Cairo – “The Gulf”
Lev Tolstoy’s wife published her book “The Diaries of Countess Sophia Tolstaya” (translated into Arabic by Abdullah Habbeh) after she surreptitiously read some of her husband’s diaries, and she was terrified and shocked, as he described her at times as foolish and at other times as evil, who oppresses him and works to isolate him from everything. his friends.
Sophia admits that she decided to write her memoirs, with all the daily details it contains, with the aim of presenting a true account of a troubled relationship between her and her husband, in contrast to the story of the other party, “Tolstoy,” which is filled, from her point of view, with distortions and fabrications of the truth.
Sophia continued to feel that the battle between her and her husband, Tolstoy, was unequal, as he was able, with his power, to impose his own vision on the world, turning her into a copy of Socrates’ domineering wife, who did not hesitate to punish him harshly, even flogging him with a whip.
Sophia realized the corruption of earthly justice and its bias towards the strongest and most influential, so she had no choice but to call upon heaven’s justice, and she absolved herself of any responsibility for what happened to her husband: “Tolstoy continues to present himself to future generations as a martyr, and as his sinful wife.”
The majority of writers in the world sympathize with the great Russian writer against his wife, whom they describe with the ugliest qualities, as the first dispute that arose between the spouses was over land. It is known that Tolstoy grew up in an aristocratic family, and inherited from his family vast lands on which peasants worked. If the season came The harvest was taken by Tolstoy and his family after he left a small amount of it to the peasants.
Tolstoy thought about this equation a lot, and ended up rejecting this injustice and distributing the lands to the peasants. His wife went crazy, filed her papers with the court, and was able to return the land. After a violent struggle between the spouses, Tolstoy surrendered.
His popularity began to reach the horizons, and thinkers and men of letters began to flock to his palace, which became visited by people on a daily basis, and problems began to grow between the spouses, and the greatest tragedy was when he caught her searching his office, and he did not say a single word to her, and one night after everyone had fallen asleep, he left his palace. He fled forever, from his wife and from his entire life.
Tolstoy did not take with him anything but his pen and papers, and he dressed in peasant clothes and put a hood on his head, so that no one would know him. He changed his name to (Nikolaev) and boarded the train and tried to go far to the far borders of his country. He landed in a village and lay on an old iron bed. In the station manager’s office, as soon as his family heard the news, they went to him.
Tolstoy refused to meet anyone, and he died, and the world mourned him. Curses began to fall on Sophia, and she collapsed psychologically, and she went insane. People abandoned her after her husband’s death, and they considered her responsible for his tragedy.
After her husband’s death in 1913, Sophia wrote: “May people forgive that woman who, since her youth, may have been unable to carry on her weak shoulders the high task of being the wife of a genius and a great human being.”
Sophia lived for nearly half a century alongside Tolstoy, sharing with him the difficulties of life in tsarist society, and as he ascended the ladder of glory until he became one of Russia’s most famous writers in the second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century.
Sophia Tolstoy married in 1862 and became a countess when she was eighteen years old. She grew up with a father who was the doctor of the tsarist family. She was fluent in three languages, played the piano, and was characterized by a poetic nature. She disagreed with her husband in his evaluation of the arts, which was mentioned in his book “About Art.”
