Leo Tolstoj and Progressivity...

[sbrothy]

I'm currently "fighting" my way throgh Alexandra Tolstoj's biography of her father Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (The author of "War and Peace" among a ton of others). I say "fighting" because it's quite heavy and detailed, although the amount of information, both personal, historical and political more than makes up for it.

As was the case with Catherine the Great, Leo Tolstoj was also progressive in his political views, the management of his estate and - certainly not least - in his dealing with his family's serfs (we're talking, as perhaps you know, about an almost barbaric feudal despotic regime here). He actually tried to give "his" serfs their "freedom" which wasn't as welcome as one would think, many of them apparently couldn't imagine any other way of life and refused the "freedom".

Catherine the Great tried something similar but had to face the fact that the system simply wasn't prepared for it.

That also came a suprise to me. It's seems Catherine the Great perhaps wasn't as smart as she herself thought because some of the mails [Ed.: Heh, "mails". I mean of course "epistles".] she received from Voltaire made (IMHO) a little fun of her. Perhaps it went unnoticed or perhaps she was just too polite to say anything.

Also, Leo Tolstoj tried, using official channels, to institute a basic education for the masses, which wasn't a welcome idea among the plutocratic elite, to say the least! Nevertheless, he ran a school on his own property teaching poor farmer's children of all ages.

I'm quite impressed with the man!

 

[sbrothy]

So, it annoyed me that when I search for unaswered posts this keep turning up! So I thought I'd get it out from that list.


Upon reading a little closer on Wiki I appreciate Conan Doyle's critiscism calling him a somewhat esoteric (or perhaps even gnostic) mysticist. He had a somewhat strange relation to religion. Then again if you're born as an aristocrat with a silver spoon "somewhere", I'd imagine that wouldn't be weird. In fact, it could perhaps explain a good deal of his social views.

EDIT: But yes, now I'm veering from history into politics maybe so I'll leave it here. I just annoyed me that it kept turning up.

 

[wrobel]

As was the case with Catherine the Great, Leo Tolstoj

Doesn't it strike you as a bit of a contrast, though, that Catherine's progressivism was fueled by the Enlightenment, whereas Tolstoy was a religious philosopher, albeit of a very peculiar kind?

 

[sbrothy]

On the surface it sounds like a real good argument. I'm not sure though, that Catherine was motivated by enlightenment (read the zeitgeist), although the mail exchange with Voltaire speaks volumes as he was a key figure in it and I'm sure he planted a lot of ideas in her head. She was not an island after all, I mean who is? I suspect it was a more personal wish for reform (re: her upbringing), but this could well be arrogant wistful thinking on my part.

With Tolstoj I'm much less sure (if possible). Are you a historian or just "interested" in the topic?

(As is pretty commonly known by know I'm just an autodidact hack )

 

[wrobel]

Are you a historian or just "interested" in the topic?

I am just a Russian guy who is a little bit interested:)

 

[sbrothy]

Well then you're probably more authorative than me. I'm not even an avid reader of Tolstoy, just stumbled across this biography, and even though it's really dense I was almost instantly hooked.