Два необычных толстовца в Австралии

In the period immediately following the writer’s death, two Russian emigrants who had been influenced by his thinking arrived in Australia, where they remained for many years. Nikolai Illin (Il’in) lived in north Queensland from 1910 to 1921. Alexander Zuzenko arrived in Australia in 1911 and remained, mostly in Queensland, until 1919, when he was deported as a Bolshevik agitator and undesirable. For some time, both thought of themselves as ‘Tolstoyans’. Though they later rejected this appellation, others continued to apply the term to them. Both enjoyed considerable influence in the Russian community, of which Zuzenko was the acknowledged leader in 1918-19. Zuzenko is known to have regarded Illin as his ‘spiritual father’ until the two fell out over the murder of the Romanovs. This paper provides a brief outline of their careers and considers the influence of Leo Tolstoy on their thought.