Many great authors are deeply flawed people. Tolstoy was not a good person, and Steinbeck was a complete a-hole. The list is long. But the classics they create are no less classic.
Because he did not cheat on his wife, like it was common, but told her from the beginning, that he is not monogamous and she should make up her mind, whether she can accept that?
That is not a flaw in my book.
And that he left household chores to her?
Well, depends how things were agreed between them, but since his dayjob was writing .. I think that article overall presents a very weak case.
"all this was also on Sophia’s shoulders, including the village’s clinic, which she paid to organize. Last but not the least, Sophia was her husband’s scribe, secretary and literary agent. She even consulted Anna Dostoevsky, another great writer’s wife who was responsible for her husband’s literary business. Sophia understood the perplexing handwriting of her husband and rewrote and edited many of his works. She copied the entire text of War and Peace seven times."
Household chores is massively underselling it. Like common, give her credit for everything she had done, which was quite a lot more then just household chores.
> Because he did not cheat on his wife, like it was common, but told her from the beginning
She was 18, he was 34 and he gave her his diaries with all the details to read. And he in fact broke the promisses he gave to wife (not to cheat with women in the village).
Overall he does come across as a low key asshole even if we ignore cheating as a fair play.
"Household chores is massively underselling it. Like common, give her credit for everything she had done, which was quite a lot more then just household chores."
Like I said, it depends on the agreements they had. I have no problem giving her credit, my question was whether it makes Tolstoy bad.
"And he in fact broke the promisses he gave to wife (not to cheat with women in the village)."
That would be bad, but is that a solid fact?
edit:
"not to have any women in our village, except for rare chances, which I would neither seek nor prevent"
That is the quote from the article. Does not imply he broke it to me.
Whats your problem grasping straws? The guy cheated his wife, plain and simple, even written in your own words. No defensible moral ground I can see.
Maybe you are fine with occasional cheat, maybe your subconsciousness desperately irons out wrinkles of reality to make looking in the mirror still a pleasant activity (like all other people doing bad things who are not complete sociopaths), who cares.
Its failure in one of most important aspect of life, undefendable, and generally looked down upon. Thats it.
Cheating implies lying and breaking agreements and I did not write that about Tolstoy. I see no cheating, if the agreements were made upfront in a different way. And no promises broken from Tolstoy as far as I know. With even sharing his diary, he seemed to be have been crystal clear and open about everything from the start, or do you have different information?
https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/books/fea...
https://www.rbth.com/history/330411-why-leo-tolstoy-was-terr...