The Death of Tolstoy: Russia on the Eve, Astapovo Station, 1910

by William S. Nickell

Overview

In the middle of the night of October 28, 1910, Leo Tolstoy, the most famous man in Russia, vanished. A secular saint revered for his literary genius, pacificism, and dedication to the earth and the poor, Tolstoy had left his home in secret to embark on a final journey. His disappearance immediately became a national sensation. Two days later he was located at a monastery, but was soon gone again. When he turned up next at Astapovo, a small, remote railway station, all of Russia was following the story. As he lay dying of pneumonia, he became the hero of a national narrative of immense significance.

In The Death of Tolstoy, William Nickell describes a Russia engaged in a war of words over how this story should be told. The Orthodox Church, which had excommunicated Tolstoy in 1901, first argued that he had returned to the fold and then came out against his beliefs more vehemently than ever. Police spies sent by the state tracked his every move, fearing that his death would embolden his millions of supporters among the young, the peasantry, and the intelligentsia. Representatives of the press converged on the stationhouse at Astapovo where Tolstoy lay ill, turning his death into a feverish media event that strikingly anticipated today's no-limits coverage of celebrity lives—and deaths.

Drawing on newspaper accounts, personal correspondence, police reports, secret circulars, telegrams, letters, and memoirs, Nickell shows the public spectacle of Tolstoy's last days to be a vivid reflection of a fragile, anxious empire on the eve of war and revolution.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801462542
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	08/15/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	4 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

William Nickell is Licker Research Chair, Cowell College, University of California, Santa Cruz.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. The Family Crisis as a Public Event
2. Narrative Transfigurations of Tolstoy's Final Journey
3. The Media at Astapovo and the Creation of a Modern Pastoral
4. Tolstoyan Violence upon the Funeral Rites of the State
5. On or About November 1910
Conclusion: The Posthumous Notes of Fyodor KuzmichA Word on My Sources
Notes
Index

What People are Saying About This

Jeffrey Brooks

Tolstoy was the leading public figure in Russia when he died in 1910. His dramatic death produced a firestorm of commentary and discussion and not only among the cultural elite. In this fascinating book William Nickell captures the drama of his death and explores the range of Russians' fascination with his life and that of his family. The volume is beautifully illustrated and well produced. It is also a pleasure to read.

Amy Mandelker

William Nickell's account of the dramatic death of Russia's greatest literary genius is a haunting evocation of an era and the extraordinary moment that defined it. Rich in documentary detail, The Death of Tolstoy provides an intimate portrait of a private family crisis that encapsulates a public and social evolution in mores on the eve of the Russian Revolution. This is certain to be one of the most important books in Russian cultural studies this decade.

From the Publisher

The one-hundredth anniversary of Tolstoy's passing provided an occasion for continuing controversy over his status as writer, spiritual leader, and moral authority. The appearance of The Death of Tolstoy could not be more timely, but it is the product of years of exhaustive research, examination of all levels of Russian life, and study of Tolstoy's life and works. Elegantly written and quick of pace, it is more gripping than any fiction and a thorough and penetrating account of intellectual, cultural, and literary history.

William Mills Todd III

The Death of Tolstoy is a highly sophisticated, richly contextualized, and—above all else—elegantly written account not only of Tolstoy's last days but also of the cult of this international celebrity author. It is more gripping than any novel or film I know on this complicated set of events. William Nickell's book is essential reading not only for those who would understand the late Tolstoy but also for those concerned with the cultural institutions of the modern world.

Editorial Reviews

William Nickell describes the death drama itself as Russia's first great mass media event. The room in the stationmaster's house in Astapovo where the dying Tolstoy was lodged was the eye of a news hurricane.... It comes through from Nickell's account that Russians believed something died for ever at Astapovo.

London Review of Books - James Meek