Antonina V. Klyuchareva

Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of History and Archeology

Tula State Lev Tolstoy Pedagogical University

(Tula, Russia)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22405/2712-8407-2023-1-33-43

Abstract. The purpose of the article is to analyze the perception of the creative and religious-philosophical heritage of Leo Tolstoy by Mikhail Vrubel, one of the most prominent representatives of the symbolist art culture. Russian historical science rarely considers Tolstoy's personality in terms of his influence on the artistic culture of Russia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a whole. Traditionally, Leo Tolstoy is associated with realistic painting, with works by Peredvizhniki movement (the Wanderers). It is widely known that close friendship bound Leo Tolstoy and Ilya Repin; Nikolay Ge was a friend and follower of the writer, he was even often called "Tolstoyian"; Ivan Kramskoy visited the house of Tolstoy. It is known that E. Blavatskaya, V. Solovyov, V. Ivanov, D. Merezhkovsky, Z. Gippius, A. Bely, A. Blok, A. Dobrolyubov, artists N. Roerich, L. Pasternak, A. Benois, K. Korovin, sculptors P. Trubetskoy, A. Golubkina were deeply moved by the personality and work of Leo Tolstoy. Mikhail Vrubel occupied a special place among these people. By comparing the sources from different periods of the artist's life, it is possible to conclude that Tolstoy took an important role in Vrubel's system of world-view. However, his perception changed throughout the artist's life. Respect and reverence in his youth turned into open rejection in the last decade of his life. Having analyzed the available sources, it is possible to speak about three vectors of M. Vrubel's criticism of Leo Tolstoy – his artistic creativity; aesthetic concept expressed in the treatise "On Art", "On Shakespeare and Drama"; religious and moral system, the moral principles "about non-resistance to evil by violence", "about universal love" etc. They aroused the artist's indignation, although he never engaged in an open polemic with Tolstoy.
Keywords: L. N. Tolstoy, M. A. Vrubel, History of Russian culture, symbolism, art, aesthetics, painting, literature.

Full text of the article (PDF)

For citation: Klyuchareva, AV 2023, ‘Mikhail Vrubel and Leo Tolstoy as «Geniuses-Guardians» of Russian Culture’, Tula Scientific Bulletin. History. Linguistics, issue 1 (13), pp. 33–43, http://doi.org/10.22405/2712-8407-2023-1-33-43 (in Russ.)

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