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Updated: June 2, 2025
As we rode across the Turgenieff's park, he recalled in passing how of old he and Ivan Sergeyevitch had disputed which park was best, Spasskoye or Yasnaya Polyana. I asked him: "And now which do you think?" "Yasnaya Polyana IS the best, though this is very fine, very fine indeed." In the village we visited the head-man's and two or three other cottages, and came away disappointed.
Notwithstanding the isolation of his inner life he remained or it might more accurately be said he became the most accessible of men. Appeals for guidance came to him from all parts of the world America, France, China, Japan while Yasnaya Polyana was the frequent resort of those needing advice, sympathy, or practical assistance.
He soon went to his home at Yasnaya Polyana, established a school for the peasants, and devoted himself to the arduous labour of their education. Here he had a chance to put into practice all the theories that he had acquired from his observations in Germany and England. He worked so hard that he injured his health, and in a few months was forced to travel and rest.
At last he came across a treatise of Lyeff Nikolaevitch, and decided that he was wrong and Lyeff Nikolaevitch right. He removed to Yasnaya Polyana, married his former mistress, and began to live and work among the peasants." The peasants laughed at him and at Lyeff Nikola'itch." Mrs. F. came to the countess with her griefs, and the latter helped her with food, clothing, and in other ways.
He could not but know that in their company he would be just as well provided with all the necessaries of life as he would have been at Yasnaya Polyana. It would have been the most palpable self-deception.
This flight brought on a sudden illness, and the great writer died early in the morning of the 20 November 1910. He was buried under an oak tree at Yasnaya Polyana.
He had won the poor from their distrust by an experiment in education which he tried at his native place of Yasnaya Polyana. The school opened by Count Tolstoy was a "free"; school in every sense of the word, which was then becoming popular. The children paid no fees and were not obliged to attend regularly. They ran in and out as they pleased and had no fear of punishments.
A little of his magnificent humanitarianism and benevolence poured upon that unsanitary village on his own estate would be more practical, it seems to me, than the thin treacle of it spread over the whole universe. Talk is cheap in Yasnaya Polyana, and the Grand Poseur plays his part magnificently.
All the events of our life at Yasnaya Polyana found their echo in one way or another in the letter-box, and no one was spared, not even the grown-ups. All our secrets, all our love-affairs, all the incidents of our complicated life were revealed in the letter-box, and both household and visitors were good-humoredly made fun of.
My wife was at Yasnaya Polyana in October, and when she came home she told me that there was something wrong there. "Your mother is nervous and hysterical; your father is in a silent and gloomy frame of mind." I was very busy with my office work, but made up my mind to devote my first free day to going and seeing my father and mother. When I got to Yasnaya, my father had already left it.
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