Leo Tolstoy: Work, Life, and Times

Leo Tolstoy

September 9, 1828 - November 20, 1910

Nick Herlong

Facts

• Born in the Tula Province of Russia• Tolstoy was the youngest of four siblings, all boys• Within the first ten years of his life, he lost both his

parents• He attended the University of Kazan in 1844.• However, he left in 1847 without receiving a degree.• Tolstoy followed in his older brother’s footsteps and

joined the army in 1851. He resigned shortly after the Crimean War.

Nick Herlong

Major Works - War and Peace

• Originally titled “The Year 1805.”• First published in The Russian Messenger in 1865• Three more chapters were released by 1868 and the novel was

completed the following year. • It was critically and publically acclaimed• The story reflects on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.• Portrays this part of history as a “struggle of anonymous collective

forces.”• A theme throughout is “the belief that the quality and

meaning of one's life is mainly derived from his day-to-day activities.”

Nick Herlong

Major Works - Anna Karenina

• Released in installments from 1873 -1877. • The main characters Levin and Kitty’s relation is based off of

Tolstoy’s own with his wife. • A crisis of sorts happened after the release of Anna Karenina• Thoughts of suicide reared their ugly head• He had a metamorphosis and set out on a new journey• He began his own search of God• Tolstoy believed peasant life was best. He followed in their

lifestyle. • The Death of Ivan Ilynch was his first major work after conversion

Nick Herlong

Other Works

• Detstvo, although fictional, is about his childhood.• The Death of Ivan Ilynch• Father Sergius• Ressurection• The Living Corpse – A satirical play• Hadji-Murad

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Quotes• “If you want to be happy, be.”• “All, everything that I understand, I

understand only because I love.”• “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but

no one thinks of changing himself.”• “All happy families resemble one another,

each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Nick Herlong

Nick Herlong

Question:

What do you think caused Tolstoy’s conversion? Why did he believe peasant’s knew how to live best?

Works Cited

"Leo Tolstoy". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2015. Web. 22 Feb. 2015

"Leo Tolstoy." Bio. A&E Television Networks, 2015. Web. 22 Feb. 2015.

"Leo Tolstoy." BrainyQuote.com. Xplore Inc, 2015. 22 February 2015

“Leo Tolstoy.” Puchner, Martin, gen. ed. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 3rd ed. Vol. F. New York: Norton, 2012. 807-812. Print.

Nick Herlong

Critical Analysis of The Death of Ivan Ilyich

Donna Howard

After reading this story and many literary analyses, I have come to the conclusion that this a story about a life without true meaning.One literary analysis by Dennis Samson says just that. He quotes Socrates as, “the unexamined life is not worth living,” and this is exactly what Ivan’s life has amounted to. When it comes time for him to reflect upon the meaning of life as he approaches his untimely death, he does not have the emotional resources and even existential vocabulary to do so.

This article regards Ivan as it is not until something outside of himself happens to him, that he realizes the value of his life only by actually caring for another.

Donna Howard

Sansom explains that Tolstoy wrote The Death of Ivan Ilyich in 1886 when he was 57. He had already written and experienced the public fame of the two great novels: War and Peace and Anna Karenina. He had also experienced the change from an aristocratic and elitist life to a radically more vocational and economically simple one. He gave up his wealth, expensive clothes and house and lived on the family farm. After his circumstantial change, Tolstoy tried to eliminate any influence of social conventions on his life. Sansom felt that to Tolstoy, conventions serve the interest of class oppression. Even art was part of this influence. As long as art was judged according to beauty or traditions, it perpetuated the exploitive dominance of the rich and powerful. He favored folk art, because to him it at least conveyed emotions, not just conventions of social class. Tolstoy was critical of the convention of marriage. For years he fought with his wife, Sonya, over his new lifestyle, belittling her but never totally rejecting her for not adopting his practices. He left the care of his twelve children to her, and when Alexis at four years of age died just before he finished The Death of Ivan Ilyich, he grieved, but not as much as Sonya. In his last days he ran away more from her than for undergoing a spiritual pilgrimage. He felt their continual fighting made him ill. In fact, he forbade her after she had found him from seeing him as he lay dying in his makeshift bedroom at the Astapovo railway station. In The Death of Ivan Ilyich human weakness and error are the same problem, the unexamined life (1).

Donna Howard

Another critical analysis by Stephen Feldman seems to show the same issues in context. He feels that Tolstoy is using his work to illuminate he new circumstances and views on life and society. Feldman states that the contrasts between self interest and concern for others, selfishness and moral values, and moral conscience and social conformity are examined in Tolstoy’s study of the modern professional in The Death of Ivan Ilyich. He feels that Ivan is so mesmerized by the timeless idealization of the professional status culture that he thinks he himself is as timeless as the ideas he worships. Feldman explains that Ivan is disconnected from reality. His narcissism has grown so dominant that he cannot seriously think beyond his own illusions, one of which is that he will live forever. Like Ivan, few of us integrate the idea of death into the meaning of our life. Our narcissism dominates over realistically putting our status ambitions and the actions taken to achieve them in their proper place, which is way below care for our loved ones, help for the weak, and care for the environment (2).Most critics seem to conclude that Tolstoy is trying to influence those reading his work to re-examine their priorities and to seek a more moral way of living. He is using his work to influence those social changes in society.

Donna Howard

Works Cited

1. Tolstoy and the Moral Instructions of Death. Dennis Sansom, Philosophy and Literature ,Volume 28, Number 2, October 20042. The Professional Conscience: A Psychoanalytic Study of Moral Character in Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilych. Steven Feldman, Journal of Business Ethics, Volume 49, Issue 4, Feb 2004

Donna Howard

19th Century RussiaBy Karen Wells

Karen Wells

19th century Russian Society• 19th century Russian society was an established autocracy ruled by

the Tsar, and was a highly stratified, class-based society• Upper class aristocrats were the fewest in number but wielded the

most influence and power• Middle class merchants owned property and enjoyed moderate

privileges and rights• Serfs constituted the large majority of the population, and provided

the labor and workforce of the nation. They were considered property and did not have citizen rights or privileges.

• In Tolstoy’s time, around 23 million Russian people were serfs (Puchner 810)

Karen Wells

Russian Wars in 19th Century• Napolean’s invasion of Russia in 1812 was both a victory and a bad move

for France, as they arrived unchallenged in Moscow after Russians had already abandoned it and set it on fire

• After a month of waiting, French troops are eventually forced to withdraw from Moscow in the face of harsh winter conditions and antagonistic Russian villagers. Napolean’s military and reputation suffered irreversible damage.

• Russia had already expanded significantly to include most of Siberia to the Pacific Ocean, and was seeking to acquire strategic territory in the Balkans to the south

• War in Crimea broke out in 1854, after many diplomatic attempts by Tsar Nicholas I to negotiate with the Ottoman Empire, and resulted in important territorial gains for Russia on the Baltic & Black Seas

• Tolstoy’s participation and observations of the Crimean War were published in his Sebastopol Sketches, and are considered the beginning of his literary career (Puchner 808)

Karen Wells

Karen Wells

Revolutionary Russia• Tsarist Russia in the 19th century still practiced serfdom, basically a

form of institutional slavery which had been abolished in Western countries centuries earlier.

• This caused much civil unrest and revolutionary sentiment, even while many wanted to preserve Russia’s unique history and social character.

• Tsar Alexander II recognized the need for reform to prevent revolution, and in 1861 passes a law emancipating all serfs and providing the conditions of their freedom.

• Even though he is one of the most tolerant and reformist tsars in recent years, Alexander II is assassinated in 1881 by a radical terrorist group known as the Narodnaya Volya (People’s Freedom).

Karen Wells

Revolutionary Russia• In response to attempted revolutions such as the Decembrists in 1825, and the

assassination of Alexander II, there is intense censorship and anti-Semitism by the government in the last few decades of the century

• The reigns of Alexander III and his son Nicholas II further repress and tighten control of Russia, and a program of “russification” (discrimination against non-Slavic peoples and ideas) is emphasized (Gascoigne)

• Secret societies and underground movements continue to call for a revolutionary action and a constitutional government, some more radical and violent than others

• The ideas of Karl Marx spread through international socialist movements and inspire Russian revolutionaries

• Most revolutionary writers and activists at this time are jailed and/or exiled, however Leo Tolstoy’s celebrity status gives him an exceptional immunity from this severe censorship program and he is one of the leading voices in this tumultuous time for his country

Karen Wells

19th Century Russian Medicine• Modern medicine in Russia began to develop in the 18th century after Peter the

Great encouraged westernization and education in the country• After 1861, Zemskie doctors were appointed to care for rural populations of poor

peasants and freed serfs, viewing themselves as “self-sacrificing for the service to society” (Yarovinski, Lichterman)

• Early medical practice was ethically questionable, and writers such as Tolstoy criticized the lucrative and immoral nature of the practice with works such as The Death of Ivan Ilyich

• The work of Russian biologist Dmitry Ivanovsky in the late 19th century helped to shed light on the nature of viral and bacterial infections (planetseed.com)

• British surgeon Joseph Lister began using carbolic acid in the late 1800’s to sterilize bandages and wounds, building on previous research about the spread of infections in hospitals by Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweiss (planetseed.com)

Karen Wells

19th Century Medical Tools

Karen Wells

19th century Russian Funerary Rites

• Typical Russian village funerals were highly ritualized and specific, and involved both mourning, protection from bad spirits, and intense cleansing of the house and people involved. They were an interesting combination of mystical tradition and Orthodox Christian beliefs.

• “When a person died, candles were lit and all the mirrors in the house were covered, and all water was thrown out, since it was believed that water and mirrors (symbolically similar to water due to their reflective nature) might trap the soul on this earth, which would result in un quiet or restless dead”

• “The deceased remained in the house for three days, lying on the table under the icon corner, with the feet facing the door and head beneath the icons”

• “Typically the family asked a priest or deacon to come and bless the coffin with holy water and incense”

• “While it may be the case that some of these practices derived from an older, pre-Christian belief system, by the nineteenth century they had been reinterpreted as part of the Orthodox funeral service.” (Rouhier-Willoughby)

Karen Wells

Karen Wells

Question:

How do you think Russian social issues and class struggle influenced Leo Tolstoy’s work, considering his own background, what he wrote about, and his unique literary style?

Karen Wells

Works Cited• Gascoigne, Bamber. “History of Russia” HistoryWorld. From 2001, ongoing. Internet.

Accessed 2/21/2015. http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?groupid=2389&HistoryID=ac14&gtrack=pthc

• Lichterman, BL, Yarovinsky, M. “Medical ethics in Russia before the October revolution (1917).” Centre for the History of Medicine, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. Moscow, Russia. Sep-Dec 2005. Internet. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17044156

• Plantseed.com. “The Rise of Scientific Medicine: The Nineteenth Century”. Schlumberger Excellence in Education Development (SEED), Inc. 2015. Internet. http://www.planetseed.com/relatedarticle/rise-scientific-medicinethe-nineteenth-century

• Puchner, Martin et al. Norton Anthology of World Literature. Third edition, Volume 2. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 2013. Print.

• Rouhier-Willoughby, Jeanmarie. “Contemporary Urban Russian Funerals: Continuity and Change”. University of Kentucky. Internet. Accessed 2/22/2015. https://journals.ku.edu/index.php/folklorica/article/viewFile/3787/3625

Karen Wells

RealismArt & Literary Movement1860s – 1900s

Alyssa Pecoraro

Realism Occurred after the Romantic Movement, people began to move away from nature as a

source of inspiration and began to focus on the gritty and harsh life of lower and middle class citizens.

Realism can also be known as verisimilitude or mimesis (Puchner 698). It was based on direct observation of the world (MetMuseum) Contains the subgenre: Naturalism Realism usually depicted middle-class or lower-class life in an honest fashion, regardless of

how harsh the truth was. Realism literature was plausible and avoided the dramatic flair that the Romantics had

used. “In the 19th century many artists felt a new urgency to tell the unvarnished truth about the

world, to observe social life unsentimentally, and to convey it as objectively as possible” (Puchner 698).

“Gone was the equation of art with beauty: visual art and literature could now be deliberately, powerfully hideous” (Puchner 699).

With Realism came the start of the novel, a type of literature that did not follow the strict laws that were set for previous movements.

Alyssa Pecoraro

Authors & Their Worksin Realism

Leo Tolstoy – War and Peace, Anna Karenina, and The Death of Ivan Ilyich Higuchi Ichiyo – “Japanese woman writer who published fiction at end of 19th century that

departed from Japanese literary conventions. She focused on poor and marginal characters from the city as they struggle to make choices in a forbidding economic environment” (Puchner 698).

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis – Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas (Epitaph of a Small Winner), O Alienista (The Alienist)

Rabindranath Tagore – Chokher Bali (Eyesore), Nastanirh (The Broken Nest) Rebecca Harding Davis – Margaret Howth: A Story of To-Day Honore de Balzac – La Comédie Humaine, La Peau de Chagrin (The Magic Skin) Charles Dickens – A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations Fyodor Dostoyevsky – “Wrote fiction that deliberately cut across different classes, showing

encounters between rich and poor in an attempt to give a realistic picture of a whole society” (Puchner 699).

Mark Twain – The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg, The Invalid’s Story, No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger

Alyssa Pecoraro

Art in Realism The characteristics of the art created in this

movement were much like the characteristics of the writing.

Artists chose to depict realistic scenes, rather than ones from imagination.

Artists of this period wished to promote the truth through their art, straying from the “illusions” those of the Romantic movement wished to create.

Alyssa Pecoraro

Francisco Goya Famous artist in Spain Considered a realist through his art because he depicted things the way they

were. Some of his paintings can be considered “romantic” because of their

appearance, although it depended on the subject matter of his paintings. (ArtHistory)

Many of his paintings of nature were shown as he saw it, and they were captured beautifully through his eyes and his painting.

Goya also created many political paintings, and some depicting war. One of his most famous paintings was The Third of May, which showed the harsh

realities of war. The Third of May depicts a group of Spanish people in front of a firing squad of

French Soldiers. If you look closely in the following slide, you will see that even a monk is lined with the others.

Alyssa Pecoraro

The Third of May – Fransisco Goya

Alyssa Pecoraro

Fig. 1 Third of May (Khan Academy)

Architecture in Realism

Had a uniform design, sometimes even symmetrical

Buildings were more conventional Realism in architecture had less complex

detail The outside of buildings was less vibrant than

the inside Can be seen in many buildings today

Alyssa Pecoraro

Examples of Realism in Architecture

Both of the buildings are symmetrical in design.

As you can see, they are bland from the outside, lacking in extravagance.

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

Alyssa Pecoraro

Work Cited Puchner, Martin. "Realism Across the Globe." The Norton Anthology of World

Literature. Shorter Third ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2013. 698-702. Print. Finocchio, Ross. "Nineteenth-Century French Realism". In Heilbrunn Timeline of

Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/rlsm/hd_rlsm.htm (October 2004)

"Khan Academy." Khan Academy. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Feb. 2015. <https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/romanticism/romanticism-in-spain/a/goya-third-of-may-1808>.

"Francisco Goya." Francisco Goya. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Feb. 2015. <http://www.arthistory-famousartists-paintings.com/FranciscoGoya.html>.