Leo Tolstoy essays

Leo Tolstoy essays Though Leo Tolstoy is most well-known for his novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, which he wrote when he was in his forties, pieces written after he turned fifty were the ones that clearly established the philosophy known as Tolstoyism. Tolstoyism is a philosophy that denounces the "artificial refinements of society" (2) material wealth, private property, alcohol and tobacco, patriotism, military conscription, and capital punishment - and advocates vegetarianism and pacifism. The paragraph cited above, form A confession, is important because it illustrates Tolstoy's reflection on his own life. This reflection would eventually lead to the author's conversion-which involved renouncing his prior emphasis on rational analysis and accepting his faith in God as the reason for human life, renouncing all of his worldly possessions, including his copyrights, and becoming a vegetarian. After his religious "rebirth,"" the author simplified his writing style in order to reach the lower and m iddle classes, and became involved in religious popularism- communion with peasants and working peple in an effort to alleviate their problems (3). Tolstoyism and religious populism have been influential to many religious radicals. Mohandas Ghandi expressed the impact that Tolstoy had on him- citing the essay entitled The kingdom of God is Within You, in which Tolstoy emphasizes the use of non-resistance to evil (4). The creation of a moral philosophy was a lifelong process for Tolstoy. Born 1828 at Yasnaya Polyana in the Russian province of Tula, the author gained recognition at the age of 24 after publishing the novel Childhood, and remained famous until his death in 1910 (5). He went into the Russian army for the four years that followed and was stationed in the Caucasus. Here, he wrote The raid in 1853, published in the, The contemporary, the same literary journal that had published Childhood. The second in his biographical trilogy, Boyho...