219. 1 8 I b i d . , p. 220. 1 9 T o l s t o i , Sobranie sochinenii, I I I , 65. 2 0 N. Novombergskii, Slovo i delo gosudarevy: (Materialy), II (Tomsk: Tovarishchestvo "Pechatnaia S.N. Iakovlena," 1909), 18. 2-48 21 T o l s t o i , Sobranie sochinenii, I I I , 67. 2 2 I b i d . , 75-76. 2 3 B. P i l n i a k , Povest.' Peterburgskaia (Berlin: Geliko 1922), pp. 107-108. 2 4 T o l s t o i , Sobranie sochinenii, I I I , 77. 25 Pi l n i a k explains t h a t everything that Peter h a d undertaken was done only by chance: Bo H M H cJiy^afiHo .Ha^iaTofi (KaK H B.ce., * I T O flenaJi neTp) BofiHH co iuBenajMH, CJiy^atiHo 3 a 6 p o i u e H H H H noxt HneH-inaHij,, neTp anyuafiHo 3aJio)KHJi — Ha 6ojioTe HeBCKOfi HejiBTbi, Ha ocTpoBe EHHcapn, — neTponaBJioBCKyio cfopTeiiHK), coBepnieHHo He xryMaH o n a p a x t H 3 e . pp. 73-74. IMLI, Archive 7021. The.passages i n brackets do n o t appear i n t h e published versions. ( T o l s t o i , Sobranie sochinenii, I I I , 82.) 27 T o l s t o i , Sobranie sochinenii, I I I , 84. 2 8 IMLI, Archive 7021. " ^ . . i s t o i , , :" J > r a n i e s^^.e. T o l s t o i , Sobranie soc h i n e n i i , I I I , &4. 2 9 T o l s t o i , Sobranie, sochinenii, I I I , 91. 3 0 I b i d . , 80 and 85. 3 1 I b i d . , VIII, 112. 3 2 I b i d . , I I I , 115. 3 3 I b i d . , 117. 3 4 I b j d . , 131. 35 V. R. Shcherbina, A.,N. T o l s t o i : t vorcheskn put' (Moskva: Sovetskii p i s a t e l ' , 1956), p. 392.. T o l s t o i , Sobranie sochinenii, I I I , 280. 3 7 I b i d . , 291-292. 3 8 I b i d . , 293. 2 50 39 Ibid., 275. The general outline of Naum's biography T o l s t o i also borrowed from Slovo i delo. 4 0 I b i d . , 295. 4^M. G o r k i i , Sobranie sochinenii v t r i d t s a t i tomakh, XXX (Moskva: GIKhL, 1956), 25. 42 Tolstoi,.Sobranie sochinenii, IV, 143. 4 3 I b i d . , 148-149 . " 44 4 4 I b i d . ,, 176. 4 5 I b i d . , 179. 4 6 T o l s t o i , Polnoe sobranie, VI, 407. Ibid. 4 8 I b i d . , 413. NOTES TO CHAPTER III "4). D. Blagoi, L i t e r a t u r a i d e i s t v i t e l ' n o s t ' : voprosy t e o r i i i i s t o r i i l i t e r a t u r y (Moskva: GIKhL, 1959), p. 483. 2 G. Lukacs, " I s t o r i c h e s k n roman I: klassicheskaia forma istoricheskogo romana," L i t e r a t u r n y i K r i t i k , No. 7, 1937, 66. 3 T o l s t o i , O l i t e r a t u r e , pp. 207-208. 4 B u t t e r f l e l d , p. 7 8. 5 T o l s t o i , O l i t e r a t u r e , pp. 323-324. ^B. H. Sumner, Peter the Great and.the Emergence of Russia (New York, C o l l i e r Bo.oks, 1962), p. 9. 7 For a.detailed background to the writing of Zapiska, see Richard Pipes' lengthy introduction to his t r a n s l a t i o n of the t r a c t . R. Pipes, trans., Karamzin's Memoir on Ancient and Modern.Russia: A Translation and Analysis (New York: Atheneum, 1966), p. 122. ! 9 I b i d . , p. 123. 1 0 I b i d . , p; 127. *'"1A. S. Pushkin, Sobranie sochinenii, VII (Moskva: GIKhL, 1962), 432. 12 L. M. Poliak, "Petr Pervyi v tvorchestve L'va Tolstogo i Alekseia Tolstogo," I z v e s t i i a Akademii Nauk, XIII, 1964, 4. 13 T o l s t o i , O l i t e r a t u r e , p. 165. 14 I. B e r l i n , The Hedgehog and.the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1953) , p. 27. 1 5RbMak, I z v e s t i i a AN SSSR, XIII, 6. 16 A. Alpatov, "0 nekotprykh osobennostiakh raboty L. N. Tolstogo i A. N. Tolstogo nad istoricheskimi obrazami 252 petrovskoi epokhi," Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta, No. 1, 1957, 16. 1 7 • L. N. T o l s t o i , Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v 90 tomakh, LXI (Moskva, GIKhL, 1953), 249. 18 Alpatov, Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta, 17. 1 q Poliak, I z v e s t i i a AN SSSR, XIII, 8. 2 0 A. V. Alpatov, lecture delivered for the course, "Russkii i s t o r i c h e s k i i roman," Department of Russian L i t e r a -ture, Moscow State University, 14 A p r i l 1975. D. S. Merezhkovskii, A n t i k h r i s t (Petr 1 Aleksei) (S-Peterburg, Izd. M. V. Pirozhkova, 1906),.p. 557. 2 2R. Po g g i o l i , The Poets of Russia: 1890-1930 (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1960), p. 72. 23 T o l s t o i , O l i t e r a t u r e , p. 115. 2 4 K r e s t i n s k i i , p. 187. 25 T o l s t o i , O l i t e r a t u r e , p. 411. 2 6 I b i d . , p. 412. 1975. 1975. 2 7 Conversation with l u . A. K r e s t i n s k i i , Moscow, March 2 8 Conversation with A. V. Alpatov, Moscow, February 29 K r e s t i n s k i i , p. 192. 30 N. Iesuitov, "Petr — evropeizator Rusi: zametki ob i s t o r i c h e s k o i kontseptsii romana A. Tolstogo 'Petr Pervyi'," Na aiteraturnoffi Postu, No. 10, 1931, 19-23. 31 K. Z e l e n s k i i , "A. T o l s t o i : 'Petr Pervyi'," Krasnaia Nov', No.. 8, 1931, 182-184. 32 G. Gorbachev, "Mezhdu ob'ektivizmom l idealizmom (o Petre Pervom A. N. Tolstogo)," Leningrad, No. 2, 1931, 120-124. 33 M. N. Pokrovskii died i n 1932. For further informa-t i o n , see D. Dorotich, "Disgrace and Rehabilitation of M. N. Pokrovsky," Canadian Slavonic Papers, No. 8, 1966, 169-181. 253 3 4IMLI, Archive 57. 35 Ars. Alpatov, "Obraz. 'kak by vyrezannyi na medi 1 (0 'Petre I 1 A. Tolstogo)," Khudozhestvennaia.Elteratura, No. 10, 1934, 6. 36 A. Alpatov, "Retsenziia na knigu A. Tolstogo 'Petr Pervyi' i Iu. Tynianova 'Voskovaia f igura.' ," Kniga i Prole-tarskaia R e v o l i u t s i i a , Nos. 405, 1933, 164. 37 I. V. S t a l i n , "Besedas nemetskim pisatelem Emilem Liudvigom," Sochineniia, XIII (Moskva, Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo p o l i t i c h e s k o i l i t e r a t u r y , 1955), 105. 3 8 Iak. Eidel'man, "Moskva za meslats," L i t e r a t u r n y i K r i t i k , No. 2, 1935, 254. 39 V. Vaganian, "0 dvukh vidakh"istoricheskogo romana," Oktiabr', No. 7, 1934, 218. 40 -D.Mirsky, "Za khudozhnika-istorika," Oktiabr', No. 7, 1934, 224. 4 * I b i d . , 223. 4 2IMLI, Archive 57. 43 T o l s t o i , O l i t e r a t u r e , p. 172. 44 A. I. Pautkin, "0 iazyke romana...A. . N. Tolstogo 'Petr Pervyi'," i n Tvor.chestvo A. N. Tolstogo: sbornik s t a t e i , ed. A. V. Alpatov, L. M. Poliak (Moskva: i z d . Moskovskogo un i v e r s i t e t a , 1957), p. 133. 45 T o l s t o i , O l i t e r a t u r e , p. 330. 46 T o l s t o i , Sobranie sochinenii, VII,. 12. Further excerpts taken from this volume w i l l be indicated only by page number. 47 . A reference to D i m i t r n ' s murder allegedly committed by Boris Godunov. 48 T o l s t o i , 0 l i t e r a t u r e , p. 209. 49 Poliak, A., T o l s t o i — khudozhnik, p. 412. 50 A. V. Alpatov, "O t r e t ' e i knige romana A. N. Tol- -stOgo 'Petr Pervyi'," i n Tvorchestvo A. N. Tolstogo: sbornik s t a t e i , p. 120. 25 4 5 1 T o l s t o i , 0 l i t e r a t u r e , p. 332. 5 2 G o r k i i , Pis'ma.o l i t e r a t u r e , p.. 441. 53 NOTES TO CHAPTER IV "'"Tolstoi>. 0 l i t e r a t u r e , p. 105 Kerensky was not altogether a distant c e l e b r i t y as far as T o l s t o i was concerned. T o l s t o i was N a t a l 1 i a Vasilevna Krandievskaia's second husband. Her f i r s t husband was a good friend of A. Kerensky. Borozdina, A. N. T o l s t o i i teatr, p. 53. 4Gr. A. N. T o l s t o i , Smert' Dantona (Odessa: Iuzhno-russkoe obshchestvo pechatnogo dela, 1919), n.p. c "K s n i a t i i u 'Smerti Dantona'," I z v e s t i i a , October 20, 1918. c Poliak, A. T o l s t o i —^ - khudozhnik, p. 174. H. Lindenberger, Georg Buchner (Carbondale: Southern I l l i n o i s University Press, 1964), p. 40. q V i c t o r Price, trans., The Plays of Georg Buchner (London: Oxford University Press, 1971) , p. x i i ' i ; my i t a l i c s . 9A. H. J . Knight, Georg Buchner (London: Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1974), pp. 26-27. x ^ P r i c e , p. 37. 1 : L I b i d . , pp. 22-23. 1 2 T o l s t o i , Smert' Dantona, pp. 33-38. 13 . " . I b i d . , p. 1. x 4 T o l s t o i , Polnoe sobranie, XI, 203. 15 T o l s t o i , Sobranie sochinenii, V, 307. 1 6G. A. Mamaev, "Iz tvorcheskoi i s t o r i i komedii A. N. Tolstogo ' L i u b o v ' — k n i g a z o l o t a i a ' , " Russkaia l i t e r a t u r a , No. 2, 1967, 143. Ibid. 255 256 18 Gr. Aleksei N. T o l s t o i , L i u b o v ' — k n i g a z o l o t a i a (Berlin: "Moskva," n.d.), p. 13. ±yIbxd. , pp. 14, 22. 2 0 I b i d . , p. 17. 2 1 I b i d . , pp. 17-18. 2 2 I b i d . , p. 90. 2 3 T o l s t o i , Polnoe sobranie, X, 681-6.82. 24 I . T r a i n i n , "'Liubov'— k n i g a z o l o t a i a ' Tolstogo," Pravda, 8 January 192.4. Ibid. 2 6 Borozsina, A. N. T o l s t o i i t e a t r , p. 62. 27 T o l s t o i , Sobranie sochinenii, IX, 328. 2 8 I b i d . , 304. 2 9 I b i d . , 292, 295. 30 C. E. Black, "The Reforms o f Peter t h e Great," i n Rewriting Russian History: Soviet Interpretation o f Russia's Past (New York: Vintage Books, 19 62), p. 252. 31 ' M. N. Pokrovsky, "The Bankruptcy o f Peter's System," i n Peter the-Great, e d . L. J. Oliva (Englewood C l i f f s , N. Y.: Prentice H a l l , 1970), p. 171. 32 Ivanov-Razumnik, P i s a t e l ' s k i e sud'by, p. 40. After m e n t i o n i n g h i s own i m p r i s o n m e n t , Ivanov -Razumnik c o n t i n u e s : . . . nepexoxcy K caMOMy poMaHy A n e K c e n T o J i c T o r o , H J I H , BepHee, K e r o S B T O P C K O H n e p e p a 6 o T K e B n B e c y , . . . Bnpo^eM, pe^B flOJUKHa H J I T H He O n e p e p a 6 o T K e , a o n e p e p a S o T K a x , TaK KaK TaKOBHX. 6BIJIO EteJibix T P H — H B H H X a B T o p noc j ie j ioBaTej iBHo onycKaJ icH Bee HH»ce H HHxce no CTyneHBKaM j i a K e n c T B a , . . . 33 Borozdina, A. N. T o l s t o i i t e a t r , p. 125. BJiHHHHe M/ H; n o K p o B C K o r o Ha A. T O J I C T O T O B nepnof l pa6oTbi Han. T p a r e n n e H 6bino He o^eHB 3Ha^HTeJiBHbiM. 3 4 B l a c k , p. 240. 257 35 T o l s t o i , Polnoe s o b r a n i e , X, 587., 3 6 I b i d . , 605-606. 3 7 I b i d . , 609-610., 3 8 I b i d . , 613. 3 9 I b i d . , 642. 4 0 I b i d . , 645. 4 1 I b i d . , 653. 4 2 S p e n c e r E. Roberts, S o v i e t H i s t o r i c a l Drama; I t s Role i n the Development of a N a t i o n a l Mythology, (The Hague: Marinus N u j h o f f , 1965), p. 104. Ivanov-Razumnik a t t r i b u t e s the f o l l o w i n g statement t o S t a l i n : npeKpacHan nseca. JKaxiB TOJIBKO, ^ITO neTp B H B e x t e H HeflOciaTo^ H o repoH^ecKH. n H c a T e x i B C K H e cyruaSbi-, p. 42. 4 3 L . C h e r n i a v s k i i , " R e s t a v r a t s i i a merezhkovshchiny (Petr I vo 2 MKhAt-e)," Pravda, 11 March 1930. 4 4 V . M l e c h i n , "Shag vpered, dva — n a z a d , " V e c h e r n i a i a Moskva, 7 March 19 30. 45 K r e s t m s k i . i , p. 181. 4 6 L. C h e r n i a v s k i i , Pravda, 11 March 1930. 47 K r e s t i n s k n , p. 182. 48 1975. Roberts, p. 10 4. 4Conversation with A. V. A l p a t o v , Moscow, February 5 0 T o l s t o i , 0 l i t e r a t u r e , p. 248. 5 1 A . N. T o l s t o i , P e t r I (Leningrad, L e n i n g r a d s k a i a Pravda, 1935), p. 45. 5 2 I b i d . , pp. 37-38. 5 3 I b i d . , p. 54. 5 4 I b i d . , p. 66. ^ I b i d . , p.- 67. 258 S.. M. Vladimirov f/and G. A. Lapkina, eds. , Ocherki i s t o r i i russkoi sovetskoi dramaturgii: 1934-1945, II (Lenin-grad: Iskusstvo, 1966), 166. 57 Leo Yaresh, "The Formation of the Great Russian State," i n Rewriting Russian History, p. 202. 5 8 "Prim 1era 'Petra I 1 v Akademicheskom teatre dramy im. A. S. Pushkina," Pravda, 12 A p r i l 1938. 59 I. Oksenov, "Obraz Petr I v- dramaturgii Alekseia Tolstogo," Zvezda, No. 9, 1938, 230. ^A. Dymshits, " T r i etapa," Molodaia gvardiia, No. 3, 1938, 189. 6 1 P o l i a k , A. T o l s t o i khudozhnik, p. 411. 6 2 T o l s t o i , Sobranie sochinenii, IX, 533-534. 6 3 Ibid., 537. Comical and far-fetched as th i s f i n a l scene may seem to the reader today, i t was rather t y p i c a l of the Soviet theatre of the late 1930's. But Ivanov-Razumnik's p r e j u d i c i a l f e e l i n g s led him to factual errors. Concerning thi s play he wrote i n P i s a t e l ' s k i e sud'by: npnimiocb 3aHHTbCH TpeTbeft p e x t a K i r H e f i , . . . B S T O H •.. '.piextaKUHH $HHaJibHaH c u e H a — 3acef laHHe C e H a T a a pe^ib n e T p a K ceHaTopaM H a TeMy o T O M , I T O „jaeJio neTpoBo" — He npona .neT: ,g.3HafiTe,, TOBapHip [ ! ] , n o x o r a H He C K O P O, a npHjjeT MexioBeK, KOTOPKIH 6y.neT no cBoeMy, no H O B O M y , H O npoxtoxracaTb xtejio n e T p a " . . . J4o HMeHH CraJ iHHa JteJio H e xtouuio, HO Beflb H 6e3 T o r o B C H K O M Y HMeroiqeMy yum, * JTO6H cJibmiaTb, 6bino noHHTHo, H a K o r o HaMenaeT — • He n e T p a JiaKeftcTByioinHH a B T o p . Nothing resembling this appears anywhere i n the play! 64 K r e s t i n s k n , p. 221. ^ T o l s t o i , O l i t e r a t u r e , p. 410. 6 6 , T. T. Vese l o v s k i i , " D i l o g i i a A. N. Tolstogo 'Ivan Groznyi'," Uchenye zapiski Leningradskogo gosudarstvennogo pedagogicheskogo instututa: Fakul'tet iazyka 1 l i t e r a t u r y T torn 184, No. 6 (1958), 169. 6 7 I b i d . ^ 8L. I l ' i c h e v , "P'esa A l . Tolstogo 'Ivan Groznyi' v Malom teatre," Pravda, 27 October 1944. 259 °*It i s int e r e s t i n g to note -that Aleksei Konstantino-vich T o l s t o i condemns Tsar Ivan IV for h'is tyranny and personal cruelty i n ballads, i n the novel Kniaz' Serebrianyi (Prince Serebrianyi), and of course i n the drama Smert* Ioanna Groznogo (The Death of Ivan the T e r r i b l e ) . As the t i t l e suggests, A. K. T o l s t o i ' s play deals with the Tsar's l a s t year of l i f e , the humiliating defeat he suffered at the hands of the Pol i s h king Stefan Batpry, and the f a i l u r e of his reign i n general. Written i n verse, Smert' Ioanna Groznpgp shows the e v i l consequence of unrestrained power. Ivan's chief aim i n l i f e , explained A. K. T o l s t o i i n his extensive directions for the production of the play, was the preservation of his absolute power. Ultimately i t corrupted the Tsar both as a p o l i t i c a l figure and as an i n d i v i d u a l . This "human truth," as A. K. T o l s t o i c a l l e d i t , i s of greater importance than the " h i s t o r i c a l truth," and i f the two truths can coincide In an a r t i s t i c work, so much the better. 70 T o l s t o i , Sobranie sochinenii, IX, 60 4. 7 1 I b i d . , 648-649. 7 2 I b i d . , 704. 7 3 I b i d . , 743. 74 A. Dymshits, "'Ivan Groznyi' Alekseia Tolstogo," Zvezda, No. 4, 1944, 116. Roberts, p. 50BIBLIOGRAPHY A. PRIMARY SOURCES A. N. T o l s t o i ' s materials and typescripts held at the Gorkii I n s t i t u t e of World Literature — IMLI — in Moscow. Archive No. 2/2 a school notebook. " " 3/3 a school notebook from 1899-1900. " " 4/3 exercise book i n Russian language: essays written i n the summer of 1901. " " 47 a typescript of "Navazhdenie," dated 1918. " " 5 7 notes for the novel "Petr I," dated 1932. " " 143/107 notes about the v i s i t to Par i s , dated 1908. " " 6234 reminiscences by S. I. Dymshits. " " 6235 reminiscences by N. V. Krandievskaia. " " 6237 autobiographical typescript, dated 1916. " "7022021 typescript of "Den' Petra." A. N. T o l s t o i ' s Published Works. . L'Amour, l i v r e d'or: comedie en t r o i s actes. Paris: Editions de l a Nouvelle Revue Frangaise, 1922. . Den' Petra i drugie rasskazy. Moskva: GIKhL, 1963. L i u b o v ' — kniga z o l o t a i a . B e r l i n : Izdatel'stvo Moskva, n.d. . Navozhdenie. 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