Married life and children

Sophia, the new Mrs Leo Tolstoy, suddenly finds herself the mistress of the country house at Yasnaya Polyana. A succession of women has looked after it for the last 30 years and little money has been spent on it. In other words, it has seen much better days. Since Tolstoy received the estate via his inheritance 15 years earlier the main house has been sold to a neighbour for 5,000 roubles to meet his gambling debts. It was dismantled in 1854 and now stands 19 kilometres away on a neighbour’s property. The family live in two much smaller buildings that used to stand on either side. A hamlet and some serfs have also been sold but Tolstoy inherited more property upon the death of his brother and is now earning money from his writing.

Stout brick columns stand at the entrance to the estate and a long avenue of birch trees lead to the main house and many outbuildings. The surrounding undulating farmland is on the banks of the Voronka River. Sophia arrives as summer is arriving, one of the loveliest times of the year but in winter it will be snowbound.

From the outset the newlyweds have a tempestuous relationship, full of loving -- and angry -- passion. Each writes in a diary and shows the entries to the other, adding a layer of complexity and danger to the marriage.

Sergey, named after Tolstoy’s surviving brother, is born in June 1863, a little over nine months after Sophia and Tolstoy marry. Tolstoy insists that he is born on the same green leather sofa on which he was born. The couple fight bitterly over breast feeding: Tolstoy wants the new mother to suckle the baby, rather than use a wet nurse as is customary, but Sophia suffers such severe pain that she cannot. Sophia’s father, a doctor, tries to a inject some sense into the argument in a letter that addresses them both.

Many children follow in quick succession. There is Sergey (born in 1963), Tanya (1864), Ilya (1866), Leo (1869), Marya (Masha, 1871), Pyotr (1872, died from croup aged 14 months), Nicholas (1974, died of meningitis aged 10 months), Varvara (1975, who survived for less than an hour), Andrey (1877), Michael (1879), Alexis (1881, died of quinsy aged four years), Sasha (1884) and Vanichka (1988, died of scarlet fever aged seven years). Five of the 13 children don’t survive. (The first adult child to die is Masha, who is hit with pneumonia when in her mid-30s.)

The couple’s collaboration on War and Peace – Tolstoy starts writing it in earnest in the same year Sergey is born and Sophia copies out and corrects his manuscripts -- then on Anna Karenina, cements their love for each other. But the workload on Sophia is particularly heavy. At times she feels considerable jealousy towards her cheerful younger sister Tanya who acts as his secretary for some early chapters because Tolstoy who often stays with them. When Tolstoy’s brother Sergey and Tanya fall for each other and plan to marry, Sophia greatly encourages the union but Sergey reneges at the last minute out of loyalty to Marya Shishkin, the gypsy with whom he has four children. He later marries her.

His other family: The peasants