---
id: mikhail-engelhardt
recordStatus: draft
liveStatus: new
type: person
title: Mikhail Engelhardt
titleEn: Mikhail Engelhardt
titleRu: Михаил Александрович Энгельгардт
nameAlternatives:
  - name: "M. A. Engelhardt"
    type: variant
    language: en
description: "A young correspondent to whom a long letter of the winter of 1882–83 set out the new teaching of non-violence and the five commandments."
roles:
  - correspondent
relationToTolstoy: correspondent
relationshipDescription: "Addressee of a long letter of 1882–83 (PSS 63:112–128) on the Christian teaching and non-resistance to evil by violence."
periodOfContact:
  from: "1882"
  to: ""
  notes: "Only one letter from the PSS is in this dive; it answers two earlier letters from Engelhardt. Later contact: not checked."
authorityTier: 3
synopsis: "M. A. Engelhardt wrote twice and received in reply a long letter from Moscow, dated by the PSS between about 20 December 1882 and 20 January 1883. It sets out the teaching that followed A Confession: the meaning of life in this world, found by keeping the five commandments, without violence."
relatedWorks:
  -
    id: confession
    role: correspondent
relatedArticles:
  - leo-tolstoy
themes:
  - non-resistance to evil by violence
  - the meaning of life
identifiers:
  wikidata: ""
  viaf: ""
  lccn: ""
  bnf: ""
fieldSources: {}
---

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Engelhardt (<span lang="ru">Михаил Александрович Энгельгардт</span>) is the addressee of a long letter written in Moscow in the winter of 1882–83, which states the teaching that followed [[A Confession]]. The <abbr title="Полное собрание сочинений — the 90-volume Jubilee edition of the complete works">PSS</abbr> prints it as letter No. 140 and dates it between about 20 December 1882 and 20 January 1883, both dates queried.[^1]

## The letter

It answers two letters from Engelhardt, and opens warmly: "you cannot even imagine to what degree I am lonely". The hope it names is to find in him "a person sincerely going with me along one road and towards one and the same goal".[^2]

Engelhardt had sent his own letters to Aksakov. The reply judges them: "Your arguments are irrefutable, but for him they do not exist."[^3]

The letter speaks of him as one of the young: "Young people of your cast of mind are inclined to confuse the true Christian teaching with the quietism of the superstitious."[^4] Against this it sets out non-resistance to evil by violence, and the failure of the sacrifices of the young intelligentsia over the past twenty years: "instead of shots, explosions, printing presses".[^5] It names [[Vasily Sutaev]], an illiterate peasant, as having more influence on the educated than all Russian scholars and writers.[^6]

## The five commandments

Near its end the letter puts the teaching in a few lines: "Its significance is not in rebuilding society by violence in its name; its significance is in finding the meaning of life in this world. Fulfilment of the five commandments gives that meaning."[^7] The meaning of life is the question of *A Confession*; the five commandments of the Sermon on the Mount belong to the work that followed it, *What I Believe*.

The letter closes by mentioning something sent with it: "If you read what I am sending".[^8]

## Open questions

- Dating: the PSS heading gives 20 December 1882 to 20 January 1883, both queried; the extract's catalogue line reads "20 December 1882 to 18 December 1882"; the dive's dossier gives December 1882. Old style is assumed; no new-style date is given in the sources.
- Who Engelhardt was, beyond what the letter says, is not in this dive: no dates of life, no account of his views. "Young radical" in the dive's dossier rests on the letter's own words.
- Which Aksakov received his letters, and what was sent with the reply, are explained in the PSS notes (markers ¹ and ²⁵), which the extract does not include.
- Whether the correspondence went on after this letter: not checked.

## Dive provenance

- [1879-1882-a-confession](../works/non-fiction/personal-papers/1879-1882-a-confession/index.md) — the letter to M. A. Engelhardt (evidence conf-let-08, PSS 63:112–128) and the dossier's entity entry, 2026-10-02.

[^1]: <span lang="ru">«140. М. А. Энгельгардту.1882 г. Декабря 20? — 1883 г. Января 20? Москва.»</span> (PSS 63:112–128, letter heading).

[^2]: <span lang="ru">«вы не можете и представить себе до какой степени я одинок»</span>; <span lang="ru">«найти в вас человека, искренно идущего со мной по одной дороге и к одной и той же цели»</span> (PSS 63:112–128, letter to M. A. Engelhardt, Dec. 1882 – Jan. 1883). English: ours.

[^3]: <span lang="ru">«Доводы ваши неотразимы, но для него не существуют.»</span> (PSS 63:112–128, letter to M. A. Engelhardt). English: ours.

[^4]: <span lang="ru">«Люди молодые и вашего строя мысли, склонны смешивать христианское учение истинное с квиетизмом суеверов.»</span> (PSS 63:112–128, letter to M. A. Engelhardt). English: ours.

[^5]: <span lang="ru">«вместо выстрелов, взрывов, типографий»</span> (PSS 63:112–128, letter to M. A. Engelhardt). English: ours.

[^6]: <span lang="ru">«Вот вам безграмотный мужик, — а его влияние на людей, на нашу интеллигенцию больше и значительнее, чем всех русских ученых и писателей»</span> (PSS 63:112–128, letter to M. A. Engelhardt). English: ours.

[^7]: <span lang="ru">«Значение его не в том, чтобы во имя его насилием перестраивать общество; значение его в том, чтобы найти смысл жизни в этом мире. Исполнение пяти заповедей дает этот смысл.»</span> (PSS 63:112–128, letter to M. A. Engelhardt). English: ours.

[^8]: <span lang="ru">«Если вы прочтете то, что я посылаю»</span> (PSS 63:112–128, letter to M. A. Engelhardt). English: ours.