Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy, Leo

Russian novelist (1828-1910). Autograph letter signed. [Yasnaya Polyana]. 8vo. 2 pages on bifolium. In Russian.
$ 20,010 / 18.500 € (87124/BN57549)

To the unnamed P. L. Uspensky, acknowledging receipt of 500 roubles: "I will try to use them in the best possible way for the benefit of those in need. The canteens have now been discontinued and will resume from the winter, if there are no obstacles to this. If this happened, then I would distribute the help entrusted to me [...] to the exhausted and sick [...]" (transl.). - Published from the retained copy in copy book 1, ff. 220-221. The recipient had written to Tolstoy on 10 August to say that he was sending him the money to help those affected by crop failure. - In fine condition.

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Tolstoy, Leo

Russian novelist (1828-1910). Autograph letter signed ("L. Tolstoy"). [Yasnaya Polyana]. 8vo. 2 pages on paper with perforated upper margin. In Russian. With one enclosure.
$ 23,795 / 22.000 € (87125/BN57550)

To the unnamed philosopher Pyotr Petrovich Nikolaev in response to Nikolaev's new book. Tolstoy has read Nikolaev's book, and writes with a critique: "There is a lot of very good material in it, but you did well not to release it, and to want to work on it some more. The criticism of materialism is excellent, but you have not clarified what we feel and call matter. I think that there are other spiritual essences in which, just as in us, the basic essence (God) manifests itself partially, limitedly [...] / The book, as it is now, has merits [...] but the subject is so important that one cannot treat it seriously and attentively enough.

/ It is a shame that you live abroad [...]" (transl.). - P. P. Nikolaev (1873-1928) was philosopher and Tolstoyan who published a number of works in defence of freedom of religion. He was forced into exile in 1904, and lived in Nice from 1905 onwards. Tolstoy corresponded frequently with Nikolaev and engaged closely with his works - indeed, one of his last diary entries refers to reading one of his books. The work Tolstoy comments on in the present letter has not survived in the Yasnaya Polyana library, but may have been "Poniatie o boge kak o sovershennom sodanii" ('The Concept of God as the Perfect Basis of Consciousness', Geneva, 1907), which attempts to elucidate Tolstoy's ideas of God and the soul. - Enclosed is a letter to Nikolaev from Tolstoy's friend and editor V. G. Chertkov from 20 January 1903, encouraging him to send the manuscript of an article for Tolstoy to comment on (4to, ¾ page)..

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Tolstoy, Leo

Russian novelist (1828-1910). Portrait photograph signed ("Leo Tolstoy"). No place. 182 x 139 mm. Signed in Latin script on the image. With two enclosures.
$ 16,224 / 15.000 € (87126/BN57551)

The well-known image by Vladimir Grigorievich Chertkov shows Tolstoy with his granddaughter Tatiana Sukhotina at Yasnaya Polyana. Together with a cabinet photograph signed by Tolstoy's eldest daughter Tatiana in 1897, and a portrait photograph signed by Tolstoy's youngest daughter Alexandra (undated, but after 1931). - Tatiana Mikhailovna Sukhotina was aged 5 in 1910: she later married Leonardo Albertini, son of the celebrated newspaper editor and historian, Luigi Albertini. Her mother, Tatiana Lvovna Tolstaya (1864-1950), was Tolstoy's eldest daughter: she married Mikhail Sergeevich Sukhotin in 1899, in the face of her father's fierce opposition; she was later guardian of the museum at Yasnaya Polyana, and director of the Tolstoy Museum in Moscow in 1923-25, before emigrating to France and then Italy.

Alexandra Tolstaya (1884-1979) was Tolstoy's youngest daughter, secretary and later executor: she emigrated to the United States in 1931. The photographer, Vladimir Grigorievich Chertkov (1854-1936), was a prominent Tolstoyan, and later became the writer's literary executor. He was by some accounts responsible for the rapid deterioration in Tolstoy's relationship with his wife, which culminated in his extraordinary escape from home immediately before his death at Astopovo railway station on 7/20 November, only six months after his inscription of this appealing portrait..

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Tolstoy, Leo

Autograph letter signed.
Autograph ist nicht mehr verfügbar

Written in English to the Philadelphia newspaper, "The North American". Nine months have passed since the beginning of the war, and Tolstoy, an advocate of non-violence, was one of the world's leading voices. His opinions were of great interest to his readers, and the present letter is an answer to the newspaper's query: "I am neither for Russia nor Japan, but for laboring people of both, deceived by governments and obliged to fight against their welfare, conscience and religion". - Some damage to edges and foldings.