How losing at billiards brought Leo Tolstoy back to literature
As a young man, Leo Tolstoy loved gambling. Once, he got so carried away with cards that he lost an entire house at his Yasnaya Polyana estate. The house was dismantled into logs and taken away and the writer had to live in an outbuilding. But, one day, his billiard debt did Tolstoy a good service – it forced him to return to literature.
After the release of ‘Family Happiness’ in 1859, Tolstoy found himself in a creative crisis and did not want to publish anymore. Friends, publishers and critics were in despair. Novelist Ivan Turgenev, poets Nikolai Nekrasov and Afanasy Fet tried to persuade him to return to literature. But, Tolstoy stood his ground, although he continued to work on a new story about the love of a young aristocrat to a beautiful Cossack woman. ‘Cossacks’ was not easy for him. The hero would seduce the Cossack woman, then abandon her and then return to marry her. The story reflects the author's romance with a married peasant girl named Aksinya, with whom he was passionately in love during these years.
In 1862, the writer lost a large sum of money – 1,000 rubles – to a passing officer at billiards. Tolstoy did not have that kind of money. Publisher Mikhail Katkov helped him out of his predicament and gave him money. However, Tolstoy had to repay the debt not with money, but with a literary work. The writer had no choice but to finish writing his ‘Cossacks’ and publish it.
The public was pleased with the return of their favourite author. Critics praised ‘Cossacks’ and admired the descriptions of life in the village and the characters. Fet and Turgenev were delighted. The only one who was dissatisfied was Tolstoy himself. In January 1863, he wrote in his diary: “I corrected ‘Cossacks’ – terribly weakly. True, the public will therefore be pleased.”
