World of Childhood in T. N. Sukhotina-Tolstaya’s “Memories”

Abstract

The article analyzes the world of childhood of a girl-noblewoman in the memoirs of T. N. Sukhotina-Tolstaya, the eldest daughter of Leo Tolstoy. It is shown that the world of childhood in “Memories” is represented in a number of images typical for the genre of autobiography (memories of childhood), and for the manor metatext. Among them, the author pays special attention to the following: space of a children’s room, environment of a child (brothers and sisters, significant adults - parents, educators), organization of activities and leisure, holidays, games, favourite toys, food and smells in the estate. It is proved that in the text of “Memoirs” childhood is described by the laws of the manor idyll, allowing contradictions. Thus, a child’s life is perceived by the memoirist as the happiest time lived “in Paradise” and gone forever. At the same time, childhood-Paradise is adjacent to the world of death (the death of the older generation and the death of the child), as well as opposed to adolescence (“difficult years”) and subsequent adult life (“without a father”). Attention is also drawn to the fact that the heroine’s growing up is shown through the implementation of the motif “expulsion from Paradise.” It is concluded that these contradictions do not remove the “Paradise halo” from the image of childhood and are organically perceived by the memoirist as a part of life.