Leo Tolstoy Reads From His Last Major Work in Four
Languages, 1909
http://www.openculture.com/2012/05/rare_recording_leo_tolstoy_reads_his_work_in_four_languages_1909.html
Earlier this week we brought you rare recordings of Sigmund
Freud and Jorge Luis Borges speaking in English. Today we present a remarkable
series of recordings of the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy reading a
passage from his book, Wise Thoughts for Every Day, in four languages: English,
German, French and Russian.
Wise Thoughts For Every Day (find a copy in our collection
of Free eBooks) was Tolstoy’s last major work. It first appeared in 1903 as The
Thoughts of Wise Men, and was revised and renamed several times before the
author’s death in 1910. It was banned by the Soviet regime, only to reappear in
1995 as a bestseller in Russia.
In 1997 it was translated into English by Peter Sekirin and published as A
Calendar of Wisdom. The book is a collection of passages from a diverse group
of thinkers, ranging from Lao-Tzu to Ralph Waldo Emerson. “I felt that I have
been elevated to great spiritual and moral heights by communication with the best
and wisest people whose books I read and whose thoughts I selected for my
Circle of Reading,” wrote Tolstoy in his diary.
As an old man (watch video of him shortly before he died)
Tolstoy rejected his great works of fiction, believing that it was more important
to give moral and spiritual guidance to the common people. “To create a book
for the masses, for millions of people,” wrote Tolstoy, “is incomparably more
important and fruitful than to compose a novel of the kind which diverts some
members of the wealthy classes for a short time, and then is forever
forgotten.”
Tolstoy arranged his book for the masses as a calendar, with
a series of readings for each day of the year. For example under today’s date,
May 9, Tolstoy selects brief passages from Immanuel Kant, Solon, and the Koran.
Underneath he writes, “We cannot stop on the way to self-perfection. As soon as
you notice that you have a bigger interest in the outer world than in yourself,
then you should know that the world moves behind you.”
The audio recordings above were made at the writer’s home in
Yasnaya Polyana on October 31, 1909, when he was 81 years old. He died just
over a year later. Tolstoy apparently translated the passage himself. The
English version sounds a bit like the King James Bible. The words are hard to
make out in the recording, but he says:
That the object of life is self-perfection, the perfection
of all immortal souls, that this is the only object of my life, is seen to be
correct by the fact alone that every other object is essentially a new object.
Therefore, the question whether thou hast done what thou shoudst have done is
of immense importance, for the only meaning of thy life is in doing in this
short term allowed thee, that which is desired of thee by He or That which has
sent thee into life. Art thou doing the right thing?
Tolstoy is known to have made several voice recordings in
his life, dating back to 1895 when he made two wax cylinder recordings for
Julius Block. Russian literary scholar Andrew D. Kaufman has collected three
more vintage recordings (all in Russian) including Tolstoy’s lesson to peasant
children on his estate, a reading of his fairy tale “The Wolf,” and an excerpt
from his essay “I Cannot be Silent.” You can listen to them on Kaufman’s Web
site.
The Last Days of Leo Tolstoy Captured on Video
http://www.openculture.com/2010/11/the_last_days_of_leo_tolstoy_a_century_ago.html
100 years ago,1910. today - November 20, Leo Tolstoy, who
gave us two major classics in the Russian tradition, Anna Karenina and War
& Peace, died at Astapovo, a small, remote train station in the heart of Russia.
Pneumonia was the official cause. His death came just weeks after Tolstoy, then
82 years old, made a rather dramatic decision. He left his wife, his
comfortable estate and his wealth and traveled 26 hours to Sharmardino, where
Tolstoy’s sister Marya lived, and where he planned to live the remainder of his
life in a small, rented hut. (Elif Batuman has more on this.) But then he
pushed on, boarding a train to the Caucasus.
And it proved to be more than his already weak constitution could bear. Rather
amazingly, the footage above brings you back to Tolstoy’s very last days, and
right to his deathbed itself. This clip comes from a 1969 BBC series
Civilisation: A Personal View by Kenneth Clark, and these days you can still
find copies of Clark’s accompanying book
kicking around online. A big thanks to Mike S. for flagging the video and the
anniversary itself.
Note: You can find many of Tolstoy’s major works in our Free
Audio Books and Free eBooks collections.