The Ancestors of Leo Tolstoy on His Mother's Side
The Princes Volkonsky trace their descent from Rurik. Since
the days of Prince Volkonsky (Tolstoy's grandfather) the
genealogical tree of the princes Volkonsky, painted in oil colors, has been preserved at Yasnaya Polyana. In this the founder of the line, St. Michael, Prince of Chernigov, is represented as holding in his hand a tree whose branches exhibit an enumeration of his descendants.
At the beginning of the fourteenth century Prince Ivan
Turyevich, in the thirteenth generation from Rurik, had received
the Volkonsky property, situated on the Volkona; this river flows
through the present province of Kaluga and to some extent through
Tula. Hence the family was known as that of the Princes
Volkonsky.
His son, Feodor Ivanovich, was killed in the battle of Mamai in
1380.
Among other ancestors of Tolstoy we may mention his
great-grandfather, Prince Sergey Feodorovich Volkonsky, who is the
hero of the following legend:
"The prince took part in the Seven Years' War as Major-General. During the campaign his wife dreamed that a voice commanded her to have a small icon painted, showing on one side the source of life and on the other Nikolay the Thaumaturgist, and to send it to her husband. She selected a wooden plate, on which she ordered that the icon should be painted, and this she sent to Prince Sergey by the hands of Field-Marshal Apraksin. The same day Sergey received by the courier an order to go out in search of the enemy; and having appealed for God's help, he put on the sacred image. In a cavalry attack a bullet struck him on the breast, but it knocked against the icon and did not hurt him, and in this way the icon saved his life. It was treasured in later years by his younger son, Nikolay Sergeyevich. Prince Sergey Feodorovich died March 10, 1784."
Tolstoy was no doubt acquainted with this legend, and made use
of it in War and Peace to illustrate the character of the devout
princess Marie Volkonskaya, as it is made to appear in an incident
represented as occurring before Prince Andrey's departure for the
war. The reader will remember that the princess persuaded her
brother to wear the image, handing it to Prince Andrey with the
words: "You may think what you like, but do this for my sake. Please do it! The father of my father, our grandfather, wore it during all his wars...."
We see here artistic truth interwoven with historical, and if
the latter gives the former an air of truthfulness, so it receives
from it in return that touch of human nature which makes all the
characters of War and Peace so lifelike and so irresistibly
soul-stirring.
The younger son of Sergey Feodorovich, Nikolay Sergeyevich, was
Tolstoy's grandfather on his mother's side. What we learn about
him from the genealogy is as follows:
"Nikolay Sergeyevich, an infantry general, youngest son of
Sergey Feodorovich and Princess Marie Dmitriyevna, nee Chaadayeva, was born March 30, 1753. In 1780 he was in the suite of the Empress Catharine II when she was in Mogilev, and was present at her first interview with the Emperor Joseph II. In 1786 he accompanied the Empress to Taurida. On the occasion of the wedding of the hereditary prince, afterward King Frederick William III, he was appointed special envoy to Berlin. He died on February 3, 1821, on his estate, where he lived throughout those last years of his life which have been immortalized by his grandson in his novel War and Peace. His remains rest in the Troitsko-Sergey monastery."
In his Reminiscences Tolstoy speaks of his maternal grandfather
as follows:
"As for my grandfather, I know that having attained the high
position of Commander-in-chief during the reign of Catherine, he
suddenly lost it by refusing to marry Potemkin's niece and
mistress, Varenka Engelhardt. To Potemkin's suggestion he
answered: `What makes him think that I'll marry his strumpet?'
"In consequence of this exclamation, not only was his career
checked, but he was nominated Governor of Archangel, where he
remained, I believe, until Paul's accession, when he retired; and
having after that married Princess Catherine Trubetskaya, he
settled down in his estate, Yasnaya Polyana, which he had inherited
from his father, Sergey Feodorovich.