Sofia Tolstaya's "My life"

[Daniel Rancour-Laferriere]

Dear colleagues,

It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of this  
announcement by Professor Donskov.  Finally, one hundred years after  
the death of a giant of nineteenth-century Russian literature, the  
autobiography of the person closest to him will see the light of day.   
In 1998 I found it "truly astonishing" that only bits and pieces of  
"Moia zhizn'" had come out, adding: "When one considers the vast  
literature on Tolstoy that has in fact been published - including  
unreadable volumes by Soviet hack critics, and half-literate memoirs  
by peasants who had some marginal contact with Tolstoy - it is  
difficult to understand why much that was written by Tolstoy's own  
wife has been excluded from publication." (TOLSTOY ON THE COUCH:  
MISOGYNY, MASOCHISM, AND THE ABSENT MOTHER, New York/London, NYU Press/ 
Macmillan, p. 201).  The very last sentence of my book expressed a  
fervent wish: "More than a century after the creation of THE KREUTZER  
SONATA, it is high time to publish everything that was written by the  
novella's chief victim" (p. 202).

With regards to the list -

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere

http://Rancour-Laferriere.com



On Feb 8, 2010, at 10:08 AM, SLAVIC RESEARCH GROUP wrote:

Dear SEELANGers,

On behalf of the University of Ottawaуs Slavic Research Group and the
University of Ottawa Press, I am pleased to announce the forthcoming
publication of MY LIFE (the memoirs of Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya).

Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya (1844-1919) was the wife and lifelong companion
of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828-1910). In the last two decades of her
life, she managed to compile a record of the events of 57 preceding
years, from her birth to 1901, which she titled MY LIFE. An English
edition of this previously unpublished work, edited and with a critical
introduction and commentaries by Andrew Donskov and translated by John
Woodsworth and Arkadi Klioutchanski, will be published in a one-volume
hardcover edition by the University of Ottawa Press in the spring of
2010.

MY LIFE is an intimate view of Tolstoy as a writer and a human being. It
offers a new and better understanding of Tolstoyуs qualities as a
husband and a father, and forms a picture of the quintessential
Tolstoyan character which underlies his fiction. It presents new factual
details about his personal and family life and sheds new light on old
ones. It sets forth important facts and commentaries concerning
Tolstoyуs life and work to which Tolstaya alone was privy, especially
since her memoirs cover a period during which Tolstoyуs diary entries
were sparse.

It also highlights Tolstaya's accomplishments as an author in her own
right -- as well as a translator, editor, amateur artist, musician,
photographer, and businesswoman -- a rarity in the largely
male-dominated world of the time. She was instrumental in the relief
efforts of the 1891-92 famine, fundraising among Russiaуs cultural
Оlite. She was a prolific correspondent, in touch with many prominent
figures in Russian and Western society. Guests in her home ranged from
peasants to princes, from anarchists to artists, from composers to
philosophers. Her descriptions of these personalities read as a
chronicle of the times, affording a unique portrait of late-19th-century
and early-20th-century Russian society.

MY LIFE lay dormant for almost a century before it was considered ready
to be offered to the world in its entirety, even in its original
language. Now its first-time-ever appearance in Russia (scheduled for
this spring) will be complemented by a full English translation, the
exclusive rights for which were granted by the State L.N. Tolstoy Museum
in Moscow to the Slavic Research Group at the University of Ottawa in
Canada.  MY LIFE may well be considered the most important primary
document about Tolstoy to be published in many years.

For further details, please visit the publisher's website at:
http://www.press.uottawa.ca/book/687/

Sincerely,

Andrew Donskov, F.R.S.C., Professor and Director,
Slavic Research Group at the University of Ottawa

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