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az.lib.ru — Vol III front-matter and two-layer preface

Last modified 10 August 2026 · view source

Source URL: http://az.lib.ru/b/birjukow_p_i/text_1905_tolstoy05.shtml Source edition (per az.lib.ru): «Павел Бирюков. Биография Л. Н. Толстого, книга вторая (Серия “Гений в искусстве”), М., “Алгоритм”, 2000». OCR: Адаменко Виталий (adamenko77@mail.ru), 10–20 January 2003. Editorial note from OCR’er: “В тексте пришлось исправить явную ошибку наборщиков -- часть текста из 6-й главы попала в 5-ю.” (“In the text it was necessary to correct an obvious typesetters’ error — part of the text from Chapter 6 had ended up in Chapter 5.”) This correction is the OCR’er’s, not Birukoff’s; it suggests the 2000 Алгоритм reprint itself reproduced the typesetters’ error from an earlier edition (presumably the 1915 first edition), and that the 2000 editors did not catch and fix it before Adamenko did in 2003. Captured: 2026-05-28 via curl | iconv -f windows-1251 -t utf-8.

The catalogue entry

The az.lib.ru author index at http://az.lib.ru/b/birjukow_p_i/ shows the full series under “Биография Л. Н. Толстого”: - Vol 1, part 1 [listed 1905] — text_1905_tolstoy01.shtml, 452 kB - Vol 1, part 2 [listed 1905] — text_1905_tolstoy02.shtml, 418 kB - Vol 2, part 1 [listed 1905] — text_1905_tolstoy03.shtml, 384 kB - Vol 2, part 2 [listed 1905] — text_1905_tolstoy04.shtml, 413 kB - Vol 3 [listed 1915] — text_1905_tolstoy05.shtml, 1173 kB - Vol 4 [listed 1922] — text_1922_tolstoy06.shtml, 947 kB

The “1905” tag on Vols 1–2 is at variance with the conventional bibliography (Vol I = 1906, Vol II = 1908). This is either an az.lib.ru cataloguing artifact (the same filename-prefix 1905 is reused for files spanning 1906, 1908, and 1915), or there was an earlier 1905 first appearance of Vol I (possibly in serial / pamphlet form via Posrednik before the 1906 book). Russian Wikipedia’s Birukoff article also dates all of Vols 1–2 to 1905, but cross-checks against library catalogues are still needed — see index.md §1 open questions.

Authorial preface — two layers, six years apart

Birukoff’s preface to Vol III is a single text but composed in two passes, both reproduced verbatim in the 2000 «Алгоритм» / az.lib.ru text. The shift between the two passes is marked by the dating: the first pass closes with “С. Ивановское, 24 июля 1909 г.” and the second pass opens with “Эти страницы введения, как показывает дата, были написаны мною шесть лет тому назад...”

This is direct evidence that Vol III was begun in 1909 (with Tolstoy alive) and completed in 1915 (with Tolstoy dead five years) — a span across the most significant break in Birukoff’s biographical position toward his subject.

Layer 1 — С. Ивановское, 24 июля 1909 г. (Selo Ivanovskoye, 24 July 1909)

Tolstoy is alive. Birukoff anticipates difficulty writing about events in living memory. He intends Vol III to close at Tolstoy’s 80th jubilee (1908). The biography is still a three-volume work.

Key passage:

“Закончить же свою работу или, по крайней мере, довести ее до того современного момента, когда популярность Л. Н-ча достигла наивысшего уровня, когда его жизнь стала чуть не ежедневным объектом всякого рода описаний, расходящихся путем периодической печати по всему миру, довести до этого момента -- я считаю своим священным долгом.”

(“To finish my work, or at least to bring it up to the contemporary moment when L. N.’s popularity has reached its highest level, when his life has become almost a daily object of all kinds of descriptions diffused through the periodical press all over the world — to bring it up to that moment, I consider my sacred duty.”)

And the closing:

“Дай бог, чтобы эта работа моя хоть сколько-нибудь послужила к уяснению той великой истины, служению которой посвятил свою жизнь наш дорогой, великий старец, истины о том, что жизнь человека есть ничто иное, как возращение в себе ростка любви к богу и людям и ко всему живущему. С. Ивановское, 24 июля 1909 г.”

Layer 2 — Onex pres Geneve. Suisse. 1 ноября 1915 г.

Tolstoy died 7 November 1910. World War I is on. Birukoff has been in Switzerland since 1907 (Geneva area, having been exiled to Kurland in 1897 and abroad for a decade). He records the explicit decision to expand from three to four volumes, choosing the publication of Resurrection (1899) as the boundary between Vols III and IV.

Key passages:

“Эти страницы введения, как показывает дата, были написаны мною шесть лет тому назад, при начале работы над III томом. За эти шесть лет утекло много воды, много было пережито великих, тяжелых и грозных событий.”

(“These pages of introduction, as the date shows, were written by me six years ago, at the start of work on Vol III. In those six years much water has flowed under the bridge, and much great, heavy and threatening has been lived through.”)

The Tolstoy-death reaction:

“7-го ноября 1910 года перешла в вечность великая душа... Как ни крепился я, как ни старался метафизическими умозаключениями отстранить от себя чувство потери, я этого сделать не мог и горько плакал у его гроба и теперь плачу, когда пишу эти строки.”

(“On 7 November 1910 a great soul passed into eternity... However I steeled myself, however I tried by metaphysical reasoning to keep the sense of loss at a distance, I could not do it; I wept bitterly at his coffin, and I weep now as I write these lines.”)

The expansion from three to four volumes:

“Все это привело к тому, что мне пришлось разделить имевшийся в моем распоряжении материал уже не на три, а на четыре тома. Гранью третьего и четвертого томов я избрал эпоху, когда Л. Н-ч написал и издал свой роман «Воскресение».”

(“All this led to my having to divide the material at my disposal not into three but into four volumes. As the boundary between the third and fourth volumes I chose the period when L. N. wrote and published his novel Resurrection.”)

The “raw form” admission:

“Вполне сознаю, что собранный мною, координированный и комментированный материал преподносится читателю почти в сыром виде. На более тщательную обработку его у меня не хватило сил. Пусть сделают это другие. Я полагаю, что и в этом виде моя работа стоит издания и должна возбудить интерес в тех, кому дорого имя Л. Н-ча.”

(“I am fully aware that the material I have collected, coordinated and annotated is presented to the reader in almost raw form. I did not have the strength for more thorough processing. Let others do it. I believe that even in this form my work is worth publishing and should excite interest in those for whom the name of L. N. is dear.”)

The signature:

“Павел Бирюков. 1 ноября 1915 г. Onex pres Geneve. Suisse.”

Implications

  1. The “raw form” admission applies to Vol III specifically as drafted in Geneva 1909–1915, with Tolstoy dead and Birukoff in exile without his archive. It is not a blanket statement about Vols I–II. This narrows the §5 verdict significantly.
  2. Vol IV was a 1915 decision — added because the death and its aftermath (excommunication, illness, the 1904 war, the 1905 revolution, the jubilee, Astapovo) expanded the material beyond what Vol III could hold. The four-volume work is therefore not the original design.
  3. The boundary between Vols III and IV is fixed by Birukoff at Resurrection (1899). Anything pre-1899 is Vol III; anything post-1899 is Vol IV.
  4. The dating “С. Ивановское, 24 июля 1909 г.” corroborates the Swedish Andra delen’s Slutord dating (“Byn Ivanskoje, den 27 augusti 1908”). Both are written from the Birukoff family estate at Ivanovskoye in Kostroma oblast. The chronology: Andra delen Slutord closes 27 August 1908; Birukoff begins Vol III in Ivanovskoye 24 July 1909, less than a year later, still planning a three-volume work.
  5. The OCR’er’s note that part of Vol III ch6 had ended up in ch5 in the 2000 «Алгоритм» reprint means the project’s current Vol III English (translated from a tolstoy-lit.ru capture that descends through a different OCR chain) may have inherited or differ from this typesetters’ error. To be checked against the project’s existing vol3/ru/chapter-05.md and chapter-06.md.

Cross-reference