N. V. Korataeva
Voronezh State University, Voronezh, Russian Federation
Biography of Leo Tolstoy interpreted through the prism of the “estate” approach: “L. N. Tolstoy. His life and literary activity” an essay by E. V. Solovyov
Abstract. The relevance of the article is due to the unquenchable interest of writers in studying the life of Leo
Tolstoy. Biographers perceived and interpreted Tolstoy’s fate line in different ways. The biographies of the great Russian
writer written in the late 19th – early 20th centuries are of particular interest because they were recorded during the
lifetime of L.Tolstoy. The subject of research in the present work is the life story of the writer called “L. N. Tolstoy.
His Life and Literary Activity” recorded in 1894 by the literary critic Evgeny A. Solovyov. The author of the work is a
representative of the “estate” approach to literature and, accordingly, the biography of Leo Tolstoy was written from this
point of view. The author put the “estate” approach as the basis of his biographical research; he saw the life of Tolstoy as a
constant opposition of the Intelligentsia and the Third Estate, rapprochement between them, the desire for improvement
and incessant spiritual torment. The author consideres Tolstoy’s genius in this eternal moral movement. The purpose
of this article is to scrutiny E. Soloviev’s concept used in writing the biography of L. N. Tolstoy. An important part of the
study is not only the external life of the writer, but the spiritual component as its integral part. The biographical essay by
Evgeny Solovyov tells about the life of a philosopher, a moralist and a realist writer. The main thing that the biographer
himself singles out in the conclusion to his work is that the main sources of realism for Tolstoy were religiosity and
narodnism. In the course of the research, comparative-historical, typological methods and the method of biographical
analysis were applied. Further study of L. N. Tolstoy’s biographies seems to be extremely promising, as they can help to
look at the personality of the great writer through the prism of various interpretations.
Keywords: L. Tolstoy, writer, biography, author, concept, work.
Paper submitted: July 11, 2021.
For citation: Korataeva N. V. (2021) Biography of Leo Tolstoy interpreted through the prism of the “estate”
approach: “L. N. Tolstoy. His life and literary activity” an essay by E. V. Solovyov. The Science of Person: Humanitarian
Researches, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 8–14. DOI: 10.17238/issn1998-5320.2021.15.3.1.
