Tolstoy as Philosopher. Essential Short Writings
Academic Studies Press (Verlag)
978-1-64469-401-5 (ISBN)
The Society for Textual Scholarship Richard J. Finneran Award, Honorable Mention, 2023.
For the best edition or book about editorial theory and/or practice published in the English language during 2021-2022.
Beginning with Tolstoy’s first extant records of his written œuvre, this anthology assembles seventy-seven unabridged texts that cover more than seven decades of his life, from 1835 to 1910. It constitutes the most complete single-volume edition to date of the rich variety of Tolstoy’s philosophical output: apothegmatic sayings, visions, intimate sketchbook and day notes, book reviews, open letters, dialogues, pedagogic talks, public lectures, programs and rules for personal behavior, fictions, and reminiscences. Most of these newly translated and thoroughly annotated texts have never been available in English. Among the four reprinted translations personally checked and authorized by Tolstoy is the text titled “Tolstoy on Venezuela,” an archival restoration of an authentic first publication in English of “Patriotism, or Peace?” (1896) that had been deemed lost. In the inaugural piece, a seven-year-old Tolstoy describes violent but natural animal life in contrast with the lazy life of a peaceful barnyard in the countryside. The last entry in the anthology written by an eighty-year-old Tolstoy for his grandchildren provides a lesson on vegetarianism and non-violence that a hungry wolf teaches a hungry boy during their conversation when both are on their way to lunch.
It was the insolvable, the “scandalous,” problems of philosophy that never gave Tolstoy any rest: freedom of the will, religious tolerance, gender inequality, the tonal shape of music, the value of healthy life habits, the responsibilities of teaching, forms of social protest, cognitive development, science in society, the relation between body and mind, charity and labor, human dignity and public service, sexual psychology, national war doctrines, suicide, individual sacrifice, the purposes of making art. And always: What are the sources of violence? Why should we engage in politics? Why do we need governments? How can one practice non-violence? What is the meaning of our irrepressible desire to seek and find meaning? Why can't we live without loving? The typeset proofs of his final insights were brought to Tolstoy for approval when he was already on his deathbed. The reader will find all the texts in the exact shape and order of completion as Tolstoy left them. No matter their brevity or the occasion on which they were written, these works exemplify Tolstoy as an artistically inventive and intellectually absorbing thinker.
Inessa Medzhibovskaya holds tenure in Liberal and Literary Studies at The New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College. Her eight published books include the first definitive biography of Tolstoy’s religious and philosophical evolution, several archival studies of his art and thought, and a book-length entry on Tolstoy with Oxford Bibliographies. A history of Tolstoy’s afterlife is upcoming with Princeton.
Acknowledgments
Credits
Illustrations
A Note on the Text
Editor’s Introduction—"The Magic Mountain”: On the Textual Shape of Tolstoy’s Philosophy
Section I. Fragments, Letters, Notes, Reflections, and Talks
Part 1. Tolstoy’s Juvenilia (1835–50)
1. Childhood Fancies [1835]
2. Love of the Fatherland [Amour de la Patrie]
3. A Fragment on the Past, the Present, and the Future [end of the 1830s/the early 1840s]
4. Notes on the Second Chapter of the “Caractères” of La Bruyère [end of the 1830s/the early 1840s]
5. Philosophical Observations on the Discourses of J. J. Rousseau [ca. 1847–52]
6. A Fragment without a Title I [undated, 1840s]
7. A Fragment without a Title II [undated, 1840s]
8. On the Aim of Philosophy [undated, 1840s]
9. A Fragment without a Title III [undated, ca. 1847]
10. A Fragment on Criminal Law [1847]
11. Three Fragments on Music [1848–50]
Part 2: Writings of the 1850s
12. Why People Write [1851]
13. On Prayer [1852]
14. A Note on Farming [1856]
15. Letter to Count Bludov [1856]
16. On Military Criminal Law [1856]
17. A Note on The Nobility [1858]
18. A Talk Delivered at the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature [1859]
Part 3: Writings of the 1860s
19. On Violence [late 1850s–early 1860s]
20. On the Tasks of Pedagogy [1860]
21. On the Character of Thinking in Youth and in Old Age [1862–63]
22. On Religion [1865]
23. A Speech in Defense of Soldier Vasilii Shibunin [1866]
24. Progress [1868]
25. On Marriage and On Woman’s Vocation [ca. September–December 1868]
26. A Philosophical Fragment [1868]
27. The Society of Independents [1868–69]
Part 4: Writings of the 1870s
28. On the Afterlife outside of Time and Space [1875]
29. On the Soul and Its Life beyond the Life Known and Comprehensible to Us [1875]
30. A Letter to N. N. Strakhov [November 30, 1875]
31. On the Significance of Christian Religion [1875–76]
32. A Conversation about Science [1875–76]
33. The Definition of Religion-Faith [1875–76]
34. The Psychology of Everyday [1875–76]
35. A Christian Catechism [1877]
36. Interlocutors [1877–78]
Part 5: Writings of the 1880s
37. The Kingdom of God [1879–86]
38. What a Christian Should and Should Not Do [1879–86]
39. To Whom Do We Belong? [1879–86]
40. The Sermon on the Mount [1884]
41. On Charity [1885]
42. Preface to Tsvetnik [The Flower Garland] [1886]
43. The Concept of Life [1887]
Part 6: Writings of the 1890s
44. On Science and Art [1889–91]
45. Concerning the Freedom of the Will (from the unpublished work) [1894]
46. A Letter to Alexander Macdonald about Resurrection [1895]*
47. How Should the Gospel Be Read and Of What Does Its Essence Consist? [1896]
48. Patriotism, or Peace? [1896]*
49. Preface to Modern Science by Edward Carpenter [1897-98]*
Part 7: Writings of the 1900s
50. On Religious Tolerance [1901]
51. On the Consciousness of the Spiritual [1903]
52. Introduction to A Short Biography of Garrison [1903–04]*
53. On the Social Movement in Russia [January 13, 1905]
54. Discourses with Children on Moral Questions [1907]
55. Introduction to the Collection, Selected Thoughts of La Bruyère [1907]
56. Religion and Science [August 1908]
57. Reminiscences about the Court-Martial of a Soldier [1908]
58. A Variant of the Article “On Upbringing” [1909]
59. A Letter to a Student Concerning Law [1909]
60. On Signposts [O Vekhakh] [1909]
61. Reminiscences about N. Ia. Grot [1910]
62. On Insanity [1910]
63. Introduction to The Path of Life [1910]
Section II. Fictions
Part 8: Exercises, Parables, Parodies, Satires, Tales, Vitae, and Visions
64. Apprentice’s Writings [ca. 1839; but no later than 1840–41]
65. A Tale about How Another Girl Named Varinka Grew Up Fast [1857–58]
66. A DREAM [1857–58] 1st version
67. A DREAM [1863] 2nd version
68. An Anecdote about a Bashful Young Man [1868–69]
69. A Fairy Tale [1873]
70. The Vita and Martyrdom of Justin the Philosopher [1874–75]
71. A Colloquy of Idlers [1887]
72. Three Parables [1895]
73. Two Different Versions of the History of the Beehive with a Lacquer-Painted Lid [1888/1900]
74. Labor, Death, and Sickness [1903]
75. Three Questions [1903]
76. This Is You [1903]
77. The Wolf [1908]
Notes
Further Reading in English
Index of Names and Titles
Index of Terms
| Erscheinungsdatum | 05.09.2022 |
|---|---|
| Übersetzer | Inessa Medzhibovskaya |
| Zusatzinfo | Illustrations |
| Verlagsort | Brighton |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 155 x 234 mm |
| Themenwelt | Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturgeschichte | |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft | |
| ISBN-10 | 1-64469-401-8 / 1644694018 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-64469-401-5 / 9781644694015 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
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