Leo Tolstoy and English Female Writers

Abstract

Victorian female authors were well known in the nineteenth century Russia. The works of Charlotte Bronte and George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) especially were the objects of discussion in Russian literary criticism; their translated texts were published in magazines or as separate editions. Russian writers often mentioned the names of the British female authors and referred to them in letters, diaries, and memoirs as well as in literary works. Still, there are plenty of lesser known and hitherto overlooked female authors whose fiction was highly popular in Russia of those days. For example, Leo Tosltoy had high estimation of George Eliot and did not reference Charlotte Bronte; the latter omission is explained from the gendered point of view in the paper. Nevertheless, according to Tolstoy’s diaries, he was an avid reader and a fan of Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835–1915) who was the one of the creators “sensation novel” genre. While working on War and Peace, Tolstoy read her novel Aurora Floyd (1863). The comparison of these two novels lets us speak about the impact of Braddon’s characters on the characters and their function in War and Peace.

Keywords

• Leo Tosltoy
• Mary Elizabeth Braddon
• Aurora Floyd
• War and Peace
• the system of characters in the novel
• gender stereotypes