Nikolai Strakhov (Николай Николаевич Страхов) was a philosopher and critic. In the years when A Confession took shape, from 1877 to 1881, he was Tolstoy’s chief correspondent on his religious search and on the work in progress. The letters to him in volumes 62 and 63 of the PSS are among the main sources for the work’s dating.
Letters through the composition
On 6 November 1877 Tolstoy told Strakhov he had tried to set out what he believed “in catechism form”, and that the attempt showed him how hard, perhaps impossible, that was.1 In late 1877 he asked Strakhov for books on religion, naming Max Müller and Burnouf, and asked what was “the most purified form of Christianity”.2
On 27 January 1878 he wrote: “Reason tells me nothing, and can say nothing, to the three questions that may easily be put as one: what am I?” In the same letter he said he had begun writing about this “and written quite a lot”, and asked Strakhov to criticise him “more roughly”.3
Strakhov stayed at Yasnaya Polyana at the end of June 1879. In a letter of 21 July he said he had found Tolstoy in a “new phase”; the PSS commentary reads this as the first sign of his break with the Church.4
In the autumn of 1879 Tolstoy wrote to him about the new work only indirectly. Around 1–2 November: “Write your life; I keep wanting to do the same”, and “I am very busy, but I will not say what I am writing.”5 On 22 November: “The work is not artistic and not for print.”6 An unsent letter of the same week says: “I am very busy with work for myself, which I will never print.”7 The commentary dates the reworking from which A Confession grew by a letter to Strakhov of about 2 March 1880.8
On 1–8 July 1881 Tolstoy told him that the larger work, “which I finished after seeing you”, was done, and that he had made from it a shorter gospel extract with a short preface. The commentary identifies that preface as A Confession. He thanked Strakhov for an offer to see the work through the press, but did not expect to use it.9 The same letter reports a recent journey to Optina Pustyn.
Other links to the work
The commentary to PSS 23 says that, in the years when Tolstoy kept the rules of the Church, he went with Strakhov to Optina Pustyn.10 Chapter IX of A Confession names “knowledge which begins, as Descartes’s did, with complete doubt about everything”; the commentary says Tolstoy read the passage from Descartes in Strakhov’s translation, in his article of 1878.11
Strakhov also called the work a confession, before Tolstoy used that title himself. In a letter to N. Ya. Danilevsky of 13 September 1883 he wrote that it had been printed in Russkaya Mysl and burned.12
Open questions
- The year of the joint Optina trip: the commentary places it in the earlier church-going years without a date; the July 1881 trip was made without him.
- No source in the dive shows him reading the manuscript of A Confession itself.
- The letter of 27 January 1878 carries a query on the day («27?») in the PSS heading and the commentary.
- The letter sweep gives the Müller and Burnouf request twice, under letters 362 (26–27 November 1877) and 370 (17–18 December 1877), with near-identical wording. Which letter it is needs checking in PSS 62.
- Birth and death years are not from the PSS.
Dive provenance
- 1879-1882-a-confession — letters to Strakhov in PSS 62–63, the PSS 23 commentary and the dive’s letter sweeps, 2026-10-02.
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«...мне захотелось попробовать изложить в катехизической форме то, во что я верю, и я попытался. И попытка эта показала мне, как это для меня трудно и, боюсь, невозможно» (PSS 23, commentary, quoting the letter to N. N. Strakhov of 6 November 1877 OS). English: ours. ↩
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«Желал бы я иметь Max’а Muller’а и Burnouf’a... И какая есть форма самого очищенного христианства?» (PSS 62:370, letter to N. N. Strakhov, 17–18 December 1877 OS, as given in the dive’s letter sweep). English: ours. ↩
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«Разум мне ничего не говорит и не может сказать на три вопроса, которые легко выразить одним: что я такое?»; «Я об этом начал писать и написал довольно много»; «погрубее пишите мне и критикуйте меня» (PSS 62:385, letter to N. N. Strakhov, 27? January 1878 OS). English: ours. ↩
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«новом фазисе» (PSS 23, commentary, citing Strakhov’s letter to Tolstoy of 21 July 1879 OS). English: ours. ↩
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«Напишите свою жизнь; я всё хочу то же сделать»; «Я очень занят, но не скажу, что пишу» (PSS 62:533, letter to N. N. Strakhov, 1–2 November 1879 OS; the commentary dates it about 2 November). English: ours. ↩
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«Я очень занят, очень взволнован своей работой. Работа не художественная и не для печати» (PSS 23, commentary, quoting the letter to N. N. Strakhov of 22 November 1879 OS). English: ours. ↩
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«Я очень занят работой для себя, которой никогда не напечатаю» (PSS 62:535, unsent letter to N. N. Strakhov, 19–22 November 1879 OS). English: ours. ↩
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PSS 23, commentary: the letter of about 2 March 1880 says he had begun reworking the whole from the start and was finishing his analysis of «догматического богословия» (dogmatic theology). ↩
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«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»; «Очень вам благодарен за ваше предложение заняться печатанием»; «Я недавно сделал путешествие в Оптину пустынь и в Калугу» (PSS 63:60, letter to N. N. Strakhov, 1–8 July 1881 OS). English: ours. The identification of the preface with A Confession: PSS 23, commentary. ↩
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«едет вместе с H. Н. Страховым в Оптину пустынь» (PSS 23, commentary). The passage is undated; it comes just before the commentary’s account of spring 1877. ↩
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«то знание, которое, как это сделал Декарт, начинает с полного сомнения во всем» (PSS 23, ch. IX). English: Maude. The article is «Об основных понятиях психологии», Журнал Министерства народного просвещения, 1878, no. 5 (PSS 23, commentary, note to p. 34). ↩
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«перевел для «Revue nouvelle» «Исповедь» (которая печаталась в «Русской мысли» и сожжена)» (PSS 23, commentary, quoting Strakhov to N. Ya. Danilevsky, 13 September 1883 OS, on L. D. Urusov’s French translation). English: ours. ↩