--- id: alexandrine-tolstaya recordStatus: draft liveStatus: new type: person title: Alexandrine Tolstaya titleEn: Alexandrine Tolstaya titleRu: Александра Андреевна Толстая nameAlternatives: - name: "Alexandra Andreyevna Tolstaya" type: transliteration language: en - name: "Countess A. A. Tolstaya" type: variant language: en - name: "Alexandrine" type: alias language: en - name: "А. А. Толстая" type: variant language: ru description: "Tolstoy's cousin, a lady-in-waiting at the court and an Orthodox believer, to whom he wrote about his new faith in the years of A Confession (1879–82); not his daughter Alexandra." birthDate: "1817" birthDateOldStyle: "" birthDateApproximate: false deathDate: "1904" deathDateOldStyle: "" deathDateApproximate: false birthPlace: "" deathPlace: "" causeOfDeath: "" nationality: Russian religion: "Russian Orthodox" politicalViews: "" roles: - correspondent occupation: - lady-in-waiting relationToTolstoy: cousin relationshipDescription: "Cousin and long-standing correspondent; the Orthodox believer he argued his new faith against during the writing of A Confession." periodOfContact: from: "" to: "" notes: "This dive covers letters of 1878–1884 only." authorityTier: 2 synopsis: "" worksAuthored: [] worksTranslated: [] worksEdited: [] worksTranscribed: [] relatedWorks: - id: confession role: correspondent relatedArticles: - leo-tolstoy themes: - Tolstoy family - Orthodox Church - correspondence identifiers: wikidata: "" viaf: "" lccn: "" bnf: "" fieldSources: birthDate: - sourceId: "" volume: "" page: "" notes: "Year only, from the A Confession dive's dossier.yaml (1817–1904); not from a primary source in this dive — check." deathDate: - sourceId: "" volume: "" page: "" notes: "Year only, from the A Confession dive's dossier.yaml (1817–1904); not from a primary source in this dive — check." --- Countess Alexandra Andreyevna Tolstaya (Александра Андреевна Толстая, 1817–1904), called Alexandrine, was Tolstoy's cousin and a lady-in-waiting at the court. She is not his daughter Alexandra Lvovna Tolstaya (1884–1979). In the years of [[A Confession]] (1879–82) she was the Orthodox believer to whom he wrote most directly about his break with the Church's faith. ## Letters in the years of A Confession In 1878 and 1879 he wrote to her about a work in progress without naming it. On 25 March 1879: "Your cross is the court, mine is the work of thought … If God wills what I am planning, you will read it."[^1] On 2–3 February 1880 he set his faith against hers: "your confession of faith is the confession of faith of our Church. I know it and do not share it."[^2] ## The unsent letter of March 1882 A letter dated 3 March 1882 (old style) is marked in the PSS as unsent.[^3] The envelope is addressed to her at the Winter Palace in Petersburg.[^4] In it he says he has studied her faith with all his strength and found it "not a faith but a vile deception", and that he has "written a book exposing the deceivers".[^5] He adds: "Those exposed have hidden behind censorship and bayonets."[^6] Which book he means is not stated. ## Later In 1884 he wrote to her that his writing alienated people of every kind, and also his family and friends.[^7] The PSS commentary to [[A Confession]] cites her memoirs, printed with the correspondence in 1911, for his first journey abroad in 1857 (chapter III).[^8] ## Open questions - Degree of kinship: the sources here say only "cousin" (кузина). Check the exact relation. - Which book the March 1882 letter means: A Confession, or the larger theological work. The dive leaves this open. - The dossier speaks of "two key (unsent) confessional letters" to her; only one unsent letter (3 March 1882) is extracted in this dive. Identify the second, or correct the dossier. - The 1878–1880 and 1884 letters are quoted here from the dive's letter sweeps, not from extracted letter texts. Verify against PSS 62 and 63 before treating the wording as final. - Full birth and death dates are not in these sources. ## Dive provenance - [1879-1882-a-confession](../works/non-fiction/personal-papers/1879-1882-a-confession/index.md) — the unsent letter of 3 March 1882 (PSS 63), the letter sweeps of PSS 62–63, the dossier's entity entry and the PSS 23 commentary, 2026-10-02. [^1]: «Ваш крест — двор, мой — работа мысли — скверная, горделивая, полная соблазнов... Если богу угодно будет то, что я задумываю, вы прочтете» (PSS 62, letter to A. A. Tolstaya, 25 March 1879). Quoted from the dive's letter sweep, not from an extracted text. English: ours. [^2]: «ваше исповедание веры есть исповедание веры нашей церкви. Я его знаю и не разделяю» (PSS 63, letter to A. A. Tolstaya, 2–3 February 1880). Quoted from the dive's letter sweep, not from an extracted text. English: ours. [^3]: «Неотправленное» (PSS 63:90–91, no. 94, letter to A. A. Tolstaya, 3 March 1882, the date queried by the editors). [^4]: «Петербургъ. Зимній дворецъ» (PSS 63:91, envelope). [^5]: «убедился, что это не вера, а мерзкой обман»; «я написал книгу, обличающую обманщиков» (PSS 63:90–91, letter to A. A. Tolstaya, 3 March 1882, unsent). The extracted text reads «обманщпков», a misprint. English: ours. [^6]: «Обличаемые спрятались за цензуру и штыки» (PSS 63:90–91, letter to A. A. Tolstaya, 3 March 1882, unsent). English: ours. [^7]: «мое писанье нетолько отталкивает от меня и вызывает презрение всякого рода людей, но и охлаждает, отвращает от меня семью и друзей» (PSS 63, letter to A. A. Tolstaya, 7 May 1884). Quoted from the dive's letter sweep, not from an extracted text. English: ours. [^8]: «Переписка Л. Н. Толстого с А. А. Толстой», St Petersburg, 1911, pp. 4–12, cited for her memoirs (PSS 23, commentary, note to ch. III).