The Legacy of Tolstoy

"Croskey's history, unlike its forerunners and competitors, is diligently annotated. He deftly integrates existing sources with primary documents drawn from at least a half-dozen archives. He debunks others' claims, corrects errors, fills in the back-story, and adds historical context like political directives and newspaper accounts. For all this scholarly apparatus, the book remains remarkably readable."

"This short account highlights so many interesting aspects of Tolstoy's legacy in Soviet Russia and draws on such a large quantity of archival material . . . it presents a detailed picture of Alexandra Tolstoy's activities and at the same time manages to make connections with broader issues, particularly the extent to which individual reform projects were able (or not) to coincide with the interests of the Soviet government in the 1920s."

"Croskey's work illuminates one aspect of the legacy of the prerevolutionary intelligentsia in the early Soviet period. It will be of interest to those studying cultural transformations in early Soviet Russia."

"Croskey does not belabor this history with heavy-handed interpretation, and is circumspect about Alexandra L'vonvna's private life. The result is a fine presentation of the facts, which will be of great interest to anyone working on Tolstoyanism or early Soviet cultural politics, particularly as the latter relate to the legacy of prerevolutionary culture. This concise and rigorous research renders a significant service to the field, and I look forward to continued publications in this series."

"Robert Croskey's short but thorough account tells a complicated story of the events surrounding Tolstoy's legacy, in physical and ideological form, from the time of his death until the departure of his daughter Aleksandra L'vovna Tolstaia from the Soviet Union in October 1929. . . . The range and scope of sources that the author uses is impressive."