---
id: afanasy-fet
recordStatus: draft
liveStatus: new
type: person
title: Afanasy Fet
titleEn: Afanasy Fet
titleRu: Афанасий Афанасьевич Фет
nameAlternatives:
  - name: "A. A. Fet"
    type: variant
    language: en
  - name: "Shenshin"
    type: alias
    language: en
description: "Poet and neighbour, one of the correspondents of the years in which A Confession (1879–82) was written."
birthDate: "1820"
birthDateOldStyle: ""
birthDateApproximate: false
deathDate: "1892"
deathDateOldStyle: ""
deathDateApproximate: false
birthPlace: ""
deathPlace: ""
nationality: Russian
roles:
  - correspondent
occupation:
  - poet
  - translator
relationToTolstoy: friend
relationshipDescription: "Poet and neighbour; a correspondent during the years of A Confession."
periodOfContact:
  from: ""
  to: ""
  notes: "Letters attested in these sources from 1860 to 1880; full span not from this dive."
synopsis: ""
relatedWorks:
  -
    id: confession
    role: correspondent
relatedArticles:
  - leo-tolstoy
  - nikolai-strakhov
themes:
  - Tolstoy's correspondents
  - the composition of A Confession
identifiers:
  wikidata: ""
  viaf: ""
  lccn: ""
  bnf: ""
fieldSources:
  birthDate:
    -
      sourceId: ""
      volume: ""
      page: ""
      notes: "Year only, from the dive's visuals note (1820–1892), not from a primary source — check."
  deathDate:
    -
      sourceId: ""
      volume: ""
      page: ""
      notes: "Year only, from the dive's visuals note and dossier rights line (Fet d. 1892), not from a primary source — check."
---

Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet (<span lang="ru">Афанасий Афанасьевич Фет</span>) was a poet and a neighbour, and one of the people Tolstoy wrote to in the years of [[A Confession]] (1879–82). Fet is not named in the text of A Confession. He appears in the letters of the composition years and in the <abbr title="Полное собрание сочинений — the 90-volume Jubilee edition of the complete works">PSS</abbr> commentary to the work.

## Letters in the composition years

On 22 November 1879 (OS), in the weeks when the work was being drafted, Tolstoy wrote to Fet: "I am very busy. Nothing will come of my occupation except my own satisfaction, but I am very busy all the same."[^1] The same letter says he is going to Moscow the next day for two days, and asks Fet to visit in December: "There is very much I want to talk over with you."[^2] The PSS commentary to A Confession sets this letter beside two to [[Nikolai Strakhov]] of the same month, as evidence that the work was going on and was not for print.[^3]

Earlier letters of 1879 to Fet, quoted in the dive's sweep of PSS volume 62, touch the same ground. On 31 January Tolstoy wished that Fet would "recognise the necessity of relations to God".[^4] On 25 March he wrote that he was doing "something that leaves no traces outside me".[^5] On 27–28 July he wrote of needs "not natural, but artificially grafted", and of wanting to be sure that he gives people more than he receives.[^6] A long letter of October 1880 sets out a reading of the Gospel.[^7] The same sweep notes that Strakhov visited Fet at Vorobyovka in the summer of 1879 and then came on to Yasnaya Polyana.[^8]

In January 1878 Tolstoy told Strakhov that Fet was at his new estate, reached by the Moscow–Kursk railway at Budanovka station, and had sent a fine poem in his last letter.[^9]

## In the PSS commentary

The commentary to A Confession names Fet three times:

- Chapter II speaks of having "challenged men to duels in order to kill them".[^10] The commentary gives two cases; the second is the challenge to Turgenev after their quarrel on 27 May 1861 at Fet's house.[^11]
- On the death of the brother Nikolai Nikolaevich in 1860, the commentary notes that Tolstoy wrote to Fet about it on 17 October 1860 (PSS 60:357–358).[^12]
- Chapter VI mentions what "Schopenhauer calls 'professorial philosophy'".[^13] The commentary points to Schopenhauer's preface to the second edition of The World as Will and Representation "in the Russian translation of A. Fet".[^14]

## Open questions

- The other 1879 and 1880 letters to Fet (PSS 62, Nos. 486, 498, 522; PSS 63, No. 31) are quoted only in the dive's sweep note; their texts are not among the extracts. The quotes and dates need checking against the PSS.
- The dive's commentary note dates the 22 November letter "around 2 November"; the PSS commentary itself and the letter extract give 22 November.
- The text of A Confession does not name him; whether any passage has Fet in mind is not shown by these sources.
- The two couplets in the January 1878 letter to Strakhov follow the mention of Fet's poem, but the letter does not say whose lines they are.
- Birth and death years come from the dive's visuals note, not from a primary source.

## Dive provenance

- [1879-1882-a-confession](../works/non-fiction/personal-papers/1879-1882-a-confession/index.md) — the letter of 22 November 1879 (PSS 62), the letter to Strakhov of January 1878, the PSS 23 commentary notes, and the dive's sweeps of PSS 62–63, 2026-10-02.

[^1]: <span lang="ru">«Я очень занят. Из занятия моего ничего не выйдет, кроме моего удовлетворения, но все-таки очень занят»</span> (PSS 62:503–504, letter to A. A. Fet, 22 November 1879 OS). English: ours.

[^2]: <span lang="ru">«Завтра еду в Москву на два дня»</span>; <span lang="ru">«Много-много хочется с вами поговорить»</span> (PSS 62:503–504, letter to A. A. Fet, 22 November 1879 OS). English: ours.

[^3]: <span lang="ru">«Я очень занят, очень взволнован своей работой. Работа не художественная и не для печати»</span> (to Strakhov, 22 November); <span lang="ru">«В тот же день Фету»</span> (PSS 23, commentary). English: ours.

[^4]: <span lang="ru">«Дай бог вам... того, чтобы вы признали необходимость отношений к богу, отсутствие которых вы так ярко отрицаете»</span> (PSS 62, No. 486, letter to A. A. Fet, 31 January 1879). Quoted from the dive's letter sweep (`_sweep_letters62`); not checked against the letter. English: ours.

[^5]: <span lang="ru">«я делаю что-то такое, что не оставляет никаких следов вне меня»</span> (PSS 62, No. 498, letter to A. A. Fet, 25 March 1879). Quoted from the dive's letter sweep; not checked against the letter. English: ours.

[^6]: <span lang="ru">«большая доля моей и вашей жизни наполнена удовлетворениями не естественных, а искусственно привитых... потребностей... Мне бы очень хотелось быть твердо уверенным в том, что я даю людям больше того, что получаю»</span> (PSS 62, No. 522, letter to A. A. Fet, 27–28 July 1879). Quoted from the dive's letter sweep; not checked against the letter. English: ours.

[^7]: <span lang="ru">«Из Евангелия... учение называется: возвещение о благе... Такой свет мне дает Евангелие»</span> (PSS 63, No. 31, letter to A. A. Fet, 10–15 October 1880). Quoted from the dive's letter sweep; not checked against the letter.

[^8]: The dive's letter sweep (`_sweep_letters62`), citing PSS 62, Nos. 509, 521, 522. Secondary note; not checked against the letters.

[^9]: <span lang="ru">«Фет в новом своем именьи — Московско-Курская дорога, станция Будановка. В последнем письме он прислал мне стихотворение прекрасное»</span> (PSS 62:379–383, letter to N. N. Strakhov, 27 January 1878 OS, dated with a query in PSS). English: ours.

[^10]: <span lang="ru">«вызывал на дуэли, чтоб убить»</span> (PSS 23, ch. II). English: Maude.

[^11]: <span lang="ru">«Второй случай — вызов Тургенева после ссоры с ним 27 мая 1861 г. в гостях у Фета»</span> (PSS 23, commentary, note 9). The commentary refers to Fet's own account in his «Мои воспоминания», vol. I (Moscow 1890), pp. 369–375. English: ours.

[^12]: <span lang="ru">«То же писал он Фету 17 октября того же года (т. 60, стр. 357—358)»</span> (PSS 23, commentary, note 14). English: ours.

[^13]: <span lang="ru">«не в той, которую Шопенгауэр называл профессорской философией»</span> (PSS 23, ch. VI). English: Maude.

[^14]: <span lang="ru">«См. в русском переводе А. Фета, изд. Маркса, 4-е, СПб., стр. XXV—XXVIII»</span> (PSS 23, commentary, note 23). English: ours.