Leo Tolstoy
Though Leo Tolstoy is most well-known for his novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, which he wrote when he was in his forties, pieces written after he turned fifty were the ones that clearly established the philosophy known as Tolstoyism. Tolstoyism is a philosophy that denounces the "artificial refinements of society" (2) material wealth, private property, alcohol and tobacco, patriotism, military conscription, and capital punishment - and advocates vegetarianism and pacifism. The paragraph cited above, form A confession, is important because it illustrates Tolstoy's reflection on his own life. This reflection would eventually lead to the author's conversion-which involved renouncing his prior emphasis on rational analysis and accepting his faith in God as the reason for human life, renouncing all of his worldly possessions, including his copyrights, and becoming a vegetarian. After his religious "rebirth," the author simplified his writing style in order to reach the lower and middle classes, and became involved in religious popularism- communion with peasants and working peple in an effort to alleviate their problems (3). Tolstoyism and religious populism have been influential to many religious radicals. Mohandas Ghandi expre
He quotes Socrates, Schopenhauer, Soloman, and Buddha, all of which have the same view of life as he does in his present depressed state-that it is meaningless. Not finding an explanation in natural or social science, he analyses the four approaches to life taken by all of those in his social class-ignorance, Epicureanism, strength and energy, and weakness. A confession, in which the author explains his depression and the events that led to it, was published in 1882 and its publication was banned in Russia. Then why go on making any effort? How can man fail to see this? One can only live when one is intoxicated with life; as soon as one is sober it is impossible not to see that it is a fraud and a stupid fraud! There is nothing wither amusing or witty about it, it is simply cruel and stupid(19). In turning to the peasants to perhaps learn the meaning of life, Tolstoy finds that the peasants have faith in God that other classes do not possess. When Tolstoy's secretary recounted Tolstoy's request, she said that when he mentioned the green stick, tears filed the author's eyes (12). Even though it is a trifle of trifles: let no ceremonies be preformed in putting my body into the earth. His last and thirteenth child was born in 1888, and he begun work on Resurrection, which he published in 1898 to raise money for famine relief- after he had renounced his copyrights in 1891. After leaving the army, he visited Europe for six months, and the last in his trilogy, Youth, was published in 1857 (8). My striving after self perfection, for which I had already substituted a striving for perfection in general- that is, progress- was now again replaced by the effort simply to secure the best possible conditions for myself and my family (17). This is also the year he married Sonya Behrs after a short courtship. If we do this, he thought, our lives will have significance the inevitability of death will not destroy and we will be one with God. Through his suffering and contemplation of suicide, he established Tolstoyism, the theory that all human lives are equally valuable and in order to live in harmony all of humanity would need to renounce those possessions and ideas that create hierarchy-private property, material wealth, the hierarchical state and church system-through which war and capital punishment are manifested. He places himself in the fourth category and remains in despair until he realizes that he has only been analyzing the thoughts of his own class-one which has lost the meaning of life.
Common topics in this essay:
Sonya Behrs,
Soloman Buddha,
Confession Tolstoy,
Tolstoyism Tolstoyism,
Ant Brothers,
Anna Karenina,
Church Confession,
Andreyevna Behrs,
Fourteen Tolstoy,
Polyana Russian,
green stick,
meaning life,
orthodox church,
yasnaya polyana,
inner struggle,
capital punishment,
faith god,
anna karenina,
terrible twenty,
family life,
life evil kill,
provided natural sciences,
inevitability death destroy,
evil kill themselves,
|
Acceptance Essays
