Journal archive

Abstract: Lev TolstoI developed his religious ideas in conscious opposition to the Orthodox faith in which he was raised. He was deeply imbued with Orthodox thinking and incorporated important elements of Orthodox spirituality into his religious system. However, in its basic structure, his teaching differed significantly from the Orthodox worldview. The elements he took from Orthodox spirituality underwent a radical change of meaning when it was applied to his teaching. Thus, in defining Tolstoi’s relationship to the Orthodox Church, we must simultaneously emphasize both continuity and rupture. To say that Tolstoy was influenced by Orthodox spirituality is not to say that he was an Orthodox believer in any way – obviously he was not. Rather, we must acknowledge that in 19th-century Russia, the worldview of the Orthodox Church rubbed off on even some of its most vehement detractors. In A Confession, his first religious text after his spiritual crisis in the late 1870s, Tolstoi argued that in Orthodoxy there is “both truth and falsehood”. This view can be found even in his most viciously anti-Orthodox work, An examination of Dogmatic Theology, an almost forgotten book which is important for our understanding Tolstoi’s attitude towards Orthodoxy. In this article, I focus on two points: his anthropology and his view on how we can understand God. I combine textual and contextual analysis, that is, a careful reading of this book with a reading of the theological treatises on which he based his criticism.

About the author(s) :

Pål Kolstø

University of Oslo (Oslo, Norway)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2745-4198

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 09.02.2022; date of publication: 30.03.2022

References:

Berdiaev, N. A. (1928). Tri yubileya [Three Jubilees] (L. Tolstoi, Gen. Ibsen, N. F. Fedorov). In Put’. No. 11, pp. 76-94.

Berdiaev, N. A. (1970). Russkaya ideia: Osnovnye problemy russkoi mysli XIX v. i nachala XX v. [Russian Idea: The Main Problems of Russian Thought of the XIX Century and the Beginning of the XX Century]. Paris, YMCAPRESS. 258 p.  

Christoyannopoulos, A. (2019). The Subversive Potential of Leo Tolstoy’s “Defamiliarisation”: a Case Study in Drawing on the Imagination to Denounce Violence. In Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy. No. 22 (5), pp. 562-580.

Dionysios, A. (1974). O nebesnoi ierarkhii [On the Celestial Hierarchy]. Montréal, Tipografiia Bratstva Iova Pochaevskago. 63 p.

Filaret (Drozdov). (1976). Prostrannyi khristianskii katekhizis pravoslavnyia katolicheskiya vostochnyya tserkvi [A Lengthy Christian Catechism of the Orthodox, Catholic Eastern Churches]. Moscow, Tipografiia Bratstva Iova Pochaevskago. 128 p.

Florovskii, G. (1982). Puti russkogo bogosloviya [The Ways of Russian Theology]. Paris, YMCA-PRESS. 426 p.

Gusev, N. (1963). L. N. Tolstoi. Materialy k biografii, s 1870 po 1881 god [L. N. Tolstoy. Materials for the Biography, from 1870 to 1881]. Moscow, Izdatel’stvo Akademii nauk SSSR. 695 p.

Gusev, N. (1973). Dva goda s L. N. Tolstym. Vospominaniya i dnevnik byvshego sekretarya L. N. Tolstogo 1907–1908 [Two Years with L. N. Tolstoy. Memoirs and Diary of Former Secretary L. N. Tolstoy 1907–1908]. Moscow, Khudozhestvennaya literatura. 461 p.

Gustafson, R. F. (1986). Leo Tolstoy, Resident and Stranger: a Study in Fiction and Theology. Princeton, Princeton University Press. 512 p.

Haase, F. (1928). Quellen der Weltanschauung L. N. Tolstojs. In Jahrbücher für Kultur und Geschichte der Slaven. No. 4 (2), pp. 173-199.

Haupmann, P. (1971). Die Katechismen der Russischen Orthodoxen Kirche. Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 422 p.

Kolstø, P. (2008). The Elder at Iasnaia Poliana – Lev Tolstoi and the Orthodox Starets Tradition. In Kritika:

Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. No. 9 (3), pp. 533-554.

Kolstø, P. (2010). “For Here We Do Not Have an Enduring City”: Tolstoy and the Strannik Tradition in Russian Culture. In Russian Review. No. 69 (1), pp. 119-134.

Kolstø, P. and Schmid, U. (2013). Fame, Sainthood and Iurodstvo: Patterns of Self-Presentation in Tolstoi’s Life Practice. In Slavic and East European Journal. No. 57 (4), pp. 525-43.

Lossky, V. (1973). The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. London, James Clark & co ltd. 252 p.

Lotman, J., Uspenskii, B. (1985). Binarnye modeli v dinamike russkoi kultury k kontsu vosemnadtsatogo veka [Binary Models in the Dynamics of Russian Culture (to the End of the Eighteenth Century)]. In The Semiotics of Russian Culture. N. Y., Ithaca, pp. 30-66.

Makarii (Bulgakov). (1895). Pravoslavno-dogmaticheskoe bogoslovie I–II [Orthodox Dogmatic Theology  I–II]. Saint Petersburg (fifth edition), Tipo-litografiia R. Golike. 598 p.

Maloney, G. SJ. (1976). A History of Orthodox Theology since 1453. Belmont MA, Norland. 400 p.

Medzhibovskaya, I. (2009). Tolstoy and the Religious Culture of His Time: A Biography of a Long Conversion, 1845– 1887. Lanham, Lexington books. 405 p.

Orekhanov, G. (2010). Russkaya Pravoslavnaya tserkov’ i Lev Tolstoi [The Russian Orthodox Church and Leo Tolstoy]. Moscow, Izdatel’stvo PSTGU. 692 p.

Orekhanov, G. (2016). Lev Tolstoi. «Prorok bez chesti»: khronika katastrofy [Leo Tolstoy. “A Prophet without Honor”: A Chronicle of the Catastrophe]. Moscow, EKSMO. 602 p.

Platon (Levshin). (1969). The Orthodox Doctrine of the Apostolic Eastern Church, or a Compendium of Christian Theology.

New York, AMS Press. 248 p.

Schmid, U. (2010). Lew Tolstoi. Munich, C.H. Beck Wissen. 125 p.

Shklovskii, V. (1963). Lev Tolstoi [Leo Tolstoy]. Moscow, Molodaya gvardiya. 915 p.

Tolstoi, L. (1912–1913). Polnoe sobranie sochinenii [The Complete Works]. Moscow, Izdanie Tovarishchestva I. D. Sytina.

Tolstoi, L. (1930–1972). Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. Yubileinoe izdanie [The Complete Works. Anniversary Edition]. Moscow, Khudozhestvennaya literatura (The Standard Reference Version of Tolstoi’s Collected Works).

Uspenskii, B. (1988). Historia sub specie semiotica. In Lucid, Daniel P. (Ed.). Soviet Semiotics, An Anthology. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, pp 107-116. 

Ware, T. (Kallistos). (1981). The Orthodox Way. London, Mowbray. 204 p.