Along with War and Peace and Anna Karenina, this is the third of Tolstoy's great novels, and also the last novel that he wrote. Coming 22 years after Anna Karenina in 1899, critics were thrilled to receive another great work of fiction from this gifted author. Though it was very popular in its time, it is now lesser known than his other two masterpieces. And a bit shorter, but still a long book to read.
    I really have not read much Tolstoy yet, having concentrated most of my allotment of time reserved for Russian literature to Dostoyevsky. Though I have grown to love the latter's works, and now find them much easier to understand, Tolstoy's writing is a great deal easier to read, at least this one certainly was. Though the story is complex—grueling in fact, plunging to the depths of spiritual, psychological and moral analysis, the story itself is not complicated. Even though a book of this length is going to take a while to read, I breezed through it in less than a week, and was able, when time permitted, to cover 50 pages or more at one sitting. It is one of those books you don't want to put down.
    It is the story of a man who undergoes an intense spiritual and moral awakening, and finds that he is unable to continue the falseness and pretentiousness of his inherited lifestyle. The man is an aristocrat, a wealthy landowner with the title of Prince, Dmitry Ivanich Nekhlyudov, whose life has become dull and meaningless. That is, until he sees the consequences of a sin committed years earlier. His shame becomes so great, that he devotes his life to making right the wrong that he did. And in the process, is exposed to a dreadful world that he would have never otherwise known—that of the people sentenced to the atrocities of prison life, so many who, as he discovers to his horror, are completely innocent.
    This Dover edition is a reprint of the 1916 English edition, translated by Louise Maude. In the opening note, Tolstoy is compared to his main character:

By the time he came to write this novel, Tolstoy—impelled by the same moral imperatives as those his alter ego, Prince Nekhlyudov, wrestles with in its pages—had given up much of his land and had given up the copyrights on his published works. Though he had evidently been working on Resurrection on and off for ten years, he had pretty much put his fiction on the back burner while he focused on what seemed to him a more pressing concern: educating the people through essays such as his 1893 "The Kingdom of God is Within You."

    The novel is divided into three books, and also has a very helpful list of characters with a brief description of their role, which is really necessary. Wikipedia says, "Tolstoy intended the novel as an exposition of the injustice of man-made laws and the hypocrisy of the institutionalized church. The novel also explores the philosophy of Georgism of which Tolstoy had become a very strong advocate towards the end of his life, and explains the theory in detail." Tolstoy was excommunicated by the Orthodox Church. This novel, by the way, is available for free as an eBook at Project Gutenberg, but with these long works, I'd rather hold paper pages in my hand, as opposed to having to charge my reading device repeatedly.
    The story begins as three people, two women and one man, are being led to court where they are on trial. One of the jury members is Nekhlyudov, and one of the women is Katerina Mikhaylovna, called Maslova. She was an illegitimate child, born to an unmarried woman employed on a dairy farm, owned by Nekhlyudov's aunts, Sophia and Mary Ivanovna. This woman had a child every year, and five were neglected and died, but this one was different. Sophia, seeing the mother confined in the cowshed, took pity and became godmother to the child, then helped with milk and a little money. This child, a beautiful little girl, survived, and at age three came to live with the two maiden aunts when her mother died. She was called Katusha. Mary was harsh, and trained her to be a servant, but Sophia was loving a brought her up to be a lady.
    When Katusha was sixteen, Nekhlyudov came to visit his aunts. He was as innocent as Katusha, and though they didn't realize it, they fell in love. Over two years later, Nekhlyudov visits again, but he is not the same man as Katusha remembered. He had joined the military and is no longer innocent or respectful. Before he leaves, he seduces her, then gives her 100 rubles. She becomes pregnant and leaves the aunts, who are now disgusted with her. After going through numerous positions, she ends up as a prostitute. And it is in this situation that she has been brought to court. One of her drunken clients with a great deal of money had beaten her, and she accidentally gave him poison, thinking it was a sleeping powder, supplied by the man who is also in court with her. He and the other woman on trial lie, and accuse her of the crime, and also of stealing the money. She is innocent while they most likely set her up.
    Meanwhile, Nekhlyudov has greatly changed. He is bored with his life and much older now. He is avoiding the woman everyone believes he will marry, Princess Mary Korchagina. He believes serving on a jury is a service to the community, but now, seeing the prisoner, he recognizes her and remembers. Suddenly he begins to see life through a new set of lenses, and what makes it even worse, as the jury deliberates, they make an error in their statement, which no one notices until the sentence is read. While they agreed she is guilty of giving the client poison, because she admitted she did, they also believe it was unintentional, but did not state that. Katusha, now called Maslova, is sentenced to four years hard labor in Siberia.
    Now Nekhlyudov is sick with shame, and attempts to undo the error made by the jury. He leaves the court in a terrible state, and joins Mary and her family for dinner. Everything about them begins to disgust him. When he goes home he knows his life will never be the same. He resolves to marry Maslova, which is what he should have done years ago, and begins to devote his energy to finding a way to get her released. But something much greater is happening within him.
    As Nekhlyudov visits Maslova in prison, who, by the way, turns down his marriage proposal, he gets to know many of the other prisoners, especially when they learn that he is working to get the innocent Maslova released from her sentence. But as he sees the indescribable suffering and misery the prisoners are forced to bear, he becomes an advocate for one after another when he learns their situations. At the same time, he moves out of his large and comfortable house into a dumpy apartment. He has gotten rid of most of his belongings because he intends to follow Maslova to Siberia. The next step is to give all his inherited estates back to the peasants. They do not trust him, and think he is trying to con them so he will end up making more money. But he is not. He has so thoroughly transformed his perception of the world that the thought of returning to the life of wealth and prosperity, along with the attitudes that go hand-in-hand with upper class society is now an impossibility. As all these internal changes are happening, he sees the evil of those who have been appointed to take care of the people, and how they do their jobs and submit to authority, even if it means cruelty and injustice.
    Ah. There is SO much in this novel that is SO relevant today here in the U.S.A., and probably most if not all "developed" countries.
    Tolstoy not only gave up his copyrights and wealth, but was an advocate of non-violent resistance. His works had a profound influence on Mohandas Gandhi and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. Wikipedia says:

In the 1870s Tolstoy experienced a profound moral crisis, followed by what he regarded as an equally profound spiritual awakening as outlined in his non-fiction A Confession (1882).

    And so, his alter-ego, Nekhlyudov, as he also awakens, not only sees the evil in human behavior, he sees it in himself, and therefore, he also struggles with feeling compassion for those who victimize, as well as the victims. In his humility, he now knows he is just as much a sinner as both the prisoners and their captors, and judges himself more strictly than he judges others. It matters not, then, whether Maslova marries him. He has found a purpose in life.
    I had jotted down a list of pages I wanted to quote, but I will limit it to two. As I said, this book goes very deep, and though I am not Christian, I thoroughly understand the process of spiritual awakening, and how it turns one's life upside down, making it impossible to return to the old ways of life, even if it means giving up all that seemed important. Yes, I do relate to that, most profoundly. Here is a quote from Book 2, when Nekhlyudov faces that realization after something happened that began to draw him back to his old life:

When Nekhlyudov repeated in his mind the thoughts of the day before, he was surprised that he could have believed them for a moment. However new and difficult it might be to do what he had decided on, he knew that it was the only possible way of life for him now; and however easy and natural it might be to return to his former state, he knew that state to be death. Yesterday's temptation seemed like the feeling when one awakes from a deep sleep, and, without feeling sleepy, wants to lie comfortably in bed a little longer, knowing nevertheless that it is time to rise and begin the glad and important work that awaits one.

    This quote is from Book 1, and is describing Nekhlyudov's changing perceptions in how we view and judge others:

In order to keep up their view of life, these people instinctively keep to the circle of those who share their views of life and of their own place in it. This surprises us where the persons concerned are thieves bragging about their dexterity, prostitutes vaunting their depravity, or murderers boasting of their cruelty. But it surprises us only because the circle, the atmosphere, in which these people live, is limited, and chiefly because we are outside it. Can we not observe the same phenomenon when the rich boast of their wealth—robbery; when commanders of armies pride themselves on the victories—murder; and when those in high places vaunt their power—violence? That we do not see the perversion in the views of life held by these people, is only because the circle formed by them is larger and we ourselves belong to it.

    I think humanity actually is beginning to see that those who are most depraved, the most lying, thieving, apathetic and corrupt beings on the face of this planet are those in positions of wealth and power. As I stated earlier, there is so much in this story to relate to now.
    Though this is a lengthy novel, it is easy to read, and I highly recommend to all to read it. Below is one of the original illustrations in an early English edition, by Leonid Pasternak of Maslova as she stands in court with the other two prisoners.

All material on this site copyright © 2018 by Laughing Crow.
This site designed and written by Laughing Crow.