Theology (1880), A Translation and Unification of the Gospels (1881), What I Believe (1884), and The Kingdom of God Is within You (1893). Most of these works were banned by the religious or secular censor in Russia, but were either printed illegally in Russia or printed abroad and clandestinely smuggled in, thus adumbrating the fate of many Soviet works printed as samizat or tamizdat. The core of Tolstoy’s belief is contained in God’s commandments in the Sermon on the Mount: do not resist evil, swear no oaths, do not lust, bear no malice, love your enemy. Tolstoy is everywhere and at pains to point out that adherence to these injunctions, especially nonresistance to evil, inevitably leads to the abolition of all compulsory legislation, police, prisons, armies, and, ultimately, to the abolition of the state itself. He described his beliefs as Christian-anarchism. Vladimir Nabokov described them as a neutral blend between a kind of Hindu Nirvana and the New Testament, and indeed Tolstoy himself considered his beliefs as a syncretic reconciliation of Christianity with all the wisdom of the ages, especially Taoism and Stoicism. Following this creed, Tolstoy became a vegetarian; gave up smoking, drinking, and hunting; and partially renounced the privileges of his class-for instance, he often wore peasant garb, embraced physical labor as a necessary part of a moral life, and refused to take part in social functions that he deemed corrupt.
His new life led to increased strife with his wife and family, who did not share Tolstoy’s convictions. It also attracted international attention. Beginning in the 1880s, hundreds of journalists, wisdom-seekers, and tourists trekked to Yasnaya Polyana to meet the now-famous Russian writer-turned-prophet. Tolstoy, who had always kept up extensive correspondence with friends and family, was inundated with letters from the curious and questing. In his lifetime he wrote 10,000 letters and received 50,000. In 1891 he renounced copyright over many of his literary works. Free of copyright restriction and royalties, publishing houses around the world issued impressive runs of Tolstoy’s works almost immediately upon their official publication in Russia. In 1901 his international fame was increased when Tolstoy was excommunicated for blasphemy from the Russian Orthodox Church. In addition to works on philosophy, religion, and social criticism, Tolstoy penned during the last decades of his life a number of works of the highest literary merit, notably the novella The Death of Ivan Ilich (1882), the affecting story of a man forced to admit the meaninglessness of his own life in the face of impending death; and Hadji Mu-rat (1896-1904, published posthumously), a beautifully wrought but uncompleted novel set during the Russian imperialistic expansion in the Caucasus. Tolstoy’s third long novel, Resurrection (1889-1899), though inferior in artistic quality to his other novels, is a compelling casuistical account of a man’s attempt to undo the wrongs he has committed. Tolstoy also wrote an influential and debated body of art criticism. What Is Art? (1896-1898) attacked art for not fulfilling its true mission, namely, the uniting of people into a universal collective. His On Shakespeare and Drama (1903-1904) dismissed Shakespeare as a charlatan.
Increasingly distressed by domestic conflict and angst over the incommensurability of his life with his beliefs, Tolstoy left home in secrecy in the autumn of 1910. His flight was immediately broadcast by the international media, which succeeded in tracking him down to the railway stop Astapovo (later renamed Leo Tolstoy), where he lay dying of congestive heart failure brought on by pneumonia. What could only be described as a media circus was assembled outside the stationmaster’s house when Tolstoy died early in the morning of November 7, 1910. His final words were “Truth, I love much.” See also: ANARCHISM; GOLDEN AGE OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Eikhenbaum, Boris. (1972). The Young Tolstoy, tr. Gary Kern. Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis. Eikhenbaum, Boris. (1982). Tolstoi in the Sixties, tr. Duffield White. Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis. Eikhenbaum, Boris. (1982). Tolstoi in the Seventies, tr. Albert Kaspin. Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis. Gustafson, Richard F. (1986). Leo Tolstoy: Resident and Stranger: A Study in Fiction and Theology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Morson, G. S. (1987). Hidden in Plain View: Narrative and Creative Potentials in War and Peace. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Orwin, Donna Tussing. (1993). Tolstoy’s Art and Thought, 1847-1880. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
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Orwin, Donna Tussing, ed. (2002). Cambridge Companion to Tolstoy. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wasiolek, Edward. (1978). Tolstoy’s Major Fiction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wilson, A. N. (1988). Tolstoy. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.
Wynn, Charters. (1996). From the Factory to the Kremlin: Mikhail Tomsky and the Russian Worker. Washington, DC: National Council for Soviet and East European Research.
(1880-1936), Russian union activist.
Tomsky was a leading Old Bolshevik and trade union activist who committed suicide before he could be tried during Josef Stalin’s purges. Tom-sky was born Mikhail Efremov into a working-class environment. He began to work in a factory in adolescence and eventually became a printer. He joined the Social Democrats in 1904 and soon turned to union organizing. Between 1906 and 1909 his activities led to a series of arrests that was interspersed with party work whenever he was free. During this period he adopted the pseudonym Tomsky. In 1911 he began a five-year term of hard labor that was followed by exile to Siberia. After the collapse of the monarchy, Tomsky returned to Petrograd and his union work. In 1919 he was elected to the Central Committee and chosen to head the Central Trade Union Council. Three years later he became a member of the Politburo. He was one of the eight pallbearers at Vladimir Lenin’s funeral in 1924. The next year he sided against Leon Trotsky and his followers in the party struggles that followed Lenin’s death. In 1928 he joined with Nikolai Bukharin and Alexei Rykov to protest the pace and methods of collectivization. After this opposition group was defeated, Tomsky was expelled from the Politburo and removed from his position as trade union leader. In 1931 he was appointed head of the State Publishing House. Tomsky shot himself after learning that he had been implicated in one of Stalin’s show trials. At Bukharin’s trial two years later fabricated evidence named Tomsky as the link between members of the Right Opposition and an oppositional group in the Red Army. See also: BUKHARIN, NIKOLAI IVANOVICH; POLITBURO; RYKOV, ALEXEI IVANOVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sorenson, Jay B. (1969). The Life and Death of Soviet Trade Unionism, 1917-1928. New York: Atherton Press.
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The nomadic Torky (known as Torky in Rus and Oghuz in Eastern sources) spoke a Turkic language and probably practiced shamanist-T?ri religion. They formed into a tribal confederation in the eighth century in the Syr Darya-Aral Sea steppe region. In the late ninth century, joined by the Khazars, they expelled the Pechenegs from the Volga-Ural area and forced them to migrate to the South-Russian steppe. In 965, joined by the Rus, the Torky destroyed the Khazar state, and in 985 the two allies attacked Volga Bulgharia. The migration of the Polovtsy, Torky’s eastern neighbors, forced the latter into the South-Russian steppe by 1054 or 1055. In 1060, the Rus staged a major offensive and scored a victory over the Torky. While many Torky fled west, some remained in the South- Russian steppe zone and joined other nomadic peoples to later develop into Rus border guards known as Chernye Klobuky or Black Hoods. From around 1060 to 1140, Chernye Klobuky remained outside the formal political boundaries of the Rus state and maintained a largely nomadic lifestyle. During this period, they were often involved in the military affairs of the Rus princes and, at times, came to settle within the Rus borders in return for their services. After 1140 the institution of Chernye Klobuky became formalized, and they came to be viewed as mercenaries and vassals of the Kievan Grand Princes. As vassals, the Chernye Klobuky maintained allegiance not to any particular branch of the royal Rus family, but to the holder of the title of Grand Prince of Kiev. See also: KHAZARS; KIEVAN RUS; POLOVTSY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Golden, Peter B. (1990). “The Peoples of the South Russian Steppe.” In The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia, ed. Denis Sinor. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Golden, Peter B. (1992). An Introduction to the
