Неизвестная Александра Толстая

Any meaning of the word “unknown” applies to the word in the title of this book. There is no need to look for any hidden meanings here. It’s just that today’s Russia knows nothing about the life and fate of this extraordinary Russian woman. Yes, she was the daughter of Leo Tolstoy, and he trusted her alone with the secret of his departure from Yasnaya Polyana. In the tragic autumn days of 1910, she was next to her father at the Astapovo railway station, where he died on November 7. Together with their elder sister Tatyana, already having difficulty understanding their father’s speech, they heard and wrote down his words the day before his death: “I advise you to remember only one thing: there is an abyss of people in the world, except for Leo Tolstoy, and you are looking at only Leo.”1 It was necessary to go through such an amazing life path as Alexandra Lvovna Tolstaya went through in order to fully understand the meaning of these words.