In the development of Tolstoy's artistic genius, the period of the late 50s and early 60s was marked by a well-known creative crisis. Having appeared in print in the early 50s with a number of very bright, peculiar works that deeply excited contemporaries with novelty, courage and depth of content (Caucasian and Sevastopol stories, "Morning of the Landowner," "Childhood," "Adolescence" and "Youth," "Lucerne," "Three Deaths," etc.), Tolstoy after the end of the story "Family Happiness" (at the beginning April 1859) entered a period of grave doubts about the meaning and significance of his literary activity.