Childhood and youth Tolstoy was one of seven children of Count Ivan Andreyevich Tolstoy (1747–1811) and his wife Anna Fyodorovna, who came from the
Maikov family. Fyodor Tolstoy's place of birth is not known for certain; most likely he was born on the ancestral estate of the Tolstoys near
Kologriv. Despite their high rank, the Tolstoys were at that time relatively poor, the result of a conflict with the authorities in the eighteenth century in which several members of the family were exiled or deprived of property. In order to ensure worthy careers for their sons, it was common in the Tolstoy family to send them to military schools. Thus, Fyodor Tolstoy, along with both his brothers, were educated at the
Naval Cadet Corps in
Saint Petersburg. While still a boy Tolstoy possessed, according to the memoirs of his contemporaries, an uncommon physical strength, endurance, and dexterity, which fulfilled the necessary prerequisites for a successful military career. At the same time, he already had an unpredictable, even cruel personality. In the cadet corps he mastered shooting and fencing, which made him an extremely dangerous opponent in duels. Upon finishing school Tolstoy went into service not in the navy, but in the elite
Preobrazhensky regiment, perhaps owing to the assistance of influential relatives. His comrades at that time, among others, the future literary critic
Faddei Bulgarin, described Tolstoy as an excellent shooter and a brave fighter. According to their memoirs, he had an energetic and passionate personality, but while fighting he was cool and resolute. His "wild" character, along with his taste for women and card games, gave him frequent cause for arguments with his comrades and higher officers that often ended in a violation of discipline. Moreover, Tolstoy was very rancorous and vengeful towards those who happened to anger him. Among the nobility of early nineteenth-century Russia, excessive bravery and a deliberate search for dangerous adventures was widespread and highly valued, not only on the front, but also in daily life. As a result, duels remained very popular during this period and often arose out of the smallest arguments. This societal influence, as well as the individual traits of Tolstoy's character, explains his enthusiasm for duels. In 1799, at the age of 17, he fought his first duel with an officer who had reprimanded him for a violation of discipline. The details of this duel are unknown. There are also no reliable witnesses as to Tolstoy's punishment; several memoirs allege that he was demoted to the rank of a soldier, but other sources contradict this information. that Tolstoy in this way cleverly avoided punishment in the Preobrazhensky regiment. According to Kamenskaya, he posed as his cousin and namesake, who was on the crew of the ship but who did not wish to sail because he suffered from seasickness. The ship
Nadezhda, as well as the accompanying sloop
Neva under the command of
Yuri Lisyansky, set sail in August 1803 from
Kronstadt. In addition to its exploratory goals, the expedition was also meant to help establish diplomatic and economic relations between Russia and Japan, for which the party included a large diplomatic delegation headed by
Nikolai Rezanov.
Nadezhda took a route across the
Baltic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, past the
Canary Islands and
Brazil, after which the ship rounded
Cape Horn and set across the Pacific Ocean towards Japan, making stops at the
Marquesas and the
Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands, and also at
Kamchatka. After visiting Japan,
Nadezhda and
Neva set off towards
Sitka,
Alaska, sailed past China and
Macao on the
Indian Ocean, then rounded Africa and came back across the Baltic Sea to Kronstadt. The voyage lasted a total of more than three years, from August 7, 1803, to August 19, 1806. Tolstoy's behavior on board, where he was unencumbered by official duties, was very unpredictable. He often provoked quarrels with other members of the team, including the captain himself. In addition, Tolstoy permitted himself some japes when addressing members of the crew that he did not like: for example, once he intoxicated the priest accompanying the
Neva, and when the latter lay dead drunk on the floor, Tolstoy stuck his beard to the deck boards with sealing wax. When the priest came to, he was obliged to cut off his beard to free himself. On another occasion, when Krusenstern was gone from his cabin, Tolstoy sneaked into his cabin with a ship's pet, an
orangutan that Tolstoy had bought while the ship was moored on an island in the Pacific Ocean. He took Krusenstern's logbook, put a blank sheet of paper on top and began to show the ape how to cover the paper with ink. Then he left the orangutan alone in the cabin, who went on drawing on the notebook. When Krusenstern returned, all his records had already been destroyed. Tolstoy's voyage concluded with his arrival in Petersburg at the beginning of August 1805. Thanks to his adventures, which gave rise to much gossip in high society, the count acquired an almost legendary celebrity, as well as the lifelong nickname "the American", referring his stay in
Russian America.
War , near Umeå Immediately upon Tolstoy's arrival in Petersburg, he was greeted with new problems: he was arrested at the city gates and sent to the guardhouse. Moreover, a special ukase from
Alexander I forbade him from entering the capital. Tolstoy's scandalous past also disrupted his military career. He was demoted from the elite Preobrazhensky regiment to a post in the little-known
Neishlott fortress, where he served from 1805 to 1808. Philippe Vigel wrote regarding this onerous period for Tolstoy: "the punishment was severe for the brave man, who had never seen battle, especially during a time when all Europe, from west to east, had broken out in war." Partly owing to his cheating, Tolstoy often won large sums of money, which he in general spent rapidly and capriciously on society life. At other times Tolstoy became the victim of other cardsharps and suffered great losses. Even more famous was Tolstoy's participation in a number of duels, the reasons for which were often found in card games. It is unknown how many duels Tolstoy fought in his life, but some accounts state that he killed eleven men altogether in duels. "Or a philosopher, who in his early years / Amazed the world with his depravity, / But, becoming enlightened, made amends for his disgrace: / He quit drinking wine and became a cardsharp?" It is curious that when, during the publication of the poem, the words "or a philosopher" (или философа) were changed to "a fool-philosopher" (глупца-философа), Pushkin strongly objected: "'A fool-philosopher' is printed; why a fool? The poem refers to the American Tolstoy, who is not a fool at all". While in exile, Pushkin assiduously prepared himself for the duel, practicing his shooting on a regular basis. On September 8, 1826, almost immediately after returning to Moscow, he sent Tolstoy his challenge. The duel was prevented then only by Tolstoy's accidental absence from Moscow. A while later the known bibliographer and friend of Pushkin
Sergei Sobolevsky managed to reconcile Pushkin with Tolstoy. Tolstoy was possibly also interested in reconciliation, as he knew that killing Pushkin would probably cut off his relations with many famous poets whose friendship he valued. In subsequent years Tolstoy and Pushkin even became friends. Thus in 1829, Pushkin entrusted Tolstoy with the delivery of a letter to Tolstoy's acquaintance and Pushkin's future mother-in-law, Natalya Nikolayevna Goncharova, in which he declared himself a suitor for the hand of her 17-year-old daughter Natalya. Although the elder Goncharova could not give Pushkin a definite answer, Pushkin eventually succeeded in his suit, and in 1831, he and Natalya were married.
Final years Tolstoy suffered greatly from the death of his children, especially when his eldest daughter, Sarra, died at the age of seventeen. Some of Tolstoy's friends recounted later that by the end of his life grew devout and considered the death of his eleven children to be God's punishment for his killing of eleven men in duels. During this time, Tolstoy no longer fought duels and played cards only seldom. Instead, he prayed more and more, attempting to atone for the sins of his youth. Sometimes he went abroad to take the waters, spending time in various European countries. One of Tolstoy's best-known acquaintances during these years was
Aleksandr Herzen, who reminisced about Tolstoy a decade later in his book,
My Past and Thoughts (Былое и думы): Tolstoy died on November 5, 1846, after a short illness, in his Moscow home in the presence of his wife and only surviving daughter Praskovya. According to the recollections of his close friends, before his death he summoned a priest and confessed to him for several hours. Tolstoy was buried in the
Vagankavo Cemetery. His widow Avdotya outlived him by fifteen years and died a violent death: she was stabbed by her own cook in 1861. The Tolstoys' house on Sivtsev Vrazhek near the old
Arbat was not preserved: it was destroyed in the 1950s to make way for the "Kremlin" clinic. ==Fyodor Tolstoy in literature==