The last station

The film misses the bulk of their 48 years together and hones in on October 1910 until his death in November – 100 years ago – when her husband, Leo, has turned against her, a move which vilified her in the eyes of historians until recent times.

Yet to his wife of 48 years he was treacherous in the final chapter of their lives together.

The film is true to her diaries, but limited to the just October and November 1910. “Today I read Lev’s diary which he gave me, and I was again chilled and shocked to learn that he had given Chertkov all his diaries since 1900, so that he could copy out extracts from them; the cunning Sergenko’s son is working with Chertkov and in all probability he is copying the whole thing for his future advantage. Lev Nik has always deliberately represented me in his diaries as he does now as his tormentor, someone he has to fight and not succumb to, while himself he presents as a great and magnanimous man,, religious and loving.’’

In the film, Sofia is portrayed as slightly unhinged, if not a madwoman and to read her anguish, word for word, conversation after conversation of the disintegration of their marriage over the evil Chertkov, it is little wonder she became hysterical.

The day Leo left her on October 28, 1910, her diary entry captures any abandoned woman’s “utter despair’’. “ Lev Nik. Has left! My God! He left a letter telling me not to look for him as he had gone for good, to live out his old age in peace. The moment I read those words I rushed outside in a frenzy of despair and jumped into the middle pond, where I swallowed a lot of water; Sasha and Bulgakov dragged me out … Utter despair.”

Sofia, herself writes of that November 4 at the railway station at Astapovo: “I wait in agony outside the little house’’… “I am tormented by remorse, the painful anticipation of his end and the impossibility of seeing my beloved husband.’’

Such a long life journey from Sofia’s reflections: “Lev Nikolaevich has described our wedding beautifully in his account of Levin and Kitty’s wedding in his novel Anna Karenina.’’

Later this year, we will celebrate the centenary of Count Leo Tolstoy’s death on November 7, when Sofia wrote: “At 6 o’clock in the morning Lev Nikol died. I was allowed in only as he drew his last breath. They would not even let me take leave of my husband. Cruel people.’’

The film is a faithful portrayal of all of the feelings revealed in Sofia’s diaries, but it could not capture her own words on April 10, 1911: “A warm, windy day ; I went out for the first time – to Lev Nikolaevich’s grave, of course. In the distance they were energetically ringing the church bells, and “Christ is Risen!’’ rang out over the whole of Russia. But in the forest and beside the grave there was utter silence, and the wind shook the withered wreaths as I prayed and wept. Then I sat in silence for a long time on a board that had been laid on the top of a tree-stump.’’

Unfortunately, The Last Station perpetuates the myth surrounding Sofia, yet her diaries question the harsh judgment passed on unchallenged for so many years. As the book blurb states: “Her diaries are a testament to a woman of tremendous vital energy and poetic sensibility who, in the face of provocation and suffering, continued to strive for the higher things in life and to remain indomitable.’’ They also reveal a woman devoted to her husband and his astonishing career, yet a force in the face of Tolstoy’s determined “disciples’’ of his emerging religious movement.

The Last Station lets Tolstoy off the hook and presents him as a blithering, confused character, instead of the cruel, difficult man he was.

The truth is hers was a life of devotion and I could never believe the traditional view that she was a shrew.

We can hope that the forthcoming biography of the Countess by Alexandra Popoff will paint a clearer, kinder picture of an extraordinary Russian woman, who deserves our admiration.

The Last Station is screening in Palace Cinema Nova and The Trak.

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