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The Grotesque Aesthetics of Tolstoy's Resurrection

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The Grotesque Aesthetics of Tolstoy's Resurrection KU ScholarWorks | http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu Please share your stories about how Open Access to this article benefits you. Estranged and Degraded Worlds: The Grotesque Aesthetics of Tolstoy’s Resurrection. by Ani Kokobobo 2012 This is the published version of the article, made available with the permission of the publisher. The original published version can be found at the link below. Kokobobo, Ani. (2010) Estranged and Degraded Worlds: The Grotesque Aesthetics of Tolstoy’s Resurrection. Tolstoy Studies Journal, 24, 1-14. Published version: http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA32 5496164&v=2.1&u=ksstate_ukans&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w&asid=c58f0 91cba4f4b6c97d9a8b9e2fb4b48 This work has been made available by the University of Kansas Libraries’ Office of Scholarly Communication and Copyright. -*12-7 23"'#1-30,* -*3+#STRST -*12-7 23"'#1 An annual refereed publication of the Tolstoy Society "'2-0TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT'!&#*T #,,#0 !',,!'*," 3 1!0'.2'-,,%#+#,2TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT3*'#%'1!&)3 "'2-0'*11'12,!#TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT 4'"(-312-, )-.7#"'2',%11'12,!#TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT(,,&)&.+, ,' *'-%0.&7"'2-01TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT-1#.& !&*#%#*Q0', '8-4 "'2-0'* ,-0"S ,"0#5 -,1)-4 /,'4#01'27 -$ 1225Q )07* +#01-, 30',!#2-, /,'4#01'27Q 4'!&0" 5312$1-, ,0,0" )-**#%# ," )-*3+ ' /,'4#01'27Q507&,/,'4#01'27-$',,#1-2Q4-,*"6#,*,!/,'4#01'27 -$ 7#5 (+.1&'0#Q #$$ 6-4# )*#+1-, /,'4#01'27Q +7 ,"#*)#0 50"32# )#,2#0 -$ 2&# )'27 /,'4#01'27 -$ 7#5 8-0)Q (3%& !6#, /,'4#01'27-$)*'$-0,'Q,#0)#*#7Q,#11#"8&' -41)77#5 !&--*$-0 -!'* 4#1#0!& ," 3%#,# 6,% )-**#%#Q 4- ', !#3#0 '**#0 ,0,"#'1 /,'4#01'27Q 507 3* -01-, 7-02&5#12#0, /,'4#01'27Q 92&*##, 302&M /,'4#01'27 -$ 4-!&#12#0Q 4'" *-,# 3 $21 /,'4#01'27Q ,"0#5 ;!&2#* 7-02&5#12#0,/,'4#01'27 Tolstoy Studies Journal is supported by the College of Arts and Sciences and the Russian Studies Program at Stetson University. It receives additional assistance from the Centre for Russian and East European Studies and the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures of the University of Toronto. Officers of the Tolstoy Society (2011-2012): President: Donna Tussing Orwin (University of Toronto) Subscriptions: Journal subscription is included in membership to the Tolstoy Society. Annual dues are as follows (note that all prices are in US dollars): Institutions: $50.00; Overseas Institutions: $55.00; Individual: $35.00; Overseas individual: $40.00; Students, Emeriti: $20.00. Subscription information and payment is available at www.tolstoystudies.org. Back Issues: Please see our website www.tolstoystudies.org for information on back issue availability and pricing. Submissions: The journal uses the MLA Style Manual (2nd ed.). Our stylesheet can be found at www.tolstoystudies.org. All manuscripts and non-subscription correspondence should be addressed to: Michael A. Denner Russian Studies Program 8361 Stetson University DeLand, FL 32724 USA E-mail: [email protected] ISSN: 1044-1573 Visit the journal’s website at http: //www.tolstoystudies.org © (2012) Tolstoy Society -*12-7 23"'#1-30,* -*3+#STRST Articles Estranged and Degraded Worlds: The Grotesque Aesthetics of Tolstoy’s Resurrection ......................................... 1 Ani Kokobobo Path of Life: Lev Tolstoy’s Prescriptive Spiritual Diaries ............................................................................................. 15 Kristina Toland Tolstoy, Zionism, and the Hebrew Culture ................................................................................................................... 26 Rafi Tsirkin-Sadan For His Eyes Only: Performance and Spectatorship in Family Happiness ............................................................... 36 Janneke van de Stadt Research Notes Emerson and Tolstoy’s Appraisals of Napoleon (Galina Alekseeva) ......................................................................... 59 Tolstoy’s Other Sister-in-Law in War and Peace (Brett Cooke) ............................................................................... 65 When Did Ivan Il’ich Die? (William Irwin) .................................................................................................................. 72 Lions and Dogs: Apropos of a Tolstoy Story (Alexander Karpov) ............................................................................. 74 Tolstoy’s Tropics of Suddeness: The Unexpected in the World of the Law (Ol’ga Slivitskaya) ............................ 82 Tolstoy Scholarship Annotated Bibliography: 2010-2011 (Joseph Schlegel, Irina Sizova) .......................................................................... 88 Review Article: A Meeting of Two Shining Souls, Addams and Tolstoy (Marsha Silberman) .............................. 103 Review: Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya: Literary Works (Galina Alekseeva) .................................................................... 111 Review: Two Translations of Childhood, Boyhood, Youth (Bob Blaisdell) ................................................................ 114 Review: Tolstoy on War, Narrative Art and Historical Truth in “War and Peace” (Matthew McGarry) ............. 119 News of the Profession Slavic Research Group, University of Ottawa, and Its Publications (Irina Paperno/Hugh McLean) .................... 122 Tolstoy and World Literature 2012, Yasnaya Polyana (Alexander Burry) ............................................................ 130 120,%#"," #%0"#";-0*"1S &#50-2#1/3##12&#2'!1-$ -*12-7_1Resurrection ,'9-)- - - /,'4#01'27-$9,11 olstoy’s Resurrection has the dual honor of Resurrection is compared to War and Peace and being both its author’s last full novel and Anna Karenina and deemed a lesser novel due to also the final Russian realist novel of the its ideological bent. R. F. Christian commences his T 1 nineteenth century. The historical associations of analysis of Resurrection with the assertion that “no its date of publication have shaped and divided serious critic would deny that Tolstoy’s last novel is critical receptions of the novel. The date 1899 a vastly inferior work of art to the two great novels corresponds to a period when Tolstoy’s worldview which preceded it” (221). was entrenched in post-conversion theology, as By contrast, Resurrection has received great well as to an age of social tumult in Russian acclaim in Soviet criticism as a socio-ideological society—a time when discontent with the tsarist novel that recreates the milieu at the turn of the regime rose as underground revolutionary activity nineteenth century. N. K. Gudzii and E. A. Maimin intensified. These social and philosophical factors declare that “Tolstoy’s last novel is undoubtedly a had their effects on the makeup of Resurrection, but social novel” and perhaps “not simply a novel, but a they have also, and perhaps primarily, influenced novel and a proclamation at the same time” criticism. The novel is often seen as either purely a (Гудзий and Маймин 483, 485). Such arguments container for the rhetoric of Tolstoy the religious are reaffirmed by Mikhail Bakhtin who refers to thinker, or as a reflection of sociopolitical struggles Resurrection as a “socio-ideological” novel in his in tsarist Russia. 1929 prefaces. Bakhtin aligns Resurrection with The first approach, prominent in Western works like Chernyshevsky's What Is to Be Done?, criticism, has led to a conflation of Resurrection Herzen's Who Is to Blame?, and the novels of with Tolstoy’s theoretical writings from the period. George Sand. As he puts it, a socio-ideological “[N]ever had Tolstoy’s pedagogical bent assumed novel has at its core “an ideological thesis,” which such gargantuan proportions as in Resurrection,” helps launch a “critique of all existing social writes Edward Wasiolek, “nor had it ever posed so relations and forms” (“Preface” 242–243). In what grave a threat to his art” (191). Whenever studied, we can surmise to be ironical praise, Bakhtin extols 2 / Tolstoy Studies Journal Vol. XXIV: 2012 Resurrection as the “most consistent and perfect Resurrection and in late Tolstoy in general is example of the socio-ideological novel not only in already recognized,4 which indicates that the Russia but in the West as well” (253). grotesque cannot be very far behind, since the In spite of the novel’s strong ties to Tolstoyan styles are closely related. Further, both Wasiolek theology, or its treatment of social inequities in and Harriet Murav have used the term to describe Russia, Resurrection has neither the simplicity of a characters and images in Resurrection as grotesque. theological pamphlet, nor the ideological direction Wasiolek mentions that the Korchagins appear of What Is to Be Done? Even scholars who find the grotesque to Nekhliudov after his moral awakening novel entrenched in Tolstoy’s post-conversion (194), whereas Murav, who highlights the intense theology insist that “the teacher and the prophet physicality of Resurrection, cites images from the […] did not (seriously) mar Resurrection” prison as “grotesque” (37). In this essay, I further (Wasiolek 192). As George Steiner posits, despite the implications of these earlier works by Tolstoy’s “puritanical conception of art,” the genre addressing manifestations of the grotesque as a of the novel, with its extensive, multi-layered proper literary style in Resurrection. In my analysis,
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