but also because the deceptive
Leo Tolstoy “Confession”
The first of the works of Leo Tolstoy, in which he preached the moral-religious teaching (Tolstoyanism) that appeared in his mature age, was Confession (started in 1879 and completed in 1882). At one time she was not missed by Russian censorship. Printed in Geneva and in Russia distributed in lists. Confession is above all that he wrote afterwards; in purely literary terms, this is a masterpiece that is on a par with such things as the Book of Job, Ecclesiastes, and Confession of Blazh. Augustine. It is one of the greatest and forever living expressions of the human soul in the face of the eternal mystery of life and death. Continue reading
Image and theme of the war in Tolstoy’s “Sevastopol Stories”
In the military stories (“Raid”, “Forest Cutting”, “Sevastopol in December 1854, in May and August 1855”) Tolstoy dwells on the question of how legitimate war, demanding so many bloody victims, is legitimate . This idea is particularly clear in his “Sevastopol Tales” (see their analysis), which describe the famous defense of Sevastopol during the Crimean War.
Battles and wars were depicted many times in Russian and foreign literature … – Almost always, these pictures are different, “poetizatsii”, elevated tone, a kind of “militarism, glorifying the exploits of warriors and leaders … Continue reading
Grossman “Life and Fate”
How strikingly disappeared all the Soviet spells and formulas, enumerated above! [cm. Grossman’s article “For the Right Cause” – analysis by A. Solzhenitsyn] – and no one will say that this is from the author’s insight of 50 years? And what Grossman really didn’t know and didn’t feel until 1953–1956, he managed to catch up in the last years of work on Volume 2, and now, with passion, it’s all missed into the fabric of the novel.
Now we learn that not only in Hitler Germany, but also here: the mutual suspicion of people towards each other; It is a matter of suspicion if people talk over a glass of tea. Continue reading