At the end of April, Tolstoy had sent this first episode, “Sebastopol in December,” to the Contemporary. In June it was published above the signature “L. N. T.,” together with a note from the editor informing the public of the author’s promise to send monthly reports from Sebastopol. The sketch drew instant praise and appreciation from a wide range of public opinion. Here the positive strand of Tolstoy’s attitude towards the war was uppermost: he wrote as a Russian patriot, and praised men, officers and generals alike in his brilliant evocation of daily life in the besieged town, and of the heroic spirit of its defence. Alexander II was profoundly moved by the sketch, had it translated into French, and is supposed to have issued a dispatch to the military authorities ordering that “this young man’s life be guarded well.” Turgenev, who read extracts from the sketch that were published in The Russian Veteran, was warmly enthusiastic, writing to I. I. Panayev on 27 June: “May God give us more such articles!” When Turgenev read the sketch in its entirety, he wrote to the same correspondent that “Tolstoy’s article about Sebastopol is a miracle,” and that he “shed a few tears while reading it, and shouted ‘Hurrah!’”
On 4 July Tolstoy sent the manuscript of the second sketch to Panayev at the Contemporary, together with a letter in which he wrote:
Although I am convinced that it is incomparably better than the first [sketch], it will not be liked, of that I am certain. I even fear the censor may not agree to pass it at all. In all the passages that seem to me risky, I have provided variants marked with a “V,” or have designated by means of brackets that the relevant passage is to be excluded if it is found to displease the censor. If they try to delete even passages that I have not marked, please on no account publish the piece. If you do, I shall be very upset. I have provided an alternative title [“A Spring Night in Sebastopol”] since “Sebastopol in May” too obviously refers to the action of 10 May, and the Contemporary isn’t permitted to publish accounts of military actions. I have substituted for “Nieprzysiecki”[19] the name “Gnilokishkin,”[20] in the eventuality that the censor says it’s impossible for an officer to refuse to serve because he has a gumboil—thus these are two different officers. If it proves possible to insert the Polish phrase, please supply a translation in a footnote . . . And could you denote the Russian and French swear-words by means of dots, even without the initial letters if necessary, though these are essential, in my opinion. In general, I hope and trust that you will be so kind as to put up as strong a defence of my story as you can. Since you are better acquainted with the view of the censor, you will be able to set before him a few of the variants that will least upset him and make whatever minor changes that may be necessary in such a way that the overall meaning does not suffer.
On 18 July, Panayev wrote back to Tolstoy stating that in his opinion something would have to be added at the end of the piece if it were to stand any chance of being passed by the censor. The words which were eventually appended to the conclusion of the final chapter were: “But we were not the ones who started this war, and it was not we who provoked this terrible bloodshed. We are merely defending our native land, our native realm, and we shall continue to defend it to the last drop of blood.” Later in life, Tolstoy claimed that Panayev, and not he, was the author of these words; but although they most certainly clash with the pacifism later assumed by Tolstoy,[21] they are not out of keeping with similar sentiments to be found throughout his letters and diaries of the 1850s.
The manuscript was submitted to the Contemporary’s censor, V. Beketov, who passed it for publication with only minor alterations. The sketch was already printed and ready for inclusion in the August 1855 issue of the journal when the censor suddenly demanded that the proofs be sent to the chairman of the Censorship Committee, M. N. Musin-Pushkin, who read the work through with raised eyebrows. “I am surprised that the editor should have decided even to submit the article,” he wrote on the proofsheet, “and that the censor should have passed it for the press. Because of the cheap jibes at our brave officers, the brave defenders of Sebastopol, it contains, I instruct it to be banned, and the proofs to be left in the file.” There the matter would probably have ended, had not Alexander II learnt of the existence of a second Sebastopol sketch by the author who had pleased him so much with the first. An order countermanding Musin-Push-kin’s decision was received and the sketch was published, albeit in a considerably abridged and altered form,[22] and without a signature. On 17 September, Tolstoy noted in his diary:
Yesterday received the news that “Night” has been disfigured and published. Apparently the blues [the police] have their eye on me a fair bit now because of my articles. I wish that Russia could always have such moral writers; but I can’t be a sugary one, nor can I write from the empty into the void, without an idea and above all without a purpose. In spite of an initial moment of anger, in which I swore never to take my pen into my hand again, I know that my sole and principal occupation, dominating all my other inclinations and occupations, must be literature. My purpose is literary glory. The good I can accomplish through my writings.
The third and final sketch dates from September 1855, and concerns the last days of the siege of Sebastopol. After the battle of the Tchemaya on 4 August, which ended in the Russians being beaten back with a loss of 8,000 men, including eleven generals, it seemed inevitable that Sebastopol would fall. Since June, Gorchakov had been preparing for the evacuation of the town:
The commander also sought to build a bridge across the bay to facilitate the retreat of the troops, although most of the engineers opposed. Lt.-Gen. Bukhmaier, however, agreed to build it. Vast quantities of timber, bought in southern Russia and hauled by enormous lines of wagons, supplied the floats on which the roadway rested, extending some eighteen hundred feet across the bay. This remarkable feat, which probably saved much of the army from capture or annihilation, was not complete until the battle of the Chernaya.[23]
On 6 August the allies began a general bombardment of the Russian defences, especially the Malakhov. As the Russians began to run out of powder and projectiles, they were practically forced to cease replying to the enemy’s fire. On 25 August an officer told headquarters that if the Malakhov were not reinforced it would be stormed the following day. Curtiss gives the following account of the assault:
By the eve of the assault on 26 August, the Russians in the Malakhov and the 2nd bastion were helpless, with most of the men forced to take refuge in dugouts to escape the deadly mortar shells that the French rained on them. The French would fire heavily for a time and then halt the bombardment for a brief period before resuming in full force. Rockets were sent up as false signals for attack, so that the defenders became confused and ceased to pay much attention to such tricks. On the day of the assault, the allies opened a heavy bombardment in the morning, which then ceased for two hours. Shortly before noon they opened fire again. Promptly at twelve the cannon lengthened their fire and 10,000 French under Gen. MacMahon dashed the forty paces to the Kornilov bastion on the Malakhov. Thousands of others stormed the 2nd bastion, the connecting wall, and the batteries.
In the Kornilov bastion, many of the defenders were eating, others were asleep in dugouts. The guards on duty barely had time to give the warning when the French were upon them. The Russians at once dashed to arms, but, unorganized and leaderless, they were overpowered by the masses of French soldiers, and fighting furiously were pushed to the rear of the redoubt. Several companies of infantry rallied and drove back the French with the bayonet, but fresh forces poured in and once more drove the Russians to the last corner of the bastion.
Elsewhere along the defence line the French also had success, storming the 2nd bastion, the curtain wall, and several of the batteries, and pushed the Russians to the second line. Russian reserves quickly came up, however, and, aided by the fire of steamers, drove them out. The French again attacked and forced the Russians back, but Khrulev with strong reserves appeared and with the regrouped defenders forced the French to ret
ire. They made one more attack, but the Russians beat them off and finally held the 2nd bastion and the nearby batteries. Khrulev then rushed with his troops to the Malakhov to re-take the Kornilov bastion, but too late. The attackers by this time had consolidated their position and held it in strength. In the attempt to regain it, Khrulev was wounded and his men thrown back, but as more Russians came up and penetrated the bastion, 20,000 men were locked in close combat. Other Russian generals came up, with fresh regiments, and the tide of battle ebbed and flowed. Finally, in mid afternoon a tall general led a column of Russians, with drums beating, into the bastion, only to be decimated by the French fire. The French charged and drove the survivors out, never to return. It is almost certain that the efforts of the Russians to re-take this bastion were severely hampered by the fact that Totleben had insisted on closing the rear part (the gorge) of the fortification, so that the Russian reserves had great difficulty in penetrating its walls.
There was heavy fighting on other parts of the defences as well. The British, with 14,000 men, made a belated attack on the 3rd bastion, only to have their troops mowed down during their long advance toward it. Some of them managed to penetrate the salient, but the Russians rallied and drove them out. British reserves charged again, but were beaten back by superior Russian forces and had to give up the attempt. On the Russian right, the French attacked the 5th bastion and adjacent batteries with 8,400 men, but were completely repulsed.
In this day’s fighting the Russians lost 12,913 men, while the allies had losses of at least 10,000, and probably considerably more. In all the allies made twelve charges, of which only the one against the Malakhov had success. All the others were repelled. Hence, except for the loss of the Malakhov, “the honours of this day completely belong to the Russian arms.” The Russian soldiers were convinced that they had won a victory even greater than that in June. After the assault “soldiers of all ages, when they were getting them ready to amputate a leg or an arm, said with enthusiasm how gladly they agreed to endure this, knowing that they had succeeded in beating off the enemy.” As for the allies, they expected that a long and costly effort would be necessary to complete the capture of the city. Gen. Pelissier even ordered his subordinates to make careful preparations to beat off the renewed attacks that he believed the Russians would make to regain the Malakhov.
Prince Gorchakov, however, realized that it would be almost impossible to recapture the Kornilov bastion and an effort to hold out in the shattered defences would be impossibly costly. Consequently, at five o’clock on the day of the assault, he issued orders for the complete evacuation of the fortress and the city. By seven the troops began to retire across the bay to the northern side, as volunteers who had stayed in the works kept up fire against the enemy to mislead them, while a rear guard manned barricades in the city to hold off the enemy if they pursued. The troops took all night to get across by the floating bridge or by steamers and other boats. All the wounded, except a few hopeless cases, who were left behind, were taken to safety on the northern side. Some confusion developed during the night, which led to the throwing of numerous cannon into the bay. Late at night the rear guard withdrew and volunteers lighted fuses laid to powder magazines, which blew up at various times. Much of the city burned. The remaining ships were burned or sunk. Maj. Delafield, USA, termed it “a masterly retreat that does great credit to Russian military genius and discipline.”[24]
In his third sketch, “Sebastopol in August 1855,” Tolstoy gives a detailed, impressionistic account of these events, seen largely through the eyes of the two Kozeltsov brothers. The detail is exact: the older Kozeltsov’s regiment, the Podolsk, was one of the ones that suffered heavy losses on the night of 10 May, and so it is perfectly natural that he should have received his wound then. The 5th light battery of the 11th Artillery Brigade, to which the younger Kozeltsov is assigned, really was stationed on the Korabelnaya, where it formed part of the Korabelnaya reserves. There is, however, a discrepancy in the reporting of the sequence of events as experienced by the two brothers. The end of the sketch relates to the evening of 27 August; we must suppose that its beginning takes place during the second half of 25 August. That, at any rate, is how one of the brothers experiences it. After he parts company with his older brother, the younger Kozeltsov spends one night—that of the 26th—in the house of the battery commander, another—that of the 27th—in the casemate of the Malakhov, and is killed on the day of the 27th itself, during the assault. Meanwhile, however, for the older brother only one night has passed: having said farewell to his brother, he sets off for the 5th bastion, where he sits up all night playing cards, is woken by the battle alarm, and is fatally wounded shortly after. Half an hour later he is lying on a stretcher at the dressing station outside the Nicholas Barracks, where a priest tells him that “victory is ours at all points,” even though the French colours are flying from the Malakhov. The reference is clearly to the events of 27 August.
Writing “Sebastopol in August” appears to have finally convinced Tolstoy that his true vocation was as an author. Increasingly, military service began to seem a hindrance to his future plans, and in October 1855 he acceded to a request from General Kryzhanovsky that he make a collation of the various reports of artillery action on the day of 27 August, and take them as courier to the military authorities in St Petersburg. He reached the northern capital on 21 November, and soon after tendered his resignation from the service. “Sebastopol in August” appeared in No. 1 of the Contemporary for 1856, with the author’s full signature—Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy—given for the first time in his literary career. It marked his emergence as a literary celebrity, and was enthusiastically received. He later remarked, ironically: “I failed to become a general in the army, but I became one in literature.”
The Sebastopol Sketches, more than Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, and more than any of the other literary works composed by the author during his twenties, look forward to the style of the mature Tolstoy, the builder of the multiple, formally complex structures of War and Peace and Anna Karenin. From a wealth of sense-impressions, pictures, episodes and conversations, Tolstoy recreates not merely an autobiographical truth, the experience of a first-person narrator, but the spirit and reality of a whole nation. The first sketch,[25] couched in the form of a guide-book entry, an informal address to the reader, is a patriotic homily constructed not out of sentiments but out of living and lived actuality—it is one side of a conversation with an interlocutor who is conceived as a citizen among citizens, able to respond in the name of a public, national conscience. In the second sketch, the “dark” side of human nature—typified as vanity—is viewed in its struggle with higher aspirations, while in the third the note of patriotic dignity is once again struck against a backdrop of everyday human failings, which pale into insignificance beside the strivings of the Russian people and the noble spirit of the defenders of Sebastopol. Nowhere is the style forced or bombastic. The predominant tone of all three sketches is that of a quiet narrative discourse, gently ironic, lyrical, humorous, epic and elegiac by turns. At times, an additional stylistic dimension is attained—that of oratory. As R. F. Christian has noted in relation to War and Peace: “Running through the syntax of Tolstoy’s narrative passages is every device of arrangement and balance known to Cicero and Demosthenes (excluding the rhetorical question).”[26] In the context of the Sketches, Tolstoy has sometimes been called the first modern war correspondent; yet at times he sounds much more like a historian of the classical era—as, for example, in the following passage from the first sketch:
Only now do the stories of the early days of the siege of Sebastopol, when there were no fortifications, no troops, when there was no physical possibility of holding the town and there was nevertheless not the slightest doubt that it would be kept from the enemy—of the days when Kornilov, that hero worthy of ancient Greece, would say as he inspected his troops: “We will die, men, rather than surrender Sebastopol,” and when our Russian soldiers, unversed in phrase
-mongering, would answer: “We will die! Hurrah!”—only now do the stories of those days cease to be a beautiful historic legend and become a reality, a fact. You will suddenly have a clear and vivid awareness that those men you have just seen are the very same heroes who in those difficult days did not allow their spirits to sink but rather felt them rise as they joyfully prepared to die, not for the town but for their native land. Long will Russia bear the imposing traces of this epic of Sebastopol, the hero of which was the Russian people.
The description of war is, however, more “modern” in tone and expression, and in many respects anticipates the accounts of military action to be found in War and Peace. Christian writes of the second sketch:
The hero of his story, he says, is truth, and truth is not at all lovely and not at all reconcilable with the military communiqués of war correspondents. The truth is that war is not what people think it is. It is not as people describe it. Everything is unreal. Nobody really knows what is happening or what will happen. In the midst of superhuman bravery and endurance there is vanity, hypocrisy and hankering for decorations. People are afraid in battle and then ashamed of it (e.g. Nikolai Rostov in his first encounter with the enemy); they embellish their account of battle with fictitious stories redounding to their credit (again one thinks of Nikolai). Death in battle is not a noble or romantic thing. And the scene of the death of Praskukhin in “Sebastopol in May” provides an early glimpse of the technique which is seen in its maturity in those passages of War and Peace where Prince Andrei is wounded: the emphasis on the contrast between the simple, outward action of a few seconds and the complex inner life of those few seconds; the flood of reminiscences and questions; the ardent desire to go on living.[27]