Americans in Conversation with Tolstoy

January 1, 2007
Making shoes, baling hay, and gardening are not the activities normally associated with the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. Nevertheless, when Americans visited the literary icon in the late 1800s and early 1900s, they consistently found him engaged in just these types of manual labor. He was either out in the fields or just returning when his visitorswriters, journalists, ambassadors, professors, and tourists alikemade their appearance. The conversations that ensued focused on the moral philosophies and religious beliefs that prompted Tolstoy to spend the better part of each day earning his living with his hands. At least, it was these philosophies and beliefsas well as Tolstoy's physical travailsthat left the biggest impression on his American guests. Thirty accounts of these conversations with Tolstoy, all originally published in periodicals between 1887 and 1923 and compiled here by Sekirin ("The Dostoevsky Archive"), invariably focus on these novelties and rarely swerve off to more literary realms. The accounts allow contemporary students of Tolstoy to understand better the nature of his theories and beliefs by seeing what they looked like in practice. Recommended for academic libraries with a focus on Russian history or literature.Maria Kochis, California State Univ. Lib., Sacramento

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