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NOTE HARRY HILL WALSH on the Putative Influence Of NOTE HARRY HILL WALSH On the Putative Influence of Benjamin Franklin on Tolstoi Recently Jaime Sokolow wrote of Tolstoi that Benjamin Franklin'sAuto- biography "significantly influenced his style and thought," and that "a close examination will reveal that Franklin influenced the development of the young Tolstoy's subject matter, moral philosophy, and habits."1 His opin- ions about this purported relationship are similar to those expressed in an ear- lier study by Eufrosina Dvoichenko-Markov, who refers to Franklin as "the American teacher of [Tolstoi's] youth."2 Sokolow and Dvoichenko-Markov offer as evidence for the alleged connec- tion Tolstoi's "Franklin journal" (Franklinovskii zhurnal), to which he refers in his diary, in his unpublished short story "A History of Yesterday," and in a draft version of the short story "Notes of a Billiard Marker." The journal, consisting largely of rules for social and ethical conduct, is sometimes referred to by Tolstoi as the "Franklin tables" (Franklinovskie tablitsy). The first mention of this journal is found in Tolstoi's diary for 8 March 1851.3 The 1851 date is significant, inasmuch as several of Tolstoi's biographers have stated that Tolstoi was first exposed to Franklin's ideas at about that time. This would follow from the diary entry just alluded to. However, Soko- low and Dvoichenko-Markov both attempt to trace Franklin's influence on Tolstoi to an earlier time. Sokolow writes: "Although Tolstoy lived and stud- ied in Kazan from 1841 to 1847, he vacationed at Yasnaya Polyana during the summer. During this period Tolstoy referred to Benjamin Franklin'sAu- tobiography, which Tolstoy must have read in the 1840s. Tolstoy wrote three autobiographical works at the beginning of his literary career. "A History of Yesterday" (1851), Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth (1851), and "Recollec- tions of a Billiard-Marker" (1851), clearly indicate his debt to Franklin'sAu- tobiography.'4 Dvoichenko-Markov writes in a similar vein: "Since it was 1. "`arriving at Moral Perfection:' Benjamin Franklin and Leo Tolstoy," American Literature, 47 (1975), 427. 2. "Benjamin Franklin and Leo Tolstoy," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 92 (1952), 123. 3. All citations from Tolstoi's works are from Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 90 vols. (Moscow: Gos izd. Khudozh. lit-ry, 1928-58), here XLVI, 49. Translations are by the au- thor and dates are from the Julian calendar, which in the nineteenth century followed the Gregorian by Twelve days. 4. Sokolow, p. 428. during the Kazan period of his life that Tolstoy speaks in his diaries and writ- ings of Franklin's Rules of Conduct (one of the chapters in Franklin'sAuto- biography), one can safely assume that, together with his favorite Rousseau, Tolstoy took to Kazan his no less favorite book by Franklin."5 The two statements just quoted are, unfortunately, replete with factual er- rors and unwarranted suppositions. We may begin with those of less impor- tance for the present study, such as the fact that Sokolow's dates are mainly incorrect. "Notes of a Billiard Marker," for instance, was written 13-16 Sep- tember 1853 and was first published in 1855. Childhood appeared in 1852, Boyhood in 1854, and Youth in 1856. The statements made by both authors to the effect that Tolstoi refers to Franklin's Autobiography in his diaries of the 1840s would appear to be in- correct. The first mention of Franklin, and then only in connection with the Franklin journal is, as stated earlier, on 8 March 1851. There is no reason for believing that Tolstoi must have read the Autobiography in the 1840s or, for that matter, at anytime in his life. Tolstoi's early autobiographical works do not at all "indicate his debt to Franklin's Autobiography": there is no de- monstrable linkage of any kind save in the matter of the journal. We can find striking formal and substantive parallels between Tolstoi's autobiographical writings and the works of Rousseau, Dickens, Sterne, and Toppfer, and we know from Tolstoi's own testimony that he read and admired these authors. No such mention of,Franklin in this or any other context (other than the journal) exists. Certainly the assertion that Franklin's autobiography was a favorite book of the young Tolstoi will not endure beyond the most cursory examination of the facts. There is no chapter in Franklin's memoirs entitled "Rules of Conduct." In fact, there are no chapter divisions in the work, either in the original manu- script, in the version edited by William Temple Franklin, or in the French translation by Louis Guillaume le Veillard. Furthermore, Franklin does not call the items in question rules of conduct, but instead calls them a "list of virtues." Neither, for that matter, does Tolstoi use the term "rules of con- duct." Interestingly enough, he first calls his journal a "journal of weakness- es," which is rather the opposite sort of thing. Franklin's spare, no-nonsense "virtues" do not appear to have much in common with Tolstoi's rules, which tend to be couched in ponderous philoso- phical terminology, borrowed from German subjective idealism. To make this point clear I shall quote from the opening lines of Tolstoi's first extant rules, found in his diary entry for 16 June 1847: "General rule. All actions must be determinations of the will rather than unconscious fulfillment of corporeal needs. Since we have already stated that sensations and reason exert influ- ences on the corporeal will, these two faculties must define the rules accord- ing to which the corporeal will may act for its own development. Sensations 5. Dvoichenko-Markov, p. 121. .
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