Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy
Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy , nicknamed Americans ( Russian Фёдор Иванович Толстой , " Американец "; born February 6 . Jul / 17th February 1782 greg. , † October 24 jul. / 5. November 1846 greg. (According to other sources 24 December 1846 jul. / January 5, 1847 greg. ) In Moscow ), was a Russian nobleman of the Tolstoy family and a second uncle of the writer Leo Tolstoy . With his unusual temperament, his strong thirst for adventure and his passion for duels and card games, he was notorious throughout his life in Russian aristocratic circles and was considered an extremely scandalous figure in Russian society in the early 19th century. At the same time he was personally acquainted with several famous poets of the time and served some of them as models for characters in their works.
Life
Early years
Fyodor Tolstoy was born as one of seven children of Count Ivan Andreevich Tolstoy († after 1811) and his wife Anna Fjodorovna († 1834), who came from the small nobility of the Maikows. Fjodor's place of birth is no longer clearly verifiable, but it is often assumed that it was the parental estate near Kologriw in today 's Kostroma Oblast ; other publications name Moscow as his birthplace.
The Tolstois dynasty was venerable in the Russian Empire , but became impoverished in the 18th century after conflicts with state power and the temporary expropriation and exile of some of its representatives. In order to enable their sons to have a career, it was customary in families of this sex to send them to military school. As a result, Fyodor Tolstoy and his two brothers received their school education at the cadet school of the Imperial Russian Navy in St. Petersburg .
Even from childhood, Fyodor showed a lot of physical strength, skill and endurance, which was a good prerequisite for a military career. At the same time, he was noticed even then by his unpredictable, sometimes brutal character. At the cadet school he acquired his extremely high accuracy in fencing and shooting, which later made him a dangerous opponent in duels . After graduating from school, however, he did not do his military service in the navy, but, possibly thanks to the support of some influential relatives, in the elite Preobrazhensky regiment , which belonged to the Imperial Guard .
His comrades at the time, including Faddei Bulgarin , who later became known as a literary critic , remembered Tolstoy as a good marksman and an unusually brave fighter. He is said to have been a very spirited, passionate person, but at the same time acted extremely cold-blooded and confident of victory in battles. His wild character, in connection with the passion for women and card games, which was already pronounced at the time, repeatedly gave rise to disputes with comrades and superiors, which sometimes ended in fights and other violations of discipline. At the same time, Tolstoy was considered extremely resentful and vengeful when someone attacked him.
In general, an excessive willingness to take risks and deliberate confrontation with danger was very widespread among Russian officers in the early 19th century. This did not only apply to combat in theaters of war, but also to civilian situations, such as betting . Duels were considered a kind of petty offense and were sometimes carried out without hesitation. This fact in connection with Tolstoy's special character traits, especially his well-known recklessness, may have been the decisive factor in his later preference for duels. In 1799, at the age of 17, Tolstoy first dueled after a superior officer harassed him for an alleged malpractice. How this duel ended and what sentence Tolstoy served for it is not known. In some eyewitness reports it is said that Tolstoy has lost the officer rank he has now acquired and has been demoted to a soldier, but this is contradicted in other reports.
The circumnavigation
In 1803, Tolstoy started as a crew member on the sailing ship Nadeschda under the command of Captain Adam Johann von Krusenstern for the first circumnavigation of the world under the Russian flag. How Tolstoy got on the ship, although he did not belong to the Navy, is not clearly understood. Marja Fyodorovna Kamenskaya , daughter of his cousin, the later famous artist Fyodor Petrovich Tolstoy , claims in her notes that Tolstoy wanted to avoid being punished again for disobedience in the Preobrazhensky regiment. He had therefore joined the crew instead of their father, who was originally supposed to travel as a diplomat, but suffered severely from seasickness and was therefore not ready to start the trip.
The expedition started in August 1803 from the Russian naval port of Kronstadt with two sailing ships, Nadezhda and Neva , the latter under the command of Yuri Lisyansky . In addition to exploration and research purposes, it primarily served to establish diplomatic and economic relations between the Russian Empire and Japan , which is why a large diplomatic delegation led by statesman Nikolai Resanov traveled on board . The journey ran first across the Baltic Sea and the Atlantic , past the Canary Islands and the coast of Brazil to Cape Horn and on across the Pacific to the Marquesas , Hawaii and Kamchatka , from where Nadezhda continued to Nagasaki and Hakodate in Japan and Neva sailed to the island of Sitka , then part of Russian America . The expedition was then reunited in China , and they sailed via Macau , the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic back to the Baltic Sea and the European coast of Russia. Overall, the circumnavigation took a little over three years, from August 7, 1803 to August 19, 1806.
On the ship, too, the behavior of Fyodor Tolstoy, who was almost overflowing with energy, turned out to be extremely unpredictable. The count repeatedly provoked disputes with other crew members, including with Captain Krusenstern. In addition, Tolstoy allowed himself several bizarre pranks - either to take revenge on particularly unpleasant fellow travelers or simply out of boredom. He is said to have once made the priest who was traveling along the Neva drunk in a drinking bout, and while he was lying unconscious on the floor, his long beard was stuck to the floorboards with sealing wax . As a result, the beard had to be completely cut off afterwards in order to free the clergyman. Another time, Tolstoy is said to have sneaked into the captain's cabin with the crew's favorite, a tame orangutan , which he bought during the Nadezhda stopover on one of the South Sea islands, in the absence of the captain. There he took out the notebooks with Krusenstern's travel notes and showed the orangutan how to smear a sheet of paper with ink. Then he left the monkey alone in the cabin, which then began to imitate this action. When the captain returned, the orangutan had already rendered his notes unusable.
Tolstoy's behavior on board led to the fact that he had to be temporarily placed under arrest. Finally, Krusenstern had the unwelcome passenger referred to the ship's Kamchatka during the layover. The further course of Tolstoy's journey is only known from his own later, rather confused and sometimes contradicting stories. From Kamchatka, Tolstoy reached either one of the Aleutian islands or Sitka and spent several months there among the indigenous people of Alaska , the Tlingit people . It is possible that he sailed on the Neva from Kamchatka to Sitka and was only released there by Lisyansky. Tolstoy's numerous tattoos , which Tolstoy used to proudly present later , also came from this time or from the earlier stay of Nadezhda in the Marquesas . The aforementioned orangutan, who had to leave the ship with Tolstoy and whose further fate is unknown, later gave rise to wild rumors that circulated among Russian aristocrats. Accordingly, the monkey lady is said to have served Tolstoy as a companion during his stay on Kamchatka, whereas other blasphemers claimed that Tolstoy ate the monkey during his island robinsonade .
In any case, Tolstoy must have returned from the North American islands on a very adventurous route, the details of which only he knew himself, via the Russian Far East, Siberia , the Urals and the Volga region to St. Petersburg. According to his own accounts, a merchant ship first took him to the port of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky , from where he set off on the long overland route back to European Russia - sometimes by carts, carriages and horse-drawn sleighs, sometimes on foot. One of the few written mentions of this trip can be found in the notes published in 1892 by the publicist Filipp Wigel , who had toured the country in the summer of 1805 for the purpose of researching everyday life in Russia and who happened to meet Tolstoy in Udmurtia :
- “ At one of the stations we were astonished to see an officer in the uniform of the Preobrazhensky regiment enter. That was Count FITolstoy [...] He had circumnavigated the world with Krusenstern and Resanow, fell out with everyone, fell out with each other and was exposed to Kamchatka as a dangerous person and went back to Petersburg by land. What has not been said about him ... "
Tolstoy's journey ended with his arrival in St. Petersburg at the beginning of August 1805. Through his adventures, about which there was a lot of gossip in Russian aristocratic circles, the Count achieved almost legendary fame and his nickname American, which was soon established as an allusion to his Stay in Russian America.
War participation
Tolstoy expected new trouble as soon as he arrived in the capital: Immediately after reaching the city limits, he was temporarily arrested and placed under criminal arrest. In addition, he was banned from entering St. Petersburg by special decree from Tsar Alexander I.
Tolstoy's previously scandalous past also stood in the way of his further military career. He was transferred from the elite Preobrazhensky regiment to the rather insignificant fortress Nyslott , where he served from 1805 to 1808. Filipp Wigel wrote about this apparently not very satisfactory time for Tolstoy:
- “ When he returned from his world tour, he was stopped at the Petersburg city limits, then only driven through the capital and brought to the Nyslotter fortress. By order of the same day, he was transferred from the Preobrazhensky regiment to the local garrison under the same rank (Porutschik). A severe punishment for a brave fighter who had never seen a battle, and especially at the time when war was breaking out across Europe from east to west. "
Only the friendship with the military leader Mikhail Dolgorukov finally helped the count to a post as his adjutant on one of the fronts of the Russian-Swedish war that had just broken out . There Tolstoy finally felt in his element: he took an active part in the fighting, including the Battle of Idensalmi on October 15, 1808, in which Dolgorukov was killed. A few weeks later, Tolstoy led a risky reconnaissance campaign on the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia , which enabled General Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly's 3,000-strong corps to cross the icy bay and take the city of Umeå . For this mission, which brought the Russian army a decisive step closer to victory over Sweden, Tolstoy was finally rehabilitated and was allowed to resume his service as a Porutschik in the Preobrazhensky regiment on October 31, 1808 .
Only a few months later there were two duels with his participation: In the first, Tolstoy shot a captain whom he had evidently provoked by spreading obscene rumors about his sister. A few days later he dueled with the young ensign Naryschkin, who felt he had been betrayed by Tolstoy while playing cards, then challenged him and was also killed. Tolstoy was arrested for several months in the fortress of Vyborg and released from the armed forces on October 2, 1811.
Less than a year later, Tolstoy went to war again, this time as a volunteer in the defense of Moscow in the war against Napoleon in 1812. In the Battle of Borodino he fought on the front line and was badly wounded in the leg. On the recommendation of General Nikolai Rajewski , who had acknowledged Tolstoy's willingness to fight in a letter to Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov , he later received the Russian Order of St. George, fourth class. He was also rehabilitated and promoted to colonel . After the end of the war, Tolstoy finally resigned from military service and settled in Moscow .
Life in Moscow
From 1812 until his death, Tolstoy lived most of the time in his Moscow house on Sivzew-Vraschek Street (Russian переулок Сивцев Вражек ) in what is now the Arbat district . His notorious and, in the end, almost heroic past made him a well-known figure in better Moscow society - a circumstance that Tolstoy clearly enjoyed. He was a regular guest and host at festive receptions and balls. He was also known and friends with a large number of well-known artists, not least thanks to his solid general education at the cadet school. These included representatives of the Moscow and Petersburg bohemians such as the poets Evgeni Baratynski , Vasily Schukowski , Alexander Gribojedow , Konstantin Batyushkow , Pyotr Vyazemsky or Denis Davydov , and later also Nikolai Gogol and Alexander Pushkin .
Card games and duels
As an avid card player , Tolstoy achieved greater fame in Russian aristocratic circles, especially during his Moscow years. He made no secret of the fact that his game was not always fair. According to some eyewitness recollections, Tolstoy did not like to rely on his luck and therefore preferred to "play it safe" by occasional cheating , because "only fools play for luck", as he himself used to say. So it happened that Tolstoy often won large sums of money, which he, however, usually just as quickly and carelessly spent again on his social life. But sometimes Tolstoy was himself a victim of fraud in card games and lost large sums of money.
Tolstoy was particularly notorious for his numerous duels , for which the frequent conflict situations in card games offered enough occasions. It is not known how many duels Tolstoy participated in in total. However, it is clearly known that he killed a total of eleven people. Obviously, for Tolstoy, duels were not just a means of defending one's own honor, as was common in Russian officer circles at the time, but a form of entertainment and a way to personal fulfillment. In one case, Tolstoy was originally only supposed to act as a second for a close friend. Since he was obviously worried about its life, he decided to save it in his own way: he challenged the opponent to a duel himself for a short time and killed him in the process. This anecdote was later passed down orally by Tolstoy's second nephew, the writer Leo Tolstoy , who had known his eccentric relative personally at a young age.
Private life
In the first years of his life in Moscow, Tolstoy offered ample opportunity for speculation and rumors in sensation-hungry social circles due to his frequently changing love affairs. After living for several years with Avdotja Maximowna Tugajewa, a dancer from one of the gypsy choirs that were widespread in Russia at the time , he finally married her on January 10, 1821. About the reasons why, after years of unmarried life together , he considered them to be not "befitting" established connection, reports Marja Kamenskaja in her memoirs:
- “He once lost a large amount of money [in a card game] in the [Moscow] English Club and was supposed to be listed on the bulletin board for late payment. He didn't want to see this shame and decided to shoot himself. His gypsy noticed his excited state and began to question him. 'What do you want from me,' said FI, 'how are you going to help me? I will be featured on the bulletin board and I will not be able to bear it. Get out of here. ' Avdotja Maximovna did not give in, found out from him how much money he needed and the next morning he brought the required sum. 'Where did you get the money?' Asked Fyodor Ivanovich in surprise. 'Of yourself. You gave me so much all along, I always kept everything hidden. Take this now, this is your money '. FI was visibly touched and then got married to his gypsy. "
The marriage lasted until Tolstoy's death. Tugayeva bore him a total of twelve children, but only one of them, daughter Praskovia Fyodorovna, who died in 1887, reached adulthood. Tolstoy's eldest daughter Sarra, who had a talent for poetry from childhood but was considered to be extremely unstable both physically and mentally, died of consumption at the age of only 17 . All of the remaining ten children were stillborn or died in infancy.
Relationship with Pushkin
One of the most famous episodes in Tolstoy's life in Moscow was his not always friendly relationship with the famous poet Alexander Pushkin . The two had met in person for the first time in the spring of 1819.
The dispute between them began after Pushkin was killed in 1820 because of his political poems in disgrace and first to Yekaterinoslav , then in the (now Dnipro) Caucasus , the Crimea and after Bessarabia in exile had to go. At the time, Fyodor Tolstoy was spreading a false rumor in Moscow society, whether intentionally or not, that Pushkin had been chastised by the police before being exiled . The spirited and sensitive poet apparently found this gossip so insulting that he immediately vowed to settle accounts with Tolstoy in a duel immediately after his return. While still in exile, Pushkin prepared for it by practicing intensively in shooting. On September 8, 1826, less than a day after his return to Moscow, he had the duel brought to the count. Only the accidental absence of Tolstoy in the city that day prevented the immediate duel.
However, the well-known bibliographer and Pushkin friend Sergei Sobolewski subsequently succeeded in reconciling the two fighters. It is possible that the otherwise extremely resentful Tolstoy himself was interested in a reconciliation this time, as the death of the poet, who was already popular at the time, through his fault, could have endangered his friendship with a number of other artists. Over the next few years, Tolstoy and Pushkin even became friends. In 1829, for example, Pushkin had Tolstoy send a letter to his future mother-in-law Natalia Nikolayevna Goncharova, with whom Tolstoy was personally acquainted. In this letter he asked her for the hand of her 17-year-old daughter Natalia for the first time . Although Goncharova was unable to give a resolute answer to this first request, Pushkin's wedding with her daughter took place in 1831.
Last years
The otherwise robust Tolstoy found it difficult to cope with the death of his children, especially 17-year-old Sarra. Some of his friends later reported that Tolstoy had become increasingly religious in the last few years of his life and that the early death of eleven of his twelve children was God's punishment for the eleven people he killed in duels. Tolstoy is said to have stopped dueling and only rarely played cards since the later 1830s. Instead, he is said to have withdrawn more and more in reading and prayer. Occasionally, however, he also traveled abroad to take a cure; so he is said to have been in Germany and several other European countries at the time.
One of the most prominent contemporary witnesses Tolstoy knew personally at the time was the revolutionary philosopher and publicist Alexander Herzen , who a decade later recorded his memories of Tolstoy in his autobiographical book Experienced and Thought . There it says among other things:
- “ I knew Tolstoy personally, including at the time (in 1838) when he lost his eldest daughter Sarra, an extraordinary girl with a high level of poetry. A look at the exterior of this old man, at his forehead covered with gray curls, at his shiny eyes and athletic body, showed how much energy and strength he was naturally given. He had only developed wild passions, only bad habits, and that is not surprising: We let vicious things run free for a long time, while human passions are immediately banished to the garrison or to Siberia ... "
On November 5, 1846 (according to other publications on January 5, 1847) Tolstoy died after a short illness at the age of 64 in his Moscow house, in the presence of his wife and the only surviving daughter Praskovia. According to the memories of a friend, shortly before his death he summoned a clergyman and confessed to him for several hours. Tolstoy was buried in the Vagankovo cemetery in Moscow, where his grave can still be found today. His wife Avdotja survived him by 15 years and died a violent death: in 1861 she was stabbed and robbed by her own cook with the help of his lover, one of Avdotja's servants. The former Tolstoy's house, which stood only one block from the famous Arbat Street, has no longer been preserved: in the 1950s it had to give way to a government hospital.
Fyodor Tolstoy in literature
The notorious personality of Tolstoy at the time, but also his acquaintance with numerous authors of the early 19th century, led some of them to use him as a template for their works. The most famous of these authors was again Alexander Pushkin , who, even after his reconciliation with Tolstoy, was happy to be inspired by his formerly wild goings-on. In the verse novel Eugene Onegin (1823-1831) Fyodor Tolstoy is the model for Sarezki, an enthusiastic duelist who appears, among other things, as the second of the fictional character Lenski in his duel with Onegin. Sarezki's introductory description reads:
- Well: Very close to Lenskis Gute
- Spends a long time good and simple
- As a hermit of old style
- Neighbor Sarezki his days;
- Well known in recent years
- As a brawler, player, duelist,
- Tavern tribune and serious sinners,
- But long since hostile to the hustle and bustle
- As an honest villager, loyal friend
- And the single father of many children
- In short as a right man of honor.
- Yes, how time can purify!
It can be seen from these verses that Pushkin had already reconciled himself with Tolstoy when he wrote it, since he made him appear there “as a real man of honor”, who had long since ceased to be a “serious sinner”, but a “single father”. - The latter is apparently an allusion to the long illegitimate relationship between Tolstoy and Avdotja Tugayeva. A little later, Pushkin hints at his friendly relationship with Tolstoy in the person of the title character:
- He was clever and experienced
- So Eugen invited him, too
- His spirit and wit were welcome
- Especially since he accepted weaknesses
- The neighbor whose tone suited him
- Very often and gladly to be guests ...
Another important poet of that time, who knew how to process the peculiar personality of Tolstoy in his work, was Alexander Gribojedow with his most famous book, the verse drama Mind creates suffering (also: Woe to the mind ; 1816-1824). The following excerpt from Repetilov's monologue recalls Tolstoy:
- But our chief, I don't need to name him
- The only one; You can recognize him by the portrait.
- A night bully, duelist;
- Banished once, he came back as a Kamschadale.
- Not exactly clean fine hand,
- Yes now! Rogues are all clever people.
- But if he speaks before us the honesty at the price,
- As if a god inspires him
- The eyes red, the face hot,
- That's how he cries himself, that's how we sob.
In contrast to the description of Sarezki in Pushkin, these verses contain partly incorrect information about Tolstoy. In particular, he was never sent into exile, which he emphasized several times after the play's appearance and wanted to have it corrected afterwards. In addition, Tolstoy once accused Griboyedov in a conversation that the line “not exactly clean, fine hand” could be misunderstood to mean that Tolstoy was a thief and took bribes. When Griboyedov countered that Tolstoy was not playing cleanly, the latter is said to have said: “ And that's all? Well, then you should have written it that way too . ”The following anecdote shows that Tolstoy refused to accept the possible accusation of corruption and also demonstrated humor: Tolstoy was present at one of the first performances of Verstand macht Leiden As expected, it caught the attention of the audience. After Repetilov's monologue, Tolstoy stood up and said loudly to the attentive audience: “ I swear, I didn't take any bribes, because I was never in government service! “, Whereupon the audience should have applauded.
Ivan Turgenew also processed individual character traits of Tolstoy in two of his stories, The Duelist and Three Portraits .
Fyodor Tolstoy's personal characteristics also served as a model for the Count's famous relative, Leo Tolstoy . In the story Zwei Husaren a Count Turbin appears, who is described there as a passionate “card player, duelist and seducer”. In his most important work, the historical novel War and Peace , the figure of Prince Dolokhov, who is also endowed with a predilection for duels, fights and card games, but also with a pronounced cold-bloodedness and brutality, could in part be based on Fyodor Tolstoy be.
Leo Tolstoy, born in 1828, knew his second uncle personally at a young age and stayed in contact with the count's widow and daughter for a long time after his death. He later processed the resulting impressions in his memoirs. There it says among other things:
- “ I remember how he came in a mail wagon, went into my father's study and ordered that the special French dry bread be brought to him; he didn't eat any other. […] I remember his beautiful face: a bronze, shaved face with massive white sideburns down to the corners of his mouth and white, curly hair. One would like to tell a lot about this extraordinary, criminal and attractive person. "
So Leo Tolstoy must not only have had negative impressions of his notorious relative, knowing full well his not always glorious life.
supporting documents
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c T. N. Archangelʹskaja: Na svete nravstvennom zagadka. FI Tolstoj-Amerikaec, stranicy žizni ; Tula 2010
- ↑ a b c city website kologriv.com; Retrieved March 8, 2008
- ↑ a b c d e f Sergej L'vovič Tolstoj, 1926
- ^ Faddei Bulgarin: Memoirs, Volume 5, St. Petersburg 1848
- ↑ a b c d Memoirs by Marja Kamenskaja, 1894
- ↑ a b Filipp Wigel: Notes . Moscow 1892
- ↑ Immanuil Levin: Arbat. Odin kilometr Rossii . Galart Verlag , 2nd edition, Moscow 1997, ISBN 5-269-00928-5 , p. 96
- ↑ Alexander Herzen: Works, Geneva 1879
- ↑ a b Alexander Pushkin: Complete Works in six volumes , second volume; Translation by Th.Commichau, Georg Müller Verlag, Munich and Leipzig 1916
- ↑ Aleksandr S. Griboedov: Woe to the wise ; Translation by OAEllissen, Ehlers Verlag, Einbeck 1899
- ↑ Pavel Birjukov: LNTolstoj. Biography. Berlin 1921
literature
- Aleksej Mitrofanov ( Алексей Митрофанов ): Progulki po staroj Moskve: Arbat ( Прогулки по старой Москве. Арбат ). Ključ-S publishing house , Moscow 2006, ISBN 5-93136-022-0 , pp. 208-217
- Sergej L'vovič Tolstoj ( Сергей Львович Толстой ): Fëdor Tolstoj Amerika ( memento from February 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) ( Фёдор Толстой Американец ). State Academy of Fine Arts, Moscow 1926
- Vladimir Vladmeli ( Владимир Владмели ): FITolstoj - American ( Ф.И.Толстой - Американец ); in: Slovo, No. 43–44, 2004
Web links
- The New York Times: Six Centuries of Tolstoy (English)
- Detailed biography of Tolstoy on peoples.ru with an article in Novaya Gazeta (Russian)
- Article about Count Fyodor Tolstoy on shkolazhizni.ru (Russian)
- Article on subscribe.ru (Russian)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Tolstoy, Fyodor Ivanovich |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Фёдор Иванович Толстой |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Russian nobleman from the Tolstoy family |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 17, 1782 |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 5, 1846 or January 5, 1847 |
| Place of death | Moscow |