Mark Aldanov on Perception of the Heritage by L.N. Tolstoy (Based on Articles of the 1920–1940s)

The article explores Mark Aldanov’s understanding of how L.N. Tolstoy’s personality and work was percepted by his students, contemporaries, literary scholars, readers in different countries. For the first time, materials of Aldanov’s articles from the émigré collection «On the Other Side», the newspaper «Segod- nya», and the magazine «The Slavonic and East European Review» are being introduced into scientific circulation. For the first time, the article presents description of Aldanov’s articles from «Sovremennye zapiski», «Novy Zhurnal» dedicated to Leo Tolstoy. The content of articles written in the 1921–1942s cor- relates with the content of Aldanov’s books such as «Romain and Rolland» and «The Riddle of Tolstoy». Textological work has assisted us to compare the content of Aldanov’s publications of 1923, 1928, 1929. It is suggested that Aldanov is the author of the review of the novel «War and Peace» published in 1942 in the United States. In literary-critical articles of the literature in emigration period, Aldanov understands the perception of the writer’s personality as Tolstoy, a thinker and Tolstoy, a writer. Aldanov develops the idea of Tolstoy’s contradictory and paradoxical nature linked with the contradictoriness and complexity of life itself. Aldanov explains a dialogical nature of Tolstoy’s personality and literary work by the fact that the entire spectrum of Tolstoy’s mental and emotional reactions was a bold reflection of life, the embodiment of its merciless truth. The critic admires Tolstoy’s work suggesting that he can be judged by the most difficult works. According to Aldanov, the weakness of the writer’s worldview, the incongruity of his style can be considered as a result of the writer’s special phenomenon, he could afford what no Russian writer could. Inner freedom, ruthless truthfulness of Tolstoy distinguishes him from all the writers of the 19th century. Aldanov designates Tolstoy’s artistic devices, which he uses in his own literary work. Aldanov’s analytical opinion on the perception of Tolstoy influenced the formation of the Leo Tolstoy’s image among the Russian readers abroad.