Source: tolstoy-lit.ru reproduction of Biryukov’s «Биография Л. Н. Толстого», Vol. III, chapters 18, 19, 21. Public domain (P. I. Biryukov, 1860–1931). Translated for the tolstoy.life research platform, 2026-05-26. Russian source text: biryukov-biography-doukhobors-RU.txt (in this folder)
Superseded. This is an earlier translation of only the Doukhobor passages of chapters 18, 19, and 21. The complete, reviewed English translation of those full chapters now lives in
../biryukov-vol3/en/— chapter 18, chapter 19, chapter 21. This file is retained for provenance.
Chapter 18 — The beginning of the Doukhobor movement
[… The chapter opens with the death of Tolstoy’s son Vanechka, the story “Master and Man,” Tolstoy’s return to Yasnaya Polyana on 6 June, and a long affectionate letter from Tolstoy to Biryukov dated 8 June — omitted as not Doukhobor-related. The Doukhobor narrative begins here …]
In the summer of 1895 a mass religious movement began among the Caucasian Doukhobors (духоборы — “spirit-wrestlers”). The first protest against state coercion, the refusal of military service, had already been declared at Easter by the Doukhobor Lebedev and his comrades, who were already serving in their regiment. They were tried and sentenced to torment in a disciplinary battalion. After this, on the advice of their leader, Peter Vasilyevich Verigin, all the Doukhobors who were of one mind with him resolved to destroy all the weapons in their possession (in the Caucasus the entire population is armed) and to break with the government, refusing to perform any obligations whatsoever imposed upon them by the power of the state. The destruction of the weapons — their solemn burning, accompanied by the singing of spiritual psalms — was carried out on the night of 28–29 June 1895 in three localities of the Caucasus where there were Doukhobor settlements. In the last two of these places the burning passed off without incident, but in the Akhalkalaki district, on the denunciation of a hostile faction, this burning of the weapons — for which the Doukhobors had had to bring all their arms together to a designated place — was taken by the administration to be preparation for an armed uprising. Cossacks were summoned, and a savage reprisal was carried out against the unsubmissive Doukhobors, who bore themselves with exceptional dignity; after which all the unsubmissive, about 4,000 persons in number, were driven from their dwellings and resettled among the Georgian mountain villages, while the so-called ringleaders were thrown into prison.
[… The Russian source drops the opening of the following sentence; it resumes mid-clause. The sense is that one may say …] with confidence that this religious upsurge among the Doukhobors in these years came about not without the influence of L. N.’s writings. Under interrogation by the authorities, one of the leaders of the movement stated outright that over the last several years the publications of “Posrednik” (“The Intermediary”), chiefly of a spiritual and philosophical content, had been circulated among the Doukhobors, and that these had strongly affected the moral sense of the Doukhobors.
Be that as it may, news of this movement quickly reached Yasnaya Polyana.
At that time there was living in exile in the Caucasus Prince Dmitry Alexandrovich Khilkov, who of course also contributed to this movement by his personal influence.
It was from him that L. N. received the first news of the burning of the weapons by the Doukhobors and of the cruel reprisal inflicted upon them by the Caucasian authorities. Unfortunately, Khilkov’s account had been drawn at third hand and suffered from inaccuracies. Here is what L. N. wrote to him in reply:
“I have received your letter with the description of the violence against the Doukhobors, and I do not know what to do. I do not know what to do because I cannot carry out what you wish. To send an article to the Russian newspapers is impossible. Not one of them will print your account in the form in which you have sent it to me. (In the Birzhevye Vedomosti, No. 201, of 24 July, there was printed a fairly detailed item about the beginning of the discord among the Doukhobors, and how Verigin was exiled, and how the rank-and-file soldiers refused to serve, and about how they are now being resettled into the highland places of the Dusheti, Tionety and Signakh districts.) To send your account to the foreign newspapers I likewise consider superfluous, chiefly because this account is written very badly — and badly not because it lacks literary merit; on the contrary — it lacks simplicity, precision, definiteness and truthfulness, and the whole tone of the account is somehow ironic, jocular, a tone in which one cannot speak of such terrible matters. There is no need to write about the Christ-loving warriors of the White Tsar; what is needed is to explain how four men were killed, who these people were, their ages, their names, how they died. Why, when four men had been killed, did the commander become convinced of the futility of the attack? All this, and much else about the rape and outrage, is so poorly told, so unclear, so exaggerated, that it inspires complete distrust of the whole. In such a form the article will either not be printed at all, or, if it is printed in some little newspaper, it will produce no impression whatever. I entirely agree with you that this ought to be printed in foreign publications; in the Russian ones there is nothing even to think about; and if they do print it, it will be with such cuts that it will pass unnoticed. But in order for the article to have an effect on those upon whom it ought to have an effect, it must be written strictly truthfully, circumstantially, exactly. And therefore, if such information can be gathered, then gather it and send it. Your account, at the risk of doing something unpleasant to you, I shall keep with me for the present. If you instruct me to send it as it is, I shall send it. The one thing I shall do now is this: in accordance with your plan I shall write to our friend Kenworthy in England, and to another as well, telling them that a cruel persecution is being carried out against the Doukhobors, and that, if they wish to learn the details, they should send a correspondent, directing him to you, so that you may direct him onward to where he is needed. Tomorrow I shall consult with Chertkov about this and write. Today my daughter Tanya returned from your mother’s. She saw your children and told them that you have by force been deprived of the possibility of being with them, and that you love them and grieve for them. Let her write to you herself. Farewell for now. Do not be angry with me, and love me as I love you.”
[… The Russian source again drops the start of the sentence; it resumes mid-clause, but the sense is that L. N. and Biryukov agreed Biryukov should go to the Caucasus to gather accurate information …] and at the beginning of August I set off there, called on Khilkov in Nukha, and on his directions sought out the exiled Doukhobors, questioned in person those who had taken part in the burning of the weapons, in the clashes with the Cossacks, and in other protests, and brought back to L. N. a detailed description of all that I had seen and heard.
L. N., having read my account and approved it in principle, undertook to edit it. Having done so, he wrote a brief preface to it, in the nature of a recommendation and an attestation of the truthfulness of the description, and besides this he wrote, in the form of an afterword, a special article, with the epigraph: “In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” In this article he stresses the world-historical significance of the movement among the Doukhobors, which had expressed itself in the refusal to perform state obligations.
My own article I entitled “The Persecution of Christians in Russia in 1895.” By this title I wished to underscore the coarse, cruel attitude of the Russian authorities toward pure religious manifestations, and also the circumstance that true Christianity is subject to persecution by this world both in the first centuries of our era and in the nineteenth century, notwithstanding the enormous distance mankind has travelled along the road of cultural development. All these articles, at L. N.’s suggestion, were printed in the Times in London, and were of course at once read in Russia in the highest spheres. Persons of great competence told me that these articles produced a stunning effect upon the “spheres,” especially upon Pobedonostsev, who, having read them, at once went to the Sovereign with a special report. The investigation I had carried out had remained entirely hidden from the local authorities, and they, having dispatched the “rebelling” Doukhobors into exile and lodged them in prisons, had set their minds at rest in the conviction that the temporary disturbance had been suppressed. And it was in this spirit that the report to the higher authorities had been drawn up. But from the articles printed in the Times they saw that the affair was only just beginning, that the fire was gradually flaring up, and that at the head of this movement now stood not some half-literate peasant, but Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy, who had carried this struggle onto the world stage.
Although surveillance was set over me, I personally escaped unharmed at that time, because L. N., taking pity on me and without telling me, printed my article without my signature, so that it appeared anonymously, and there were not sufficient grounds to prosecute me.
A new investigation was ordered by the government, which of course uncovered fresh crimes on the part of the local authorities. From this time on there were established direct and frequent communications, both ours and L. N.’s, with the Doukhobors — both the exiled and the imprisoned — to whom we endeavoured to render all-round assistance.
The middle of the 1890s of the last century was a time of the rapid spread of L. N.’s ideas and of the rise in various countries of centres of this propaganda. Such were: the circle of Eugen Schmitt in Budapest, the circle of Škarvan and Makovický among the Slovaks in Austria-Hungary, Kenworthy’s “Brotherhood Church” near London; similar circles were being founded in Holland, in Germany, in America, and of course in many places in Russia.
[The following passage, where L. N. writes of Chekhov’s visit, stands somewhat out of order in the source; it is a quotation from L. N.’s letter:]
“Chekhov was with us and pleased me very much. He is very gifted, and his heart must be excellent, but as yet he has no definite point of view of his own.”
In a letter to V. G. Chertkov of 10 October L. N. writes, among other things:
[… Here the source returns to a survey of several long letters L. N. wrote that autumn. Biryukov inserts the “Letter to a Pole” (on patriotism, addressed to Professor Marian Zdziechowski), the correspondence with the publicist Mikhail Menshikov about reason and goodness, and intimate letters to L. N.’s younger son about the snares of self-indulgence — all omitted here as not Doukhobor-related. The Doukhobor thread resumes with the letter to Verigin …]
Finally, let us mention my letter to the Doukhobor leader Peter Vasilyevich Verigin, who was at that time in exile in Obdorsk and was corresponding with L. N.’s friends.
L. N.’s letter, written to P. V. Verigin in November 1895, was a reply to the thoughts Verigin had expressed in his letter to I. M. Tregubov — thoughts to the effect that the book, and the printed word in general, are unnecessary. “But that which is needful and lawful must without fail be in every man, and is received directly from on high or from oneself.” In this denial of the “printed book” there appeared one of the fundamental tenets of the Doukhobor teaching. The Doukhobors, as is well known, have no Holy Scripture; its place is taken by the “Living Book” (Животная книга), consisting of psalms learned by heart and handed down orally, in which their religious and moral teaching is set forth.
It is remarkable that in his reply to Verigin, L. N. — that “denier of science, art and civilization” known to all the world — proves to Verigin that the printed word is necessary and useful for the spiritual development of man and for the union of many people in one common truth. Agreeing with Verigin as to the many advantages of personal, oral communication, L. N. says:
[… The Russian source drops the opening of the quotation, which resumes mid-clause; the sense is that the value of the book lies not in the fact that copies become …] many, but rather in the fact that, among the millions of people of diverse nations and conditions to whom a book is accessible, those who think alike select themselves of their own accord; and thanks to the book, though they may be tens of thousands of versts apart from one another and have never met, they are joined into one and live by a single soul, and receive spiritual joy and the cheering consciousness that they are not alone. Such communion I now have with you and with other people of other nations, who have never seen me, but who are nearer to me than my own sons and brothers by blood.”
This letter is interesting in that it most vividly refutes the absurd condemnations of L. N. for narrowness and sectarianism, and gives a clear conception of the breadth of his views and of his tolerance toward the views of another — even of one close to him in spirit, but who upholds his own particular opinion.
As we have already mentioned above, in this year there appeared the book compiled by E. I. Popov, “The Life and Death of Drozhzhin,” which came out at once abroad in Russian and German with an afterword by L. N. This book moved the well-known German novelist Friedrich Spielhagen to write and publish an open letter to L. N., in which he argues that Drozhzhin’s death had not been of use to the cause of universal peace, that it had been a useless cruelty, and that the responsibility for it falls upon L. N.
[… A paragraph follows assessing Spielhagen’s letter as an expression of German Social-Democratic “mass morality” — only loosely connected to the Doukhobor thread, but translated here as it stands in the continuous text.]
The plain failure to understand the spiritual process that had led Drozhzhin to the accomplishment of his act left, of course, no possibility of replying to it. This letter is interesting only in that it expresses the public opinion of that time of the large German Social-Democratic group to which the late German writer belonged — the author of the well-known political novel “Im Reih und Glied,” which to this day remains an expression of German mass morality, or rather of that servility to which personal initiative — the very thing that L. N. held to be the foundation of human progress — was always a thing of dread.
[… The source again drops the opening of the sentence, which resumes mid-clause; the sense is that there came to visit L. N. John Kenworthy …] John Kenworthy, with whom L. N. had long been in close communion through letters and books. Their meeting was, of course, joyful, their union grew still stronger, and, having returned to England, Kenworthy became a centre of the spiritual communion called forth by L. N.’s views.
Chapter 19 — “Our Exile” (the appeal “Help!” and the exile of the Tolstoyans)
[… Chapter 19 (“Three Deaths. The Coronation. Our Exile”) opens with material not related to the Doukhobors: deaths in Tolstoy’s circle, his reading of Indian philosophy and of the philosopher Afrikan Spir, the visit of two Japanese editors and the episode of their singing, and various anecdotes — omitted here. (One brief paragraph in this stretch does mention the Doukhobors: L. N. writes letters begging persecutors to spare the persecuted, “the Doukhobors, for the same crime, that is, for refusing in the name of Christ to kill men and to prepare themselves and train themselves for this art”; “in both these letters L. N. besought the tormentors to take pity on the tormented and, for the sake of their own souls, to ease their sufferings. These letters remained unanswered, but who knows where the scattered seeds will sprout.”) The connected Doukhobor narrative of “Our Exile” begins with the matter of the Barcelona donation …]
In a letter to S. A. [Sofya Andreyevna] in November L. N. reports the following:
“I think I told you about some costly inkwell that they wanted to send me as a gift from some club in Barcelona. I wrote to them, through Tanya, that I should prefer the money intended for this to be used for some good deed. And now they reply that, having received my letter, they opened a subscription in their club and collected 22,500 francs, which they propose that I use at my discretion. I write to them that I am very grateful, and that I have precisely the occasion to use it for aid to the Doukhobors. What will come of this — I do not know. It is all very strange. And the inkwell, they say, has been ordered, and we shall send it all the same; you can sell it and use the money as you wish.”
In a letter to Chertkov L. N. writes that another letter had come from Barcelona, saying that the subscription had already reached 31,500 francs. But in the end neither the inkwell nor the money was ever received.
Amid all these varied phenomena of life a new event of great importance was ripening — the persecution of the Doukhobors. It gradually drew to itself the attention of L. N.’s friends and of himself, and at last he himself becomes an active participant in this movement.
On 6 November he writes to Chertkov:
“What you write about the tortured Doukhobor is terrible. Can it really be true? How did it happen? What do you know about it?
Amid what horrors we live. One feels oneself called to do something, to struggle, and from the very abundance of the task one’s hands fall to one’s sides. Here is where prayer is needed, for me at least. One longs to die one way or another: either to play tennis, or to die for the truth, to go away. But one must live. And here, without prayer, without the sense of a Master who has set me to my task, one cannot live.”
To S. A. he reports the same matter as follows:
[… The source drops the opening of the quotation, which resumes mid-clause; the sense is that the Doukhobors are dying, as …] they write, from homelessness, cold and hunger. They have written an appeal to society for help, and I have decided to send them 1,000 rubles from our charitable funds. These people will find no better use for the money, and they will thank you for having, against my wishes, obtained these funds.”
As I have already mentioned above, ever since the burning of the weapons by the Doukhobors and my journey to them, our connection with them had not ceased. We followed everything that was happening among them, and all the information we received was concentrated in the hands of V. G. Chertkov, who was then living with his family on his farmstead Rzhevsk in Voronezh Province. Both he and I conceived the idea of addressing an appeal to the Russian authorities and to Russian society, declaring that it is cruel and senseless to subject several thousand Doukhobors, with their wives and children, to suffering, to wear them down in exile in the poor Georgian villages — with a prohibition against leaving, and therefore with the loss of any earnings — that is, to condemn to death by starvation excellent, healthy, moral people, always distinguished by their industry and sobriety, simply because their conscience does not permit them to take part in deeds of violence. In all our decisions we turned, of course, for advice to L. N. He approved in principle the idea of an appeal; the first appeal that was drafted proved unsatisfactory, and V. G. Chertkov summoned me to Rzhevsk to help in this matter. At that time there came to Rzhevsk two Doukhobors, Planidin and Ivin, as delegates from the exiles, with a request for help, since sickness and mortality among them were increasing and had already reached 10 percent. Of the 4,000 who had been exiled, 400 had died by the end of 1896. These 400 lives, perished without any cause whatever, lie wholly upon the soul of the maddened Caucasian administration. There was no time to delay. Having arrived at Rzhevsk, I set about composing a new appeal, which by our joint efforts was completed. It was given the title “Help!” (Помогите!), and we resolved to go to the capital, in order, by spreading this appeal and by personal influence, to set the work of relief in motion. This appeal was signed by its three composers: Chertkov, Tregubov and myself. L. N. approved it and joined himself to it, writing an afterword. This was in December 1896. L. N. was by then already in Moscow. Foreseeing the catastrophe, I went to take leave of my relatives and set off for Petersburg to catch up with Chertkov, who was already there, so that we might act together.
“Help!”, with the afterword, was typed out in a multitude of copies and sent, according to a list drawn up beforehand, to persons standing at the head of the government, to all prominent public figures, and generally to everyone from whom any participation might be expected. A copy was also delivered to the Sovereign. The consequences of this were not slow to manifest themselves. A search was carried out in Chertkov’s apartment, all the documents relating to the Doukhobor affair were taken away, and a few days later the signatories of the appeal were declared subject to administrative exile for 5 years under police surveillance. For V. G. Chertkov, moreover, exile was commuted to deportation abroad; I, on the other hand, was sent straight into exile in Courland Province, to the town of Bauska, near Mitau. This took place on 2 February 1897, and the deportation itself a few days later. L. N. was living at that time with his friend Count Olsufyev at Nikolskoye, near Moscow. Having received the telegram about our deportation, he came to see us off in Petersburg and spent several days with us; these days will long remain in my memory. We gathered every evening in Chertkov’s apartment, surrounded L. N. in a close ring, and our heartfelt conversation raised our spirits high, and no diabolical machinations were then terrible to us.
L. N. had, besides ourselves, relatives, friends and acquaintances in Petersburg whom it was pleasant for him to visit. He had not been in Petersburg since 1882. He was interested to look at the city, which had grown since then. He walked the streets of Petersburg in his old sheepskin coat, and of course not without comic incidents on the part of the public and the doormen — who would now suddenly recognize him and greet him respectfully or with rapture, or, on the contrary, would fail to recognize him and show toward him the attitude that “clean people” are wont to have toward a grey peasant.
[… The source drops the opening of the following sentence, which resumes mid-clause; the sense is that one evening …] One evening, having returned home from some meeting, I sat down to work, diverted by the sounds reaching me from the neighbouring apartment — where there lived a family engaged in trade under the firm “Ross Perfumery” — the sounds of music, the words of command of the dances, and the stamping of feet. They were celebrating something like our old-fashioned bridal eve, called by the Germans a “Polterabend.” My old servant told me that some peasant was asking for me. When I asked who he was and what he wanted so late, she returned with the information that his name was Lev Nikolaevich. With tender respect I led the “peasant” into my study, and we talked together for a whole hour, in the course of which he astonished me by his lofty and all-forgiving attitude toward what had been done to Chertkov. Not a word of reproach, not the slightest expression of indignation, escaped his lips. He produced on me the impression of one of those first Christians who knew how to look without trembling into the eyes of a torturous death, and by their meekness overcame the world. I had not noticed that the music at the neighbours’ had fallen silent, but when Tolstoy began to take his leave, and I went out to see him to the stairs, we saw that there, in expectation, had crowded the guests of the “Ross Perfumery” — décolletée young ladies and young men in tailcoats. Tolstoy frowned, pulled his cap down over his very eyes, and almost ran down the stairs. It turned out that my servant, having seen the joyful respect with which I had received the unknown peasant, had begun to doubt his authenticity, had started peering at his figure from behind the door, and had suddenly been struck by the resemblance of the visitor to the photographic portrait of Tolstoy that Repin had given me. She guessed what was afoot, triumphantly proclaimed it in the kitchen, and — “the whole province set to writing”…
During this same visit of his to Petersburg, a young lady of my acquaintance was riding from a lesson she had given to her place of work on the horse-tram. There entered the car an old man dressed in peasant fashion, to whom she paid no attention, and who sat down opposite her. On the way she was reading a little book she had bought about Doctor Haas.
“And do you know the author of this book?” the old man suddenly asked her, having examined the cover.
And upon her affirmative reply he asked her to convey his greetings to me. Only then, having looked at him closely, did she understand with whom she was dealing.
“I felt like throwing myself down before him there in the very car, on my knees,” she told me, “and I involuntarily exclaimed: ‘You — you are Lev Nikolaevich?’ — so that everyone turned their attention to us.”
Of course, L. N. visited also his old friend, Countess Alexandra Andreyevna Tolstaya. This was their last meeting in this life, and it did not pass off altogether happily. Let us leave it to Alexandra Andreyevna herself to tell of this meeting. We borrow this account from her reminiscences:
“My second, and for the present my last, meeting with him took place here in Petersburg, whither he had come in 1897 to take leave of his friends the Chertkovs.
Lev and his wife stayed here in Petersburg for two or three days. I saw them constantly, and all went beautifully, except for the last evening, spent at the home of Ek. N. Shostak, where Lev Nikolaevich, without any occasion for it, began to argue that every reasonable man can save himself by himself, and that for this he, properly speaking, ‘needs no one.’ It was not hard to understand whom he meant by the word no one — and my heart shuddered and ached, as it used to.
In the leisure of a sleepless night I again pondered much; knowing that Lev would come to me the next morning to take his leave, I asked myself: should I, or should I not, raise this question? It may easily turn out, I thought, that this will be our last meeting, and in that case shall I not reproach myself if I am afraid to speak my opinion once more? But as soon as Lev came to me and I hinted at the previous day’s conversation, he sprang up from his place, his face was contorted with anger, and all his assumed meekness vanished.
[… The source drops the opening of the quotation, which resumes mid-clause; he was saying, in substance, that no one could …] teach him anything,” and so on and so forth.
His speech was far longer and breathed throughout with proud self-assurance, but I give here only that which forever cut itself with pain into my heart and my memory.
It is dreadful to utter: he has no need of Him who alone saves! And how is one to comprehend all the duality, all the contradiction of this extraordinary, enigmatic nature?!.
On the one hand — love of truth, love of men, love of God and even of that Teacher whose whole greatness he will not, or cannot, acknowledge. On the other hand — pride, darkness, unbelief, an abyss…
Was it not the evil spirit himself — the ancient serpent — that laid in his heart this denial, in order to destroy, so far as possible, the rich gifts of the Lord?
[… The source drops the opening of the sentence; the sense is that step by step …] step by step, d’étape en étape, he came at last to the greatest and most terrible denial in the world — to the denial of the divinity of Christ.
I do not know what impression he carried away from our last meeting, or whether his conscience was at ease.
And I do not even remember how we parted, and since then we have not seen one another again. God grant that we may come some day, here or there, to a full agreement.”
This naïve solicitude of his kind friend for his salvation always grieved L. N. by its importunity, and in his letters he often besought her to regard his views with at least a measure of that respect with which he regarded her beliefs; this importunity and intolerance probably also called forth the note of irritation in his voice.
Lev Nikolaevich left Petersburg on the eve of our deportation, sending us on our way with the most cordial good wishes. We embraced him and parted from him for almost 8 years. The further exposition of the events of his life I shall now have to make once more from the documents in my possession, excluding from them my personal testimony and reminiscences.
Chapter 21 — The Doukhobors: the emigration to Canada
In 1898 L. N. had occasion to work for the relief of the Doukhobors, whose situation was becoming more unbearable from day to day. Since I too had occasion to take part in this affair, I consider it necessary to mention certain facts of my own life.
In February of this year a great change occurred in my personal life. I was permitted to leave my exile and go abroad, which I did not fail to take advantage of.
Having crossed the frontier, I stopped for a few days with my friend Dr. Dušan Petrovich Makovický, in Hungary, in a small town which in Slavic is called Žilina, in German Silein, and in Hungarian Zsolna. There I received from L. N. a letter of farewell and counsel. He wrote to me, among other things:
“I am glad for you that you are leaving. I have many times noticed in people subjected to violence that these people begin to ascribe significance to the organization of that violence, to acknowledge its existence, to acknowledge its laws as laws. And that is terrible. I saw it in the revolutionaries, and it seemed to me — or rather I was afraid — that I should notice it in you. Our joy, or rather our consolation, is this: that whereas in economic conditions we are more or less often very far from the demands of our conscience, of our consciousness (economic conditions are so interwoven, and we are so entangled in them, that it is terribly difficult, impossible, to be pure within them — these are the last conditions to be realized), yet in the political, governmental respect we can be wholly pure: we can refuse to serve, to go to law, to defend ourselves, to divide men by nationalities and estates, to acknowledge any authorities. And then suddenly they catch you and place you, and your loved ones, in such tormenting conditions that you begin to reckon with them and to demand the fulfilment of their laws in regard to yourself. The day before yesterday I received the American publication Social Gospel. It is the organ of a body of people, about a hundred of them, who have joined in a colony in Georgia in order to realize the Christian life in the economic sense as well. It is very difficult, but one cannot but sympathize with such attempts. Their address is: Ralph Albertson, Commonwealth, Ga. (that is, Georgia). Herron, Loyu [sic] and Crosby are participants, if not leaders of it. This will give you an idea of their views. Subscribe, and advise your friends to subscribe, to this journal; it costs 50 cents a year. And the first number is very good. This I recalled, speaking of the realization by Christians of the economic conditions.
“Yesterday I received news that St. John has been expelled from Russia. He is going to Budapest to Schmitt (), so that you will see him. Yesterday I received a letter from Schmitt and was very glad; I see that with the same energy, on the very border of violence, he preaches the abolition of violence. One cannot but sympathize with his activity, and so I was glad to learn that he continues to struggle. I shall ask that there be copied out for you, from Zhirkevich’s letter, the passage about Egorov (*). These are humble fighters, unseen by men, but seen by God and therefore the most mighty. Let us try to be such.”
( A German scholar of anarchist views, close to L. N.’s. )
( A sectarian who refused military service. )
At last, in March, L. N. is already actively coming forward in the defence and relief of the Doukhobors. He writes, among other things, to Chertkov:
“Dear friend, I have not written to you for a long time, because there is too much to write. The chief and most important matter is the Doukhobors. They have now written to me for the third time, saying that they have been permitted to emigrate abroad, and asking for help. Private persons also write: Sherstobitov, Potapov, Androsov, and some others; but they must hold a council about what to do, and this decision in council is important, because from it one will learn where they wish to go, and what they decide, and what their needs are, and in what.
But without even waiting for this, I am composing and composing an appeal to the English and American newspapers, asking the help of all true Christians — help both by guidance, by the indication of places and means of conveyance, and by money. This appeal I shall send you, probably, tomorrow. If you find it unsatisfactory — as always I give you carte blanche to correct it — send it with a letter, which you will compose on the enclosed blank with my signature, to the editorial office of one of the large newspapers: if not the Times, then the Daily News or the Daily Chronicle. Another appeal, a very moderate one, I shall take tomorrow to the Russkiye Vedomosti, and if they do not print it, I shall send it to the Peterburgskiye Vedomosti. Besides this, I have written a letter to America to the editor of the Social Gospel (you probably know it), a copy of which I am sending you, and at the end of which I mentioned the affair of the Doukhobors. This one matter is the most important, absorbing all my attention.”
The content of the appeal with which L. N. addressed Russian and foreign society was as follows:
“A population of 12 thousand persons,” says L. N., “Christians of the Universal Brotherhood — so the Doukhobors living in the Caucasus call themselves — find themselves at the present time in a terrible situation.”
L. N. depicts this situation further in these words:
“Not to speak of the floggings, the punishment-cells, and the tortures of every kind to which the Doukhobors who refused service were subjected in the disciplinary battalions, from which many died, and of their exile to the worst places of Siberia; not to speak of the 200 reservists who for two years languished in prison and are now separated from their families and exiled in pairs to the wildest places of the Caucasus, where, having no means of earning a living, they are literally dying of hunger — not to speak of these punishments of the very perpetrators of the refusal of service, the families of the Doukhobors are being systematically ruined and destroyed. They are all deprived of the right to leave their places of residence and are heavily fined and locked up in prison for failing to comply with the strangest demands of the authorities: for calling themselves by another name than that by which they have been ordered to call themselves, for going to the mill, for a mother’s visiting her son, for going out of the village into the forest to gather firewood — so that the last means of these formerly prosperous inhabitants are rapidly being exhausted. And the four hundred families resettled from their dwellings and placed in Tatar and Georgian villages, where they must rent themselves lodging and feed themselves for money, having neither land nor earnings, are in such a grievous situation that in the course of the three years of their resettlement a quarter of them — especially the old people and the children — have already died of want and disease.”
[… The source drops the opening of the following sentence; the sense is that owing to L. N.’s and his friends’ efforts the request of the Doukhobors was granted …] and the request of the Doukhobors was granted; they were permitted to leave the country abroad, on condition that they should never return. But to carry this out was not easy; there were many obstacles — both administrative and others. L. N. concludes his address to society thus:
“People are permitted to leave, but beforehand they have been ruined, so that they have nothing with which to leave; and the conditions in which they find themselves are such that they have no possibility of learning of the places to which they should resettle, or how and under what conditions this may be done; and they cannot even avail themselves of help from outside, since those who wish to help them are at once deported, while they themselves are jailed for every absence.
So that if no help is given to these people from outside, they will be utterly ruined and will all die out, notwithstanding the permission they have received to resettle.
I happen to know the details of the persecutions and sufferings of these people, I am in communication with them, and they ask me to help them; and therefore I consider it my duty to turn to all good people, both of Russian and of European society, asking them to help the Doukhobors out of the tormenting situation in which they find themselves. I have appealed in one of the Russian newspapers to Russian society; I do not yet know whether my statement will be printed or not, and I now turn besides to all the good people of the English and American nations, asking their help: first, with money, of which a great deal is needed merely for the conveyance over a long distance of 10,000 persons; and second, with direct, immediate guidance through the difficulties of the impending resettlement of people who know no languages and have never travelled out of Russia.
I assume that the higher Russian government will not impede such help and will moderate the excessive zeal of the Caucasian administration, which at present permits no communication whatever with the Doukhobors.
Until then I offer my mediation between those who wish to help the Doukhobors and to enter into communication with them, since up to now my communications with them have not been interrupted.”
From this time on, L. N.’s cares concerning the Doukhobors do not cease.
In April L. N. wrote to Chertkov:
“Dear friend V. G. After I wrote to you, this is what happened: in the morning I am told that two men have arrived from the Caucasus. These were the Doukhobors Planidin — Pavel Vasilyevich, your acquaintance — and Chernov. They had come, of course, without passports, in order to convey information and to learn everything concerning their affair. Having talked with these dear friends and learned everything, I decided to send them to Petersburg to Ukhtomsky, from whom I still had received no answer. They went, spent a day there, and returned; they saw Ukhtomsky and the Dieterichs — the grandfather and Joseph Konstantinovich. Ukhtomsky, as I see, can do nothing. He has not even printed my letter, and that would be very necessary, and to this day he has given me no definite answer. His plans, too, have ceased to please me. He now speaks no longer of Manchuria, but of Chinese Turkestan, near Kuldja. The chief thing is that, as Planidin and Chernov say, to resettle to a place where the Russian government may again lay hold of them is undesirable to them. Besides, they hold firmly to what is written in their petition, drawn up on Verigin’s initiative, that they wish to resettle to America or to England. But the chief thing, which I understood from my conversation with them, is that they cannot leave, abandoning their children in Yakutsk and their old people in banishment. And then I think they ought to petition for their release. In this sense I have written a petition, a copy of which I am sending. They will think this petition over at home and will then submit it. Further details about everything will be conveyed to you by Shanks and Jenken, who will be with you, probably, soon after this letter. So that up to now Cyprus appears to be the most convenient place. The only fear is its unhealthy and fever-ridden climate.
Donations have come to about 1,500 rubles, but I have not yet begun the collecting. The good thing is that, according to the account of Planidin and Chernov, besides the 50 thousand held by those who have been resettled and by the Kars Doukhobors, if they sell everything, some hundred and fifty thousand will be gathered. They are touchingly edifying. Planidin, it is evident, remembers with particular love all of you at Lizinovka.”
A few days later he writes again, this time by a private hand rather than by post, communicating new facts, and at the same time asking Chertkov to observe great caution, even in England, giving as his reason the following:
“This caution must be observed even at your end. Here the government is so ill-disposed toward the Doukhobors that the day before yesterday a donation from Maude, Sergeyenko and an unknown person was printed in the Russkiye Vedomosti, and that same day there came to the editorial office a document from (alas) Trepov, demanding the names of the donors and the delivery of the money to the Treasury.
“The Russkiye Vedomosti replied that the money had already been handed over to me, and presented a receipt for it.”
But the administration was not satisfied with this answer. In the archive of the Russkiye Vedomosti the following trace of this demand has been preserved:
“On 21 April 1898 the Minister of Internal Affairs declared a third warning to the Russkiye Vedomosti and suspended the newspaper for two months, as was stated in the official communication about this (Russkiye Vedomosti, No. 112, of 25 June 1898), ‘for the collection of donations in favour of the Doukhobors, with the publication thereof in No. 93 of the Russkiye Vedomosti of this year, and for evading the execution of the order of the Moscow Governor-General.’” Recalling that shortly before this, on 19 March 1898, Tolstoy had written his well-known “letter to society” about material aid to the Doukhobors who had received permission to emigrate abroad. But the notice on account of which the administrative penalty followed read literally only the following: “There has been received at the office of the Russkiye Vedomosti, to be placed at the disposal of Count L. N. Tolstoy for the rendering of aid to the sick and needy Doukhobors: from an out-of-town subscriber 300 rubles, from Mr. M. 400 rubles, from an unknown person 300 rubles.” As for the unexecuted order of the Governor-General (or, more precisely, the demand of the Chief of Police, with whom alone the editorial office had had to deal in this case), it was indeed not executed: they demanded the transfer to the administration’s disposal of money donated to be placed at Tolstoy’s disposal, to whom it had of course been duly handed over.
On 3 February L. N. notes, among other things, in his diary:
“If there is in you the power of activity, let it be loving; if you have no strength and are weak, let your weakness be loving.”
At the same time L. N. is troubled by his relations to property, and, recalling how he had disposed of it, he remarks in his diary on 19 February:
“I acted badly in giving the estate to the children. It would have been better for them. Only one had to know how to do it without violating love. And I did not know how.”
[… Whether it was this activity of L. N.’s on behalf of the Doukhobors, or his increased fame, or simply envy of the radiant image of the great old man — one way or another, in early April L. N. very nearly fell victim to a criminal attempt by a knot of dark men not yet bearing the name of the “Black Hundred” but already undoubtedly active. The anonymous death-threat letters, the diary entries about them, and the episode of his friend A. N. Dunaev keeping watch over him on 3 April — omitted here as not Doukhobor-related; the day passed quietly.]
[… There now follows the long digression of the second famine: L. N.’s journey in late April to the Chernsky district of Tula Province, which had suffered from crop failure, his establishment of feeding-kitchens (столовые) at his son Ilya’s estate, the obstruction by the local administration, his article “Famine or No Famine” with its account of the villages of Spasskoye, Malaya Gubarevka, Gushchino and Gnedyshevo, and his conclusion that there is “no famine, but a chronic undernourishment of the whole population” rooted not in material but in spiritual causes — all omitted as not Doukhobor-related. There follows, likewise, the founding of the periodical “Svobodnoye Slovo” (“The Free Word”) with Biryukov as editor, and L. N.’s two long letters of advice on its content and structure — omitted as not Doukhobor-related (these letters mention the Doukhobors only once in passing, as a possible subject for a leading article: “the Doukhobors, China, the Spanish-American war”). The Doukhobor narrative resumes here …]
L. N. again enters into correspondence with a multitude of persons who might, in one way or another, assist in the emigration of the Doukhobors abroad.
He sends his son Sergei to England, to enter into the closest possible communion with the committee there for aid to the Doukhobors.
To the Caucasus, at his request, goes the energetic and experienced Leopold Antonovich Sulerzhitsky, who busies himself actively with the dispatch of the Doukhobors on ocean steamers. One of these steamers is accompanied by his son Sergei.
L. N. writes to the administrators of the Caucasus and of Siberia, entreating now from one, now from another, some necessary concession; and there flows to him in turn a mass of people who have come into contact with this affair of enormous importance, the resettlement of the Doukhobors.
[… The source drops the opening of the following sentence, which resumes mid-clause: “…to the common cause.”]
An important place in this great undertaking was held by monetary aid. There was not enough money for the resettlement, and so L. N., for the sake of saving the Doukhobors, resolves to depart from his rule — not to take an author’s fee — and sells his future work.
Here is how he reports this to Chertkov:
“Since it has now become clear how much money is still lacking for the resettlement of the Doukhobors, I think of doing the following:
I have unfinished tales — Resurrection (Воскресение) and others. I have lately been occupied with them. So I should like to sell them on the most advantageous terms to the English or American newspapers and use the proceeds for the resettlement of the Doukhobors. These tales are written in my old manner, which I now do not approve of. If I am to revise them until I am satisfied, I shall never finish. But having bound myself to deliver them to a publisher, I shall have to bring them out tels quels. So it was with me with the tale The Cossacks: I kept not finishing it; but then I lost money at cards, and to pay it I handed the work over to the editorial office of a journal. Now, however, the occasion is far more lawful. And the tales themselves, even if they do not satisfy my present demands of art — being not generally accessible in form — are yet, in their content, not harmful and may even be of use to people. And therefore I think it would be well, having sold them as dearly as possible, to print them now, without waiting for my death, and to hand over the money to the committee for the resettlement of the Doukhobors.”
[The following is one of L. N.’s circular letters of appeal for money:]
“Dear Sir, Alexander Nikolaevich! I turn to you with a request for monetary help for the Caucasian Doukhobors. These people, as you probably know, strove to fulfil in their very life the teaching of Christ, which they follow, could not perform the military service required of them by the government, and for this were subjected to a persecution which, owing to the coarseness of the Caucasian administration, reached a frightful cruelty. Those who refused were tortured, locked up in prison, exiled to the worst places of Siberia, where even now hundreds of the best people are suffering; their settlements were ruined, whole families were deported from their dwellings into Tatar villages. Worn out by all this, the Doukhobors asked permission to leave abroad; they were permitted, but in recent years they have been so ruined that they have no means for the journey to Canada, where lands are being offered them. Of all those emigrating there are about 7,000 persons. For the journey by sea and by rail they need at least 100 rubles a head, and they, having sold all their property (the greater part is already sold), will gather not more than 300 thousand. It is true there are good people in England and Russia who have donated and are donating, but still very much is lacking.
A subscription for this purpose is not permitted, and so we have resolved to ask rich and good people to help in this matter. And so I turn to you, asking you to give as much as you find possible for this undoubtedly good cause.
Please answer me at Tula, and by registered letter. Respectfully yours.”
And a considerable quantity of donations accumulated, making it possible to convey successfully to Canada all who wished to emigrate.
Having once resolved to finish the new novel Resurrection, having found a justification for his artistic work — to which the desire that seemed to him sinful had so often drawn him — L. N. gives himself up to this work with all passion.
In the autumn he writes to Chertkov:
“I do not know whether it is good or bad — I am very intently occupied with Resurrection. I hope to express much that is important. That is why I am so carried away. It seems to me sometimes that in Resurrection there will be much that is good, that is needed, and sometimes — that I am giving myself over to my passion.
[… The source drops the opening of the sentence, which resumes mid-clause; the sense is “I can, and even think I ought to give it up…”] — I can, and even think I ought to — but I do not want to think of anything else but this.”
By autumn L. N.’s work had advanced so far that in September he read Resurrection aloud to the guests gathered at his house.
Marya Lvovna wrote to me on 18 September:
“…Stakhovich was staying with us. While he was here, Papa read Resurrection aloud, and this was a great event for us.”
At last, in October, L. N. found it possible to conclude an agreement with the publisher of Niva, A. Marx, for the printing of Resurrection in his journal.
“To Adolf Fyodorovich Marx.
I grant the editorial office of Niva the right of first printing of my tale Resurrection. The editorial office of Niva pays me one thousand rubles for each printed sheet of 35,000 letters.
Twelve thousand rubles the editorial office pays me at once. If the tale should be more than twelve sheets, then the editorial office pays whatever shall be due in excess of the 12,000; but if there should be in the tale fewer than twelve printed sheets, then I shall either return the money or give another artistic work. Lev Tolstoy.”
The printing of the novel itself was to begin in March of the following year, simultaneously in all the chief European languages. This was carried out, and it caused L. N. no little trouble.
[A note out of the Doukhobor thread, here retained as it stands in the continuous text: We must turn back a little to mention an event of this year worthy of attention. On 28 August of this year 1898 L. N. turned 70 years old. To the wise Russian administration it seemed exceedingly dangerous not only to celebrate but even to discuss this “terrible” event, and so a secret circular appears to all organs of the press forbidding them to say or print anything about the impending 70th-anniversary jubilee of Leo Tolstoy.]
The whole autumn L. N. was occupied with the resettlement of the Doukhobors and with the writing of Resurrection. At this same time there appeared, in Chertkov’s edition, a new work of L. N.’s, “The Christian Teaching” (Христианское учение), the content of which has already been conveyed by us in one of the preceding chapters.
[… There follow several extracts from L. N.’s letters to Sofya Andreyevna giving a picture of his life at this time — his attachment to the solitude of Yasnaya Polyana and his reluctance to move to the city; the rumour, magnified by gossip, that he had spoken disapprovingly of a religious procession; and a note on his reading of Crosby’s book “On Buddhism” — translated here only insofar as they form part of the continuous narrative; they are not Doukhobor-related. The Doukhobor thread resumes with the matter of Maude …]
[L. N. writes to Sofya Andreyevna, among other things:]
“I am writing today to Marx to put off the printing until March. This is needed both by me and by Pasternak and the publishers abroad. Yesterday I received the rest of the proofs up to and including the 40th chapter. Pasternak’s sketches are excellent.”
At last, at the beginning of December, Lev Nikolaevich moved to Moscow. But on 20 December the whole family went for the holidays to Yasnaya Polyana, where they stayed until 10 January, and then the whole family returned again to Moscow.
In the matter of the Doukhobor resettlement there were occurring at this time certain complications, which L. N. endeavoured to soften and to clear up by his gentle participation and influence. This can be seen from the following letter to Maude, the translator of his works into English, who was taking a large part in the fate of the Doukhobors. Here is what he wrote to him on 12 December.
The first half of the letter treats of a certain American journal and of the circle of people who grouped themselves around this organ and shared L. N.’s views on life. The second half of the letter is devoted precisely to this question of the Doukhobors. Here is the letter:
[… The source drops the opening of the quotation, which resumes mid-word; the broken text reads “wealth?”, evidently the tail of the word “Commonwealth”; the sense is that L. N. is asking about the Commonwealth colony …] …wealth? This society interests me very much. The longer I live, the more I am convinced that our excessive intellectual development hinders us greatly in the business of life. My son once asked a peasant why he had not gone to live with a neighbouring landowner. The peasant answered: one can’t live with him. Why? Too clever. And I think that the majority of our failures come from our being too clever. How simply and easily the Doukhobors attain what seems to us unattainable, with our intellect and learning. I fear that in this will consist, in the Commonwealth too, an obstacle to the attainment of their goal. In the last number I read a discussion to the effect that patriotism may be good. This is sad. Ch. [Chertkov] writes that he does not wish and cannot any longer occupy himself with the affairs of the Doukhobors — part of which consists of the publication and sale of the translations of my tale — and, as far as I understand, he is leaving for Canada, and so involuntarily we all rest our hope upon you. Ashamed though we are to ask you, after you have only just completed your labour for the common cause, to take upon yourself a new labour, we cannot but do so. If you consent, I shall try to spare you, so far as I can, any superfluous labour, in the measure that this is possible for me here. It seems that now the most difficult part has been passed and the road will go downhill.
So then, dear friend, please do not refuse to help us, and answer as soon as possible, to set our minds at rest.”
Apparently Maude did not agree to take this matter into his own hands, for a month later L. N. writes to him again:
“I have received three letters from you. I very much regret your refusal to take part in the printing of the translation of Resurrection, though I understand the motives of your refusal. In this whole affair there is something indefinite, unclear, and as it were inconsistent with the principles we profess. Sometimes — in bad moments — it affects me too in the same way, and I want as quickly as possible to get rid of it; but when I am in a good, serious frame of mind, I even rejoice in all the unpleasantness connected with this affair. I know that my motives were, if not good, then the most innocent, and therefore, if in the eyes of men I shall appear on this account inconsistent, or something even worse, this is only useful to me, accustoming me to act independently of human judgments, only in accordance with the demands of conscience. Such an occasion must be valued. They are rare and very useful.”
Happily for the cause, these misunderstandings were smoothed over, and both Maude and Chertkov continued to take an active part in the common cause of the resettlement of the Doukhobors and brought it to a happy conclusion.