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From Chapbooks to Classics; The Story of the Intermediary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2019

Thaïs S. Lindstrom
Thaïs S. Lindstrom*
Affiliation:
Montana State University
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Extract

A pioneer publication in the creation of a popular literature, the Intermediary had a large circulation in Russia in the early nineties. It was founded for the dissemination of Tolstoy's stories among the people and has left its mark on literary history as the one successful practical application of Tolstoy's ideological views. But the total execution of this brilliant and original enterprise has only been revealed since the appearance of the eighty-fifth and eighty-sixth volumes of the Tolstoy Jubilee Edition which consist of some 200 hitherto unpublished letters dealing primarily with Intermediary concerns which Tolstoy wrote to Vladimir Chertkov between 1883 and 1889.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , April 1957 , pp. 190 - 201
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1957

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References

1 Tolstoj, L. N. Polnoe sobranie sochinenij (Jubilejnoe izdanie), General Editor, Chert kov, V. G., Giz. (Moscow-Leningrad, 1828—)Google Scholar, Vol. LXXXV—Pisma K V. G. Chertkom, 1883- 1886, Vol. LXXXVI—Pisma k V. G. Chertkom, 1887-1889.

2 Tolstoj, L. N. Polnoe sobranie sochinenij (Jubilejnoe izdanie), General Editor, V. G. Chert kov, Giz, (Moscow-Leningrad, 1828—) Vol. VIII, Pedagogicheskie statji, 1860-1863, p. 89.Google Scholar

3 At the crest of a brilliant military career, this wealthy young officer had undergone a spiritual crisis before Tolstoy's Confession had shocked the Russian aristocracy to which they both belonged. He resigned from the army and retired to his estates to devote himself to the welfare of his peasants. But neither his popular reading room, nor his workshops and trade school exhausted the passionate and restless energy which disquieted his friends. When, in 1883, he met Tolstoy in Moscow for the first time and discovered the affinity of his religious and social views and those of the great writer, he felt that he had found his true vocation—namely, the dissemination of Tolstoy's message among the working masses of the people—and by what better means than the founding of a popular press?

4 Polveka dlja knigi (1886-1916) Literaturno-khudozestvennyj sbornik posvjashchënnyj pjatidesjatiletnoj izdatelskoj dejatel'nosti I. D. Sytina (Moscow, 1916), p. 23.

5 Such as the publications of the Petrograd Committee for the Promotion of Literacy; the Kharkov Society publications; Deshevaja biblioteka; Russkoe bogatstvo; Russkaja mysl'.

6 Tolstoj, L. N. Polnoe sobranie sochinenij, LXXV, letter dated December, 1885, 308.Google Scholar

7 Rubakin, N. A., Etjudv o russkoj chitajushchejpublike (Moscow, 1895), p. 56.Google Scholar

8 Zhuravlev, S. G., Russkij chitatel’ (Moscow, 1892), p. 467 Google Scholar.

9 Rubakin, N. A., Etjudv o russkoj chitajushchej publike, p. 170-1.Google Scholar

10 Prugavin, A. S., Zaprosy naroda (Moscow, 1895), p. 88.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., p. 101.

12 Much the same point is made by Korolenko in his impression of Tolstoy, whom hemet in 1886: “Tolstoy's faculty of permeating himself with peasant psychology deeply in-i fluenced his most fundamental theories,” “Tri vstrechi s Tolstym,” Golos minuvshego, October, 1922, p. 11.

13 Kaidanova, O., Ocherki po istorii narodnogo obrazovanija v Rossii, 1938, I, 414.Google Scholar

14 Polveka dlja knigi (1866-1916) (Moscow, 1916).

15 Belokonskij, P., Svirskij, N., Dmitrieva, T., Serafimovich, P., Barancevich, I., Franko, B., Kuprin, A., Tapaeva, O., Krandievskaja, N., Jablonovskij, S..Google Scholar

16 Barancevich, I., “At the Mill.”Google Scholar

17 Dmitrieva, T., “Majna Vira.”.Google Scholar

18 Serafimovich, P., “The Switchman.”Google Scholar

19 Tapaeva, O., “The Disturbed One.”Google Scholar

20 Kuprin, A., “Molokh.“Google Scholar

21 It met for the first time on April 17, 1906 (old style).

22 Polveka dlja knigi (1866-1916), from the article on Sytin by V. N. Donchenko, entitled “Sam svoj predok.” p. 40.