A Confession
| Author | Leo Tolstoy |
|---|---|
| Country | Russia |
| Language | Russian |
| Published | 1882 (publication year) |
| Media type | Print (paperback, hardcover) |
| Text | A Confession at Wikisource |
A Confession (Russian: Исповедь [Ispoved']) is a short work on the subject of melancholia, philosophy and religion by the acclaimed Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. It was written in 1879 to 1880, when Tolstoy was of late-middle age.[1]
Content
The book is a brief autobiographical story of the author'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 effected a radical personal and spiritual transformation.
History
The book was originally titled "An Introduction to a Criticism of Dogmatic Theology", as the first part of a four-part work that also included "A Criticism of Dogmatic Theology", "The Four Gospels Harmonized and Translated" (the basis for "The Gospel in Brief") and "What I Believe" (also published in English as "My Religion" and "My Faith").[2]
The first attempt at its publication took place in 1882 (Russkaya Mysl, No 5), but Tolstoy's work was removed virtually from the whole edition of the journal[clarification needed] by Orthodox Church censorship. The text was later published in Geneva (1884), in Russia as late as 1906 (Vsemirnyj Vestnik, No 1).[3]
References
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