Philosophy

Nikolsky S.A.

Lev Tolstoy: a Russian view of the world and man in it

Abstract. The subject of the article is to analyze the anthropological theme in the works of Russian writer Lev Tolstoy and give a characteristic of the Russian view of the world. Lev Tolstoy’s works give a researcher a unique opportunity to have an idea about Russian worldview. An artist of genius, tireless worker and searcher for the meaning of life, the count-mouzhik left to future generations innumerable richness of observations, thoughts, artistic topics and images. Due to their depth and versatility they have long become and continue to be a subject of philosophical analysis. The article discusses a number of important meanings and values of Russian worldview that Tolstoy examined. First of all, in is the meaning (to be more precise – search for the meaning) of that which crowns human life. The theme of death and Russian people attitude to it was studied by the writer throughout his whole creative life. The author uses the method of hermeneutic analysis of the Russian writer’s texts. Secular and theological thought referring to evaluation of the fear of death has been compared. The article’s novelty is in looking for that which can oppose death. Having discovered for himself that the fear of death can be overcome through love as the fullest manifestation of God, Tolstoy turned to its analysis and then to consideration of the other side of this human feeling, devoting a number of great philosophical and artistic works to examination of passion. Sin and repentance, crime and punishment in human and social life, moral and legal justice are another worldview component of Tolstoy’s creative work. The thinker’s creative search has not been completed. But the very process is that most valuable heritage that he left to the reflecting descendants. Keywords: literature, philosophy, fear, death, life, worldview, crime, repentance, law, justice.

he centenary of the death of Leo Nikolaevich (peasantry) in its “swarm” life1 is in harmony with the Tolstoy (November 2010) is one more occa- natural. And the unmediated perception of a child gives sion for taking a careful look at the works of special salience to the concepts that are most important one of the greatest Russian thinkers of the sec- for an understanding of the Russian world outlook. Such Tond half of the nineteenth-early twentieth centuries. In fundamental categories as nature, the people, life, and his view, there is still unstudied fundamental content death will be present – inescapably but organically and pertaining to his world outlook that answers a need in without schematism – in Tolstoy’s works. He will be con- » ) www.nbpublish.com BENE (ООО « НБ-Медиа © NOTA contemporary Russian society. cerned with reality itself and not ideology: many have noted this trait. Thus, N.N. Strakhov wrote that the liter- From the autobiographical trilogy ary art of Tolstoy cannot exist separately from realistical- to Sevastopol Sketches ly conveyed “profound thoughts and profound feelings”2. It is especially important to notice this because the The start of the formation of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy’s systematic world outlook can be dated to 1851, when the process by which a young child discovers the world he set himself the task of writing the story of his child- chosen focus of Tolstoy in the first part of the trilogy is hood. The trilogy mostly depicts the life of the St. Pe- makes sense of the world and of himself as part of this tersburg gentry, but through the unclouded eyes of a world.for the first time and grows up as he experiences and child unambiguously conveys the clash between the In the story, Nicky Irten’ev inquires “whether the natural and the social. world is good and whether it [the world] loves him Nature, as a realm of being that is independent of man, substantially determines the atmosphere of the 1 living world in the trilogy above all because it is a mani- By using the term “swarm” to describe the life of the Russian peasantry, the author points to a specific collective (swarm) be- festation of the divine, an absolute moral measure. In havior that was exhibited by Russian peasants of that time. – Ed. Tolstoy, the world vision of the entire Russian people 2 Strakhov 2003, p. 309.

DOI: 10.7256/1339-3057.2014.1.10611 9 Philosophy

[Nicky].” He also describes his sensa­tions regarding Tolstoy remarks, “did not need to fear death because

Childhood the mind of the little hero is troubled by the the law of the Gospel. Her whole life was pure, un- image“something of death. like first love.” And from the first lines of she died with unshakable faith and having fulfilled The narrative, as we recall, starts with Nicky’s best and greatest thing in this life – she died with- awakening with the contrived thought of his mother’s outselfish regret love or and fear” self-denial.4. Tolstoy ...Shelearned accomplished how to do that the death and with the feeling arising in its wake that the throughout his life. world is out of joint. Passing by what N.G. Cherny- Tolstoy’s first works already display the series shevskii called the “dialectic of the soul” in the trilogy of meanings and values that will determine the philo- and is connected with the discovery of deep psycholog- sophical and ethical content of his subsequent works – ical analysis in the prose, let us look at this collision as what will take shape in War and Peace as the so- an expression of characteristic features of the Russian called popular thought, formed not in the bosom of world outlook. reason but in the depths of some profound feeling. A child, by his very nature, is sure of a funda- It seems that this “thought” comes from that unrea­ mental harmony in the world and tries to oppose soning popular essence that unites the common per- destruction and death. Fear in the face of death and son with the whole universe, with nature. The capac- an instinctual aversion to it arise in Nicky during a ity for such instinctual union with the world, Tolstoy wake and start with the cry of a peasant child: “On a supposes, is intrinsic not only to the man of the stool beside the coffin stood apeasant woman, strug- people – the peasant, above all – but to any human gling to keep hold of a little girl in her arms. Trying­ being, and ineluctably manifests itself within him as to ward off the sight with waving hands, throwing soon as he casts off false social conventions. What back a frightened little face, wide-open eyes fixed on else but this most important matter, for instance, the face of the deceased, the little girl was wailing preoccupies Tolstoy’s favorite character, Pierre Be- in a terrible, frantic voice. I shrieked in a voice that, zukhov? Or Andrei Bolkonskii when he lies under the I think, was even more horrible than the voice that sky of Austerlitz after rejecting the whole customary had startled me and ran out of the room”3. The first hierarchy of values? What else but union with nature encounter of the living with death is an experience (and God) does Konstantin Levin seek in his business of total vulnerability and horror. This is how Tolstoy activity? begins his discourse about death. One of the means to such union in Tolstoy is The child’s mind assimilates new meanings hunting. Hunting – a pastime so beloved of the Rus- not only in his personal collision with reality but sian people and the theme of much raptur­ous writing also through interaction with the popular mind, as by Turgenev – naturally releases instincts in man that though seeking its advice. And it is precisely the pop- acquire monstrous destructive power at times of war. ular mind that shows Nicky the loftiest examples of Hunting lays bare the deep-rooted kinship of people » ) www.nbpublish.com BENE (ООО « НБ-Медиа © NOTA a natural existence in harmony with the world. The who stand on different rungs of the social hier­archy, popular mind revealed itself to the young hero in the and between all of them and nature, the world of personality and fate of his nanny, Natalia Savishna. In God’s creation. The well-known philosopher Mikhail general, the narrator is struck by people’s intrinsic Lifshits5 has devoted much atten­tion to analyzing ability to become accustomed to the calm and rou- hunting episodes in Tolstoy, in order to show how the tine performance of the most onerous obligations in “miracle of art” through “Tolstoy’s peasant voice” is a situation of the greatest spiritual and moral ten- connected directly with his philosophical and social sion. Later Tolstoy will recall this in describing the ideas. “Hunting is a noble vestige of those times when defense of Sevastopol and the struggle against Napo- the simple life activity of the animal merged with the leon, when he will embody the faces of toilers of war - in the images of Russian soldiers. After the death of lization develops hunting does not disappear from his mother, Natalia Savishna talked with Nicky every first steps of social labor. It is remarkable that as civi day, and her quiet tears and tranquil, pious words brought him comfort and relief. And through her own man’s field of vision: it becomes more freed from its death she gave Nicky his last lesson, bearing suffering 4 Ibid., p. 107. with truly Christian patience and humility. His nanny, 5 Mikhail Aleksandrovich Lifshits (1905–1983) was an original Soviet philosopher of art, who undertook an analysis and devel- opment of esthetics from a fundamentally Marxist perspective. 3 Tolstoi 1978, vol. 1, p. 99. – Ed.

10 DOI: 10.7256/1339-3057.2014.1.10611 Nikolsky S.A. purely utilitarian purpose and acquires a certain au- kin’s Aleko10. He is fettered by no chains, physical or tonomy as a useful trial of strength”6. moral; he can do anything and needs nothing; nothing In Tolstoy’s hunting episodes, the intermediary binds him. He has neither family nor fatherland, nei- ther faith nor need. Everything changes when Olenin and the world of nature turns out to be the same peas- ends up in the Caucasus. antbetween [muzhik], the (largelyto whom artificial) the lord of world the manor of gentry [barin] life must listen. In War and Peace, Lifshits notes, “in the of wild Arabian horses, Circassian women, mountains, whole scene of the hunt there are, in essence, only precipices,The romantic terrifying image torrents, of the andwar dangers– filled with – vanishes images two real men: these are the old wolf, captured after a from his mind. The absence of civilization and the cru- desperate struggle, and the master of hounds, Danila. dity of the local inhabitants produce an illusion of free- ...Like any serious test, hunting entails its own kind of «Hamburg reckoning»7. It overturns social relations, in this world he is perceived as foreign. The only person and in a single instant everything that pulls upward whodom, showsand at goodwillfirst the hero toward relishes him, this“Daddy new Eroshka,”feeling. But is or downward, all ranks and values change places. The “inalienable nature,” as Bakhtin puts it. He even looks game becomes the real world, while other things – ti- like some sort of nature demon reminiscent of Pan: of tles, wealth, connections, conditions – become some- enormous height, with a broad beard white as snow how unreal”8. and broad shoulders and chest. The Cossack­ presents Another character who tests the truth of his being to Olenin a straightforward philosophy of an epic past, by means of the hunt (that is, man’s dialogue with the a golden age; against this background, the present day natural) is Dmitri Olenin in the story Cossacks [Kazaki] - sacks do not exist. It feels bad to look,” says Eroshka. He Rousseau and Stern, M.M. Bakhtin, in particu- recognizesseems unnatural neither and religious dwarfish. nor “Nowadayslegal norms suchand laws. Cos lar,(1863). sees Noting in this the novel influence a clearly on Tolstoy marked of opposition “But, in my opinion, everything is one. God made every- between nature and culture. “Inalienable nature is thing for man to enjoy. There is no sin in that. Take the Daddy Eroshka; the spirit is Olenin. But Olenin is the wild beast as your example, if you like. It lives both in bearer of a complicated cultural principle: contem- the Tatar reeds and in ours. Wherever it goes, there is plating the natural life of the Cossacks, he experi- its home. It gobbles up what God sends. But our people ences this antithesis within himself. From his point say that for this we shall lick hot pans. I think that it’s of view, it is bad for a person to be psychologically all wrong. ...When you croak, the grass will grow over predisposed toward self-observation... Conscience, your grave, that’s all”11. whose prompting is reflection, ...destroys a person’s Here Eroshka touches on the most important natural wholeness... To the self-reflexing Olenin are theme – death. And immediately other works of Tol- counterposed the Cossacks. The Cossacks are sinless stoy come to mind in this connection. Prior to Cos- because they live a natural life”9. Bakhtin, in essence, sacks, the writer completed two short stories based notes here one of the chief categories of Tolstoy’s on his personal experience. These are Lucerne [Liut- » ) www.nbpublish.com BENE (ООО « НБ-Медиа © NOTA world outlook – the deep and beneficial link between sern], which conveys his impressions of an execution man and nature. by guillotine in Paris, and Three Deaths [Tri smerti], whose plot is explained in detail by Tolstoy himself Tolstoy’s prose, who continued the tradition of Push- in a letter to his aunt: “My idea was: three creatures Dmitri Olenin is one of the first voluntary exiles in have died – a noblewoman, a peasant, and a tree. The

6 noblewoman is vile and pitiable because she lied her Lifshits 1979, p. 181. Hunting, Lifshits argues, is not an inci- whole life long and lies in the face of death. ...The dental theme in nineteenth-century Russian literature. It entered literature together with the focus on nature and peasant life as peasant dies a tranquil death, precisely because he fundamental supports of the national world outlook. In Turgenev, is not a Christian. He has another religion, although for example, the nobleman-hunter in his Notes of a Hunter [Za- by habit he performed Christian rites; his religion piski okhotnika] is a wanderer away from his home and country estate, and free of obligations to them. Those who happen to join him in his free hunter’s life, for a certain time or forever, are torn 10 The main character of The Gypsies (1824), a narrative poem away from the soil and neglect their age-old occupations. by Alexander Ser-geevich Pushkin, Aleko represented the “tradi- 7 tional Russian sufferer detached from the people,” who wanders Revealing a real, and not official, status of individuals within in search of his universal ideals and hoping “to find refuge in the the system of the social hierarchy. – Ed. bosom of nature from the confused and incongruous [social] 8 Lifshits 1979, p. 183. life.” (F. Dostoevsky). – Ed. 9 Bakhtin 2000, p. 239. 11 Tolstoy 1978, vol. 3, p. 221.

DOI: 10.7256/1339-3057.2014.1.10611 11 PhilosophyРубрика

is nature, with which he lived. He cut down trees, in mind the following. Each social stratum, possessing sowed and reaped rye, killed rams, and rams were and living within its own culture, recognizes and ratio- born for him, and children were born, and old peo- nalizes it through certain hierarchically ordered mean- ple died, and he firmly knows this law from which ings and values. But then there occurs a terrible event – he never hid his face, as the noblewoman did, and war – and each of these meanings and values, as well simply looked it straight in the eyes. ...The tree dies as the hierarchy that orders them, are put to the test. a tranquil, honest, and beautiful death. Beautiful be- And their content changes, and the hierarchy is or- cause it does not lie, does not break, does not fear, dered anew: what was vitally important for the parents and does not pity”12. means little to their children. Tolstoy’s conception of war in Sevastopol Sketches prose who thinks about departing into an almost nat- ural Dmitriexistence. Olenin He is is struck the first by characterthe same idea in Tolstoy’s that in Cossacks or, for instance, in the story The Raid [Nabeg]. various forms will later disturb Bezukhov and Levin Indiffers Cossacks, consider Tolstoy’s­ably from character the conception merely touches that we findlightly in and Nekhliudov – the idea of breaking away from his on war; he has yet to descend into its pitiless and all- social estate and crossing into the realm of natural be- devouring maw. War is waged, as it were, “part time” ing. “Why don’t I do this? What on earth am I waiting – that is, only when the characters themselves choose for?” – Olenin asks himself, but is unable to extricate to wage it, often in the hope of obtaining awards, ranks, - or horses. Here, for example, is a picture from The Raid. age to become his own man among the Cossacks. The The commander of a Russian detachment observes verdicthimself fromagainst the him trap is of pronouncedreflection. He by does the not Cossack man the general, lightly prancing in the English style on his leaves the village, Mariana, whom he loved, and Ero- blackthe battlefield: slim-legged “’What horse. a splendid sight!’ – exclaimed shkawoman do Mariana:not even turn“Get theirlost, youheads: creep!” the barrier And when proves he insuperable, the departure into a natural existence does not take place. especially«Charming!» in good –company,’ the major added replied the general gutturally. with «... a From a certain point of view, the whole life of Leo pleasantTruly a delight smile» to13 .fight in such a splendid country. «And Tolstoy, from his youth to advanced old age, is either Between the Caucasian and the Crimean war, as Tolstoy depicts them, there is an enormous differ-

Caucasusa flight from in order his social to escape milieu debts or the and intention habits, butto make per- it considers its subjects and when it so wishes, in the hapssuch mainly a flight. because By his ownafter admission,leaving the heuniversity goes to and the Crimeanence. While war in it the faces Caucasus a foreign Russia enemy. fights In thepeople Caucasus, whom experiencing the collapse of his plans in 1847 he sim- ply did not know where to go or what to do. Judging time, like the chance pistol shot of the Chechen prison- from Cossacks, - erwar at is the an youngangel of Cossack. death who War flies in the past Crimea only from is an time invis to- » ) www.nbpublish.com BENE (ООО « НБ-Медиа © NOTA portunity to grow closer to the people – the soldiers ible killer in a neighboring trench whose eyes remain and the Cossacksthe – Caucasus and, second, gave a Tolstoy,chance tofirst, test an him op- open day and night. However, not only in the Caucasus but also in the - Crimea Tolstoy draws an explicit distinction between stoyself underis already difficult in Sevastopol, circumstances. a participant But his inflight the waswar againstnot confined Turkey to andthe itsCaucasus. allies. Soon In November thereafter, 1854 in 1855, Tol parts of the cycle – Sevastopol in December [Sevastopol’ sevastopol sketches appears. Despite the documentary v“the dekabre gentry’s mesiatse] war” and and “the Sevastopol people’s in Maywar.” [Sevastopol’ In the first character of this work, its artistic focus is again the v mae] – the theme of “gentlemen at war” is depicted Russian world outlook, illu­minated by Tolstoy from with a very palpable sense of the author’s contempt. new angles. Thus, there is a detailed description of one of the of- Here, in the context of the phenomenon under - songs are sung to the accompaniment of a piano. To a lem of change in value priorities. In say­ing this, I have ficers’ feasts at which good wine flows freely and Gypsy consideration, Tolstoy for the first time poses the prob without conveniences, Prince Gal’tsin replies: “I don’t understandlieutenant colonel’s and, I admit, remark I can’t that believe it is impossible that lice-ridden to fight 12 Ibid., vol. 3, p. 455. Tolstoy himself finally resolves the strug- people wearing muddy underwear and with unwashed gle against the fear of death by departing from his habitual but now alien life environment. And this departure turns out to be a departure into death. 13 Tolstoi 1978, vol. 2, p. 25.

12 DOI: 10.7256/1339-3057.2014.1.10611 Nikolsky S.A. hands could be brave. So, you know, this splendid brav- see these chief features that constitute the Russian’s ery of the nobleman cannot be”14. strength – simplicity and persistence; but here on each The war sketches encompass a broad range of man’s face it seems to you that the danger, malice, and problems and themes – war from the human and the suffering of war, besides these chief signs, have also left natural point of view, the emotional state of people at traces of an awareness of his own worth and of lofty war, the greatness of the Russian peasant soldier who thought and feeling”15. The truth of the Crimean war is that the hero of Sev- homeland. It is in vain, Tolstoy remarks, that we would astopol is the Russian people defending its land. Social lookcalmly, here confidently, for the display and of without any special praise heroism. defends There his egoism and the falsity of society­ are at odds with this is nothing of this. There are everyday people engaged truth. The writer is deeply disillusioned in the Russian in an everyday task. But this must not lead us to doubt the heroism of the city’s defenders: the author convinc- angry memorandum to the Grand Duke about the state es us of this by showing us pictures of the steadfast- ofofficer the Russiancorps. While armed still forces. in Sevastopol, In it Tolstoy he describescomposes the an ness of the wounded despite the cruelest suffering. The horrifying conditions in which the “oppressed­ slaves” are placed – soldiers forced to obey “thieves, oppres- the Sevastopol sketches is the fourth bastion. And again sive mercenaries, and looters” – and the low moral and Tolstoyculmination shows of twothe trials different of human perspectives nature inon the this first “ter of- rible bastion”: that of those who have not been there these things in the second cycle of sevastopol sketches. However,professional the levelpretenses of the of officer falsehood corps. and He vainglory also tells are of that the fourth bastion is a true grave for all who end upand there; that ofthe those latter who say onlyfight whetherthere. The it isformer dry or willmuddy, say face with the stern truth of war. warm or cold in the trench. destroyedIn sevastopol as soon sketches as these the officers “little are Napoleons” brought faceor “lit to- Immersing the reader in the prose of military life, - Tolstoy leads him along a path that is full of mud. Vir- tually every part of the text contains this word. Mud intotle monsters battle this of very cruelty” minute also and make kill theira hundred first appear people mixed with blood is, indeed, the prosaic image of war, forance the in sakeTolstoy’s of an work extra – starofficers on theirwho areepaulettes ready to or go a and it is much harder to confront this image than it is to one-third salary increment. In the last chapter of the perform romantic acts of heroism. In general, mud – in work, Tolstoy reveals his philosophical credo, show- fact, earth mixed with water (both the earth that feeds ing the equality of attackers and defenders in face of us and the earth as a source of minerals) – plays the the enormities of Nature and Death. “On our bastion role of an accompanying element in Tolstoy’s descrip- tions of the transition from life to death that may occur at each and any instant. Let us recall that the same kind clothedand over in the gray French and dark trench blue, white lie inflags clumps are raised, across andthe of “mud” accompanies the path of the noblewoman bloomingbetween themvalley. disfigured Workers remove corpses, the without corpses boots and andlay dying of consumption in Three Deaths. Especially sym- » ) www.nbpublish.com BENE (ООО « НБ-Медиа © NOTA bolic is the scene in which a carriage bearing the dying woman stands at one of the stops right in the middle of themIn in the carts. synthesizing The horrible part heavy of Sevastopol smell of deadin August flesh a muddy patch, and the noblewoman, unlike those ac- 1855fills the [Sevastopol’ air.” v avguste 1855 goda], the images companying her, lacks the strength to drag herself out used to convey the opposition between natural and of the mud onto dry ground. This is a forewarning to all who are dying that the earth is already waiting to and his brother Vladimir. Mikhail Kozel’tsov is an of- receive them in its soft bowels. artificial life are those of Lieutenant Mikhail Kozel’tsov and that he himself wanted, understanding­ no other - ficer who was first to do all that he considered correct tal toWork twentieth-century as toil – here Russianis Tolstoy’s war definitionprose. So theof thisim- is the source of all his motives. Vladimir Kozel’tsov is agephenomenon, of the soldier a definition as an inconspicuousthat has become toiler fundamen of war choice but to come first or be destroyed. Self-esteem will occupy a central place in Tolstoy’s plot. And who more adroit than the peasant to perform this toil? “In Theone ofyouth the firstis overcome images in by Tolstoy a feeling of aof young “lonesomeness man who the girth of these shoulders, in the stoutness of these andfinds general it difficult indifference to master to thehis lot.”everyday “This proseawareness of war. of lonesomeness and danger in the face of death ...lay on legs, ...in every calm, firm, unhurried movement we 14 Tolstoi 1978, vol. 2, p. 115. 15 Tolstoi 1978, vol. 2, p. 106.

DOI: 10.7256/1339-3057.2014.1.10611 13 © NOTA BENE (ООО «НБ-Медиа») www.nbpublish.com 14 16 duty, andtheconsolationofhope” ing angelto bless their souls withpatience,asense of your children; everywhere you send downa comfort - No, you have nottired of listening to theentreaties of suffering!undeserved his all for – presentiment scious right there thereward –of which he hasanuncon- of the Nikolaev Battery and beseeches you to give him floor bare the tofallen has who soldier lice-ridden and fear sensesyour closeness tothe tormented, hungry, George’sfast Cross andtheSt. around hiswith neck but the generalwho second abefore wasof break thinking ascended to you from thisterrible of place death–from norance, confused repentance, andsufferinghave that ferventthe simplebut anddesperate entreaties of ig- know and heard have alone You Lord! “Great author. the of prayer the into merges organically soul his fies courage only byto appealing God. The prayer puri- that Tolstoy’stsar?» and characterto manages recover his ard? AmIreallyto unable die honestly for fatherland I really acoward, afoul,base, andcontemptible cow Am «...Lord! stone. heavy,cold terribly a like heart his to intervene inthecourse of events. The game with is attended byfeeling a of helplessness,inability visit him, death. Oftheimagesthat the dominantone merses himselfnight ina with seanceofacquaintance surrealistic (in the form of a dream), the character im- initiated game withdeath. His choiceto goonsetsthebounds ofadeliberately counters atroika moving inthedirection heneeds. and, second,when having already turned backheen- presses doubtregarding thesuccessofjourney, ex coachman the when first, snowstorm: emerging more– toone than avoidentering anpath of the winter over thesteppe hasanopportunity–infact, the edgebetween life anddeath. discusses the tricksa person enable notto that slide off cial characteristics ofkind” of a “nonmilitarydeathand mastery of scholar,a subtle Tolstoy examines thespe- the storycall TheSnowstorm [Metel’](1856). the With to agitate his mind. Andinthiscon­ prose – does not release itsgriponhimcontinues but fect onthehumansoul. to beimbuedwiththisideademonstrate itshealingef And thoseofTolstoy’sbles. characters whom heal­ death, whichpetty humansquab- all bustle, all annuls unity of mankind inface of the supreme judgment of

Tolstoi 1978,vol. 2,pp. 177–78. In a pictureIn measureis inequal that realisticand lordA narrator)(the manor the of traveling in Death –one of the chief characters in Tolstoy’s war Againagain,and Tolstoy returns to theideaof 16 nection Iwantto re - . DOI: 10.7256/1339-3057.2014.1.10611 Philosophy lows - - - - Tolstoy’s conception of the relations between manand Atthe sametime,even intheearly period of hiswork the deepest foundation ofthe Russian world outlook. and intheproximity of death, Christian ­ ary importance.Under the borderlineconditions of war whatreally matters life mostin what and is ofsecond orientation toward theCreator,its clearviewof and were theclosenessofRussian mindto nature, its Russian worldThe outlook.decisive aspectsfor Tolstoy Turge-nev) find a new approach to comprehending the helped Tolstoy (unlike, foror Pushkin, Gogol, instance, personal experience of war as aborderline situation, andyoungas achild,adolescent, man,aswellas the “We Sir!” madeit, culmination: its reaches story the and do, they So it!” casionally dropped phrases: “Don’t worry: we’llmake oc- in time first the for circumstances such into fallen has who traveler the to and reader the to confidence and thegeneraloptimistic mood. They convey their ers” –thecoachmensetbothrulesofgame ages ofthosewho have played itbefore. The“old-tim narra­ (the time first the us, theimagesof those who are playing this game for frozen completely” re­ es themselvesus half-frozen should bring into some it wouldme that notbebadif toward morning the hors rather ominous andeven amoralfantasy: seemed “Itto soldiers defending Sevastopol. to perform theappointedcome what task, may –inthe stoy observes behavior of the same kind –continuing does Ignat notbecome dispirited. Let usrecallTolthat - does task, notstop tellinghis The tales. front coachman who for the timebeingis not required to perform any another adapting horse to this end. The “counselor,” to catch runaway horses, and anothercomesto hisaid, ing his life, throws himself into theimpenetrablegloom come whatmay. swearing Thus, thepeasant, risk and tinue performingappointed thetask to each person, game. The common strivingunites that them is to con- own contributionto understanding the course of this created by Tolstoy are also remarkableand make their onlysign. The bad imagesofpeople also a pointlessbut sue –whether one isgoingto survive. Doingsoisnot allowedis not toquestions concerningthechief askis fear or complain inany way. Another rule is that one this gamehavedo not therightto demonstrate their death reveals itsrulesandlogic.Thus,in participants 17

mote, unknownif village,some of us should even be Tolstoi 1978,vol. 2,p. 232. Examining theexperience of his development In this situation, Tolstoy’sthis situation, In character isvisited by a 17 . Inthepicture that unfolds before tor) clearly differ from the im- the from differ clearly tor) ity emerges as - - - - - Nikolsky S.A.

God leaves no room for the mediating role of the church Participation by the living (“peace”) in what is cre- (as is well known, this was to lead Tolstoy into some ated and functions by the logic of the dead (“war”) does not pass without consequences for the living. Let us re- Having started to discern all these meanings call that Nikolai Rostov, drawn into the card game with conflict with the church). - sequent works the author of War and peace uncovers on his father through his loss, nonetheless continues since the first steps of his literary career, in his sub toDolokhov play. And and then, knowing like ahow zombie, heavy he a blow tells hehis will father inflict of concepts for the whole structure of Russian self-con- this in light-hearted words and an impudent tone: he sciousness.with increasing In these thoroughness works, which the significance analyze essentially of these has lost and it doesn’t matter to whom. And only the existential situations, it is characters from among the meek reaction of Count Ilya Andreevich, as though in people – the peasant in the guise of a hunter or in a sol- the face of death (is this not the embryo of Tolstoy’s dier’s greatcoat, or else the nobleman who has chosen “nonresistance to evil by force”? – S.N.), makes Nikolai the “simple life” and accepted the people’s truth – who come to himself and return to life with the saving cry: appear as the arbiters of good and evil, truth and false- 19 hood, heroism and cowardice. a new­born baby, is one of Tolstoy’s signs for the turn- “Papa!ing away Pa-pa! from Forgive death, me!”its retreat. The cry,in the like face the offirst life, cry the of The novels War and Peace, victory of living “peace” over dead “war.” (In this con- Anna Karenina, and Resurrection nection, let us recall the cry of the little girl, and then of Nicky Irten’ev too, at the sight of the body of the dead Passing on to War and Peace, mother; here too it is by means of a cry that the liv- all, that Tolstoy’s interpretation of the themes of war ing restores itself to life, leaving the zone of dangerous and peace seems to me broaderI would than like a simple to say, demar first of- proximity to death.) cation between wartime and peacetime; I see it as con­ Tolstoy describes with special care the technology nected with the concepts of “death” and “life” and with the boundary that divides them. In Tolstoy, war is not the living through the example of the seduction of Na- tashaby which [Rostova] the non by­living Anatol (artificial) Kuragin. devours Remarkably, and destroys Tolstoy chooses as a background for this an opera performance, relationsjust armed are conflict, states butof war also and any often “nonlife,” lead theto death. threshold The depicted in a markedly ironic and estranged manner. skillfullyof death; indesigned equal measure, marriage unnatural, of convenience “artificial” between social Natasha watches the whole proceeding with astonish- Pierre and Helene ends in disintegration; the reveries ment and derision; it even seems “savage” to her. Let of Andrei Bolkonskii before Austerlitz, built on false us note that Tolstoy repeatedly returns to this reaction ideals, bring him to the edge of life and death. The inauthentic, the nonliving mimics the liv- ing, tries to adopt its face. On a bet, Dolokhov drinks asof theon anatural stage andwith living painted to the scenery. artificial, By showingtheatrical, Nata and- a bottle of rum while sitting on the windowsill, risking sha’snonliving: interaction in an artificial with Helene world and everything her brother takes Anatol place » ) www.nbpublish.com BENE (ООО « НБ-Медиа © NOTA a crash: what a display of vitality, or so it would seem interspersed with the stage presentation of scenes of - life, love, and death, Tolstoy emphasizes the funda- mental similarity between the one and the other. In the in– youth, the eyes wildness, of his own daring! circle. But this bravado has no justi fied goalLet us – italso is merely recall in a thisdesire connection again to raise how Dolokhovhis status real angels of death, rule the roost. At the same time, cheats at cards with Nikolai Rostov. Dolokhov knows likerealm actors of the on artificial, the stage, Dolokhov, they pass Helene, themselves and Anatol, off as that a loss of 43,000 rubles is almost ruinous for the count’s family, which has received him with all cordial- ity, but cold-bloodedly goes ahead. That Dolokhov is startsliving. toThey imitate do not Helene, find thissmiling difficult, at Boris because Drubetskoi they are in in the service of death or “war” is revealed by Tolstoy thebeautiful same andway self-confident, as Count­ess Bezukhov and Natasha and involuntarily then sitting himself in his description of what is taking place inside in such a pose that Anatol should have a better view of him: “As though bored with daily life, Dolokhov felt the need by means of some sort of strange and mostly cru- strange and, on the contrary, derives pleasure from it. el act to escape from it”18. “To escape” from life. Into her profile.Tolstoy Gradually accompanies she ceases the appearance to find the of proceeding Anatol in what? Only into death. Helene’s box with the remark: “In the box ...it smelled

18 Tolstoi 1979, p. 56. 19 Ibid., p. 66.

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cold.” The nonliving carries with it murderous cold. and living souls” of the great Gogol, who placed before Anatol, starting to acquire mastery over Natasha, in- many generations of Russian thinkers the question of vites her to a masked ball – another situation of imita- the interaction between the life principle and the death tion and sham. Although Natasha feels that Anatol has principle in the life of each person and of society. Nev- “indecent intentions,” she lacks the strength to resist. ertheless, in Gogol “dead” souls are separated from liv- ing ones, for the world of the living is outlined in the tenderness of his smile conquered her. ...With horror notes to the second volume of the poem23. In Tolstoy, she“His sensed closeness, that andthere confidence, was no barrier and thebetween good-natured him and - her”20. Natasha confesses to Sonia: “I have no will, he plexity of the entanglements of the living with the dead, includingby contrast, within we see the aliterary picture characters that reflects them allselves.­ the com In- nonliving has devoured the living.” deed: is it the life principle or the death principle that is myThe master, soulless I am and his amoral, slave. Thewhich play constitute is finished: the thees- comes out on top within Prince Nikolai Bolkonskii in his relations with Princess Maria? And how is it pos- of death, its real presence in human life, in the nature of sible for Dolokhov, who embodies everything nonliv- eachsence one of what of us. Tolstoy The nonliving, calls artificial, in its aretravels the throughother-being the ing, to tenderly love his old mother and crippled sister? real world, unavoidably causes the living to perish. Nata- There is no eternal peace, but there is a mixed state of “war-peace” as a form of human living. Natasha’s act with Pierre’s words as “baseness, stupid- All the main heroes of Tolstoy’s novels run up ity,sha’s and love cruelty” for Prince21. But Andrei how and will why perish. did Tolstoyit become defines pos- against the phenomenon­ of death. But what a differ- sible? To this there is no answer. However, this merely ence there is in the attitude taken toward death be- strengthens our impression of the irrational strength of tween those who stand on the side of the nonliving the nonliving,­ the enormous power of death. (“war”) and those who stand on the side of the living An encounter of the nonliving with the living is, as - a rule, ruinous for the living. Only when one nonliving ebrated play Shadow [Ten’] frees himself of his shad- being unites with another of the same ilk does tragedy ow,(“peace”)! which Thehas gonemain outcharacter of his control,of Eugeny by Shvarts’smeans of celthe not occur. The limited and rational Vera Rostova and the pettily pragmatic Berg are happy in their marriage. epic novel, we have the persistent feeling that the real The marriage of convenience between Boris Drubets- heroeswords: are “Shadow, able to knowsay at yourthe decisive place!” mo Herement:­ too, “Death, in the koi and Julie is successful. Do-lokhov, who delights in controlling the wills of other people, including Anatol In what lies the strength of the heroes who are ableknow to your pronounce place!” – such and deathwords? retreats. This strength is seen Balaga, who – as the author observes – “loves to top- most clearly in the image of Captain Tushin, a soldier pleKuragin, a carter is satisfied or knock with down his alife. pedestrian The troika as coachman he drives who comes from the people. The captain is by no means around Moscow,” is sincerely devoted to his masters, an organically fearless being, executing the will of an » ) www.nbpublish.com BENE (ООО « НБ-Медиа © NOTA Anatol Kuragin and Dolokhov, and happy with the full- equally heroic high command. Like all living beings, ness of his “nonliving” existence. he thinks about and fears his possible death. Tushin In order to describe the condition of Natasha, who has fallen into the paws of the nonliving, Tolstoy in- toil of war, complete absorption in the logic of the task atis madehand. According fearless through to Tolstoy, selfless people performance of this kind of are, the moral principle. His presence enables us to see more above all, peasants or lords of the manor who are akin clearlytroduces what the figurehas happened of Pierre to – Natasha.an embodi “Natasha­ment of feltthe to peasants in spirit. When he depicts his favorite char- between herself and him in the highest degree that acters from the Rostov family, Tolstoy misses no occa- power of moral barriers whose absence she had felt sion to emphasize their closeness to the people. with Kuragin”22. Thus, moral integrity and a developed Tolstoy discovers another way of resisting death moral sense are attributes of life and enable a person among the artillery troops on Kurgan Hill, which Pierre successfully to withstand the death principle. visits during the Battle of Borodino. This is when peo- ple live and act as a single organism, penetrated – as the dead, Tolstoy continues the tradition of the “dead Tolstoy puts it – by “fervent patriotism.” Then an as- In reflecting upon the war between the living and 20 Tolstoi 1979, p. 344. 23 21 Gogol’s Dead Souls (1842), though usually regarded as a nov- Ibid., p. 375. el, is subtitled A poem. Gogol called it “an epic poem in prose.” 22 Ibid., p. 76. – Trans.

16 DOI: 10.7256/1339-3057.2014.1.10611 Nikolsky S.A. tonishing pattern emerges: the greater the presence confusion. He fell asleep”25. Let me draw attention­ here of death, as it carries away the defenders­ one after the to Tolstoy’s remark: “But they were only thoughts.” other, the more cheerful and lively their conduct. This Like any human being, Tolstoy is incapable of unrav- struggle of life against death reveals one important eling the mystery of eternal love, but he comes right special characteristic of the living: the brightness of up to the boundary that divides it from earthly love - and is aware that a person is incapable in principle of crossing this boundary during his life. Interestingly, the “firecontrary: of life” the does fewer not people depend remain directly alive, on the nummore ber of people who bear this fire within themselves. On the greater the responsibility of each man for his deeds, questionit is precisely of how in notthe tocontext fear death. of these This reflections solution lies that in forbrightly each burnsmay turn the out fire. to The be the closer last death within approaches, whom the theTolstoy striving confirms of a living the solution being toward that he moral has found perfection. to the “With all the strength of his soul, he had always so Tolstoy continues his investigation into the phe- persistently sought one thing – to be completely good fire of life burns. - – that he was unable to fear death”26 – says Tolstoy in ever, while earlier he has focused mainly on the actual the words of Pierre. factnomenon of death, of death on how in the death final – section including of the in novel.its guise How of Alongside life and death as fundamental meanings acts, now he is more interested in the at- and values of the Russian world outlook, the values of titude of his characters toward death. These characters - theundoubtedly artificial – include: the dying Prince Andrei; Pierre, stoy’s views. This is connected, above all, with the im- sentenced (he is sure of it) to be shot; the sick Platon agethe peopleof Pierre and Bezukhov, nature are with of equalhis striving significance unreservedly to Tol to merge with the people. As we recall, the appearance Petya Rostov, who dies an instantaneous death. Prince of Bezukhov at Borodino Field is preceded by Natasha’s AndreiKarataev, renounces who knows earthly that life death to the is degree close; that and, he finally, pon- prayer in the home church of the Razumovskiis and by ders the prospect opening up before him, its principle the public service for the troops on the eve of the bat- not of earthly but of eternal love. The essence of eternal tle. Natasha Rostova, who has recently experienced her own “Austerlitz,” is also looking for paths of reconcili- for love” – means in ordinary life “to love no one,” “not love – “to love all people,” “always to sacrifice oneself the priest, “In peace let us pray to the Lord,” her soul this “principle of love,” the further he departs from responds:ation with “Inthe peace world – around all together, her. To without the first distinction words of lifeto live and this the earthly more completely life.” And the he moredestroys he is“the filled terrible with of social estate, not in enmity but united by brotherly barrier that in the absence of love stands between life love – we shall pray.” This state of Natasha’s soul is a and death.” Especially important are the pages of the novel on which Tolstoy describes the prince’s state of of the war. It is conveyed to Pierre, and in unison with Rostova’sreflection homeof the prayer,state of the the common Russian prayer,world onbefore the evethe “moral struggle between life and death, in which death battle rises over Borodino Field. This sets the scale of » ) www.nbpublish.com BENE (ООО « НБ-Медиа © NOTA wasmind victorious” in his last24 two – a days,state ofwhen mind there that beganNatasha the called final what is happening to the nation and to the individual. “that has happened to him.” The truth that there are two Pierre’s world vision in this episode is congruent with loves – earthly love as attachment to a particular living the event unfolding before him. And he himself appears person and “eternal love,” which is not connected with commensurate with the dimensions of the heroic epic, as though he were turning into a hero from Russian “’Love? What is love?’ he thought. ‘Love impedes death. epics [bogatyr’]. And while previously Pierre was the Lovea living is life.person Everything – does not that find I understand, a place in Andrei’s everything, mind. I executor of an alien and egoistic will in opposition to understand only because I love. Everything exists only the laws of the universe, now he follows higher rules, because I love. Everything is connected by love alone. revealing his powers and abilities. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, In his movement around Borodino Field, Pierre is return to the common and eternal source.’ He found accompanied by the sun. It illuminates down to the ti- some consolation in these thoughts. But they were only niest details the panorama of the approaching­ battle, thoughts. There was something missing in them; some- which now acquires essentially universal dimensions. thing was one-sidedly personal, mental – they lacked This historic clash of nations becomes their compre- obviousness. And there was the same uneasiness and 25 Ibid., pp. 69–70. 24 Tolstoi 1979, p. 76. 26 Ibid., p. 230.

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hension of their own essence. Nature, as it were, sym- subordinating his own private (outer) existence to the pathizes with the Russian world, and therefore guides (inner) existence of the entire nation. and supports Pierre at the crucial moment when he Trying to comprehend the intent of Tolstoy’s epic, grasps the essence of life. The forces of nature and we may conclude that its outcome is to establish the the forces of the Russian people merge together. The goal toward which the Russian world must move. This soldiers of the Raev Battery and their “world” align goal is the familial unity of the nation, resting on a natu- themselves with History and Nature. In the faces of ral foundation that also includes the harmonious com- these simple people – in essence, peasants – there bination of the masculine (Pierre) and feminine (Nata- sha) principles. it as he strives to test its sublime power on himself. The interpretation of the fundamental meanings “’Warburns ais sunlike, the hardest divine subordination fire. Pierre too of is pulleda man’s toward free- and values of the Rus­sian world outlook that Tolstoy dom to the laws of God. ...Simplicity is submission to began in War and peace was continued in the “family” God; there is no getting away from him. And they are novel Anna Karenina. Comparing the chief themes of simple. They don’t talk but act. Speech is silver, but si- the two great works – love and business, life and death lence is golden. A man can master nothing for so long (the dead and the living) – I note the following. In a se- as he fears death. And all belongs to the man who does ries of key points, Anna Karenina is not simply the work not fear it. Were it not for suffering, a man would not written after War and peace, but the philosophical de- know his limits, would not know himself. The hardest velopment and deepening of the latter. thing ...is to be able to unite the meaning of everything One of the themes thus developed is that of busi- in your soul. To unite everything? ...No, not to unite. It is impossible to unite thoughts, but to connect all the novel than Anna Karenina. As has rightly been ob- - servedness. Konstantin by, for instance, Levin isthe a well-knownno less significant Tolstoy hero schol of- - ars A. Zverev and V. Tunimanov, “these characters are peatsthese thoughtsto himself – withthat’s inner what rapture, is needed! feeling Yes, itthat is necit is essentially similar, even though the results of their life preciselyessary to andconnect, only necessarythese words to connect!’that express – Pierre what rehe odyssey are diametrically different for in both cases the wants to express and resolve the whole ques­tion that central plot and hub of this odyssey are a crisis in cus- is tormenting him”27. tomary values and a craving to live in accordance with Pierre does not suspect that the chief Word (Lo- the demands of natural moral feeling and not under the gos) of his world vision was not born in abstract talk power of a generally accepted but false norm”28. with his Mason-”benefactor” but came [into existence] - from the life of the people. It was the voice of the rid- rated program-response to the question of whether ing master who awoke Pierre: “We have to get going, “positiveKonstantin affair” isLevin possible is Tolstoy’s in the Russia first carefully of his day. elabo For Levin, as for Tolstoy himself, the standard response is [sopriagat] – “to get going” [zapriagat] – this, it seems, » ) www.nbpublish.com BENE (ООО « НБ-Медиа © NOTA it’s time to get going, Your Excellency!” (“To connect” a person’s life with their intrinsic variety, are possible to Pierre arise from the peasant masses, from a word onlypeasant in the laboring. collective Agrarian harmoni activities,­ous interaction which wholly of many fill oris moregesture. to theHaving point!) awoken, Thus, Pierrethe meanings rejects the that “simple” matter people and in direct contact with nature, and in Rus- roots of these meanings. He does not want to see the sian literature they have always been one of the fa- dirty coaching yard, with a well in the middle by which vorite positive examples of ideally organized human soldiers are watering horses; he wants to understand existence. From Fonvizin with his “state entrepreneur” what was revealed in his dreams, not suspecting that Starodum to the images of “exemplary landowners” in the answer to his questions lies in the “connection” the second volume of Gogol’s Dead Souls, rural “men between the dirty coaching yard and his philosophical of affairs” in­creasingly dominate the space of classical and moral quest. And the whole of Pierre’s subsequent Russian prose and poetry. This problematic is espe- path is, according to Tolstoy, the simple path of con- cially salient in the stories and novels of Turgenev and necting his own life with the life of the people and na- Goncharov. These examples dispel the until recently ture. Tracing how Bezukhov moves through Borodino and beyond, we can see: neither Pierre nor anyone in whom there lives a sense of the whole constituted by people.”firmly entrenched Tolstoy too myth successfully that the continues Russian classics the tradi are- the people and nature has any other path but that of tionpopulated of “positive exclusively affair” by in “dead Russia. souls” and “superfluous

27 Tolstoi 1979, p. 306. 28 Zverev and Tunimanov 2007, p. 294.

18 DOI: 10.7256/1339-3057.2014.1.10611 Nikolsky S.A.

Nevertheless, the central theme that Tolstoy devel- living Anna with the world and the analogous clash of ops in his second novel is that of love in the form of pas- Natasha Rostova, the difference is enormous. Natasha sion – an anomalous form that goes beyond the bounds is merely a victim, a weak being who has fallen into the of the rational. Tolstoy examines the phenomenon­ of clutches of a corpse and been infected by its poison passionate love under conditions that would appear to but who, thanks to circumstances, is happily saved and make the existence of this feeling impossible. And for gradually restored to health. Anna is something else. this reason alone it is akin to the feeling investigated by She is in fact an adulteress who from the start has made Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet, Othello, or King Lear. use of the opportunities and power of “society”: thanks In War and Peace Tolstoy merely touches on the to her marriage of convenience with Karenin, she fully phenomenon of passion.­ While Natasha in War and belongs to high society. Let us recall that until Anna Peace is carried away by an evil external power, Anna takes the decisive step – confessing to her husband that can do nothing with her own heart, captive to pas- she has committed adultery, bringing her love for Vron- sion. Within the couple constituted by Anna and Vron- sky into the open – she does not go beyond the bounds sky, it is precisely Anna who is the source of passion. of generally accepted behavior. Throughout the novel we sense that Vronsky merely But Anna resolves to act openly. What does she be- resonates to the stormily rising passion of the heroine. tray? What rela­tions does she destroy? What boundar- Anna needs Vronsky’s constant physical presence; she ies does she cross? Undoubtedly, her husband is placed is concerned to ensure that he should have no interests in a humiliating position and truly suffers from the or relationships that are independent of her. Even when undeserved insult. He has never deceived Anna, never they are living quietly together in the countryside, any tried to appear better than he really is (due to his natu- absence of Vronsky on business leads to tension, suspi- ral limitations, the idea would simply not have occurred to him). It is Anna who has broken the contract tacitly It is obvious that in order to survive and to with- concluded between them. So Anna’s hatred for her hus- standcion, and hostile conflict. circumstances­ passionate love must be band, albeit understandable, is unjust. In her husband extraordinarily strong and keen to the point of mor- Anna hates her own past, her deal with “society.” bidity. In an unhealthy environment, the very nature It is another matter – and this is revealed in one of of people and their experience do not allow love to be the novel’s great scenes, where Karenin forgives Vron- vital and strong but harmonious (that is, not to cross sky and his wife at the moment when she is almost dy- the limits beyond which self-destruction begins). In- ing after giving birth – that Anna’s husband suddenly deed, in order to exist at all in an unhealthy environ- shows himself capable of rising above the false stan- ment, feeling must be hardened in confrontation. In to turn his conviction into action. “The emotional dis- second, it must not be destroyed after inevitable defor- tressdards ofof Aleksei“society” Aleksandrovich and finds within [Karenin] himself the grew strength more mationother words: in the first, struggle it must against overcome these hostileforces. forces, and, and more intense and had now reached a point at Applied to Tolstoy’s heroine, this means that An- which he no longer fought against it; he suddenly felt » ) www.nbpublish.com BENE (ООО « НБ-Медиа © NOTA na’s growing passion reaches the point of self-destruc- that what he had regarded as emotional distress was, tion not only because self-destruction takes root in her on the contrary, a blissful spiritual state that had sud- heart, but also for external reasons: her lover does not denly given him a new happiness that he had never felt know how to live a family life; her abandoned husband before. It did not occur to him that the Christian law is a machine, prospering in his government career and that he had always wanted to follow told him to forgive only once displaying human feelings; her brother is an and love his enemies; but a joyous feeling of love and egoistic sybarite, incapable of empathy; and according 30. to the concepts accepted by high society secret marital In this scene Tolstoy reveals to us a great truth forgivenessconcerning forthe his nature enemies of passion.filled his Passionsoul” is healed while Anna’s striving openly to uphold her right to live by forgiveness and death. Shakespeare says the same byinfidel loveity­ is (as pathological. in the case ofAnna’s Princess tragedy Betsy) seems is the norm,to be thing: the war between the Montagues and the Capu- even deeper than the author initially tries to portray it lets dies down with the death of Romeo and Juliet; when, as Zverev and Tunimanov observe, he sets him- Othello’s passion dies with the death of Desdemona. self the task of “mak­ing this woman only pitiable and And, obviously, there exists no other means of ridding not guilty”29. For if we compare the clash of the non- oneself of passion.

29 Zverev and Tunimanov 2007, p. 295. 30 Tolstoi 1981, pp. 52–53.

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Avoiding being drawn into the developmental log- ferent light. Even her beloved son Seryozha seems to ic of passion, Karenin repudiates his Christian action, her worse than she imagined him when they were which is equivalent to a rebellion against society, and apart. But Vronsky is a being of quite another kind. returns to adherence to the customary false conven- tions. His stance – to forgive his wife and even her lover – profound. “In his St. Petersburg world, all people were would, of course, be ridiculed by high society. Aleksei dividedCompared into to twoAnna, diametrically he is less refined, opposite developed, sorts. There and Aleksandrovich lacks the strength for such a coura- was the inferior sort: vulgar, stupid, and – above all – geous decision. It would be akin to passion, although of ridiculous people who believe that one man should a different kind. But Karenin is a man without passions. live with the one woman to whom he is married, that a And soon he decides to make no concession to Anna in young girl should be innocent, a woman modest, and a anything, not to give her a divorce, to estrange their son from his mother. up your chil­dren, earn your bread, and pay your debts – Analyzing the nature of passion and calling his manand variousmanly, restrained, other idiocies and firm, in a that similar you shouldvein. These bring other characters to his aid, Tolstoy leads us into a were the old-fashioned and ridiculous sort of people. realm bordering on passion – the realm of strong and But there was another sort of people, real people, authentic love. He does this in two ways: positively, by to which they all belonged. For them the important con­veying the experiences of Levin as he conceives the thing was to be elegant, beautiful, generous, bold, and intention of making a proposal to Kitty, and negatively, cheerful, to abandon oneself to any passion without by telling us about Vronsky. Levin, as we recall, having embarrassment, and to laugh at all the others”33. And arrived in Moscow, sets off for a skating rink where Kit- - ty is amusing herself. He does not resolve to approach Kitty. He is held back by everything, even her smile. (sanctionedthere follows by a high clear society, definition as it of were, emotions: like Stiva’s genu Kitty guesses that Levin loves her, but gives preference ine passion in Anna and at first a likeness of passion to Vronsky. However, there is an important difference­ whether Vronsky is inherently capable of going be- in her attitude toward the two men – and not in favor flirtatiousness) in Vronsky. It is impossible to be sure of Aleksei Kirillovich [Vronsky]: she senses “something enabled to do so by the strength of Anna’s passion, but false” in him31. But this falsity is of the kind that high soonyond his the attitude bounds toward of flirtatiousness his liaison with or whether Anna chang he is- es. Vronsky does not realize that the growing dissat- classically precise appraisal of the two chief love rela- isfaction within society, apart from the characteristic tionshipssociety recognizes – that between and calls Anna “magnificence.” and Vronsky We and find that a propensity of any social organism to react negatively between Kitty and Levin – in Vladimir Nabokov. Accord- to violations of the established order of things, is also - fed by indignation at their indifference to society. Af- cal love and is therefore doomed. Levin’s marriage, by ter all, both Vronsky and Anna – especially Anna, with contrast,ing to Nabokov, “is based the on first a metaphysical union is built and solely not aon physical physi the history of her marriage and move from the pro- » ) www.nbpublish.com BENE (ООО « НБ-Медиа © NOTA vincial backwoods into the highest society – were, and on mutual respect”32. For myself I add that behind this were rightfully regarded as, members of society, to understanding of love, on readiness for self-sacrifice, which they should be grateful and obedient. However, invisibly lurk, of course, the val­ues of home and family. Vronsky’s inability to perceive fully all that his affair spirituallyIn the Russian rich world and personality-filled outlook, as the classics metaphysic of Russian there with Anna has put in motion does not prevent him literature before Tolstoy had already repeatedly dem- from groping intuitively toward a conclusion that is onstrated, a home is not just a place of shared warmth. It is a place where kindred bodies intermingle in har- clearly occurred to him that it was necessary to end mony and souls resound in unison. Otherwise there is thisloyal lie, to Anna’sand the passion: sooner “Forthe thebetter. first ‘She time and the Ithought should no true metaphysical Home. And for Tolstoy Home is abandon everything and hide away somewhere, the one that Levin and Kitty build – a Home of love and alone with our love,’ he said to himself”34. Indeed, a shared lofty spirit. Anna has no Home; for her a Home reclusive life, far removed from the world – for ex- is altogether impossible. ample, as a landowner in the provincialbackwoods – Having given herself up to passion, Anna becomes is a real way out, or in any case a possible alternative another person and starts to see many things in a dif- to the growing ostracism.

31 Tolstoi 1981, p. 57. 33 Tolstoi 1981, p. 129. 32 Nabokov 1996, p. 57. 34 ibid., p. 129.

20 DOI: 10.7256/1339-3057.2014.1.10611 Nikolsky S.A.

If we try to view Vronsky’s behavior not through the eyes of passion but in what is called an impartial of a poem writes it because his tongue prompts him or simplyme cite dictatesthese reflections the next line.of Iosif When Brodsky: he starts “The a writerpoem, of reproach. Vronsky is trying to be a normal person the poet does not, as a rule, know how it will end, and whomanner, loves then Anna. we It shallis Anna hardly who is find carried cause away for wordsby the sometimes he is very surprised at the result, for often stream and loses self-control. Tolstoy indirectly gives it is better than he anticipated, often his thought goes us to understand that this is the case by various means, further than he expected”36. As is well known, Tolstoy including an attitude that is very strange for a woman thought of writing a novel about “family thought” and capable of love – her indifference toward her daugh- intended to give it a rather ironical tone (its original ter. It is as though her daughter – the possibility of a title was A Fine Old Girl [Molodets baba]) and talk in future life, even together with her beloved, her daugh- it about “love affairs of the nobility.” However, as he ter’s father, Vronsky – does not exist for Anna. She is became more and more deeply immersed in the prob- wholly in the power of the feeling that is consuming lem of passionate love, Tolstoy found himself creating her; it is so strong that it appears to have halted her - further development and closed off the future to her. monic reputation” (Brodsky) of literature. He ended Perhaps this reveals another feature of passion – it can upsomething with a “poem quite different, of passion.” thereby And asconfirming such it “does the “de in- develop only through and on the basis of the feelings, deed surpass anything created by Russian authors be- consciousness, and experience­ that the person pos- fore Tolstoy”37. sessed at the moment of being overwhelmed by the In order to show how abnormal Anna is in her sub- passion. The person in the grip of passion falls into a ordination to passion,­ Tolstoy brings his heroine face to closed circle of constantly reliving the experience and face with Levin. Here is how this sequence unfolds. To- fullness of consciousness that were in him at the mo- gether with Stiva, Levin visits Anna and makes her ac- ment when the passion began. There is only one way quaintance. And right away he is struck by the number out of this state – death. of merits that he sees in this pitiable woman. “As well as The incapacity for further development is itself being intelligent, graceful, and beautiful, she was truth- one of the forms of death; therefore, all who are cap- ful. She did not want to conceal from him how very tured by passion become tragic charac­ters, and their grave her situation was.” When Stiva asks what sort of physical death is merely the materialization of the ear- impression Anna made on him, Levin replies: “An ex- lier death of their consciousness and feelings or – to - resort to terms from the Russian literary-philosophical 38. tradition – of their minds and hearts. Let us recall, for traordinaryHowever, woman! Tolstoy Not immediately so much intelligent observes: as butaston he instance, how Goncharov’s character, Ilya Ilyich Ob- [Levin]ishingly sensed warm-hearted. that in the I feel “tender terribly pity” sorry that for he her!” felt for lomov35, spends the last years of his life married to the Anna there was “something else.” And for Tolstoy, con- widow [Agaf’ ia] Pshenitsyna: he seems to ossify, as is structing his ideal type of the Russian world outlook, seen with special clarity when he is visited by Stolz. In this “something else” means passion as a result of the » ) www.nbpublish.com BENE (ООО « НБ-Медиа © NOTA the case of Oblomov, passion kills Ilya Ilyich (or, which - is the same thing, Ilya Ilyich kills within himself his pas- side of nature and the people, solely for the sake of car- sionate love for Ol ga [Il inskaia]) instantaneously, al- nalpernicious pleasures. influence Living inof thethe city,city, theof a “natural” person living and “nor out- though the burial rite is postponed. mal” person Levin “goes crazy.” He understands that in In reading and interpreting a work of literature, the countryside he would never engage in the pursuits it may be possible to “complete” certain thoughts and that he follows in Moscow, for these are just talking, work through deep semantic implica­tions that are logi- eating, and drinking. He understands that he is living cally inferred by the reader or left open by the author, “an aimless, muddled life – moreover, a life beyond his although not always drawn out by him and therefore means.” And an abnormal life gives rise to abnormal not manifest in the text. This, indeed, is one of the dis- human relations. One of the reasons that maternal feel- tinguishing features of a truly great literary-philosoph- ing for her daughter does not awaken within Anna is ical works, and Anna Karenina is one of them. that – in accordance with the custom, above all, among In support of the observation that the meaning of city ladies – she does not breastfeed the child herself a text may be broader than its verbal expression, let 36 Brodskii 1997, p. 16. 37 35 A main character of the celebrated novel by Alexander Gon- Zverev and Tunimanov 2007, p. 57. charov, Oblomov (1858). – Ed. 38 Tolstoi 1981, pp. 90–91.

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but entrusts this task to a wet nurse. The abnormal and lem more thoroughly but of necessity in local terms, in unnatural life of the city does not allow Anna to give Resurrection society – together with the main charac- up the “relations of struggle” that have developed be- ter of the novel, Prince Dmitrii Ivanovich Nekhliudov – tween Vronsky and herself – struggle for his freedom is the chief object of the author’s analysis. and against her social position of de facto serfdom. What interests Tolstoy in Nekhliudov is not so The denouement of the novel approaches. The much his external con­nections (as in the case of Kon- “evil spirit” that possesses­ Anna in the city again gains stantin Levin and his agrarian business pursuits) as his the upper hand. “And death, as the sole means of re- own “change-transformation-resurrection.” And while storing love for her in his heart, punishing him, and in Anna Karenina Tolstoy describes the path of descent winning victory in the war that the evil spirit lodged to death, in Resur­rection the vector of movement, rep- in her heart was waging with him, clearly and vividly resented by Maslova and Nekhliudov, points upward: appeared before her”39. Anna settles her accounts with through repentance to moral rebirth. life: “We all hate one another.” “I have never hated any- It is of interest to examine Tolstoy’s novel Resur- - rection from the vantage point of working out the sys- sky. The terrible truth of her ruling passion reveals it- tem of the Russian world outlook also because for the selfone tolike her: I hate “If only this I man!”could be– she something thinks regarding besides a Vronlover, - ysis is business not as economic practice but as a man do not want to be anything else.” She remembers her makingfirst time him in ­self.Russian As a literature result, the the Russian central world focus outlookof anal son:passionately “What about loving Seryozha? only his caresses!I also thought But I thatcannot I loved and is enriched with an important and henceforth ineradi- him, and I was moved by his tenderness. But I lived without him, I exchanged him for another love, and I own transformation. did not complain about this exchange for so long as I cableNekhliudov aspect: the reflectionappears in of the a man plot concerned of the novel with in two his 40. Everything and everyone around her seem “ugly fall, the second to a time ten years later, when he hap- wasand dismembered.”satisfied with my The new latter love” word is portentous, sig- pensimages. to Themeet first Katya pertains [Maslova] to the at moment a court oftrial. his Inmoral the nifying transition to the approaching denouement: af- - ter a certain time Anna’s body will indeed be dismem- ist who thinks only of his own enjoyment” and “looks bered and, anticipating this horror, she subconsciously uponfirst image,his healthy Nekhliudov strong isanimal “a depraved, ‘I’ as his refined real self” ego42. starts to grow accus­tomed to what is happening to her Everything is simple for him: there are no enigmas; and perceive it as almost routine. In other words, it is there is no intercourse with nature or with thinking what she constantly sees and has got used to, and for and feeling people. For Nekhliudov a woman is just this reason it can no longer terrify her. “one of the best means toward an already experienced But it is impossible to get used to this. And she enjoyment.” According to Tolstoy, he lives in this way nonetheless makes a last attempt to return to life in because he does not “believe in himself”: he does not » ) www.nbpublish.com BENE (ООО « НБ-Медиа © NOTA her instinctive motion to pull her body back from the decide any question in favor of his “spiritual I” but, on speeding train under which she has only just thrown it. the contrary, “believes in others” and does everything But it is too late. “And the candle by which she was read- to please his “animal ‘I’”43. The degradation of the young Prince Nekhliudov, which begins after he moves from the countryside to St. ing the book – a book filled with anxiety, deceit, woe, Petersburg, is completed by his entry into military ser- dim,and evil and – went flared out brighter forever” than41. Annaever, litis upno formore. her Passion all that vice. It is important to note that in Resurrection, written haswas extinguished previously hidden the candle in gloom, that was flickered, her life. started to during his declining years, as in War and Peace, Tolstoy Tolstoy tries to examine both sides of the inter- repeats one of his favorite ideas – the morally harmful action between his heroes and an external world that nature of military service as a fundamental social insti- is wrongly ordered and therefore hostile to them. But tution. “Military life in general depraves men. It places while in War and Peace he touches only lightly on the them in conditions of complete idleness – that is, ab- nature of the society in which Prince Andrei, Pierre, and sence of all rational and useful work; frees them of their Natasha live, and in Anna Karenina considers the prob-

42 Tolstoi 1983, pp. 52–53. 39 Tolstoi 1981, p. 345. 43 40 Interesting reflections along these lines (in the spirit of the Ibid., p. 359. Orthodox-Christian tradition) can be found in the book by Mar- 41 Ibid., p. 364. dov (Mardov 2005).

22 DOI: 10.7256/1339-3057.2014.1.10611 Nikolsky S.A. common human duties, which it replaces by merely ety in which until recently he has lived and although conventional duties to the honor of the regiment, the dead felt himself to be alive. By means of this associa- tion, Tolstoy again takes us back to the theme of the hand absolute power over other men, also puts them Resurrec- intouniform, conditions the flag; of servile and, while obedience giving to them those on of the higher one tion, however, this theme acquires a new aspect. rank than themselves”44. And an idle life has an espe- “nonliving-artificial”As we recall, Nekhliudov, and “living-natural.” wishing to Inredeem his guilt before Katya, decides from the very start that “should a civilian lead such a life he cannot help being he must marry her: “This morning he was especially ashamedcially corrupting of it in the influence depth of on his military soul. A military men because man, on the contrary, thinks that this is how things should marrying­ her for the sake of moral satisfaction”48. What be; they boast and are proud of such a life, especially at ismoved more bysalient the thoughtin this absurd of sacrificing but moving everything thought and – time of war”45. Nekhliudov’s egoism, self-love, and in- - difference toward others reach their apogee in his se- its of the landlord advocating serfdom , albeit a moral duction of Katya. Tolstoy emphasizes the complete un- one,pride who in his does own as hereadiness “wishes”? for In “sacrifice” any case, heor doesthe hab not suitability of these “values” for his postulated system of relate to Katia as a free person, as a woman whom he the Russian world outlook by comparing them with an cannot presume to marry without regard to her wishes. He is still in thrall to his self-willed “animal ‘I’,” clothed his sin, Nekhliudov also recalls on what a terrible night as it may be in decorous attire. itinvariable was committed: dominant the – ice nature. breaking [Later] up onreflecting the river, upon the Nekhliudov’s “cleansing of the soul,” as Tolstoy storm, and especially “the waning, upturned moon that calls it, takes place as the hero journeys through the rose before morning and dimly lit up something black worlds of the “living” and the “dead.” Here the world and weird”46. of the “living” – the world of prisoners – has attributes The novel does not lay bare the causes that com- of the subterranean world of the dead; conversely, the pelled Nekhliudov to begin moving away from his world of the “dead” on the surface seems alive. In es- “animal ‘I’” toward his “spiritual ‘I’” – it all happens as sence, “high society” and “the prison” are ordered in al- though by itself at the moment when Nekhliudov rec- most identical fashion. In both places, falsehood lords ognizes Katya Maslova among the defendants. Tolstoy it over truth, force over kindness and justice, the base simply registers the new state in which Dmitrii Ivanov- over the lofty. And only the person (it does not matter ich “in the depth of his soul ...already felt the cruelty, - foulness, and baseness, not only of this particular ac- lieve that he is the image and likeness of God and to act tion of his but of his whole idle, depraved, cruel, and accordinglyin which world changes he finds this himself) nonliving who world. has begun to be Pondering over how it has come to pass that “it is some unaccountable manner hidden from him this sin no longer obligatory to treat human beings as human ofself-satisfied his and the life; whole and of that his dreadfulsubsequent veil life which was hadbegin in- beings,” Tolstoy answers through the words of Nekh- ning to shake, and he caught glimpses of what was cov- liudov: the whole problem is that people “recognize » ) www.nbpublish.com BENE (ООО « НБ-Медиа © NOTA ered by that veil”47. This is the same cry – only a “silent” as law what is not law and fail to recognize as law the cry – of the soul that has caught sight, as in a mirror, of eternal, unchange­able, peremptory law inscribed in itself dead. people’s hearts by God Himself. ...Only allow yourself to As he achieves “resurrection,” Nekhliudov discov- deal with people without love, ...and there is no limit to ers with horror that he previously lived in a city of the your cruelty and savagery in relation to others ...nor is dead. Especially symbolic in this connection­ is the epi- there any limit to your own suffering”49. As a special case, the personal contact of Natasha where his mother lived and died. As she dried up like a Rostova or Anna Karenina with the world of the “non- mummysode in whichbefore Nekhliudovdeath, the woman finds himself lay in a inroom the beside house living” acquires in the concluding part of Resurrection a portrait that depicted her as a half-naked beauty. This the character of a generalization, a verdict on the entire majestic portrait reminds Nekhliudov of the high soci- liberty, the courts and administration have selected the strongest,social order the as most dead highly flesh: strung, “Of all thethe mostpeople ardent, living ex at- 44 Ibid., p. 54. citable, and gifted, those who are less cunning and cau- 45 Ibid., p. 55. 46 Ibid., p. 73. 48 Ibid., p. 123. 47 Ibid., p. 83. 49 Ibid., pp. 362–63.

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tious than others, and these people, who are in no way Notes: more guilty or more dangerous to society than those 1. Hunting, Lifshits argues, is not an incidental theme who have remained at liberty, have been locked up in in nineteenth-century Russian literature. It en- prisons, in holding centers for transported prisoners, tered literature together with the focus on nature and at forced labor” (ibid., p. 423). And further on: “All and peasant life as fundamental supports of the these appeared to be institutions specially designed to national world outlook. In Turgenev, for example, produce such perversion and vice, concentrated to the the nobleman-hunter in his Notes of a Hunter [Za- highest degree, as could not be achieved under any oth- piski okhotnika] is a wanderer away from his home er conditions, in order then to spread this concentrated and country estate, and free of obligations to them. vice and perversion as widely as possible throughout Those who happen to join him in his free hunter’s the nation” (ibid., p. 424). life, for a certain time or forever, are torn away from Thus, starting with a primary focus on the lives the soil and neglect their age-old occupations. and fates of individual characters, Tolstoy ascends from one work or novel to the next until he reaches gener- against the fear of death by departing from his alizations concerning the nature of the entire society 2. habitualTolstoy but himself now alien finally life resolvesenvironment. the And struggle this of his day. In the process, the panorama of the Russian departure turns out to be a departure into death. world outlook that he creates becomes increasingly substantive and capacious, and its perspective­ increas- spirit of the Orthodox-Christian tradition) can be ingly profound. 3. foundInteresting in the reflectionsbook by Mardov along (Mardov these lines 2005). (in the

References:

1. Bakhtin, M.M. Sobr. soch. v 7-mi t. Vol. 2. Moscow: Russkie slovari, 2000. 2. Brodskii, I. Sochineniia Iosifa Brodskogo. St. Petersburg: MCMXVIII, 1997. 3. Kritika 60-kh godov XIX veka. Moscow: Astrel, 2003. 4. Lifshits, M.A. Mifologiia drevniaia i sovremennaia. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1979. 5. Mardov, I.B. Lev Tolstoi. Drama i velichie liubvi. Moscow: Progress-Traditsiia, 2005. 6. Nabokov, V. Lektsiipo russkoi literature. Moscow: Nezavisimaia gazeta, 1996. 7. Strakhov, P.P. «O ‘Voine i mire’.» In Biblioteka russkoi kritiki, 2003. 8. Tolstoi, L.N. Sobr. soch. v 22–kh t. Vols. 1–3. Moscow: GIKhL, 1978. 9. Tolstoi, L.N. Sobr. soch. v 22–kh t. Vol. 4. Moscow: GIKhL, 1979. 10. Tolstoi, L.N. Sobr. soch. v 22–kh t. Vol. 8. Moscow: GIKhL, 1981. 11. Tolstoi, L.N. Sobr. soch. v 22–kh t. Vol. 13. Moscow: GIKhL, 1983. 12. Zverev, A.M., and V.A. Tunimanov. Lev Tolstoi. [In serial: Zhizn ‘ Zamechatelnykh Liudei]. Moscow: Molodaia » ) www.nbpublish.com BENE (ООО « НБ-Медиа © NOTA gvardiia, 2007.

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