Questions and answers for the “Post Box”: Game or polemic?

Abstract

In the 1880s, a “Post Box” was conducted in Yasnaya Polyana. Throughout the week, those living on the estate put their works in the “Post Box”. The writings were usually read aloud on Sundays, when the Tolstoy and Kuzminsky families gathered together. One of the genre forms used in the “Post Box” entertainments was questions and answers, which date back to salon games. The article examines various sources that influenced the spread of these games in Russia. With the help of the memoirs and the unpublished epistolary of the Kuzminskys, the existence of such entertainments in L. Tolstoy’s family and those around him was studied. The writer himself wrote questions and answers for the “Post Box” more often than other participants. To identify the reasons that prompted him to use this form, we analyze the circumstances and the time for creating questions and answers. The archival materials presented in this article make it possible to clarify the dating of one of Tolstoy’s texts. Analysis of the themes and issues in his questions and answers helps to determine their significance and place among his fictional and publicistic works. A special place in the article is accorded to materials published for the first time: a list of questions and answers compiled for the game, and three works for the “Post Box”. The new texts are compared with already known questions and answers. Among these, works devoted to the “woman question” stand out. On this topic, the article examines the opinions of the opponents — L. Tolstoy and T. Kuzminskaya. Thanks to the study of their interaction, a more objective picture of the inner life in Yasnaya Polyana may be reconstructed. Research into the peculiarities of creating question and answer manuscripts and comparing different types has allowed us to identify the purpose of these texts.