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Sophia Tolstaya

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Occupation
  
Diarist, copyist

Role
  
Diarist

Name
  
Sophia Tolstoy


Born
  
22 August 1844 (
1844-08-22
)

Died
  
November 4, 1919, Yasnaya Polyana, Russia

Spouse
  
Leo Tolstoy (m. 1862–1910)

Children
  
Alexandra Tolstaya, Ilya Tolstoy

Parents
  
Liubov Alexandrovna Behrs, Andrey Evstafievich Behrs

Books
  
Autobiography of Countess, My Life, Autobiography of Countess, Dnevniki Sof\'i Andreevn, My Life - Sofia Andreevn

Similar People
  
Leo Tolstoy, Alexandra Tolstaya, Ilya Tolstoy, Lev Lvovich Tolstoy, Sergei Lvovich Tolstoy

Countess Sophia Andreyevna Tolstaya (née Behrs; Russian: Со́фья Андре́евна Толста́я, sometimes Anglicised as Sophia Tolstoy; 22 August 1844 – 4 November 1919), was a Russian diarist, and the wife of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy.

Contents

Sophia Tolstaya FileSophia TolstayaJPG Wikimedia Commons

Biography

Sophia Tolstaya graphics8nytimescomimages20100718booksrevi

Sophia Behrs was one of three daughters of a German physician, Andrey Evstafievich Behrs (1808–1868), and his Russian wife, Liubov Alexandrovna (née 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 already well known as a novelist after the publication of The Cossacks. On the eve of their marriage, Tolstoy gave Sophia his diaries detailing his sexual relations with female serfs. 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 he had fathered a child by a woman who remained on the Yasnaya Polyana estate. In Anne Edwards' Sonya: The Life of Countess Tolstoy, she describes Sophia as having a deep fear that Tolstoy would somehow re-enter a relationship with the other woman.

Sophia Tolstaya Sophia Tolstaya 1844 1919 Leo Tolstoy39s wife with her son

The Tolstoys had 13 children, eight of whom survived childhood. The family was prosperous, owing to Tolstoy's efficient management of his estates and to the sales of his works, making it possible to provide adequately for the family. 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 needing a magnifying glass to read her husband's notes.

Sophia Tolstaya Sophia Tolstaya Wikipedia

In 1887, Tolstaya took up the relatively new art of photography. She took over a thousand photographs that documented her life, including with Tolstoy, and the decline of pre-Soviet Tsarist Russia. 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.

Sophia Tolstaya FileCountess Sophia Andreyevna Tolstayajpg Wikimedia Commons

After many years of an increasingly troubled marriage — the couple argued over Tolstoy's desire to give away all his private property — Leo left Sophia abruptly in 1910, aged 82, with their daughter Alexandra, and his doctor, Dushan Makovicki (Dušan Makovický). Tolstoy died 10 days later in a railway station, whilst 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 in 1919.

With recent increased interest in Sophia Tolstaya some new biographical works, based on her memoirs and diaries, have been published:

  • Ursula Keller/Natalja Sharandak: Sofja Andrejewna Tolstaja: Ein Leben an der Seite Tolstojs. Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 2009
  • Nina Niktina. Sofja Tolstaja. Moscow, 2010
  • Alexandra Popoff. Sophia Tolstoya. A Biography. Free Press, 2010
  • Works

  • Autobiography of Sophie Andreevna Tolstoi online at archive.org
  • The memoirs of Sofia Tolstoy, which she titled "My Life" – at University of Ottawa Press
  • Who's to blame (Russian: Чья вина?), Oktyabr 1994/10, 6-59. German Translation: Eine Frage der Schuld, Zürich 2008.
  • 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).
  • She was portrayed by Helen Mirren in the 2009 biographical film, The Last Station, based on the 1990 biographical novel of the same name by Jay Parini, while Leo Tolstoy was portrayed by Christopher Plummer. Both actors were nominated for Academy Awards in their respective categories. Her life was also serialised in August 2010 by BBC's Radio 4 with the title A Simple Life.

    References

    Sophia Tolstaya Wikipedia


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