Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828-1910)
Outraged by a faulty translation of 'Not Doing'. 1893
Autograph letter signed (in Cyrillic 'Lev Tolstoy', also signed within the text in French, 'Leon Tolstoy') to [Ely Halperine-Kaminsky], n.p., 30 September 1893.

In Russian and French. Four pages, 214 x 138mm, on a bifolium. Provenance: Sotheby's Paris, 9 October 2018, lot 250.

Outraged by a faulty translation of his article 'Not Doing'. Tolstoy writes to the French translator Halperine-Kaminsky to complain at an unauthorised translation of his article 'Not Doing', published with the title 'Le non agir' in the October issue of the Revue des revues. The appearance of the translation was 'very disturbing for me', as it has 'totally distorted' the content of the article: he begs Halperine-Kaminsky to help, by transmitting to two journals, Les Débats and Le Figaro, a statement whose text he provides in French: 'The translation of my article "Not Doing" published in the Revue des revues on 1 October was made without my knowledge and is so faulty that I cannot accept responsibility for it / Leon Tolstoy / 30 September 1893'. He asks Halperine-Kaminsky to add a 'regular preamble and conclusion' and 'if it is possible to make it somewhat softer so as not to offend R[evue] d[es] R[evues] .... what is most important for me now is to be able to say that I had not submitted the article to R.d.R. and had not expressed the foolishness that these translations reveal'; Tolstoy goes on to ask in increasingly agitated terms about the silence of Jules Simon, editor of the Revue des familles, where he had intended the article to be printed, and also of the 'Russified Frenchman by the name of Mr Villot' who has been acting as an intermediary, and had made an initial draft translation (which Tolstoy had heavily revised): 'Upon completing the article I sent it to Mr Villot but to my surprise, I did not receive from Mr J. Simon, during all this time, the slightest sign of life, although I considered that the least that an editor is able to do, upon receiving gratis from the author an article about which he enquired upon several occasions, the least he can do, not even mentioning courtesy but taking into consideration elementary decency, is to report to the author the receipt of the article'.

Apparently unpublished. Inspired by statements by Zola and Dumas in response to the question 'What awaits humanity?', Tolstoy's 'Not doing' is a powerful statement of his belief in non-violence: he argues that 'not doing' is not the same as inaction, but is a refusal to do what is unnecessary. 'In order to do good, you must first of all stop doing evil ... In our life full of evil, this is almost the highest ideal that we can set ourselves ... All great changes in the life of one person or of all mankind begin and are accomplished only in thought'. Tolstoy had originally intended to publish the article simultaneously in Russia in the Northern Bulletin and in French in the Revue des familles. However, a delay in the transmission of his revised translation to the Revue des familles meant that the Russian version appeared first, and a hasty and unauthorised translation from this text then appeared in the Revue des revues. The recipient, Ely [Ilia] Halperine-Kaminsky (1858-1936) was born in Vassilkov, but moved to France in 1880, and established himself as one of the most prominent translators from Russian: Tolstoy particularly admired the faithfulness of his translations.

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