Предисловие к английскому изданию трактата «Что такое искусство?» — Tolstoy, 1898, PSS Tom 30, pp. 204–206.
Close-read deliverable for the “Art & aesthetics satellites” corpus-dive. Source extract: v30_204_206_Predislovie_k_anglijskomu_izdaniju_traktata_Chto_takoe_iskusstvo.txt (~880 words). Composition/printing history from the editorial article by N. K. Gudzy, _comm_v30_509_555_Istorija_pisanija_i_pechatanija_statej_o.txt (cited by line below). All RU quotes are byte-exact substrings of the named source file. All translations are working English.
This is a short authorial note, not a chapter of the treatise. It is Tolstoy’s statement to the English reader that the English (Maude) text is the only complete, uncensored What Is Art?, and that every Russian edition printed in his lifetime is mutilated.
1. Composition window
- Date written: 17 March 1898 (Old Style) — the date Tolstoy signs at the foot of the preface: «17 марта.» (source text, final line). The 12-day offset in 1898 puts this at 29 March 1898 (New Style).
- Occasion / trigger: the second part of the censored Russian text had just appeared. The commentary records: «Книга первая за январь — февраль 1898 года со второй частью статьи Толстого «Что такое искусство?» вышла 17 марта» and «Толстой, под впечатлением цензурного произвола, написал предисловие к английскому изданию статьи об искусстве» (commentary, lines 589–591). Tolstoy reported it to Chertkov the same day (17 March OS), saying he had written of «каким искажениям подверглась эта книга в России и почему», and sent the preface to England on 19 March OS for Chertkov to use as he saw fit (commentary, line 591).
- So the preface is essentially same-day: it was occasioned by, and dated to, the 17 March OS appearance of the second installment of the cut Russian text.
2. Genesis & the people
Aylmer Maude (Эйльмер Моод) — the authorised English translator, and the central new person for this piece. The commentary: «Услуги по переводу предложил Толстому его знакомый переводчик Эйльмер Моод» (commentary, line 359). From August–September 1897 Tolstoy, by agreement with Chertkov, intended to publish the treatise first in England in English translation, and not in Russia at all: «Толстой первоначально, судя по предисловию к английскому изданию его статьи… не думал печатать своей статьи об искусстве в России. По соглашению с В. Г. Чертковым Толстой хотел напечатать ее сначала в Англии, в переводе на английский язык» (commentary, line 359). When Chertkov briefly tried to hand the translation to others, Tolstoy intervened to keep Maude (commentary, lines 359–367): «лучше оставить переводить его». Maude and Tolstoy then exchanged some 23 letters over the translation, Maude sending batches of up to thirty queries per letter, Tolstoy answering almost point by point (commentary, lines 437, 433) — an unusually close author–translator collaboration, which is what makes the English text the controlled one.
The censorship backstory (the substance of the preface, corroborated by the commentary). Tolstoy did, against his original plan, let N. Ya. Grot place the treatise in the Moscow journal Voprosy filosofii i psikhologii (Questions of Philosophy and Psychology), on Grot’s promise to carry it past the censor whole in exchange for minor softenings. The result was double mutilation: first the secular censor’s softenings, then — after the printed book was seized and sent to the spiritual (church) censor — whole sentences cut and church dogma inserted. The commentary confirms the church-censorship of the journal text: «Книга первая за 1898 год «Вопросов философии и психологии» со статьей Толстого об искусстве была передана в духовную цензуру» and «Однако духовная цензура, сделав большие купюры, статью об искусстве разрешила к выпуску» (commentary, lines 585–587). S. A. Tolstaya’s parallel 15th-volume edition was also passed only with cuts.
The first complete, uncensored text of What Is Art? is therefore Maude’s English translation. The commentary records that the English edition restored what Russia cut, and that Tolstoy’s own letter of 19 March asked that a note be added to the English edition saying so: «Кроме восстановленных исключенных цензурою мест в изданиях, вышедших в России, в этом издании сделаны значительные исправления и добавления» (commentary, lines 591–593).
Publisher note (a correction to the dive brief). The brief named “Grant Richards” as the publisher. The PSS commentary does not name Grant Richards. It names Brotherhood Publishing Co., and the venue is a serialised supplement to the journal The New Order (commentary, line 601 — see §5). Recorded here as the commentary gives it; “Grant Richards” is not corroborated by this source and should be treated as needing separate verification before any record asserts it.
3. Keystone passages
Five keystone passages, verbatim RU from the extract, each with a working-English rendering and a one-line significance.
(1) Only the English text is the real book.
«Книга эта моя «Что такое искусство?» выходит теперь в первый раз в ее настоящем виде.»
(working English) “This book of mine, What Is Art?, now appears for the first time in its true form.” Significance: the thesis of the whole preface — the authentic text is the one being prefaced (the English), not any Russian edition. The “first time” dates the integral text to Maude’s 1898 translation.
(2) Every Russian edition is mutilated — judge me only by the true text.
«Она вышла в России в нескольких изданиях, но во всех в таком изуродованном цензурою виде, что я прошу всех тех, кого интересуют мои взгляды на искусство, судить о них только по книге в ее настоящем виде.»
(working English) “It came out in Russia in several editions, but in all of them in a form so mutilated by the censorship that I ask everyone interested in my views on art to judge them only by the book in its true form.” Significance: makes the translation the safeguard and the standard of record; the Russian printings are explicitly disavowed as evidence of his views.
(3) The principle: no submission to the censorship.
«не подчинять свои писания цензуре, которую я считаю безнравственным и неразумным учреждением»
(working English) “not to submit my writings to the censorship, which I consider an immoral and unreasonable institution.” Significance: the standing rule he broke by letting Grot place the text in Russia — the compromise the preface exists to recant.
(4) The integrity of feeling was drained out of the text.
«уже некоторая доля ее цельности и искренности была вынута из нее»
(working English) “already a certain part of its wholeness and sincerity had been taken out of it.” Significance: the load-bearing line for triangulation — Tolstoy describes the censored book in the treatise’s own currency, цельность (wholeness/integrity) and искренность (sincerity, the decisive condition of true art in WIA). A text drained of these cannot do art’s work.
(5) The church censor inserts the dogma Tolstoy rejects.
«там, где я говорю о Христе, шедшем на крест за исповедуемую им истину, цензор вычеркнул это и поставил «за род человеческий»»
(working English) “where I speak of Christ, who went to the cross for the truth he professed, the censor struck this out and put ‘for the human race’” — i.e. attributing to Tolstoy the doctrine of the Redemption, which he calls one of the most false and harmful church dogmas. Significance: concrete proof that the censored text does not merely subtract Tolstoy’s meaning but inserts its opposite under his signature — the strongest case for needing an uncensored vessel.
(6) A book signed by me, holding thoughts passed off as mine but not mine.
«Появилась книга, подписанная моим именем, содержащая мысли, выдаваемые за мои, но не принадлежащие мне.»
(working English) “There appeared a book signed with my name, containing thoughts put forward as mine but not belonging to me.” Significance: states the failure of faithful transmission directly — the authorial signature no longer guarantees the feeling transmitted. This is the meta-plane breakdown the English text repairs.
(Closing moral, for context, not counted among the keystones: «всякий компромисс с учреждением, не согласным с вашей совестью» — every compromise with an institution at odds with your conscience inevitably draws you into the harm that institution does.)
4. Note on the supporting drafts (genesis colour — not a record)
The v30_213–v30_270 cluster is the genesis bench for What Is Art? itself, not for this preface, and gets no record. It shows the doctrine forming by trial titles across 1889–1896: an early “good or bad according to what, how, and how sincerely the artist speaks” formulation («Об искусстве», v30_213); the long working title separating important from idle art («О том, что есть и что не есть искусство…», v30_216); and above all the science-and-art framing Tolstoy could not at first divide — «Наука и искусство» (v30_231) and «О науке и искусстве» (v30_240) treat art and science together as the two most honoured, best-rewarded activities of the age and ask what makes either genuinely needful, while the late «О том, что называют искусством» (v30_243, 1896) supplies the immediate run-up to the 1897 treatise. The takeaway for the cluster intro: the infection/sincerity test of WIA was reached only after Tolstoy repeatedly tried, and abandoned, framing art through its relation to science.
5. Publication & translation
- English edition (the vessel this preface fronts): Maude’s translation, titled “What is art?”, published by Brotherhood Publishing Co. as a supplement to the journal The New Order, in three parts — chs. I–IX (January 1898), X–XIV (March 1898), XV–XX (May 1898). Commentary: «В английском переводе Э. Моода статья Толстого об искусстве появилась под заглавием: «What is art?» в издании Brotherhood publishing С⁰ в виде приложения к журналу «The new order» в трех выпусках» (commentary, line 601).
- First publication of the preface itself: in Chertkov’s almanac «Свободного слова», № 1, Purleigh 1898 (издание В. Г. Черткова), without the appended note Tolstoy’s 19 March letter requested. Commentary: «Предисловие это впервые было опубликовано в сборнике «Свободного слова», № 1, издание В. Г. Черткова, Purleigh 1898» (commentary, line 597).
- The censored Russian texts the preface attacks: Voprosy filosofii i psikhologii (1897 no. 5 = chs. I–V; 1898 bk. 1 = the rest, out 17 March 1898 OS after church-censorship cuts), and S. A. Tolstaya’s 15th-volume Collected Works (Kushnerev, out early April 1898), also passed only with cuts. The fullest Russian text would not appear until S. A. Tolstaya’s 1911 17th-volume edition (commentary, lines 585–607).
6. Triangulation note
Hypothesis: this preface EXTENDS the What Is Art? doctrine onto the meta-plane. The treatise holds that art is the transmission (infection, заражение) of feeling, that sincerity / wholeness is the condition of true art, and that good art is judged by the religious consciousness of the age. The preface applies that same logic to the text of the treatise itself: a censored book has had its «цельность и искренности… вынута из нее» (passage 4) — its very wholeness and sincerity drained — and so cannot faithfully transmit; worse, the church censor substitutes the Redemption dogma Tolstoy rejects (passage 5), so the signed book now carries «мысли, выдаваемые за мои, но не принадлежащие мне» (passage 6). The faithful vessel becomes Maude’s uncensored English (passages 1–2). That is a genuine extension: the integrity-of-transmission test, stated in the treatise as a test of artworks, is here turned on the textual transmission of the treatise — the translation, not the original-language printing, becomes the authentic carrier of the feeling.
It confirms as much as it extends: nothing in the doctrine is revised, and the sincerity criterion is reaffirmed rather than reworked. The novelty is the object the test is applied to (the book’s own text and its censorship), not the test. Net: extends (onto the meta-plane) + confirms, with the meta-plane move the marquee point. Carry as a hypothesis for the dive’s marquee/triangulation layer; the «цельность/искренность» echo (passage 4) is the load-bearing textual hook tying preface to treatise.
Prepared for the “Art & aesthetics satellites” corpus-dive. Record target: this preface is a candidate standalone work companion-text to what-is-art. Open item: the brief’s “Grant Richards” publisher is uncorroborated by the PSS commentary, which names Brotherhood Publishing Co. / The New Order — verify before any record asserts a publisher.