The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoytzf

‘I found myself dreaming about Sofia, about speaking to her myself, desperately wanting to reach out to her and offer her words of comfort for her pain. Perhaps, hopefully, this record of her struggles will be a comfort and inspiration to present and future generations.’ From the foreword by Doris Lessing

After marrying Count Leo Tolstoy, the author of Anna Karenina and War and Peace, Sofia Behrs kept a detailed diary until his death in 1910.

Sofia’s life was not an easy one: she idealized her husband, but was tormented by him; even her many children were not an unmitigated blessing. In the background of her life was one of the most turbulent periods of Russian history: the transition from old feudal Russia through the three revolutions and three major international wars. Yet it is as Sofia Tolstoy’s own life story, the study of one woman’s private experience, that the diaries are most valuable and moving. They are a testament to a woman of tremendous vital energy and poetic sensibility who, in the face of provocation and suffering, continued to strive for the higher things in life and to remain indomitable.