“Sovremennik” was a literary and socio-political monthly magazine, which was founded in 1836 by Alexander Pushkin. It became a major phenomenon in Russian journalism and literature. Since 1847, the magazine was published by Nikolai Nekrasov. The ideology of the magazine was influenced by the articles of literary critic Vissarion Belinsky. Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Nikolai Dobrolyubov also played an important role in the formation of the magazine.

The works of Ivan Turgenev, Alexander Herzen, Dmitry Grigorovich, Ivan Goncharov were published in “Sovremennik”. Translations of works by European writers — Charles Dickens, George Sand, William Thackeray — were also published. Sovremennik lived up to its name and became an arena for political discussions between liberal and revolutionary activists.

Leo Tolstoy’s correspondence with Nikolai Nekrasov began in the summer of 1852, when Tolstoy, who served in the Caucasus as a “fourth-class feuerwerker of the 20th Artillery Brigade”, sent the manuscript of his story “Childhood” to St. Petersburg. Soon Nekrasov’s reply came from the editorial office:

“Childhood” was published in 1852, in the ninth issue of “Sovremennik”. As years went by, the magazine published many of Tolstoy’s other works: “Adolescence”, “Youth”, “The Raid”, “The Wood-Felling”, “Recollections of a Billiard-marker” and “Sevastopol Sketches”. Nekrasov, Turgenev and Druzhinin enthusiastically accepted the work of the young author and saw the future of Russian literature in Tolstoy.

His talent, extraordinary intelligence and unique personality attracted everyone’s attention to him as he arrived in St. Petersburg as a young officer in November 1855. Memories of friendly meetings in the editorial office of “Sovremennik” were cherished by Leo Tolstoy as a token of those years. In his study in Yasnaya Polyana, he always kept his photo signed by the writers and taken on February 15, 1856.