‘Man was created to be a support to another, because he himself needs support’: correspondence between Leo Tolstoy and Nikolay Nekrasov

The article analyzes personal correspondence between Leo Tolstoy and Nikolay Nekrasov in the 1850s-1860s, investigates the influence of the correspondents on each other, which remains underestimated in modern literary criticism: not only the experienced editor Nekrasov had a decisive influence on the novice writer, but also Tolstoy, who knew life firsthand, contributed to the transformation of Nekrasov. During the preparation of the article, not only published letters of the correspondents were used but also handwritten materials stored in the funds of the Leo Tolstoy State Museum. The article indicates the moments of the correspondents’ ideological convergence and distancing, the stages of their interaction in letters, determined by the complexities and specifics of personal communication, the publication of Tolstoy’s works in the Sovremennik journal, and changes in the journal’s trends. The paper notes the qualities and features that each of the correspondents most valued in the other as well as the similarity and parallelism of the creative evolution of the writer and the poet, both of whom came to create great epic art. Particular attention is paid to the role of Tolstoy in maintaining Sovremennik, his assistance in launching a new military documentary direction in the journal. The paper analyzes the correspondents’ disagreement, caused in many respects by Nekrasov’s cooperation with young revolutionary democrats. It is emphasized that Tolstoy’s discoveries and artistic explanations of the spiritual path of the individual, involving the loss of childish purity and faith, the likelihood of a difficult return to them at a new stage of understanding oneself, contributed to the internal evolution of Nekrasov, his understanding of the limitations of materialistic views. In the 1860s, Nekrasov managed to return to the idea of human physical limitations and spiritual strength at a new poetic level.