A boisterous father

Leo Tolstoy

Alexandra Tolstoy, hija del autor León Tolstoi, habla sobre la vida en la Rusia de principios del siglo 20. Recuerda los juegos que tenía con su padre y hermano menor y su complejo de inferioridad. León Tolstoi era popular entre la gente común y visitado por personalidades. Tolstoi fue excomulgado por la iglesia ortodoxa. Alexandra manejaba la Fundación Tolstoy, en la ciudad de Nueva York, que ayudaba a refugiados de Europa del Este. En vocabulario: boisterous, hurl y lavish

“… recuerdo que éramos 13 chicos…”

“… las posesiones y el status significaban muy poco para él…”

“… when he was 71 the church excommunicated him. He had stated that they had perverted the message of Christ….”

Aunque Alexandra compartió la creencia de su padre en la no violencia, sintió que era su deber participar en los eventos de la Primera Guerra Mundial y se desempeñó como enfermera en los frentes turco y alemán. Esto la llevó a ser gasificada e internada en el hospital. Después de la guerra, trabajó en una edición de los escritos de su padre. Sin embargo, después de permitir que los rusos disidentes se reunieran en su casa de Moscú, los bolcheviques la arrestaron cinco veces y en 1920 la enviaron a prisión por un año.

Leo Tolstoy with his daugther Alexandra

Se le dio permiso para abandonar la Unión Soviética en 1929, y se instaló en los Estados Unidos, donde dio conferencias y trabajó como granjera. Algunos años después de esta vida, fue visitada por Tatiana Schaufuss, una vieja amiga que había pasado varios años en prisión y exiliada en Siberia. Juntas, en 1939, establecieron la Fundación Tolstoi.

Tolstoy´s daughter speaks about his famous father

Alexandra Tolstoy remembers his family life, the love of his father, the great Russian writer, his mother, and his brother.

Not far from New York City is the Tolstoy Foundation. It helps immigrants from Eastern Europe. Running it is Alexandra Tolstoy, 86 years old, daughter of Leo Tolstoy, and the twelfth of his thirteenth children.

Leo Tolstoy, the Russian writer, was a towering mountain in the world of literature. His novels alone would have raised him, in particular War and Peace and Ana Karenina. But he was also a prestigious thinker, philosopher and religious man. Alexandra Tolstoy´s memories of his father start at the time when most of his novels were already written. His dissolute young manhood was far behind him and his reputation was established well beyond the borders of Russia.

“I remember our family when we were 9 but altogether there were 13 children And 4 of them died before and then my little brother Vania died later. So after that we were 8 and now I´m the only one left.”

At the end of the 19 century the Tolstoy´s family lived on a country state, Yasnaya Polyana, a hundred and thirty miles south of Moscow. He was count Tolstoy, with considerable land and fortune, but possessions and status meant little to him. His personal qualities as much as his literary ones made him a kind of magnet, attracting the curious, the respectful and the ardent from far and near.

When his visitors left the eminent writer became a boisterous father and hurled himself into games with his children.

“He used to put us on a carpet and then we would sit on the carpet and he would go around dragging us on this carpet all around the room, the dining room. And then sometimes he would play another game. There were big baskets instead of a luggage. Enormous baskets. They don´t use them now. So he would put us into that box and carried us around. And then put us to some dark corner and say “well, guess where are you?” Sometimes we would, sometimes we wouldn’t but that was also lots of fun. We would take turns, my little brother and I. The other brothers were too big”

Alexandra was an unwanted child. When her mother Sonia was pregnant she had tried to abort herself by jumping off a bureau. Later Sonia lavished her affection on Vanishka, Alexandra´s little brother. Alexandra childhood was difficult and often lonely.

“Of course they don´t know what I felt, that I was not wanted and when my mother gave all her love to the little boy, Vanishka. Sometimes I felt a little hurt but I loved Vania so much that I understood that he deserved all the love. And somehow it didn´t hurt me much. Sometimes a nurse when she would give some candies to the little boy and she would forget me I would get a little hurt but then Vania would come and give me his candy. So that was so much for me. It hurt but not too much because I understood. They don´t know how. Maybe I couldn´t understand it thoroughly. Maybe I just felt it somehow. They only thing with me is that I had a terrible inferiority complex. It was very difficult for me to get rid of it.”

But between Alexandra and her father there was an open-hearted love, a closed and direct understanding.

“He was always a friend. I could always go with all my troubles, with all my headaches. The more I lived the more I understood him…”

“… Once I had a proposal to get married and I said to him “I don´t want to get married”…

“… she became his secretary and tried to hand-copy his writing but it was difficult. Only the ones who knew him and his ideas could understand…”

“… when he was 71 the church excommunicated him. He had stated that they had perverted the message of Christ….” (7 minutes)

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Para saber

De 1846 a 1940, cerca de 55 millones de europeos hicieron las maletas y buscaron una nueva vida en el extranjero, principalmente en los Estados Unidos y América del Sur. Se vaciaron regiones enteras, lo que obligó a los gobiernos de Viena a Praga a usar propaganda y castigo para evitar la propagación de la llamada "fiebre de América". Sin embargo, las calles de América no siempre estaban llenas de oro, y muchos emigrantes regresaron a casa, fundidos y desilusionados.

Mulberry Street, NYC, 1900

Vocabulario

Boisterous: noisy, energetic, and cheerful.

"A group of boisterous lads".

Hurl: throw or impel (someone or something) with great force.

"Rioters hurled a brick through the windscreen".

Lavish: give something in generous or extravagant quantities.

"The media couldn't lavish enough praise on the film".

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Fuentes

During Last Mass Migration, Europeans Were the Immigrants, Simon Worrall, National Geographic