This chapter explores a line of influence in the architecture of American intentional communities from the Associationist movement of the nineteenth century down to the hippy communes that emerged in 1965, built, after Drop City, around the shape of the geodesic dome. This hippy modernism borrowed freely from the ideas of Charles Fourier and Buckminster Fuller and fostered a community that included Stewart Brand, who went on to think about the shape of space colonies and early models of the Internet.

From the 1880s onward, a vigorous movement inspired by Tolstoy’s Christian anarchist thought developed both within the Russian Empire and internationally. This chapter traces the activity of Tolstoyan communities, publishing houses, societies, and newspapers, and considers the role they played in building and maintaining international Tolstoyan networks. It considers how Tolstoy’s thought was interpreted in different national contexts as well as how and why enthusiasm for Tolstoy’s ideas emerged or revived in specific periods: it also discusses some key debates and challenges that Tolstoyans confronted, and the ways these were debated both within the movement and in interactions with those outside it. Tolstoy’s focus on following one’s own conscience meant that he strongly objected to the idea of a movement in his name. But as this chapter makes clear, while Tolstoyans were always fiercely independent-minded, the ideas and causes around which they united gave them a strong sense of being part of a collective, wherever and whenever they were active.

From the mid-1880s until his death in 1910, Tolstoy maintained close ties with Americans. He received about 2,500 letters from them and numerous books and periodicals, and thus became acquainted with those American writers, philosophers, and public figures who were near to him in spirit. For Tolstoy, the United States was “the most sympathetic country.” Tolstoy discovered America for himself, but America, in turn, discovered Tolstoy for itself. Many publishers brought out his works; literary magazines competed for his novels and philosophical and religious tracts. On June 21, 1900, Tolstoy addressed the American people. Tolstoy expressed his gratitude for the enormous help he received from American writers who flourished in the 1850s. He wrote about “a brilliant galaxy” of writers “of the kind one rarely encounters in world literature.” American utopia in literary and documentary texts had an impact on Leo Tolstoy’s ideas and literature. Tolstoy had a special interest in American religious communities in part because of his interest in writing an essay “About 1000 Faiths.” Inspired by Tolstoy’s ideas, American pilgrims journeyed to Yasnaya Polyana. In the words of the journalist Lucy Mallory, Tolstoy “became immortal in his own lifetime.”