Sofia Tolstoy was a perfect wife and after 25 years of marriage she heard that “it could have been better”

At the age of 18, Sofia Behrs married the famous writer Leo Tolstoy, a man who was almost twice her age. Sofia devoted most of her life to her husband and did her best to make him worry about nothing but his books. She was the one who took care of everything that happened inside and outside the house.

The couple had 13 children that she raised without the help of a nanny. Sofia helped the peasants and in the afternoon she went through the drafts written by her husband. When Tolstoy began to devote himself to philosophy and decided to share his possessions among the peasants, she was against it and said that this would greatly harm the future of her children. For attitudes like that, she was called petty and people always said that she never understood him. Even after so much dedication, Tolstoy ran away from home after 48 years of marriage in the middle of the night.

O awesome.club tried to understand this complicated love story. Like so many others, she poses a big question for us: Does a relationship have to be a big personal sacrifice for a relationship to work? In order for two people to understand each other, is it fundamental to put the interests of the other above our own?

Sofia was one of 8 daughters of a noble doctor of German descent named Andrey Behrs and Liubov Behrs. The family lived in Moscow and frequently visited the Tula region, also in Russia, which was close to Yasnaya Polyana, the birthplace of Tolstoy. Sophia and Tolstoy met when they were still children.

The young woman was a very well-educated girl and graduated from Moscow University. She always liked literature and kept up the habit of writing a diary. In the future, these texts would be considered a great work of memories. In addition, she used to write short stories.

Before getting married, Count Tolstoy pursued a military career and published some works. It was with the work Childhood1852, that he began to become famous.

Tolstoy never hid his love affairs; in fact, he bragged about them. At the same time, he lived through endless regrets and psychological torments. Among his great passions was a peasant woman named Aksenia with whom he had a son. The relationship lasted about 3 years, but she didn’t seem to match the ideal of a woman he apparently espoused.

Upon returning to Moscow after serving in the Caucasus and traveling through Europe, Tolstoy, then 34, was reunited with Sophia, who had just turned 18. At that moment, he saw her with different eyes. In reality, he looked first at Sofia’s older sister, whom her parents thought he was going to marry. However, Tolstoy asked for Sophia’s hand in marriage, to whom he wrote the following letter:

“Tell me, honestly, would you like to be my wife? Say yes only if your soul wants it; otherwise, if you have any doubts, it’s best to say no. For God’s sake, ask yourself that question. I’m afraid to hear no, but I’ll find the strength to face it. However, it will be horrible not to be loved as a husband in the same way I do!” Sofia didn’t hesitate for a minute.

The wedding took place a week after the engagement. Tolstoy considered that he had finally found his happiness and simply could not wait. However, before the wedding, he asked her, “Do you really want this wedding?”

Before the wedding, in an attempt to be honest with his fiancée, Tolstoy opened his diary to his fiancee so that she could read all about his love life, in particular his relationship with Aksenia. The young woman was very moved by the noble attitude of her betrothed, but she was jealous of Aksenia for the rest of her life, and rightly so. In old age Tolstoy wrote about this passionate love in the novel The devil🇧🇷

Tolstoy was an impulsive and emotional man; moreover, he always struggled with the routine of an ordinary life. Life was not easy for his young wife: she had to abandon life in the capital and get used to life in the Yasnaya Polyana region.

As mentioned above, Sofia had 13 children and had to breastfeed, raise and educate all of them alone because her husband would not allow the help of nannies and domestic servants. She was the one who took care of everything in the house, helped the peasants and besides, she had to clean hundreds of pages written in very ugly handwriting.

There were many feelings that motivated him to write War and peace and Anna Karenina. But over the years, he began to feel unhappy with his own existence, which made her very resentful, as she had given her all for the good functioning of the marriage.

Moral doubt has always tortured the writer. One day, he decided to wear only peasant clothes and homemade boots, showing that he wanted to live a simple life, without any kind of excess.

On the list of what he considered “excesses” was his family’s land. The writer wanted to hand them over to the peasants, but Sofia was against it, arguing that they were the future of her children. Tolstoy took offense and said that his wife should share his views. She simply didn’t have the time or inclination to understand what her husband’s ideas might be because she was too busy with household matters.

“I’m free to eat, sleep, shut up and subject myself, but I’m not free to think my way, to love who I want, to go wherever I want and to feel good mentally…”

They lived together for 48 years and saw the deaths of 7 of their 13 children. That of the youngest son, Ivan, was the most difficult. Sofia started reading her husband’s diaries to find something bad about herself. Leon disapproved of her distrust. When the parents disagreed, the children sided with the writer.

The last argument took place in late October 1910, when Tolstoy, aged 82 and ill, ran away from home in the middle of the night. The news impressed many people. For Sofia, he left a letter in which he asked her not to look for him:

“Don’t think I left because I don’t love you. I love you and I am sorry with all my soul, but I cannot do otherwise.”

Upon reading this, Sofia tried to kill herself but was saved. To prevent the fact from happening again, all dangerous objects were removed from the place where she was.

The last meeting with Leon was on November 7, 1910, shortly before the writer’s death from pneumonia. Sofia and her children managed to reach Astapovo station just as he was about to die.

“Let people treat with indulgence who possibly and immeasurably from youth has taken on the challenge of being the wife of a genius and a great person.”

Only after the morphine injection was Sophie able to approach Tolstoy. Silently, she dropped to her knees in front of him.

After her husband’s death, she started walking around Yasnaya Polyana and decided to publish her husband’s diaries. She lived 9 years after the writer’s death and during the period she was a widow she had to face many accusations that she had not been worthy of the great writer. Sofia dedicated her whole life to him, something that almost no one knew how to value.

Have you read any of Tolstoy’s works? What impacted you most about the relationship between the writer and his wife? Share your opinion in the comments.