Sophia Tolstaya facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Sophia Andreyevna Tolstaya
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| Со́фья Андре́евна Толста́я | |
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| Born |
Sophia Andreyevna Behrs
22 August 1844 Northwestern Administrative Okrug, Russia
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| Died | 4 November 1919 (aged 75) Yasnaya Polyana, Tula Governorate, Soviet Russia
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| Nationality | Russian |
| Other names | Sophia Tolstoy, Sonya Tolstoy, Sofia Tolstoy |
| Occupation | Diarist, copyist |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Children | 13 |
Countess Sophia Andreyevna Tolstaya (née Behrs; Russian: Со́фья Андре́евна Толста́я, sometimes anglicised as Sofia Tolstoy, Sophia Tolstoy and Sonya Tolstoy; 22 August 1844 – 4 November 1919), was a Russian diarist, and the wife of Russian writer Count Leo Tolstoy.
Contents
Biography
Sophia Behrs was one of three daughters of a German physician Andrey Evstafievich Behrs (1808–1868) and his Russian wife Liubov Alexandrovna Islavinа (1826–1886). Her maternal great-grandfather, Count Pyotr Zavadovsky, was the first Minister of education in Russia's history. Sophia was first introduced to Leo Tolstoy in 1862 when she was 18 years old. At 34, Tolstoy was 16 years her senior. On 17 September 1862 the couple became formally engaged after Tolstoy gave Sophia a written proposal of marriage, marrying a week later in Moscow. At the time of their marriage, Leo Tolstoy was well known as a novelist after the publication of The Cossacks. ..... In Anna Karenina, 34-year-old Konstantin Levin, a semi-autobiographical character behaves similarly, asking his 19-year-old fiancée Kitty to read his diaries and learn of his past transgressions. The diary included the fact that Tolstoy had fathered a child by a woman who remained on the Yasnaya Polyana estate.
Tolstoya was pregnant 16 times, three of her pregnancies ended in miscarriages. The Tolstoys had 13 children, eight of whom survived childhood. With the growing interest of her husband in spiritual matters, Tolstoya took over the running of the family estate. Sophia acted as copyist of War and Peace, copying and editing the manuscript seven times from beginning to end at home at night by candlelight after the children and servants had gone to bed, using an inkwell pen and sometimes requiring a magnifying glass to read her husband's notes.
In 1887, Tolstaya regained interest in the relatively new art of photography, which she had learned at age 16. She took over 1,000 photographs that documented her life, including with Tolstoy, and the decline of the Russian Empire. She was a diarist and documented her life with Leo Tolstoy in a series of diaries which were published in English translation in the 1980s. Tolstaya wrote her memoirs as well, which she titled My Life.
The marriage of Tolstoya and Leo Tolstoy is considered as one of the famously unhappy marriages of literary history. Their children took sides in the marital discord. Their daughter Alexandra was supporting her father, whereas their son Leo Junior favoured his mother. Tolstaya was struggling with Leo Tolstoy's increasing devotion to spiritual matters and his neglect of their family life. The couple argued over Tolstoy's desire to give away all his private property. Leo Tolstoy left Tolstoya abruptly in 1910, aged 82, with their daughter Alexandra, and his doctor, Dushan Makovicki (Dušan Makovický). Leo Tolstoy left out of anger after he overheard Tolstaya searching his study. She would have been searching for his will that she was concerned Tolstoy wanted to change. Leo Tolstoy died 10 days later in the hamlet of Astapavo, and Sophia was kept away from him (as depicted in the film The Last Station). Following the death of her husband, Sophia continued to live in Yasnaya Polyana and survived the Russian Revolution in relative peace. She died on 4 November 1919.
Works
Many works of Tolstoya were published postmortem and long after being written. This is because Tolstaya was critical of Leo Tolstoy in her writing and the Russian authorities did not want the status of the famous author tarnished. Some of the literary work of Tolstaya was published more than a century after she wrote it.
List of publications
- The Countess Tolstoy's Later Diary 1891-1897 London, Victor Gollancz, 1929 - translated by Alexander Werth
- Autobiography of Sophie Andreevna Tolstoi online at archive.org
- The Memoirs of Sofia Tolstoy, which she titled My Life – at University of Ottawa Press
- Whose Fault? (Russian: Чья вина?), Oktyabr 1994/10, 6-59. German Translation: Eine Frage der Schuld, Zürich 2008. English translation: Sophia Tolstoy's rebuttal of her husband Leo's accusations, The Edwin Bellen Press, New York 2010
- Song without Words (Russian: Песня без слов), unpublished in Russia. German Translation: Lied ohne Worte, Zürich 2010.
- Cathy Porter (tr), The Diaries of Sophia Tolstoy (London: HarperCollins, 2010).
See also
In Spanish: Sofía Behrs para niños
