2 July (1856): Leo Tolstoy to Nikolay Nekrasov

Writing to Nikolay Nekrasov, poet, critic, and editor of the literary journal Sovremennik, or The Contemporary, Tolstoy does not mince words in his judgement of the journal and its major critic, Nikolay Chernyshevsky.

Yasnaya Polyana, 2 July 1856

I’m keeping my word and writing again, more particularly because I want to tell you my impressions about the 6^th issue of The Contemporary. Well, my Kazan comrade’s story [In the Backwoods by V. V. Bervi] was a disgrace, and The Contemporary was a disgrace as well; I can imagine how The Petersburg Gazette will attack the unfortunate Bervi, and deservedly so. You had good cause to try and keep quiet about this work and to smile your cat-like smile when it was mentioned. I don’t think such rubbish has ever been published in The Contemporary before—and not only The Contemporary—not in Russian or in any other language, I would think. Perhaps I’m exaggerating, but that was my impression. It’s like The Staff of Righteousness, only the language is worse. I wanted to laugh, only it hurt, like laughing at a close relative. Read it yourself, I’m sure you haven’t done so. A semelfactive and iterative aspect in the same sentence very often produce such an unpleasant German impression. And then the content and everything, the devil only knows what it all means. The only thing I discovered from it all was that our dear comrade lived in a Mordvinian village and [Tolstoy’s words omitted from all Soviet editions] a white-haired Mordvinian woman who wouldn’t [words omitted] and a housemaid. This is the sole feeling which permeates the whole work. Read it yourself with this in view and it will all be comprehensible to you. But why! It’s incomprehensible.

I also disliked very much the article [by Nikolay Chernyshevsky] about Russian Conversation, which you didn’t write. Although I entirely agree with the idea of the article, obscurely and clumsily expressed as it is, why did they abuse Filippov and all of them in an obscene manner and then say: we want the argument to be conducted in a gentlemanly way. It’s like saying: Be so good as to [words omitted]. And then I’m completely ignorant of, and want to remain ignorant of, what postulates and categorical imperatives are. No, you made a big mistake in letting Druzhinin leave your coalition. Then one could rely on the criticism in The Contemporary, but now it’s a disgrace, thanks to this gentleman who smells of lice. You can just hear his unpleasant, reedy little voice uttering stupid, unpleasant things and getting more and more worked up because he can’t talk properly and his voice is nasty. It’s all Belinsky! But Belinsky spoke for everyone to hear, and he spoke in an angry voice because he was angry, but this man thinks that in order to speak well you need to speak insolently, and to do that you need to be angry. And he’ll go on being angry in his little corner until someone looks him straight in the face and says “shut up.” Don’t think that I’m speaking about Belinsky to be quarrelsome. I’m convinced, on cool reflection, that as a man he was charming and as a writer remarkably useful; but precisely because he stood out from the ordinary rank and file, he produced imitators who are repulsive. There is a firmly established opinion, not only in our criticism, but in our literature and even in society, that it’s very nice to be angry, irritable, and malicious. But I find it very nasty. People like Gogol more than Pushkin. Belinski’s criticism is the height of perfection; your poetry is best loved of any by modern poets. But I find all this nasty, because an irritable and malicious man is not in a normal state. A loving man is quite the reverse, and only in a normal state can you do good and see things clearly. Consequently I like your most recent poetry which contains sadness, i.e. love, and not bitterness, i.e. hatred. There is never any bitterness in a sensible man, least of all in you. One can put on airs, one can pretend to speak with an accent, and even acquire the habit. Sometimes it’s fashionable. And bitterness is terribly fashionable with us. People praise you and say: he’s an embittered man; they even flatter you about your bitterness, and you succumb to it all. Although it’s possible that I haven’t recognized the author of the article on Russian Conversation, it does occur to me that while you certainly didn’t write it, you supplemented it and were very pleased with it. Be as cross as you like with me if you don’t agree with me, but I’m convinced that what I’ve written is not just a verbal polemic, and there’s a lot more I’d like to talk with you about on the subject, but there isn’t time.

I’m getting on with Youth, but it’s going badly and sluggishly. On the other hand it’s so nice here that I wouldn’t want to leave for ages. There’s no need now for the paper I asked you for, I’ve got the money. Or rather there is, but I can send the money at once. Goodbye, and please write back…

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