concept
Tolstoyism
Tolstoyan
also: толстовец, Tolstoyan
The moral-religious movement of simple living, physical labor, and non-violence associated with Lev Tolstoy's later teaching; invoked here as a joke -- marry a Tolstoyan, Olga Mikhailovna tells Lyubochka, and he'll make you mow hay yourself.
Reading notes
- The Name-Day Party §98 Tolstoyan
A follower of Lev Tolstoy's late-life teaching of simple living, physical labor, and moral self-discipline. Olga Mikhailovna's joke -- marry a Tolstoyan and he will make Lyubochka mow hay herself -- plays on the movement's real doctrine of gentry doing their own manual work, current and much discussed in educated circles by the late 1880s.