Huffington Blog Post: Sophia Tolstoy

[Daniel Rancour-Laferriere]

Dear Alexandra Popoff,

Why "bewildered?"  You invited comments to the Huffington Post blog, so I accepted the invitation.  Upon reading the blog, however, I recognized much familiar material.  Many scholars have gotten past the negative stereotyping of Sofia Andreevna and have understood what a tremendous role she played in her husband's creative life, not to mention having a life of her own.  It is good that you have gained access to previously suppressed material which she wrote, including especially her (now presumably uncensored) memoir.  You are no doubt aware that the forthcoming publication of this memoir was recently announced (8 February) on this list by Professor Andrew Donskov of the University of Ottawa.  I have not yet seen the full memoir myself, nor have I seen your book which just now appeared.  But the Huffington Post led me to the Amazon site, and I was able to search there for references in your book to previously published scholarly works which are essential to understanding th!
 e Tolstoy marriage (these items are listed in note 818 of my book TOLSTOY ON THE COUCH: MISOGYNY, MASOCHISM AND THE ABSENT MOTHER, NYU Press/Macmillan Press, 1998).  The result for each item was zero (although there was one hit for Zhdanov on Amazon.ca, but zero on Amazon.com).  It took quite a few years of research on Tolstoy, by the way, before I reached note 818 of this particular book.  And in the book I lamented the fact that the memoir still (in 1998) remained unpublished.

So, I am not passing judgment on your new biography overall, for I would have to read the entire book.  Nor do I underestimate the value of "independent scholarship."  But no scholarship in this fascinating field should be so "independent" as to disregard the work of crucial predecessors toiling in the same field.

With regards to the list -

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere




On May 18, 2010, at 4:32 PM, Alexandra Popoff wrote:

I am bewildered by Professor Daniel Rancour-Laferriere's remarks. Huffington Post is not a scholarly publication, which is widely known. But how can a scholar judge a new biography through an Amazon search? And is there really nothing new to learn about Tolstoy's wife? How about her memoir, which remained unpublished for a century? I learned a great deal from this work, beginning to research it in 2002. It took me six years to write the book. My sources in Sophia Tolstoy's biography include her memoir and the Tolstoys' correspondence, comprising of some 1,500 letters. These sources are new to the biographers, which cannot be disputed. Rancour-Laferriere mentions William Shirer's Love and Hatred, but what does this book have to do with scholarship? Shirer's sources include Troyat's ancient biography of Tolstoy where his wife is portrayed as a shrew. Rancour-Laferriere's remarks seem dismissive to me, although I do hope he is not trying to undermine the value of independent sc!
 holarship.

Alexandra Popoff

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere wrote:

> Dear Alexandra Popoff,
> 
> What you write there is certainly familiar, for you describe the woman many of us have always thought Sophia Andreevna was.  We have not all been brainwashed by Chertkov.  Furthermore, many scholars have studied the Tolstoy marriage in considerable detail (e.g., du Plessix Gray 1994, Zhdanov 1993 [1928], Asquith 1961, Feiler 1981, Smoluchowski 1988, and Shirer 1994).  In ignoring these predecessors (according to the Amazon search of your book), are you not re-inventing the bicycle?
> 
> With regards to the list,
> 
> Daniel Rancour-Laferriere
> 
> http://Rancour-Laferriere.com
> 
> 
> 
> On May 17, 2010, at 12:35 PM, Alexandra Popoff wrote:
> 
> Dear Colleagues:
> 
> Huffington Post published my blog "Sophia Tolstoy: Not the Woman You Thought She Was." Here is the link:
> 
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alexandra-popoff/sophia-tolstoy-not-the-wo_b_576632.html 
> Your comments will be most appreciated!
> 
> With best regards,
> 
> Alexandra Popoff
> 
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