G.N. Potanin and L.N. Tolstoy

Potanin comparison with Leo Tolstoy had been appearing since the1910s, Arouse interest, it refers to Tolstoy himself Potanin. On an assessment of Tolstoy's fiction Potanin avoided. For him Tolstoy as apublic figure was more important. Starting from 1873, Potanin has drawn attention to Tolstoys journalism - in particular, the article aboutthe hunger in Samara and unreasonable opposition to visual learning. Dissatisfaction with the public mood and Tolstoy himself, his «calm inthe folk belief» Potanin recorded in 1882 in the article about the autobiography of Tolstoy. If Tolstoy according to the American sociologistHenry George saw the decision of the Russian questions of nationalization of land rents by introducing a personal income tax, Potanin wouldconsider it a palliative: to Siberia this problem does not exist. Potanin fixed the excommunication of Tolstoy St. communion, for the book ofthe Buryat language offered to take several short stories of Tolstoy, helped V.F. Bulgakov in the device memory of the writer in the evening,asked for a peasant old-believer «Critique of Dogmatic Theology», but behind all this is doing public duties, or someone requests - regardlessof personal interest. In Tolstoys moralizing Potanin did not feel a sincere sense view of the severe instruction, sometimes radically atvariance with the natural needs of man. Meanwhile Tolstoy for Potanin looked organic patron for peasant interests, and Potanin were impressedby Tolstoys courage to go against the public service.The result of observation: sometimes one-sided or not is a perfectly acceptable approach to social problems Tolstoy claimed critics, andthe value of a man who sincerely tries to help in solving them is deeply respected. In general the perception of Tolstoy Potanin looks verytypical of the intellectual end of XIX - early XX century.

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