Note 381 — 1899

In his letter to V. G. Chertkov of July 9, 1899, Tolstoi wrote, “The matter of the translations worry me. I can imagine, therefore, how they worry you. To-day I thought this: To drop all contracts with the translators and print the following in the newspaper....” Further on Tolstoi expounds the project of his letter to the newspapers, that he, in the matter of translation, decided to destroy the contracts with the publishers of the translations and to refuse the royalty of the first printing of these translations. And yet the need of the Dukhobors was so great that “having no means of employing cattle, they have hitched themselves and their wives to the plough and are ploughing with human power to till their land.” For this reason, Tolstoi drops his plan: “I ask all the publishers who will print this novel and the translators of it, as well as the readers of the novel, to remember those people for whom this publication has been begun and as far as their strength and their desire go, to help the Dukhobors by giving their mite to the Dukhobor fund in England.”