Tolstoy and Tolstaya Translate Life into Philosophy

• In Event: 19th-Century Russophone Women Writers II: Women and Translation

Abstract

This paper will discuss Sophia Andreevna Tolstoya's translation into French of Lev Tolstoy's philosophical tract On Life (1887). Countess Tolstaya completed the translation in 1888 while expecting the couple's last child Vanechka. The talk will analyze her translation by considering the published version that came out in France in 1889. Several archival notebooks of the translation containing drafts, variations, and Tolstoy's corrections of his spouse's text are also going to be described during the presentation.

Author

• Inessa Medzhibovskaya, The New School