# Leo Tolstoy: His Life and Work/Chapter 15
## The Work of the Yasnaya Polyana School

In his educational articles of practical interest, Tolstoy gives an artistic description of several incidents in school life, a subject n which he took a warm and sincere interest, not like a stern pedant demanding obedience, but like a boy joining in the joys and sorrows of his school companions, giving them his whole soul, and sharing his great spiritual riches with them.
By putting together the incidents thus described, one sees the gigantic figure of the great educationist in all its grandeur.

## I. The Working of the School

It was not cold outside -- a moonless winter night with clouds in the sky. We stopped at the cross-roads; the older, third-year pupils stopped near me, asking me to accompany them farther; the younger ones looked awhile at me and then ran off down hill. The young ones had begun to study with a new teacher, and they no longer had that confidence in me that the older boys had.
"Come, let us go to the preserve," (a small forest within two hundred steps of the house), said one of them. Fedka, a small boy of ten, of a tender, impressionable, poetical, and impetuous nature, was the most persistent in his demands. Danger seemed to form his chief condition for enjoyment...
He knew that there were wolves in the forest then, and so he wanted to go to the preserve. The rest joined in, so we went, all four of us, into the wood. another boy, I shall call him Semka, a physically and morally sound lad of about twelve, nicknamed Vavilo, walked ahead and kept exchanging calls with somebody in his ringing voice. Pronka, a sickly, meek, but uncommonly talented boy, the son of a poor family -- sickly, I think, mainly on account of insufficient food -- was walking by my side.
Fedka was walking between me and Semka, talking all the time in his extremely soft voice, telling us how he had herded horses here in the summer, or saying that he was not afraid of anything, or asking, "Suppose some one were to jump out at us!" and insisting on my answering him. We did not go into the forest itself -- that would have been too terrible -- but even near the forest it was getting darker; we could hardly see the path, and the fires of the village were hidden from view.
Semka stopped and began to listen.
"Stop, boys! What is that?" he suddenly said.
We held our tongues, but we could hear nothing; still it added terror to our fear.
"Well, what should we do if one should jump out and make straight for us?" Fedka asked.
We began to talk about robbers in the Caucasus. They recalled a story of the Caucasus I had told them long ago, and I told them more stories about abreks, Cossacks, and Khadzhi Murat. Semka was strutting ahead of us, stepping broadly in his big boots, and evenly swaying his strong back. Pronka tried to walk by my side, but Fedka pushed him off the path, and Pronka, who apparently always submitted to such treatment on account of his poverty, still rushed up to my side during the most interesting passages, though sinking knee-deep in the snow.
Everybody who knows anything about peasant children has noticed that they are not accustomed to any kind of caresses -- tender words, kisses, being fondly touched with the hand, and so forth....It was for this reason that I was startled when Fedka, who was walking by my side, in the most terrible part of the story suddenly touched me lightly with his sleeve, and then grasped two of my fingers with his whole hand, and did not let them go.
The moment I was silent, Fedka begged me to proceed, and that in such an imploring tone and with so much agitation that I could not refuse.
"Don't get in my way!" he once angrily called out to Pronka, who had run on in front; he was really quite savage with him -- he had such a mingled feeling of terror and joy, as he was holding on to my finger, that he could not bear any one daring to interrupt his pleasure.
"More, more! That's fine!"
We passed the forest and were approaching the village from the other end.
"Let us go back again," all cried when the lights became visible. "Let us take another walk!"
We walked in silence, now and then sinking in the loose, untrodden snow; the white darkness seemed to be swaying before our eyes; the clouds hung low, and seemed to be piled over us -- there was no end to that whiteness over which we alone crunched through the snow; the wind rustled through the bare tops of the aspens, but we were protected from the wind behind the forest.
I finished my story by telling them that the abrek, being surrounded, began to sing songs, and then threw himself on his dagger. All were silent.
"Why did he sing a song when he was surrounded?" asked Semka
"Didn't you hear? He was getting ready to die!" Fedka replied sorrowfully.
"I think he sang a prayer," added pronka.
All agreed....
We stopped in the grove, beyond the threshing floors, at the very end of the village. Semka picked up a stick from the snow and began to strike the frozen trunk of a lime tree. The hoar frost fell from the branches upon his cap, and the lonely sound of his beating was borne through the forest.
"Lev Nikolayevich," Fedka said (I thought he wanted to say something again about the countess), "why do people learn singing? I often wonder why they really do?"...
It feels strange to me to repeat what we spoke on that evening, but I remember we said everything, I think, that there was
A rare happiness fell to the writer of these lines, as to Fedka, who held Tolstoy by his fingers and was rapt in ecstasy. I more than once walked with Tolstoy on the sam spot (Zakas). Listening to his tales, I have experienced the same feeling, which cannot be expressed in better words than those used by Fedka: "Go on, go on! ah, how nice!"

## II. The Lesson In Composition

Once last winger [Tolstoy goes on], I forgot everything after dinner as I read Snegirev's book, and even returned to the school with the book in my hands. It was a lesson in the Russian language.
"Well, write something on a proverb!" I said
The best pupils, Fedka, Semka, and a few others, pricked up their ears.
"What do you mean by `on a proverb'? What is it? Tell us!" the questions ran.
I happened to open the book at the proverb: "He feeds with the spoon and pricks his eye with the handle."
"Now imagine," I said, "that a peasant has taken a beggar to his house and then begins to rebuke him for the good he has done him, and you will see that `he feeds with spoon and pricks his eye with the handle.'"
"But how are you going to write it?" asked Fedka and all the rest, who had pricked up their ears. They retreated, having convinced themselves that this matter was beyond their strength, and they betook themselves to the work which they had begun.
"Will you write it yourself?" one of them said to me.
Everybody was busy with his work; I took a pen and ink and began to write.
"Well," said I, "who will write it best? I am with you.
I began the story, printed in the fourth issue of the "Yasnaya Polyana" magazine, and I wrote down the first page. Every unbiased man who has the artistic sense and feels with the poorer classes will, upon reading this first page, written by me, and the following pages of the story, written by the pupils themselves, separate this page from the rest, as if he were taking a fly out of the milk; it is so false, so artificial, and so badly expressed. I must remark that in the original form it was more monstrous still, as much has been corrected, thanks to the hints given by the pupils.
Fedka kept looking up from his copy book to me, and upon meeting my eyes, he smiled, winked, and repeated: "Write, write, or I'll give it to you!" He was evidently amused to see a grown person write a theme.
Having finished his theme worse and faster than usual, he climbed on the back of my chair and began to read over my shoulders. I could not proceed; others came up to us, and I read out to them what I had written.
They did not like it, and none of them praised it. I felt ashamed, and, to soothe my literary vanity, I began to tell them the plan of what was to follow. The further I got in my story, the more enthusiastic I became; I often corrected myself, and they kept helping me out. One would say that the old man should be a magician; another would remark: "No, that won't do, he must be just a soldier; the best thing will be if he steals from him; no, that won't go with the proverb," and so forth.
All were exceedingly interested. It was evidently a new and exciting sensation for them to be present at the process of creation and to take part in it. Their judgments were all, for the most part, to the same effect, and they were just, whether they spoke of the very structure of the story or of the incidents and the characters given to the personages. Nearly all of them took part in the composition; but, from the outset, those who distinguished themselves were the positive Semka, by his marked artistic power of description, and Fedka, by the correctness of his poetical conception, and especially by the glow and rapidity of his imagination.
Their demands had so little of the accidental in them and were so definite, that more than once, after beginning a discussion, I had to give way to them. I was strongly possessed by the demands of a regular structure and of an exact correspondence of the idea of the proverb to the story; while they, on the contrary, were only concerned about the demands of artistic truth. I, for example, wanted that the peasant, who had taken the old man to his house, should himself repent of his good deed, while they regarded this as impossible and introduced a cross old woman.
I said: "The peasant was at first sorry for the old man and afterward did not like giving away the bread."
Fedka replied that that would make the story improbable. "From the first he did not obey the old woman, and would not submit later on."
"What kind of a man is he, according to you?" I asked.
"He is like Uncle Timofey," said Fedka, smiling. "He has a scanty beard, goes to church, and he has bees."
"Is he good but stubborn?" I asked.
"Yes," said Fedka, "he will not obey the old woman."
From that time the old man was brought into the hut, the work became animated. They evidently for the first time felt the charm of clothing artistic incidents in words. Semka distinguished himself more than the rest in this respect; the correctest details were poured forth one after the other. The only fault that could be found with him was that these details sketched only the actual moment, without connection with the general feeling of the story. I hardly could write their descriptions as fast as they gave them, and only asked them to wait and not forget what they had told me.
Semka seemed to see and describe that which was before his eyes; the stiff, frozen bast shoes, with the dirt oozing from them as they thawed, and the half-burned scraps into which they were shrivelled when the old woman threw them into the oven.
Fedka, on the contrary, saw only such details as brought out for him the particular feeling which he had for particular individuals. Fedka saw the snow drifting behind the peasant's leg- rags, and the expression of compassion with which the peasant said, "Lord, how it snows!" (Fedka's face even showed how the peasant said it, and besides this, he swung his hands and shook his head.) He saw the cloak, all rags and patches, and the torn shirt, under which could be seen the shrunken body of the old man, wet from the melting snow. He created the old woman, who growled, as, at the command of her husband, she took off his bast shoes, and the pitiful groan of the old man as he muttered through his teeth, "Softly, motherkin, I have sores here."
Semka needed mainly objective pictures; bast shoes, a cloak, an old man, a woman, all almost independent of one another; but Fedka had to make others feel the pity with which he was filled himself. He ran ahead of the story, telling how he would feed the old man, how the latter would fall down at night, and would later teach a boy in the field to read, so that I was obliged to ask him not to be in such a hurry and not to forget what he had said. His eyes sparkled with positive hears; his swarthy, thin little hands were clasped convulsively; he was angry with me, and he kept urging me on: "Have you written it, have you written it?" he kept asking me.
He treated all the rest despotically; he wanted to talk all the time, giving the story not as a story is told, but as it is written, that is, artistically clothing in words the sensuous pictures. thus, for example, he would not allow words to be transposed; if he once said, "I have sores on my feet," he would not permit me to say, "On my feet I have sores." His soul, now softened and irritated by the sentiment of pity, that is, of love, clothed every image in an artistic form, and denied everything that did not correspond to the idea of eternal beauty and harmony.
The moment Semka was carried away into giving disproportionate details about the lambs in the inclosure, and so forth, Fedka grew angry and said, "What a lot of bosh!" I only needed to suggest what the peasant was doing, while his wife went to the gossip, to call forth at once in Fedka's imagination a picture with lambs bleating at the inclosure, with the sighs of the old man and the delirium of the boy Seryozhka; I only needed to suggest an artificial and false picture to make him immediately remark angrily that that was not necessary.
For example, I suggested the description of the peasant's looks, to which he agreed; but to my proposition to describe what the peasant was thinking when his wife had run over to the gossip, there immediately rose before him this very way of expressing his thought, "If you got in the way of Savoska, the corpse, he would pull all your locks out!" He said this, leaning his head on his hand the while, with such a tone of fatigue and quiet gravity -- although in his usual good-natured voice -- that the boys shook with laughter.
The chief quality in every art, the feeling of measure, was developed in him to an extraordinary degree. He writhed at the suggestion of any superfluous feature, made by some one of the boys.
He directed the structure of the story so despotically, and with such right to this despotism, that the boys soon went him, and only he and Semka, who would not give in to him, though working in another direction, were left. We worked from seven to eleven o'clock; they felt neither hunger nor fatigue, and even got angry at me when I stopped writing; they undertook to relieve me in writing, but they soon gave that up, as matters would not go well.
It was then for the first time that Fedka asked my name. We laughed because he did not know.
"I know," he said, "how to call you; but how do they call you in the manor? We have such names as Fokanychev, Zyabrev, Yermilin."
I told him.
"Are we going to print it?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Then we shall have to print work by Makarov, Morozov, and Tolstoy."
He was agitated for a long time and could not sleep and I cannot express the feeling of agitation, joy, fear, and almost regret, which I experienced during that evening. I felt that with that day a new world of enjoyment and suffering was opened up to him -- the world of art; I thought that I had received and insight into what no one has a right to see -- the germination of the mysterious flower of poetry.
I felt both dread and joy, like the seeker after the treasure who suddenly sees the flower of the fern -- I felt joy, because suddenly and quite unexpectedly there was revealed to me that stone of the philosophers which I had vainly been trying to find for two years -- the art of teaching the expression of thought; and dread, because this art made new demands -- brought with it a whole world of desires, which stood in no relation to the surroundings of the pupils, as I thought in the first moment. There was no mistaking. It was not an accident, but a conscious creation....
I gave up the lesson, because I was to much agitated.
"What is the matter with you? You are so pale -- are you ill?" my companion asked me. Indeed, only two or three times in my life have I experienced such a strong sensation as on that evening, and for a long time I was unable to render an account to myself of what I was experiencing. I distinctly felt that I had criminally looked through a glass hive at the work of the bees, concealed from the gaze of mortal man; it seemed to me that I had vaguely felt something like repentance for an act of sacrilege,...and at the same time I was happy as a man must be happy who beholds that which

## III. The First Lesson In History

Tolstoy writes:
I had intended to explain in the first lesson in what way russia differed from other countries, where its frontiers were, the nature of the structure of its government, then to say who was the present ruler, and how and when the Emperor ascended the throne.
"Teacher: Where do we live, in what country?"
"A Pupil: In Yasnaya Polyana."
"Another Pupil: In the field."
"Teacher: No, in what country is Yasnaya Polyana and the Government of Tula?"
"Pupil: the Government of Tula is seventeen versts from us. Where is it? Government is a Government, and that is all there is to say about it."
"Teacher: No. Tula is the capital of the Government, but a Government is something different. Well, what country is it?"
"Pupil (who has learned some geography before): The earth is round like a ball."
By means of questions as to what country a German, whom they knew, had lived in before and where they would get if they were to keep traveling all the time in one direction, the pupils were led up to answer they that lived in russia. Some, however, replied to the question where we should get if we traveled all the time in one direction, that we should get nowhere. Others said that we should get to the end of the world.
"Teacher (repeating the pupil's answer): You said that we should come to some other countries; where will Russia end and other countries begin?"
"Pupil: Where the Germans begin."
"Teacher: So, if you meet Gustav Ivanovich and Karl Fedorovich in Tula, you will say that the Germans have begun and that there is a new country?"
"Pupil: No, when the Germans begin thick."
"Teacher: No, there are places in Russia where the Germans are thick. Ivan Fomich is from one of them, and yet that is still russia. Why is it so?"
Silence.
"Teacher: Because they obey the same laws with the Russians."
"Pupil: One law? How so? The Germans don't come to our church and they eat meat on fast-days."
"Teacher: I do not mean that kind of law, but they obey one Tsar."
"Pupil (skeptical Semka): That is funny. Why have they a different law, and yet obey the Tsar?"
The teacher feels the need of explaining what a law is, and so he asks what is meant by "obeying a law," or "being under one law."
"Girl (independent manorial girl, hurriedly and timidly): To accept the law means `to get married.'"
The pupils look inquiringly at the teacher. The teacher begins to explain that the law consists in putting a man in jail and in punishing him for stealing or killing.
"Skeptic Semka: And have not the Germans such a law?"
"Teacher: There are also laws with us about the gentry, the peasants, the merchants, the clergy (the word `clergy' perplexes them)."
"Skeptic Semka: And have not the Germans such a law?"
"Teacher: In some countries there are such laws, and in others there are not. We have a Russian Tsar, and in the German countries there is a German Tsar."
This answer satisfies all the people and even skeptical Semka.
Thinking it was now time to pass on to explain what is meant by the classes, the teacher asks them what classes of society they know. the pupils begin to enumerate them: the gentry, the peasants, the popes, the soldiers. "Any more?" asks the teacher. "The manorial servants, the burghers, the samovar-makers." The teacher asks them to distinguish these classes.
"Pupils: The peasants plough, the manorial servants serve their masters, the merchants trade, the soldiers serve, the samovar-makers get the samovars ready, the popes serve the mass, the gentry do nothing..."
Then in the same order and under similar difficulties there follows an explanation of the idea of "Classes of Society," "frontiers," and other terms applied to the State.
The lesson lasts about two hours. The teacher is convinced that the pupils have retained a great deal of what has been said, and he continues his subsequent lessons in the same strain, convincing himself only much later that his method was wrong, and

## IV. The Second Lesson In History

"The holding of this class has remained a memorable event in my life, [says Tolstoy]. I shall never forget it. The children had long been promised that I should tell them history, going backward, while another teacher would begin from the beginning, so that we should finally meet. My evening scholars had left me, and I came to the class of Russian history. They were talking about Svyatoslav. They felt dull. On a tall bench sat in a row, as they always put themselves, three peasant girls, with their heads tied with kerchiefs. One was asleep. Mishka pushed me. "Look there, our cuckoos are sitting there -- one is asleep." And they were like cuckoos!
"You had better tell us from the end," said some one, and all got up.
I sat down and began to talk. As always, the hubbub, the groans, the tussling, lasted about two minutes. Some were crawling under the table, some on the table, some under the benches, and on their neighbors' shoulders and knees, till at last all was silent. I began with Aleksandr I, told them of the French Revolution, of Napoleon's successes, of his seizing the government, and of the war which ended in the peace of Tilsit. The moment we reached Russia there were heard sounds and words expressing lively interest on all sides.
"Well, is he going to conquer us, too?"
"Never mind, Aleksandr will give it to him!" said some one who knew about Aleksandr, but I had to disappoint them -- the time had not yet come for that -- and they felt uncomfortable when they heard that the Tsar's sister was spoken of as a bride for Napoleon, and that aleksandr spoke with him on the bridge, as if he was his equal.
"Just wait!" exclaimed Petka, with a threatening gesture.
"Go on and tell us!"
When Aleksandr declined to submit to him, that is, when Aleksandr declared war, all expressed their approbation. When Napoleon came against us at the head of twelve nations and stirred up the Germans and Poland, their hearts sank from agitation.
A German, a friend of mine, was standing in the room.
"Ah, you were against us, too," said Petka (the best storyteller).
"Keep quiet!" cried the others.
The retreat of our army tortured my audience, and on all sides were asked questions why? and curses were heaped on Kutuzov and Barclay.
"Your Kutuzov is no good!"
"Just wait," said another.
"Well, did he surrender?" asked a third.
When we reached the battle of Borodino, and when in the end I was obliged to say that we did not gain a victory, I was sorry for them -- it was evident that I gave them all a terrible blow.
"Though our side did not win, theirs did not either!"
When Napoleon came to Moscow and was waiting for the keys of the city and for submission, there was a burst of protest, as they had thought they were unconquerable. The conflagration of Moscow was, naturally, approved of by all. Then came the victory, Napoleon's retreat.
"When he came out of Moscow, Kutuzov rushed after him and went to fight him," I said.
"He made him rear!" Fedka corrected me.
Fedka, red in his face, was sitting opposite me, and was bending his thin, tawny fingers with excitement. That is his habit. The moment he said this, the whole room groaned with pride and delight. A little fellow in the back row was being badly squeezed, but nobody paid any attention.
"That's better! There, take the keys now!" and so forth.
Then I continued, describing our pursuit of the French. It pained the children to hear that some one was too late at Berezina, and that we let them pass; Petka even groaned with pain.
"I should have shot him dead for being late."
Here we even had some pity for the frozen Frenchmen. Then, when we crossed the border and the Germans, who had been against us, joined us, some one remembered the German who was standing in the room.
"How is that? At first you are against us, and when the power is losing, you are with us!" and suddenly all rose and shouted at the German, so that the noise could be heard in the street. When they quieted down I went on, telling them about our following up Napoleon as far as Paris, placing the real king on the throne, celebrating our victory, and feasting. But the recollection of the Crimean War spoiled the whole thing.
"Just wait," said Petka, shaking his fist; "let me grow up and I will show them!"
If we had at that moment had a chance at the Shevardino redoubt and Mount Malakhov, we should certainly have taken them back.
It was late when I ended. As a rule the children are asleep at that time. No one was sleeping, and the eyes of the little cuckoos were burning. Just as I got up, Taraska crawled out from underneath my chair, to my great astonishment, and look vivaciously, and, at the same time, seriously at me.
"How did you get down there?"
"He was there all the time," some one said.
"There was no need to ask him whether he had understood; you could see that by his face.
"Well, are you going to tell about it?" I asked.
"I?" He thought a while. "I will tell the whole thing."
"I will tell it at home."
"So will I."
"And I."
"Is that all?"
"Yes."
All flew down under the staircase, some promising to give it to the Frenchmen, others scolding the German, and others repeating how Kutuzov had made him "rear".
"Sie haben ganz Russisch erzachlt," the German who had been hooted said to me in the evening. "You ought to hear how they tell the story in our country! You said nothing about the German struggle for freedom."
I fully agreed with him that my narrative was not history but a fanciful tale to rouse the national sentiment.
Consequently, as a study of history, this attempt was even
To give a full picture of Tolstoy as a schoolmaster, we must add his views on the teaching of music. He gives a concise summary of his conclusions in four short paragraphs.
Drawing occupied a conspicuous place in the school course, but Tolstoy did not teach it himself, as he did not think he was competent, and this task was undertaken by a fellow teacher.
In the spring of 1862, Tolstoy was very tired after his work as Peace Mediator, and at the school, and having some fear of consumption, he resolved to try the Koumiss treatment.
Accompanied by his man-servant Aleksey and two schoolboys, he went to the province of Samara in the middle of May [1862].
He wrote from Moscow to his aunt Tatyana, informing her that he and his companions were all well and giving her certain advice and messages in connection with the school.
They went by rail to Tver and then on by a steamer, which was to take them down the river Volga to Samara.
On the voyage, Tolstoy probably was in that very happy mood which is so often enjoyed by all travellers upon the Volga. The great river in its spring overflow, the soft murmur of the steamer as it moved, the fascinating spring nights with their starlit skies, the mirror-like river, the lights of the shore and the vessel, the pilgrims, monks, Tartars, and other passengers, who, in spite of the great variety of types, conditions, nationalities, and religions, bear on them a distinctive Great Russian cachet; possibly thoughts of the great historic past of the river and its banks -- all these make an incomparably gladdening and softening impression and bring with them many thoughts and dreams.
Tolstoy probably had some similar sensations, for on May 20th [1862] he wrote in his diary:
On his way, Tolstoy stopped with his relation Vladimir Ivanovich Yuskhov in Kazan.
Then, from Samara itself, he wrote to his aunt:
He next wrote from the place where he was undergoing his treatment:
While he was spending a peaceful time in the Bashkir Steppes, an unexpected event took place in the school at Yasnaya Polyana.
There can be no doubt that the powerful preaching of freedom of speech and action at the school could not but attract the attention of the authorities, and Yasnaya Polyana was denounced to those whom it concerned as a center of criminal revolutionary propaganda. In the summer of 1862, the police appeared in the school and made a perquisition.
A full description of this is to be found in the reminiscences of E. Markov in his article printed in "The European Messenger."
Prince D. D. Obolenskiy speaks of the same incident in his reminiscences, with the addition of some interesting details:
Zakharyin Yakunin Tells the following in his "Reminiscences of the Countess A. A. Tolstaya:
But the authorities were far from pacified, and a correspondence between the Ministers of the Interior and of Instruction ensued on the subject of the review "Yasnaya Polyana." We quote extracts from this correspondence printed in the reminiscences of Usov:
Having received this report, the Minister of Instruction issued an order for the examination of all the printed books of the review "Yasnaya Polyana, and, on October 24th of the same year [1862], informed the Minister of the Interior that in accordance with the examination made by his subordinates, and the report presented to him, he saw nothing dangerous or contrary to religion in the review "Yasnaya Polyana." One only came at times across extreme views upon the subject of education, which might very well be criticized in scientific educational reviews, but not forbidden by the censor.
The liberal Ministry of Public Instruction was mistaken. Tolstoy did not give up his ideas; but all those attacks had prevented the further development of his school work in Yasnaya Polyana.

## Footnotes

* ↑ a Tartar tent
* ↑ Cossack commander
* ↑ E. Makarov, "The Living Soul in School: Thoughts and Reminiscences of An Old Educationalist," "Messenger of Europe," p. 584, February 1900.
* ↑ "Sketches and Reminiscences by Prince D. D. Obolenskiy," "The Russian Archive, Book X, 1894.
* ↑ E. Solovev, "Leo tolstoy: His Life and Literary Activity," p. 73. Published by Pavlenkov, St. Petersburg, 1897.