Did Lev Tolstoy say: “Happy is the one who is happy in his house”?

In August, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin quoted Leo Tolstoy: "Happy is the one who is happy in his house." We decided to check whether Lev Tolstoy spoke like that and in what context.

Mikhail Mishustin decided to cite a quote during the "Wednesday for Life" forum. In his speech he said The following: "The great Russian writer Lev Tolstoy said:" Happy is the one who is happy in his house. " After that, Mishustin continued the story of housing programs, infrastructure and construction. The quote was not ignored by state media, for example TASS. Telegram channel of journalists of the RIA Novosti agency working in the Kremlin Pula, I countedthat the quote has a hidden meaning “against the background of the decision of some countries (Finland, Baltic states) to stop or reduce the issuance of visas to the Russians.” Agency post repostil In his Telegram channel, RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan, adding a comment: “Mishustin is excellent.” Press release issued by the government, then Retelling both regional media and sites, dedicated to real estate.

One of the first suspected The inconsistency of the statement by the works of Leo Tolstoy journalist Andrei Zakharov. Search According to the 90-volume collected works available on the Tolstoy.ru website, he didn’t lead to anything-neither in the main works of the writer, nor in his diaries, nor in letters there is no such phrase. Zakharov suggested that perhaps we are talking about the phrase from story Anatoly France “Street merchant”, included by Tolstoy in the collection “Circle of Reading”. Another phrase about happiness There is In the "Cossacks" of Tolstoy: "One thing is happiness: who is happy is right." But there is nothing about the house.

However, a relatively accurate quote was still found. In the comments on Zakharov’s entry on Twitter reader brought Her, referring to the last lifetime of the works of Leo Tolstoy. It turned out that this is not the actual word of Leo Tolstoy from his written heritage, but the story of the peasant Mikhail Novikov about the meeting with the writer. For the first time, the story was published in the collection for the 80th anniversary of Tolstoy in 1908. The collection is then repeatedly Reprinted.

In this fragment Novikov Talking With Tolstoy about "family evil and strife, from which it is so difficult to protect yourself." Tolstoy answered the peasant: “The hardest test that God sends to man is the family. No wonder someone said that only one who is happy at home is happy. The main thing is that you are chained to your family forever and every minute are subjected to crossroads, deeds and conversations that you do not like or which you cannot endure without exciting anger. ”

Tolstoy could well utter such words, the testimony looks believable. Mikhail Novikov, a peasant of the Tula province, closely and constantly talked with the writer, in a complete collected works Included Their correspondence. Moreover, Tolstoy sent one of the last letters in his life to Novikov: having decided to leave Yasnaya Polyana, he asked Novikov to find him some hut in the village and not tell anyone about it. And before that, in 1896, when the peasant-Tolstice was arrested and exiled, the writer stood up for him and demanded liberation. So Tolstoy’s words were unlikely to be distorted or incorrectly understood. However, one cannot but pay attention to the fact that Tolstoy here leads this phrase as someone's famous statement. It is important at the same time that in a conversation with Novikov, he will comment on this phrase in detail.

However, in the interpretation of Mikhail Mishustin, the quote completely lost its original meaning. Tolstoy speaks of the unbearable severity of family life and shares his experiences with the interlocutor. At the same time, he draws attention to the fact that to achieve mental harmony, tolerance is necessary. And without harmony in his homemade micromir, happiness is impossible, Tolstoy believes.

Therefore, we can conclude that the quote is really connected with Leo Tolstoy, although Mishustin has changed it significantly. However, she completely lost its connection with the initial context, turning in the mouth of the prime minister into the glorification of a program of affordable housing-or, according to the interpretation of Simonyan, to the hint of Russians, which is better at home than abroad.

Photo on the cover: Wikimedia Commons

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