From the Smart Marriage Newsletter ~
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~~~~~
- TOLSTOY ON MARRIAGE
> It's the birthday of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, born on his
family's estate
> in the province of Tula, near Moscow (1828). Both of his parents died
when he
> was a boy, and he was raised by a series of aunts. As a young man, he
loved to
> drink and gamble, but he always felt guilty about it. He started
keeping a
> diary, and wrote his first diary entry about his fear that he had
contracted a
> venereal disease. He wrote pages and pages wondering why he couldn't
help
> breaking all the rules that society had made for him, and he became
fascinated
> by the idea that people are always trying to stop themselves from
doing what
> they really want to do. He volunteered to fight in a war against the
Chechen
> mountain tribes, and went on to fight in the Crimean War. He wrote
stories
> about the battles he witnessed and he described military battles as
> realistically as possible. He was one of the first writers to
describe battles
> as chaotic and insane and meaningless. In the 1850s, Russia was still
> operating under a medieval economic system with most of the peasants
enslaved
> as serfs. Tolstoy opened a school for peasants on his family's
estate, and
> helped open more than 20 schools in surrounding villages. He believed
in
> complete freedom in the classroom and let his students study whatever
> interested them. He also edited an educational journal, and wrote
that the
> upper classes had as much to learn from peasants as peasants had to
learn from
> the upper classes. Tolstoy got married in 1862, and it was the best
thing that
> ever happened to him. He wrote, "Domestic happiness has swallowed me
> completely." His wife had 13 children, and she helped him copy out
and edit
> all his manuscripts. She copied by hand the huge manuscript for War
and Peace
> (1868) four times. During the first years of his marriage, free love
was
> becoming fashionable among the Russian upper classes, and everyone
started to
> think of marriage as old fashioned and silly. Tolstoy was disgusted.
In 1872,
> he heard about a woman who had thrown herself in front of a train
after the
> end of an affair, and it gave him an idea for a novel about a woman
whose life
> is destroyed by adultery. That novel was Anna Karenina (1875). He
wrote it as
> a defense of marriage as the most important foundation of society.
When it was
> published, most critics said it was inferior to War and Peace, but it
is now
> considered one of the greatest novels ever written. After publishing
Anna
> Karenina, Tolstoy fell into a deep depression. He was healthy, and he
had
> plenty of money, but he felt that life had no purpose. He noticed
that the
> peasants on his estate wore ragged clothes, lived in leaky huts, and
had no
> way of improving their lives, but they were happy. He came to believe
that
> they knew the meaning of life, so he renounced all his property and
became a
> peasant. He learned to make his own food and clothes, and lived in a
hut. He
> started to write theology and philosophy and founded his own form of
> Christianity. He became a kind of prophet, and people from all over
the world
> visited him and wrote to him, including Woodrow Wilson and Mahatma
Gandhi. Leo
> Tolstoy said, "In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work,
look around
> you." - Garrison Keillor from his daily Writer's Almanac to
subscribe:
http://www.writersalmanac.org/~~~~~~~
