Tolstoi was well acquainted with the phenomenon of “holy wanderer” or “strannik”: His estate Iasnaia Poliana was located close to the main road to Kyiv where each summer scores of pilgrims passed by. However, in the Russian strannik concept, the focus is not – as for the pilgrim – primarily on reaching a sacred site, but on the journey, on being underway. Wandering becomes a goal in its own right. This kind of spirituality appealed to Tolstoi and during one of his visits to Optina Pustyn he consciously emulated it: He set off on foot, wearing a peasant jacket, bast shoes tied with rags, knapsacks on his back, and with a wanderer’s staff in the hand. It would be misleading to say that Tolstoi simply took over a “form” and filled it with his own content. He was also concerned with and fascinated by the “content side” of holy wandering – the restless, seeking attitude that spurns the security of house and hearth and trusts that God will provide guidance where to go. But to Tolstoi, the inner journey was just as important as the physical. Between “Tolstoi the holy wanderer” and the age-old Orthodox wanderer tradition there is both rupture and continuity.

In Russia in the nineteenth century, several Orthodox forms of spirituality flourished outside the established Church structures, in particular “the elder” (starets), “the holy wanderer” (strannik) and “the holy fool.” Tolstoi held these in high regard, also identifying with them, up to a point. Each of these spiritualities is examined in depth in Chapters 5 through 7, constituting a kind of triptych. Tolstoi was well-acquainted with these forms of spirituality through reading as well as by personal contact. The major center of elder piety in Russia at Tolstoi’s time was the Optina Monastery, located not far from his home at Iasnaia Poliana, and he visited the famous elder Makarii several times. Although his diaries show that he returned home with rather negative impressions, the fact that he returned suggests that he was seeking something here which he did not find elsewhere. What he took with him home was a specific model of spiritual guidance, and several contemporary authors noted that he set himself up as a secularized “elder” at Iasnaia Poliana. The elders’ abilities of prophesy and healing were now absent, as was the subjecting to spiritual authority: Tolstoi emerged as more of a modernized version of this kind of ministry.