December 31st. Tolstoi said:
“I am always interested to see what can become obsolete in literature. I am curious to know what in modern literature will seem old-fashioned, as, for instance, Karamzin’s ‘Oh soever!’ etc., seems to us now. Within my memory it has become impossible to write a long poem in verse. It seems to me that in time works of art will cease to be invented. It will be a shame to invent a story about a fictitious Ivan Ivanovich or Marie Petrovna. Writers, if such there be, will not invent, but will only describe the significant or interesting things which they have happened to observe in life.”
FOOTNOTES:
[12] A. M. Dobrolyubov (1876), religious seeker. His adherents formed a “Dobrolyubovian sect” on the basis of Christian anarchy. D. began his literary activity as a poet of the decadent school.
[13] Nikolay Ivanovich Lobachevsky (1793-1856), the great Russian mathematician and geometrist (founder of the non-Euclidean geometry).
1906
August 21st. Speaking about art Tolstoi said:
“Great works of art are for all time. They exist. They must only be revealed, as Michael Angelo said.”