A Letter to a Hindu was written in 1908by Leo Tolstoy to Tarak Nath Das, an Indian revolutionary and internationalist scholar. The letter was translated and reprinted by Mohandas Gandhi, who used the ideas of love revealed through non-violent resistance in his own ideological teachings. Non-violent resistance was a principle of Tolstoy’s christian belief.
“The inner working of my soul, which I wish to speak of here, was not the result of a methodical investigation of doctrinal theology, or of the actual texts of the gospel; it was a sudden removal of all that hid the true meaning of the Christian doctrine – a momentary flash of light, which made everything clear to me. It was something like that which might happen to a man who, after vainly attempting, by a false plan, to build up a statue out of a confused heap of small pieces of marble, suddenly guesses at the figure they are intended to form by the shape of the largest piece; and then, on beginning to set up the statue, finds his guess confirmed by the harmonious joining in of the various pieces.” (Extract from Chapter 1)
Het gaat hier om een (ingekorte) Nederlandse vertaling van het klassieke werk van Leo Tolstoy. Een aristocratische vrouw verlaat haar ongelukkig huwelijk voor een nieuwe liefde.
Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage to follow her heart and must endure the hypocrisies of society. (Summary by Mary Anderson)
War and Peace (Russian: ????? ? ???, Voyna i mir; in original orthography: ????? ? ????, Voyna i mir”) is an epic novel by Leo Tolstoy, first published from 1865 to 1869 in Russki Vestnik, which tells the story of Russian society during the Napoleonic Era. It is usually described as one of Tolstoy’s two major masterpieces (the other being Anna Karenina) as well as one of the world’s greatest novels.
Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr, along with many others, have referred to the influence that this work, written by Leo Tolstoy, has had on their psyche, and subsequent permanent change in their state of mind. The selected excerpt, from this much larger writing, reveal Tolstoy’s philosophy regarding the literal interpretation of Christ’s teachings and his fundamental ideas on nonviolent resistance.
“My Confession” is a brief autobiographical story of Leo Tolstoy’s struggle with a mid-life existential crisis of melancholia. It describes his search for answers to the profound questions “What will come of my life?” and “What is the meaning of life?”, without answers to which life, for him, had become “impossible.” Tolstoy reflects on the arc of his philosophical life until then: his childhood abandonment of his Russian orthodox faith; his mastery of strength, will, power, and reason; and how, after he had achieved tremendous financial success and social status, life to him seemed meaningless. After despairing of his attempts to find answers in science, philosophy, eastern wisdom, and his fellow men of letters, he describes his turn to the wisdom of the common people and his attempts to reconcile their instinctive faith with the dictates of his reason. The main body of the text ends with the author reaching a compromise: faith, he realizes, is a necessity, but it must be constrained by reason. However, an epilogue that describes a dream he had some time after completing the body of the text suggests that he has undergone a radical personal and spiritual transformation. (Summary from Wikipedia)