Was Tolstoy… MURDERED?
Dear readers! I am happy to relate that my piece called "The Murder of Leo Tolstoy: A Forensic Investigation" is in the February issue of Harper’s magazine, which subscribers can already read online—it has a really amazing piece of original artwork by Steven Dana which I will post here, if it turns out not to violate any copyright. In the meantime, tiny, law-abiding people, like the ones who live in Lech Walesa’s mustache, might enjoy looking at a tiny, legal reproduction. And also at a picture of home and its environs, back in the day.
"The Murder of Leo Tolstoy" is about how I went to an International Tolstoy Conference at Tolstoy’s house in Yasnaya Polyana, and tried to determine whether Tolstoy died of natural causes or was… MURDERED. It has some interesting generic features, e.g. I originally wrote it in the form of a short story. Then my editor was like, "But it all really happened, right?", and I was like, “Well, pretty much,” and, to make a long story short, it was put in the Miscellany section, as a literary memoir, and was even assigned a fact-checker—you know, to fact-check my memoir.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love fact-checkers.
I probably shouldn’t admit this in the public domain, but I’m not super-good with facts. I get excited and then I misread them or something—I don’t know exactly what happens. This time, for example, I almost misstated the amount of money that Chekhov’s grandfather paid to buy his family out of serfdom as 700 rubles—I was so grateful when the fact-checker fixed it to 875 rubles. I would be really upset for Chekhov’s grandfather’s ghost to think I undervalued his family by 20%, like they were remaindered or something.
On the other hand, I did think it was kind of weird that the memoir aspect also had to go through fact-checking. Consider this one passage where I tell my adviser about my proposal to research Tolstoy’s murder, and she expresses skepticism and amusement:
"You are certainly my most entertaining student," said my adviser when I told her about my theory. "Tolstoy—murdered! Ha! Ha! Ha! The man was eighty-two years old, with a history of stroke!"
"That’s exactly what would make it the perfect crime," I explained patiently.
The fact-checker actually called my Stanford adviser and asked her to confirm this!! She gallantly confirmed that I am very entertaining, and even accepted authorship of "that sinisterly wooden ‘Ha! Ha! Ha!’" Thank you, Monika—this was really kind of you.
Probably the biggest disappointment to me during the fact-checking process was the discovery that I fabricated the Lev Tolstoy Accordion Academy—it appears not to exist. Anyone with any information to the contrary should please contact me. There may be a reward.
Tula button accordion (bayan)
Model: "Yasnaya Polyana," BN-24
261,975 rubles (approx. $8,116)
[Half an hour later: Dear friends, there are some truly amazing bayan performances on YouTube... like, beefy sailor accordion rockers, in Yalta... or the 15-year-old 2007 world accordion champion, João Barradas, playing "El Choclo Tango" in Samara... or Mozart's 23rd piano concerto adapted for accordion.]
Tags: academic life, beards, fact-checking, literary criticism, money, music, publications, Russia, Russian literature, Tolstoy
January 16th, 2009 at 1:49 am
The greatest work for bayan of the twentieth century, as far as I’m concerned, will always be Seven Words by Sofia Gubaidulina. (Not the best excerpt. Take my word for it. Or buy it on iTunes or something)
How was the price for liberating a family from serfdom set? Was it legally set? Or subject to, y’know, “market forces”? Could you bargain? Let’s make a deal!
January 17th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Elif,
It’s a wonderful piece! As good a literary memoir I’ve read since U&I.
-Michael
January 18th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
I went to XXXXX and eventually found the program for the conference you attended. I’m a little sorry I did this. A lot of the participants you wrote about can be identified from information you gave about their lecture topics. I hope the elderly gentleman who spoke about “The Living Corpse” is not around any more, for his sake, frankly.
January 18th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Hey Elif,
I feel like I’m always reading your articles on a bus. Yesterday’s ride to Philly was pleasurable, thanks to your article, which I recall hearing you read (at least parts of it) at the German lit loft reading in NYC.
My friend also read your Harper’s essay and will be footnoting it in her Tolstoy dissertation, since she talks about how he died (ironically) at a railway station after having railed at the railroad forever.
Dolphins!
Tara
January 19th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Hey Elif, awesome article, I really enjoyed it!
January 20th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
a man who died (ironically)? After having railed at the railroad forever? If someone was doing something forever, it sure would be ironical to die afterwards… but now I feel bad picking bones. someone who valedicts ‘dolphins’, you can forgive them a fair few slips.
January 21st, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Dear SW Forska,
Thank you for your kind forgiveness.
“Forever” in that sentence is dumbspeak; it means “for a very long time.” Tolstoy did not literally rail at the railroad *forever*, obviously, since he died at the railway station.
The irony lies in the idea that he died at a railway station after having had issues with the railroad system.
Pedantry!
Tara
January 21st, 2009 at 5:35 pm
P.S. And I will forgive your stylistic slip of using the archaism “ironical.”
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:04 am
thanks, the beard! (I was thinking the irony lay in his having died at a railway station after you read about him on a bus!).
About ‘ironical’, we still use this form in Britain (cf. ‘bibliographical’), although maybe the ‘-al’ will be axed in the current austere economic (NB not economical) climate. Often we Brits are more syllabically prodigal: e.g. we say ‘Slavonic’ whereas you say ‘Slavic’. But americans seem to say ‘Slavicist’ whereas ‘Slavist’ rings more harmoniously in my ears.
all best wishes, SWF
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Dear SW,
No one’s ever referred to me as “The Beard” before — that moniker here is simply an allusion to both the “bearded” dolphin in Elif’s last post and to the American colloquialism which an online urban dictionary defines as “any opposite sex escort taken to an event in an effort to give a homosexual person the apperance of being out on a date with a person of the opposite sex.” That’s the beard; my name is Tara and I prefer “Slavist” too.
And lastly, I’ve valedicted (is that a British form?) hamsters, cats and other animals referenced elsewhere on Elif’s blog. Hence, dolphins …
Cheers, Tara
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:20 am
dear tara, thank you for your clarification on animal-valediction and on your moniker (different, I see, from Elif’s Monika). In London I have heard ‘walker’ used for the colloquial meaning of ‘beard’ which you cite. I’m glad we share a preference for ‘Slavist’. ‘Valedict’ was just a guess on my part, though I see it is in the OED (albeit ‘rare’, last used 1721). Yours, SWF.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:53 pm
dear readers,
thank you for all the kind comments, and also for doing such a good job of moderating yourselves! i have been out of town and don’t get back for another week.
in the meantime, valedictions!
e
January 24th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Loved the piece, Elif. You certainly are very entertaining. It occurs to me that this whole story on some level must be a recreation of that detective story you mentioned long ago in which the clues were only there for show and didn’t actually lead anywhere.
Kári
January 25th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Dear Ms. Batuman,
Your Tolstoy article was as fine a piece of writing by a young writer as I’ve come across in quite some time. Your sensibility is the real deal and rare. Blogging, though, you might want to give up, in order to take it to the next level. The impulse to comment on the daily noise of one’s culture was something Tolstoy indulged in early in his career and late.
JB
January 31st, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Hi readers! Thanks for your messages! I’m really happy that some people liked the Tolstoy piece. I’m back home now and have time for some more replies.
Dear Paul: I “edited” your comment a bit because I didn’t see the point of directing the general public to the source you mention (which as far as I know is only available in Russian). The concerns you bring up did occur to me also—that’s why I originally wrote the story as fiction, in order to disguise the characters’ identities. When Harper’s decided to nonfictionalize (and fact-check) the piece, I did consider pulling it from publication. I decided against it in the hope that, if any of the International Tolstoy Scholars did happen to come across it, they would recognize the basic respect, admiration, and solidarity that I feel for them and their pursuits.
As for the “elderly gentleman,” I thought he gave a great talk and, for what it’s worth, he struck me as a genuinely kind and humane person (you don’t meet them every day). That said, I found the misfortune which befell him on the way to Chekhov’s house to be deeply poignant in the context of the mystery of the human body and human mortality (which was the subject of the piece). If he should come across this piece, I would hope that he would recognize that my interest was in these larger human/e questions (which I know interest him as well), and not in any “personal” aspect of the incident—which in fact doesn’t really have any personal aspect, since what can be more universal than human mortality? The same thing is in store for all of us, my friend.
Dear John Berdan, thanks for the kind words. It’s funny, this is not the first time I have received a very polite message urging me to stop blogging, by someone who claims to like all my other writing. I do actually get more numerous messages telling me to blog more frequently. Not that I’m putting it up to a referendum or anything. Well, the blog will stay up as long as I have the energy. Please feel free not to read it.
more soon… e
January 31st, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Wonderful piece! I just finished reading it and Googled your name in the hope of finding just such a forum for expressing my admiration and delight.
February 6th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
I found your piece totally fascinating and engaging. I went through a long affair with Tolstoy and gave a lot of thought to the mystery of his death in the railway station. I found Sonya’s diaries filled with the not so secret desire to do him in. The whole mystery came rushing back this afternoon readng your piece.
You told your tale in such a witty, literate, yet deeply moving way. I’ve become an instant fan. I’m going to send the article to a young friend who did a masters in Glasgow in forensics who will find your sleuthing worthy of a PhD.
February 12th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
I loved this piece! I was shocked to find out it’s your first for Harper’s….where have you been? I lived in Moscow for a couple of months back in 1986 when I worked for Turner’s Goodwill Games. Unless you work in TV or like sports you probably don’t have any idea what it was.
But, this was back when chewing gum and levi’s were adequate trades for almost anything.
Fun blog, great writing. Thank you! I took the liberty of spreading the article around.
February 21st, 2009 at 7:57 am
Dear Elif,
I read your Harper’s piece with immense enjoyment. Forgive me for saying that it reminded me in several ways of W.G. Sebald. It is the best compliment I can come up with. I look forward to reading more from you.
February 21st, 2009 at 8:53 am
Ditto Ori.
It was hilarious, but the ending I found too sudden, so I hope you publish a monograph one day. [I know what you're thinking, but have you read Robert Dessaix's Twilight of Love? It's
f—king rubbish. You are a much better writer.]
I didn’t really think about Single Malt’s feelings until I read Paul’s comment. He is right. But the fact-checker would have established S.M.’s death, or she would have demanded you excise the faecal contretemps. The autistic fixity-of-purpose of the American fact-checker is famous.
Now if only it could be extended from magazine articles to intelligence reports …
March 4th, 2009 at 12:47 am
Hi Elif,
I just read your article and quite enjoyed it. A fascinating little adventure. If I recall correctly, did you open a book at one point to have a snake wriggle out?! Or was that someone else? Did you see any other snakes and if so, do you know what kind they were? Organizations or conferences centered around the legacy of a particular person have always struck me as a bit weird, and it’s nice to know that’s reflected in the characters you encountered. I especially like the image of the guy sitting down in Tolstoy’s stream and emerging completely green. I am glad to know that bicycling is inconsistent with Christian ideals. By any chance, have you ever read The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco? Best murder mystery I’ve read and perhaps certain parallels with your “investigation.”
Also, do you like banana cream pie? A friend just made one for me and I am trying to share it before I eat it all.
March 9th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Hi Elif,
I really enjoyed your article in Harpers; now I’m even more glad I have a subscription to it! And I’m glad to have found this site.
March 14th, 2009 at 7:49 am
Loved your article in Harpers! Googled you & found your blog.
Good luck; I think you’re the real deal.