Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy is one of the most famous Russian writers. His most famous novels are “Anna Karenina”, “Sunday”, “War and Peace”, as well as the trilogy “Childhood, Adolescence, Youth”. Many of the great writer’s works were filmed, so in our time we have the opportunity not only to read, but also to see the heroes of the novels with our own eyes. One of the books filmed is the trilogy “Childhood, Adolescence, Youth”, full of interesting events. A brief summary of the novel will help you better understand the problems of the work. Perhaps someone will have a desire to read the novel in full.

Novel "Childhood, adolescence, youth"

Lev Nikolaevich wrote his novel for five years. The work “Childhood, Adolescence, Youth” tells about the life of a boy in different periods of his life. The book describes the experiences, first love, grievances, as well as the feeling of injustice that many boys experience as they grow up. In this article we will talk about the trilogy written by Leo Tolstoy. “Childhood, adolescence, youth” is a work that will definitely not leave anyone indifferent.

“Childhood, adolescence, youth.” Summary. Book one. "Childhood"

The novel begins with a description of Nikolenka Irtenyev, who turned 10 years old some time ago. Karl Ivanovich, the teacher, takes him and his brother to their parents. Nikolenka loves her parents very much. The father announces to the boys that he is taking them with him to Moscow. The children are upset by their father’s decision, Nikolenka likes to live in the village, communicate with Katenka, his first love, and go hunting, and he really doesn’t want to part with his mother. Nikolenka has been living with her grandmother for six months now. On her birthday, he reads poetry to her.

Soon the hero realizes that he is in love with Sonechka, whom he recently met, and confesses this to Volodya. Suddenly his father receives a letter from the village saying that Nikolenka’s mother is sick and asks them to come. They come and pray for her health, but to no avail. After some time, Nikolenka was left without a mother. This left a deep imprint on his soul, since this was the end of his childhood.

Book two. "Adolescence"

The second part of the novel “Childhood, Adolescence, Youth” describes the events that occurred after Nikolenka moved to Moscow with her brother and father. He feels changes in himself and in his attitude towards the world around him. Nikolenka is now able to empathize and sympathize. The boy understands how his grandmother suffers after losing her daughter.

Nikolenka goes deeper and deeper into herself, believing that he is ugly and not worthy of happiness. He is jealous of his handsome brother. Nikolenka's grandmother is told that the children were playing with gunpowder, although it was only lead shot. She is sure that Karl has grown old and is not looking after the children well, so she changes their tutor. It is difficult for children to part with their teacher. But Nikolenka doesn’t like the new French teacher. The boy allows himself to be insolent to him. For some unknown reason, Nikolenka tries to open her father’s briefcase with a key and in the process breaks the key. He thinks that everyone is against him, so he hits the tutor and quarrels with his father and brother. They lock him in a closet and promise to flog him with rods. The boy feels very lonely and humiliated. When he is released, he asks his father for forgiveness. Nikolenka begins to convulse, which plunges everyone into shock. After sleeping for twelve hours, the boy feels better and is pleased that everyone is worried about him.

After some time, Nikolenka’s brother, Volodya, enters the university. Soon their grandmother dies, and the whole family grieves the loss. Nikolenka cannot understand people who fight over her grandmother’s inheritance. He also notices how his father has aged and concludes that with age people become calmer and softer.
When there are several months left before entering the university, Nikolenka begins to prepare intensively. He meets Dmitry Nekhlyudov, Volodya’s acquaintance from university, and they become friends.

Book three. "Youth"

The third part of the novel “Childhood, Adolescence, Youth” tells the story of the time when Nikolenka continues to prepare to enter the university at the Faculty of Mathematics. He is looking for his purpose in life. Soon the young man enters the university, and his father gives him a carriage with a coachman. Nikolenka feels like an adult and tries to light a pipe. He starts to feel nauseous. He tells Nekhlyudov about this incident, who in turn tells him about the dangers of smoking. But the young man wants to imitate Volodya and his friend Dubkov, who smoke, play cards and talk about their love affairs. Nikolenka goes to a restaurant where she drinks champagne. He has a conflict with Kolpikov. Nekhlyudov calms him down.

Nikolai decides to go to the village to visit his mother's grave. He remembers his childhood and thinks about the future. His father marries again, but Nikolai and Vladimir do not approve of his choice. Soon the father begins to get along poorly with his wife.

Studying at the University

While studying at the university, Nikolai meets many people whose meaning in life is only to have fun. Nekhlyudov tries to reason with Nikolai, but he succumbs to the opinion of the majority. Ultimately, Nikolai fails his exams, and Dmitry's consolation is regarded as an insult.

One evening Nikolai finds his notebook with rules for himself, in which he wrote a long time ago. He repents and cries, and later begins to write a new notebook for himself with rules by which he plans to live his whole life, without betraying his principles.

Conclusion

Today we talked about the content of the work written by Leo Tolstoy. “Childhood, adolescence, youth” is a novel with deep meaning. After reading it summary, each reader will be able to draw certain conclusions, despite not having read it in full. The novel “Childhood, Adolescence, Youth” teaches us not to isolate ourselves with our experiences, but to be able to sympathize and empathize with other people.

The birth of L. Tolstoy as a writer was the result of exceptionally intense spiritual work. He constantly and persistently engaged in self-education, drew up grandiose, seemingly impossible educational plans for himself and implemented them to a large extent. No less important is his internal, moral work on self-education - it can be traced in the “Diary” of the future writer: L. Tolstoy has been conducting it regularly since 1847, constantly formulating the rules of behavior and work, the principles of relationships with people.

It is worth pointing out the three most important sources of L. Tolstoy’s worldview: educational philosophy, literature of sentimentalism, Christian morality. From a young age he became a champion of the ideal of moral self-improvement. He found this idea in the works of enlighteners: J.J. Rousseau and his student F.R. de Weiss. The latter’s treatise “Foundations of Philosophy, Politics and Morality” - one of the first works read by L. Tolstoy - stated: “The general ... goal of the existence of the universe is constant improvement to achieve the greatest possible good, which is achieved by the private desire to improve each individual particles."

From the educators, young Tolstoy initially developed an exceptional faith in reason, in its ability to help a person in the fight against any prejudices. However, he soon formulates another conclusion: “Inclinations and the measure of reason have no influence on a person’s dignity.” L. Tolstoy sought to understand where human vices come from, and came to the conclusion that “the vices of the soul are corrupted noble aspirations.” Corruption occurs as a result of a person’s attachment to the earthly world. The writer was greatly influenced by Stern’s “Sentimental Journey”, in which the dominant idea is the opposition of two worlds: the existing world, which “perverts the minds” of people, leading them to mutual enmity, and the world of the proper, desired for the soul. In the Gospel, Tolstoy also found the antithesis of “this world” and the “Kingdom of Heaven.”

However, the idea of ​​Christian kenosis (self-deprecation of the individual) was alien to the young Tolstoy. The writer believed in internal forces of a person, capable of resisting selfish passions and the harmful influence of the earthly world: “I am convinced that an infinite, not only moral, but even an infinite physical strength is invested in a person, but at the same time a terrible brake is placed on this strength - self-love, or rather the memory of itself, which produces powerlessness. But as soon as a person breaks out of this brake, he gains omnipotence.”

L. Tolstoy believed that self-love, the carnal principle in a person, is a natural phenomenon: “the desire of the flesh is personal good. Another thing is that the aspirations of the soul are an altruistic substance, “the good of others.” The discord of two principles in man and the contradiction between potential and real person Tolstoy felt it as his own, personal contradiction. The method of close psychological analysis, attention to the mental and spiritual process, when one, subtle phenomena of inner life replace others, was at first a method of self-education, before it became a method of artistic depiction of the human soul - a method of psychological realism.

Tolstoy’s “dialectics of the soul” was brilliantly manifested in his first significant work - the biographical trilogy “Childhood. Adolescence. Youth”, on which he worked for 6 years (1851-1856). A book was conceived “about four eras of development” - the story of youth was not written. The purpose of the trilogy is to show how a person enters the world, how spirituality arises in him, and moral needs arise. A person’s inner growth is determined by his ever-changing attitude towards the world around him and his ever-deeper self-knowledge. The story is written from the perspective of an adult who recalls the crisis moments of his formation, but experiences them with all the spontaneity of a boy, teenager, or youth. The author here was interested in general age laws human life. He protested against the title given to the first part of the trilogy by the editor of the Sovremennik magazine N.A. Nekrasov - “The History of My Childhood”: why this word “mine”, what is important is not the private life of the barchuk Nikolenka Irtenyev, but childhood in general as a stage in human development .

Normal childhood is characterized by its own law of perception of the world. It seems to Nikolenka that joy is the norm of life, and sorrows are deviations from it, temporary misunderstandings. This perception is determined by the child’s ability to love people close to him without thought or reflection. His heart is open to people. The child is characterized by an instinctive craving for the harmony of human relationships: “Happy, happy, irrevocable time of childhood! How not to love, not to cherish memories of her? These memories refresh, elevate my soul and serve as a source of the best pleasures for me.”

The story captures precisely those moments when this harmony is disrupted, not only by dramatic events on the external plane (forced departure from the parental nest, then the death of the mother), but also by the internal, moral and analytical work that has begun. Nikolenka increasingly begins to notice unnaturalness, falsehood in the behavior of her relatives and household members (father, grandmother, governess Mimi, etc.) and even in herself. It is no coincidence that the hero recalls such episodes in his life when he has to justify himself (congratulations to his grandmother, cruel treatment of Ilenka Grap, etc.). The development of the boy’s analytical abilities leads to a differentiated perception of the once united “adults”: he contrasts his father’s constant posturing with the constant sincerity and warmth of the old forge Natalya Savvishna. Particularly important is the episode in which the hero watches how he and his loved ones say goodbye to his mother’s body: he is shocked by the deliberate showiness of his father’s pose, Mimi’s feigned tearfulness, he understands the children’s frank fear more clearly, and he is deeply touched only by Natalya Savvishna’s grief - only her quiet tears and calm pious speeches bring him joy and relief.

It is in these descriptions that the “democratic direction” is concentrated, which Tolstoy re-evaluated in the last decade of his life. In 1904, in “Memoirs” Tolstoy wrote: “In order not to repeat myself in the description of childhood, I re-read my writing under this title and regretted that I wrote it, it was not well written, literary, insincere. It could not have been otherwise: firstly, because my idea was to describe the story not of my own, but of my childhood friends, and therefore there was an awkward confusion of the events of their and my childhood, and secondly, because at the time of writing this I was far from independent in forms of expression, but was influenced by two writers, Stern (Sentimental Journey) and Töpfer (My Uncle’s Library), who had a strong influence on me at that time. I especially didn’t like the last two parts now: adolescence and youth, in which, in addition to the awkward confusion of truth with fiction, there is also insincerity: the desire to present as good and important that which I did not consider then good and important - my democratic direction".

“Adolescence” reflects the law of another age stage - the inevitable discord between a teenager and the world in which he lives, inevitable conflicts him with those near and far. The consciousness of a teenager goes beyond the narrow confines of the family: the chapter “A New Look” shows how for the first time he experiences the thought of social inequality of people - the words of his childhood friend Katenka: “After all, we will not always live together... you are rich - you have Pokrovskoye, and We’re poor—mama has nothing.” The “new look” affected the revaluation of all people: everyone has weaknesses and flaws, but especially in the new self-esteem. With painful joy, Nikolenka realizes her difference from others (her peers, her older brother and his comrades) and her loneliness. And the confession of teacher Karl Ivanovich, who told his autobiography - the story of a renegade man - made Nikolenka feel like a person spiritually related to him. Discord with the world occurs as a result of the loss of childhood innocence. So, for example, the hero, taking advantage of his father’s absence, unlocks his father’s briefcase and breaks the key. Quarrels with relatives are perceived as a loss of trust in the world, as complete disappointment in it; raise doubts about the existence of God. This discord is not a consequence of the teenager’s thoughtlessness. On the contrary, his thought works intensively: “During the course of the year, during which I led a solitary, self-centered, moral life, all abstract questions about the purpose of man, about the future life, about the immortality of the soul already appeared to me... It seems to me that the mind The human in each individual person develops along the same path along which it develops in entire generations.” The hero survived in a short time whole line philosophical directions flashed through his mind. But reasoning did not make him happy. On the contrary, the discord between the tendency to reflect and the lost faith in goodness became a source of new torment. According to Tolstoy, it is important for a person to quickly go through the period of separation from people, to run through the “desert” of adolescence, in order to restore harmony with the world.

“Youth” begins with the return of faith in goodness. Chapter one of the final story, “What I Consider the Beginning of Youth,” opens with these words: “I said that my friendship with Dmitry opened me up to a new perspective on life, its purpose and relationships. The essence of this view was the conviction that the purpose of man is the desire for moral improvement and that this improvement is easy, possible and eternal.” Tolstoy and his hero will more than once be convinced of how difficult and unfree it is, but they will remain faithful to this understanding of the purpose of life to the end.

Already in this story it is determined that improvement depends on a person’s ideals, and his ideals may turn out to be mixed and contradictory. On the one hand, Nikolenka dreams of being kind, generous, loving, although he himself notes that often his thirst for perfection is mixed up with trivial ambition - the desire to show off. the best way. On the other hand, in his dreams the young man cherishes not only the universal ideal of humanity, but also a very primitive secular example of a commt il faut man, for whom the most important thing is excellent French, especially in reprimand; then “the nails are long, peeled and clean”, “the ability to bow, dance and talk” and, finally, “indifference to everything and a constant expression of a certain graceful contemptuous boredom.”

The chapter “Come il faut” was received ambiguously by contemporaries. N. Chernyshevsky saw in the story “the boasting of a peacock whose tail does not cover it...”. However, the text of the chapter shows how arbitrary such a reading appears. Nikolenka, as a socialite, treats her university commoner acquaintances with disdain, but soon becomes convinced of their superiority. Meanwhile, he fails the first university exam, and his failure is evidence not only of poor knowledge of mathematics, but also of the failure of general ethical principles. It is not for nothing that the story ends with a chapter with the significant title “I’m Failing.” The author leaves his hero at the moment of a new moral impulse - to develop new “rules of life.”

Tolstoy's first stories predetermined the peculiarities of the worldview in late creativity. In the chapter “Youth” of the story of the same name, a pantheistic perception of nature is outlined. “... and it all seemed to me that the mysterious majestic nature, attracting the bright circle of the month to itself, stopped for some reason at one high, indefinite place in the pale blue sky and together stood everywhere and seemed to fill the entire immense space, and I, an insignificant worm , already defiled by all the petty, poor human passions, but with all the immense mighty power of imagination and love - it all seemed to me at those moments that it was as if nature, and the moon, and I, we were one and the same.”

Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy is a great Russian writer, prose writer and playwright, critic and publicist. He was born on the Yasnaya Polyana estate near Tula, studied at Kazan University at the Oriental and Law faculties, served in the army as a junior officer, participated in the defense of Sevastopol and was awarded for bravery, then retired and devoted his life to literary creativity.

Like many other writers of that time, L.H. Tolstoy began by working in artistic and documentary genres. But at the same time, his literary debut was the artistic and autobiographical trilogy “Childhood” (1852), “Adolescence” (1854), “Youth” (1857). The desire for memoirs in a young author is a very rare phenomenon. This was reflected in the psychological and creative impact of the works of the authors of the natural school, with whom Tolstoy became acquainted in adolescence and teenage years as with the most authoritative examples modern literature. However, of course, the characteristics of Tolstoy’s personality are also significant here. For example, it is significant that from the age of eighteen he persistently kept a diary - this indicates an exceptional tendency to introspection.

The trilogy "Childhood. Adolescence. Youth" begins, of course, with " childhood". For the narrator Nikolenka Irtenyev, it takes place in a noble estate, and the main collisions he recalls are connected with the personalities of his father, mother, teacher Karl Ivanovich, local holy fool Grisha, housekeeper Natalya Savvishna, etc.; with class activities, with “something like the first love" for the girl Katenka, with his childhood friend Seryozha Ivin, with a detailed description of the hunt in the spirit of "physiology", with an equally detailed description of the evening party in his parents' Moscow house, where the hero dances a quadrille with Sonechka, and after the mazurka he reflects that " for the first time in my life I cheated in love and for the first time I experienced the sweetness of this feeling.”

The trilogy "Childhood. Adolescence. Youth" continues " adolescence" Here the reader encounters a similar rural and urban setting; almost all the same characters are preserved here, but the children are now a little older, their view of the world, their range of interests is changing. The narrator repeatedly notices this in himself, stating, for example, that upon his arrival in Moscow, his view of faces and objects changed. The domineering grandmother forces the father to remove Karl Ivanovich from the children - in her words, “a German man... a stupid man.” He is replaced by a French tutor, and the hero forever loses another loved one. Before leaving, Karl Ivanovich tells Nikolenka most interesting story of his life, which in the composition of “Adolescence” resembles an inserted short story.

Among brother Volodya's older friends, a curious figure appears - "student Prince Nekhlyudov." A person with this surname will repeatedly appear in the works of L.H. Tolstoy in the future - “The Morning of the Landowner” (1856), “Lucerne” (1857), the novel “Resurrection”. In “The Morning of the Landowner” and “Lucerne” he is given some lyrical features, clearly indicating a certain autobiography of him.

It is easy to notice that the image of Nekhlyudov already in “Adolescence” from the trilogy “Childhood. Adolescence. Youth” was given the features of the author’s alter ego. The difficulty is that this role is played by Nikolenka even before his appearance on the pages of the trilogy, and therefore Nekhlyudov after his appearance looks like a kind of spiritual “double” of the narrator and his spiritual “soul mate.” It is interesting that Nekhlyudov is made by Tolstoy older in age than Nikolenka, who matures intellectually under his influence.

Friendship with Nekhlyudov moves to the center of the narrative in the third part of the trilogy “Childhood. Adolescence. Youth” - “ Youth" The hero enters the university, goes to confession at the monastery, falls in love with Nekhlyudov’s sister Varenka, makes social visits on his own and meets Sonechka again (during his visits, a number of people described in “Childhood” pass before him again - thereby Tolstoy the author as would easily close the compositional “ring” of the trilogy). Father Irtenyev remarries, Nikolenka falls in love again, takes part in student revelry and makes new friends among the common student students. After the first year, the hero fails the exam, he is expelled from the university, he looks at home for “pistols with which he could shoot himself,” but his family advises him to move to another department. In the finale, Nikolsnka “found a moment of remorse and moral impulse.”

Tolstoy's trilogy "Childhood. Adolescence. Youth" was a story about the spiritual maturation of a young contemporary. It is not surprising that it was understood and accepted by contemporary readers, who perceived all its collisions especially keenly and specifically. The author brilliantly depicted the real life of the nobility, but at the same time artistically revealed the inner world of a growing man - a boy, a teenager and then a young man. The documentary basis of Tolstoy's narrative gave it a special flavor that cannot be achieved in a romance with fictional characters and situations. On the other hand, the young writer showed great skill in artistic generalization, turning the figures of real people into literary characters.

Trilogy L.N. Tolstoy is an amazing work. Here, a wise adult wrote about his childhood, so often the main character’s thoughts are uncharacteristic for a child. Here we hear the voice of the author himself.
I thought through this trilogy very carefully. It was important for him to express his thoughts about Russian life, Russian society, and literature. Therefore, in these works everything is very important, nothing is unnecessary - Tolstoy thought through every detail, every scene, every word. Its task is to show the development of a person’s personality, the formation of his character and beliefs. We see the main character, Nikolenka Irtenyev, at different periods of his life. This is childhood, adolescence and youth. Tolstoy chose these periods because they are the most important in a person’s life. In childhood, the child is aware of his connection with the family and the world, he is very sincere and naive; in adolescence, the world expands, new acquaintances occur, a person learns to interact with other people; in youth there is an awareness of oneself as a unique personality, separation from the surrounding world. Nikolenka also goes through all these stages.
The writer built the scene so that it coincides with his main idea. The action of the first book takes place in the Irtenevs’ estate, the boy’s home; in the second book the hero visits many other places; Finally, in the third book, the hero’s relationship with the outside world comes to the fore. And the theme of family is very important here.
The theme of family is the leading theme of the trilogy. It is the connection with family, with home that greatly influences the main character. Tolstoy deliberately shows in each part some sad event in the Irtenyev family: in the first part, Nikolenka’s mother dies, and this destroys the harmony; in the second part, the grandmother dies, who was Nikolenka’s support; in the third part the stepmother appears, the father's new wife. So gradually, but inevitably, Nikolenka enters the world of adult relationships. It seems to me that he is becoming bitter.
The story in the trilogy is told in the first person. But this is not written by Nikolenka himself, but by the already adult Nikolai Irtenev, who recalls his childhood. In Tolstoy's time, all memoirs were written in the first person. In addition, the first-person narrative brings the author and the hero closer together, so the trilogy can be called autobiographical. In many ways, in this book Tolstoy writes about himself, about the maturation of his soul. After the release of the entire trilogy, the writer admitted that he had moved away from his initial plan.
In the trilogy, six years from Irtenyev’s life pass before us, but they are not described day by day. Tolstoy shows the most important points the boy's fate. Each chapter carries an idea. They follow each other in such a way as to convey the development of the hero, his emotions and feelings. Tolstoy selects circumstances so that they show the character of the hero clearly and strongly. So, Nikolenka finds herself facing death, and here conventions don’t matter.
Tolstoy characterizes his heroes through descriptions of appearance, manners, behavior, because this is how the inner world of the heroes is manifested. Even foreign language serves to characterize the hero: aristocrats speak French, teacher Karl Ivanovich speaks broken Russian and German, ordinary people speak Russian.
All this allowed L.H. Tolstoy to carry out an analysis of the psychology of children and adolescents. The trilogy constantly compares the inner world of man and the external environment. Tolstoy brilliantly reveals to us the soul of his hero. Many of Nikolenka’s thoughts are similar to the thoughts of today’s guys. I believe that this trilogy can help them understand themselves.

Like all the works of L. N. Tolstoy, the trilogy “Childhood. Adolescence. Youth" was, in fact, the embodiment large quantity plans and undertakings. While working on the work, the writer carefully honed every phrase, every plot combination, tried to subordinate everything artistic media strict adherence to the general idea. In the text of Tolstoy’s works, everything is important, there are no trifles. Every word is used for a reason, every episode is thought out.

The main goal of L. N. Tolstoy is to show the development of a person as an individual during his childhood, adolescence and youth, that is, during those periods of life when a person most fully feels himself in the world, his indissolubility with it, and then when the separation of himself begins from the world and understanding of its environment. Individual stories form a trilogy, the action in them takes place according to the idea, first in the Irtenevs’ estate (“Childhood”), then the world expands significantly (“Adolescence”). In the story “Youth,” the theme of family and home sounds much more muted, giving way to the theme of Nikolenka’s relationship with the outside world. It is no coincidence that with the death of the mother in the first part the harmony of relationships in the family is destroyed, in the second the grandmother dies, taking with her enormous moral strength, and in the third the father remarries a woman whose smile is always the same. The return of former family happiness becomes completely impossible. There is a logical connection between the stories, justified primarily by the writer’s logic: the formation of a person, although divided into certain stages, is actually continuous.

The first-person narration in the trilogy establishes the connection of the work with the literary traditions of the time. In addition, it psychologically brings the reader closer to the hero. And finally, such a presentation of events indicates a certain degree of autobiographical nature of the work. However, it cannot be said that autobiography was the most convenient way to realize a certain idea in a work, since it was precisely this, judging by the statements of the writer himself, that did not allow the original idea to be realized. L.N. Tolstoy conceived the work as a tetralogy, that is, he wanted to show four stages of development human personality, But philosophical views The writer himself at that time did not fit into the framework of the plot. Why an autobiography? The fact is that, as N.G. Chernyshevsky said, L.N. Tolstoy “extremely carefully studied the types of life of the human spirit in himself,” which gave him the opportunity to “paint pictures of the internal movements of a person.” However, what is important is that there are actually two main characters in the trilogy: Nikolenka Irtenyev and an adult who remembers his childhood, adolescence, and youth. Comparison of the views of a child and an adult individual has always been the object of interest of L. N. Tolstoy. And distance in time is simply necessary: ​​L. N. Tolstoy wrote his works about everything that this moment he was worried, which means that in the trilogy there should have been a place for the analysis of Russian life in general. And I must say - it was found.

Here, the analysis of Russian life is a kind of projection of his own life. To see this, it is necessary to turn to those moments of his life, in which a connection can be traced with the trilogy and other works of Lev Nikolaevich.

Tolstoy was the fourth child in a large noble family. His mother, nee Princess Volkonskaya, died when Tolstoy was not yet two years old, but according to the stories of family members, he had a good idea of ​​“her spiritual appearance”: some of his mother’s traits (brilliant education, sensitivity to art, a penchant for reflection and even portrait resemblance Tolstoy gave Princess Marya Nikolaevna Bolkonskaya ("War and Peace"). Patriotic War, remembered by the writer for his good-natured, mocking character, love of reading, and hunting (served as the prototype for Nikolai Rostov), ​​also died early (1837). The children were raised by a distant relative, T. A. Ergolskaya, who had a huge influence on Tolstoy: “she taught me the spiritual pleasure of love.” Childhood memories always remained the most joyful for Tolstoy: family legends, first impressions of the life of a noble estate served as rich material for his works, and were reflected in the autobiographical story “Childhood.”

When Tolstoy was 13 years old, the family moved to Kazan, to the house of a relative and guardian of the children, P. I. Yushkova. In 1844, Tolstoy entered Kazan University at the Department of Oriental Languages ​​of the Faculty of Philosophy, then transferred to the Faculty of Law, where he studied for less than two years: his studies did not arouse any keen interest in him and he passionately indulged in secular entertainment. In the spring of 1847, having submitted a request for dismissal from the university “due to poor health and home circumstances,” Tolstoy left for Yasnaya Polyana with the firm intention of studying the entire course of legal sciences (in order to pass the exam as an external student), “practical medicine,” languages, agriculture, history, geographical statistics, write a dissertation and “achieve the highest degree of excellence in music and painting.”

After a summer in the countryside, disappointed by the unsuccessful experience of managing under new conditions favorable to the serfs (this attempt is depicted in the story “The Morning of the Landowner,” 1857), in the fall of 1847 Tolstoy went first to Moscow, then to St. Petersburg to take candidate exams at the university. His lifestyle during this period often changed: he spent days preparing and passing exams, he devoted himself passionately to music, he intended to start an official career, he dreamed of joining a horse guards regiment as a cadet. Religious sentiments, reaching the point of asceticism, alternated with carousing, cards, and trips to the gypsies. In the family he was considered “the most trifling fellow,” and he was able to repay the debts he incurred then only many years later. However, it was precisely these years that were colored by intense introspection and struggle with oneself, which is reflected in the diary that Tolstoy kept throughout his life. At the same time, he had a serious desire to write and the first unfinished artistic sketches appeared.

In 1851, his elder brother Nikolai, an officer in the active army, persuaded Tolstoy to go together to the Caucasus. For almost three years, Tolstoy lived in a Cossack village on the banks of the Terek, traveling to Kizlyar, Tiflis, Vladikavkaz and participating in military operations (at first voluntarily, then he was recruited). The Caucasian nature and the patriarchal simplicity of Cossack life, which struck Tolstoy in contrast with the life of the noble circle and with the painful reflection of a person in an educated society, provided material for the autobiographical story “Cossacks” (1852-63). Caucasian impressions were also reflected in the stories “Raid” (1853), “Cutting Wood” (1855), as well as in the later story “Hadji Murat” (1896-1904, published in 1912). Returning to Russia, Tolstoy wrote in his diary that he fell in love with this “wild land, in which the two most opposite things - war and freedom - are so strangely and poetically combined.” In the Caucasus, Tolstoy wrote the story "Childhood" and sent it to the magazine "Sovremennik" without revealing his name (published in 1852 under the initials L.N.; together with the later stories "Adolescence", 1852-54, and "Youth", 1855 -57, compiled an autobiographical trilogy). Tolstoy's literary debut immediately brought real recognition.

In 1854, Tolstoy was assigned to the Danube Army in Bucharest. Boring life at the headquarters soon forced him to transfer to the Crimean Army, to besieged Sevastopol, where he commanded a battery on the 4th bastion, showing rare personal courage (awarded the Order of St. Anne and medals). In Crimea, Tolstoy was captivated by new impressions and literary plans (he was planning, among other things, to publish a magazine for soldiers); here he began writing a series of “Sevastopol stories”, which were soon published and had enormous success (even Alexander II read the essay “Sevastopol in December” ). Tolstoy's first works amazed literary critics the courage of psychological analysis and a detailed picture of the “dialectics of the soul” (N. G. Chernyshevsky). Some of the ideas that appeared during these years make it possible to discern in the young artillery officer the late Tolstoy the preacher: he dreamed of “founding new religion" - "the religion of Christ, but purified from faith and mystery, a practical religion."

In November 1855, Tolstoy arrived in St. Petersburg and immediately entered the Sovremennik circle (N. A. Nekrasov, I. S. Turgenev, A. N. Ostrovsky, I. A. Goncharov, etc.), where he was greeted as a “great hope of Russian literature" (Nekrasov). Tolstoy took part in dinners and readings, in the establishment of the Literary Fund, became involved in the disputes and conflicts of writers, but felt like a stranger in this environment, which he described in detail later in “Confession” (1879-82): “These people disgusted me, and I was disgusted with myself." In the fall of 1856, Tolstoy, having retired, went to Yasnaya Polyana, and at the beginning of 1857 he went abroad. He visited France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany (Swiss impressions are reflected in the story “Lucerne”), returned to Moscow in the fall, then to Yasnaya Polyana.

In 1859, Tolstoy opened a school for peasant children in the village, helped to establish more than 20 schools in the vicinity of Yasnaya Polyana, and this activity fascinated Tolstoy so much that in 1860 he went abroad for the second time to get acquainted with the schools of Europe. Tolstoy traveled a lot, spent a month and a half in London (where he often saw A.I. Herzen), was in Germany, France, Switzerland, Belgium, studied popular pedagogical systems, which generally did not satisfy the writer. Tolstoy outlined his own ideas in special articles, arguing that the basis of education should be “the freedom of the student” and the rejection of violence in teaching. In 1862 he published the pedagogical magazine "Yasnaya Polyana" with reading books as an appendix, which in Russia became the same classic examples of children's and folk literature, as well as those compiled by him in the early 1870s. "ABC" and "New ABC". In 1862, in the absence of Tolstoy, Yasnaya Polyana a search was carried out (they were looking for a secret printing house).

However, about the trilogy.

According to the author’s plan, “Childhood”, “Adolescence” and “Youth”, as well as the story “Youth”, which, however, was not written, were supposed to make up the novel “Four Epochs of Development”. Showing step by step the formation of Nikolai Irtenyev's character, the writer carefully examines how his hero's environment influenced him - first a narrow family circle, and then an increasingly wider circle of his new acquaintances, peers, friends, rivals. In his first completed work, dedicated to the early and, as Tolstoy argued, the best, most poetic time of human life - childhood, he writes with deep sadness that rigid barriers have been erected between people, separating them into many groups, categories, circles and circles. The reader has no doubt that it will not be easy for Tolstoy’s young hero to find a place and a job in a world living according to the laws of alienation. The further course of the story confirms this assumption. Adolescence turned out to be a particularly difficult time for Irtenyev. Drawing this “era” in the hero’s life, the writer decided to “show the bad influence” on Irtenyev of “the vanity of the teachers and the clash of family interests.” In the scenes of Irtenyev’s university life from the story “Youth”, his new acquaintances and friends - student commoners - are depicted with sympathy, their mental and moral superiority over the aristocratic hero, who professed the code of a secular man, is emphasized.

The sincere desire of the young Nekhlyudov, who is the main character in the story “The Morning of the Landowner,” to benefit his serfs looks like the naive dream of a dropout student who, for the first time in his life, saw how hard his “baptized property” lives.

At the very beginning of Tolstoy’s writing career, the theme of the disunity of people powerfully invades his work. The trilogy “Childhood”, “Adolescence”, “Youth” clearly reveals the ethical inconsistency of the ideals of a secular person, an aristocrat “by inheritance”. The writer’s Caucasian military stories (“Raid”, “Cutting Wood”, “Demoted”) and stories about the defense of Sevastopol amazed readers not only with the harsh truth about the war, but also with the bold denunciation of the aristocratic officers who appeared in active army for ranks, rubles and awards. In “The Morning of the Landowner” and “Polykushka” the tragedy of the Russian pre-reform village is shown with such force that the immorality of serfdom became even more obvious to honest people.

In the trilogy, each chapter contains a certain thought, an episode from a person’s life. Therefore, the construction within the chapters is subordinated to internal development, the conveyance of the hero’s state. Tolstoy's long phrases, layer by layer, level by level, build a tower of human sensations and experiences. L. N. Tolstoy shows his heroes in those conditions and in those circumstances where their personality can manifest itself most clearly. The hero of the trilogy finds himself facing death, and here all conventions no longer matter. Shows the hero's relationship with ordinary people, that is, a person is, as it were, tested by the “nationality”. Small but incredibly bright inclusions in the fabric of the narrative are woven into moments in which we're talking about about what goes beyond the child’s understanding, what can be known to the hero only from the stories of other people, for example, war. Contact with something unknown, as a rule, turns into almost a tragedy for a child, and memories of such moments come to mind primarily in moments of despair. For example, after a quarrel with St.-Jerme, Nikolenka begins to sincerely consider herself illegitimate, recalling snatches of other people’s conversations.

Of course, L. N. Tolstoy masterfully uses such traditional Russian literature methods of presenting a person’s characteristics as describing a portrait of a hero, depicting his gesture, manner of behavior, since all these are external manifestations inner world. Extremely important speech characteristic heroes of the trilogy. The refined French language is good for people comme il faut, a mixture of German and broken Russian characterizes Karl Ivanovich. It is also not surprising that the German’s heartfelt story is written in Russian with occasional inclusions of German phrases.

So, we see that L. N. Tolstoy’s trilogy “Childhood. Adolescence. Youth" is built on a constant comparison of the inner and outer world of a person. The autobiographical nature of the trilogy is obvious.

The main goal of the writer, of course, was to analyze what constitutes the essence of each person. And in the skill of carrying out such analysis, in my opinion, L.N. Tolstoy has no equal.