0:00:13 > 0:00:18This quiet railway platform is where a remarkable journey came to an end.
0:00:21 > 0:00:24It's situated about 300 miles south of Moscow,
0:00:24 > 0:00:27at a station that always used to be known as Astapovo.
0:00:29 > 0:00:33That was until an elderly writer, feeling unwell,
0:00:33 > 0:00:35stepped off the train here.
0:00:35 > 0:00:37One week later,
0:00:37 > 0:00:40by the time the writer died in the station master's house,
0:00:40 > 0:00:42this remote corner of Russia
0:00:42 > 0:00:45had become the scene for an extraordinary vigil,
0:00:45 > 0:00:48attended by the world's press
0:00:48 > 0:00:50and vast crowds of admirers.
0:00:51 > 0:00:55Across the country, mass demonstrations broke out,
0:00:55 > 0:00:59strikes and even talk of revolution.
0:00:59 > 0:01:03Who was this writer who could provoke so much passion,
0:01:03 > 0:01:04so much trouble?
0:01:07 > 0:01:10Shortly afterwards, the station and the village
0:01:10 > 0:01:13were renamed Lev Tolstoy.
0:01:33 > 0:01:37This is Tolstoy in 1908, two years before his death,
0:01:37 > 0:01:39being mobbed by adoring crowds
0:01:39 > 0:01:41on his way to the train station in Moscow.
0:01:45 > 0:01:50Tolstoy was by far the most famous Russian of the late 19th century.
0:01:50 > 0:01:52A towering, Moses-like figure,
0:01:52 > 0:01:56whose immense popularity came firstly from his great novels,
0:01:56 > 0:01:59War And Peace and Anna Karenina.
0:01:59 > 0:02:03Tolstoy is... Well, in the world of literature, he is God.
0:02:05 > 0:02:09But Tolstoy was also one of the most challenging thinkers and moralists
0:02:09 > 0:02:13of his age, and a fierce critic of the way the country was run.
0:02:13 > 0:02:16He was a professional troublemaker.
0:02:16 > 0:02:18Tolstoy was the man who troubled Russia.
0:02:18 > 0:02:20He troubled the conscience of the emperors
0:02:20 > 0:02:24and he troubled the conscience of the ruling class.
0:02:24 > 0:02:25100 years on,
0:02:25 > 0:02:28on the centenary of Tolstoy's death last year,
0:02:28 > 0:02:31an event celebrated around the world,
0:02:31 > 0:02:34the Russian state seemed to deliberately ignore
0:02:34 > 0:02:38a writer still seen as uncomfortably anti-establishment.
0:02:41 > 0:02:45So what is it that makes Lev Tolstoy such an awkward hero?
0:02:47 > 0:02:50I've come to Russia to try and find out.
0:03:05 > 0:03:07Sitting in a carriage like this,
0:03:07 > 0:03:09heading through the Russian countryside,
0:03:09 > 0:03:13it's not hard to imagine you're in a Tolstoy story.
0:03:13 > 0:03:16Railways run through so many pages of his fiction.
0:03:16 > 0:03:18Poignant departures,
0:03:18 > 0:03:20unexpected meetings,
0:03:20 > 0:03:21bleak tragedy,
0:03:21 > 0:03:25and as the setting for the telling of rich, complex,
0:03:25 > 0:03:28but, ultimately, profoundly moral stories.
0:03:32 > 0:03:35The sun had been beating down all day on the large
0:03:35 > 0:03:38but crowded third-class carriage.
0:03:38 > 0:03:40And the heat inside was so stifling
0:03:40 > 0:03:43that Necludov stayed out on the brake platform.
0:03:43 > 0:03:46And, of all the impressions of that day,
0:03:46 > 0:03:49the one that arose in his imagination with extraordinary vividness
0:03:49 > 0:03:53was the beautiful face of the second dead prisoner
0:03:53 > 0:03:54with its smiling lips,
0:03:54 > 0:03:56serious-looking forehead,
0:03:56 > 0:03:59and the firm little ear below the blue shaven skull.
0:04:01 > 0:04:03And the ghastly thing is that a killing has occurred
0:04:03 > 0:04:06and nobody knows who did it.
0:04:06 > 0:04:08But it was a killing.
0:04:11 > 0:04:12Who is the killer?
0:04:12 > 0:04:14Why go to war?
0:04:14 > 0:04:16What is marriage for?
0:04:16 > 0:04:17What is life for?
0:04:17 > 0:04:20Tolstoy was a writer constantly asking his readers
0:04:20 > 0:04:22and himself difficult questions.
0:04:25 > 0:04:29- TRANSLATION:- In the end, his thoughts were not those of a famous writer,
0:04:29 > 0:04:31but Lev Tolstoy the man.
0:04:31 > 0:04:33A man who was never satisfied with himself.
0:04:33 > 0:04:36He was dissatisfied for the whole of his life
0:04:36 > 0:04:39and he always wanted to be better, better and better.
0:04:48 > 0:04:53The Tolstoy family estate is 120 miles south of Moscow
0:04:53 > 0:04:58and Tolstoy would have made this journey home many times.
0:04:58 > 0:05:00Family meant everything to him.
0:05:18 > 0:05:23Tolstoy came from a large family and he produced a large family.
0:05:23 > 0:05:27100 years on from his death, his great-grandchildren
0:05:27 > 0:05:31and his great-great-grandchildren have come from all over the world
0:05:31 > 0:05:35to the ancestral Tolstoy estate of Yasnaya Polyana
0:05:35 > 0:05:36where they're welcomed at the gates
0:05:36 > 0:05:40with the traditional Russian greeting of bread and salt.
0:05:57 > 0:06:00In the morning, the play of light and shadow from the big birches
0:06:00 > 0:06:05along the avenue is just as it was 60 years ago,
0:06:05 > 0:06:09when I noticed this beauty for the first time and fell in love with it.
0:06:21 > 0:06:24Tolstoy's love for Yasnaya Polyana,
0:06:24 > 0:06:26the lake where he swam,
0:06:26 > 0:06:29the orchards that he planted,
0:06:29 > 0:06:31the people who worked on his land,
0:06:31 > 0:06:36has preserved this Russian idyll almost exactly as it was in his day.
0:06:42 > 0:06:45This place, and the house in particular,
0:06:45 > 0:06:49not only retains so much detail of Tolstoy's life,
0:06:49 > 0:06:53it brings into focus so many fragments of his fiction.
0:06:54 > 0:06:58Mama was sitting in the parlour pouring out tea.
0:06:58 > 0:07:00In one hand, she held the teapot,
0:07:00 > 0:07:02and, with the other, the tap of the samovar,
0:07:02 > 0:07:07from which the water poured over the top of the teapot onto the tray.
0:07:07 > 0:07:10But, though she was staring intently at it,
0:07:10 > 0:07:13she did not realise either this or that we had come in.
0:07:14 > 0:07:17So many memories of the past arise when one tries to recall
0:07:17 > 0:07:19the features of someone we love
0:07:19 > 0:07:24that one recalls those features dimly through the memories,
0:07:24 > 0:07:25as though through tears.
0:07:26 > 0:07:28They are the tears of imagination.
0:07:31 > 0:07:34Tolstoy should have had an idyllic childhood
0:07:34 > 0:07:38but instead it was scarred by family tragedy.
0:07:38 > 0:07:40He was very young when his mother died.
0:07:40 > 0:07:42I mean, two years old.
0:07:42 > 0:07:46That must have had an enormous impact on him subsequent.
0:07:46 > 0:07:51Certainly, he was too young to retain any memories of her,
0:07:51 > 0:07:53but spiritual image,
0:07:53 > 0:07:55only spiritual image,
0:07:55 > 0:07:59which influenced Tolstoy throughout his long life.
0:07:59 > 0:08:01To lose your mother, never to know her,
0:08:01 > 0:08:05not to be able to envisage her face,
0:08:05 > 0:08:07that must be a tremendous loss for anyone,
0:08:07 > 0:08:10but then to lose your father subsequently,
0:08:10 > 0:08:13when he was only nine years old, I mean...
0:08:13 > 0:08:15He must have been bereft, really.
0:08:15 > 0:08:17He must have had a strong personality
0:08:17 > 0:08:18to be able to deal with that.
0:08:18 > 0:08:22Yeah, certainly. Tolstoy, as well as his brothers and sister,
0:08:22 > 0:08:25on the one hand, he was unhappy.
0:08:25 > 0:08:27He was unhappy he lost his parents.
0:08:27 > 0:08:31But, on the other hand, Tolstoy had his beloved Yasnaya Polyana.
0:08:31 > 0:08:35In a way, Yasnaya Polyana was the substitution
0:08:35 > 0:08:37for the absence of his parents.
0:08:39 > 0:08:42Yasnaya Polyana was Tolstoy's cradle and grave.
0:08:49 > 0:08:52- TRANSLATION:- Yasnaya Polyana remained a powerful attraction for him,
0:08:52 > 0:08:55a magnet that always drew him back,
0:08:55 > 0:08:58because his most important memories of early childhood
0:08:58 > 0:09:00were associated with this place.
0:09:02 > 0:09:04I remember my father in his study
0:09:04 > 0:09:06where we used to come to say goodnight to him
0:09:06 > 0:09:08and sometimes merely to play.
0:09:08 > 0:09:12He used to sit there with a pipe in his mouth on a leather couch.
0:09:12 > 0:09:15Sometimes, to our immense delight,
0:09:15 > 0:09:18he would let us climb on the couch behind his back
0:09:18 > 0:09:22while he would continue reading or talking to the steward.
0:09:25 > 0:09:28- TRANSLATION:- Maybe Tolstoy didn't have this childhood.
0:09:28 > 0:09:31This was how he would have liked to have seen it.
0:09:31 > 0:09:33This was how he imagined it.
0:09:33 > 0:09:37This was how he imagined a loving family life.
0:09:37 > 0:09:41And love came to be the reason for his entire existence,
0:09:41 > 0:09:44including the basis for his religious views.
0:09:46 > 0:09:49When there were children at Yasnaya Polyana,
0:09:49 > 0:09:54the Tolstoy brothers called themselves the Ant Brotherhood.
0:09:54 > 0:09:57The essence of what Yasnaya meant to Tolstoy
0:09:57 > 0:09:59grew out of a magical story
0:09:59 > 0:10:02that his eldest brother had invented for them.
0:10:02 > 0:10:05Leo Tolstoy was five,
0:10:05 > 0:10:07Nikolai, he was 11,
0:10:07 > 0:10:10and Nikolai announced that he had known a secret,
0:10:10 > 0:10:13how to make all people happy.
0:10:13 > 0:10:17That marvellous secret was written on the green stick
0:10:17 > 0:10:19and that little green stick
0:10:19 > 0:10:23was buried in the forest at the edge of the ravine by the road,
0:10:23 > 0:10:27and the one who would find the green stick could make all people happy.
0:10:27 > 0:10:32It would be a kind of golden age. People would become Ant Brothers.
0:10:32 > 0:10:34People would live without wars, diseases,
0:10:34 > 0:10:38in peace and Christian love and friendship.
0:10:38 > 0:10:39But Nikolai died
0:10:39 > 0:10:44and the secret, how to make all people happy, died with him.
0:10:44 > 0:10:46But, for Tolstoy,
0:10:46 > 0:10:50that naive, childish legend, in the years to come,
0:10:50 > 0:10:54became a profound philosophical symbol.
0:10:56 > 0:11:01The death of his father brought an end to Tolstoy's rural childhood
0:11:01 > 0:11:03and it was decided that he and his siblings
0:11:03 > 0:11:05would have to leave Yasnaya Polyana
0:11:05 > 0:11:08to live with an aunt in Kazan.
0:11:13 > 0:11:15Kazan, the ancient Tatar capital,
0:11:15 > 0:11:18is 500 miles east of Moscow.
0:11:24 > 0:11:29Since the 18th century, the city's maintained an impressive reputation
0:11:29 > 0:11:32as a place where Muslims and Christians
0:11:32 > 0:11:34have lived side by side in peace.
0:11:37 > 0:11:42Tolstoy's aunt, Polina, was married to the governor of Kazan
0:11:42 > 0:11:45and the young Tolstoys moved into what was then
0:11:45 > 0:11:47the grand governorial residence.
0:11:50 > 0:11:53Well, I suppose it's hardly surprising
0:11:53 > 0:11:56that, one revolution and two world wars later,
0:11:56 > 0:12:01it's not the centre of elegant society it used to be.
0:12:01 > 0:12:02Hello?
0:12:02 > 0:12:04Hello?
0:12:04 > 0:12:05HAMMERING
0:12:06 > 0:12:09The mansion is now being restored
0:12:09 > 0:12:12to celebrate Tolstoy's teenage years in the city.
0:12:13 > 0:12:19But not everything that happened to Tolstoy in Kazan merits celebration.
0:12:21 > 0:12:24Shortly after the Tolstoys arrived in the city,
0:12:24 > 0:12:28the older brothers decided that 14-year-old Lev
0:12:28 > 0:12:30was ready to be introduced to sex.
0:12:32 > 0:12:35So they took him to a brothel,
0:12:35 > 0:12:39which just happened to be located right next to the monastery
0:12:39 > 0:12:42where their grandfather was buried.
0:12:42 > 0:12:46It was simultaneously an act of sex and sacrilege
0:12:46 > 0:12:50that appears to have haunted him for the rest of his life.
0:12:52 > 0:12:56Many years later, Tolstoy would recall the incident,
0:12:56 > 0:12:58describing how, after the act,
0:12:58 > 0:13:01he wept bitterly by the side of the bed.
0:13:04 > 0:13:07The point is now he's already into this cycle
0:13:07 > 0:13:10where he goes through, interminably, all the way through his life,
0:13:10 > 0:13:13of living very badly indeed
0:13:13 > 0:13:16and then regretting it and castigating himself.
0:13:16 > 0:13:20The turning point came when he was about 14 or 15 years old,
0:13:20 > 0:13:23because suddenly he read Rousseau
0:13:23 > 0:13:25and, when he read Rousseau,
0:13:25 > 0:13:29he found confirmation of how awful he was,
0:13:29 > 0:13:31but the great relief of knowing
0:13:31 > 0:13:36that all other boys did rather disgusting things to themselves.
0:13:36 > 0:13:39- All other children were...- Savages?
0:13:39 > 0:13:41..young savages,
0:13:41 > 0:13:44and that, first of all, must have given him a sense of relief.
0:13:44 > 0:13:46"Thank goodness it's not just me!"
0:13:48 > 0:13:50Two years after arriving in the city,
0:13:50 > 0:13:55Tolstoy applied to study here at the prestigious Kazan University.
0:13:57 > 0:14:00As soon as I entered the university auditorium,
0:14:00 > 0:14:02I felt my personality disappearing
0:14:02 > 0:14:05in this throng of self-confident young people
0:14:05 > 0:14:08who surged noisily through all the doors and corridors.
0:14:10 > 0:14:12When the professor came in
0:14:12 > 0:14:15and everybody shifted about and then settled in their seats,
0:14:15 > 0:14:17I was amazed when he began his lecture
0:14:17 > 0:14:22with an introductory sentence which, in my opinion, did not make sense.
0:14:24 > 0:14:27I wanted the lecture to be so clever from beginning to end
0:14:27 > 0:14:32that it would be impossible to omit or add a single word.
0:14:32 > 0:14:36Disappointed in this, I immediately proceeded to sketch 18 caricatures
0:14:36 > 0:14:40joined together in a circle, like a wreath,
0:14:40 > 0:14:43and only occasionally moved my hand across the page
0:14:43 > 0:14:45to make the professor think I was taking notes.
0:14:48 > 0:14:51Things appear to have gone from bad to worse,
0:14:51 > 0:14:54so much so that the university authorities
0:14:54 > 0:14:56finally resorted to imprisonment.
0:15:01 > 0:15:04When Lev Nikolaievich failed to attend lectures,
0:15:04 > 0:15:06he was locked up overnight
0:15:06 > 0:15:10here in Kazan University's very own detention cell,
0:15:10 > 0:15:14where offenders were supposed to reflect on their misdemeanours
0:15:14 > 0:15:16with a night in the pitch dark.
0:15:17 > 0:15:19You can see the beginning
0:15:19 > 0:15:23of Tolstoy's lifelong contempt for authority.
0:15:23 > 0:15:24According to a fellow prisoner,
0:15:24 > 0:15:27he produced a candle from his boot
0:15:27 > 0:15:29and spent the night doing impersonations
0:15:29 > 0:15:31of the university professors.
0:15:33 > 0:15:34Of course he was a bad student,
0:15:34 > 0:15:37totally unsuited to structured education.
0:15:37 > 0:15:39He walked out without a degree, of course,
0:15:39 > 0:15:41having failed in two faculties.
0:15:41 > 0:15:42Never regretted it.
0:15:42 > 0:15:44In fact, he said triumphantly on a number of occasions,
0:15:44 > 0:15:47"I am so glad I never went anywhere near
0:15:47 > 0:15:50"an orthodox institute of education again in the rest of my life
0:15:50 > 0:15:52"and I benefited from it."
0:15:52 > 0:15:54I think he probably did benefit from it.
0:15:54 > 0:15:56He had this raging, uncontrollable spirit
0:15:56 > 0:15:58leaping off in all directions.
0:16:00 > 0:16:03But it wasn't that Tolstoy lacked intellectual ambition.
0:16:03 > 0:16:05He had a plan of his own.
0:16:05 > 0:16:08A rigorous one which he confided to his diary.
0:16:09 > 0:16:12One - to study the whole course of law
0:16:12 > 0:16:15necessary for my final examination at the university.
0:16:15 > 0:16:18Two - to study practical medicine and some theoretical...
0:16:18 > 0:16:21Three - to study languages... French, Russian...
0:16:21 > 0:16:23Four - to study agriculture...
0:16:23 > 0:16:26Five - to study history, geography and statistics...
0:16:26 > 0:16:28Six - to study mathematics, the grammar school course.
0:16:28 > 0:16:30Seven - to write a dissertation.
0:16:30 > 0:16:34Eight - to attain an average degree of perfection in music...
0:16:34 > 0:16:36Nine - to write down rules.
0:16:36 > 0:16:40Ten - to acquire some knowledge of the natural sciences...
0:16:40 > 0:16:44In fact, Tolstoy was forever making lists and plans
0:16:44 > 0:16:47and promises to himself to be the strongest, the cleverest,
0:16:47 > 0:16:50the most saintly model of manhood.
0:16:50 > 0:16:54However, in diary entries that often remind you more of Adrian Mole
0:16:54 > 0:16:56than a future literary giant,
0:16:56 > 0:17:00he quickly discovers that writing the lists is the easy part.
0:17:01 > 0:17:0518th April, 1847.
0:17:05 > 0:17:07I wrote down a lot of rules all of a sudden
0:17:07 > 0:17:09and wanted to follow them all,
0:17:09 > 0:17:11but I wasn't strong enough to do so.
0:17:11 > 0:17:14So now I want to set myself one rule only
0:17:14 > 0:17:15and to add another one to it
0:17:15 > 0:17:18only when I've got used to following that one.
0:17:19 > 0:17:22The first rule which I prescribe is as follows.
0:17:24 > 0:17:28Number one - carry out everything you have resolved must be carried out.
0:17:30 > 0:17:32I haven't carried out this rule.
0:17:37 > 0:17:42So why did Tolstoy have such trouble sticking to his own rules?
0:17:42 > 0:17:45Looking through his extraordinary early diaries,
0:17:45 > 0:17:48a recurring feature is his sexual appetite
0:17:48 > 0:17:50and the guilt that went with it.
0:17:50 > 0:17:53In fact, the very first entry in his diary
0:17:53 > 0:17:56comes as a direct result of his indulgences.
0:17:57 > 0:18:0017th March, 1847.
0:18:00 > 0:18:03It is now six days since I entered the clinic,
0:18:03 > 0:18:06and for six days now I've been almost satisfied with myself.
0:18:09 > 0:18:12I caught gonorrhoea, where one usually catches it from, of course,
0:18:12 > 0:18:16and this trivial circumstance gave me a jolt.
0:18:17 > 0:18:2018th April. I couldn't refrain.
0:18:20 > 0:18:22I beckoned to something in pink
0:18:22 > 0:18:25which, in the distance, seemed to me very nice
0:18:25 > 0:18:27and opened the door at the back.
0:18:27 > 0:18:29She came in. I couldn't see her.
0:18:29 > 0:18:32It was vile and repulsive.
0:18:32 > 0:18:35I even hate her because I've broken my rules on her account.
0:18:35 > 0:18:37Terrible remorse.
0:18:37 > 0:18:38That was censored
0:18:38 > 0:18:42in the Soviet editions of Tolstoy's diaries, of course,
0:18:42 > 0:18:46and I can remember my Russian teacher, who came from Siberia,
0:18:46 > 0:18:48being totally incredulous when I told her
0:18:48 > 0:18:51that was what Tolstoy's diaries were about.
0:18:51 > 0:18:53He was self-obsessed,
0:18:53 > 0:18:56and I think the diaries and the letters are, in a way,
0:18:56 > 0:19:00a way of making up a story about himself.
0:19:00 > 0:19:02I must say I was shocked when I read them.
0:19:02 > 0:19:07I was enthralled that anyone could write so honestly at that time.
0:19:07 > 0:19:10- If it is honest! - I think it is honest.
0:19:10 > 0:19:15And I think that, in a way, he loves castigating himself.
0:19:15 > 0:19:17I think all that stuff about sex,
0:19:17 > 0:19:19which might strike some readers as very shocking
0:19:19 > 0:19:21and others as a bit peculiar,
0:19:21 > 0:19:22that was him.
0:19:27 > 0:19:30- TRANSLATION:- The main thought that can be traced
0:19:30 > 0:19:31through all of his diaries,
0:19:31 > 0:19:34which he started at an early age and continued up to his death,
0:19:34 > 0:19:38is the thought of the meaning of good and the meaning of evil.
0:19:41 > 0:19:43"What am I?"
0:19:43 > 0:19:44"Good or evil?"
0:19:45 > 0:19:47"And what is good?"
0:19:47 > 0:19:49"What is evil?"
0:19:49 > 0:19:52To resolve this, the most important task,
0:19:52 > 0:19:55Tolstoy embarks on a life of artistic creativity.
0:20:00 > 0:20:05So when did Tolstoy actually begin to write?
0:20:05 > 0:20:10In April 1847, Tolstoy's student days came to an abrupt end
0:20:10 > 0:20:13when he inherited his portion of the family estate,
0:20:13 > 0:20:16including his beloved Yasnaya Polyana,
0:20:16 > 0:20:20and he immediately headed home.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23Over the next few years, the diaries give us a glimpse
0:20:23 > 0:20:26of a depressive and unfocused youth
0:20:26 > 0:20:29who is beginning to think about writing in some shape or form.
0:20:31 > 0:20:35However, this typical diary entry sums up his greatest problem.
0:20:36 > 0:20:39April 17th, 1851.
0:20:39 > 0:20:42Wrote nothing.
0:20:42 > 0:20:44Laziness got the better of me.
0:20:44 > 0:20:48One month later, however, everything had changed.
0:20:49 > 0:20:53I'm writing at ten o'clock at night on June 30th.
0:20:53 > 0:20:54How did I get here?
0:20:54 > 0:20:56I don't know.
0:20:56 > 0:20:58Why? I don't know either.
0:21:00 > 0:21:02I'd like to write a lot
0:21:02 > 0:21:04about the journey from Astrakhan to the village,
0:21:04 > 0:21:08the Cossacks, the cowardice of the Tatars, and the Steppe.
0:21:08 > 0:21:10GUNFIRE
0:21:12 > 0:21:16All of a sudden, Tolstoy had decided to join his brother Nikolai,
0:21:16 > 0:21:20who was serving in the army here in Chechnya.
0:21:20 > 0:21:22Russia was engaged in a war
0:21:22 > 0:21:27with this small, mountainous Muslim nation on its southern border.
0:21:27 > 0:21:30It was in many ways the same futile conflict
0:21:30 > 0:21:33that drags on in the region today.
0:21:35 > 0:21:39Nikolai was based in a village on the banks of the great Terek River
0:21:39 > 0:21:42which, at the time, provided a border
0:21:42 > 0:21:45between Russian and Chechen territory.
0:21:45 > 0:21:48In this remote outpost of the empire,
0:21:48 > 0:21:51Tolstoy spent nearly two and a half years of his life
0:21:51 > 0:21:54as a volunteer cadet soldier.
0:21:54 > 0:21:58He spent his time chasing the Cossack girls, playing cards,
0:21:58 > 0:22:00hunting for pheasants and hares
0:22:00 > 0:22:05and taking part in the occasional raid into enemy territory,
0:22:05 > 0:22:07an experience which he clearly enjoyed
0:22:07 > 0:22:11and which earned him commendations for bravery.
0:22:11 > 0:22:17However, the most important feature of life in Chechnya was boredom.
0:22:17 > 0:22:19There was very little to do
0:22:19 > 0:22:22and it was this combination of isolation and tedium
0:22:22 > 0:22:25that gave Tolstoy the inspiration to write.
0:22:27 > 0:22:30He began to work on an idea for a novel
0:22:30 > 0:22:32about the subject that he knew best
0:22:32 > 0:22:33- himself.
0:22:35 > 0:22:38Childhood, his first book,
0:22:38 > 0:22:41was an immediate hit with the Russian reading public.
0:22:41 > 0:22:42Although it's a novel,
0:22:42 > 0:22:46it draws on those early days at Yasnaya Polyana,
0:22:46 > 0:22:50a childhood most notable for the absence of a mother.
0:22:52 > 0:22:55Mama is talking to someone
0:22:55 > 0:22:58and the sound of her voice is so sweet, so warm,
0:22:58 > 0:23:01just the sound of it goes to my heart.
0:23:03 > 0:23:07I gaze at her face and all at once she becomes quite, quite little.
0:23:07 > 0:23:09Her face no bigger than a button.
0:23:11 > 0:23:13"So you love me very much?"
0:23:14 > 0:23:16She is silent for a moment
0:23:16 > 0:23:18and then says,
0:23:18 > 0:23:21"Mind you always love me
0:23:21 > 0:23:24"and never forget me."
0:23:24 > 0:23:27This silhouette is probably the only image
0:23:27 > 0:23:30Tolstoy ever knew of his mother.
0:23:30 > 0:23:32It's partly a memory, of course it is,
0:23:32 > 0:23:36but much of it is the childhood he didn't have that he wished he'd had.
0:23:36 > 0:23:41I've sometimes thought that maybe the origins of his creativity,
0:23:41 > 0:23:46in a way, was trying to recapture that lost figure of the mother.
0:23:46 > 0:23:49But it is all about him, isn't it?
0:23:49 > 0:23:51He was the ultimate narcissist, wasn't he?
0:23:51 > 0:23:54He found himself infinitely fascinating
0:23:54 > 0:23:59so all of his literary oeuvre really is the story of himself.
0:23:59 > 0:24:04His diary is an attempt to try and record his entire life,
0:24:04 > 0:24:07his consciousness as it unfolded.
0:24:07 > 0:24:10No-one had ever penetrated psychological processes
0:24:10 > 0:24:11as they evolved.
0:24:11 > 0:24:13No-one had ever written from a child's point of view,
0:24:13 > 0:24:16as Tolstoy had. It was a totally new voice.
0:24:22 > 0:24:24In his first novel, Childhood,
0:24:24 > 0:24:28Tolstoy found a reason for writing that lasted a lifetime.
0:24:29 > 0:24:33His unwaveringly honest fascination with himself, his own experiences,
0:24:33 > 0:24:37his own soul, would go on to provide a continuous thread
0:24:37 > 0:24:39through the whole shelf of his fiction.
0:24:42 > 0:24:44After two years in Chechnya,
0:24:44 > 0:24:48Tolstoy received his commission as an artillery officer
0:24:48 > 0:24:51and was posted west to the Black Sea region,
0:24:51 > 0:24:54where his regiment was embroiled in the build-up to the Crimean War.
0:24:56 > 0:24:58I headed down to the Crimea,
0:24:58 > 0:25:00in what is now the Ukraine,
0:25:00 > 0:25:02following in his tracks.
0:25:05 > 0:25:10At one point, he was based at an army encampment on the Belbek River,
0:25:10 > 0:25:14which runs a few miles outside the city of Sevastopol.
0:25:14 > 0:25:18We went looking for the likely spot where Tolstoy was billeted
0:25:18 > 0:25:22and where he succumbed to a disastrous addiction to gambling.
0:25:23 > 0:25:27Strangely, this little valley is once again being used
0:25:27 > 0:25:30as a temporary home for a troop of men,
0:25:30 > 0:25:33although now the bored and frustrated Ukrainians
0:25:33 > 0:25:37we met here aren't soldiers but railway workers,
0:25:37 > 0:25:40understandably bemused by our appearance at their station.
0:25:43 > 0:25:47MAN SPEAKS IN UKRAINIAN
0:25:47 > 0:25:50Astonishingly, this is the place where the momentous event took place
0:25:50 > 0:25:53where he lost a great part of his fortune
0:25:53 > 0:25:56and the Yasnaya Polyana house.
0:25:56 > 0:26:00He writes on 28th January, just a few days after he's arrived,
0:26:00 > 0:26:02"Played shtos for two days and nights.
0:26:02 > 0:26:06"The result is understandable. The loss of everything.
0:26:06 > 0:26:08"The Yasnaya Polyana house.
0:26:08 > 0:26:10"I think there's no point in writing.
0:26:10 > 0:26:12"I'm so disgusted with myself
0:26:12 > 0:26:15"that I'd like to forget about my existence.
0:26:15 > 0:26:18"6th, 7th and 8th February.
0:26:18 > 0:26:22"Played cards again and lost another 200 roubles.
0:26:22 > 0:26:24"I can't promise to stop.
0:26:24 > 0:26:26"12th February..."
0:26:26 > 0:26:29I mean, this just goes on and on over this whole period.
0:26:29 > 0:26:33"12th February. Lost 75 roubles again.
0:26:33 > 0:26:35"God is still merciful to me.
0:26:35 > 0:26:38"I'm squandering my life, not living.
0:26:38 > 0:26:42"My losses, however, are forcing me to come to my senses a bit."
0:26:44 > 0:26:46As a result of these losses,
0:26:46 > 0:26:51the main house at Yasnaya Polyana was sold and dismantled.
0:26:51 > 0:26:54A stone still marks the spot where it once stood,
0:26:54 > 0:26:56a poignant reminder
0:26:56 > 0:26:59of the young Tolstoy's obsessive and reckless personality.
0:27:02 > 0:27:05That gambling there, where he lost tens of thousands,
0:27:05 > 0:27:07it's interesting that it happens at the very moment
0:27:07 > 0:27:09where he's about to go in and risk his life.
0:27:09 > 0:27:12So there must have been a great deal of stress going on.
0:27:12 > 0:27:15I think so, and, also, an urgent inward impulse
0:27:15 > 0:27:18to live life right to the extreme.
0:27:18 > 0:27:20It's what Russian culture's all about.
0:27:20 > 0:27:22It doesn't have the kind of compromises that we have.
0:27:22 > 0:27:25Compromise is a very positive concept in English culture.
0:27:25 > 0:27:26Not in Russia.
0:27:26 > 0:27:28Russia was born to extremities.
0:27:28 > 0:27:31That's why you've got Moscow versus St Petersburg.
0:27:31 > 0:27:32And look at the novels.
0:27:32 > 0:27:35War and Peace, Crime and Punishment and so on.
0:27:35 > 0:27:39It's generally characterised by going out beyond normality
0:27:39 > 0:27:41to extremes of experience,
0:27:41 > 0:27:45and then the registering of it in good literature.
0:27:53 > 0:28:00Towards the end of 1854, Tolstoy crossed by boat into Sevastopol.
0:28:00 > 0:28:02CANNON FIRE
0:28:03 > 0:28:07Earlier that year, the Tsar had decided to occupy territory
0:28:07 > 0:28:11previously controlled by the Turkish Ottoman Empire
0:28:11 > 0:28:15with the aim of getting a Russian foothold on the Mediterranean.
0:28:18 > 0:28:22Here in the Black Sea, the Russian navy destroyed a Turkish fleet.
0:28:24 > 0:28:27Alarmed, the British and the French joined forces
0:28:27 > 0:28:29to protect their interests in the region.
0:28:32 > 0:28:36This elegant city became the main focus of the Crimean War.
0:28:38 > 0:28:40The Siege of Sevastopol
0:28:40 > 0:28:42and the horror of his time here on the front line
0:28:42 > 0:28:45was a defining experience for Tolstoy,
0:28:45 > 0:28:47the soldier and the writer.
0:28:49 > 0:28:51Here, from the heart of the conflict,
0:28:51 > 0:28:54he wrote three revelatory stories
0:28:54 > 0:28:56describing the reality of war.
0:28:59 > 0:29:02The first of these stories or sketches,
0:29:02 > 0:29:06takes the reader on a journey through the city.
0:29:06 > 0:29:10The narrator begins by describing the strange normality
0:29:10 > 0:29:13that continues in the streets and shops and restaurants.
0:29:15 > 0:29:19Yes, disenchantment certainly awaits you
0:29:19 > 0:29:23on entering Sevastopol for the first time.
0:29:23 > 0:29:25You will look in vain in any of these faces
0:29:25 > 0:29:28for signs of disquiet, perplexity,
0:29:28 > 0:29:33or even of enthusiasm, determination or readiness for death.
0:29:33 > 0:29:35There is nothing of the kind.
0:29:35 > 0:29:38What you see are ordinary people
0:29:38 > 0:29:41quietly occupied with ordinary activities.
0:29:43 > 0:29:46But, as the narrator walks up the hill through the town,
0:29:46 > 0:29:49the environment begins to change.
0:29:50 > 0:29:52EXPLOSIONS
0:29:52 > 0:29:55The whizz of cannonball or bomb nearby
0:29:55 > 0:29:58impresses you unpleasantly as you ascend the hill.
0:30:01 > 0:30:03And the meaning of the sounds is very different
0:30:03 > 0:30:08from what it seemed to be when they reached you in the town.
0:30:08 > 0:30:12You involuntarily expand your chest, raise your head higher
0:30:12 > 0:30:15and clamber up the slippery clay hill.
0:30:15 > 0:30:17You've climbed only a little way
0:30:17 > 0:30:21before bullets begin to whizz past you to the right and left,
0:30:21 > 0:30:24and you will perhaps consider whether you had not better
0:30:24 > 0:30:27walk inside the trench that runs parallel to the road.
0:30:29 > 0:30:32You think you hear the thud of a cannonball not far off
0:30:32 > 0:30:36and you seem to hear the sounds of bullets all around,
0:30:36 > 0:30:39some humming like bees, some whistling
0:30:39 > 0:30:42and some rapidly flying past with a shrill shriek
0:30:42 > 0:30:45like the string of some instrument.
0:30:49 > 0:30:51So this is the 4th Bastion.
0:30:51 > 0:30:54This is that terrible, truly dreadful spot.
0:30:56 > 0:30:58But you are mistaken.
0:30:58 > 0:31:00This is not the 4th Bastion yet.
0:31:03 > 0:31:06When you have gone some 300 steps more,
0:31:06 > 0:31:08you will come out at another battery.
0:31:08 > 0:31:11A flat space with many holes
0:31:11 > 0:31:15surrounded with sandbags and cannons on platforms,
0:31:15 > 0:31:18and the whole place walled in with earthworks.'
0:31:22 > 0:31:24The 4th Bastion was a kind of hell.
0:31:24 > 0:31:27The focus of the most intense bombardment and fighting.
0:31:27 > 0:31:30Thousands died here throughout the siege
0:31:30 > 0:31:33and this is where Tolstoy's Sevastopol story
0:31:33 > 0:31:36reaches its dramatic climax.
0:31:40 > 0:31:44Suddenly, the most fearful roar strikes not only your ears
0:31:44 > 0:31:48but your whole being and makes you shudder all over.
0:31:48 > 0:31:51It's followed by the whistle of the departing ball
0:31:51 > 0:31:54and a thick cloud of powder smoke envelops you, the platform
0:31:54 > 0:31:58and the black, moving figures of the sailors.
0:31:58 > 0:32:00You'll hear various comments made by the sailors
0:32:00 > 0:32:01concerning this shot of ours
0:32:01 > 0:32:04and you'll notice their animation.
0:32:04 > 0:32:07The evidence is of a feeling you had not perhaps expected...
0:32:09 > 0:32:12..the feeling of animosity and thirst for vengeance
0:32:12 > 0:32:14which lies hidden in each man's soul.
0:32:16 > 0:32:19When someone is blasted from the earth
0:32:19 > 0:32:21with a big bomb in the 4th Bastion,
0:32:21 > 0:32:24in the earthworks there, this has happened to Tolstoy as well.
0:32:24 > 0:32:27He's served right at the front, right in the thick of things.
0:32:27 > 0:32:32He was recommended for bravery on several occasions.
0:32:34 > 0:32:37You've got the whiff of cordite and the smell of blood and everything
0:32:37 > 0:32:41in those war scenes in the novel. They're very gripping indeed.
0:32:43 > 0:32:47You do have the feeling very much in those stories of the eyewitness,
0:32:47 > 0:32:51that this is happening, unfolding, before this author.
0:32:51 > 0:32:54He published his first sketch, which is, I believe,
0:32:54 > 0:32:58the most anthologised piece of writing that he ever wrote.
0:32:58 > 0:33:02It was a sensation amongst the wider public.
0:33:02 > 0:33:06I've traced the uses of these sketches through the 19th century
0:33:06 > 0:33:08and even into the early 20th century,
0:33:08 > 0:33:13and you see them being incorporated into histories of the period.
0:33:13 > 0:33:16They are treated like memoirs.
0:33:16 > 0:33:19Despite the shockingly frank description of the war zone,
0:33:19 > 0:33:22the first sketch was a deeply patriotic work,
0:33:22 > 0:33:25a celebration of the bravery of the Russian soldier
0:33:25 > 0:33:29that was immediately popular in St Petersburg.
0:33:29 > 0:33:34The Tsar loved it so much that he had it sent to Brussels right away
0:33:34 > 0:33:39and translated into French for a foreign audience.
0:33:39 > 0:33:43Shortly after, he began the second of his Sevastopol sketches.
0:33:43 > 0:33:47This time, the pride and patriotism have evaporated.
0:33:47 > 0:33:52The loss of life is depicted as terribly and utterly pointless.
0:33:52 > 0:33:56The Russian censor deleted large sections of the work.
0:33:59 > 0:34:03There, I have said what I wish to say this time,
0:34:03 > 0:34:06but I am seized by an oppressive doubt.
0:34:06 > 0:34:09Perhaps I ought to have left it unsaid.
0:34:09 > 0:34:12Where in this tale is the evil that should be avoided
0:34:12 > 0:34:14and where the good that should be imitated?
0:34:14 > 0:34:18Who is the villain and who is the hero of the story?
0:34:18 > 0:34:20All are good
0:34:20 > 0:34:22and all are bad.
0:34:23 > 0:34:28The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the power of my soul,
0:34:28 > 0:34:31whom I have tried to portray in all his beauty,
0:34:31 > 0:34:36who has been, is and will be beautiful, is truth.
0:34:36 > 0:34:38He becomes far more realistic, as he would see it,
0:34:38 > 0:34:40far more honest about things,
0:34:40 > 0:34:45and declares the whole thing to be a waste of energy and just brutality,
0:34:45 > 0:34:49and this is made clear in the second sketch,
0:34:49 > 0:34:51and it's emphasised by the ending of the sketch,
0:34:51 > 0:34:54where he says the hero of this story wasn't a soldier, it wasn't me,
0:34:54 > 0:34:58it wasn't anybody. The hero of this story is truth,
0:34:58 > 0:35:02and that truth, that warfare is always demeaning, violent,
0:35:02 > 0:35:05unnecessary, useless and disgusting,
0:35:05 > 0:35:07that will stay with him for the rest of his life
0:35:07 > 0:35:11and underlie all the pacifist teachings of his later works.
0:35:11 > 0:35:14I think that Tolstoy
0:35:14 > 0:35:19was the first really grown-up author of world literature
0:35:19 > 0:35:23because all the writers which wrote before him,
0:35:23 > 0:35:27they could be interesting, provoking, charming,
0:35:27 > 0:35:31but still they seem adolescent to me.
0:35:31 > 0:35:34Tolstoy, when he started writing as a young man,
0:35:34 > 0:35:39he started writing from the very beginning as an adult,
0:35:39 > 0:35:46as a grown-up person describing life as it is, without any fleurs,
0:35:46 > 0:35:48without... Concealing nothing.
0:35:48 > 0:35:54His first novellas about the war in the Caucasus, about Sevastopol,
0:35:54 > 0:36:00they are very much unlike Dickens or Pushkin or Lermontov.
0:36:00 > 0:36:04They are about real life.
0:36:04 > 0:36:06They are really frightening.
0:36:06 > 0:36:09They are not pretty at all.
0:36:09 > 0:36:13And he went on like this, becoming stronger and stronger and stronger,
0:36:13 > 0:36:17before he started thinking of himself as a new prophet.
0:36:24 > 0:36:28From the blasted ruins of Sevastopol in the south,
0:36:28 > 0:36:30Tolstoy came straight here,
0:36:30 > 0:36:34to fashionable, intellectual, imperial St Petersburg.
0:36:36 > 0:36:39On his way to the capital, he clearly felt a great relief
0:36:39 > 0:36:41to be leaving the war behind him,
0:36:41 > 0:36:44but also a new sense of purpose,
0:36:44 > 0:36:48buoyed up by the success of the first sketch.
0:36:48 > 0:36:50He wrote in his diary...
0:36:50 > 0:36:52My career is literature.
0:36:52 > 0:36:55To write and write.
0:36:55 > 0:36:59From tomorrow, I'll work all my life or give up everything.
0:36:59 > 0:37:02Literary Russia in the 19th century produced an extraordinary
0:37:02 > 0:37:05and wildly contrasting crop of writers,
0:37:05 > 0:37:10including Pushkin and Lermontov, Gogol, Dostoevsky and Chekhov,
0:37:10 > 0:37:13as well as Turgenev and Tolstoy.
0:37:13 > 0:37:17None of them were what we would call explicitly political writers,
0:37:17 > 0:37:19but the very act of writing about Russia
0:37:19 > 0:37:22brought them into conflict with the Tsarist state.
0:37:22 > 0:37:26Pushkin and Lermontov were sent into exile.
0:37:26 > 0:37:29Dostoevsky was put in front of a mock firing squad
0:37:29 > 0:37:31and sent to Siberia.
0:37:31 > 0:37:34And they all suffered extensive censorship
0:37:34 > 0:37:37when anything they wrote was deemed to question the status quo.
0:37:38 > 0:37:42Tolstoy's own outspoken account of the Crimean War
0:37:42 > 0:37:45attracted not only the attention of the censor,
0:37:45 > 0:37:49but also St Petersburg's radical literary set.
0:37:51 > 0:37:53When Tolstoy arrived here in St Petersburg,
0:37:53 > 0:37:58the first person he went to visit was the writer Ivan Turgenev.
0:37:58 > 0:38:00Turgenev, then in his 30s,
0:38:00 > 0:38:03was a brilliant and influential novelist
0:38:03 > 0:38:05who'd been Tolstoy's literary hero
0:38:05 > 0:38:08ever since he was a student in Kazan.
0:38:10 > 0:38:14And, for nearly a month, Tolstoy camped on Turgenev's sofa.
0:38:14 > 0:38:18However, Tolstoy wasn't an easy house guest.
0:38:18 > 0:38:22He spent the nights out whoring and gambling and the days sleeping.
0:38:22 > 0:38:24Turgenev wrote to a friend,
0:38:24 > 0:38:28"You cannot picture to yourself what a dear and remarkable man he is,
0:38:28 > 0:38:31"although I have nicknamed him the troglodyte
0:38:31 > 0:38:36"because of his uncouth passions and buffalo-like obstinacy."
0:38:38 > 0:38:41It was a notoriously bitchy relationship
0:38:41 > 0:38:44and there were countless entries in Tolstoy's diaries
0:38:44 > 0:38:46fulminating about Turgenev.
0:38:46 > 0:38:49He's an uncongenial, cold and difficult person
0:38:49 > 0:38:51and I'm sorry for him.
0:38:51 > 0:38:53I'll never get on with him.
0:38:53 > 0:38:57But, on the very first day that Turgenev met Tolstoy,
0:38:57 > 0:39:01he brought him here to the apartment of Nikolai Nekrasov for lunch.
0:39:03 > 0:39:06Nekrasov was an influential liberal figure,
0:39:06 > 0:39:09and kingpin of the literary scene in St Petersburg,
0:39:09 > 0:39:11and these handsome rooms
0:39:11 > 0:39:15were the forum for the city's radical conversation and debate.
0:39:18 > 0:39:21It was Nekrasov who'd first recognised Tolstoy's talent
0:39:21 > 0:39:25when he published the unsolicited manuscript of Childhood.
0:39:25 > 0:39:29Now he was printing Tolstoy's critiques of the Crimean War,
0:39:29 > 0:39:32the increasingly contentious Sevastopol Sketches,
0:39:32 > 0:39:35in his magazine, the Contemporary.
0:39:35 > 0:39:41I think it was 20,000 copies which were read all around the country
0:39:41 > 0:39:44by nobility,
0:39:44 > 0:39:47by estate owners, by students,
0:39:47 > 0:39:49by high school students,
0:39:49 > 0:39:55by everybody who want to read Russian.
0:39:55 > 0:39:57And there was a line to buy it,
0:39:57 > 0:40:02and each new issue in a small provincial city was an event.
0:40:03 > 0:40:05"Have you read this magazine?"
0:40:05 > 0:40:07"Give it to me", and so on.
0:40:07 > 0:40:11There was whole circulation of this.
0:40:11 > 0:40:13Turgenev was a leading light
0:40:13 > 0:40:16in this radical literary world of the Contemporary
0:40:16 > 0:40:19and there's no doubt that, for a new writer in St Petersburg,
0:40:19 > 0:40:22this was the place to be.
0:40:22 > 0:40:24That afternoon, they talked,
0:40:24 > 0:40:27they ate together, they played chess,
0:40:27 > 0:40:30and, by the end of the day, Nekrasov, clearly captivated,
0:40:30 > 0:40:34concluded that Tolstoy was even better than his writing.
0:40:36 > 0:40:41But Tolstoy was far too independent and obstinate to fit in.
0:40:41 > 0:40:44Even though he himself arranged this group photograph,
0:40:44 > 0:40:46you can see how uncomfortable he looks.
0:40:51 > 0:40:54And it wasn't just Tolstoy's manner that set him apart
0:40:54 > 0:40:56from other members of the literary world.
0:40:56 > 0:40:59Tolstoy was a land-owning count
0:40:59 > 0:41:00and the hot topic of the day
0:41:00 > 0:41:05was land reform and the abolition of feudal slavery.
0:41:05 > 0:41:07For many of his writer friends,
0:41:07 > 0:41:10emancipation of the serfs was a political concept
0:41:10 > 0:41:15but, for Tolstoy, as a landowner, this was personal.
0:41:15 > 0:41:17He was the master of a great estate
0:41:17 > 0:41:20and the owner of over 300 peasants.
0:41:20 > 0:41:22It was an issue of conscience
0:41:22 > 0:41:25that preoccupied him for the rest of his life.
0:41:32 > 0:41:35There had been Tolstoys at the imperial court for generations
0:41:35 > 0:41:37and the young Count Tolstoy
0:41:37 > 0:41:40had privileged access to the Mariinsky Palace
0:41:40 > 0:41:43via this extraordinary six-storey ramp
0:41:43 > 0:41:46which led straight to the private apartments
0:41:46 > 0:41:48of a royal lady-in-waiting,
0:41:48 > 0:41:50his young aunt Alexandrine.
0:41:52 > 0:41:55This is where they were first seen by everyone,
0:41:55 > 0:41:58because music played from the gallery,
0:41:58 > 0:42:01musicians were located there, music played when they arrived,
0:42:01 > 0:42:05and, when dances started at the palace, they started over here
0:42:05 > 0:42:08and then proceeded to the so-called White Hall,
0:42:08 > 0:42:10which was used as a ballroom.
0:42:10 > 0:42:13So, when he came here in 1856,
0:42:13 > 0:42:16- he'd been in Sevastopol, he'd been fighting the war.- Right.
0:42:16 > 0:42:18How did he fit in then?
0:42:18 > 0:42:20He mixed with the literary set, of course,
0:42:20 > 0:42:23but he still visited his aunt.
0:42:23 > 0:42:26Right, but the literary set whom he communicated,
0:42:26 > 0:42:29that was Nekrasov and other people,
0:42:29 > 0:42:32they were not persons of very special rank.
0:42:32 > 0:42:37Turgenev, though, says, "Why don't you go off and join your princesses
0:42:37 > 0:42:39"and disappear off with your posh friends?",
0:42:39 > 0:42:41so there was a sense, wasn't there,
0:42:41 > 0:42:46that Tolstoy belonged to this privileged class?
0:42:46 > 0:42:48By all means. And he enjoyed it, by the way,
0:42:48 > 0:42:52particularly in the beginning before he started to live
0:42:52 > 0:42:54a simple way of life like that.
0:42:54 > 0:42:56So he enjoyed being an aristocrat
0:42:56 > 0:42:59and being treated as an aristocrat, indeed.
0:43:01 > 0:43:05So Tolstoy would have come here to see his aunt Alexandra, then.
0:43:05 > 0:43:06Exactly. Exactly.
0:43:06 > 0:43:10What was the relationship like with her?
0:43:10 > 0:43:13He liked this lady immensely.
0:43:13 > 0:43:17He used to call her "Joy and consolation".
0:43:17 > 0:43:21She understood. She was very witty, very intelligent.
0:43:21 > 0:43:26She possessed very strong will and quite an encyclopaedic knowledge,
0:43:26 > 0:43:29particularly, with the time she served at court,
0:43:29 > 0:43:30she learned more and more,
0:43:30 > 0:43:32and he even fell in love with her.
0:43:32 > 0:43:37Though someone said that there was rumour in St Petersburg
0:43:37 > 0:43:39that she would marry Leo Tolstoy,
0:43:39 > 0:43:43and, with her typical humour, she replied,
0:43:43 > 0:43:46"When it happens, let me know about it!"
0:43:49 > 0:43:52It seems he did think of marrying Alexandrine,
0:43:52 > 0:43:55but, instead, their relationship turned into a friendship,
0:43:55 > 0:43:59a friendship that lasted throughout most of his life.
0:44:01 > 0:44:04Tolstoy, in his early 30s, struggled with his writing,
0:44:04 > 0:44:07and his diaries reveal a restlessness
0:44:07 > 0:44:09and a morose lack of resolve,
0:44:09 > 0:44:13barely changed from his student days in Kazan.
0:44:13 > 0:44:15October 1860.
0:44:16 > 0:44:20Irresolution, idleness, melancholy...
0:44:20 > 0:44:22Thoughts of death.
0:44:22 > 0:44:24I must escape from this.
0:44:28 > 0:44:32And then, quite suddenly, two years later, he did.
0:44:34 > 0:44:36September 1862.
0:44:36 > 0:44:38Letter to Alexandrine.
0:44:38 > 0:44:41I am writing from the country.
0:44:41 > 0:44:45As I write, I can hear upstairs the voice of my wife,
0:44:45 > 0:44:48whom I love more than anything in the world.
0:44:48 > 0:44:51I've lived to the age of 34
0:44:51 > 0:44:56and I didn't know it was possible to be so much in love and so happy.
0:44:56 > 0:44:57Tolstoy's new bride
0:44:57 > 0:45:01was an 18-year-old girl from Moscow called Sofia,
0:45:01 > 0:45:04Sofia Andreevna Bers,
0:45:04 > 0:45:07one of the daughters of an old friend.
0:45:07 > 0:45:10She doesn't remember precisely when she met Tolstoy,
0:45:10 > 0:45:15but she remembers that, when Tolstoy was leaving for war,
0:45:15 > 0:45:17the Crimean War,
0:45:17 > 0:45:22he stopped at their house to say goodbye,
0:45:22 > 0:45:27and she was 11 and it was the moment when she thought
0:45:27 > 0:45:30that she would become a nurse
0:45:30 > 0:45:32and join him at the front.
0:45:32 > 0:45:34But, of course, that did not happen.
0:45:34 > 0:45:39The war was brief and, that same year, when she was 11,
0:45:39 > 0:45:42she read the Sevastopol tales
0:45:42 > 0:45:46and she read Tolstoy's novel Childhood and she cried over it.
0:45:49 > 0:45:52Despite their long acquaintance,
0:45:52 > 0:45:57the betrothal and marriage were rushed, awkward and brutal.
0:45:57 > 0:45:59Perhaps the strangest event of the engagement
0:45:59 > 0:46:03was when Tolstoy insisted that Sofia read his diaries,
0:46:03 > 0:46:07full of the details of his whoring, venereal diseases
0:46:07 > 0:46:10and his recent affair with a peasant girl.
0:46:11 > 0:46:15It's a painfully telling moment in Tolstoy's story.
0:46:15 > 0:46:18We've seen him as an orphan child,
0:46:18 > 0:46:20a difficult teenager,
0:46:20 > 0:46:22a dissolute young man,
0:46:22 > 0:46:25but here, at the moment of his wedding,
0:46:25 > 0:46:28he comes across as something altogether darker.
0:46:31 > 0:46:34What did she make of what she saw in his diaries?
0:46:34 > 0:46:39It was before the wedding that he gave her the diaries
0:46:39 > 0:46:45and she was appalled by his past.
0:46:45 > 0:46:49She imagined the man she would marry
0:46:49 > 0:46:53as a completely new, pure person.
0:46:53 > 0:46:55She was barely 18,
0:46:55 > 0:46:58she'd just turned 18,
0:46:58 > 0:47:04and Tolstoy, who was so sensitive in his novels,
0:47:04 > 0:47:07lacked this sensitivity in actual life.
0:47:10 > 0:47:13In Sofia's autobiography, written many years later,
0:47:13 > 0:47:17she reveals just how traumatic the wedding,
0:47:17 > 0:47:20and in particular the wedding night, had been.
0:47:21 > 0:47:24After Biryulyovo, and even back at the station,
0:47:24 > 0:47:28the torment began which every bride must go through,
0:47:28 > 0:47:30not to mention the agony.
0:47:30 > 0:47:31What an embarrassment it was.
0:47:31 > 0:47:32How painful.
0:47:32 > 0:47:34How dreadfully humiliating.
0:47:36 > 0:47:39Sofia describes her first night as a rape
0:47:39 > 0:47:44and they made a stop in Biryulyovo to change stations,
0:47:44 > 0:47:47that was not far from Moscow,
0:47:47 > 0:47:51and Tolstoy told her to serve tea
0:47:51 > 0:47:54and she was so tense.
0:47:54 > 0:47:58Tolstoy's diary entry is brutally unaffected.
0:48:00 > 0:48:03She was in tears in the carriage.
0:48:03 > 0:48:05She knows everything and it's simple.
0:48:05 > 0:48:08Her timidity,
0:48:08 > 0:48:09something morbid.
0:48:18 > 0:48:22You can't help feeling sorry for Sofia, the new Countess Tolstoy.
0:48:22 > 0:48:26After the ordeal of the marriage and the nightmare journey,
0:48:26 > 0:48:29she arrives here at Yasnaya Polyana, her new home,
0:48:29 > 0:48:32the place where she would live for the rest of her life.
0:48:32 > 0:48:36What she finds is a remote, dilapidated house,
0:48:36 > 0:48:39surrounded by overgrown and untended grounds,
0:48:39 > 0:48:42and a husband who, though passionate about his new wife,
0:48:42 > 0:48:44was moody, remote
0:48:44 > 0:48:48and often absent for days at a time on hunting expeditions.
0:48:48 > 0:48:53Here is an area where Tolstoy has been given the benefit of doubt
0:48:53 > 0:48:54when there isn't any doubt.
0:48:54 > 0:48:58He was nothing less than brutal towards her.
0:48:58 > 0:48:59I don't mean physically.
0:48:59 > 0:49:02I don't think he ever beat her up or knocked her around,
0:49:02 > 0:49:05but he treated her very badly indeed.
0:49:06 > 0:49:08Yet, despite the fact that Tolstoy
0:49:08 > 0:49:12was clearly an impossibly difficult husband,
0:49:12 > 0:49:15it was also an incredibly passionate marriage.
0:49:16 > 0:49:19I cannot love him any more than I already do.
0:49:19 > 0:49:23I already love him to such excess with all my heart and soul
0:49:23 > 0:49:28that there is nothing in my mind but my love for him. Nothing.
0:49:30 > 0:49:34The Tolstoys were man and wife for 46 years.
0:49:34 > 0:49:37Yes, it was a complex and often tortured relationship,
0:49:37 > 0:49:42but it was also an intensely productive and creative union.
0:49:42 > 0:49:46Sofia became both his copyist and his unofficial editor,
0:49:46 > 0:49:48and, without her, it's hard to believe
0:49:48 > 0:49:50he could have achieved what he did.
0:49:52 > 0:49:55Exactly nine months after the wedding,
0:49:55 > 0:49:58Sofia gave birth to her first child, Sergei,
0:49:58 > 0:50:01the first of 13 babies
0:50:01 > 0:50:04which she brought into the world over 25 years.
0:50:04 > 0:50:07Eight of these children survived childhood
0:50:07 > 0:50:11and went on to procreate today's grand dynasty.
0:50:11 > 0:50:15An impressive testament to the happier years
0:50:15 > 0:50:17of Lev and Sofia's marathon marriage.
0:50:20 > 0:50:22There certainly was a time
0:50:22 > 0:50:27when I think he must have been not just happy but blissfully happy,
0:50:27 > 0:50:28and there's no doubt in my mind
0:50:28 > 0:50:31that he knew he was going to write a major work of history
0:50:31 > 0:50:33and about humanity,
0:50:33 > 0:50:36and it just came out of his history as a writer.
0:50:36 > 0:50:38He fully matured
0:50:38 > 0:50:42and it just happened at the time, as well, when his life came right.
0:50:42 > 0:50:45He'd written 20 or 30 short stories of one kind or another
0:50:45 > 0:50:47of varying quality,
0:50:47 > 0:50:51but many of them showing a lot of great promise indeed,
0:50:51 > 0:50:57and he said, "I just feel that there is something working its way up
0:50:57 > 0:51:01"within me which can only be described as epic."
0:51:01 > 0:51:03He actually used the word.
0:51:03 > 0:51:06War and Peace, this wonderful epic,
0:51:06 > 0:51:10surely it's the gold standard by which novels are all judged now.
0:51:10 > 0:51:12Probably the greatest novel that's ever been written.
0:51:12 > 0:51:16A massive epic dealing with tidal waves of humanity
0:51:16 > 0:51:20moving across Europe, and yet an intimate epic,
0:51:20 > 0:51:22because you zoom down from those heights
0:51:22 > 0:51:24and you look at the intimate dealings
0:51:24 > 0:51:26of individuals all the way through.
0:51:35 > 0:51:39Natasha sampled everything.
0:51:39 > 0:51:40Never in her life, she thought,
0:51:40 > 0:51:44had she seen or tasted buttermilk cakes like these,
0:51:44 > 0:51:46such delicious preserves,
0:51:46 > 0:51:47such nuts in honey
0:51:47 > 0:51:50or a chicken like this one.
0:51:50 > 0:51:51Rostov and Uncle,
0:51:51 > 0:51:54as they downed their cherry-flavoured vodka after supper,
0:51:54 > 0:51:58talked of hunts past and future.
0:51:58 > 0:52:00Natasha felt so happy at heart,
0:52:00 > 0:52:02so much at home in these new surroundings
0:52:02 > 0:52:07that her only fear was that the trap would come for her too soon.
0:52:07 > 0:52:10When the conversation broke down for a moment,
0:52:10 > 0:52:13as it almost always does when you have friends in for the first time,
0:52:13 > 0:52:18Uncle responded to what was in his guests' minds by saying,
0:52:18 > 0:52:22"There you have it, me in my last days, soon be dead.
0:52:24 > 0:52:27"There for the chase, nothing left after that,
0:52:27 > 0:52:30"so what's wrong with a bit of living in sin?"
0:52:30 > 0:52:34My mother was a teacher of Russian literature,
0:52:34 > 0:52:40and I think that she was a very cunning person.
0:52:40 > 0:52:44When I was, I think, 10 or 11 years old, she told me,
0:52:44 > 0:52:46"Look, this is...
0:52:46 > 0:52:50"On this upper shelf, is the novel War and Peace.
0:52:50 > 0:52:54"You are never, ever to touch it before you are 15.
0:52:54 > 0:52:57"You will understand nothing.
0:52:57 > 0:52:59"It is meant for grown-ups."
0:52:59 > 0:53:01And, of course, the first thing I did after she left,
0:53:01 > 0:53:05I started reading this thick novel.
0:53:05 > 0:53:08I skipped of course all the love scenes.
0:53:08 > 0:53:09I read only about war
0:53:09 > 0:53:13but, by the age of 11, I was a fan of Tolstoy.
0:53:13 > 0:53:15Because for us, for me,
0:53:15 > 0:53:19Andrei Bolkonsky or Natasha Rostova or Pierre Bezukhov,
0:53:19 > 0:53:22they are alive,
0:53:22 > 0:53:26not like real people who used to live in the 19th century.
0:53:26 > 0:53:29In fact, they are more alive to me than a lot of people
0:53:29 > 0:53:31that live today and whom I know personally.
0:53:33 > 0:53:35If the so-called peace,
0:53:35 > 0:53:38the domestic scenes in War and Peace,
0:53:38 > 0:53:40grew from Tolstoy's own family life...
0:53:44 > 0:53:47..equally, the war or public scenes
0:53:47 > 0:53:49were based on some of the most important events
0:53:49 > 0:53:51in recent Russian history.
0:53:54 > 0:53:58In 1812, Napoleon's army invaded Russia.
0:53:58 > 0:54:01The following conflict saw horrendous casualties,
0:54:01 > 0:54:03the destruction of Moscow,
0:54:03 > 0:54:06followed by the decimation of the French
0:54:06 > 0:54:09as they retreated in the middle of winter.
0:54:09 > 0:54:11This triumphal arch,
0:54:11 > 0:54:15built on the great highway heading west out of Moscow,
0:54:15 > 0:54:17commemorates the Russian victory.
0:54:23 > 0:54:27The turning point in the war, the Battle of Borodino,
0:54:27 > 0:54:32continues to have great historical, political and emotional significance
0:54:32 > 0:54:35for the Russians and is re-enacted every year
0:54:35 > 0:54:39on the battlefield about 60 miles west of Moscow.
0:54:39 > 0:54:41CHEERING
0:54:43 > 0:54:46And it's this vast iconic clash,
0:54:46 > 0:54:50a battle that took the lives of at least 70,000 men,
0:54:50 > 0:54:54which Tolstoy brought to life as the climax of War and Peace.
0:54:59 > 0:55:01- TRANSLATION:- For people like me involved in the reconstruction,
0:55:01 > 0:55:03War and Peace is the Bible.
0:55:06 > 0:55:10The thing is, Lev Tolstoy himself was a serving officer.
0:55:10 > 0:55:14His baptism of fire was in the Crimea
0:55:14 > 0:55:16and no-one can describe things like he does.
0:55:16 > 0:55:19He's not simply the greatest writer.
0:55:19 > 0:55:21He is a military man.
0:55:26 > 0:55:28Tolstoy's epic account of Borodino
0:55:28 > 0:55:32takes up about 250 pages of War and Peace.
0:55:32 > 0:55:35It was written only 50 years after the event,
0:55:35 > 0:55:38when the last veterans were only just dying out,
0:55:38 > 0:55:41and Tolstoy made sure he read and researched voraciously
0:55:41 > 0:55:43around the subject.
0:55:43 > 0:55:46To help bring the whole thing alive in his mind,
0:55:46 > 0:55:48in the autumn 1867,
0:55:48 > 0:55:51he made a special trip here to the battlefield.
0:55:51 > 0:55:55He took with him his wife Sofia's younger brother Stepan
0:55:55 > 0:55:57who was only 12 years old.
0:55:57 > 0:55:59You can imagine, the boy must have been in heaven,
0:55:59 > 0:56:01pacing out the troop manoeuvres
0:56:01 > 0:56:04and identifying all the landmarks of the battle
0:56:04 > 0:56:07with his knowledgeable and enthusiastic guide.
0:56:07 > 0:56:09Where was Napoleon?
0:56:09 > 0:56:13Where did Kutuzov, the great Russian field marshal, make his camp?
0:56:13 > 0:56:15How were the two giant armies
0:56:15 > 0:56:18arrayed across this gentle rural landscape
0:56:18 > 0:56:20before the slaughter began?
0:56:22 > 0:56:25When Tolstoy and Stepan arrived at Borodino,
0:56:25 > 0:56:29they stayed in a monastery on the edge of the battle site.
0:56:29 > 0:56:32Today, that monastery has been turned into a museum
0:56:32 > 0:56:34dedicated to Tolstoy's visit
0:56:34 > 0:56:36and the extraordinarily vivid account
0:56:36 > 0:56:38of the battle which it inspired.
0:56:42 > 0:56:47- TRANSLATION:- This document looks like it was written here at Borodino.
0:56:47 > 0:56:51You can see the top part of the page is in a child's round hand.
0:56:51 > 0:56:54It seems as if Tolstoy was dictating his thoughts and ideas to Stepan,
0:56:54 > 0:56:59who wrote them down whilst they were inspecting the Borodino battlefield.
0:57:01 > 0:57:03They even drew a little plan
0:57:03 > 0:57:06of how the sun rises and sets over Borodino field.
0:57:10 > 0:57:13Tolstoy was very pleased with his research trip,
0:57:13 > 0:57:15and wrote to his wife, Sofia Andreevna,
0:57:15 > 0:57:18"If God will give me health and peace of mind,
0:57:18 > 0:57:20"I will write the Battle of Borodino
0:57:20 > 0:57:23"in a way that's never been done before."
0:57:33 > 0:57:35Rostov, without waiting to hear him out,
0:57:35 > 0:57:38touched his horse, galloped to the front of his squadron
0:57:38 > 0:57:41and, before he had time to finish giving the word of command,
0:57:41 > 0:57:44the whole squadron, sharing his feeling, was following him.
0:57:44 > 0:57:48Rostov himself did not know how or why he did it.
0:57:48 > 0:57:49He acted as he did when hunting,
0:57:49 > 0:57:52without reflecting or considering.
0:57:52 > 0:57:55He saw the dragoons near and that they were galloping in disorder.
0:57:55 > 0:57:57He knew they could not withstand an attack,
0:57:57 > 0:57:59knew there was only that moment
0:57:59 > 0:58:02and that, if he let it slip, it would not return.
0:58:05 > 0:58:08One of the main characters of War and Peace
0:58:08 > 0:58:13is an enthusiastic young cavalry officer called Nikolai Rostov.
0:58:13 > 0:58:17For Rostov, the excitement and bravado of the battlefield
0:58:17 > 0:58:20soon evaporates when confronted by his enemy.
0:58:25 > 0:58:28The French dragoon officer was hopping with one foot on the ground,
0:58:28 > 0:58:31the other being caught in the stirrup.
0:58:31 > 0:58:33His eyes, screwed up with fear
0:58:33 > 0:58:36as if he, every moment, expected another blow,
0:58:36 > 0:58:39gazed up at Rostov with shrinking terror.
0:58:40 > 0:58:44His pale and mud-stained face, fair and young
0:58:44 > 0:58:46with a dimple in the chin and light-blue eyes,
0:58:46 > 0:58:50was not an enemy's face at all suited to a battlefield,
0:58:50 > 0:58:54but a most ordinary, home-like face.
0:58:54 > 0:58:56Before Rostov had decided what to do with him,
0:58:56 > 0:58:59the officer cried, "I surrender!"
0:59:00 > 0:59:03Rostov galloped back with the rest,
0:59:03 > 0:59:07aware of an unpleasant feeling of depression in his heart.
0:59:07 > 0:59:11Something vague and confused which he could not at all account for
0:59:11 > 0:59:14had come over him with the capture of that officer
0:59:14 > 0:59:16and the blow he had dealt him.
0:59:17 > 0:59:20I think a very interesting figure in War and Peace
0:59:20 > 0:59:25is young Nikolai Rostov, who...
0:59:25 > 0:59:28Incredibly well-described as a young cavalry officer.
0:59:28 > 0:59:30I don't know if you remember the scene
0:59:30 > 0:59:32where he raises his sabre in a battle
0:59:32 > 0:59:34and, in the very moment of raising his sabre
0:59:34 > 0:59:37against this poor French officer, he sees the man's fear in his face
0:59:37 > 0:59:40and he thinks, "What the hell am I doing?"
0:59:40 > 0:59:43And he brings the sword down and he just snicks the man.
0:59:43 > 0:59:47And, thereafter, they're all saying, "Well done, Rostov,"
0:59:47 > 0:59:48and the colonel says,
0:59:48 > 0:59:50"You'll get a decoration from the emperor for this, my boy,"
0:59:50 > 0:59:54and he feels utter wretchedness and misery inside
0:59:54 > 0:59:57and the story has begun of his realising
0:59:57 > 1:00:00that it's mad fighting battles
1:00:00 > 1:00:02and attacking people with swords and guns
1:00:02 > 1:00:05and war is just fundamentally wrong.
1:00:05 > 1:00:08It's a brilliant scene
1:00:08 > 1:00:11in which you see the whole seeds of pacifism
1:00:11 > 1:00:12growing in the novelist's mind.
1:00:16 > 1:00:18In War and Peace,
1:00:18 > 1:00:23we see Tolstoy bring to life a staggering 500 characters,
1:00:23 > 1:00:27building a world, a narrative and an emotional landscape
1:00:27 > 1:00:28that remains unequalled.
1:00:30 > 1:00:33The book is a profoundly patriotic narrative.
1:00:33 > 1:00:37It charts the defeat and expulsion of an invading foreign army
1:00:37 > 1:00:42and, as such, it was a book that was handed out by Stalin's commissars
1:00:42 > 1:00:44during the Second World War
1:00:44 > 1:00:46to motivate the Red Army
1:00:46 > 1:00:49in their monumental struggle against the Nazis.
1:00:49 > 1:00:53However, the abiding moral message of this book
1:00:53 > 1:00:56is not patriotism, but pacifism.
1:00:56 > 1:00:59The angry protest of the Sevastopol Sketches
1:00:59 > 1:01:04has matured into an anatomical examination of the evils of war.
1:01:08 > 1:01:11One or two dark clouds had come up
1:01:11 > 1:01:16and a fine drizzle was sprinkling the dead, the wounded, the fearful,
1:01:16 > 1:01:19the weary and the wavering.
1:01:21 > 1:01:24"Good people, that's enough," it seemed to say.
1:01:25 > 1:01:26"Stop and think.
1:01:29 > 1:01:30"What are you doing?"
1:01:36 > 1:01:41This voice of moral authority that Tolstoy discovered in War and Peace
1:01:41 > 1:01:43would go on in the second half of his life
1:01:43 > 1:01:48to become ever louder, more urgent and central to his writing.
1:01:51 > 1:01:55It was 1869 when Tolstoy finished War and Peace
1:01:55 > 1:01:58and he had every reason to feel confident and relaxed.
1:01:58 > 1:02:03The book was hugely successful and the money was rolling in,
1:02:03 > 1:02:05but, while travelling out in the country,
1:02:05 > 1:02:10he ended up staying in a hotel in the small, remote town of Arzamas.
1:02:11 > 1:02:14It's quite difficult to understand the thing.
1:02:14 > 1:02:19He woke in the night and he had a terrible vision of Death
1:02:19 > 1:02:20bearing down upon him
1:02:20 > 1:02:24and that vision of Death told him that, because death exists,
1:02:24 > 1:02:27life itself was not worth living.
1:02:27 > 1:02:32It's a kind of existential madness that came upon him.
1:02:32 > 1:02:34Absolute abject terror.
1:02:34 > 1:02:37We all know that Tolstoy is a titanic figure, isn't he?
1:02:37 > 1:02:41A big man who could lift heavy weights and wrote great works,
1:02:41 > 1:02:43lived to be 82, fathered 13 children.
1:02:43 > 1:02:46Everything he did was gargantuan.
1:02:46 > 1:02:48And so was this...
1:02:48 > 1:02:51What the rest of us would call a mid-life crisis.
1:02:51 > 1:02:55A sudden loss of confidence in everything in the world.
1:02:58 > 1:03:02I was afraid to get up from the sofa.
1:03:02 > 1:03:05Afraid of driving away sleep.
1:03:05 > 1:03:08And just to be sitting in that room seemed awful.
1:03:08 > 1:03:12I didn't get up, but fell into a sort of doze.
1:03:14 > 1:03:18I thought of going out of the room to get away from what was tormenting me,
1:03:18 > 1:03:23but it followed me and made everything seem dark and dreary.
1:03:24 > 1:03:28My feeling of horror, instead of leaving me, was increasing.
1:03:30 > 1:03:33"What nonsense," I said to myself.
1:03:33 > 1:03:35"Why am I so dejected?
1:03:35 > 1:03:37"What am I afraid of?"
1:03:38 > 1:03:42"You are afraid of me."
1:03:42 > 1:03:44I heard the voice of Death.
1:03:44 > 1:03:47"I am here".
1:03:47 > 1:03:49I shuddered.
1:03:49 > 1:03:52Yes. Death.
1:03:52 > 1:03:55Death will come.
1:03:55 > 1:03:56It will come.
1:03:58 > 1:04:01The nightmare encounter with his own mortality
1:04:01 > 1:04:05and the inevitability of death in the hotel room at Arzamas
1:04:05 > 1:04:08would mark a turning point in Tolstoy's life
1:04:08 > 1:04:11and the beginning of a transformation that would lead him
1:04:11 > 1:04:14to reject and dispense with everything he'd achieved,
1:04:14 > 1:04:18everything he owned and everything he loved.
1:04:27 > 1:04:31In part two, we follow Tolstoy as he transforms himself
1:04:31 > 1:04:34from troubled novelist into Russia's leading troublemaker.
1:04:36 > 1:04:39We travel through the emptiness of a Russian steppe...
1:04:39 > 1:04:42Look, I've really drunk it!
1:04:42 > 1:04:46..through the dark pages of his masterpiece Anna Karenina
1:04:46 > 1:04:49and on into religious and political turmoil
1:04:49 > 1:04:52as he's excommunicated from the church
1:04:52 > 1:04:55and branded an enemy of the state.
1:04:55 > 1:04:57All that and brutal heartbreak.
1:04:57 > 1:05:00I was never even in love.
1:05:00 > 1:05:04I truly believe that death, with our love intact,
1:05:04 > 1:05:06would be preferable to this misery.