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1 results

  • Chapter 32 - Eastern Religion

  • from Part V - Beyond Russia
  • Edited by Anna A. Berman, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    Tolstoy in Context
    Published online:
    05 January 2023
    Print publication:
    22 December 2022, pp 263-270

  • Summary

    Tolstoy had a sustained interest in a number of religions other than Christianity. This interest became urgent and comprehensive in the 1880s after his so-called conversion. In this chapter, I examine Tolstoy’s relation to Buddhism, Daoism, and Hinduism in terms of a crucial question that preoccupied the later Tolstoy: What is the good life? Indeed, I suggest that Tolstoy turned to these other religions precisely because of his concern to identify a universal wisdom about the good life. My examination proceeds through texts, such as War and Peace and A Confession, that exploit tropes, imagery, and parables drawn from Daoism, Buddhism, and the Hindu tradition. The upshot is to reveal the extent to which Tolstoy’s advocacy of self-resignation, the principal element in his attitude to nonviolent resistance, has roots in his investigation of these other religions, and not only in his interpretation of the Christian tradition.