On the night of October 28 (November 10), 1910, an event happened in Yasnaya Polyana that shocked the world. Count L. N. Tolstoy secretly fled from his home in an unknown direction. He decided to live the last years according to his views. Only his doctor Dusan Petrovich Makovitsky accompanied the writer in this escape …
Leaving Yasnaya Polyana
At three o'clock in the morning, Tolstoy woke Makovitsky. From the doctor's notes:
“The face is suffering, agitated and resolute. “I decided to leave. You will come with me. " The task was to get a suitcase out of the bedroom without waking Sofya Andreevna, who kept all doors open in order to wake up, if anything, from any noise. Tolstoy succeeded. Daughter Sasha and her friend Varvara Feokritova packed a suitcase, bundle with a blanket and coat, a basket of food. Lev Nikolayevich went to the stable to help harness the horses."
Yasnaya Polyana. Leo Tolstoy's house
Before leaving Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy left a letter to his wife:
“My departure will grieve you. I am sorry about this, but understand and believe that I could not have done otherwise. My position in the house is becoming, it has become unbearable.
Promotional video:
Apart from everything else, I can no longer live in those conditions of luxury in which I lived, and I do what old people of my age usually do: they leave worldly life in order to live in solitude and silence in the last days of their life.
Please understand this and don't follow me if you find out where I am. Such your arrival will only worsen your and my situation, but will not change my decision.
I thank you for your honest 48-year life with me and ask you to forgive me for everything that I was to blame for you, just as I sincerely forgive you for everything that you could be to blame for me.
I advise you to make peace with the new situation that my departure puts you in, and not to have unkind feelings against me. If you want to tell me something, tell Sasha, she will know where I am and send me what I need; she cannot say where I am, because I took from her a promise not to tell anyone this."
Sofya Andreevna, having learned that Lev Nikolaevich had left, twice tried to drown herself, she was in the most severe hysterics.
Optina Pustyn
Leaving Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy did not prepare himself a future refuge in advance. He began his journey at the Shchekino station. Re-seeding at Gorbachevo station to another train, he drove to Kozelsk. It was October 28 in the afternoon. From here they had to go to Shamordino on horseback. The path lay through Optina Pustyn, which we reached by six in the evening.
There were still twelve miles to Shamordin, that is, two and a half hours of driving along a terrible road, in bad weather, at night. Therefore, Tolstoy stopped for the night in Optina, in the monastery hotel.
The next day, Tolstoy left Optina Pustyn at four o'clock, that is, spent the entire first half of the day, almost until dusk, in Optina. He talked with Father Michael, the "hotel", that is, the head of the hotel, inquired about the elders he knew, and then went out, wandered around the skete, twice approached the elder's house. Varsanuphia stood at the gate, but did not enter.
Shamordinsky monastery
Tolstoy went to the Shamordinsky monastery, where his sister was a nun, and, of course, this choice was not accidental. And, of course, it could not be final.
Tolstoy could not help but realize that he was not suitable for Shamordino's permanent residence, for anyone but he, excommunicated from the Church, could expect to find "peace and solitude" in the neighborhood of the monastery.
Very little is known about what Tolstoy and his sister talked about. A. Ksyunin, who visited Shamordino immediately after Tolstoy's death, talks about Tolstoy's visit to Shamordin from the words of his mother Maria. His book was first published during the life of mother Maria, and no refutations on her part followed.
Ksyunin says that when Tolstoy "came to his sister, they sat together for a long time." They only went out for dinner and invited the doctor and the nun to the cell, who was inseparable from Tolstoy's sister.
“Sister, I was in Optina, how good it is,” remarked Tolstoy. - With what joy I would live, performing the lowest and most difficult deeds, but would make it a condition not to force me to go to church.
“That's good,” replied the sister, “but you would be given the condition not to preach or teach anything.
Lev Nikolayevich pondered, lowered his head and remained in this position for a long time, until he was reminded that dinner was over.
- Have you seen the elders? - renewed the conversation about Optina's sister.
- No … Do you think that they would accept me?.. You forgot that I was excommunicated.
Conversations with his sister were to drag on, Tolstoy even chose a house for himself to live in Shamordin. But everything was thwarted at the very beginning. The next day, after the described conversation, Alexandra Lvovna Tolstaya arrived in Shamordino and brought news from Yasnaya Polyana: not only about Sophia Andreevna's condition, but also about what was most terrible for Tolstoy in the world: that “his whereabouts, if not open, then it is about to open, and he will not be left alone."
Panic seized Tolstoy. His horror at the approach of his wife was such that he forgot everything, broke loose, without saying goodbye to his sister and without agreeing on anything with her, rushed away from Shamordin.
Astapovo station
On the morning of October 31 (November 13), Tolstoy and his entourage departed from Shamordino to Kozelsk, where they boarded train No. 12, which had already reached the station, and was heading south.
We didn’t have time to buy tickets at boarding; having reached Belev, we bought tickets to the Volovo station. Those who accompanied Tolstoy later also testified that the trip had no definite purpose.
After the meeting, they decided to go to his niece Ye. S. Denisenko, in Novocherkassk, where they wanted to try to get foreign passports and then go to Bulgaria; if it fails, go to the Caucasus.
However, on the way, Lev Nikolayevich caught a cold and fell ill with croupous pneumonia and was forced to get off the train on the same day at the first large station near the village. This station was Astapovo.
The news of Leo Tolstoy's illness caused great commotion both in the highest circles and among the members of the Holy Synod. Encrypted telegrams were systematically sent to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Moscow Gendarme Directorate of Railways about his health and the state of affairs. An emergency secret meeting of the Synod was convened, at which, on the initiative of the Chief Prosecutor Lukyanov, the question was raised about the attitude of the church in the event of the sad outcome of Lev Nikolaevich's illness. But the question was never positively resolved.
The news of Leo Tolstoy's illness caused great commotion both in the highest circles and among the members of the Holy Synod. Encrypted telegrams were systematically sent to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Moscow Gendarme Directorate of Railways about his health and the state of affairs.
An emergency secret meeting of the Synod was convened, at which, on the initiative of Chief Prosecutor Lukyanov, the question was raised about the attitude of the church in the event of the sad outcome of Lev Nikolaevich's illness. But the question was never positively resolved.
Six doctors tried to save Lev Nikolaevich, but to their offers to help he only replied: "God will arrange everything." When asked what he himself wanted, he said: "I want nobody to bother me."
With his last meaningful words, which he uttered a few hours before his death to his eldest son, which he could not make out from excitement, but which doctor Makovitsky heard: "Seryozha … the truth … I love a lot, I love everyone …".
On the very eve of his death, Fr. Barsanuphius, an elder from Optina Hermitage. Subsequently, a rumor was spread that this visit took place "by order from St. Petersburg." Upon arrival in Astapovo, Fr. Barsanuphius asked to be admitted to Tolstoy.
Alexandra Lvovna Tolstaya did not allow him to see his dying father. She only cared about prolonging the last minutes of Tolstoy's life, and the conversation with the elders, even the very meeting, their very appearance, should have excited Tolstoy in the deepest way.
On November 7 (20) at 6 hours 5 minutes after a week of a serious and painful illness in the house of the station chief, Ivan Ozolin, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy died.