Giovanni Pascoli’s Poem Tolstoi

In Giovanni Pascoli’s poetic production, the poem Tolstoi long remained in the shadow. Critical interest in this work was revived at the beginning of the XXI century. In her article Malen’kaja poema Džovanni Paskoli “Tolstoj” published in 2006, Antonella Cavazza already addressed a question later explored by Italian scholars: what picture of the great Russian writer is it that Pascoli gives us in his short poem Tolstoi? She also asked: how does the content of the poem relate to the concepts of homeland and humanity in the later works of Pascoli, and how do they interact with Tolstoy’s later writings? Today, for the volume in honor of Giovanni Moracci, the article is republished in English, enriched with materials from the archive of Casa Museo Giovanni Pascoli di Castelvecchio (Comune di Barga) and with an extensive bibliographic update.