Leo Tolstoy's Рoem "During Weather During Wonderful...": On the Issue of Dating

The article clarifies the dating of Leo Tolstoy’s poem “During Weather During Wonderful...” (“Pri Pogode pri Prekrasnoy...”), since there is no single point of view on this issue. During of the work, the manuscripts were studied: the author’s drafts, which are in Leo Tolstoy’s notebook, and copies of the scribes. After conducting an analysis of the content and distinctive features of the written text, it was possible to establish the year of composition of the work. To specify the period, we turned to the unpublished epistolary dialogue between S. Tolstaya and T. Kuzminskaya. The article contains fragments of letters from both addressees, publishes one of the letters of the writer’s wife in full, comments on the realities mentioned therein, and establishes its exact dating. The research also relies on the unpublished correspondence between T. Kuzminskaya and A. Kuzminsky, as well as the diaries of L. Tolstoy and T. Sukhotina-Tolstaia, epistolary dialogues of L. Tolstoy with N. Strakhov, I. Turgenev, N. Ge, and S. Tolstaya, which have already been introduced into scientific circulation. All the manuscripts that we consulted in the course of our work are in the Department of Manuscripts of the L. Tolstoy State Museum. Considering the poem “During Weather During Wonderful...” in the context of the epoch made it possible to determine its place among the works for the Yasnaya Polyana “Post Box” and in the oeuvre of Leo Tolstoy as a whole.