In a visiting lecture, Dr. David Herman shared his findings on the prevalence of orphans in Tolstoy’s novels and their significance in highlighting the issues dear to Tolstoyan literature.
PROVO, Utah (March 13, 2019)—Leo Tolstoy: Arguably one of the greatest Russian writers of all time—the man who explored family and faith, love and lust, death and despair. Is it possible that all these intellectual and intricate themes stem from one simple yet significant source—orphans?
Dr. David Herman, a Tolstoy scholar from the University of Virginia, would argue exactly that point. In a lecture on BYU campus, Herman contended that orphanhood plays a major role in all of Tolstoy’s novels, but “you just have to learn to see it.” Nearly all of Tolstoy’s main characters are orphans, which Herman defined as someone who has lost one of their parents, most significantly their mother.
All are orphans, that is, except for the love interests of the orphans. For example, in War and Peace, Prince Andrei & Natasha and Maria & Nikolai constitute orphan-nonorphan couples. In Anna Karenina, Levin & Kitty and Anna & Vronsky are also orphans paired with nonorphans. Herman pointed out, however, that the one exception to this pattern is the relationship between Anna and her husband Karenin—the one relationship made of two orphans, and the one couple that lacks enough warmth to sustain itself. Herman explained that these literary orphans seek nonorphans because they “exude family from every pore;” they embody the warmth, love, and connectedness that the orphan has always desired but never quite experienced up until that point.
The idea of highlighting orphaned characters also adds its own benefits to these inter-character relationships and to the plot lines of Tolstoy’s novels as a whole. Herman affirmed that the orphan more acutely feels sorrow for humanity and retains a sensitivity to injustice and death. “Many of the quirks associated with Tolstoy’s novels are actually orphans’ quirks, associated with losing their mothers,” Herman explained, “such as the lifelong quest for deeper meaning, a rejection of social conventions, the project of self-perfection, being incapacitated at the mere thought of death, and turning up one’s nose at routine marriage,” Herman explained.
Why are these quirks classified as orphans’ traits?
First, it is necessary to grasp the basics of Tolstoyan philosophy. According to Herman, Tolstoy maintained that the human self is inherently good and pure and is only corrupted by the evil influences of the world. In this sense, the child is the most virtuous creature, retaining a sense of love for all beings. The child eventually discovers, however, that the world doesn’t love them back. Herman expounded that at this point the child faces a choice: “remain all love and be constantly ridiculed or give in to the world’s rules and grow a protective shell and become part of the problem, rather than the solution, since the protective shell is by definition nonlove towards others.”
Almost everyone in Tolstoy’s literature eventually puts up defenses and chooses nonlove, except for the orphans, who remain raw and vulnerable for life. Herman revealed, “[their] wounded hearts refuse to take injustice and cruelty in stride simply because others do it; they’re marked by an enduring sorrow of the world’s fallenness.”
This rejection of the common flow of life gives the orphan a kind of restlessness and the desire to embark on a quest for deeper meaning. For example, Anna Karenina’s Levin abhors social conventions and struggles to appreciate the daily grind of married life. His wife, Kitty, on the other hand, rejoices in the daily tasks accompanying family life and finds no fault in social conventions. In War and Peace, Pierre marries his ideal bride, yet is struck by a thirst for meaning and distracts himself with Decembrist projects. Herman explained that “a nonorphan like Nikolai Rostov…finds Pierre’s challenge to the status quo insanity, but an orphan also in the room, like Balkonsky, finds it rapturously inspiring.”
Tolstoy’s orphans, then, aren’t satisfied with the world the way it is; their restlessness stems from a need to fix the world and save those in it. While the orphans are uniquely sensitive, observant, and committed enough to reinvent the world, they lack the one skill that seems to truly matter: love. The answer to saving the universe, Herman proposed, “is some version of love…yet sharing love with others is the one skill that eludes the orphan and comes naturally only to the nonorphan.” Orphans can analyze, understand, and treasure love, yet they struggle to display and give that love. “We can either understand virtue with our minds,” Herman posited, “or else be simpler and simply be good at doing it.”
Herman maintained that this is the dynamic in all Tolstoy’s literature: a disparity between understanding and acting. It is this disparity that often leaves Tolstoy’s novels with a seemingly incomplete ending—the orphan is still hoping to save the world, yet the task constantly eludes him.
-Cristiana Farnsworth (European Studies and Russian, 2021)