Why was Tolstoy's School Closed?

Leo Tolstoy is considered one of the greatest writers to ever live. In 1859 he started a free school that operated for just three years. It was unique and has inspired people to this day, over 150 years later. Why did he shut it down? By reading three of his letters, I have the answer.

By 1859 Tolstoy was already a famous writer in Russia. He was a wealthy noble with peasants living on his lands. He was a decorated Russian artillery officer in the Crimean War. He started a free school for peasant children at his home, both called Yasnaya Polyana. He trained the students to be teachers because the teachers he brought to the school didn't work out well. It was just a small school with a dozen students. The students weren't required to do things, they were allowed to do things. He also had a sister and her kids and an aunt living with him. This is in Czarist Russia long before the Communist Revolution in 1917. As part of the school he also published a journal or magazine that included stories written by the children, and articles from Tolstoy on the school. Other people were inspired and started to copy his private and non-governmental school, and he would advise them.

By 1862 the school had been operating for three years. While Tolstoy was away, it sounds like potentially for health reasons, the government raided his school and home. The secret police arrested all of the students and searched his house for two days, reading his diary and all of his letters, the police took food for themselves and their horses, then went to the neighboring village and read the letters of Tolstoy's dead brother.

I have selected quotes from three letters, two to his aunt and one to the Emperor. Technically, this aunt is a cousin once removed who helped raise him. Remember that Tolstoy was a Count and his aunt was a Countess. In Tolstoy's first letter to his aunt he had only heard about the raid through a letter. He wrote the second letter while at his home and school. (These letters were translated from Russian to English by R. F. Christian.)

22-23 July 1862, to Countess A. A. Tolstaya in St. Petersburg, while Tolstoy was in Moscow

"If you remember me and my political views, you'll know that I've always - particularly since my love for the school - been completely indifferent to the government and even more indifferent to the present-day liberals, whom I heartily despise. I can't say that now."

7 August 1862, to Countess A. A. Tolstaya in St. Petersburg, while Tolstoy was at his home and school in Yasnaya Polyana

"I cannot and will not let this matter pass. All my activities in which I found happiness and solace have been ruined. Auntie is so ill that she can't get up. The peasants no longer look on me as an honest man - an opinion I've earned over the years - but as a criminal, an incendiary or a forger, who's only got away with it by trickery. 'Well, my friend! You've come a cropper! Don't you go talking to us about honesty and justice; you've hardly escaped the handcuffs yourself.'"

"Now they've left, and we're allowed to move from house to house; however, they've taken away the students' permits and won't give them back; but our lives, especially mine and Auntie's, have been completely ruined. There'll be no school, the people are laughing up their sleeves, the gentry are gloating, while we think willy-nilly, at the sound of every bell, that they've come to take us away. I have loaded pistols in my room, and I'm waiting for the minute when all this will be decided one way or another."

In this letter he also asks his aunt how he could get a letter to the Emperor himself, and mentions that with the tyrannical government in Russia maybe it would be best if he just sold everything and left.

22 August 1862, to Emperor Alexander II, while Tolstoy is in Moscow

"In addition to the insult and the suspicion of having committed a crime, in addition to the disgrace in the eyes of society and the feeling of perpetual menace under which I am obliged to live and to work, this visit has altogether ruined the people's opinion of me, which I value, which I have earned over the years, and which is essential to me in my chosen occupation - the founding of schools for the people."

There is so much to see here. We have our answer, the government ended up destroying his school. In addition to raiding it, they threatened to keep coming back. Just by the government accusing him of, apparently nothing, they were able to ruin his reputation in the area. We see this is an effective tactic. The stress destroyed the health of his elderly aunt too.

We can also see that Tolstoy had originally thought he could continue to grow and open schools to help the people of Russia. And that's the problem. The government can't abide schools not controlled by the government, because there's too great of a risk that independent thinking people won't do what the government tells them to do, or believe what the government tells them to believe.

Tolstoy was a famous writer, a noble, wealthy, a war veteran for the Emperor, who started a small free school. He was targeted and attacked because it wasn't under government influence, and it looked like it could successfully spread.

If you don't realize that every government in the world has plans and procedures for controlling schools in various ways because the minds of children are a strategic economic, political, and military resource, then you are blind and an example of the effectiveness of government propaganda, and probably government schooling.

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