I myself knew from childhood that Tolstoy is the greatest writer of all times and peoples. This is how Marivanna taught us at school and then, at the institute, Tsilya Isaakovna. Then I read it personally and did not understand anything. I searched, searched for genius, or at least something significant - I did not see anything. But I became interested in the topic of excommunication of Tolstoy from the church by obscurantist priests. In short, without any priests ...

"At the time of Dr. Nordau, these statistics were still unknown, and he calls this legion simply "a crowd of hysterics and neurotics."
Dr. Nordau believes that it was not his novels that brought Tolstoy the main fame, but his philosophy - a sick philosophy, the so-called "Tolstoyism", where the main commandment is "non-resistance to evil by violence", that is:
“Do not resist vice, do not judge, do not kill. Down with, thus, the courts, troops, prisons, taxes.

But in fact, as a result, there will be complete anarchy. Nordau writes:
“The first task of the community, in the name of which individuals have come together in the community, is to protect its members from the sick, the itching obsessed with murder, from parasites, from unhealthy deviations from the normal type, striving to live at the expense of the labor of others and removing from the way every creature that interferes them to satisfy their lusts.

Then, Nordau analyzes the famous philanthropy of Tolstoy on the example of "Notes of Prince Nekhlyudov" and concludes:
“The soft-hearted philanthropist turned out to be the most dangerous and godless self-lover.”
“The essential point of Tolstoy's teaching on morality is the mortification of the flesh. Any intercourse with a woman is unclean; marriage is just as sinful as free cohabitation between the two sexes.
The Kreutzer Sonata reproduces this teaching in artistic images. Jealousy Killer Pozdnyshev says:
"Honeymoon! After all, the name is one what a vile one! .. This is something like what I experienced when I learned to smoke, when I was tempted to vomit and drooled, and I swallowed them and pretended that I was pleased.
- Then, Pozdnyshev, through whose mouth Tolstoy preaches, admits that "he is considered crazy."
By the way, Tolstoy copied the image of Pozdnyshev's wife from his own wife. It is possible that he also described his honeymoon - he was drawn to vomit and so on.
What's the matter? Tolstoy is considered a superman who had a whole bunch of children. But Tolstoy himself, in his diary dated November 29, 1851, at the age of 23, writes the following:
“I have never loved women ... but I fell in love with men quite often ... I fell in love with a man without knowing what pederasty is ... For example, Dyakov - I wanted to strangle him with kisses and cry.”
This is published in many biographies of Tolstoy.
And Tolstoy's wife read all those diaries of his. When Tolstoy was already over 80, and his wife over 60, he took a certain Chertkov as his secretary.
And the countess runs around the count, loudly accuses him of pederasty - and threatens to shoot the damn Chertkov. And all this in front of their adult children. Imagine - family happiness!
That is why, in his story "Family Happiness", Tolstoy assures that a man and a woman, even if they marry for love, after marriage should become enemies.
Tolstoy describes degenerates, but does not say it - and transfers this measure to all people. Here's a great truth seeker for you!
Nordau writes:
“The path to happiness, according to Tolstoy, consists in the denial of science and knowledge, in the return to natural life, that is, to agriculture: you need to leave the cities, disband the people from the factories, return to the earth.”

Nordau speaks of Tolstoy and his "Tolstoyism" thus:
“As a philosopher, he preaches to us, in the form of concepts about the world and life, biblical texts, constantly contradicting them and wildly interpreting them.
As the chief spokesman of morality, he pursues the theory of non-resistance to evil and crime, the distribution of property and the destruction of the human race, through abstinence.
In his teaching on social and economic relations, he insists on the harm of knowledge and the healing power of ignorance…” “The truth is that all of Tolstoy’s spiritual features can be perfectly explained by the well-known and characteristic features of degenerates of a higher order.
He tells about himself: “Skepticism brought me, at one time, to a state close to insanity” ...
In his "Confession" he literally says the following: "I felt that I was not completely healthy mentally." Feeling did not deceive him.
He suffered from a mania of doubt and "reasoning" in the form that was observed in many degenerates of a higher order ...
Lombroso, pointing out the characteristic features of ingenious lunatics, says: “They are all tormented by religious doubts, their minds are oppressed, like a painful illness, by one and the same thought; the same heaviness crushes their heart.
Thus, we are not dealing with a noble desire for knowledge, pushing Tolstoy to questions about the purpose and meaning of life, but with the disease of the degenerate, with doubt and philosophizing, completely fruitless "..." "A feature of the disease we have indicated above is a passion for contradictions and a tendency to independent, by all means, views.
One of the best clinicians, psychiatrist Saulier, calls the last feature characteristic feature degenerate. In Tolstoy it appears, at certain moments, very brightly.
“In an effort to be independent,” says his biographer Levenfeld, “Tolstoy often insults the demands of aesthetics, fighting with established authorities only because they have long been established.
So, he calls Shakespeare a common scribbler and claims that the enthusiasm for the great Briton is explained by nothing else than our habit of repeating other people's views without thinking them through.

“In the same way, Tolstoy’s attitude to women, completely incomprehensible to a healthy mind, will become clear to us from the point of view of degeneration ...
Disgust or passionate hatred for a woman, a normal man can never experience ...
A man can and even should choose a woman for marriage for love: but it is not physiological passion that strengthens and strengthens the connection, but a complex mixture of habit, gratitude, friendship, convenience, the desire to arrange household chores, position in society, the consciousness of one's duty to children and the state more or less unconscious adherence to established traditions.
Such feelings as in the "Kreutzer Sonata" or in "Family Happiness", a normal husband never feels for his wife ... "" In Russia there is a whole sect of degenerates - eunuchs; they're saved from the devil that way. Pozdnyshev in the Kreutzer Sonata is the same eunuch, although he is not aware of it.
The moral of Tolstoy's philosophical stories about the relationship between the sexes is a literary exposition of the eunuchs' sexual psychopathy.
“Undoubtedly, Tolstoy's remarkable artistic talent plays a large, but far from the main role in the world fame of Tolstoy ... His influence rests not on aesthetic, but on pathological foundations.
Tolstoy would have remained an unknown teacher of faith, like some seventeenth-century Knudsen, if the folly of the degenerate mystic had not met contemporaries prepared for perception. Assuming an epidemic character, hysteria paved the way for Tolstoyism…” And Nordau sadly concludes that this is the real “twilight of nations.” End of the century.
So, Dr. Nordau not only predicted I world war, but, to a certain extent, he foresaw the revolution in Russia.
Characteristically, after the problem of degeneration, Nordau became interested in Zionism, in the sense of creating his own Jewish state, and became the leader of Zionism No. 2.
So he foresaw the advent of Hitler. So, this person is quite perspicacious and authoritative.
I will add one more thing about Tolstoy to you. The famous German writer Stefan Zweig, in his book "Three Singers of His Life", analyzing the life of Tolstoy, believes that after 50 years Tolstoy began what is called climacteric psychosis or climacteric insanity.
Usually, these psychoses occur in some women during the period when the activity of the gonads fades.
But even for some men with a broken psyche, where masculine and feminine principles are confused in the soul, this period is, as it were, an impetus when mental illnesses, which before that, as it were, dozed in their souls, become aggravated.
By the way, Stefan Zweig, being a Jew, as a protest against Hitlerism, then committed suicide. Very touching - on the German flag - together with his wife. It’s a pity, once in my youth I read Zweig’s short stories ...
So, in order to understand Tolstoy, it is necessary to distinguish between two periods of his life: before the age of 50 there was, more or less, a pure genius, and after 50 years - a crazy genius.
Tolstoy is considered a God-seeker. And Nordau writes:
"... in fact, he preaches just the opposite of the Christian religion - pantheism."
It was for this that the God-seeker Tolstoy was excommunicated from the church.

Tolstoy is considered a great moralist. And now, let's look at the moral character of Tolstoy himself. When he was already over 60, in his writings, like the Kreutzer Sonata, he preaches complete chastity and sexual abstinence.
And, at the same time, his wife is almost continuously pregnant. They already have 12 children, of whom 4 have died. Tolstoy's daughter, Tanya, has 5 stillborn children.
The second daughter, Masha, also has a whole series of stillborn children. The son of Tolstoy, Leo 2nd, has his first child, Leo 3rd, and immediately dies.
This is what happens when children are made according to a recipe: they were drawn to vomit and drool flowed, and I pretended to be pleased. Apparently, looking at all this, Tolstoy's sister Maria took the veil as a nun.
Well, what does the great moralist Tolstoy do when he sees that his children obviously have a bad heredity?
He still preaches sexual abstinence to the whole world - and he himself conceives his wife's 13th child! As if on purpose trying to reach the devil's dozen!
At the same time, he accuses his wife that she seduced him into sin and hysterically: oh, I am a sinner, a sinner! This is not good, oh, how bad!
Wife seduced? Why, you lie, you old demon! After all, he himself admits in his diaries that he was never attracted to women - and admits to pederasty.
Tolstoy wants to make the whole world happy. And he brings the person closest to him, his wife, to the brink of suicide and says that she has a "stone around his neck."
The wife now wants to poison herself, then runs into the pond to drown herself. And Tolstoy himself hides guns and ropes from himself so as not to shoot himself or hang himself. That's really, really, grief from the mind!
The whole world admires the extraordinary kindness of Tolstoy. And Tolstoy's children then write in their memoirs that his kindness is worse than any meanness.
Towards the end of his life, Tolstoy's family life resembled a madhouse. Finally, the famous psychiatrist Rossolimo is called.
He makes the following diagnosis: "Degenerative double constitution: paranoid and hysterical with a predominance of the first." Note - degenerate.

During the period of his "spiritual transformation", Tolstoy was very interested in all kinds of sectarianism - Doukhobors, eunuchs, Molokans.
Some will think that the Molokan sect takes its name from the word "milk", but, in fact, it originates from Greek word"small", which means pederasty and what the apostle Paul already spoke about.

Well, for a snack, I will give you some more interesting sayings of Tolstoy. So, Count Tolstoy said: “By all means, everything good women not only females - even fools.
And then, he wrote: "Public opinion is created by women." Hmm, the very ones he had previously called fools.
But here, I will remind you what he says on this about dr Lange-Eichbaum in his book Genius, Madness and Glory:
"Women are more capable of discovering and honoring geniuses than men, they play the first fiddle in creating geniuses."
Relations between Tolstoy and Turgenev. Tolstoy wrote: "Turgenev is a scoundrel who must be beaten." And Turgenev either threatened to punch Tolstoy in the face, or promised to challenge him to a duel.
So they challenged each other to a duel, and then apologized. And all this is due to the fact that Turgenev read his writings to Tolstoy, and Tolstoy fell asleep. Remember what Lombroso says about the morbid ambition of geniuses.

At the end of his life, Tolstoy was very interested in the problem of insanity and in his diary of June 12, 1900 he wrote:
“I seriously believe that the world is run by completely crazy people. Those who are not crazy either abstain or cannot participate.” (Poln. sobr. soch., Gosizdat, volume 54, p. 31).
- The 13th offspring of Tolstoy, his daughter Alexandra, agrees with this, who, in her memoirs "Father" writes:
“History has shown that this bold, extreme judgment not only had a basis at that time, but is also applicable to the present” (“Father”, vol. 2, p. 235).
– In his diary dated June 27, 1910, Tolstoy again returns to this topic and concludes:
“Crazy people are always better than healthy people in achieving their goals. This comes from the fact that there are no moral barriers for them: neither shame, nor truthfulness, nor conscience, nor even fear” (Poln. sobr. soch., Gosizdat, vol. 58, p. 71).
– best example this was Tolstoy himself, the God-seeker, who was excommunicated for this God-seeking, and the illustrious Count, whom Lenin called "the mirror of our revolution."
By the way, Lenin also said that Tolstoy was to him what John the Baptist was to Jesus Christ.
And the famous German philosopher and sociologist Oswald Spengler, the author of the most serious historical work “The Decline of Europe”, calls Tolstoy “the father of Bolshevism”.
In his article "Christianity and the Church", Tolstoy wrote: "The Church has always been a false and cruel institution." Well, no wonder he was excommunicated as a heretic.
Dr. Lange-Eichbaum, in the 2nd edition of his book Genius, Madness and Glory, writes the following about Tolstoy:
“Already his father had degenerative features, mental and physical: a tic, a speech error. Leo Tolstoy is a degenerate, a masochist, suicide attempts, egocentrism.”
- The surest way to check for degeneration is to check the family tree. Let's look at Tolstoy's family tree.
Well, for example, Leo Tolstoy had a cousin - Count Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy, a duelist and a bully, who allegedly killed 10 people in duels (note - aggressiveness).
Then, this duelist married a gypsy, whom he took away from the camp. But all his children died one by one in infancy.
So 10 children died and only the 11th child, a girl, remained alive. Mystic? No, I think that, after all, this gypsy woman slept with another man.
But Tolstoy's wife's family tree is no better either - her brother Stepan died in a lunatic asylum..."

G.Klimov, "Protocols of the Soviet Wise Men"

From the point of view of the Russian writer and thinker Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), the drama of human existence lies in the contradiction between the inevitability of death and the thirst for immortality inherent in man. The embodiment of this contradiction is the question of the meaning of life - a question to which reason leads by the very vanity, insignificance of life, and which can also be expressed as follows: "Is there such a meaning in my life that would not be destroyed by my inevitable death?" one . Tolstoy believes that a person's life is filled with meaning to the extent that he subordinates it to the fulfillment of the will of God, and the will of God is given to us as the law of love, opposing the law of violence. The law of love is imprinted in the human heart, comprehended by the founders of religions, outstanding philosophers, it is most fully and accurately developed in the commandments of Christ. In order to save himself, his soul from decay, in order to give life a meaning that is not rendered meaningless by death, a person must stop doing evil, commit violence, stop once and for all, including and above all when he himself becomes an object of evil and violence. Do not respond with evil to evil, do not resist evil with violence - such is the basis of Leo Tolstoy's life teaching. Religion and the ethics of non-resistance in one form or another are devoted to all of Tolstoy's work after 1878. The corresponding works (we will name only the most important of them) can be divided into four cycles: confessional - "Confession" (1879-1881), "What is my faith?" (1884); theoretical - "What is religion and what is its essence?" (1884), "The kingdom of God is within you" (1890-1893), "The law of violence and the law of love" (1908); journalistic - “Thou shalt not kill” (1900), “I cannot be silent” (1908); artistic - "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" (1886), "Kreutzer Sonata" (1887-1879), "Resurrection" (1889-1899), "Father Sergius" (1898).

1 Tolstoy L.N. Full composition of writings. T. 23. M., 1 957. S. 16-17. In the future, all references to Leo Tolstoy will be given to this edition in the text: the numbers before the comma indicate the volume, after the comma - the pages.

The second birth of Tolstoy

Tolstoy's conscious life - if we consider that it began at the age of 18, when the young Tolstoy left the second year of university and when, by his own admission in "Confession", he "no longer believed in anything" from what he was taught (23, 1), - is divided into two equal halves of 32 years, of which the second differs from the first as day from night. We are talking about a change that is at the same time spiritual enlightenment - a radical change in the moral foundations of life. my faith?" Tolstoy writes: "That which before seemed good to me seemed bad, and that which before seemed bad seemed good. What happened to me is what happens to a person who goes out to do business and suddenly decides on the way that he does not need this business at all - and turned back home. And everything that was on the right became on the left, and everything that was on the left became on the right” (23, 304). The first half of Leo Tolstoy's life, according to all generally accepted criteria, was very successful, happy. An earl by birth, he received a good upbringing and a rich inheritance. Nature, working on it, revealed a wasteful generosity: a strong physical nature was combined in him with artistic genius and a rare philosophical talent. life path Count Tolstoy marked strong passions; great fame, increasing wealth, civic service, family joys - all those inner experiences and external successes that are usually considered the most important motives and worthy justification of human activity. He entered life as a typical representative of the highest nobility, those "masters of life" who were not responsible to anyone, to whom everything was allowed. He had a riotous youth with wine, cards, women, duels, he fully knew the sweetness of sensual pleasures and strong sensations. Tolstoy in 1851-1854 served in the Caucasus, in 1854-1855 he participated in the defense of Sevastopol, having proven himself a brave officer. His main occupation, however, was writing - of all forms of spiritual creativity, the most prestigious in Russia. Already the first novels and stories published in the famous Nekrasov Sovremennik brought him wide fame in the country, and with the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina he earned worldwide fame. The authority of Tolstoy the writer in Russia and the world was unconditional, he felt himself and was perceived by public opinion as a teacher of life. Although fame flattered Tolstoy's pride, and large fees strengthened his fortune, nevertheless, his writing faith began to be undermined. He saw that writers do not play their own role: they teach without knowing what to teach, and constantly argue among themselves about whose truth is higher; in their work they are driven by selfish motives to a greater extent than ordinary people who do not claim to be the mentors of society. Without abandoning writing and writer's pride, he left the writer's environment and after a six-month trip abroad (1857) took up pedagogical activity among peasants (1858-1863). During the year (1861 - 1862) he served as a conciliator in disputes between peasants and landlords. Nothing brought Tolstoy complete satisfaction. The disappointments that accompanied his every activity became a source of growing inner turmoil, from which neither a new ten-month trip abroad (1860-1861), nor a flight for two and a half months to the Bashkir steppe to "breathe the air, drink koumiss and live" could save animal life "(23, 10). The growing spiritual crisis was prevented by marriage in September 1862 to Sofya Andreevna Bers. The family, along with its own joys, gave new incentives for creativity and economic activity. The second half of L. N. Tolstoy's conscious life was a denial of the first He came to the conclusion that he, like most people, lived a life devoid of meaning - he lived for himself. Everything that he valued - pleasure, fame, wealth, children - is subject to decay and oblivion. All this turns out to be insignificant in the long term the infinity of the world.” “I,” writes Tolstoy, “as if I lived and lived, walked and walked and came to an abyss and clearly saw that there was nothing ahead but death” (23, 12). are not certain steps in life, but its very direction, that faith, or rather unbelief, which lies at its foundation. And what is not a lie, what is not vanity? Tolstoy found the answer to this question in the teachings of Christ, It teaches that a person should serve the one who sent him into this world - God, and in his simple commandments shows how to do it. Tolstoy awakened to a new life. With heart, mind and will, with all his passionate nature, he accepted the ethical and social program of Christ and devoted his entire strength to following it, substantiating and preaching it. The question of what caused such a sharp change in the vital principles of L. I. Tolstoy, as well as all such changes in general, does not have a satisfactory explanation. Indeed, if the foundations of life change in such a way that a person spiritually becomes directly opposite to what he was before, then this just means that the new state does not follow from the old, is not its continuation. It could be assumed that the old state determines the new in a purely negative way, obliging to do everything in reverse. But even in this case it remains incomprehensible from where the consciousness of the negativity of his experience arises in the personality. At one time, spiritually confused, confused Augustine the Blessed experienced an amazing upheaval, which in an instant turned him from a pagan into a Christian. Reflecting on the reasons for this transformation and not finding any explanation for it in his own life, Augustine came to the conclusion that what happened to him was a miracle proving the existence of God. Augustine's reasoning is impeccable: one cannot demand a causal explanation of why Saul turns into Paul, for such a transformation itself is conceived as a break in the chain of causal relationships, as a pure act of freedom. A person's ability to change, especially to instantaneous transformations, indicates that a person does not fit into his own actions and always retains the opportunity to escape from the tenacious clutches of necessity, testifies to the autonomy of the spirit. The spiritual renewal of the personality is one of the central themes of Tolstoy's last novel, The Resurrection (1899), written by him at a time when he had become a Christian and non-resistance. Main character Prince Nekhlyudov turns out to be a juror in the case of a prostitute accused of murder, in which he recognizes Katyusha Maslova - the maid of his aunts, once seduced by him and abandoned. This fact turned Nekhlyudov's life upside down. He saw his personal guilt in the fall of Katyusha Maslova and the guilt of his class in the fall of millions of such Katyushas. "The God who lived in him woke up in his mind," and Nekhlyudov acquired that point of view that allowed him to look at his life and those around him in the light of absolute morality and reveal its complete internal falsity. He felt disgusted and ashamed. Shocked, Nekhlyudov broke with his milieu and followed Maslova to hard labor. The abrupt transformation of Nekhlyudov from a gentleman, a frivolous life-breaker into a sincere Christian (a Christian not in the ecclesiastical, but in the ethical sense of the word) began on an emotional and spiritual level in the form of deep repentance, an awakened conscience and was accompanied by intense mental work. In addition, in the personality of Nekhlyudov, Tolstoy identifies at least two prerequisites that favored such a transformation - a sharp, inquisitive mind that sensitively fixed lies and hypocrisy in human relations, as well as a pronounced tendency to change. The second is especially important: “Each person carries in himself the rudiments of all human properties and sometimes manifests one, sometimes another, and is often completely unlike himself, remaining all the same and himself. For some people, these changes are especially abrupt. And Nekhlyudov belonged to such people” (Resurrection, Part I, Ch. LIX). If we transfer Tolstoy's analysis of Nekhlyudov's spiritual revolution to Tolstoy himself, we will see many similarities. Tolstoy was also eminently prone to drastic change; he tried himself in different fields. In his own life, he experienced all the basic motives associated with worldly ideas of happiness, and came to the conclusion that they do not bring peace to the soul. It was this fullness of experience, which left no illusions that something new from the earthly series could give life a self-sufficient meaning, became an important prerequisite for a spiritual upheaval. Tolstoy possessed an unusually high power of intellect; his inquisitive mind was aimed at comprehending the mystery of man, and the main experimental field of his existential cognitive searches was his own life. The Turkish poet Fazıl Küsnu Daglarj has a miniature called "Existence":

1 Foreign Literature, 1972, No. 3.

Life and thinking about it in Tolstoy's biography are so closely intertwined that one can say: he lived to think, and thought to live. In order for a life choice to receive a worthy status, in the eyes of Tolstoy, it had to be justified before the mind, to pass a test of logical strength. With such a constant vigilance of the mind, there were few loopholes for deceit and self-deception that covered up the original immorality, the insulting inhumanity of the so-called civilized forms of life. In exposing them, Tolstoy was merciless; although he led a frontal attack only in the second period of his life, nevertheless, a socially critical spirit was always characteristic of him. There is an analogy with the non-Khlyudian model in the way Tolstoy's spiritual crisis proceeded. It began with involuntary internal reactions that testified to malfunctions in the order of life; “Something very strange began to happen to me,” writes Tolstoy, “something very strange began to happen to me: at first they began to find minutes of bewilderment, a stoppage of life, as if I didn’t know how to live, what to do, and I was lost and fell into despondency. But this passed, and I continued to live as before. Then these moments of bewilderment began to be repeated more and more often and all in the same form. These stops in life were always expressed by the same questions: Why? Well, and then?" (23, 10). This obsession, which grew into an obsessive thought of suicide, became the source and subject of passionate mental work. First of all, consideration was required by the fact that Tolstoy's poisoning with life occurred when he had everything that "is considered perfect happiness" (23, 12), and he could live a contented, respectable life, revered and loved by everyone. Intensive mental work Tolstoy to rethink the foundations of his own life stretched for many years and included the study of world religions, philosophical wisdom, deep theoretical research on the nature of religion, morality, faith, systematic criticism of dogmatic theology, which required a special study of Hebrew and Ancient Greek languages; as part of a conscious effort to To overcome the spiritual illness that struck him, Tolstoy led the life of an orthodox Christian for a year according to the criteria of the Orthodox Church with all the prayers and fasts. Maslova? In general, there was an external factor that provoked Tolstoy's internal crisis and spiritual rebellion, then they, apparently, were the 50-year milestone of life. Almost everywhere where Tolstoy speaks of the change that has taken place with him, he refers in one form or another to the 50th anniversary. The period of the crisis itself lasted at least four or five years. In March 1877, Sofya Andreevna wrote in her diary according to Tolstoy about the terrible religious struggle in which he had been in the last two years. Consequently, in 1875 it had already begun. In Confession, Tolstoy says that at the age of fifty he considered suicide. The Confession itself, the first exposition of Tolstoy's newly worked out convictions, was begun in 1879. Finally, Tolstoy says many times that he embarked on a new path at the age of fifty: “I lived in the world for 52 years, two years ago I became a Christian” (49, 8); “I lived in the world for 55 years ... Five years ago I believed in the teaching of Christ” (23, 304). In April 1878, after a 13-year break, Tolstoy decides to resume keeping a diary (by the way, Nekhlyudov does the same during the period of enlightenment that has begun). The 50th anniversary is a special age in the life of every person, a substantive reminder that life has an end. And it reminded Tolstoy of the same thing. The problem of death worried Tolstoy before. In the story "Three Deaths" (1858), he considers different attitudes towards her. Tolstoy, who possessed extraordinary vital strength and colossal analytical abilities, death, especially death in the form of legal murders, always baffled. At the end of the second Sevastopol story (1855) there is reasoning in the spirit of Christian motivated pacifism. In 1866, he unsuccessfully defended in court a soldier who hit the commander and was doomed to death. Tolstoy was especially affected by the death penalty by the guillotine, which he observed in Paris in 1857 ("I kissed the gospel, and then - death, what nonsense!" - 47, 121), and later - the death of his beloved elder brother Nikolai at the age of 37 in 1860 ("A smart, kind, serious man, he fell ill young, suffered for more than a year and died painfully, not understanding why he lived, and even less understanding why he dies” - 23, 8). Tolstoy began to doubt the ideology of progress long ago, to think about the general meaning of life, the relationship between life and death. However, it used to be a side topic, now it has become the main one; now death was perceived as a personal prospect, as a quick and inevitable end. Faced with the need to find out a personal attitude to death (and for Tolstoy this meant rationally substantiating death, developing a conscious attitude towards it, that is, justifying and developing such an attitude that would allow one to live a meaningful life with the consciousness of inevitable death), - confronting such a need , Tolstoy discovered that his life, his values ​​do not stand the test of death. “I could not give any reasonable meaning to any act, or to my whole life. I was only surprised how I could not understand this at the very beginning. All this has been known to everyone for so long. ) on loved ones, on me, and nothing will remain but stench and worms. My deeds, whatever they may be, will all be forgotten - sooner, later, and I will not be there either. So why bother?" (23, 1 3). These words of Tolstoy from the "Confession" reveal both the nature and the immediate source of his spiritual illness, which could be described as a panic before death. Fair man and a courageous thinker, he clearly understood that only such a life can be considered meaningful, which is able to assert itself in the face of inevitable death, withstand the test of the question: "Why bother, for what to live at all, if everything is swallowed up by death?" Tolstoy decided to close the wires of incredible tension - life and death. And one had to be Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy in order to withstand the inhuman power of this discharge. Tolstoy entered into a fight with death and set himself the most daring, in fact superhuman goal - to find that which is not subject to death.

What is hidden behind the question of the meaning of life?

God, freedom, goodness

That infinite, immortal principle, in conjunction with which life only acquires meaning, is called God. And nothing else can be said with certainty about God. The mind can know that there is a god, but it cannot comprehend God himself (therefore, Tolstoy resolutely rejected church judgments about God, about the trinity of God, his creation of the world in six days, the legend of angels and devils, the fall of man, immaculate conception etc., considering all this to be gross prejudice and a very dangerous ideology). Any meaningful statement about God, even such that God is one, contradicts itself, for the concept of God, by definition, means that which cannot be defined. For Tolstoy, the concept of God was a human concept that must stand the test of human experience and reason, it expresses what we humans can feel and know about God, but not what God thinks about people and the world. In it, in this concept, as Tolstoy understands it, there was nothing mystical, except that it denotes the mystical foundation of life and knowledge. God is the cause of knowledge, but not its object. “Since the concept of God cannot be other than the concept of the beginning of everything that the mind knows, it is obvious that God, as the beginning of everything, cannot be comprehensible to the mind. God, but, having reached this concept, the mind already ceases to comprehend "(23, 71). Tolstoy compares knowledge about God with knowledge of the infinity of number. Both that and the other (to this kind of knowledge Tolstoy also refers knowledge about the soul) is unconditionally assumed, but indefinable.“I am brought to the certainty of the knowledge of an infinite number by addition; I am brought to the undoubted knowledge of God by the question: where am I from?" (23, 132). The idea of ​​God as the limit of reason, the incomprehensible fullness of truth sets a certain way of being in the world, when a person is consciously oriented to this limit and fullness. This is freedom. Freedom - a purely human property, an expression of the middle of his being. “A person would not be free if he did not know any truth, and in the same way he would not be free and would not even have a concept of freedom if all the truth that should guide him in life, once for all, in all its purity, without the admixture of errors, would be revealed to him "(28, 28 1). Freedom consists in this movement from darkness to light, from lower to higher," from truth, more mixed with errors, to truth, more freed from them "(28, 28 1). It can be defined as the desire to be guided by truth. A person is not free to commit actions if their reason is given. Let's say someone wants to become physically strong or learn everything about Atlantis - of these desires, a completely definite set of purely objective actions follows. But a person can choose the reasons for actions - those truths that underlie them. Freedom is not identical with arbitrariness, a simple ability to act on a whim. It is always associated with truth. According to Tolstoy's classification, there are three kinds of truths. First, the truths that have already become a habit, the second nature of a person. Secondly, the truths are vague, insufficiently clarified. The first is not quite true. The second is not entirely true. Both are areas of need. Along with them, there is a third series of truths, which, on the one hand, were revealed to a person with such clarity that he cannot bypass them and must determine his attitude towards them, and on the other hand, did not become habit, automatism, unconscious motive for him. In relation to the truths of this third kind, the freedom of man is revealed. Both points are important here - both the fact that we are talking about a clear truth, and the fact that we are talking about a higher truth in comparison with that which has already been mastered in life practice. Nothing can prevent a person from doing what he thinks is right, but he will never think that what he does is right - this is his freedom. Freedom is the power that allows a person to follow the path to God, to become "a joyful doer of the furnace and endless work" (28, 281). To go by yourself and not be led, to go with open eyes, acting reasonably and responsibly. and this path, what duties follow for a person from his belonging to God?Recognition of God as the beginning, the source of life and reason puts a person in a completely definite relationship to him, which Tolstoy likens to the relationship of a son to his father, a worker to a master.The son cannot judge the father and is not able to fully understand the meaning of his instructions, he must follow the will of his father, and only as he obeys his father's will he realizes that it has a beneficial meaning for him; a good son is a loving son, he does not act as he wants, but as the father wants, and in this, in the fulfillment of the will of the father, he sees his destiny and good.In the same way, the worker is a worker because he is obedient to the owner, carries out his orders - for only the owner knows what is his job for? the owner not only gives meaning to the efforts of the worker, he also feeds him; a good worker is a worker who understands that his life and well-being depend on the owner, and treats the owner with a sense of selflessness, love. The relation of man to God must be the same: man does not live for himself, but for God. Only such an understanding of the meaning of one's own life corresponds to the actual position of a person in the world, follows from the nature of his connection with God. The normal, human relation of man to God is the relation of love. “The essence of human life and the highest law that should guide it is love” (37, 1 66). But how to love God and what does it mean to love God if we know nothing about God and cannot know, except that he exists "Yes, I don't know what God is, I don't know his plan, his commandments. However, I know that, firstly, there are other people who are in the same relationship to God as I am, and secondly, I myself have a divine beginning, a soul, the essence of which is precisely love.And if a person does not have the opportunity to communicate directly with God, to look directly at this blinding sun of life, then he can do it indirectly, through the correct attitude towards other people and right attitude towards oneself. The right attitude towards other people is determined by the fact that they are children of the same god as I am. They are my brothers. Hence the requirement to love people as brothers, sons of men, to love everyone, without any exceptions. regardless of any worldly differences between them. Everyone is equal before God. In the perspective of its infinity, all human distances between wealth and poverty, beauty and ugliness, youth and decrepitude, strength and misery, etc., lose any meaning whatsoever. It is necessary to appreciate the dignity of divine origin in every person. Love for man, understood in this way, is the only possible basis for the unity of people. “The kingdom of God on earth is the peace of all people among themselves” (23, 370), and a peaceful, reasonable and harmonious life is possible only when people are bound by the same understanding of the meaning of life, by the same faith. That primary, unconditional connection between people that exists before and beyond any differences, which can be the basis of their unity, is the connection that is determined by their relationship to God. “All people live by the same spirit, but all are separated in this life by their bodies. If people understand this, then they strive to unite with each other with love” (37, 231). The right attitude towards oneself can be briefly defined as concern for the salvation of the soul. “In the soul of man there are not moderate rules of justice and philanthropy, but the ideal of complete, infinite divine perfection. Only the striving for this perfection deviates the direction of human life from the animal state to the divine as far as it is possible in this life” (28, 79). From this point of view, the real state of the individual does not matter, because no matter what height of spiritual development he reaches, it, this height, is vanishingly insignificant in comparison with the unattainable perfection of the divine ideal. Whatever end point we take, the distance from it to infinity will be infinite. Therefore, an indicator of the correct attitude of a person towards himself is the striving for perfection, this very movement from oneself to God. Moreover, “a person who stands on a lower level, moving towards perfection, lives more morally, better, fulfills the teaching more than a person standing on a much higher level of morality, but not advancing towards perfection” (28, 79). In this sense, the prodigal son who returned to the house is dearer to the father than the son who did not leave the house. Consciousness of the degree of discrepancy with ideal perfection is the criterion of a correct attitude towards oneself. Since in reality this degree of discrepancy is always infinite, then a person is the more moral, the more fully he realizes his imperfection. If we take these two projections of the attitude towards God - the attitude towards others and the attitude towards oneself - then the initial and fundamental, from the point of view of Tolstoy, is the attitude towards oneself. A moral attitude towards oneself, as it were, automatically guarantees a moral attitude towards others. A person who realizes how infinitely far from the ideal he is is a person free from the most dangerous superstition that he can arrange the life of other people. He will therefore always strive to be in relation to others in the position of a servant, and not a master. “I cannot wish, think, believe for another. I lift up my life, and this one can lift up the life of another, and the other is me. So if I lift myself up, I lift everyone up. I am in them, and they are in me” (23, 302). The reliability of love that each person finds in his own soul, its multiplication, which consists in focusing not on external success and praise of people, but on the infinity of divine perfection, in a word, human concern for purity own soul is the basis, the source of a person's moral obligations in relation to other people, to the family, the state, etc. Love is goodness. The concepts of God, freedom, goodness, which together reveal the meaning of life, are borderline concepts. They connect finite human existence with the infinity of the world. Hence their special epistemological and regulatory status. “All these concepts, in which the finite is equated with the infinite and the meaning of life is obtained, the concepts of God, freedom, goodness, we subject to logical research. And these concepts do not withstand the criticism of reason” (23, 36). They go away in content to such a distance, which is only indicated by the mind, but is not comprehended by it. They are given to the individual directly ("imprinted" in his heart), and the mind does not so much substantiate these concepts as it clarifies them. Only a kind person can understand what goodness is. In order to comprehend the meaning of life with the mind, it is necessary that the very life of the one who owns the mind should be meaningful. If this is not so, if life is meaningless, then the mind has no object to consider, and at best it can point to this non-objectivity.

The concepts of God, freedom and goodness do not give meaning to life, but express it. They are forms of the existential consciousness, the consciousness of life; their purpose is practical, moral. However, the question arises: "If it is impossible to know what the infinite is and, accordingly, God, freedom, goodness, then how can one be infinite, divine, free, kind?" The task of connecting the finite with the infinite in practical terms, as well as in theoretical terms, does not have a positive solution. The infinite is infinite because it can neither be theoretically defined nor practically reproduced. L. N. Tolstoy, in the afterwords to the Kreutzer Sonata, speaks of two ways of orientation along the way: in one case, specific objects that must be sequentially encountered on the way can be landmarks of the right direction, in the second case, the correctness of the path is controlled by a compass. In the same way, there are two different ways of moral guidance: the first is that the exact description of the actions that a person should do or that he should avoid (for example, keep the Sabbath, do not steal, etc.) is given, the second way is that that the guide for the morally seeking person is the unattainable perfection of the ideal. Just as the compass can only determine the degree of deviation from the path, in the same way the ideal can become only a starting point for human imperfection. The concepts of God, freedom, goodness, revealing the infinite meaning of our finite life, are the very ideal, the practical purpose of which is to be a reproach to a person, to point him to what he is not. A person guided by a moral ideal does not notice the path that is left behind, because no matter how significant this path may be, compared to what is ahead, it is an infinitesimal value. A moral person, a good person, is all striving forward, towards the ideal, and in this striving lies his morality, his kindness. And since infinity is ahead of him, he cannot realize his moral duties in relation to this infinity otherwise than in a negative form. A person cannot correspond to an ideal, and the better he is, the less he corresponds to it. Inconsistency with the ideal, imperfection is the lot of man.

five commandments of christianity

The essence of the moral ideal and the originality of its role in human life are most fully expressed in the teachings of Jesus Christ. So says L. N. Tolstoy. At the same time, for Tolstoy, Jesus Christ is not a god or the son of a god ("whoever believes in God, for him Christ cannot be a god" - 23, 174); he considers him a reformer, destroying the old and giving new foundations of life. Tolstoy, further, sees the fundamental difference between the true views of Jesus, set forth in the Gospels, and their perversion in the dogmas of Orthodoxy and other Christian churches. All the teachings of Jesus Christ, according to Tolstoy, are metaphysics and ethics of love. "The fact that love is a necessary and good condition for human life , was recognized by all religious teachings of antiquity. In all the teachings: the Egyptian sages, Brahmins, Stoics, Buddhists, Taoists, etc., friendliness, pity, mercy, charity and love in general were recognized as one of the main virtues” (37, 166). However, only Christ raised love to the level of the fundamental, highest law of life, gave this law an adequate metaphysical justification, the essence of which is that in love and through love a divine principle is revealed in a person: “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him” (1 John 4:16). As the highest, fundamental law of life, love is the only moral law. For the moral world, the law of love is just as obligatory, unconditional as for physical world - the law of gravity. Both of them know no exceptions. We cannot let go of the stone from our hand so that it does not fall to the ground, just as we cannot deviate from the law of love so as not to degenerate into moral depravity. The law of love is not a commandment, but an expression of the very essence of Christianity. This is an eternal ideal towards which people will endlessly strive. Jesus Christ is not limited to the proclamation of the ideal, which, however, as noted above, was formulated before him, in particular, in the Old Testament. Along with this, he gives commandments. In Tolstoy's interpretation there are five such commandments. They are formulated in that part of the Sermon on the Mount, according to the Gospel of Matthew (Matt. 5:2 1-48), which says "it was said to you, but I tell you", that is, there is a direct polemic with the ancient law (two references to adultery are considered for one). With these commandments, Jesus cancels the law of Moses and proclaims his teaching. Here they are: 1) Do not be angry: "You heard what the ancients said: do not kill ... But I tell you that everyone who is angry with his brother in vain is subject to judgment "; 2) Do not leave your wife: "You heard what the ancients said: do not commit adultery ... But I tell you whoever divorces his wife, except for the guilt of fornication, gives her a reason to commit adultery"; 3) Never swear to anyone or anything: "You have also heard what was said to the ancients: do not break your oath ... But I say to you: do not swear at all"; 4) Do not resist the evil by force: "You have heard that it is said: an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you: do not resist the evil"; 5) Do not consider people of other nations as your enemies: "You heard that it was said: love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you: love your enemies." The commandments of Christ are "all negative and show only what, at a certain stage of human development, people can no longer do. These commandments are, as it were, notes on the endless path of perfection ..." (28, 80). They cannot but be negative, since we are talking about the awareness of the degree of imperfection. For the same reason, they cannot exhaust the essence of the teaching that coincides with the law of love. They are nothing more than a step, a step on the way to perfection. But this is the next step that man and mankind have to step on, the next step that they have to take in their moral efforts. They, these commandments, together constitute such truths that, as truths, are not in doubt, but have not yet been mastered in practice, that is, truths in relation to which the freedom of modern man is revealed. For people of the times of the Old Testament, they were not yet truths in all clarity and obviousness, for people of the coming post-Christian epochs, they, presumably, will become quite familiar automatisms of behavior. For a modern man, a man of the Christian era, which lasts two thousand years, they are already truths, but have not yet become a daily habit. A person already dares to think so, but is not yet able to act so. Therefore, these truths proclaimed by Jesus Christ are a test of human freedom.

Non-resistance as a manifestation of the law of love

According to Tolstoy, the center of the Christian five words is the fourth commandment: "Do not resist evil", which imposes a ban on violence. The realization that these three simple words the essence of the gospel teaching is concluded, which returned the lost meaning of life to Tolstoy in its time, brought him out of the ideological impasse at the same time. The ancient law, which condemned evil and violence in deeds, allowed that in certain cases they could be used for good - as a fair retribution according to the formula "an eye for an eye". Jesus Christ abolishes this law. He believes that violence can never be a blessing, under no circumstances, you can’t resort to violence even when you are beaten and offended (“whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other” - Matt. 5: 39). The ban on violence is absolute. Not only good must be repaid with good. And evil must be repaid with good. Understood precisely in this direct, literal sense, the words of Jesus about non-violence, non-resistance to evil by force are a mark of the right direction, that the height before which modern man stands on the endless path of his moral ascent. Why non-violence? Violence is the opposite of love. Tolstoy has at least three successively linked definitions of violence. First, he identifies violence with murder or threat murder The need to use bayonets, prisons, gallows and other means of physical destruction arises when the task is to externally coerce a person into something. second definition of violence as an external influence. The need for external influence, in turn, appears when there is no internal agreement between people. This is how we approach the third, most important definition of violence: “To force means to do what the one who is being abused does not want” (28, 190-191). In this understanding, violence coincides with evil and is directly opposite to love. To love is means to do as the other wants, to subordinate one's will to the will of another.To force - means to do as I want, to subordinate someone else's will to mine.The central status of the commandment of non-violence, non-resistance is connected with the fact that it outlines the border of the kingdom of evil, darkness, as if sealing the door to this kingdom. In this sense, the commandment of non-resistance is a negative formula of the law of love. "Do not resist evil - it means never resist evil, that is, never do violence, that is, such an act that always opposite to love" (23, 313). Non-resistance is more than a rejection of the law of violence. It also has a positive moral meaning. "Recognition of the life of every person as sacred is the first and only foundation of any morality" (28, 246). Non-resistance to evil just means the recognition of the original, unconditional sanctity of human life. Human life is sacred not by a mortal body, but by an immortal soul. Renunciation of violence transfers the conflict into that only sphere, the sphere of the spirit, where it can only receive a constructive solution - be overcome in mutual agreement. Non-resistance transfers the conflict not just into the sphere of the spirit, but more narrowly - into the depths of the soul of the non-resistance. Tolstoy's main work, which outlines his concept of non-violence, is not at all accidental called "The Kingdom of God is within you." Through non-resistance, a person recognizes that the issues of life and death are beyond his competence, that this is the business of the owner, and not the worker. At the same time, he refuses to be a judge in relation to another at all. It is not given to man to judge man. And not only because it is always imperfect. He is simply deprived of this ability, in the same way, for example, as he is deprived of the ability to fly. In those cases when we seem to judge other people, calling some good, others evil, then we either deceive ourselves and those around us, or, at best, reveal our moral immaturity, becoming like little children who, waving their arms, run around the room. , believing that they fly through the air. The soul is self-legislative. This means that a person has power only over himself. “Everything that is not your soul, all this is none of your business” (23, 303), says Tolstoy. The ethics of non-resistance is, in fact, the requirement according to which each person must think about saving his own soul. then a criminal and exposing him to violence, we deprive him of this human right; we seem to say to him: "You are not able to think about your soul, it is we who will take care of it." Thus, we deceive him and ourselves. another's body, but one cannot and should not rule over another's soul.Refusing to resist evil with violence, a person recognizes this truth;he refuses to judge another, because he does not consider himself better than him.It is not other people who need to be corrected, but oneself.Non-resistance translates human activity into the plane of inner moral self-perfection. A man plays his own role only when he fights evil in himself. By setting himself the task of fighting evil in others, he enters into a region that he cannot controlled. Violence is very often anonymous: the executioners work in masks. People who commit violence tend to hide it. They hide from others and from themselves. This is especially true of state violence, which is so organized that "people, committing the most terrible deeds, do not see their responsibility for them .... Some demanded, others decided, others confirmed, fourth suggested, fifth reported, sixth ordered, seventh fulfilled "(28, 250-251). And no one is to blame. The blurring of guilt in such cases is not just the result of a deliberate desire to hide the ends. It reflects the very essence of the matter: violence is objectively an area of ​​non-free and irresponsible behavior. People through a complex system of external obligations, they turn out to be accomplices in crimes that none of them would have committed if these crimes depended only on his individual will, "Not a single general or soldier without discipline, oath and war will not kill not only hundreds of Turks or Germans and will not destroy their villages, but will not dare to hurt a single person. All this is done only thanks to that complex state and social machine, the task of which is to break down the responsibility of the evil deeds committed so that no one feels the unnaturalness of these actions” (23, 332). Non-resistance differs from violence in that it is an area of ​​individually responsible behavior. This is purely a work of art. No matter how difficult the fight against evil in oneself, it depends only on the person himself. There are no forces that could prevent someone who decided to non-resistance. Non-resistance to evil, turning into internal self-improvement or, in other words, internal self-improvement, realized in non-resistance to evil, is the touchstone of freedom. modern man . Any murder, no matter how confusing and hidden its causal sequence, has the last link - someone must shoot, press a button, etc. The death penalty requires not only appropriate laws, judges, etc., but also and executioner. The most reliable, guaranteed way to eliminate violence from the practice of interpersonal relations, according to Tolstoy, is to start with this last link. If there is no executioner, then there will be no death penalty. Let there be constitutions, judges, sentences and all the rest, but if no one wants to become an executioner, then there will be no one to carry out the death sentence, no matter how legal it may be. This reasoning is irrefutable. Tolstoy, of course, knew that there are always hunters for the role of the executioner. He described cases when there was competition for this advantageous place in its own way. But he also knew something else: no one can forbid a person to become an executioner, except himself. The idea of ​​non-resistance is guaranteed only when a person considers it as an objective embodiment of his moral, human dignity, when he says to himself: "I will not become an executioner. Never. Under no circumstances. I would rather die myself than kill another". The identification of the moral sovereignty of the individual with non-resistance is perceived by everyday consciousness as such a position that contradicts the human desire for happiness. Tolstoy examines in detail the common arguments against non-resistance. Three of them are the most common. The first argument is that Christ's teaching is beautiful but difficult to follow. Objecting to him, Tolstoy asks: is it really easy to seize property and defend it? But plowing the land or raising children is not fraught with difficulties? In fact, this is not about the difficulty of fulfillment, but about a false faith, according to which the rectification of human life does not depend on the people themselves, their mind and conscience, but on Christ on the clouds with a trumpet voice or historical law. “It is human nature to do what is best” (23, 372). There is no objective predestination of human existence, but there are people who make decisions. Therefore, to assert a doctrine that relates to human choice concerns the determination of the spirit, and not physical capabilities, to assert about such a doctrine that it is good for people, but impracticable, means contradicting oneself.The second argument is that "one person cannot go against the whole world" (23, 385). What if, for example, I alone will be as meek as the teaching requires, I will turn the cheek, refuse to take an oath, etc.? and all the rest will continue to live according to the old laws, then I will be ridiculed, beaten, shot, I will ruin my life in vain. The teaching of Christ is the path of salvation, the path of blessed life for those who follow it. Therefore, anyone who says that he would be glad to follow this teaching, but it is a pity for him to ruin his life, at least does not understand what is at stake. It is as if a drowning man, to whom a rope was thrown to save him, would object that he would willingly use the rope, but was afraid that others would not do the same. The third argument is a continuation of the previous two and calls into question the implementation of the teachings of Christ due to the fact that it involves great suffering. In general, human life cannot be without suffering. The whole question is when these sufferings are greater, whether when a person lives in the name of God, or when he lives in the name of the world. Tolstoy's answer is unequivocal: when he lives in the name of peace. Considered from the point of view of poverty and wealth, sickness and health, the inevitability of death, the life of a Christian is not better life pagan, but in comparison with the latter, it has the advantage that it is not completely absorbed by the empty occupation of the imaginary provision of life, the pursuit of mirages of power, wealth, health. In the life of supporters of the teachings of Christ, there is less suffering, if only for the reason that they are free from suffering associated with envy, disappointment from failures in the struggle, rivalry. Experience, says Tolstoy, also confirms that people suffer mainly not because of their Christian forgiveness, but because of their worldly selfishness. “In my exclusively worldly sense of a happy life,” he writes, “I will accumulate the suffering that I endured in the name of the teaching of the world so much that they would be enough for a good martyrdom in the name of Christ” (23, 416). The teaching of Christ is not only more moral but it is also more prudent. It warns people not to do stupid things. Thus, the ordinary arguments against the ethics of non-resistance are nothing more than superstitions. With their help, people seek to deceive themselves, to find cover and justification for their immoral and fatal way of life, to get away from personal responsibility for how they live. The focus on saving one's own soul may seem at first glance a form of refined egoism. In reality, this is not so. After all, the essence of the soul is love. And the path of non-resistance is the path of a person to himself not in sense of isolation from other people, indifference to them.This is the path to the divine that is in the soul, and therefore, such a path to oneself, which connects connects a person with other people, the same sons of men as he himself. Tolstoy wrestles with the question: "How to resolve the clashes of people, when some people consider evil what others consider good, and vice versa?" (28, 38). The usual answer, which has been practiced for thousands of years, is that the good should rule over the evil. But how do we know that it is the good who rule and not the evil? After all, according to the conditions of the problem, we do not have an indisputable, general criterion of evil. The good ones, precisely because they are kind, cannot rule. Cain killed Abel. And it could not have happened otherwise, "There may be evil ones among those who obey the authorities, but it cannot be that the kinder ones rule over the more evil" (28, 191). In such a situation, there is only one solution - a person must turn to his own soul, which means that he must not resist with violence what he considers evil.

Non-resistance is the law

The commandment of non-resistance unites the teaching of Christ into a whole only in this case; if you understand it not as a saying, but as a law - a rule that knows no exceptions and is mandatory for execution. To allow exceptions to the law of love is to recognize that there may be instances of morally justified use of violence. And this is impossible. If we assume that someone, or under certain circumstances, can oppose by force what he considers evil, then anyone else can do the same. After all, the peculiarity of the situation, from which the idea of ​​non-resistance follows, lies precisely in the fact that people cannot come to an agreement on the question of good and evil. If we allow at least one case of a "justified" murder, then we discover an endless series of them. Tolstoy's contemporary, the famous naturalist Ernst Haeckel, a follower of Charles Darwin, tried, by appealing to the natural laws of the struggle for existence, to justify the justice and beneficialness of the death penalty, as he put it, "Incorrigible criminals and scoundrels." Objecting to him, Tolstoy asked: "If it is useful to kill bad people, then who will decide: who is harmful. For example, I think that I don't know anyone worse and more harmful than Herr Haeckel. Can it be that I and people of the same convictions should sentence Mr. Haeckel to hang?" (37, 74). This argument against violence, which was first put forward in the gospel story about a woman to be beaten, is essentially sinless, who can accurately judge good and evil and tell us when and at whom to throw stones?! Tolstoy also considered untenable the utilitarian argument in favor of violence, according to which violence is justified in cases where it stops greater violence. a person who raised a knife over his victim, we can never know with complete certainty whether he would have put his intention into action or not, whether something would have changed at the last moment in his mind (see 37, 206). When we execute a criminal, then again we cannot be absolutely sure that the criminal will not change, will not repent and that our execution will not turn out to be a useless cruelty (see 28, 29). an inveterate fool who would never change, execution cannot be pragmatically justified, because executions have such an impact on those around them, especially people close to the executed, that they give rise to enemies twice as large and twice as evil as those who were killed and buried in the ground ( 37, 214). Violence tends to be reproduced on an expanding scale. Therefore, the very idea of ​​limited violence and limitation of violence by violence is false. It was this idea that was abolished by the law of non-resistance. Jesus said to the people: "You think that your laws of violence correct evil; they only increase it. You have tried for thousands of years to destroy evil with evil, and have not destroyed it, but increased it. Do what I say and do, and you will know if it is true." it" (23, 329). Empirically, violence is easy to commit, and, unfortunately, it is constantly committed. But it cannot be justified. It cannot be justified by reason as a human act, as a Christian act. Tolstoy is talking about whether there can be a right to violence, to murder. His conclusion is categorical - such a right does not exist. If we accept universal human morality, Christian values, if we say that people are equal before God, equal in their moral dignity, then it is impossible to justify the violence of a person against a person without violating the laws reason and logic. The cannibal, within the framework of his cannibal consciousness, could justify violence. The Old Testament man, within the framework of his consciousness, distinguishing between the people of his people and other peoples, also m og justify violence. But modern man, guided by the ideas of philanthropy, cannot do this. That is why Tolstoy considered the death penalty a form of murder, which is much worse than just killing out of passion or for other personal reasons. It is worse because of its cold systematic and claims to justification, legality. It is quite possible to understand that a person, in a moment of anger or irritation, commits a murder in order to protect himself or a loved one; But it is impossible to understand how people can commit murder calmly, deliberately, in full possession of human qualities, how they can consider murder necessary. It was beyond Tolstoy's understanding. “The death penalty,” writes Tolstoy in “Memoirs of the Trial of a Soldier,” “as it was, and remains for me one of those human acts, information about the commission of which in reality does not destroy in me the consciousness of the impossibility of their commission” (37, 69 LN Tolstoy says, in fact, a very simple thing: violence is incompatible with morality and reason, and whoever wants to live according to morality and reason should never commit it.

The American George Kennan talks about his conversation with L. N. Tolstoy, during which he asked him directly whether he, the great writer Count L. N. Tolstoy, would kill a robber who was ready to kill an innocent victim, if there was no other opportunity to save the life of the latter. Tolstoy replied: "If I saw a bear in the forest who was about to bully a peasant, I would smash his head with an ax, but I would not kill a man who was ready to do the same" 1 . In this case, Tolstoy on a specific episode only repeated the truth, which in society is the same immutable law as in nature - the law of gravity; "do not resist evil - it means never resist evil" (23, 3 1 3).

1 L. N. Tolstoy in the memoirs of his contemporaries: In 2 vols. M., 1978, T. 1.S. 369.

Why do people hold on to the old?

“When people believe the teachings of Christ and fulfill it, and there will be peace on earth” (23, 370). But people for the most part do not believe and do not fulfill the teachings of Christ. Why? The main reasons that close the truth of Jesus Christ from people are, firstly, the inertia of the previous understanding of life and, secondly, the distortion of Christian teaching.Before Jesus Christ formulated the commandment of non-resistance, the conviction dominated in society that evil can be destroyed by evil. It was embodied in the corresponding structure of human life, entered into everyday life, a habit, became the basis of social inequality. "The foundations of all the advantages of the rich over the poor all came from nothing else but rods, prisons, hard labor, murders" (28, 228) - this is harsh judgment of Tolstoy. Violence is also involved in the prevailing motivation of social behavior, the essence of which is the desire to stand out, earn people's praise, prove that you are better than others. However, the most important center of violence is the state with its armies, compulsory military service, oaths, taxes, courts, prisons, etc. In a word, all civilization is based on the law of violence, although, of course, it is not reduced to it.

226. In its spiritual foundations, it remains pre-Christian. Tolstoy is often accused of abstract moralism. It is argued that, due to purely moral considerations, he denied all violence and considered any physical coercion as violence, and that for this reason he closed his way to understanding the complexity and depth of life relationships. In this spirit, L. N. Tolstoy was criticized by the famous philosopher of the Russian diaspora of the 20th century, I. A. Ilyin, in a book with the characteristic title "On Resistance to Evil by Force." It is impossible to fully agree with such criticism. In the course of his analysis of violence, Tolstoy did not confine himself to the position of unconditional moral condemnation. It was historical, for example, in that it allowed the justification of state violence for a certain time (“it may be that state violence was necessary for the former state of people, perhaps it is still needed now” - 37, 199). Further, Tolstoy is quite specific when he distinguishes between the violence of the revolutionaries and the violence of the authorities. In the famous article “I can’t be silent,” he says that the atrocities of the revolutionaries are more understandable and explainable than the reciprocal atrocities of the authorities, since the former are associated with great personal risk, are committed by young people, are not so cold-blooded and cruel, and are not covered up by false religious motives (37, 92). However, according to Tolstoy, all these historical and social differences lose any meaning in the perspective of the Christian ideal. With the advent of the commandment of non-resistance, the spiritual status of violence changes radically, it loses its ethical justification. "Violence is no longer supported by the fact that it is considered necessary, but only because it has existed for a long time and is so organized by the people to whom it is beneficial, i.e., by the governments and the ruling classes, that people who are under their rule cannot escape from under it ”(28, 1 52 ). Moreover, in non-resistance itself, as already noted, Tolstoy sees one of the steps on the endless path to perfection. And he fully admits that in time this lofty truth will become a trivial habit and people will be ashamed of participating in violence just as they are now ashamed of fraud or cowardice. If one can call such a position moralistic, then it is a kind of moralism, which is itself a historical task.

The multi-thousand-year tradition of violence was able to integrate the teachings of Jesus Christ, having first perverted its essence. L. N. Tolstoy believes that the truth of Christ, which we find in the Gospels, was subsequently distorted by the churches that inherited him. The distortions touched on three main points. First, every church has declared that only it correctly understands and fulfills the teachings of Christ. Such a statement is contrary to the spirit of the teaching, which aims at a movement towards perfection and in relation to which none of the followers, either an individual or a collection of people, can claim that they have finally understood it. Secondly, they reduced the doctrine to a creed and made salvation dependent on certain rituals, sacraments and prayers, elevated themselves to the status of mediators between people and God. In this way they revised Christianity on the decisive point that the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth also depends on man, on his good deeds. As Tolstoy writes, Sermon on the Mount or a creed: one cannot believe both” (28, 60). Thirdly, the churches perverted the meaning of the most important fourth commandment of non-resistance to evil, questioned it, which was tantamount to abolishing the law of love. The scope of the principle of love was narrowed down to personal life, domestic use, "for public life, it was recognized as necessary for the good of most people to use against evil people all kinds of violence, prisons, executions, wars, actions that are directly opposite to the weakest feeling of love" (37, p. 263) The general meaning of all church reinterpretations of the teachings of Christ was to transfer him from the sphere of moral duties, actions to the sphere of inner hopes and dreams. that it did not imply any requirements for life, so that it did not prevent people from living the way they lived ... The world did everything it wanted, leaving the church, as it knows how, to keep up with it in its explanations of the meaning of life. established his own life, in everything contrary to the teachings of Christ, and the church came up with allegories, according to which it would appear that people, living contrary to the law of Christ, live in accordance with it. ended with the world beginning to live a life that became worse than pagan life, and the church began not only to justify this life, but to assert that this is precisely the teaching of Christ” (23, 439). As a result, a situation has developed when people profess in words what they deny in deeds and when they hate the order of things that they themselves maintain. Violence has continued in deceit. “Lies support the cruelty of life, the cruelty of life requires more and more lies, and, like a ball of snow, both grow uncontrollably” (37, 1 60). Where is the way out of such an unnatural situation? Tolstoy answers this question with the words of Christ from the Gospel of Matthew (Matt. 24:3-28), according to which the end of the pagan world will come when the disasters of people increase to the last degree and at the same time the good news of a new, non-violent order will be preached throughout the universe. peace. The world, according to Tolstoy, is just entering such a stage. On the one hand, the plight of the people's condition is increasing and increasing, violence reaches incredible proportions, clearly convincing people of the dead end, the undoubted disastrous nature of this path. Tolstoy even expresses an idea that, in the mouth of a limited moralist, would be completely impossible: the very participation of people in violence turns them away from it. "Violence selects and attracts the worst elements of society, recycles them and, improving and softening, returns them back to society" (28, 196). On the other hand, eighteen centuries of Christianity did not pass for people in vain, they perceived it, although external Moreover, the acceptance of Christianity in a distorted form was a condition for it to penetrate the consciousness of the broad masses of people and be perceived later in its true content. these are the general conditions for the transition to new foundations of life, but not the definition of a specific time, day and hour of such a transition. exact time the onset of a new life, the kingdom of God in Christian terminology, is impossible in principle, because its onset depends on the people themselves. This is not a matter of providence, but a matter of choice. The kingdom of God is within, and each person must discover it within himself, build his own kingdom of God, and only in this way can a common kingdom be formed. "Unity is achieved only when people, not thinking about unity, each thinks only about fulfilling the law of life" (37, 211).

The idea of ​​non-resistance, internal moral self-improvement of the individual cannot be understood as if Tolstoy was against joint actions, socially significant actions, in general, against the direct moral duties of a person in relation to other people. Quite the opposite. Non-resistance, according to Tolstoy, is the application of the teachings of Christ to social life (see 28, 149), a specific path that transforms the relationship of enmity between people into a relationship of cooperation between them. The very non-participation in violence is a struggle against it. Violence, and above all organized state violence, rests to a large extent on the support of those against whom it is used. Governments always strive to expand the base of their violence, "to attract the largest number of citizens to the greatest participation in all the crimes they commit and need for them" (28, 250). People are to blame for the violence of governments by direct participation in them (through military service, jury trials, etc.). They are guilty of violence even when they try to oppose it by the same means (in the form of terror, armed uprisings, etc.), because in this case, firstly, they recognize violence in as a legitimate, normal way to achieve human goals, and secondly, they increase its volume and intensity.When violence does not receive an adequate response, it tends to die out, decreases; when it encounters counter-violence, it builds up mass and becomes more sophisticated. Therefore, even a purely negative, outwardly passive position of non-participation in violence reduces its power and legitimacy. the word "non-resistance". We will understand Tolstoy's thought better if we focus on the word "violence". It is possible and necessary to resist evil, only not by violence, but by other non-violent methods. Moreover, we only truly resist violence when we refuse to respond in kind. “Defenders of the public understanding of life objectively try to confuse the concept of power, i.e., violence, with the concept of spiritual influence, but this confusion is absolutely impossible” (28, 131). Tolstoy himself did not develop the tactics of collective non-violent resistance, but his teaching allows for such tactics. He understands non-resistance as a positive force of love and truth, in addition, he directly names such forms of resistance as persuasion, dispute, protest, which are designed to separate a person who commits evil from evil itself, appeal to his conscience, the spiritual principle in him, which cancel the previous evil in the sense that it ceases to be an obstacle to subsequent cooperation. Tolstoy called his method revolutionary. It is even more revolutionary than ordinary revolutions. Ordinary revolutions make a revolution in the external position of people, as far as power and property are concerned. Tolstoy's revolution is aimed at radically changing the spiritual foundations of life, turning enemies into friends.

Prepared for publication:
Your human brother Marcel from Kazan,
thinker, seeker of Truth and Meaning of Life.
"Supernew World Order, or The Truth Will Set You Free"

marsexxxx narod.ru

Smotritsky E.Yu.

TOLSTOY AS A MORALIST

(BY THE EXAMPLE OF THE NOVEL "ANNA KARENINA")

It would seem that it could be easier than to live according to conscience, morally! It turns out it's not that easy. And not only because moral always means to one degree or another to the detriment of oneself, but also because in the conditions of moral choice a conflict between morality and mores is inevitable, between true values, which in a particular situation mutually exclude each other, between duty and propensity (between "I want" and "should" and between "I want" and "can"). Morality and morality are unjustifiably often used as synonyms, but it is precisely in the collision of moral imperatives and moral norms that their opposite is revealed. Tragedy love triangle Vronsky - Anna Karenina - Karenin is that this is not really a triangle. This is a quadrilateral in which the fourth corner is society, light. Without this fourth component, the problem simply would not have arisen as such. It is possible, of course, to present the problem as purely biological competition. But such an approach excludes precisely society and the moral dimension from consideration of the situation. The essence of the conflict between the "guilty" and the world is not in the condemnation of the violation of morality by the light, but in the condemnation of the violation of the mores of the world. The mores of society are such that they do not admit the truth. After all, it is not betrayal itself, the destruction of the family, the abandonment of the child that is condemned, but an open demonstration of this. As you read the novel, the feeling that Vronsky and Karenina themselves are to blame for the situation does not leave. After all, they know the moral precepts and moral norms of society. And the share of justice in this feeling, apparently, is. But they both love, and love cannot be morally condemned because it is not the result of a moral choice. A person loves regardless of the voice of reason and conscience. Love breaks the will of man. Love often turns a person into a weak-willed and insane slave who needs sympathy and help, but not admiration or condemnation. Pushkinskaya Tatyana was "given to another" and will be faithful to him for a century. Such a position, in my opinion, deserves admiration, but how many are capable of such a thing! She strictly follows the cultural tradition. But Vronsky and Karenina follow nature, impulse. And I see their fault in the fact that they did not take any steps to put out the fire, which eventually destroyed everything, destroyed the fate of the people associated with them. Culture through religion and the church provides simple and often effective recipes for overcoming such situations: go to church, pray, confess, light a candle, take communion. Those. a person has been given the correct guideline by culture, but no one but the person himself can make a moral choice to follow it or not. This is the essence of human freedom, and hence the responsibility for a freely made choice. Tolstoy, while placing great emphasis on religion and the church in Levin's reflections, does not discuss such an option for Vronsky and Karenina. This means that even then, at the end of the 19th century, the church had little influence on a person's life. Hence, by the way, all Levin's reflections. This is all the more true for the beginning of the 21st century. If the church does not find effective method influence on society and the individual, will not become effective and useful - it will remain in the marginal sector of culture and risk becoming part of the carnival culture. One way or another, Vronsky and Karenina made their choice. They are in love, they are sincere, but what prevents their happiness? Society. Light requires them to observe decency, i.e. lies. The husband asks Karenina not to tell him the truth. Light sorts out similar options, but which were not advertised and, accordingly, did not have a scandalous character. Between lies and truth, Anna chooses the truth. She is proud of this choice, condemning others in a lie. And she's right, if it weren't for reality. Everyone suffers from her truth. Therefore, wittingly or unwittingly, Tolstoy raises the question of the benefits of lies and hypocrisy in social life. Lies are necessary for the preservation of public peace and for the preservation of the family. Anna chooses between values, but she should choose between the real consequences of such a choice. And the consequences speak in favor of the lie. Society, being hypocritical in its essence, nevertheless stands guard over the norms of morality. It does not forgive the demonstrative denial of morality. Whatever the motives of light - it does not allow open immoral behavior. The violator is declared a boycott. He is actually subjected to moral ostracism, expelled from moral space. To the house, i.e. on private territory, such a person will not be allowed in, and public place- express contempt. Society turns into a negative reference group for such a person. From a psychological point of view, Tolstoy brilliantly reduced the denouement of the novel to Anna's insane jealousy. But the essence of the problem lies elsewhere, namely, that a person cannot live outside the moral space. And, in my opinion, that's the way it should be. Modern society organized more complicated, mores in European culture have changed a lot. And although no one denies moral norms openly, they have become empty phrases. This is especially true of family and marriage relations. In fact, there is no mechanism of moral self-regulation in culture. The family crisis cannot be solved by legal measures. This is a real dead end for modern declarative Christian European culture. Today, it is not a person who is expelled from the moral space in case of violation of moral norms, but the moral space itself has disappeared. Tolstoy raises another interesting problem, which, as it were, does not exist, but today in Ukrainian and Russian society it catches the eye of millions of street children. According to one high-ranking official of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, 32,000 children run away from home every year due to abuse parents. Parental love, reciprocal love and respect from children are taken for granted. But the reality is the opposite. Tolstoy puts his thoughts into the mouth of Dolly Oblonskaya. Thinking over your family life, Dolly sees nothing attractive. Husband's infidelity, actual indifference and irresponsible attitude towards his family cannot be compensated by a "normal" social status and the presence of children. Children cause a lot of suffering, not just inconvenience. It is difficult to give birth to them, it is difficult to raise them to their feet, it is difficult and painful to breastfeed, it is scary for their lives when they are sick, constant lack of sleep at their beds ... The second episode is the birth of a child with Levin. Levin is worried about the lack of parental feelings for his son. It seems like it should be, but it's not. Kitty doesn't have that problem, but she worries about her husband. She tries to somehow bring her son and father together. It turns out that parental feeling does not arise with necessity and by itself. The third episode illustrating this problem is Anna Karenina's attitude towards her children. She is madly in love with her son, but is horrified to realize that she does not actually love her own daughter. Moreover, the daughter is still small, she has not yet become a person and there is nothing not to love her. As a person, she could, due to a certain character or actions, arouse such an attitude towards herself. But a mother's dislike for her baby- nonsense. Modern statistics say that this is not nonsense, but the norm. How can you explain what Tolstoy described, how can you understand the statistics of abandoned children? Henri Bergson in his work "Two Sources of Morality and Religion" offers two types of morality: closed and open. The first morality, according to him, is instinctive. This is the moral of the anthill. The second is the morality of human brotherhood. People follow it voluntarily and consciously, imitating a cultural hero. So it turns out that instinct is not a guarantee of caring for offspring, and following a cultural hero, although voluntary and conscious, requires the ritual reproduction of a cultural model. But this requires an appropriate mechanism of culture. The church provides it. When nihilism begins to corrode society, this mechanism loses its power. Love between children and parents is not instinctive. She needs to be educated and supported. If this is not done, modern problems arise. Through the mouth of Levin, Tolstoy formulated the most important problem. Behind the name of Levin, Leo Tolstoy himself is visible. He, obviously, himself experienced similar shocks as a father, and as an honest and deep thinker, he showed his suffering. If modern European culture will not find a mechanism for generating and maintaining love between children and parents - an "incubator future" awaits him. Already today it is not profitable to have children in Europe, there is no reason to love (in accordance with the above). Traditionally significant human values ​​and existentials literally evaporate, sublimate. Millions of children find themselves on the streets in such a spiritual atmosphere in conditions of socio-economic difficulties, and in a well-fed society "hidden homelessness" is masked by material wealth. Tolstoy raises another very serious question: the motives for the fraternal assistance of Russian Orthodox and Slavs in the Balkans in the struggle for liberation from the Turkish Muslim yoke. Tolstoy penetrates deeply into the psychology and sociology of the mass aid of Russian people to struggling peoples. I think it is not unreasonable that he comes to the conclusion that each person has his own motives for going to a war that no one forces him to go to. And these motives, as Tolstoy shows in the conversations of the departing soldiers, are far from being as noble as they are presented by official propaganda and orators who rally at the station. Those. there is some kind of beautiful fairy tale that everyone passes off as reality, and everyone individually is just lying. And everyone benefits. Each individual person solves his personal problem, the oppressed peoples receive help, the state that silently sends volunteers solves its strategic tasks without declaring war, remaining politically "clean". Again, it turns out that a lie can be not only beneficial, but also useful. Are there any analogies in the modern world?.. Circle of L.N. Tolstoy's moral questions are very broad. I see their value in the fact that they remain relevant today. The situation even worsened and became more acute in matters of family and marriage, and in politics, and in religion and the church, and the question "What to do?" remains open.

Slavic Research Group at the University of Ottawa

(Group of Slavonic Studies at the University of Ottawa)

Russian State Archive of Literature and Art

State Museum of Leo Tolstoy

From the editor

The existing literature about Leo Tolstoy is boundless, but the writer's legacy remains far from being fully studied. The change in the situation in Russia at the turn of the century opened up new prospects for researchers. Works that were considered forbidden not so long ago are being printed. Great opportunities are opening up in connection with the intensification of cooperation between Russian and foreign scientific centers. The expansion of the documentary base inevitably brings a lot of new things into our understanding of the personality and work of the great writer, as well as his environment and allows us to study previously unexplored areas. All this, being a source of great satisfaction for specialists, at the same time requires them to take a fresh look at the writer's heritage, as well as at the established traditions of studying his life and work. This fully applies to the relationship between L. N. Tolstoy and V. F. Bulgakov.

This publication is V. F. Bulgakov, “How life is lived. Memories” is the tenth volume of our Tolstoy series and is a continuation of the long-term cooperation of the Slavic Studies Group (SRG) at the University of Ottawa in Canada, the Leo Tolstoy State Museums in Moscow and Yasnaya Polyana, the Institute of World Literature Russian Academy Sciences, Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) RAS. The second volume of Bulgakov's reasoning "In a dispute with Tolstoy. On the scales of life” is scheduled for publication in cooperation with the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI) in 2013.

Bulgakov's work on these manuscripts continued for a long time, from 1932 to 1964. In them one can observe the growing development of Bulgakov's sense of objectivity and his departure from some of the most radical aspects of Tolstoy's religious views, in particular, the latter's readiness to completely indulge in spiritual self-improvement to the detriment of a harmonious connection with some of the physical aspects of human life. This doctrine, according to Bulgakov, could tear the individual and all of humanity from its deep earthly roots. Bulgakov did not agree with Tolstoy that the sources of evil should be sought for the most part in the inner world of the individual, and insisted that attention should be paid equally to the problems of social organization.

In contrast to Tolstoy, Bulgakov supported the role of the state as a force that restrains the negative impulses inherent in the members of society and manifested in anarchist tendencies.

The preparation of the materials to be published, by their very nature, required significant collaborative efforts undertaken by the project participants both in Russia and Canada. We express our heartfelt gratitude to RGALI and, first of all, to its director T.

M. Goryaeva for providing valuable material, which first appeared here in print, to the State Museum of L. N. Tolstoy in Moscow, to V. S. Bastrykina and G. V. Alekseeva, to the Museum of L. N. Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana. I would like to personally thank the head of the Department of Russian Classical Literature, IMLI RAS, Ph.D. n. M.I. Shcherbakov for her valuable advice and constant support.

The work carried out by the compilers of this volume: L. V. Gladkova, J. A. Woodsworth, A. A. Klyuchansky, is distinguished, as in their previous studies, by scrupulous accuracy and high quality. Undoubtedly, this edition could be prepared for publication only by collective efforts. Many thanks also to Svetlana Astachkina for her valuable contribution to this joint work.

This work could not have been successfully completed without the moral and financial support provided by the Canadian Council for Research in the Social and Human Sciences (SSHRC), as well as the General Director of the Kuchkovo Pole Publishing House G. Kuchkov, for which I express my sincere gratitude.

December 2012

A.A. Donskov

Member of the Royal Canadian Society, Professor Emeritus, Director of the Group of Slavic Studies at the University of Ottawa (Canada)

About the life lived by V. F. Bulgakov

I

Valentin Fedorovich Bulgakov, who was born in 1886, when the period of the so-called “religious and moral crisis” of Leo Tolstoy was still going on, was destined by fate at the end of the great writer’s life (in 1910) to become his last personal secretary, replacing N N. Gusev (1882-1967), sent into exile for distributing Tolstoy's works banned in the Russian Empire. The young Bulgakov first visited Tolstoy in 1907. And by the end of 1909, he had already completed his first major work, which later became the widely known book "Christian Ethics: Systematic Essays on the Worldview of Leo Tolstoy." This was the first attempt to systematize Tolstoy's views on the basis of excerpts from his writings. He received the full approval of the writer himself. 1
In a letter to the publisher of V. F. Bulgakov’s book “Christian Ethics” dated March 27, 1910, L. N. Tolstoy wrote: “Dear Sir! Fulfilling the desire of the author of the work “Christian Ethics” (Systematic Essays on the Worldview of L.N. Tolstoy) V.F. Bulgakov, I inform you that I have carefully read this work and that I found in it a true and very well conveyed presentation of my religious worldview.

During his work as Tolstoy's secretary, Bulgakov actively participated in the compilation of collections of wise sayings of famous historical figures, which Tolstoy published in 1910 under the titles "The Way of Life" 2
For Bulgakov's assessment of The Way of Life, on which he worked with and under Tolstoy's guidance, see p. 79–88 in Tolstoy the Moralist, and also in the section “Technical participation in the compilation of collections of L. N. Tolstoy"For Every Day" and "The Way of Life" in Chapter 1 of Part IV "How Life Is Lived".

And “For every day. The doctrine of life, set forth in sayings. In 1911 (shortly after the death of the teacher) the Life of L. N. Tolstoy in the letters of his secretary was published. 3
Here is the title of this work:
1. The necessity of religion.
2. God.
3. Purpose and meaning of life.
4. Labor.
5. Relations between a man and a woman.
6. Science and education.
7. Social and political activities.
8. About influencing others.
9. Moral effort.
The letters that compiled this book were written by Bulgakov on behalf of L. N. Tolstoy in response to requests from people who addressed him from January to October 1910. These letters are of interest both from the point of view of clarifying the details of Tolstoy's biography and for a better understanding of his worldview. In addition, they show how correctly the young secretary understood the thoughts of the great writer and how his own worldview was in tune with Tolstoy's. It is important to remember that Tolstoy himself read and edited these letters. To many of them such additions are made: “V. F. Bulgakov quite correctly expressed what I wanted and could tell you. I will be very happy if you agree with us. L. Tolstoy” (p. 31). In the part "Yasnaya Polyana" of the book "How Life Is Lived", Bulgakov writes about his help to Tolstoy in maintaining correspondence.

Which includes letters written by Bulgakov the secretary on behalf of Tolstoy.

In the same 1911, Bulgakov's most important work was published, which became his colossal contribution to Tolstoy studies: the Yasnaya Polyana diary for 1910 “L. N. Tolstoy in Last year his life." Here Bulgakov managed with unsurpassed objectivity and tact to describe the complex relationship of Leo Tolstoy with relatives, friends and followers in the last months of the writer's life. Many of Bulgakov's notes, made, as they say, in hot pursuit, later allowed Tolstoy's biographers to clarify whole line dates and details of related events. The book, published for the first time the very next year after Tolstoy's death, was reprinted in 1918 and 1920, and subsequently in 1957 and 1989. 4
See the bibliography at the end of this edition. Bulgakov carefully collected printed reviews of his work. He noted not only the titles of periodicals, dates of publication and page numbers, but often reprinted reviews or made a summary of them, often accompanying this with his own comments and explanations. All this extensive material remains unpublished and continues to wait in the wings.

True, in the first three editions, Bulgakov, as he himself later noted, somewhat idealized his idol and showed excessive condescension to his own passion for the ideas of "Tolstoyism". As a result of this, and also for understandable reasons of tact, he was forced to refrain from mentioning many details concerning the surviving members of Tolstoy's circle, and in the first place did not want to hurt the feelings of the writer's family members. However, later many of these details were included by Bulgakov in his work “On the Other Side” (1924), as well as in the book “The Tragedy of Leo Tolstoy” published in 1928.

Bulgakov fell to live and work in the Russian Empire, in Soviet Russia, in the West and, finally, return to the USSR He is most likely the only person who happened to make a significant contribution to the study of fat on both sides of the Iron Curtain. He had the opportunity to get acquainted with a variety of, often very contradictory views and at the same time actively defend his point of view. True, when analyzing some of his later publications, one should take into account the requirements of the official Soviet ideology.

It is very important that Bulgakov, deeply respecting Tolstoy as a person and thinker and bowing to his artistic talent (in turn, he also enjoyed the respect and favor of the Yasnaya Polyana elder during their personal acquaintance), managed to maintain and show remarkable objectivity in assessing this great man. and did not lose the freedom of his own opinion. Although such qualities seem completely natural and even indispensable for a researcher, it should be remembered that they were unusual (and even unaccepted) among Tolstoy's closest admirers. Here again we can talk about the uniqueness of Bulgakov's position, which determines his significance as a researcher of Tolstoy's life, ideas and work, and also allows us to draw a conclusion about the scale of his own personality.

Bulgakov devoted almost his entire life to Tolstoy and Tolstoy Studies. After working for several years in Yasnaya Polyana, in 1916 he became head of the Tolstoy Museum in Moscow. At the same time, he did not stop participating in the dissemination of Tolstoy's ideas of non-violence and was the most actively involved in the movement of supporters of peace (both in the Russian Empire, and then in Soviet Russia, and in the international arena). During World War I, this led to his arrest by the tsarist police, and in the post-revolutionary period, to expulsion by the Soviet authorities from the USSR in 1923 abroad (to Prague), where he continued to write and publish works about Tolstoy. Bulgakov returned to the USSR in 1948 and again ended up in his beloved Yasnaya Polyana, where he worked until his retirement (1959) and then remained to live until his death. V. F. Bulgakov died in 1966.

It was during the years of forced emigration that Bulgakov began to work on two manuscripts, which today have become the subject of extensive research. This publication is also part of it. We are talking about his following works: the monumental memoirs “How Life Is Lived” and the analytical and philosophical work “In a Dispute with Tolstoy. On the Scales of Life" 5
Typescript with author's corrections. RGALI. 1964. F. 2226. Op. 1. Unit ridge 134. 306 l. Bulgakov has been working on this manuscript since 1932. In the first chapter, under the title "Indestructible" (other titles: "Spirit and Matter", "Man and Woman", "The Meaning of Culture", "State", Summum bonum, "Change of Generations" ), he (in part, probably hoping to publish a book and paying tribute to the Soviet ideology, but, undoubtedly, as a reflection of his own thoughts) really argues with many of the most important ideas of his teacher. Here is how he justifies his position: “This book arose as a result of a long internal dispute with Leo Tolstoy the thinker, whose influence was deeply experienced by the author. It has not been outlived by him even now; the beneficent that was in this influence remains. The paths of the soul, however, led the author away from one-sided spiritualism and individualism to a more realistic, and at the same time more harmonious, “peace-accepting”, public understanding of life” (l. 1).

For many years, from 1932 to 1964, Bulgakov devoted himself to working on these works. Both these works are distinguished by their inherent objectivity of judgments. At the same time, they testify to his gradual departure from the most radical provisions of Tolstoy's worldview, which always, even in his younger years, caused him doubts. Bulgakov was especially skeptical about exaggerating the need for spiritual self-improvement and emphasizing this side of life to the detriment of the material needs of a person. Such a position was seen by Bulgakov as a deplorable separation of the personality from solid earthly roots. He disputed the assertion, sometimes expressed by Tolstoy, that evil lies only in the person himself, holding the opinion that more serious attention should be paid to the negative role social problems observed in social sphere and in the field of social organization. In contrast to Tolstoy, Bulgakov believed that the role of the state was to stop the vicious actions of members of society, and recognized the real danger of anarchy.

Throughout his life, Bulgakov carried on extensive correspondence with a wide range of correspondents, among whom are the names of M. I. Tsvetaeva, N. K. Roerich, R. Rolland, A. Einstein and many other outstanding cultural figures of the 20th century. Bulgakov also corresponded with the Canadian Dukhobors, whose community Tolstoy helped to emigrate from Transcaucasia to Canada in 1899. It was on Bulgakov's personal initiative that the Canadian Doukhobor community was officially admitted to the War Resisters' International in 1932.

II

Given the importance of the two major works of Bulgakov mentioned above, which deserve the closest attention of researchers, it seems somewhat unexpected that none of them (as well as most of his epistolary legacy) has not yet been published even in Russian (let alone about translations). Moreover, neither the extremely eventful life of Bulgakov, nor his very extraordinary personality became the object of a more or less comprehensive study either in his native country or abroad. (Here, of course, one cannot fail to note several serious works, which, however, simply due to their volume, could not cover the topic with sufficient completeness - see below.) Such a paradox is partly due to the fact that Bulgakov, being an interesting personality in his own right, was equally associated with various ideological traditions, but at the same time did not belong to any of them undividedly. Although the Soviet authorities allowed him to work in Yasnaya Polyana, and then safely end his life near a place so dear to him, the official doctrine not only prevented him from completing the work he began abroad on a full scale, but also did not encourage the interest of young researchers in this main aspect of his activity. Scholars abroad did not have access to Bulgakov's archives, many of which also remained in private collections.

It should also be noted that reviews of most of Bulgakov's works published before 1923 are mostly reduced to brief biographical notes or to their rare mentions in newspaper publications. The main attention was invariably attracted by his Yasnaya Polyana diary, published in 1911 under the title “L. N. Tolstoy in the last year of his life. Even the works about Bulgakov that appeared in the Soviet era and the post-Soviet period, although they were more informative, nevertheless, for the most part, were reduced to newspaper publications and brief reviews on books. The notable exceptions here are the following publications:

a) N. K. Gudziy's review of Tolstoy's Amendments in Bulgakov's edition of The Power of Darkness 6
See full references in the bibliography at the end of the book.

b) article by I. Gryzlova “He loved and remembered Tolstoy (Memoirs of V. F. Bulgakov)” (1998);

c) article by T. K. Popovkina “Remembering V. F. Bulgakov” (2003).

The last two publications well reflect the opinion that has developed in the scientific community about Bulgakov as an enthusiastic, knowledgeable and hardworking archivist - a benevolent and modest person, but at the same time professionally demanding of his work colleagues.

Three more publications deserve special attention and are rare attempts made so far to approach Bulgakov's personality and activities more seriously and systematically:

a) introductory essay by A. I. Shifman “Memoirs of the secretary Leo Tolstoy” in the book by V. F. Bulgakov “Leo Tolstoy, his friends and relatives. Memories and stories” (Tula: Priokskoe book publishing house, 1970, pp. 5–23). Although the content of the essay refers mainly to the last year of Tolstoy's life, it also contains an excellent description of some of the highlights of Bulgakov's own life.

b) an extensive (on 40 pages) introduction by S. A. Rozanova to the 1987 reprint of Bulgakov’s Yasnaya Polyana diary of 1910 “L. N. Tolstoy in the last year of his life. It provides a detailed analysis of both business and personal relationships between Bulgakov and L. N. Tolstoy, S. A. Tolstoy and some other members of Tolstoy's immediate circle. It should be noted that due to the topic this work mainly covers only one year of Bulgakov's life near Tolstoy;

c) an article (15 pages) published in 2002 by V. N. Abrosimova and G. V. Krasnov “Tolstoy’s Last Secretary. Based on the materials of the archive of V. F. Bulgakov. This work is distinguished by close attention to Bulgakov's activities outside Yasnaya Polyana both in Russia and during his years abroad. Characteristically, the final phrase of the article about Bulgakov's unpublished manuscript "How Life Is Lived" says the following:

“However, to this day, this main work of V. F. Bulgakov’s life, edited by the author and fully prepared by him for publication, a work covering a huge layer of Russian culture in the first half of the 20th century, is still waiting for its publisher” (p. 59).

Over the past ten years, neither a publisher has appeared who would be ready to publish this work of Bulgakov in its entirety, nor any profound new research on Bulgakov. This is quite unfortunate, and in this case the reproach can be equally addressed to both Russian tolstoy studies and scientific schools abroad. It would be all the more important to carry out at least a partial publication of this material in order to introduce it into scientific circulation and at the same time attract the attention of wide circles of the scientific community and everyone interested in Russian culture, literature, Tolstoy and his legacy.

III

Bulgakov was attracted to Tolstoy, whom he interpreted more as a religious writer than as a resonant moralist. He found Tolstoy's teachings reasonable, free from the husks of implausible miracle-working, "unusually harmonious and consistent." In the chapter “Indestructible” (“In a dispute with Tolstoy. On the scales of life”), shortly before his death, he will cast a retrospective look at his former worldview and at the deliverance from disappointment and moral confusion bestowed on him by Tolstoy:

"... in childhood - pure Orthodox faith, at 15-16 years old, before entering the university, a period of unbelief, at the university - a passion for philosophy, which did not bring satisfaction to the soul." “Deceived in my expectations and by the official religion, I was like a man thrown to the bottom of the abyss, in front of whom they removed first one and then another ladder, which promised him hope for salvation, and who had only to fall into complete despair. L. N. Tolstoy led me out of this situation, showing me a new path: the path of a reasonable religion, a religion that abandoned superstition, from all arbitrary metaphysical constructions, from the deification of Jesus, from temples, rituals, church organization and any cult. And having now departed in many respects from Tolstoy, I have not left this main path - the rational-religious path - until now.

Bulgakov cites Tolstoy's statement, which he considers the most exact definition religions:

“Religion is such an attitude that is consistent with the mind and knowledge of a person to the infinite life surrounding him, which connects him with this infinity and guides his actions” (l. 3) 7
In a dispute with Tolstoy. On the scales of life. RGALI, 1964. F. 2226. Op. 1. Unit ridge 134. Chapter 1: "Indestructible"

Bulgakov is very close to the views of Tolstoy and, most likely, is partly under his direct influence when he writes about his "own" understanding of official religion and the most common religious beliefs, as well as his attitude towards them. In the report read by him at a public debate with prof. M. A Reisner in Moscow on April 7, 1920 (subsequently published in the form of a brochure entitled "God as the modern basis of life." M., 1921) 8
V. F. Bulgakov describes in detail "religious disputes" in chapter 6 of the part "In the era of the October Revolution" of the book "How Life Is Lived".

He lays out his religious credo:

“And so, from the very beginning, I must declare that I completely reject the Church's understanding of God as a person and religion as a cult. I quite definitely look at both as superstitions that cannot fit into the head of modern man. I do not look at the Bible, including the Gospel, as a divinely inspired monument in which every letter is sacred and inviolable. And in relation to the books of the Old Testament, and in relation to what was written after Christ, I fully allow a critical analysis, on the basis of which it is possible and must separate what is a lie, a fable, superstition, some kind of rude, although , perhaps, and an ancient, Jewish legend, from what is true, what is deep, instructive and beautiful. Further, I deny the idea of ​​Christ as God, which is common to all churches, just as the ideas of other religions - Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Confucianism, etc. - about the founders of these religions, as special beings, "Gods" or prophets, are completely alien to me, supernaturally born in humanity or sent to it personally to perform special tasks at the behest from above, from some special, other world. Such deification by the churches of this or that historical or legendary, albeit very lofty, personality seems to me only a cunning trick to ensure that, referring to the otherworldly, supernatural origin and significance of this or that person, to give themselves and others the opportunity to evade the moral obligation to resemble in something on this person, follow his example, become like him in the height and purity of his life ”(pp. 3-4).

Berdyaev Nikolai Alexandrovich(1874-1948) - religious thinker, former Marxist; participant of the collections "Problems of Idealism", "Milestones" (1909), "From the Depths". The published text "L. Tolstoy in the Russian Revolution" is a fragment of the article "Spirits of the Russian Revolution", which first saw the light in the collection "From the Depths" (M.-Pg., 1918).

There is nothing prophetic in Tolstoy, he did not foresee or predict anything. As an artist, he is drawn to the crystallized past. He did not have that sensitivity to the dynamism of human nature, which was in the highest degree in Dostoevsky. But it is not Tolstoy's artistic insights that triumph in the Russian revolution, but his moral assessments. L. Tolstoy as a seeker of the truth of life, as a moralist and religious teacher is very characteristic of Russia and Russians. There are few Tolstoyans in the narrow sense of the word who share Tolstoy's doctrine, and they represent an insignificant phenomenon. But Tolstoyism in the broad, non-doctrinal sense of the word is very characteristic of a Russian person; it determines Russian moral assessments.

Tolstoy was not a direct teacher of the Russian left intelligentsia; Tolstoy's religious teaching was alien to her. But Tolstoy captured and expressed the peculiarities of the moral make-up of most of the Russian intelligentsia, perhaps even a Russian intellectual, perhaps even a Russian person in general. And the Russian revolution is a kind of triumph of Tolstoyism. It imprinted both Russian Tolstoy moralism and Russian immorality. This Russian moralism and this Russian immorality are interconnected and are two sides of the same disease of moral consciousness.

I see the disease of the Russian moral consciousness primarily in the denial of personal moral responsibility and personal moral discipline, in the weak development of a sense of duty and a sense of honor, in the absence of consciousness of the moral value of the selection of personal qualities. A Russian person does not feel himself sufficiently morally sane and he has little respect for qualities in a person. This is due to the fact that the personality feels immersed in the collective, the personality is not yet sufficiently disclosed and conscious. Such a state of moral consciousness gives rise to a number of claims addressed to fate, to history, to power, to cultural values ​​that are inaccessible to a given individual.

The moral disposition of a Russian person is characterized not by a healthy imputation, but by a painful pretension. A Russian person does not feel the inextricable connection between rights and duties, he has a darkened consciousness of both rights and duties, he drowns in irresponsible collectivism, in claims for everyone. It is most difficult for a Russian person to feel that he himself is the blacksmith of his own destiny. He does not like qualities that enhance the life of the individual, and does not like strength. Any force that raises life appears to the Russian person as morally suspect, rather evil than good. These features of moral consciousness are connected with the fact that the Russian person takes the values ​​of culture under moral suspicion. He makes a number of moral claims to the entire higher culture and does not feel a moral obligation to create culture. All these peculiarities and illnesses of the Russian moral consciousness provide fertile ground for the emergence of Tolstoy's teachings.

Tolstoy is an individualist, and a very extreme individualist. He is completely anti-social, for him there is no problem of the public. Tolstoy's morality is also individualistic. But it would be erroneous to conclude from this that Tolstoy's morality rests on a clear and firm consciousness of the individual. Tolstoy's individualism is decidedly hostile to the individual, as is always the case with individualism. Tolstoy does not see the human face, does not know the face, he is completely immersed in natural collectivism, which seems to him a divine life. The life of a person does not appear to him as a true, divine life, it is a false life of this world. True, divine life is an impersonal life, a common life in which all qualitative distinctions, all hierarchical distances, have disappeared. Tolstoy's moral consciousness demands that there should no longer be a person as an original, qualitative being, but only a universal, qualityless divinity, the equalization of everyone and everything in an impersonal divinity. Only the complete annihilation of any personal and heterogeneous being in a faceless and qualityless universality seems to Tolstoy to be the fulfillment of the law of the Master of life. Personality, quality is already sin and evil. And Tolstoy would like to consistently exterminate everything connected with personality and quality. It is in him an Eastern, Buddhist mood, hostile to the Christian West.

Tolstoy becomes a nihilist out of moralistic zeal. His moralism is truly demonic and destroys all the riches of being. Tolstoy's egalitarian and nihilistic passion draws him to the destruction of all spiritual realities, of everything truly ontological. Tolstoy's unbounded moralistic pretension makes everything illusory, casts suspicion and overthrows the reality of history, the reality of the church, the reality of the state, the reality of nationality, the reality of the individual and the reality of all superpersonal values, the reality of all spiritual life. Everything seems to Tolstoy morally reprehensible and unacceptable, based on sacrifices and suffering, for which he experiences a purely animal fear. I know of no other genius in world history to whom all spiritual life is so alien. He is completely immersed in the life of the body-spiritual, animal. And the whole religion of Tolstoy is the demand for such a universal meek bestiality, freed from suffering and satisfied. I don't know anyone in the Christian world who would be so alien and repugnant to the very idea of ​​redemption, so incomprehensible to the mystery of Golgotha ​​as Tolstoy. In the name of a happy animal life of all, he rejected personality and rejected any supra-personal value. Truly, personality and superpersonal value are inextricably linked. Personality exists only because it has a supra-personal, valuable content, because it belongs to a hierarchical world in which there are qualitative distinctions and distances. The nature of the individual does not tolerate confusion and unqualified equation. And the love of people in Christ is least of all such a confusion and a qualityless equation, but is an infinitely deep affirmation of every human face in God. Tolstoy did not know this, and his morality was base morality, the pretentious morality of a nihilist.

The morality of Nietzsche is infinitely higher, more spiritual than the morality of Tolstoy. The loftiness of Tolstoy's morality is a great deception that must be exposed. Tolstoy hindered the birth and development in Russia of a morally responsible person, hindered the selection of personal qualities, and therefore he was the evil genius of Russia, her seducer. In it, the fatal meeting of Russian moralism with Russian nihilism took place and a religious and moral justification of Russian nihilism was given, which seduced many. In it, Russian populism, so fatal to the fate of Russia, received a religious expression and moral justification. Almost the entire Russian intelligentsia recognized Tolstoy's moral assessments as the highest to which a person can rise. These moral values ​​were even considered too high, and therefore they considered themselves unworthy of them and incapable of rising to their height. But few people doubt the height of Tolstoy's moral consciousness, while the acceptance of this Tolstoyan moral consciousness entails the pogrom and destruction of the greatest shrines and values, the greatest spiritual realities, the death of the individual and the death of God, plunged into the impersonal divinity of the middle kind. We do not yet treat the seductive lies of Tolstoy's morality seriously enough and in depth. The antidote against it would have to be Dostoevsky's prophetic insights.

Tolstoy's morality triumphed in the Russian revolution, but not in the idyllic and loving ways that Tolstoy himself envisioned. Tolstoy himself would probably have been horrified by this embodiment of his moral assessments. But he wanted a lot, too much of what is happening now. He summoned those spirits who own the revolution, and he himself was possessed by them.

Tolstoy was a maximalist. He rejected all historical continuity, he did not want to allow any stages in historical development. This Tolstoyan maximalism is realized in the Russian revolution - it is driven by the exterminating morality of maximalism, it breathes hatred for everything historical. And in the spirit of Tolstoy's maximalism, the Russian revolution would like to wrest every person from the world and historical whole to which he organically belongs, turn him into an atom in order to plunge him immediately into an impersonal collective. Tolstoy denied history and historical tasks, he renounced the great historical past and did not want a great historical future. In this the Russian revolution is true to it, it renounces the historical precepts of the past and the historical tasks of the future, it would like the Russian people not to live a historical life. And just as with Tolstoy, in the Russian revolution this maximalist denial of the historical world is born out of a frenzied egalitarian passion. Let there be an absolute equation, even if it was an equation in non-existence! The historical world is hierarchical, it consists entirely of steps, it is complex and diverse, it contains differences and distances, it contains diversity and differentiation. All this is as hateful to the Russian revolution as it is to Tolstoy.

She would like to make the historical world gray, homogeneous, simplified, devoid of all qualities and all colors. And this was taught by Tolstoy as the highest truth. The historical world is decomposed into atoms, and the atoms are forcibly united in an impersonal collective. "Without annexations and indemnities" and there is an abstract negation of all positive historical tasks. For truly all historical tasks presuppose "annexations and indemnities", presuppose the struggle of specific historical individuals, presuppose the addition and disintegration of historical wholes, the flowering and fading of historical bodies.

Tolstoy was able to instill in the Russian intelligentsia a hatred for everything historically individual and historically different. He was the spokesman for that side of Russian nature that abhorred historical power and historical glory. This he taught in an elementary and simplified way to moralize over history and transfer to historical life the moral categories of individual life. By this, he morally undermined the opportunity for the Russian people to live a historical life, to fulfill their historical destiny and historical mission. He morally prepared the historical suicide of the Russian people. He clipped the wings of the Russian people as a historical people, morally poisoned the sources of any impulse to historical creativity.

The World War was lost by Russia because Tolstoy's moral assessment of the war prevailed in it. In the terrible hour of the world struggle, the Russian people were weakened, apart from betrayal and animal egoism, by Tolstoy's moral assessments. Tolstoy's morality disarmed Russia and handed her over to the enemy. And this Tolstoyan non-resistance, this Tolstoyan passivity enchants and captivates those who sing hymns to the historical suicide of the Russian people accomplished by the revolution. Tolstoy was the spokesman for the non-resistance and passive side of the Russian folk character. Tolstoy's morality weakened the Russian people, deprived them of courage in the harsh historical struggle, but left untransformed the animal nature of man with its most elementary instincts. She killed the instinct of strength and glory in the Russian breed, but left the instinct of selfishness, envy and malice. This morality is powerless to transform human nature, but it can weaken human nature, discolor it, undermine creative instincts.

Tolstoy was an extreme anarchist, an enemy of all statehood on moral and idealistic grounds. He rejected the state as based on sacrifice and suffering, and saw in it the source of evil, which for him amounted to violence. Tolstoy's anarchism, Tolstoy's enmity towards the state also won a victory among the Russian people. Tolstoy turned out to be the spokesman for the anti-state, anarchist instincts of the Russian people. He gave these instincts a moral-religious sanction. And he is one of the culprits of the destruction of the Russian state. Tolstoy is also hostile to any culture. Culture for him is based on untruth and violence, in it is the source of all the evils of our life. Man by nature is naturally kind and benevolent and inclined to live according to the law of the Master of life. The emergence of culture, like the state, was a fall, a falling away from the natural divine order, the beginning of evil, violence.

Tolstoy was completely alien to the feeling of original sin, the radical evil of human nature, and therefore he did not need the religion of redemption and did not understand it. He was deprived of a sense of evil, because he was deprived of a sense of freedom and originality of human nature, he did not feel a person. He was immersed in impersonal, inhuman nature, and in it he sought sources of divine truth. And in this Tolstoy proved to be the source of the entire philosophy of the Russian revolution. The Russian revolution is hostile to culture, it wants to return to the state of nature folk life in which he sees immediate truth and goodness. The Russian revolution would like to destroy our entire cultural stratum, to drown it in the natural darkness of the people. And Tolstoy is one of the culprits of the destruction of Russian culture. It morally undermined the possibility of cultural creativity, poisoned the sources of creativity. He poisoned the Russian man with moral reflection, which made him powerless and incapable of historical and cultural action.

Tolstoy is a real poisoner of the wells of life. Tolstoy's moral reflection is a real poison, a poison that decomposes all creative energy and undermines life. This moral reflection has nothing to do with the Christian sense of sin and the Christian need for repentance. For Tolstoy there is no sin, no repentance, reviving human nature. For him, there is only a weakening, graceless reflection, which is the reverse side of the rebellion against the divine world order.

Tolstoy idealized the common people, in them he saw the source of truth and idolized physical labor, in which he sought salvation from the nonsense of life. But he had a dismissive and contemptuous attitude towards any spiritual work and creativity. The entire edge of Tolstoy's criticism has always been directed against the cultural order. These Tolstoyan assessments also triumphed in the Russian revolution, which elevates the representatives of physical labor to the heights and overthrows the representatives of spiritual labor.

Tolstoy's populism, Tolstoy's denial of the division of labor are the basis of the moral judgments of the revolution, if only one can speak of its moral judgments. Truly, Tolstoy is no less important for the Russian revolution than Rousseau was for the French revolution. True, violence and bloodshed would have horrified Tolstoy; he imagined the realization of his ideas in other ways. But even Rousseau would have been horrified by the deeds of Robespierre and the revolutionary terror. But Rousseau is just as responsible for the French revolution as Tolstoy is for the Russian revolution. I even think that Tolstoy's teaching was more destructive than Rousseau's. It was Tolstoy who made the existence of Great Russia morally impossible. He did a lot to destroy Russia. But in this suicidal affair he was Russian, fatal and unfortunate Russian traits showed in him. Tolstoy was one of the Russian temptations.

Tolstoyism, in the broad sense of the word, is a Russian internal danger that has taken on the guise of the highest good. Only this seductive and false goodness, false goodness, this idea of ​​graceless holiness, false holiness, could crush Russian strength internally. In Tolstoy's teaching, the radical call for perfection, for the perfect fulfillment of the law of goodness, seduces. But this Tolstoyan perfection is so destructive, so nihilistic, so hostile to all values, so incompatible with any kind of creativity, because this perfection is graceless. In the holiness that Tolstoy aspired to, there was a terrible lack of grace, God-forsakenness, and therefore it is a false, evil holiness. Grace-filled holiness cannot carry out such exterminations; it cannot be nihilistic. The real saints had the blessing of life, they had mercy. This blessing and this grace were primarily with Christ. In the spirit of Tolstoy there was nothing of the spirit of Christ.

Tolstoy demands the immediate and complete realization of absolute, absolute goodness in this earthly life, subject to the laws of sinful nature, and does not allow the relative, destroys everything relative. So he wanted to wrest every human being from the whole of the world and plunge him into the void, into the non-existence of the negative absolute. And absolute life turns out to be only an elementary animal life, proceeding in physical labor and the satisfaction of the most simple needs. It is into this negative absolute, empty and nihilistic that the Russian revolution wants to plunge all of Russia and all the Russian people. The ideal of graceless perfection leads to nihilism. The denial of the rights of the relative, i.e. all the diversity of life, all stages of history, finally separates from the sources of absolute life, from the absolute spirit.

The religious genius - the Apostle Paul once understood the whole danger of turning Christianity into a Jewish apocalyptic sect and introduced Christianity into the stream of world history, recognizing and sanctifying the right of relative steps. Tolstoy first of all rebelled against the work of the Apostle Paul.

All the lies and illusory nature of Tolstoyism unfolded with an inevitable dialectic in the Russian revolution. In the revolution the people outlive their temptations, their mistakes, their false assessments. This teaches a lot, but learning is bought at too high a price. It is necessary to get rid of Tolstoy as a moral teacher. The overcoming of Tolstoyism is the spiritual recovery of Russia, its return from death to life, to the possibility of creativity, the possibility of fulfilling a mission in the world.