---
layer: reference
lastUpdated: 2026-05-27
tags: [research, biryukov, doukhobors]
lang: en
source: tolstoy-lit.ru
volume: 3
chapter: 1
---

# Volume III, Chapter 1. The Events of 1884. Popular Literature

**Source:** https://tolstoy-lit.ru/tolstoy/bio/biryukov/biografiya-biryukov-3-1.htm

**Text:** P. I. Biryukov (1860–1931), *Biography of L. N. Tolstoy*, Volume III. Public domain.
**Translation:** English translation for the tolstoy.life research platform (2026-05-27), from the continuous Russian capture in [`../ru/chapter-01.md`](../ru/chapter-01.md).

---

Volume Three

**Author's Preface**

Setting about the composition of the third volume of the biography of L. N. Tolstoy, I find myself halting before new difficulties. If in the first volume I had to expend all my energies on the search for material and on the reconstruction of pictures of a distant past, whose witnesses had already gone down into the grave; if, in composing the second volume, I halted before the difficulty of penetrating into the mysterious process of the regeneration of a great soul — then still, in creating those historical pictures, I was describing what was little known, almost new, and the interest of this newness amply redeemed the defects of the description.

In the third volume I experience a difficulty of an entirely different kind. All that I shall describe, beginning with 1885, is still so vivid in the memory of the whole thinking society of the generation contemporary with me, that I shall have to speak of things well known, things that took place in the sight and within the memory of living people. An absolutely objective point of view is inaccessible to a man of keen feeling. And so, describing the facts from my own point of view, I run the risk of failing to satisfy with my description many readers who feel just as strongly, but differently, and by whom these events were regarded from a quite other angle of vision.

My help in this matter will be the great quantity of new human documents, in setting forth or citing which I shall try to stand aside, leaving them to speak for themselves, and only shading and underlining those passages which, in my opinion, deserve greater attention.

But even this attainable objectivity will, I know beforehand, satisfy few. Besides, the exposition of events in the greater part of which I took a personal share will inevitably lead to the exposition of my personal impressions of these events and of my recollections of them, and these impressions and recollections will be woven into the accounts of the accomplished facts.

I hope that the value of these documents — especially of L. N.'s letters and of the notes from his diary — will be so great that the interest in them will redeem the defects of my work and will supplement that of which my feeble powers were incapable.

But to finish my work, or at least to bring it down to that contemporary moment when L. N.'s popularity had reached its highest level, when his life had become a well-nigh daily object of every sort of description, spreading by way of the periodical press over the whole world — to bring it down to that moment I count my sacred duty. By such a path I hope to hand over my work to more experienced and skilful masters of this craft.

What is new in this volume — that is, what was not yet in the two preceding volumes — is L. N.'s relation to the whole European, American, and Asiatic world, which became noticeable precisely from the second half of the eighties of the last century.

This worldwide influence of L. N.'s, to which he attained in despite of his own modesty, expressed itself especially vividly, though not noisily, in those heartfelt greetings from various countries of the globe with which his recently lived-through eightieth-birthday jubilee was marked. On this one event I think to halt, if not to finish, my work, thus carrying out the plan I had conceived. God grant that this work of mine may serve, if only in some small measure, to the elucidation of that great truth to the service of which our dear, great elder devoted his life — the truth that the life of man is nothing other than the growing within oneself of the sprout of love toward God and men and toward all that lives.

S. Ivanovskoye, 24 July 1909.

These pages of introduction, as the date shows, were written by me six years ago, at the beginning of the work upon Volume III. In these six years much water has flowed away, much has been lived through of great, grievous, and dread events. I shall here touch only on those of them which could in one way or another have influenced the course of my work. I leave what was written earlier just as it was, because it gives a true picture of my mood and of my intentions at the beginning of the work.

On 7 November 1910 there passed into eternity a great soul, who had laid down her life upon the search for truth, upon the realization in her own life of that portion of it which was accessible to her, and upon the spreading around herself and over the whole human world of that light of which she was the modest bearer.

However much I braced myself, however much I tried by metaphysical reasonings to put away from me the feeling of loss, I could not do it, and wept bitterly beside his coffin, and weep now, as I write these lines. I confess my weakness, my nothingness. I fear to fall into a self-castigation needful to no one, and therefore add to myself no other epithets. I feel grief at this loss, because only in rare, best moments of life can I feel the nearness of his spirit; for this one must be pure, and I am far from this, and my impurity hinders my union with him. But even at that far distance to which my imperfection sets me back, I am nourished by that spiritual food which he left us in such abundance. And I believe in our full spiritual union, when that which now hinders us shall be removed in one way or another.

Let the reader forgive me this lyrical digression. The fact is that the last days of L. N.'s life, the circumstances of his decease, extraordinarily widened the biographical material, and at the same time, with the ending of this remarkable life, laid upon me the obligation to bring to a conclusion the work I had begun of describing this life. All this led to my having to divide the material at my disposal no longer into three, but into four volumes. As the boundary between the third and fourth volumes I chose the epoch when L. N. wrote and published his novel *Resurrection*. The events that followed thereupon — his excommunication, his illness, the war, the revolutionary movement, his jubilee, and his death — all this sufficiently sets off the epoch to give the right to devote to it a separate fourth volume.

If in the first volume I gave a sketch of the origin of Lev Nikolaevich and of his youth; in the second, a description of his peaceful family life and of his artistic creative work, which detained and stored up his spiritual energy — that energy which at last broke through all the barriers and signalized his spiritual crisis — then the third volume gives us a picture of his long, fifteen-year active life upon new foundations: a picture of his struggle with the world, the history of the development of his influence upon Russian and foreign society, samples of his new creative work, and of the extensive public activity of this period for the common good.

I fully recognize that the material I have collected, coordinated, and annotated is presented to the reader almost in a raw state. For a more careful working-up of it I had not strength enough. Let others do this. I suppose that even in this state my work is worth publishing and ought to arouse interest in those to whom the name of L. N. is dear.

I said at the outset that I had a great deal of material. Following my former system, I again divide it into three sections. The 1st section — primary sources: the manuscripts, the diary, the letters of L. N. himself, and his collected works, both those that have appeared in print and those lying in the archives. The 2nd section — works about L. N. by persons worthy of trust, who speak of him at first hand, who communicate one fact or another of both his outward and his inward life; and finally, the 3rd section — various secondary works about L. N., auxiliary and critical works, of which I had to make use in order to fill out one piece of information or another, and then private and journal articles and cuttings. In this list of materials I include, of course, only those sources of which I made use specially for Volume III and which I have not included in the preceding lists.

Need I speak of what a heavy feeling I experienced, setting forth the life and explaining the world-view of the great peacemaker at a time when the thunder of cannon is heard, the groan of the wounded, the weeping for the slain, the tales and descriptions of the most frightful brutalities that mankind has ever known? What a horrifying contradiction with the pure ideals of Tolstoy is this! Do not all these horrors veil with a cloud of suffocating gas all our youthful dreams? No, not at all. "He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." And the sun of right and good shines even in these terrible days. The old world, which has departed from the truth, which has trampled the laws of God and of nature, writhes in the last convulsions of despair, and the spring of mankind will come on in full force and will pour joy and good over the whole universe. May my labour be at least one drop of that life-giving dew, that one joyful ray, which, in the infinite mass of warmth and quickening moisture, shall awaken the sleeping life and lead mankind onward once more toward infinite good.

With such thoughts and in such a form I bring out Volume III, in the hope that the readers will appreciate the truthfulness of what is said in it and will be indulgent toward the author's other defects.

As always, I shall be sincerely grateful for every serious remark and criticism, from which I hope to draw profit for myself, for the continuation, correction, and completion of my great labour.
Pavel Biryukov

1 November 1915.

Onex pres Geneve. Suisse.

**Bibliographical Index**

Besides the sources mentioned in Volumes I and II, I had to use for Volume III the following materials:

Category I

1) Diaries of L. N. from 1888 to 1899.

2) Correspondence of L. N. with V. G. Chertkov (manuscript, Chertkov archive).

3) Correspondence of L. N. with P. I. Biryukov (manuscript, archive of P. I. B.).

4) Correspondence of L. N. Tolstoy with Tatyana L. Sukhotina (manuscript, archive of T. L. S.).

5) Correspondence of Countess S. A. Tolstaya with T. A. Kuzminskaya (manuscript, archive of T. A. K.).

6) Correspondence of L. N. with Prince Dm. Al. Khilkov (archive of P. I. B.).

7) Manuscript collection of letters over many years (archive of Princess M. L. Obolenskaya).

8) Letters of L. N. Tolstoy to his wife. Moscow. 1913.

9) Tolstoy Museum, vol. 1. Correspondence of L. N. with Alex. Andreyevna Tolstaya. St. Petersburg, 1911.

10) Tolstoy Museum, vol. II. Correspondence of L. N. with N. N. Strakhov. St. Petersburg, 1914.

11) Tolstoy Yearbook. Year the first (published by the Tolstoy Museum in Petersburg).

12) Tolstoy Yearbook. Published by the Tolstoy Society in Moscow and Petersburg. M., 1912, vol. II.

13) Tolstoy Yearbook. St. Petersburg. Published by the Tolstoy Society in Petersburg and Moscow. 1913, vol. III.

14) Notes of Countess Sofya Andreyevna Tolstaya (manuscript, archive of S. A.).

15) Three volumes of L. N.'s letters, published by P. A. Sergeyenko.

16) Collection of letters placed in the last volumes of the complete collected works of L. N. Published by the firm of I. D. Sytin. M., 1913.

17) L. N. Tolstoy and the Russian Tsars. Published under the editorship of V. G. Chertkov. M., 1918.

18) Diary of L. N. Tolstoy, 1895–1899. Published by V. G. Chertkov.

19) Personal recollections and diaries (manuscript, archive of P. I. B.).

20) Velichkina, V. M., With L. N. Tolstoy in the Famine Year 1892. Recollections. *Sovremenny Mir*, books V and VI. 1912.

21) Davydov, N. V., From the Past. M., 1913.

22) Koni, A. F., *On Life's Path*, vol. 11. M., 1913.

23) Lazursky, V., Recollections of L. N. Tolstoy. M., 1911.

24) Lev Tolstoy and the Famine. Published by G. I. Sergeyev and V. E. Cheshikhin. Nizhny Novgorod, 1912.

25) International Tolstoy Almanac. Compiled by P. A. Sergeyenko. M., 1908.

26) Nazhivin, I. F., Recollections of L. N. Tolstoy. Collected Works. M., 1912, vol. V.

27) Letters of the Doukhobor leader P. V. Verigin. Published by *Svobodnoye Slovo*, No. 47. Christchurch.

28) *Russkiye Vedomosti* (1863–1913). Collection of articles. M., 1913.

29) Semyonov, S. T., Recollections of L. N. Tolstoy. St. Petersburg, 1913.

30) Staddling Jonas. In the land of Tolstoi. London. "James Clark et C№". 1897.

31) Stead W. T. Truth about Russia. "Cassel & C№". London, 1888.

32) Teneromo, I., Living Speeches of L. N. Tolstoy. (1885–1908). Odessa, 1908.

33) Tolstoy, I. L., My Recollections. M., 1914.

34) Goldenweiser. Recollections of Tolstoy. M., "Propylaea".

35) L. N. Tolstoy. Biography, Characterizations, Recollections. Collection of the firm "Obrazovaniye". M., 1910.

36) L. N. Tolstoy and Medicine.

37) Romain Rolland. La vie de Tolstoi. Paris.

38) A la memoire de Leon Tolstoi. Seance solennelle. Geneve, 1911.

39) Kuhne, Walter. Tolstois Entwickelung, Wandlung nach Denkweis.

40) Luxembourg, Rosa. Tolstois Nachlasz. "Die Neue Zeit" No 29. 1913. Stuttgart.

41) Tolstoi. "Les grands hommes". Edition Pierre Lafitte & G-ie. Paris, 1913.

42) Tournaire Georges. Tolstoi. Conference faite a Paris. Edition de la revue Esser. Paris, 1915.

43) A series of journal biographical and critical articles and newspaper cuttings.

44) Vera Starkoff. La verite sur Tolstoi. Paris, 1912.

45) Leon Semyonov. L. N. Tolstoy and M. Y. Lermontov.

46) Sergeyenko, A. P., Chronological List of the Works of L. N. Tolstoy (manuscript, Chertkov archive).

47) Tolstoy Museum in St. Petersburg. Description of the Museum. Compilers V. I. Sreznevsky and V. N. Tukalevsky. St. Petersburg, 1912.

48) Index of Journal Articles, issue II. Compiled by Ulyanov. St. Petersburg, 1911.

49) Archive of the Tolstoy Museum in Moscow.

50) Archive of the Tolstoy Museum in Petersburg.

51) Archive of V. G. Chertkov in Tuckton House Tuckton. Bournemouth. England.

## Part I. 1884–1886. A New Life. New Thorns. New Creative Work


We closed the second volume with a description of L. N.'s journey from Moscow to Yasnaya Polyana in December 1884, borrowing that description from his poetic letter to Sofya Andreyevna.

Before passing on to the year 1885, let us mention certain events of 1884 which we had passed over earlier for one reason or another.

In May of that year L. N., in a letter to Chertkov, gives a most interesting estimate of his new work, devoted to a criticism of the Church's teaching. Here is what he says of it:

> "Notwithstanding that this work — a survey of theology and an examination of the Gospels — is the best production of my thought, is that one book which (as they say) a man writes throughout his whole life (I have on this the testimony of two learned and subtle critics, both disagreeing with me in conviction; both, who had always told me the truth straight out, acknowledged the works to be irrefutable); notwithstanding this, this book will not convince him who has not been convinced by the mere setting side by side of our life and the Church with the spirit of the Gospel. This book is a clearing of the path along which a man is already walking. But when a man walks along another path, all this work seems to him useless. You will not believe how I rejoice that in these last three years there has vanished in me all desire for proselytism, which had been in me, and very strongly. I am so firmly assured that what is truth for me is the truth of all men, that the question of when and what people will come to this truth is of no interest to me. Yesterday I was grinding coffee and now and then watched how and when a coffee-bean I had marked would get under the teeth. Evidently this is an idle occupation, and even a harmful one, for, having busied myself with the one coffee-bean, I stopped grinding and kept poking it in. All will be ground, if we go on grinding; and not grind we cannot, because it is not we, but God through us and through the whole spiritual world, that does this." (*)

(* Archive of V. G. Chertkov. *)

In one of the following letters L. N. gives a brief picture of his life and of the surroundings about him:

> "I am living this present year in the country somehow involuntarily in a new way: I rise and lie down early, do not write, but work much — now boots, now haymaking. This past week I worked the whole time at the haymaking. And with joy I see (or so it seems to me) that something is taking place in the family; they do not condemn me, it is as though they were ashamed. Poor us, to what a pass we have strayed. We have many people now — my own children and the Kuzminskys' — and often I cannot without horror look upon this immoral idleness and gorging. There are so many of them, they are all so big, so strong. And I see and know all the rural labour that goes on around us. And they eat, soil their clothes, their linen, and the rooms. Others do everything for them, but they do nothing for anyone, even for themselves. And to all this seems the most natural thing, and so it seemed to me too; and I took part in the establishing of this order of things. I see this clearly and cannot for a single minute forget it. I feel that I am a *trouble-fête* even for them; but they, so it seems to me, are beginning to feel that something is not right. There are conversations — good ones. Lately it happened: my youngest daughter fell ill, I came to her, and we began to talk with the girls, who had done what the whole day through. All felt ashamed to tell, but they told, and told that they had done something bad. Then we repeated this another day in the evening, and once more. And I should dreadfully like to draw them into this — to gather every evening and to relate one's day and one's sins. It seems to me that this would be excellent — provided, of course, it were done quite freely."

Apropos of the bootmaking work, which Lev Nikolaevich mentions at the beginning of the letter and which he was evidently undertaking in company with someone, there has been preserved a note-commission of his to a friend in Moscow:

> "Forgive me, my dear fellow, for troubling you. On Sofiyka (in the street parallel to Kuznetsky Most) is the best shop. Buy hammers, pincers, awls — *forshiks*, knives, an instrument for scraping off nails, and the like. But cunning gadgets for elegant footwear do not buy. Lasts buy either there, or in the lane off the Arbat with the crooked passage that comes out onto Podnovinsky; in the cellar, on the right, lives a last-maker. If money is left over, buy thread, bristles, nails, and pitch. These good things are needed."

On 18 July 1884 my daughter Sasha was born. When I was at L. N.'s for the first time, she was a babe at the breast. Now I see her as a grown girl, devotedly and self-sacrificingly serving her father, managing his correspondence, copying out his manuscripts, and consciously acknowledging the foundations of the life of her great father. (*)

(* Since this was written, it has fallen to the lot of Alexandra Lvovna to carry out the will of her deceased father. She has in part carried it out, having handed over the Yasnaya Polyana land to the peasants, and the published works of her father — to the whole world. (P. B.) *)

L. N.'s relations with his family were at this time difficult. He wished to change his life in a radical way, but the people about him, those near to him, were not ready for this, and this called forth sufferings on both sides. When these difficulties, these sufferings, took on the character of hopelessness, there came to L. N. the thought of leaving home. Such a thought came to him on the very eve of Sasha's birth. In the diary of 1884, 17–29 June, we find, among other things, this entry:

> "I said nothing, but it became dreadfully hard for me. I went out and wished to go away altogether, but her pregnancy made me turn back halfway along the road to Tula."

Such was the first attempt at a "departure."

Toward autumn there sets in within L. N.'s soul a certain equilibrium. He expresses this thus in a letter to Chertkov in November of that year:

> "I am at peace, and it is well with me and around me. My life is not the one that I alone consider reasonable and not sinful, but I know that I have not the strength to change it; I have already tried and have broken my arms, and I know that I never, or very rarely, let slip an occasion to counteract this life there where this counteraction grieves no one."

And further on in the same letter he reports a new acquaintance:

> "Soon after you, Syutaev — the son — was with me, the one who had been in the soldiers. He spent two and a half years in the fortress, of which 5 months he was in the madhouse under observation, and a year and a half he served, but did not take the oath. You have seen him. His name is Ivan, small of stature. He and I are agreed in everything, except extramarital relations, which he considers no sin. He agrees, however, that it is an evil. He stayed with me 3 days, and we came to love each other. I said here that I would pound him up with you in a mortar and make of you two delightful people. Of course this is nonsense, and God knows better, and you are better such as you are."

At the end of the letter he adds:

> "I have also received *What I Believe*, printed in German and excellently translated. I as yet know nothing of whether it found a response there in anyone. This was a joy for me, rather a bad, vain one."

To L. N.'s intellectual activity of that time should be referred his occupation with Chinese philosophy. In his letters to Chertkov he many times expresses his rapture before the depth of wisdom of the ancient Chinese philosophers. He reads Confucius, Mencius, Lao-tzu, and finds in them much in common with Christianity, only on a lower stage; but precisely for this reason he considers the reading of Chinese wisdom a useful preparation for the understanding of Christianity.

In the autumn of that same year I received from my friend Vladimir Grigoryevich Chertkov a proposal to take part, in the capacity of editor, in a journal for the people, which he then wished to publish. I answered with a consent in principle, but the matter presented itself as too complicated, and there started up on this account a large correspondence with Lev Nikolaevich and with many outstanding people of that time who seemed to us, in one way or another, competent in this matter.

On 3 October Lev Nikolaevich wrote, among other things, to Chertkov:

> "…The idea of your journal is very, very congenial to me. Precisely because it is too dear to me, I am afraid to lay hopes upon it. That I shall wish only to write for it — that is certain.
>
> Here is the thing: do not think about the programme. Make only such a one as would be approved. The programme of a journal will be seen through three years of its publication. But what you want in the journal, that we know very firmly. To put it briefly: reading in no way contrary to the Christian teaching, and, if God grant, expressing this teaching; reading accessible to the mass. The new, if there be any, is excellent, but before the new one must give all the old that satisfies these requirements. And this treasury is neither exhausted nor even broached. Do you agree?" (*)

(* Chertkov archive. *)

Besides this, in his letters to me he more than once expresses himself about the popular journal. I cite these thoughts here:

> "…As regards the editorship of the future newspaper, I think that you will be an excellent editor, but Chertkov a still better one. In many respects you will be better than he, but in one — in the purism of the Christian teaching — I know no one better than he. And this is the most precious thing."

And further:

> "…What a pity that you could not come, dear Pavel Ivanovich. The journal greatly calls me to activity. I do not know what God will grant. Send, please, the programme, if you have one. The scientific section troubles me. This is the most difficult thing. It will turn out vulgarity exactly. And this one must fear more than anything.
>
> The language ought to be kept pure in all the sections — not that it should be uniform, but, on the contrary, that there should not be that uniform literary language which always covers up emptiness. Let the language be that of Karamzin, of Filaret, of the priest Avvakum — only not our newspaper language. If the newspaper language gets into our journal, then all is lost."

Since the question of a periodical organ for the people presented incalculable difficulties in comparison with separate editions, it was natural that one had first to occupy oneself with the easier matter and to set about separate editions. L. N. took the most ardent part in this matter. The initiative of this matter belonged likewise to L. N. Already at the end of 1883 L. N. wrote, among other things, to Chertkov:

> "I am being carried away more and more by the thought of publishing books for the education of Russian people. I avoid the word 'for the people,' because the essence of the thought is that there should be no division into people and not-people. Pisarev (*) is taking part. I cannot believe that it will come off; I am afraid to believe it, because it would be too good. When and if the matter takes shape, I will write to you."

(* Rafail Alexeyevich Pisarev, a landowner of Tula Province. *)

In the following letter, probably written in January 1884, L. N. speaks of this:

> "My occupation with books carries me away more and more. I should like to repay, by what I can, for my fifty years of board. I do not write to you in detail, because I do not want to tell it any old way, and the thought is dear to me, and besides it will undergo many changes when the matter itself begins."

And so, to this proposal V. G. Chertkov replied with a project for a popular journal. As you have seen, this project had to be left aside, and one had to occupy oneself with the publication of separate little books.

L. N.'s participation and guidance made the matter we had undertaken so significant that the modest publishing enterprise we had begun created an epoch in the history of popular literature and brought about an important reform in it.

The essence of the reform lay in the following. Popular literature — that is, the literature which the mass of the working, peasant people read voluntarily, without any administrative, philanthropic, or pedagogical coercion over it, and outside the cultural influence of the intelligentsia, acquiring it with its own money — was still being circulated at that time (the beginning of the eighties of the last century) by means of pedlars, who carried their wares in *lubok* boxes, and was therefore called *lubok* literature. It satisfied a certain need for reading, comprising lives of the saints, heroic poems, fairy tales, tales of chivalry, dream-books, letter-writers, the anecdotes of Balakirev, various song-books, and calendars.

The publishers of *lubok* literature pursued exclusively commercial aims. For the cheapening of the goods and the increase of profit they neglected the working-up of the content, and therefore their editions were not only illiterate, but sometimes contained tales without an end or without a beginning; sometimes the title on the cover did not correspond to the content of the little book, and the content itself was a mixture of superstition, coarse scenes, and absurdities.

But the need for reading was so strong, and the intelligentsia satisfied it so little, that the people fed on this scanty mental food in a vain expectation, lasting many years, of something better.

And so a circle of people, inspired by L. N., set about the transformation of this literature.

We have already seen, from L. N.'s letter to Madame Peyker apropos of the publication of a popular journal, with what strictness, seriousness, and love L. N. regarded popular literature. That letter was written in 1873. In 1885 L. N. was visited by G. P. Danilevsky. In the description of his journey to Yasnaya Polyana, G. P. conveys thus L. N.'s words about popular literature:

> "Having touched upon Gogol, whom L. N. in his life had never seen, and the now-living writers Goncharov, Grigorovich, and the younger ones, the Count began to speak of literature for the people. 'More than thirty years ago,' said L. N., 'when certain present-day writers, myself among them, were only beginning to work, in a Russian state of a hundred millions the literate were reckoned by tens of thousands; now, after the multiplication of village and town schools, they are, in all probability, reckoned by millions. And these millions of literate Russians stand before us, like hungry little jackdaws with open beaks, and say to us: gentlemen, our own writers, throw into these mouths mental food worthy of you and of us; write for us, who thirst for the living, literary word; deliver us from those same *lubok* Eruslan Lazareviches, Milords, Georges, and the rest of the market food. The simple and honest Russian people is worth our answering the appeal of its good and truthful soul. I have thought much about this and have resolved, so far as my strength allows, to make an attempt in this field.'" (*)

(* G. P. Danilevsky. A Journey to Yasnaya Polyana. *Istorichesky Vestnik*, 1886, vol. III, pp. 529–544. *)

And L. N.'s attempts were crowned with great success.

The success of the cause of *Posrednik* ("The Intermediary") — such was the name this literary publishing circle adopted — was furthered by the circumstance that in its work three very considerable forces were combined. In the first place — the most important — there was the high moral level of the content of the works published. They all had, from one side or another, to throw light upon the teaching of Christ, taken in its most simple, immediate meaning for life.

In the second place, the best literary forces were then drawn into this matter.

In the third place, no artificial organization was created; the practical side of the matter was taken upon himself by one of the largest publishers of *lubok* literature of that time — Ivan Dmitriyevich Sytin, who with his penetrating mind understood the whole importance of this matter. And the spark of light living in his soul gave him the possibility of relating himself to it not mechanically and not mercenarily, but with heartfelt sympathy. The chief practical success of this matter was a consequence of the fact that lofty content, executed by the best forces, was set going along those same paths by which the former *lubok* literature had earlier travelled, and therefore it reached its place and did its work.

L. N. placed at the disposal of the *Posrednik* editorial office his popular tales already written earlier by him: *What Men Live By*, *A Prisoner of the Caucasus*, and *God Sees the Truth, but Waits*. These works, thanks to *Posrednik*, are now known to the whole Russian people and even to the non-Russian peoples, since they have been translated into various dialects, even into the Sart language.

At the same time permission was obtained from N. S. Leskov to print his tale *Christ Visits a Peasant*. This was the first series, of 4 little books, of these best works of Russian literature, issued in the form of *lubok* editions and at the same price — that is, 1½ kopecks the retail price and 1 kopeck wholesale. All these tales went, in a short time, through several editions apiece, and the number of copies issued must be reckoned in the hundreds of thousands, if not in the millions, since afterwards they were published by many other publishers as well.

Soon there arose the need to have one's own book depot, and it was opened in Petersburg, on the Petersburg Side, on Bolshaya Dvoryanskaya Street, in house No. 25, on 25 April 1885. The management of this depot was entrusted to me. I retired from the service and moved to live at the depot, from which I was not parted for the space of 5 years.

L. N., for his part, occupied himself with the working-up of popular legends he had heard or written down, with selections from the *Chetyi-Minei* and the *Prologues*, and soon gave *Posrednik* a whole series of popular tales.

To show what interest L. N. displayed in the publishing activity of *Posrednik*, let us cite a few extracts from his correspondence with V. G. Chertkov and with me in the first period of our publishing activity. He himself wrote tales, gave new themes, and corrected the works of beginning writers if he found them worthy. Correction was for him a most difficult matter. He sometimes became carried away with the subject and made it over so that almost nothing was left of the original. Then he was horrified, returned to the original, and in despair modestly confessed his incapacity. One of his favourite little books was *The Life of Socrates*. He worked over it a great deal. Thus, he wrote to Chertkov in the summer of 1885:

> "A misfortune has happened with Socrates. I began to make it over, began to read Plato, and saw that all this could be done better. I have not done it all, but have blotted everything — both Kalmykova's and my own — and have entangled it and stopped for the time being. I have written about this to Kalmykova and await her answer. One may print it as it was, her exposition, and then make it over anew; but one may also, and to my mind better, not be in a hurry, and together with her think it over and correct it. A wonderful teaching — all the same as Christ's, only on a lower stage. And therefore especially precious. If one clearly expresses that to which the teaching of truth attained on the lower stage, then it will be evident that it could go further in the same direction (as indeed it did), and not go backward, as comes out by the Church's interpretations. God will instruct us how it is better, but now it is not ready."

In the realm of *lubok* pictures, too, a reform was undertaken, and to this matter the best forces were drawn.

Among other things, I. E. Repin rendered this matter an irreplaceable service, having painted in watercolour the figure of the suffering Christ for one *lubok* picture, and several other pictures and drawings for books.

Here are the terms in which L. N. thanked Repin in that same letter to Chertkov, pointing out, besides, the obscure heroes about whom information ought to be spread among the people. In May 1885 he wrote:

> "Repin has given me great joy. I could not tear myself away from his little picture and was moved to tenderness. I shall try to have it rendered as well as possible. I am sending you the rough draft of my tale. Excuse the blotting. I shall give it to be set up tomorrow. Likewise *The Shoemaker*. Only there are no pictures for the incendiary. Should I not order one from someone in Moscow? Today there came to me the thought of pictures of heroes with inscriptions. I have two. One — a doctor who sucked out the diphtheritic poison. The other — a teacher in Tula who dragged children out of his establishment and perished in the fire. I shall gather information about these and, if God grant, shall write the texts and order the pictures and portraits. Think about such pictures of heroes and heroines. There are many of them, thank God. And one must collect and glorify them as an example to us. This thought God gave me today, and it rejoices me dreadfully. It seems to me it may yield much. To Repin, if you see him, say that I always loved him, but that this face of Christ has bound me with him more closely than before. I have only to recall that face and hand, and tears well up. Kalmykova was here and read what she had corrected and added. This book will be the best of all — that is, the most significant of all."

In one letter he expresses himself to Vl. Gr. Chertkov about the importance of books, about the sages, and writes thus:

> "There are other kinds of knowledge — the knowledge of what people did before us and now do in order to understand life and the meaning of it, that is, their relation to the infinite and to men. This is very necessary. And the knowledge I have acquired in this field, and am now acquiring, has given and gives me much peace, firmness, and happiness. And this knowledge I wish for you too. Not because I am thinking thereby of any defect in you. I love you too much for that, but because I know by myself what strength, peace, and happiness it gives to enter into communion with such souls as Socrates, Epictetus, Arnold, Parker. Strange is this juxtaposition, but for me it is so. I, thanks to Kalmykova's *Socrates*, am re-reading the Stoics and have acquired much. This is the alphabet of Christian truth, and, reading them, I am only the more confirmed in Christianity. Their whole teaching is to lay all good in that which depends upon me, in which I am free — in justice, in good disposition toward men, in moral purity; and all outward things — public opinion, wealth, health, the life of the body — to consider not mine. These God, my Father, disposes of, and not I. And my business, in relation to this, is only to want, to wish, what He wishes. Then, it says, you will be happy, feeling how with every hour you will be drawing nearer to Him, where all good is. Now, is this not excellent? Only this is left unsaid (and even of it there are hints): that for this one must love not oneself, but others — that which Christ said. I should very much like to compile a *Circle of Reading* — that is, a series of books and selections from them, all of which speak of the one thing that man needs to know, first of all — wherein lies his life, his good…"

See now when there was born in L. N. the thought of the *Circle of Reading*, which he realized many years later, four years before his death.

At approximately the same time he wrote to me:

> "Yesterday I received from Chert. a long letter from Berlin and a packet with Sveshnikova's manuscript from Petersburg. The content of the article is excellent. Is it not dangerous? Not only in view of prohibition, but also in view of the possibility of a reproach as to tendency. To you it is plainer. I did not set about correcting it or adding a conclusion. The language is of one character, and in the conversations even very simple, and one feels Hugo — that is, the great master. Any conclusion will be either false or uncensored. The conclusion is one: Cimourdain thought that he knew what is good and what is bad, that he would learn it by following the laws of the government; but the murder of his friend showed him that, by the laws, what is called good is bad and what is bad good, and he lost the faith he had had. A new faith he did not begin, could not seek, because he felt that it was wholly opposite to his former faith and would convict him of an irreparable act. Thus Judas hanged himself. And thus all destroy themselves who do destroy themselves. So long as the inertia of falsehood and the consciousness of truth act at an angle less than two right angles, life goes along the resultant; but when these two forces come to lie along one line, life ceases and is torn asunder, whether by one's own or by another's will.
>
> Socrates I am soiling and spoiling, and have even got entangled in it, and therefore do not send it. I prize it greatly and hope that A. M. Kalmykova and I will bring it to something much better still. I have written to her and await an answer. This is exactly why it is frightening to publish such provocative articles, not quite comprehensible in their language, as the reworking of V. Hugo. Let them not hinder the possibility of publishing Socrates. Whereas it would be so useful. One of these days I shall write out pages from the marked lives of the saints of Dmitry of Rostov, as V. G. writes me, and shall send them to you.
>
> …The Life of Peter the Publican ought to be set forth and published. Would not Belikov do this? I had begun to make a popular drama out of it, but lost the beginning, and even if I found it, I should try to finish it in dramatic form. The Life of Paulinus is excellent. What are the other two? One might add Peter the P. too. Why publish them without a frame, as Chertkov writes? I have written one tale, have not yet corrected it. It has nothing uncensored in it, and therefore, when I finish, I shall give it straight to Sytin.
>
> …What of the pictures? Can it be they will not pass them? And in general, why do the others not come out? I have written about this to Sytin. I also wrote him to send you my two tales, copied out, the new ones, in order to order pictures for them. Chertkov wrote me that Kramskoy had promised. That would be very good. Thank you for your letters, especially for the last but one; it was a joy to me. Convey my greetings to Alexandra Mikhailovna. She is an excellent collaborator. What of Socrates?
>
> I am sending V. G.'s letter. The letter is a good one, but about the subject of this letter something can and ought to be said, if one is to speak of an artistic production — of a little book. For example, I am now correcting the tale of the peasant woman who went off to Siberia after her husband. It is a wholly dissolute and false life, and in it are lofty traits. One cannot and ought not to conceal falsehood, infidelity, and the bad. One must only light it all up so that the one is suffering, and the other joy and happiness.
>
> Is it not so, V. G. and P. I.?" (*)

(* Archive of P. I. Biryukov. *)