1. Sophia Tolstaya had been acquainted with her future husband, Leo Tolstoy, from childhood; he was 16 years her senior and had befriended her mother when he was a boy.
18 Facts About Sophia Tolstaya
1. 2.
On 17 September 1862, when Sophia Tolstaya was 18 years old, the couple became formally engaged after Tolstoy gave Sophia Tolstaya a written proposal of marriage, marrying a week later in Moscow.
3.
Sophia Tolstaya was pregnant 16 times; three of her pregnancies ended in miscarriages.
4.
Sophia Tolstaya acted as copyist of War and Peace, copying and editing the manuscript seven times from beginning to end at home at night by candlelight after the children and servants had gone to bed, using an inkwell pen and sometimes requiring a magnifying glass to read her husband's notes.
5.
In 1887, Sophia Tolstaya regained interest in the relatively new art of photography, which she had learned at age 16.
6.
Sophia Tolstaya took over 1,000 photographs that documented her life and the decline of the Russian Empire.
7.
Sophia Tolstaya was a diarist and recorded her life with Leo Tolstoy in a series of diaries which were published in English translation in the 1980s.
8.
Sophia Tolstaya wrote her memoirs as well, which she titled My Life.
9.
Sophia Tolstaya struggled with her husband's increasing devotion to spiritual matters and his neglect of their family life.
10.
In 1910, at the age of 82, Leo Tolstoy abruptly left Sophia Tolstaya, accompanied by their daughter Alexandra and his doctor, Dushan Makovicki.
11.
Leo left out of anger after he overheard Sophia Tolstaya searching his study for his will, which she was concerned he wanted to change.
12.
Sophia Tolstaya died 10 days later in the hamlet of Astapavo.
13.
Sophia Tolstaya wrote two novellas as a response to The Kreutzer Sonata, which both remained unpublished until 2000.
14.
Sophia Tolstaya obtained an audience with Tsar Alexander III in 1891, who accepted that the novel be included in a broader publication of Leo Tolstoy's books.
15.
Sophia Tolstaya was portrayed by Helen Mirren in the 2009 The Last Station, based on the 1990 biographical novel of the same name by Jay Parini, and Leo Tolstoy was portrayed by Christopher Plummer.
16.
Sophia Tolstaya's life was serialised in August 2010 by BBC's Radio 4 with the title A Simple Life.
17.
In 2022, Sophia Tolstaya was the main character of the film A Couple by Frederick Wiseman.
18.
Many of Sophia Tolstaya's works were published postmortem, long after being written.