Sophia Tolstaya

File:Sofia Tolstaya, 1862.jpg

Sophia Behrs was one of three daughters of a Baltic-German, Andrey Evstafievich Behrs (1808–1868), Imperial court physician, and his Russian wife, Liubov Alexandrovna Islavinа (1826–1886). Her maternal great-grandfather, Count Pyotr Zavadovsky, was the first Minister of education in Russia's history. Sophia had been acquainted with her future husband, Leo Tolstoy, from childhood; he was 16 years her senior and had befriended her mother when he was a boy.{{Cite book |last=Popoff|first=Alexandra|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bQDPo13qIdEC&dq=sophia%20tolstoy&pg=PA9 |title=Sophia Tolstoy: A Biography |publisher=Free Press |year=2010|via=Google Books}} On 17 September 1862, when Sophia was 18 years old, the couple became formally engaged after Tolstoy gave Sophia a written proposal of marriage,{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/stream/autobiographyofc00tolsuoft#page/28/mode/2up |title=The autobiography of Countess Sophie Tolstoi |publisher=Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press |others=Vasilii Spiridonov |year=1922 |translator-last=Koteliansky |translator-first=S. S. |translator-last2=Woolf |translator-first2=Leonard |via=Internet Archive}} marrying a week later in Moscow.

At the time of their marriage, Leo Tolstoy was well known as a novelist following the publication of The Cossacks. On the eve of their wedding, Tolstoy gave Sophia his diaries that detailed his sexual relations with female servants.{{cite news |last=O'Grady |first= Desmond |date=11 July 2015 |title=Tolstoy's wife fights back with her own newly published stories of infidelity |url=https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/arts-and-culture/tolstoys-wife-fights-back-with-her-own-newly-published-stories-of-infidelity-20150707-gi787s |work= Financial Review |location= |access-date=25 December 2022}} (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 diaries included the fact that Tolstoy had fathered a child by a woman who remained on the Yasnaya Polyana estate.

File:Ge Sophia Tolstaya.jpg

Tolstaya was pregnant 16 times; three of her pregnancies ended in miscarriages.{{cite news|date=31 July 1994|title=TOLSTOYS IN TORMENT|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1994-07-31-9407310068-story.html |work= Chicago Tribune |location= |access-date=26 December 2022}} The Tolstoys had 13 children, eight of whom survived childhood.{{Cite book|last=Feuer|first=Kathryn B.|title=Tolstoy and the Genesis of War and Peace|publisher=Cornell University Press|year=1996|isbn=0-8014-1902-6}} With the growing interest of her husband in spiritual matters, Tolstaya took over the running of the family estate.{{cite news| date= 22 August 2018| url= https://www.history.com/news/5-things-you-may-not-know-about-leo-tolstoy|title=5 Things You May Not Know About Leo Tolstoy|work=History| access-date= 26 December 2022}} 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 requiring a magnifying glass to read her husband's notes.

In 1887, Tolstaya regained interest in the relatively new art of photography, which she had learned at age 16.{{cite news|title=What Mrs Tolstoy Saw|first=Catherine|last=Shonk|newspaper=The St. Petersburg Times|date=21 December 2007}} She took over 1,000 photographs that documented her life and the decline of the Russian Empire.{{cite journal|last1=Bendavid-Val|first1=Leah|year=2007|title=Song Without Words: The Photographs & Diaries of Countess Sophia Tolstoy|journal=National Geographic}} She was a diarist and recorded her life with Leo Tolstoy in a series of diaries which were published in English translation in the 1980s.The latest condensed version, The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy, translated by Cathy Porter, was published by Alma Books, London, in 2009 ({{ISBN|9781846880803}}). Also see: {{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/diariesofsophiat0000tols/mode/2up |title=The Diaries of Sophia Tolstoy |publisher=Random House |year=1985 |isbn=0-394-528-18-2 |editor-last=Golinenko |editor-first=O. A. |location=New York |translator-last=Cathy |translator-first=Porter |editor-last2=Rozanova |editor-first2=S. A. |editor-last3=Shumova |editor-first3=B. M. |editor-last4=Pokrovskaya |editor-first4=I. A. |editor-last5=Azarova |editor-first5=N. I. |via=Internet Archive}} Tolstaya wrote her memoirs as well, which she titled My Life.{{citation|last=Tolstaya|first=Sophia|editor-last=Donskov|editor-first=Andrew|editor-link=Andrew Donskov|publisher=University of Ottawa Press|year=2010|isbn=978-0-7766-3042-7|title=My Life}}

File:Family of L. Tolstoy.jpg

The marriage of Tolstaya and Leo Tolstoy is considered one of the famously unhappy marriages of literary history.{{cite news|first=Bradshaw|last=Peter|date=2 September 2022|title=A Couple review – Tolstoy's other half in mournful closeup|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/sep/02/a-couple-review-sofia-tolstoy-frederick-wiseman|work=The Guardian|access-date=26 December 2022}} Their children took sides in the marital discord. Their daughter Alexandra supported her father, whereas their son Leo Junior favoured his mother. Tolstaya struggled with her husband's increasing devotion to spiritual matters and his neglect of their family life. The couple argued over Tolstoy's desire to give away all his private property.{{Cite web|url=http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin=BMNLT02&SingleRecord=True|title=Infobase Learning|accessdate=31 May 2013}} {{subscription required|date=31 May 2013}} In 1910, at the age of 82, Leo Tolstoy abruptly left Sophia, accompanied by their daughter Alexandra and his doctor, Dushan Makovicki (Dušan Makovický). Leo left out of anger after he overheard Sophia searching his study for his will, which she was concerned he wanted to change.{{cite news |last= |first= |date=16 October 2007 |title= Love and Hate: A Tolstoy Family Tale|url=https://www.npr.org/2007/10/16/15244466/love-and-hate-a-tolstoy-family-tale |work= NPR|location= |access-date= 26 December 2022}} He died 10 days later in the hamlet of Astapavo. 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 on 4 November 1919.{{Cite book|last1=Keller|first1=Ursula|title=Sofja Andrejewna Tolstaja: Ein Leben an der Seite Tolstojs|last2=Sharandak|first2=Natalja|publisher=Insel Verlag|year=2009|isbn=9783458174080|pages=316|language=de}}

In 1889, Leo Tolstoy published his book The Kreutzer Sonata. The book advocated for sexual abstinence. Its narrator murders his wife in a fit of jealousy.{{cite news |last= Grimes|first=William |date= 19 August 2014|title=More Than a Century Later, Sophia Tolstoy Has Her Say |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/20/books/kreutzer-sonata-variations-has-a-scorned-wifes-rebuttal.html?_r=0 |work= The New York Times|location= |access-date= 26 December 2022}} Although quickly banned from publication by censorship, the novel had been assumed in the Russian society to be describing the unhappy marriage of Leo Tolstoy and Tolstaya, which greatly offended Tolstaya.{{cite news |last1=Rosenbaum |first1=Ron |title=Sofiya Tolstoy's Long-Lost Novella Sends Up the Sex-Hating Buffoon Her Husband Became |url=https://slate.com/culture/2015/02/sofiya-tolstoys-novella-whose-fault-a-response-to-the-kreutzer-sonata-reviewed.html |access-date=20 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220720191455/https://slate.com/culture/2015/02/sofiya-tolstoys-novella-whose-fault-a-response-to-the-kreutzer-sonata-reviewed.html|archive-date=20 July 2022|work=Slate Magazine |date=2 February 2015 |language=en}}

Tolstaya wrote two novellas as a response to The Kreutzer Sonata, which both remained unpublished until 2000. The two novellas are {{ill|Whose Fault?|de|Eine Frage der Schuld}} written between 1891 and 1894 and Song Without Words written in 1898. In both, the character of the husband is portrayed as a man insensitive to the needs of his wife.

Despite her objections to The Kreutzer Sonata, Tolstaya helped lift the ban on the publication of the novel. She obtained an audience with Tsar Alexander III in 1891, who accepted that the novel be included in a broader publication of Leo Tolstoy's books.

She was portrayed by Helen Mirren in the 2009 The Last Station, based on the 1990 biographical novel of the same name by Jay Parini,{{cite news|url=https://variety.com/2008/film/markets-festivals/mirren-plummer-to-star-in-station-1117983229/|author=Ed Meza|title=Mirren, Plummer to star in 'Station'|publisher=Variety|date=31 March 2008|access-date=1 January 2016}} and 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.{{cite web |url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t8bs0|title=A Simple Life |last= |first= |date= 10 September 2013|website=BBC Radio 4|publisher=BBC |access-date= 25 December 2022|quote=Leo Tolstoy invites an aristocratic Christian disciple to stay. Is pregnant Sofya right not to trust him? Stars Ian McDiarmid.}}

In 2022, Tolstaya was the main character of the film A Couple by Frederick Wiseman. French actress Nathalie Boutefeu is cast as Tolstaya in the film, which consists of monologues based on Tolstaya's diaries.

File:Tolstoy family circle at Yasnaya Polyana.jpg ({{Circa|1905}}).]]

Many of Tolstaya's works were published postmortem, long after being written. This is because Tolstaya was critical of Leo Tolstoy in her writing and the Russian authorities did not want the status of the famous author tarnished.{{cite news|last= Flood|first=Alison|date=2 June 2009|title=Sofia Tolstoy's diaries paint bleak portrait of marriage to Leo|url= https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jun/02/sofia-tolstoy-diaries|work= The Guardian|access-date=26 December 2022}}

Some of her literary work was published more than a century after she wrote them.

• The Countess Tolstoy's Later Diary 1891-1897 London, Victor Gollancz, 1929; translated by Alexander Werth
• Autobiography of Sophie Andreevna Tolstoi [https://archive.org/details/autobiographyofc00tolsuoft online] at archive.org
• The Memoirs of Sofia Tolstoy, which she titled My Life – at University of Ottawa Press
• Whose Fault? ({{langx|ru|Чья вина?}}), Oktyabr 1994/10, 6-59. German Translation: Eine Frage der Schuld, Zürich 2008.{{cite web|url=http://www.randomhouse.de/book/edition.jsp?edi=233737|title=Sofja Tolstaja: Eine Frage der Schuld. Manesse Verlag (Gebundenes Buch, Literatur aus Russland und Osteuropa)|language=de|publisher=Randomhouse.de|accessdate=3 October 2012}} English translation: Sophia Tolstoy's rebuttal of her husband Leo's accusations, The Edwin Mellen Press, New York 2010
• Song without Words ({{langx|ru|Песня без слов}}), unpublished in Russia. German Translation: Lied ohne Worte, Zürich 2010.{{cite web|url=http://www.randomhouse.de/book/edition.jsp?edi=324802|title=Sofja Tolstaja: Lied ohne Worte. Manesse Verlag (Gebundenes Buch, Literatur aus Russland und Osteuropa)|language=de|publisher=Randomhouse.de|date=23 January 2011|accessdate=3 October 2012}}
• Michael Katz (ed. and trans.), The Kreutzer Sonata Variations (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014). Includes Tolstaya's "Whose Fault?" and "Song Without Words" as well as excerpts from her diary and My Life. Leo Tolstoy's story "The Kreutzer Sonata," Leo and Sofia's son Lev Lvovich Tolstoy's story "Chopin's Prelude," and other related writings by Leo, Lev Lvovich, and the Tolstoys' daughter Alexandra Lvovna appear in the same volume.
• Cathy Porter (trans.), The Diaries of Sophia Tolstoy (London: HarperCollins, 2010).

{{Reflist}}

• Cynthia Asquith. Married to Tolstoy (Hutchinson, 1960)
• Anne Edwards. Sonya: The Life of Countess Tolstoy (Hodder & Stoughton, 1981)
• René Fülöp-Miller (ed.) New Light on Tolstoy. Literary Fragments, Letters and Reminiscences Not Previously Published (George G. Harrap, 1931)
• Nina Niktina. Sofya Tolstaya. Moscow, 2010
• Alexandra Popoff. Sophia Tolstoy. A Biography. Free Press, 2010
• Ursula Keller, Natalja Sharandak. Sofja Andrejewna Tolstaja. Ein Leben an der Seite Tolstojs, Frankfurt, M. Leipzig: Insel Verlag (2009)
• Lew Tolstoj - Sofja Tolstaja: Eine Ehe in Briefen. Ed. and trans. from Russian by Ursula Keller, Natalja Sharandak. Berlin: Insel Verlag (2010)
• {{cite web |date=2010 |title=Lew Tolstoj - Sofja Tolstaja, Eine Ehe in Briefen |url=http://www.suhrkamp.de/buecher/lew_tolstoj_-_sofja_tolstaja_eine_ehe_in_briefen-ursula_keller_17480.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120229134013/http://www.suhrkamp.de/buecher/lew_tolstoj_-_sofja_tolstaja_eine_ehe_in_briefen-ursula_keller_17480.html |archive-date=2012-02-29 |publisher=Suhrkamp.de |language=de}}
• {{Cite book |last=Bendavid-Val |first=Leah |url=https://archive.org/details/songwithoutwords0000tols |title=Song Without Words: The Photographs & Diaries of Countess Sophia Tolstoy |date=2007 |publisher=National Geographic |isbn=978-1-4262-0173-8 |location=Washington, DC |via=Internet Archive}}

• [https://www.rbth.com/literature/2014/01/20/writers_and_their_wives_together_in_love_work_and_legacy_33367.html Writers and their wives: Together in love, work and legacy], rbth.ru, 20 January 2014

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{{Commons category|Sofia Tolstaya}}{{Leo Tolstoy}}

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Category:1844 births

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Sophia

Category:19th-century diarists from the Russian Empire

Category:Russian women diarists

Category:Leo Tolstoy

Category:Countesses of the Russian Empire

Category:Photographers from the Russian Empire

Category:People from the Russian Empire of German descent

Category:Russian women memoirists

Category:19th-century writers from the Russian Empire

Category:19th-century women writers from the Russian Empire

Category:Place of birth missing