Definition 1
Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy ($1828 - $1910) Russian writer, thinker.
The characteristic feature of Russian philosophy has been noted more than once: its close connection with the flowering of Russian literature.
Note 1
Leo Tolstoy occupies a special place in the history of national philosophy. In addition to his genius as an artist and writer, he was an outstanding philosopher, albeit a one-sided one. But his strength and expressiveness with which he developed his own ideas and thoughts are incomparable. His words are filled with simplicity, but at the same time, they have extraordinary depth and fiery power. Together with other Russian philosophers, Tolstoy emphasizes morality, but from his position this is real “panmoralism”, and not “the primacy of practical reason.” His impatience with ideas that did not fit within the framework of his own philosophy only speaks of how concerned he was with the thought and truth that he expressed in his works.
Finished works on a similar topic
Course work L. N. Tolstoy and his philosophy 420 ₽ Essay L. N. Tolstoy and his philosophy 240 ₽ Test paper L. N. Tolstoy and his philosophy 220 ₽
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Philosophical ideas
The search for the meaning of life is perhaps the most expressive and unsurpassed heroic quest, presented in a passionate struggle with age-old traditions. He resisted the “spirit of this age,” which takes him beyond the boundaries of exclusively Russian philosophy and puts him in line with other outstanding thinkers and philosophers of the era. Tolstoy is a global phenomenon, but he completely positions himself as typically Russian, not thinking of himself outside of Russian life.
In the 1970s, Tolstoy was experiencing a deep spiritual crisis, which he expressed in his work “Confession.”
Confession is a genre of religious literature. God's help is an act of prayer. This is meditation before the face of God. Prayer attunes a person to sincerity. The prayer at the end is like gratitude.
The meaning of confession is to realize your sins. The person confessing is a sinner. But Tolstoy had a different meaning for confession. He confesses to himself. Through the denial of God we will come to God. And if God is denied, then he is not the truth. Doubt everything. Doubt in faith. This is a descent into nonsense. Denial of meaning, lack of meaning in life.
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Search for the meaning of life. It is impossible to live without the meaning of life. The problem of death arises, which Tolstoy is painfully experiencing at this moment; it is the tragedy of the inevitability of death, which leads him to the idea of suicide. This crisis leads Tolstova On this topic, we have already completed an essay
The meaning of life according to Tolstoy L.N. read more about the severance of relations with the secular world. He draws close to “believers from poor, simple, unlearned people,” as he writes in “Confession.” It is in ordinary people that Tolstoy finds faith for himself, which gave them meaning in life. With his characteristic passion, Tolstoy longs to be filled with this faith, to enter the world of faith. At this moment, he fully realizes his break with the church, with the church’s interpretation of Christ, Christianity, and takes the path of “self-humiliation and humility.” In its simplified form, theological rationalism occupies his thinking. This leads to Tolstoy formulating his own metaphysics based on certain provisions of Christianity. His understanding of Christianity includes the denial of the divinity of Christ and his Resurrection, a modified text of the Gospel with an emphasis on those moments that, in his opinion, Christ announced to the world.
Tolstov's works during this period include 4 volumes
- "Critique of Dogmatic Theology",
- “What is my faith? On this topic we have already completed the essay
knowledge and faith in more detail,” - "About life".
This is his most significant mental and philosophical stage.
There was a deep gulf between what Leo Tolstoy wrote before 1880 and what he wrote after. But all this was written by one person, and much of what was striking and seemed completely new in the works of the late Tolstoy already existed in his early works. Even in the very first ones we see a search for the rational meaning of life; faith in the power of common sense and in one’s own mind; contempt for modern civilization with its “artificial” multiplication of needs; deep-rooted disrespect for the actions and institutions of the state and society; a magnificent disregard for generally accepted opinions, as well as for “good form” in science and literature; a pronounced tendency to teach. But in the early things it was scattered and not connected; after it happened in the late 1870s. “conversions” were all united into a consistent doctrine, into a teaching with dogmatically developed details - Tolstoyism . This teaching surprised and frightened many of Tolstoy's former followers. Until 1880, if he belonged anywhere, it was more likely to belong to the conservative camp, but now he joined the opposite.
Father Andrei Tkachev about Leo Tolstoy
Tolstoy was always fundamentally a rationalist, a thinker who placed reason above all other properties of the human soul. But at the time when he wrote his great novels, his rationalism faded somewhat. The philosophy of War and Peace and Anna Karenina (“A person must live in such a way as to give himself and his family the best”) is a capitulation of his rationalism to the inherent irrationality of life. The search for the meaning of life was then abandoned. Life itself seemed to be the meaning of life. The greatest wisdom for Tolstoy of those years was to accept without further ado his place in life and courageously endure its adversities. But already in the last part of Anna Karenina there is a growing anxiety. It was when Tolstoy wrote it (1876) that a crisis began, from which he emerged as a prophet of a new religious and ethical teaching.
This teaching, Tolstoyism, is a rationalized Christianity, from which all traditions and all mysticism have been stripped. He rejected personal immortality and focused exclusively on the moral teaching of the gospel. From the moral teaching of Christ, the words “Do not resist evil” are taken as the fundamental principle from which everything else follows. He rejected the authority of the Church, which supports the actions of the state, and condemned the state, which supports violence and coercion. Both the Church and the state are immoral, like all other forms of organized coercion. Tolstoy's condemnation of all existing forms of coercion allows us to classify the political side of Tolstoyism as anarchism . This condemnation applies to all states without exception, and Tolstoy had no more respect for the democratic states of the West than for the Russian autocracy. But in practice, his anarchism was directed against the existing regime in Russia. He admitted that a constitution could be a lesser evil than autocracy (he recommended a constitution in the article The Young Tsar, written after the accession of Nicholas II to the throne) and often attacked the same institutions as radicals and revolutionaries.
Portrait of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. Artist I. Repin, 1901
His attitude towards active revolutionaries was ambivalent. He was fundamentally against violence and, accordingly, against political murders. But there was a difference in his attitude towards revolutionary terror and government repression. The assassination of Alexander II by revolutionaries in 1881 did not leave him indifferent, but he wrote a letter protesting the execution of the murderers. In essence, Tolstoy became a great force on the side of the revolution, and the revolutionaries recognized this, treating the “great old man” with all respect, although they did not accept the doctrine of “non-resistance to evil” and despised the Tolstoyans. Tolstoy's agreement with the socialists strengthened his own communism - condemnation of private property, especially land. The methods he proposed for the destruction of evil were different (in particular, voluntary renunciation of all money and land), but in its negative part his teaching on this issue coincided with socialism.
Tolstoy's conversion was largely a reaction of his deep rationalism to the irrationalism into which he fell in the sixties and seventies. His metaphysics can be formulated as the identification of the principle of life with Reason. He, like Socrates, boldly identifies absolute good with absolute knowledge. His favorite phrase is “Reason, that is, the Good,” and in his teaching it occupies the same place as Spinoza’s Deus sive Natura (God or [that is] nature - lat.). Knowledge is a necessary basis for good; this knowledge is inherent in every person. But it is darkened and suppressed by the evil fog of civilization and philosophies. You need to obey only the inner voice of your conscience (which Tolstoy was inclined to identify with Kant’s Practical Reason) and not allow the false lights of human wisdom (and here the whole civilization was meant - art, science, social traditions, laws and historical dogmas of theological religion) - lead you astray ways.
And yet, despite all its rationalism, Tolstoy’s religion remains in a sense mystical. True, he rejected the mysticism accepted by the Church, refused to accept God as a person and spoke with mockery about the Sacraments (which for every believer is the worst blasphemy). And yet, the highest, final authority (as in every case of metaphysical rationalism) for him is the irrational human “conscience.” He did everything he could to identify it in theory with Reason. But the mystical daimonion returned again and again, and in all of Tolstoy’s most important later works its “conversion” is described as an experience that is mystical in its essence. Mystical - because it is personal and unique. This is the result of a secret revelation, perhaps prepared by preliminary mental development, but in its essence, like any mystical experience, incommunicable. For Tolstoy, as described in the Confession, it was prepared by his entire previous mental life. But all purely rational solutions to the basic question have proven unsatisfactory, and the final solution is depicted as a series of mystical experiences, as repeated flashes of inner light. Civilized man lives in a state of undeniable sin. Questions about meaning and justification arise in him against his will - due to the fear of death - and the answer comes like a ray of inner light; This is the process that Tolstoy described more than once - in Confession, in the Death of Ivan Ilyich, in Memoirs, in Notes of a Madman, in Master and Worker.
It necessarily follows from this that the truth cannot be preached, but that everyone must discover it for himself. This is the teaching of Confession, where the goal is not to demonstrate, but to tell and “infect.” However, later, when the initial impulse grew, Tolstoy began to preach in logical forms. He himself never believed in the effectiveness of preaching. It was his disciples, people of a completely different type, who turned Tolstoyism into a teaching-sermon and pushed Tolstoy himself to this. In its final form, Tolstoyism almost lost its mystical element, and his religion turned into a eudaimonic doctrine - a doctrine based on the search for happiness. A person must be kind, because this is the only way for him to become happy. In the novel Resurrection, written when Tolstoy’s teaching had already crystallized and become dogmatic, there is no mystical motive and Nekhlyudov’s revival is a simple adaptation of life to the moral law, in order to free himself from the unpleasant reactions of his own conscience.
In the end, Tolstoy came to the idea that the moral law, operating through the medium of conscience, is a law in a strictly scientific sense, like the law of gravity or other laws of nature. This is strongly expressed in the idea of Karma, borrowed from Buddhists, the deep difference of which from Christianity is that Karma acts mechanically, without any intervention of Divine grace, and is an indispensable consequence of sin. Morality, in the finally crystallized Tolstoyism, is the art of avoiding Karma or adapting to it. Tolstoy's morality is a morality of happiness, as well as purity, but not compassion. Love for God, that is, for the moral law in oneself, is the first and only virtue, and mercy and love for one’s neighbor are only consequences. For a Tolstoyan saint, mercy, that is, the actual feeling of love, is not necessary. He must act as if he loved his fellow men, and this will mean that he loves God and will be happy. Thus, Tolstoyanism is directly opposed to the teachings of Dostoevsky. For Dostoevsky, mercy, love for people, pity are the highest virtues and God is revealed to people only through pity and mercy. Tolstoy's religion is absolutely selfish. There is no God in it, except for the moral law within man. The goal of good deeds is moral peace. This helps us understand why Tolstoy was accused of Epicureanism, Luciferism and immeasurable pride, for there is nothing outside of Tolstoy that he would worship.
Tolstoy was always a great rationalist and his rationalism found satisfaction in the superbly constructed system of his religion. But the irrational Tolstoy was also alive under the hardened crust of crystallized dogma. Tolstoy's diaries reveal to us how difficult it was for him to live according to his ideal of moral happiness. Apart from the first years when he was carried away by the primary mystical impulse of his conversion, he was never happy in the sense that he wanted. This was partly due to the fact that it was impossible for him to live according to his preaching, and because his family showed constant and stubborn resistance to his new ideas. But besides all this, the old Adam always lived in him. Carnal desires overwhelmed him until he was very old; and the desire to go beyond the boundaries never left him - the desire that gave birth to War and Peace, the desire for the fullness of life with all its joys and beauty. We catch glimpses of this in all his writings, but these glimpses are few, because he subjected himself to the strictest discipline. However, we have a portrait of Tolstoy in old age, where an irrational, full-blooded man appears before us in all his tangible vitality - Gorky's Memoirs of Tolstoy, a brilliant portrait worthy of the original.
Mystical immanentism
Tolstoy creates his own system of mystical immanentism, which was close to the ideas of modern rationalism, that is, the denial of everything transcendent. However, this is a mystical teaching about life and man, which extremely significantly separated it from modern philosophy. Tolstoy, thus, broke off his relations with both the church and the world. The key themes of Tolstoy's philosophy were always the focus of his ethical quests. This can be described as "panmoralism". This is the desire to subordinate science and philosophy to ethics.
Anathema or excommunication?
— Father Georgiy, the story of the writer Kuprin is widely known about the proclamation of anathema to Leo Tolstoy right in the church during the service and that the rebellious deacon, who had been reading Tolstoy all night before, on the contrary, proclaims to him many years. Tell me, how does the story correspond to historical reality? Was everything like that?
- Of course not. This is entirely the fantasy of Alexander Kuprin, which, however, has become very popular. It should be borne in mind that this story by A. I. Kuprin was published in 1913, that is, not only long after the synodal act itself, but even after the death of L. N. Tolstoy. Obviously, it is a deliberate literary hoax. The fact is that the synodal act on February 20-22 was not read in churches. It was published in the Church Gazette, and then reprinted by all leading Russian newspapers. Therefore, the alleged public anathematization of Tolstoy during a church service is a complete fabrication.
We must understand that the synodal definition regarding Tolstoy is not a curse on him, not a desire for harm to the great writer or his eternal destruction. The Church simply stated that Tolstoy was no longer a member of the Church, because he himself wanted it. Moreover, the synodal act of February 20-22 stated that Tolstoy could again return to the Church subject to repentance. However, Tolstoy himself, his entourage, and the majority of Russian people perceived this definition as some kind of unjustifiably cruel act. When Tolstoy arrived in Optina Pustyn, when asked why he didn’t go to the elders, he replied that well, of course, I was excommunicated.
Leo Tolstoy with his sister, nun Maria. Yasnaya Polyana. Photo from the ITAR-TASS archive.
— What was the reason for the Synod’s decision regarding Leo Tolstoy, which stated the writer’s falling away from the Church?
— Because after his so-called spiritual revolution, Tolstoy begins to publish religious treatises in Europe, devoted to sharp criticism of all aspects of church life: dogmatic teaching, the Sacraments, the clergy. This theme is already heard in the Confession, as well as in the treatise devoted to a new reading of the Gospel, and in other works. In them, he sets out his religious ideas, which run counter to Orthodox doctrine. For example, the writer categorically denies the Trinity of God, the Resurrection of Christ, considers Him only a Man, and not God, and denies the need for Church Sacraments.
At the same time, the Church has repeatedly emphasized Tolstoy’s wrongness. Representatives of the Church entered into correspondence with the writer on this matter, met and talked. Let's say, in the fall of 1879, when the writer's new views were fully determined, L. N. Tolstoy met in Moscow with hierarchs authoritative in the theological circle - Metropolitan Macarius (Bulgakov) and Bishop Alexei (Lavrov-Platonov), and in early October 1879. in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra with Archimandrite Leonid (Kavelin), and also makes a trip to the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. It is well known that in Optina Hermitage L.N. Tolstoy repeatedly had the opportunity to talk with elders who said: what Tolstoy preaches is neither Orthodox nor Christianity in general, but Tolstoy did not agree with this.
However, in the 1880s, and even in the early 1890s, the issue of excommunication did not yet arise seriously. The treatises became widespread only in Europe, and in Russia handwritten and lithographic copies were passed around. Thus, the Russian reader was not widely familiar with the religious ideas of L.N. Tolstoy. And the Church did not want a loud scandal and did not consider it necessary to attract much attention to his errors. Everyone understood: Tolstoy is such a significant figure that any harsh definition of this kind could cause a public scandal. Which, in fact, happened then.
However, the situation changed radically after Tolstoy published the novel “Resurrection.” It was released both in Russia (with large censorship restrictions, of course) and in Europe, with huge circulations. That is, this time many Russian readers became acquainted with the novel. “Resurrection,” among other things, contained a grotesque, or rather, blasphemous, depiction of the Eucharist. In fact, Tolstoy began to directly mock the most sacred thing, the Church Sacraments. After this, the Church found itself in a very difficult situation. It was no longer possible to remain silent. An ambiguous situation has arisen - Tolstoy calls himself a Christian, but at the same time treats the Church, its Sacraments and church teaching with contemptuous ridicule. What to do? And so, when in 1900 the relatively young bishop, Metropolitan Anthony (Vadkovsky), became the leading member of the Synod, the decision matured to give a definition about Tolstoy. But it was clear that it could not be put into a very rigid, categorical form. Notice that the words “anathema” and “excommunication” are missing from this definition. However, it unequivocally states that Tolstoy has alienated himself from church communion, and therefore can no longer be considered a member of the Church, that is, he cannot participate in church sacraments, in case of death he cannot be buried according to the Orthodox rite, and so on.
- But still, from a canonical point of view, what was it: excommunication, anathema, something third?
— In form, this is a rather mild statement of the fact that Tolstoy cut himself off from church communion, “an external semblance of excommunication,” as Bishop Sergius (Stragorodsky) later explained, but in terms of the canonical consequences for him, this is, of course, excommunication.
— Are excommunication and anathema generally the same thing or not?
— There are different types of church excommunication. Anathema is its most severe form. In the church tradition, excommunication, or anathema, historically meant the most severe of church punishments, indicating the separation of the guilty person from the Body of Christ and his condemnation to eternal destruction. Of course, anathema also implies complete exclusion from participation in church Sacraments, first of all, from participation in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. One should distinguish from anathema the temporary excommunication of a Church member from church communion, which serves as punishment for less serious sins. Few people probably know that the writer Gorky was excommunicated for 7 years for attempting suicide. For Gorky himself, however, this did not matter at all, because he, although formally a baptized Orthodox man, was in fact very far from the Church.
Thus, anathema is in some sense a global excommunication, which is proclaimed not just for some specific sin committed, but for active, conscious opposition to the Church and its teachings. Temporary excommunication is a prohibition to participate in the Sacraments for a period of time, which can be quite long. For example, in the ancient Church, for special sins, for example, murder or fornication, people were excommunicated from church communion for very long periods. But this is not anathema yet. Anathema is excommunication for conscious and bitter struggle with the Church and church teaching. As a rule, in ancient times anathema was imposed on heretics, on those who actively fought against the Church. This was done after exhortations and denunciations from the Church had taken place, when the person continued to persist and say things that were absolutely incompatible with Church teaching. This was exactly the situation with Tolstoy.
—Who else in Russian history was anathema proclaimed?
— It should be emphasized that in Russian history anathema was always proclaimed very restrainedly and cautiously and only in relation to irreconcilable instigators of schisms or heretics. These are the cases: Strigolniki, Novgorod heretics of the 14th century, Dmitry Tveritinov and his supporters, iconoclast heretics of the early 18th century. In addition, church anathema was proclaimed for serious crimes against the state, which were almost always accompanied by an attack against the Church - here we can recall Grigory Otrepyev, Ivan Mazepa, Stepan Razin. By the way, on the Week of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, anathematisms against certain groups of heretics imposed by the ancient Church are listed. In the middle of the 19th century, in 1869, specific names were finally removed from this rank, but these heresies themselves are named.
— Why was only Tolstoy awarded such an “honor” at that time? After all, many baptized Russian people then held similar views.
“A person can think and even say whatever he wants, and he cannot be excommunicated from the Church for this.” But Tolstoy didn’t just think and didn’t just talk, he disseminated his views in huge numbers. Moreover, he did this after it was pointed out to him that his views categorically did not correspond to church teaching. But I think that even this might not have led to Tolstoy’s excommunication if he had not begun to laugh at what is most dear to a believer, the Liturgy. Here, of course, the Church could no longer remain silent.
Tolstoyism
Religious and moral ideas of Tolstoy We have already completed an essay
Tolstoy's philosophy was embodied in more detail in the Tolstoyan movement.
Tolstoyism is a religious and ethical social movement that arose thanks to the religious and philosophical teachings of Tolstoy.
Leading topics:
- non-resistance to evil by violence,
- forgiveness,
- universal love and moral self-improvement of the individual,
- simplification.
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Leo Tolstoy as a sponge of Russian life
— Father Georgy, why was the teaching of Leo Tolstoy so popular among the pre-revolutionary Russian intelligentsia? Why were there so many Tolstoyans?
- Let's first clarify who the Tolstoyans are. In the strict sense of the word, these are people who tried to put into practice the ideas of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy about joint farming, cultivation of the land, community of property, and so on. Such people created agricultural communes, some of which existed even until the 60s of the last century. But there were very few such practical Tolstoyans.
But if we understand the word “Tolstoyans” in a broad sense, then almost every Russian intellectual of that time can be called a Tolstoyan - because Tolstoy’s influence on the entire Russian educated society was enormous. As B.K. Zaitsev wrote, “it is impossible to imagine our generation without the collected works of Tolstoy, read to the core.” And they didn’t just read him, but discussed, argued, and let all his thoughts pass through them.
Now about the reasons for such popularity. The fact is that Leo Tolstoy was not only an outstanding artist - he also knew how to capture the pain points that existed in Russian life. Tolstoy was tormented and worried by the same things as other educated people. Russia in the second half of the 19th century had serious problems: for example, the unresolved land issue, the poverty and ignorance of the common people, and the growing conflict between the intelligentsia and the authorities.
Tolstoy is primarily powerful in his pathos of sympathy for the people's misfortune. And this is genuine pathos - Tolstoy knew the life of the peasantry very well, living in Yasnaya Polyana (essentially a large village), he saw everything with his own eyes. Sometimes they say that Tolstoy was playing for the audience, posing as a people's defender, but, judging by everything that I have read about him, this is not so, there was no pretense. Lenin called Leo Tolstoy “the mirror of the Russian revolution” - and I would say that he, like a sponge, absorbed many of the painful points of Russian life. This is what contributed to his popularity.
