Leo Tolstoy is a world-famous literary hero, his life's work is equal, his works have a great influence on European literature, is a giant in the history of world literature. However, the world-class writer did one jaw-dropping thing in his later years, that is, to run away from home. Why did Tolstoy run away from home? This also begins with the change of thinking in his later years.
Leo Tolstoy
In his later years, Tolstoy's thinking changed greatly, he became a believer in religion, and when he returned to his hometown of Yasnaya at the age of 73, he began to pay attention to the peasants who worked hard in the fields of the manor, and at the same time felt uneasy and remorseful.
In order to alleviate his guilt, In his later years, Tolstoy began to change his lifestyle, he often compared himself with himself, increasingly disgusted with the sophistication and socializing between relatives and friends, and refused to attend various forms of aristocratic banquets. When he was fine, he liked to wear a torn straw hat, put on his old clothes and bark shoes, and do farm work in the fields. Later, Tolstoy even wanted to liberate his serfs and distribute his land to them, and at the same time, he also intended to donate the copyright of all his works to the society free of charge.
Despite the objections of his wife and family, Tolstoy publicly declared that any work he had published since 1881 could be published free of charge by any institution or individual. In the class society of the time, Tolstoy's friends and relatives did not understand his approach and thought that he had enough to eat. At home, his family often clashed with him; in society, many newspapers and media criticized him, and even the tsarist government was dissatisfied with him.
Just as Tolstoy was embattled, a man named Chertkov appeared, and he used rhetoric to gain the old man's trust. In the last 9 years of Tolstoy, Chertkov became the most special servant of Tolstoy's family, and he even influenced Tolstoy's thinking in his later years. Cheltkov's real purpose was to seize the inheritance of Tolstoy's works, and although many of Tolstoy's friends knew that Chertkov had sinister intentions, they did not tell him the truth.
Tolstoy's diary was originally kept by his wife, Sofia, but due to the unpleasantness he and his wife had, coupled with the seduction of Cheltkov's clever words, Tolstoy entrusted all his last ten years to Chertkov, a liar. When Sophia learned the truth of the matter, she felt very bitter and her temper became worse and worse, and she poured all her anger on Tolstoy.
On August 30, 1910, Sophia had another heated quarrel with Tolstoy, saying that she did not hate Chertkov, but could not forgive Tolstoy. In the face of Sophia's anger and condemnation, Tolstoy adopted a tolerant attitude, because in his later years he practiced "non-resistanceism" and always took all the mistakes on himself. In Tolstoy's last years, his life was very unsatisfactory, surrounded by incomprehension and blame, in order to be able to go through the last period of time calmly, Tolstoy planned to run away from home to avoid these disputes.
In the early morning of October 28, Tolstoy left the estate with his personal doctor. Due to his advanced age, Tolstoy fell ill on the train, and the cold weather made him cough incessantly and develop a high fever. Tolstoy and his personal doctor disembarked at The Astapova station, and a week later Tolstoy died in this desolate little station.
Many experts and scholars have conducted research on the exodus, and they believe that the reasons that prompted this literary giant to choose to run away from home are diverse, the most important of which is that his ideas in his later years were "out of date" in the society at that time and could not be understood by people.