Nell'occhio dei media : Visioni di Jasnaja Poljana sulla stampa russa tra Otto e Novecento

The intent of the essay is to explore L.N. Tolstoj's role as "modern celebrity" in the context of his relationship with Russian media of his times. Through the analysis of printed sources (interviews, newspapers' articles, memories, narratives, parodies, humouristic anecdotes) and iconographic sources (portraits, pictures, postcards, caricatures, albums), the author demonstrates the growing obsessive curiosity of the public with regard to the writer and his life in Jasnaja Poljana. The common trait of the analyzed materials is a particular representation technique, that was aiming at conveying to the reader the impression of knowing Tolstoj's house: the possibility was offered to the public to observe through the journalist's eyes each and every most intimate details of Tolstoj's private life, getting "ownership" of the object from an ever closer distance. The widespread and increasingly perceived need of being able to cross - even if just "virtually" - the doorstep of Tolstoj's private house, to inspect the location, aiming to proof or disproof their own image of the writer, led in a short timeframe to a commercialization of the myth of Jasnaja Poljana and to its transformation into a consumable product.