In the century before last, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy visited Crimea. This man is known to us as a thinker, one of the greatest writers in the world, an educator. We also know him as a participant in the defense of Sevastopol, which is important in the history of our native land.
Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was in the Crimea three times: 1) during the Sevastopol defense in 1854-1855; 2) in March 1885; 3) in 1901-1902.
In January 1854, Tolstoy became an ensign and was sent from the Danube army to besieged Sevastopol. For the first time, Lev Nikolaevich managed to visit the bastions on November 7, 1854.
It was then that he noted that the courage and belligerence of the Sevastopol residents is much higher than he had imagined before his arrival in Crimea. The writer communicated with the people, talked with soldiers and officers, admiring their courage.
On November 10, 1854, Lev Tolstoy was appointed a junior officer in the third light battery of the 14th artillery field brigade, where he aspired, primarily for patriotic reasons. At that time, the battery was in reserve and did not participate in battles. Tolstoy spent almost two months in rear positions near Simferopol, in the village of Eski-Orda (now Lozovoe).
Lev Nikolaevich with great difficulty endured life in the rear. He asked to be transferred to Evpatoria, where at one time the fighting intensified, then he voluntarily ended up in the Sevastopol positions.
In Crimea, he wrote two reports. One of the notes had the title: "The project on the reorganization of batteries …", the other - "The project on the reorganization of the army." However, both projects went unanswered.
At the end of March 1855, Tolstoy's battery was sent to the fourth bastion, which was one of the most important positions in the city.
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It was there that Lev Nikolaevich displayed outstanding courage. As a true patriot, the writer fought for his homeland. “Ahead of you, on a steep mountain, you see some kind of black, dirty space, pitted with ditches, and this is the 4th bastion in front of you,” Leo Tolstoy said about the place of the service. For extraordinary stamina and courage, he received the rank of lieutenant and was awarded the order.
It was during this event that the story "Sevastopol in the month of December" was written. "This epic of Sevastopol, of which the Russian people was a hero, will leave great traces in Russia for a long time," Leo Tolstoy assesses the events of the Crimean War in his story. Then, a new story by Tolstoy saw the light - "Sevastopol in May", written under the influence of the May events of the same year. Also, Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy wrote a satirical song dedicated to the Battle of Chernorechensk:
The lines were chanted in the army on August 4, 1855. This was the bloodiest battle in which Lev Nikolaevich took part. Then the Russian troops were almost point-blank shot from cannons on the slopes of the Fedyukhin Mountains.
From May to the end of August, the writer was already outside Sevastopol, but often came to the city. In the last days of the fighting, he was again transferred to city positions and on August 27 covered the evacuation of troops with the fire of his battery.
All these events Lev Nikolaevich reflected in his story "Sevastopol in August 1855".
The military events, paradoxically, brought extraordinary enthusiasm and strength to Tolstoy's life. Between the watches, he worked on the novel "Youth", and also wrote his famous "Sevastopol stories".
In his works, the events of the Crimean War were absolutely accurately described. Tolstoy's stories attracted the attention of the country's leading people, and he himself became a great writer, from whom one could expect works of great power.
With the end of the Crimean War, Leo Tolstoy left Crimea for 30 years and came only in 1885, accompanying his sick friend, Prince Sergei Semenovich Urusov, a public and political figure of the Russian Empire at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries.
They stayed at the estate of Sergei Ivanovich Maltsov, who was the father-in-law of Prince Urusov and was a representative of the most powerful entrepreneurial dynasties in Russia. Lev Tolstoy traveled a lot in the Crimea, admired the Crimean nature. “Solitary, beautiful, deserted,” he wrote about the views of the Crimea.
Then his trip took only 10 days.
But Tolstoy's third visit to Crimea did not last much, not a little - 9 months. This was due to the fact that Tolstoy needed treatment after a long illness and, taking advantage of the invitation of Countess Sophia Vladimirovna Panina, settled with his family on her estate in Gaspra (now it is the Yasnaya Polyana sanatorium).
Usually Tolstoy got up early, drank his morning coffee and went on foot or on a small horse to the sea along the Tsar's path. Apparently, during one of these walks, Lev Nikolaevich caught a cold and fell ill. His condition was difficult, and his family were already seriously thinking about the writer's death. The family took into account the opinion of Lev Nikolaevich, who did not want his relatives to have trouble with his body, and it was decided that the burial should be in the Crimea. To this end, the Tolstoy family bought a plot of land nearby.
But, despite the fears of doctors, Tolstoy recovered.
On September 7, Leo Tolstoy visited Sevastopol. There they were very happy to see him, and the crowd was so huge that the gendarmes had to guard the writer. Lev Nikolayevich visited the building of the Officers' Assembly, at the monument to Admiral Nakhimov, on Primorsky Boulevard. He noted that Sevastopol has changed a lot over the years. During the entire stay of Tolstoy in the Crimea, famous writers came to visit him: Korolenko, Kuprin, Chaliapin. From November 1901 to April 1902, Anton Chekhov and Maxim Gorky visited Lev Nikolaevich more than once in Gaspra. In addition to his diaries, in Gaspra Lev Nikolaevich wrote the story "Hadji Murad", articles "Soldier's memo", "Officer's memo", "To the working people", "To the youth", "What is religion and what is its essence", "On religious tolerance ".
Leo Tolstoy left Crimea at the end of June 1902.
In 1928, a memorial plaque was erected on the Historical Boulevard in Sevastopol in honor of Tolstoy's stay at the city's defense positions. Now the name of the writer is borne by streets, schools, libraries in many cities and villages of Crimea. When Lev Nikolayevich turned 80, the public of Sevastopol decided to elect him an honorary citizen of the city for his special services to the Motherland.