---
id: optina-pustyn
recordStatus: draft
liveStatus: new
type: place
title: Optina Pustyn
titleEn: Optina Pustyn
titleRu: Оптина пустынь
nameAlternatives:
  - name: "Оптина Пустынь"
    type: variant
    language: ru
  - name: "Optina Hermitage"
    type: translation
    language: en
description: "The monastery Tolstoy visited in the summer of 1881, as A Confession neared its finished form, and where an aunt of his childhood died."
placeType: monastery
country: Russia
region: Kaluga Governorate
city: Kozelsk
coordinates:
  lat: ""
  lon: ""
  approximate: false
significancePeriod: "1840s–1881 (as attested in these sources)"
roleInTolstoyLife: visited
periodOfAssociation:
  from: ""
  fromOldStyle: ""
  to: "1881"
  toOldStyle: "1881"
  notes: "Childhood trips by the aunts; Aleksandra Ilyinichna died there (draft of A Confession); an undated journey with Strakhov (PSS 23 commentary); a journey to Optina and Kaluga reported in a letter of 1–8 July 1881 (OS)."
synopsis: "Optina Pustyn appears in a draft of A Confession as the place the aunts of Tolstoy's childhood travelled to, and where one of them died. The PSS commentary lists a journey there with Strakhov among his church observances of the 1870s. In early July 1881 he reported a recent journey to Optina and Kaluga."
worksWrittenHere: []
relatedArticles:
  - leo-tolstoy
  - nikolai-strakhov
relatedWorks:
  -
    id: confession
    relationshipType: source
themes:
  - the Orthodox Church
  - Tolstoy's religious views
identifiers:
  wikidata: ""
  geonames: ""
  openStreetMap: ""
fieldSources:
  region: "Not from this dive — check."
  city: "Kozelsk: not from this dive — check."
---

Optina Pustyn (<span lang="ru">Оптина пустынь</span>) is a monastery that touches [[A Confession]] (1879–82) in three places in the sources: a draft about Tolstoy's childhood, the <abbr title="Полное собрание сочинений — the 90-volume Jubilee edition of the complete works">PSS</abbr> commentary on his return to church practice, and a letter of July 1881.

## In a draft of the childhood chapter

Draft No. 23, headed "What am I?", describes the household of the aunts who brought the children up: "The aunts received pilgrims and travelled to Optina Pustyn, and took the older ones there." The boy did not know why, and saw in it "nothing either good or bad".[^1] The same draft records that Aleksandra Ilyinichna, his father's sister, died at Optina Pustyn in the famine year 1840, when he was twelve.[^2] The final text of *A Confession* does not keep this passage.

## The journey with Strakhov

The PSS commentary, describing the years of the late 1870s when he kept the Church's rules, lists among them that he "goes with N. N. Strakhov to Optina Pustyn". The commentary gives no date for the journey; the next sentence turns to spring 1877.[^3] See [[Nikolai Strakhov]].

## The journey of 1881

In a letter to Strakhov dated 1–8 July 1881 (OS), from Yasnaya Polyana, he wrote: "I recently made a journey to Optina Pustyn and to Kaluga, and it was very good for me." In the same letter he reported that the larger work was finished and that he had made an extract from the Gospels with a short preface.[^4] The dive ties the finished form of *A Confession* to this point.[^5]

## Open questions

- The year of the earlier journey with Strakhov in the commentary: NEEDS PRIMARY SOURCE. The July 1881 letter tells Strakhov of the 1881 journey as news, so he was not on it.
- The exact dates of the 1881 journey, and whom he met there: not in these sources.
- Location, coordinates and the nearest town are not in this dive's sources.

## Dive provenance

- [1879-1882-a-confession](../works/non-fiction/personal-papers/1879-1882-a-confession/index.md) — draft variant No. 23, the PSS 23 commentary, and the letter to Strakhov of July 1881 (evidence conf-let-05); dossier entity "Optina Pustyn", 2026-10-02.

[^1]: <span lang="ru">«Тетушки принимали странников и ездили в Оптину Пустынь и старших брали туда»</span>; <span lang="ru">«не видел в том ничего ни хорошего, ни худого»</span> (PSS 23:488–511, variant No. 23; page not pinned). English: ours.

[^2]: <span lang="ru">«в самый 40-й голодный год померла в Оптиной Пустыни и Александра Ильинишна. Мне было тогда 12 лет»</span> (PSS 23:488–511, variant No. 23; page not pinned). English: ours.

[^3]: <span lang="ru">«едет вместе с H. Н. Страховым в Оптину пустынь»</span> (PSS 23, commentary). English: ours.

[^4]: <span lang="ru">«Я недавно сделал путешествие в Оптину пустынь и в Калугу…»</span>; <span lang="ru">«и очень мне было хорошо»</span>; <span lang="ru">«Из большего сочинения, которое я после вас и кончил, и еще раз все прошел, я сделал еще из Евангелия извлечение без примечаний, но с коротким предисловием»</span> (PSS 63:71–73, letter to N. N. Strakhov, 1–8 July 1881). English: ours.

[^5]: Dive index and dossier (conf-let-05), drawing on the PSS editors.