2019 marked the 175th anniversary of the birth and the 100th anniversary of the death of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy's wife. The creation of a multimedia special project "The serious female world of Sofia Tolstoy", which tells about various aspects of the Countess' life. The main objective of the special project is to tell about Sofya Andreevna as a bright personality and a multifaceted personality, and not only as the wife of a great writer and the mother of a large family.
In September of this year, the Yasnaya Polyana Museum Estate presented the first part of the special project. It described the social life of Sofia Tolstoy: organizing charity campaigns, helping sick peasants, museum and sightseeing work, and presenting the family in high society. The new parts will focus on her creative self-realization and the work of rewriting and publishing her husband's works.
In Sofya Andreevna's notebook, there are words that can be called her rule of life: "In order not to break down under the weight of the burden of everyday life, you need to be passionate about something." For the Countess, creativity often became a way to distract from negative emotions. She created literary works during the period of complications in her relationship with her husband; she studied photography and music intensively after the death of her youngest son.
Sofia Tolstaya tried to create ideal conditions for her husband's fruitful creative work: she dealt with many household and household issues, and also performed the functions of a whole modern publishing house alone. In her memoirs, Countess Tolstoy recalled what the writer Vladimir Alexandrovich Sollogub said about her: "be a true babysitter of your husband's talent, and continue to live in this direction for the rest of your life. "
The project is illustrated with photographs from the collections of the Yasnaya Polyana Estate Museum and the L. N. Tolstoy State Museum.
