Leo Tolstoy
Live by the Gospel’s command never to use violence, even against evil, and reject the state, the church and wealth that depend on it.
Placement
Christian anarchism and nonviolence; his reading of the Gospels shaped Wittgenstein and Gandhi.
Key ideas
- Nonviolence
- Meaning of life
Influence
Influenced by 6
Laozi
influenced by
Tolstoy read Laozi from the 1880s and in 1910 published a selection of his sayings with his own essay “On the Essence of Laozi’s Teaching”. L. Tolstoy (ed.), Izrecheniya kitaiskogo mudretsa Lao-Tze (Posrednik, 1910); D. Bodde, Tolstoy and China (1950)
Evidence: AI draft
Laozi › legendary figure
Confucius
influenced by
From 1883 Tolstoy read Confucius and Mencius in Legge’s translations and wanted to make the “Chinese sages” known; he wrote an essay for P. Boulanger’s The Life and Teaching of Confucius (1903) and included the Great Learning in his Chinese Wisdom (1907). P. Boulanger, Zhizn’ i uchenie Konfutsiya (1903), with an essay by Tolstoy; Tolstoy, Kitaiskaya mudrost’ (Posrednik, 1907); D. Bodde, Tolstoy and China (1950), pp. 22–23
Evidence: AI draft
Confucius › traditionally 551–479 BCE
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
influenced by ✓
Tolstoy told Paul Boyer (1901) that Rousseau had been his master since he was fifteen; he wore a medallion with Rousseau’s portrait instead of a cross. P. Boyer, interview with Tolstoy (1901); SEP “Jean Jacques Rousseau”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Jean-Jacques Rousseau › 1712–1778
Arthur Schopenhauer
influenced by ✓
Tolstoy read Schopenhauer in 1869 while finishing War and Peace, writing to Fet of ‘unceasing raptures’, and in A Confession (1879–82) cited him on the vanity of life. L. N. Tolstoy, letter to A. A. Fet, 30 Aug. 1869; Ispoved’ (1879–82)
Arthur Schopenhauer › 1788–1860
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
influenced by ✓
Tolstoy visited Proudhon in Brussels in 1861, the year Proudhon published La Guerre et la Paix, whose title his novel War and Peace later shared. P.-J. Proudhon, La Guerre et la Paix (1861); L. N. Tolstoy, Voina i mir (1868–69)
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon › 1809–1865
Henry David Thoreau
influenced by ✓
Tolstoy read Thoreau’s essay on civil disobedience (1849) in the 1890s, found in it support for refusing obedience to unjust state demands, and urged a Russian translation. H. D. Thoreau, “Resistance to Civil Government” (1849); L. N. Tolstoy, letters to V. G. Chertkov (1890s)
Henry David Thoreau › 1817–1862
Influenced 3
Jane Addams
influenced
Addams visited Tolstoy at Yasnaya Polyana in 1896 and, in Twenty Years at Hull-House (1910), weighed his ideal of bread labour against the work of the settlement. J. Addams, Twenty Years at Hull-House (1910), “Tolstoyism”; SEP “Jane Addams”
Evidence: AI draft
Jane Addams › 1860–1935
Mohandas K. Gandhi
influenced ✓
Gandhi said Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God Is Within You overwhelmed him; he published Tolstoy’s ‘Letter to a Hindu’ (1909) and named Tolstoy Farm after him (1910). M. K. Gandhi, An Autobiography (1927–29); M. Green, Tolstoy and Gandhi, Men of Peace (1983)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Mohandas K. Gandhi › 1869–1948
Ludwig Wittgenstein
influenced
During the war Wittgenstein carried Tolstoy’s Gospel in Brief, bought in Galicia (1914); biographers link it to the ethical-mystical close of the Tractatus (1921). B. McGuinness, Wittgenstein: A Life. Young Ludwig 1889–1921 (1988); R. Monk, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius (1990); L. Wittgenstein, Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung (1921)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Ludwig Wittgenstein › 1889–1951
Criticism
Criticized by 2
Vladimir Solovyov
criticised by
Solovyov’s Three Conversations (1900) attacked Tolstoy’s doctrine of non-resistance to evil, which Solovyov held leaves the innocent defenceless and keeps Christ’s morality without his resurrection. V. Solovyov, Tri razgovora (1900), Preface and Third Conversation
Evidence: AI draft
Vladimir Solovyov › 1853–1900
Lev Shestov
criticised by
In The Good in the Teaching of Tolstoy and Nietzsche (1900) Shestov argued that Tolstoy’s moral preaching made the good a substitute for God, a refuge from despair. L. Shestov, Dobro v uchenii gr. Tolstogo i F. Nitshe (1900)
Evidence: AI draft
Lev Shestov › 1866–1938
Works
Christian nonviolence as anarchism.
Position
Tolstoy’s Confession describes how fame, wealth and family could not answer the question of what remains of life once death is faced. He found the answer in the faith of simple people and in the Sermon on the Mount, read as a practical rule of life: love your enemy and do not resist evil with force. From this he drew far-reaching consequences – rejection of the state, the army, courts and private property, a kind of Christian anarchism, as well as a simple life of physical work. In What Is Art? he judged art by whether it unites people in shared feeling. His ethic of non-violence decisively influenced Gandhi.
Life & context
Born into the nobility on the estate of Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy served as an officer in the Crimean War and became world-famous with War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Around 1880 a crisis of meaning, which he described in A Confession, led him to a radical, undogmatic Christianity. He was excommunicated by the Orthodox Church and died in 1910 at a remote railway station after leaving home.
Further main works
- War and Peace (1869)
- Anna Karenina (1878)
- A Confession (1882)
- What Is Art? (1897)
Appears in
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