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Copyright by Nadya Yurievna Clayton 2010 The Dissertation Committee for Nadya Yurievna Clayton Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: From the Aesthete to the Pedagogue: The Yasnaya Polyana Peasant School as the Experimental Laboratory for Tolstoy’s Creative Transformation Committee: Tatiana Kuzmic, Supervisor Keith Livers Gilbert Rappaport John Kolsti Aaron Bar-Adon From the Aesthete to the Pedagogue: The Yasnaya Polyana Peasant School as the Experimental Laboratory for Tolstoy’s Creative Transformation by Nadya Yurievna Clayton, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2010 Dedication To my family. Acknowledgements The completion of this dissertation project would never have been possible without the assistance and support of the many faculty, friends, and family who have been a part of my life over the past eight years. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the members of my dissertation committee for taking the time and effort to read through multiple drafts and provide suggestions to improve my research and my writing. I owe a great debt to my supervisor, Tatiana Kuzmic, who came in the middle of this project and breathed a new life into it with her positive approach and helpful advice she gave me. She shared with me her knowledge and love for Tolstoy and helped me to gain a fresh perspective on the topic of my research. I am infinitely indebted to John Kolsti who taught me about the beginnings of the Russian language, literature and culture, but, most importantly, about human kindness, generosity and the vocation of teaching. Gilbert Rappaport has been an exceptional mentor, teacher and friend to me all these years from whom I learned a great deal about the academic profession, the importance of serious research and inquisitiveness. His versatility as a teacher inspired me to go beyond the limitations of my subject and to strive for broadening of my horizons. Keith Livers always extended his helping hand to me – he taught me about Russian 20th century literature and helped me to uncover and understand the connections between the well-known and celebrated authors of the 19th century and the classics of the 20th century, as well as some emerging and exciting modern writers. Aaron Bar-Adon shared with me his love for foreign languages and the art of literary translation. He taught me about the importance of a good and true translation for a work of literature and about the criteria that constitute it. v Without the financial support of the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies, multiple teaching assignments and the nomination for the University of Texas Continuing Scholarship, much of my research would have been impossible. I would like to extend my special appreciation to the staff of The Leo Tolstoy Museum-Estate at Yasnaya Polyana, in Tula, Russia, Galina Alekseeva, Anna Polosina and Evgenia Gritsenko for the immeasurable help they provided me with during my several research trips to the Museum. I also express my deep gratitude to the staff of the Museum Research Library: Galina Pancheva, Olga Gladun and Oksana Orlova for their expert help in my search for the bibliographical sources, guidance and hospitality. Finally, I extend my most heartfelt thanks to my parents, Nelly and Yurii Voshchenkov, my husband, Dan Clayton, my daughter Nelly and my friend Sylvia Stevens, who have been my main support and inspiration in this as in all my endeavors, and without whose love, faith and encouragement this project would have never been completed. vi From the Aesthete to the Pedagogue: The Yasnaya Polyana Peasant School as the Experimental Laboratory for Tolstoy’s Creative Transformation Publication No._____________ Nadya Yurievna Clayton, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2010 Supervisor: Tatiana Kuzmic This dissertation examines Tolstoy‘s reevaluation of his creative approaches to writing through the medium of his experimental pedagogical work with the peasant children on his estate. It is argued that Tolstoy‘s pedagogical interlude forms an important bridge to the writer‘s fiction and should not be viewed as a digression from his development as a writer, but as an integral part of it. This project explores how the educational essays Tolstoy wrote during this period facilitate his transition from championing the aesthetic theory of ―pure art‖ in his formative years as a writer for The Contemporary to a more mature author of War and Peace, the major masterwork that is imbued with conclusions reached during his pedagogical interlude. Tolstoy‘s evolution as a writer is examined in the context of his relationship to the aesthetic ideas of the 1850‘s that became a springboard for Tolstoy‘s later aesthetic concepts. A vii comprehensive textual analysis of Tolstoy‘s lesser known early works such as Notes from Lucerne and ―Albert‖ is undertaken in order to highlight some of their important stylistic peculiarities that provide a valuable insight into the authorial presence and the nature of Tolstoy‘s aesthetic rhetoric. Further, it is demonstrated how the school at Yasnaya Polyana becomes the writer‘s experimental workshop, a testing ground for Tolstoy‘s pedagogical theories and his creative ideas, which he checks against his students‘ perception. Finally, the study is concluded by examining Tolstoy‘s most encompassing work, his epic novel War and Peace through the medium of his educational writings and ideas. By locating some of the main concepts of his pedagogical philosophy in the context of this monumental masterwork, we illuminate their meaning more clearly as filtered through the prism of Tolstoy‘s creative thought in order to demonstrate to what extent Tolstoy‘s educational ideas informed his creative writings. It is established that all the central principles of Tolstoy‘s educational thought such as his pedagogy of freedom, his ideas of aesthetic education through reading, art and music, his religious and moral education found their reflections on the pages of War and Peace and commend a great deal to a modern educator. viii Table of Contents Chapter I: Introduction .............................................................................................1 Chapter II: The Literary Atmosphere of the 1850s ................................................22 The Contemporary circle ..............................................................................22 Chernyshevsky‟s materialistic aesthetics ......................................................25 The clash of the literary movements: the battle over The Contemporary .....28 Chernyshevsky‟s counter-attack – “Essays on the Gogol Period in Russian Literature” ..............................................................................31 Tolstoy and the aesthetes ..............................................................................36 Botkin‟s “catechism of poetry” .....................................................................38 Chapter III: Tolstoy‟s Early Literary Aestheticism ...............................................49 “Albert” – the pure art manifesto ..................................................................49 Tolstoy‟s creative struggle with the text .......................................................51 Comparative textual analysis of the tale with its third redaction ..................55 Botkin‟s article as a source of Tolstoy‟s creative inspiration .......................66 Chapter IV: Tolstoy‟s Pedagogical Interlude ......................................................109 At the crossroads: the problem of creative trajectory .................................109 The Yasnaya Polyana school as the writer‟s experimental laboratory .......115 The Primer as a creative product of the school ...........................................118 German populism as a source of pedagogical inspiration ..........................124 Tolstoy‟s educational research journey ......................................................130 The programmatic article “On the Education of the People” .....................132 The Yasnaya Polyana school pedagogical essays as a form of artistic creation ...............................................................................................139 “Who Should Teach Whom to Write…?” ..................................................151 Chernyshevsky‟s public rebuke of Tolstoy‟s pedagogy .............................159 Chapter V: The Echo of the Pedagogical Interlude in War and Peace ................167 Creative history of the text ..........................................................................167 Previous scholarship overview ...................................................................171 ix A history lesson as a source of creative conceptualization of War and Peace ..................................................................................................174 The childhood roots of Tolstoy‟s educational philosophy ..........................181 Pedagogy of freedom ..................................................................................186 The mother-child conversational model for education ...............................188 The balance of freedom and discipline in Tolstoy‟s pedagogy ..................197 The problems of freedom and necessity in War and Peace ........................202 The ideas of ethico-religious education ......................................................208