Leo Tolstoy

The book exhibition is devoted to the 185th birth anniversary of Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), the great Russian writer of the 19th century, an ingenious artist and profound thinker who had achieved an unprecedented literary fame during his lifetime and had lived a long life. The value of the writer’s works for all generations is defined by the fact that they portrait a restless soul of the person who keeps searching and developing.

The exposition The great genius of the word includes about 70 editions: collections of writing and selected works, separate works, articles and notes, texts from the writer’s diaries of 1847 – 1910, books of Tolstoy’s parables, fairytales and aphorisms, his philosophical works about life, death, religion, duty and love, and also books about the writer’s life and creative career.

The exhibition presents books published in the wirer’s lifetime: Fruits of Enlightenment (1896), What is Art? (1898), The Thoughts of Sage People for Every Day, Religion and Morality (1906), The First Collection of Short Stories for Family and School (1908), Christianity and Patriotism (1906), The Thoughts on God (1906), The Words of God’s Love and Truth (1908), Letters of Leo Tolstoy. 1848–1910 (1910) etc.

The exposition includes books Childhood. Boyhood (2001), Youth. After the Ball (2001); editions of the two novels which had brought world-wide glory to the writer: War and Peace (2011) and Anna Karenina (2013); and also works which had marked the major turning point in Leo Tolstoy’s outlook: Death of Ivan Ilych, Father Sergius, After the Ball; articles and treatises in which Leo Tolstoy describes social inequality and criticize governmental bodies.

Editions about the writer’s creativity, outlook and life are of a significant interest. In E.G. Babayev’s monograph Leo Tolstoy and Russian Journalism of His Epoch (1993) reviews of the novels War and Peace, Anna Karenina and Resurrection in newspaper and journal literary critics of the 1860s – 1900s are examined. For the first time, known Russian publicists M.N. Katkov, A.S. Suvorin, V.V. Rozanov, D.I. Ilovaysky and others are presented as characters of historical polemics about the value of Tolstoy’s writing.

The book The Unknown Tolstoy. Archives of Russia and the USA (1994) under the editorship of I.P. Borisova includes unpublished manuscripts and documents – mainly from the collections of the Leo Tolstoy Museum in Moscow. The photos presented in the edition are little-known or absolutely unknown. Both Russian and foreign researchers worked on the collection.

J. Lavrin’s book Leo Tolstoy Testifying to Himself and About His Life (1998) is about the writer’s biography from the point of view of the modern West. The book contains documentary photographs and illustrations including those from I. Bunin’s well-known book The liberation of Tolstoy.

The exhibition is designed for a wide circle of readers.

The exposition is located on the 3rd floor of the circular hall and runs from 4th July to 31st December, 2013.