WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.779 Welcome to the Dub Dive. Today we are cracking 00:00:02.779 --> 00:00:06.480 open a file on a man whose name is, well, it's 00:00:06.480 --> 00:00:08.679 pretty much synonymous with the absolute pinnacle 00:00:08.679 --> 00:00:12.419 of literary achievement. Count Lev Nikolaevich 00:00:12.419 --> 00:00:14.380 Tolstoy. Leo Tolstoy, yeah. And when you hear 00:00:14.380 --> 00:00:16.440 that name, your mind probably jumps straight 00:00:16.440 --> 00:00:18.879 to these thousand -page novels, right? War and 00:00:18.879 --> 00:00:22.100 Peace, Anna Karenina. But the real mystery we're 00:00:22.100 --> 00:00:25.280 tackling today is the profound, almost violent 00:00:25.280 --> 00:00:27.859 internal transformation that defined the second 00:00:27.859 --> 00:00:30.620 half of his life. We're really looking at how 00:00:30.620 --> 00:00:34.340 one of Russia's most privileged aristocrats systematically 00:00:34.340 --> 00:00:37.420 dismantle his own life, his own ideology, to 00:00:37.420 --> 00:00:39.909 become... Well, to become the world's most radical 00:00:39.909 --> 00:00:42.289 moral reformer. That is precisely our mission 00:00:42.289 --> 00:00:44.229 today. We've got a stack of sources here that 00:00:44.229 --> 00:00:46.369 let us move beyond the required reading list 00:00:46.369 --> 00:00:49.990 and really trace the fault lines of this spiritual, 00:00:50.329 --> 00:00:52.390 ethical, and political revolution he went through. 00:00:52.469 --> 00:00:54.570 A revolution, that's a good word for it. It really 00:00:54.570 --> 00:00:58.009 was. This transformation saw Tolstoy shift from 00:00:58.009 --> 00:01:00.950 being a celebrated writer, chronicling these 00:01:00.950 --> 00:01:04.510 huge historical epochs, to a global moral authority. 00:01:05.069 --> 00:01:08.590 His uncompromising views on pacifism and nonviolent 00:01:08.590 --> 00:01:12.049 resistance, they laid the actual groundwork for 00:01:12.049 --> 00:01:15.230 20th century leaders. We're talking about leaders 00:01:15.230 --> 00:01:17.629 fighting for civil rights and independence across 00:01:17.629 --> 00:01:20.370 the globe. Exactly. We're dealing with a colossal 00:01:20.370 --> 00:01:24.090 figure who basically decided his artistic genius 00:01:24.090 --> 00:01:26.709 was secondary to his ethical duty. And the sheer 00:01:26.709 --> 00:01:30.430 volume of his output. It's just astounding. We're 00:01:30.430 --> 00:01:32.250 talking monumental novels, yes, but then you've 00:01:32.250 --> 00:01:34.629 got novellas, short stories, plays. And these 00:01:34.629 --> 00:01:36.790 highly aggressive political arguments, polemics, 00:01:36.790 --> 00:01:39.370 right? And deep philosophical treatises and even 00:01:39.370 --> 00:01:41.269 wrote popular textbooks. The range is incredible. 00:01:41.409 --> 00:01:43.890 But what grabs you immediately is the sheer paradox 00:01:43.890 --> 00:01:46.469 of the man. He was born into the highest tier 00:01:46.469 --> 00:01:49.030 of Russian nobility, a count with a title and 00:01:49.030 --> 00:01:51.930 vast estates, yet he utterly rejected wealth, 00:01:52.109 --> 00:01:54.709 private property, and the very concept of aristocracy. 00:01:54.750 --> 00:01:56.799 He did. He tried to tear it all down. And maybe 00:01:56.799 --> 00:01:59.260 even more compellingly, he was a decorated war 00:01:59.260 --> 00:02:01.579 veteran, celebrated for his courage during the 00:02:01.579 --> 00:02:04.620 brutal siege of Sevastopol, who emerged from 00:02:04.620 --> 00:02:07.500 that experience as the world's fiercest and most 00:02:07.500 --> 00:02:10.639 famous apostle of absolute nonviolence. And that 00:02:10.639 --> 00:02:13.800 profound internal contradiction is perfectly 00:02:13.800 --> 00:02:16.319 mirrored in his literary career. It's almost 00:02:16.319 --> 00:02:18.819 bracketed by two massively different kinds of 00:02:18.819 --> 00:02:21.500 works. How so? Well, his career launched with 00:02:21.500 --> 00:02:24.259 his semi -autobiographical trilogy, Childhood, 00:02:24.280 --> 00:02:27.639 Boyhood, and Youth. And for its time, despite 00:02:27.639 --> 00:02:30.780 some sentimentality, it really captured the universal 00:02:30.780 --> 00:02:33.659 pain and wonder of growing up. Okay, a fairly 00:02:33.659 --> 00:02:37.259 standard, if brilliant, debut. Right. But later 00:02:37.259 --> 00:02:39.580 in life, he wrote the complete antithesis of 00:02:39.580 --> 00:02:42.719 that. His nonfiction manifesto, The Kingdom of 00:02:42.719 --> 00:02:45.889 God is Within You. And this later work is a stringent 00:02:45.889 --> 00:02:48.789 revolutionary call for civil disobedience and 00:02:48.789 --> 00:02:51.069 nonviolent resistance. It became a foundational 00:02:51.069 --> 00:02:53.310 text for figures like Gandhi. So it's a moral 00:02:53.310 --> 00:02:55.530 framework for action that completely transcended 00:02:55.530 --> 00:02:57.789 literature. Intended it entirely. And before 00:02:57.789 --> 00:03:00.389 we unpack his life, we have to address one curious 00:03:00.389 --> 00:03:03.270 detail we found in the sources. This one concerning 00:03:03.270 --> 00:03:06.409 official recognition. We noted that Tolstoy was 00:03:06.409 --> 00:03:08.750 nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature every 00:03:08.750 --> 00:03:12.349 single year from 1902 to 1906. Every year. He 00:03:12.349 --> 00:03:14.250 was also nominated multiple times for the Nobel 00:03:14.250 --> 00:03:18.069 Peace Prize, specifically in 1901, 1902 and again 00:03:18.069 --> 00:03:22.270 in 1909. Yet he never won either of them. He 00:03:22.270 --> 00:03:24.750 remains arguably the most famous and persistent 00:03:24.750 --> 00:03:27.270 oversight in Nobel history. Yeah, that's a big 00:03:27.270 --> 00:03:29.879 one. What do you think that refusal to award 00:03:29.879 --> 00:03:32.120 him, even when he was so clearly the world's 00:03:32.120 --> 00:03:34.159 greatest living writer, what does that tell us? 00:03:34.240 --> 00:03:36.539 It tells us that by the turn of the 20th century, 00:03:36.759 --> 00:03:40.020 the cultural establishment was just deeply, deeply 00:03:40.020 --> 00:03:42.180 uncomfortable with him. Too radical. Way too 00:03:42.180 --> 00:03:45.159 radical. His genius was undeniable, but his radicalism 00:03:45.159 --> 00:03:47.439 was too destabilizing. He wasn't just criticizing 00:03:47.439 --> 00:03:49.680 the czar. He was challenging the legitimacy of 00:03:49.680 --> 00:03:52.639 the state, the church, wealth, the very concept 00:03:52.639 --> 00:03:54.860 of patriotism. So for a committee tasked with 00:03:54.860 --> 00:03:58.039 honoring service to humanity. Exactly. For them, 00:03:58.039 --> 00:04:00.680 they had a genius on their hands who was actively 00:04:00.680 --> 00:04:03.280 trying to undermine all the existing structures 00:04:03.280 --> 00:04:06.659 of power. This rejection suggests that his role 00:04:06.659 --> 00:04:10.039 as a revolutionary moralizer actively overshadowed 00:04:10.039 --> 00:04:12.979 his stature as the greatest novelist. His political 00:04:12.979 --> 00:04:15.219 philosophy just made him too dangerous for mainstream 00:04:15.219 --> 00:04:17.839 institutional approval. Okay, so let's unpack 00:04:17.839 --> 00:04:20.459 the path that took this count from his country 00:04:20.459 --> 00:04:23.500 estate to, well, to global revolutionary status. 00:04:23.779 --> 00:04:25.519 And we have to start at the beginning. He was 00:04:25.519 --> 00:04:28.660 born in 1828 at the family estate of Jasnaya 00:04:28.660 --> 00:04:31.480 Polyana. Right, which is located about 12 kilometers 00:04:31.480 --> 00:04:33.620 southwest of Tular. And this was not... Not a 00:04:33.620 --> 00:04:36.300 humble origin by any stretch. The Tolstoy family 00:04:36.300 --> 00:04:38.740 was part of the old established Russian nobility. 00:04:38.980 --> 00:04:41.060 Absolutely. And it's worth dwelling on that heritage 00:04:41.060 --> 00:04:43.459 for a moment because it's the bedrock he spent 00:04:43.459 --> 00:04:45.759 the rest of his life trying to blast away. The 00:04:45.759 --> 00:04:48.019 family's claim to antiquity was extremely important 00:04:48.019 --> 00:04:49.879 to them. They had a whole mythology around it, 00:04:49.920 --> 00:04:52.480 right? They did. They traced their ancestry back 00:04:52.480 --> 00:04:55.360 to a, well, a mythical nobleman named Indris, 00:04:55.439 --> 00:04:57.720 who, according to the family history that was 00:04:57.720 --> 00:05:00.300 promoted by Piotr Tolstoy, arrived in Chernigov 00:05:00.300 --> 00:05:03.889 way back in 1353 with... this substantial retinue. 00:05:03.930 --> 00:05:06.990 So it's part history, part legend? It is. While 00:05:06.990 --> 00:05:09.589 the first documented members only appear in 17th 00:05:09.589 --> 00:05:13.050 century records, the pedigree was firm. They 00:05:13.050 --> 00:05:15.709 were landowners, aristocrats, and inheritors 00:05:15.709 --> 00:05:18.110 of ancient Russian tradition. But that immense 00:05:18.110 --> 00:05:20.790 privilege was quickly undercut by profound instability 00:05:20.790 --> 00:05:24.189 and loss. His youth was marked by being orphaned 00:05:24.189 --> 00:05:27.310 so early. Tragically early. His mother died when 00:05:27.310 --> 00:05:29.209 he was just two years old, which is a tragedy 00:05:29.209 --> 00:05:31.949 we can only imagine the impact of. And then his 00:05:31.949 --> 00:05:34.209 father passed away when Leo was only nine. It's 00:05:34.209 --> 00:05:37.269 just devastating. That level of loss, especially 00:05:37.269 --> 00:05:39.290 at such formative ages, certainly contributed 00:05:39.290 --> 00:05:41.649 to his later struggles for self -definition and 00:05:41.649 --> 00:05:44.389 for direction. He and his siblings were essentially 00:05:44.389 --> 00:05:47.389 passed around among various relatives who took 00:05:47.389 --> 00:05:49.470 on the responsibility of raising them. And while 00:05:49.470 --> 00:05:52.069 they were never financially destitute. No, not 00:05:52.069 --> 00:05:54.389 at all. But that lack of parental grounding. 00:05:54.879 --> 00:05:57.399 It seemed to manifest when he hit adolescence 00:05:57.399 --> 00:05:59.600 and early adulthood. And we see that instability 00:05:59.600 --> 00:06:02.180 translate directly into his academic career. 00:06:02.339 --> 00:06:05.019 When he enrolled at Imperial Kazan University 00:06:05.019 --> 00:06:08.800 in 1844, he was supposed to be studying law and 00:06:08.800 --> 00:06:11.300 oriental languages. A classical path for an aspiring 00:06:11.300 --> 00:06:14.540 nobleman. Exactly. But it seems he was entirely 00:06:14.540 --> 00:06:17.439 unsuited to the discipline. Unsuited is putting 00:06:17.439 --> 00:06:19.959 it mildly. The official record of his time there 00:06:19.959 --> 00:06:23.379 is famously damning. His teachers found him, 00:06:23.399 --> 00:06:25.740 and this is a quote, both unable and unwilling 00:06:25.740 --> 00:06:29.139 to learn. He found the pedagogical methods completely 00:06:29.139 --> 00:06:32.720 stifling, the academic exercises tedious, and 00:06:32.720 --> 00:06:34.860 the whole environment hostile to what he considered 00:06:34.860 --> 00:06:37.550 genuine inquiry. So he dropped out. right in 00:06:37.550 --> 00:06:39.449 the middle of his studies without a degree. This 00:06:39.449 --> 00:06:42.110 wasn't an academic failure rooted in a lack of 00:06:42.110 --> 00:06:44.110 intelligence, then? Not at all. It was a total 00:06:44.110 --> 00:06:46.810 rejection of institutionalized knowledge, which 00:06:46.810 --> 00:06:48.389 is a theme that would, of course, define his 00:06:48.389 --> 00:06:51.189 later life. That sounds less like a budding intellectual 00:06:51.189 --> 00:06:54.089 forging a new path and more like a privileged 00:06:54.089 --> 00:06:56.529 young man who's just adrift and directionless, 00:06:56.709 --> 00:06:59.589 with ample time and inherited wealth to waste. 00:06:59.850 --> 00:07:01.829 That's a very good way to put it. The period 00:07:01.829 --> 00:07:03.910 immediately following university is described 00:07:03.910 --> 00:07:07.519 as especially dissolute. Our sources detail him 00:07:07.519 --> 00:07:10.199 returning to Yasnaya Polyana, then spending heavy 00:07:10.199 --> 00:07:12.660 periods in Moscow, Tula, and St. Petersburg. 00:07:13.180 --> 00:07:16.339 Indulging in what is bluntly termed a lax and 00:07:16.339 --> 00:07:19.300 leisurely lifestyle. And that lax and leisurely 00:07:19.300 --> 00:07:22.180 lifestyle was really code for a high -stakes, 00:07:22.180 --> 00:07:25.620 high -risk existence that was, well, it was common 00:07:25.620 --> 00:07:28.819 among bored, wealthy young aristocrats. He ran 00:07:28.819 --> 00:07:31.000 up serious, heavy gambling debts during this 00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:33.550 time. Debts that really threatened his finances 00:07:33.550 --> 00:07:35.990 and his reputation. Absolutely. We're talking 00:07:35.990 --> 00:07:38.370 about a man who inherited a vast estate but was 00:07:38.370 --> 00:07:40.370 systematically risking it away at the card table, 00:07:40.509 --> 00:07:42.970 driven by this deep lack of purpose and self 00:07:42.970 --> 00:07:45.370 -control. It just reveals a huge gulf between 00:07:45.370 --> 00:07:47.790 the disciplined moralist he became and the reckless 00:07:47.790 --> 00:07:50.269 young count he started out as. So how does this 00:07:50.269 --> 00:07:53.110 young man, mired in debt and dissipation, suddenly 00:07:53.110 --> 00:07:55.720 find his path? His older brother, Nikolai, who 00:07:55.720 --> 00:07:58.540 was serving in the military, he intervened. In 00:07:58.540 --> 00:08:01.319 1851, the idea was put forward that Leo should 00:08:01.319 --> 00:08:03.980 join him in the Caucasus, perhaps as a way to 00:08:03.980 --> 00:08:06.040 escape his creditors and find some structure. 00:08:06.360 --> 00:08:08.800 So it was a practical decision. A completely 00:08:08.800 --> 00:08:11.839 pragmatic decision born out of necessity, but 00:08:11.839 --> 00:08:13.939 it placed him directly on the path to military 00:08:13.939 --> 00:08:16.819 service, which became the pivotal turning point 00:08:16.819 --> 00:08:20.009 of his moral life. He enlisted as a non -commissioned 00:08:20.009 --> 00:08:22.449 officer and then quickly transitioned into an 00:08:22.449 --> 00:08:24.589 artillery officer. And this service brought him 00:08:24.589 --> 00:08:27.750 face to face with the reality of war. culminating 00:08:27.750 --> 00:08:30.410 in the Crimean War, specifically the brutal, 00:08:30.449 --> 00:08:33.409 famous 11 -month siege of Sevastopol running 00:08:33.409 --> 00:08:37.450 from 1854 to 1855. That experience was transformative 00:08:37.450 --> 00:08:40.470 precisely because it involved such intense, close 00:08:40.470 --> 00:08:43.250 -quarters combat and really industrialized slaughter. 00:08:43.570 --> 00:08:45.909 He served with a distinction. He even participated 00:08:45.909 --> 00:08:48.230 in the intense combat of the Battle of the Cherniah. 00:08:48.330 --> 00:08:50.590 And our sources confirm he was recognized for 00:08:50.590 --> 00:08:53.129 genuine courage under fire. He even earned a 00:08:53.129 --> 00:08:55.269 promotion to lieutenant. He was a capable soldier, 00:08:55.370 --> 00:08:57.710 no question. But the horrors he witnessed just 00:08:57.710 --> 00:08:59.929 broke him spiritually. And this is where the 00:08:59.929 --> 00:09:02.669 great reversal starts. He was appalled not just 00:09:02.669 --> 00:09:05.850 by the danger, but by the sheer senseless waste 00:09:05.850 --> 00:09:08.929 of human life and the, I guess, the mechanical 00:09:08.929 --> 00:09:11.570 indifference of warfare. Exactly. He wasn't just 00:09:11.570 --> 00:09:14.389 observing from afar. He was a participant. The 00:09:14.389 --> 00:09:17.070 revulsion was deep, immediate, and permanent. 00:09:17.450 --> 00:09:20.750 He saw firsthand the mechanism of the state applied 00:09:20.750 --> 00:09:23.370 to mass murder. And he left the army. Immediately 00:09:23.370 --> 00:09:26.529 after the war ended. And that experience of Sevastopol, 00:09:26.750 --> 00:09:29.350 where his courage was proven but his moral center 00:09:29.350 --> 00:09:32.070 was shattered, became the bedrock of his lifelong 00:09:32.070 --> 00:09:35.090 shift toward absolute pacifism. He gained the 00:09:35.090 --> 00:09:36.950 moral authority of a man who fought and then 00:09:36.950 --> 00:09:39.509 rejected war making his subsequent philosophical 00:09:39.509 --> 00:09:42.509 stance far more powerful than if he had simply 00:09:42.509 --> 00:09:45.029 been a distant intellectual. The military experience 00:09:45.029 --> 00:09:47.289 may have disillusioned the man but wow it provided 00:09:47.289 --> 00:09:49.850 incredible material for the writer. That shift 00:09:49.850 --> 00:09:52.009 away from the army coincided directly with his 00:09:52.009 --> 00:09:54.830 early literary success, capitalizing on the stark 00:09:54.830 --> 00:09:57.529 realism he had just experienced. The output was 00:09:57.529 --> 00:10:00.269 immediate and critically acclaimed. His military 00:10:00.269 --> 00:10:03.269 sketches, the Sevastopol sketches from 1855, 00:10:03.629 --> 00:10:06.769 they captured the gritty, ugly reality of siege 00:10:06.769 --> 00:10:09.070 warfare from the perspective of a man on the 00:10:09.070 --> 00:10:11.470 ground. Which was unusual at the time. Very unusual. 00:10:11.690 --> 00:10:14.870 This gave him instant literary acclaim, solidifying 00:10:14.870 --> 00:10:17.809 his stature alongside his earlier work, Childhood, 00:10:17.809 --> 00:10:21.360 and the Cossacks. from 1863. He was now officially 00:10:21.360 --> 00:10:23.899 one of Russia's serious realist writers. And 00:10:23.899 --> 00:10:26.720 then he achieved the monumental. We arrive at 00:10:26.720 --> 00:10:29.220 the undisputed pinnacle of his literary career, 00:10:29.759 --> 00:10:32.919 War and Peace in 1869, followed by Anna Karenina 00:10:32.919 --> 00:10:35.860 in 1878. I mean, War and Peace is so often referred 00:10:35.860 --> 00:10:37.759 to as one of the greatest novels ever written, 00:10:37.820 --> 00:10:40.340 just for its sheer dramatic breadth. It's an 00:10:40.340 --> 00:10:42.820 unprecedented historical canvas. It combines 00:10:42.820 --> 00:10:45.740 history, philosophy, and domestic drama on an 00:10:45.740 --> 00:10:47.820 unbelievable scale. We're talking about a novel 00:10:47.820 --> 00:10:50.480 that tracks the lives of 580 distinct characters. 00:10:50.899 --> 00:10:54.059 580, that's incredible. It is. Weaving historical 00:10:54.059 --> 00:10:56.159 figures like Napoleon and Khrushchev seamlessly 00:10:56.159 --> 00:10:58.279 with the fictional lives of the Bezokovs and 00:10:58.279 --> 00:11:00.740 Bolkonskys, it moves from these intimate ballroom 00:11:00.740 --> 00:11:03.279 scenes to the absolute chaos of Austerlitz and 00:11:03.279 --> 00:11:05.940 Borodino. And what's truly fascinating, according 00:11:05.940 --> 00:11:08.519 to our sources, is that Tolstoy's original idea 00:11:08.519 --> 00:11:12.100 was actually to investigate the causes and consequences 00:11:12.100 --> 00:11:15.059 of the Decembrist Revolt. Wait, the Decembrist 00:11:15.059 --> 00:11:18.179 Revolt, which was the 1825 uprising against Tsar 00:11:18.179 --> 00:11:20.720 Nicholas the First. So it started as a much more 00:11:20.720 --> 00:11:23.059 specific, politically charged historical event. 00:11:23.220 --> 00:11:25.740 It did. The novel was initially intended to follow 00:11:25.740 --> 00:11:28.399 the son of Prince Andrei Bolkonsky as he became 00:11:28.399 --> 00:11:30.899 a Decembrist. But the research process was so 00:11:30.899 --> 00:11:33.809 thorough and the scope of his inquiry. the origins 00:11:33.809 --> 00:11:36.649 of the Napoleonic conflict so vast that the novel 00:11:36.649 --> 00:11:39.070 just, it ballooned. It took on a life of its 00:11:39.070 --> 00:11:41.529 own. So the Decembrist Revolt is only referenced. 00:11:41.809 --> 00:11:44.029 In the very last chapters. It just shows how 00:11:44.029 --> 00:11:46.529 the novel evolved into something far grander 00:11:46.529 --> 00:11:48.470 and more philosophical than a mere political 00:11:48.470 --> 00:11:51.250 history. And that philosophical grandeur is key. 00:11:51.730 --> 00:11:54.330 War and Peace allowed him to lay out his definitive 00:11:54.330 --> 00:11:57.279 theory of history. It's this epic that argues 00:11:57.279 --> 00:11:59.340 for the complete insignificance of individuals 00:11:59.340 --> 00:12:01.940 such as Napoleon and Alexander in the face of 00:12:01.940 --> 00:12:04.700 these vast, almost accidental collective forces 00:12:04.700 --> 00:12:06.820 of mass movement. It sounds like a philosophical 00:12:06.820 --> 00:12:09.000 rejection of the great man theory of history. 00:12:09.220 --> 00:12:12.360 It absolutely is. He posited that history is 00:12:12.360 --> 00:12:15.000 not driven by the genius or ambition of monarchs 00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:18.019 and generals, but by the myriad small decisions 00:12:18.019 --> 00:12:21.200 and actions of millions of people. This theory 00:12:21.200 --> 00:12:23.580 is a foundational element that prepares the reader 00:12:23.580 --> 00:12:26.480 for his later political rejection of all centralized 00:12:26.480 --> 00:12:28.919 authority. If great men don't drive history, 00:12:29.100 --> 00:12:31.720 then why do we allow them to run the state? Precisely. 00:12:31.740 --> 00:12:33.899 It's brilliant. It's monumental. It's universally 00:12:33.899 --> 00:12:37.220 praised. And yet here we encounter the enormous 00:12:37.220 --> 00:12:39.539 contradiction that defines the second phase of 00:12:39.539 --> 00:12:42.580 his life. Tolstoy later rejected war and peace, 00:12:42.799 --> 00:12:45.559 and to a lesser extent, Anna Karenina, as nothing 00:12:45.559 --> 00:12:48.500 more than elitist, worthless, counterfeit art. 00:12:49.210 --> 00:12:51.350 That's just astonishing. It is the ultimate act 00:12:51.350 --> 00:12:53.230 of artistic self -sabotage, and it was driven 00:12:53.230 --> 00:12:56.169 by this intense moral demand. After his profound 00:12:56.169 --> 00:12:58.690 spiritual crisis, he decided that the only valid 00:12:58.690 --> 00:13:01.690 purpose of art was to express universal brotherly 00:13:01.690 --> 00:13:04.370 love or to be a vehicle for moral and spiritual 00:13:04.370 --> 00:13:07.330 utility, understandable by everyone. And he viewed 00:13:07.330 --> 00:13:09.750 the stylistic complexity and elite subject matter 00:13:09.750 --> 00:13:12.389 of his great epics as failing that standard. 00:13:12.570 --> 00:13:14.909 Completely. It's interesting that he did concede 00:13:14.909 --> 00:13:17.769 that Anna Karenina, with its deep focus on marital 00:13:17.769 --> 00:13:20.309 fidelity and personal morality, was closer to 00:13:20.309 --> 00:13:23.190 his ideal. He actually called it his first true 00:13:23.190 --> 00:13:26.509 novel. I find that almost comically tragic. Here's 00:13:26.509 --> 00:13:28.730 the man who wrote what many consider the greatest 00:13:28.730 --> 00:13:31.129 work in the Russian language, yet he views it 00:13:31.129 --> 00:13:34.169 as a youthful folly. Meanwhile, the critical 00:13:34.169 --> 00:13:36.820 world was just pouring out praise. Virginia Woolf 00:13:36.820 --> 00:13:38.940 didn't hedge at all. She called him the greatest 00:13:38.940 --> 00:13:41.679 of all novelists. And we have that famous anecdote 00:13:41.679 --> 00:13:44.379 about William Faulkner, who, when asked to list 00:13:44.379 --> 00:13:46.200 the three greatest novels ever written, just 00:13:46.200 --> 00:13:48.600 replied, Anna Karenina, Anna Karenina, and Anna 00:13:48.600 --> 00:13:52.159 Karenina. The world saw genius. Tolstoy saw vanity. 00:13:52.840 --> 00:13:55.340 Their appreciation focused heavily on his distinctive 00:13:55.340 --> 00:13:58.059 prose style, which he honed to perfection during 00:13:58.059 --> 00:14:01.039 this era. Richard Peavier, whose modern translations 00:14:01.039 --> 00:14:03.080 have brought new life to the works, points out 00:14:03.080 --> 00:14:05.809 that Tolstoy's writing is full of provocation 00:14:05.809 --> 00:14:08.389 and irony and written with broad and elaborately 00:14:08.389 --> 00:14:11.230 developed rhetorical devices. He managed to blend 00:14:11.230 --> 00:14:13.809 deep psychological realism. You feel like you 00:14:13.809 --> 00:14:15.909 really understand Pierre Bezirkov's internal 00:14:15.909 --> 00:14:19.049 confusion or Anna's desperation with this sweeping 00:14:19.049 --> 00:14:21.769 philosophical commentary on society and faith. 00:14:22.090 --> 00:14:25.070 And for a man who spent his life writing, he 00:14:25.070 --> 00:14:27.509 had a surprising disdain for a major literary 00:14:27.509 --> 00:14:31.210 form, poetry. Yeah, that was very cutting. It 00:14:31.210 --> 00:14:34.019 was. He famously said, Writing poetry is like 00:14:34.019 --> 00:14:37.399 plowing and dancing at the same time. His critique 00:14:37.399 --> 00:14:39.480 was rooted in his demand for sincerity and utility. 00:14:40.039 --> 00:14:42.679 He criticized poets like Pushkin for using false 00:14:42.679 --> 00:14:45.480 epithets just, quote, simply to make it rhyme. 00:14:45.720 --> 00:14:48.200 He saw art as a serious ethical undertaking, 00:14:48.399 --> 00:14:50.500 not a frivolous aesthetic game. And this demand 00:14:50.500 --> 00:14:53.500 for sincerity, for realism, for utility in writing. 00:14:54.000 --> 00:14:56.659 It really foreshadowed the complete moral upheaval 00:14:56.659 --> 00:14:58.799 that was about to rock his world. That demand 00:14:58.799 --> 00:15:01.419 for absolute sincerity and utility, it reached 00:15:01.419 --> 00:15:04.320 a fever pitch in the 1870s. This marks the transition 00:15:04.320 --> 00:15:06.559 from celebrated novelist to tormented seeker. 00:15:06.659 --> 00:15:08.759 This was the period of his profound moral crisis, 00:15:09.019 --> 00:15:11.639 a spiritual awakening so intense that he documented 00:15:11.639 --> 00:15:14.120 it in his stark nonfiction work, Confession, 00:15:14.179 --> 00:15:17.320 published in 1882. And this was far more than 00:15:17.320 --> 00:15:19.440 an intellectual turning point. It was an existential 00:15:19.440 --> 00:15:22.100 collapse. While he was actually finishing up 00:15:22.100 --> 00:15:25.399 the final installments of Anna Karenina, a novel 00:15:25.399 --> 00:15:28.539 dealing deeply with despair, infidelity, and 00:15:28.539 --> 00:15:31.159 suicide, he was experiencing an almost suicidal 00:15:31.159 --> 00:15:33.399 anguish in his own life. I mean, the sources 00:15:33.399 --> 00:15:35.519 note he reached such an extreme state of mind 00:15:35.519 --> 00:15:37.919 that he began physically putting away guns and 00:15:37.919 --> 00:15:40.659 ropes. Out of a genuine paralyzing fear that 00:15:40.659 --> 00:15:43.220 he would end his own life. The success he had 00:15:43.220 --> 00:15:45.379 achieved, the wealth he possessed, the family 00:15:45.379 --> 00:15:48.080 life he enjoyed, it all felt meaningless. It 00:15:48.080 --> 00:15:50.659 plunged him into despair. That context is so 00:15:50.659 --> 00:15:53.120 vital. This wasn't a philosopher calmly considering 00:15:53.120 --> 00:15:55.799 an ethical problem. This was a man fighting for 00:15:55.799 --> 00:15:59.379 his soul. So what specific external forces and 00:15:59.379 --> 00:16:02.000 influences helped steer him out of that darkness 00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:04.740 and into this new radical spiritual framework? 00:16:05.000 --> 00:16:07.080 Well, two very different foreign influences stand 00:16:07.080 --> 00:16:09.860 out as catalysts for change. The first was purely 00:16:09.860 --> 00:16:12.850 philosophical. the German pessimist Arthur Schopenhauer. 00:16:13.009 --> 00:16:16.230 In 1869, Tolstoy recorded experiencing what he 00:16:16.230 --> 00:16:19.169 called constant raptures over Schopenhauer, finding 00:16:19.169 --> 00:16:21.509 in him a profound intellectual confirmation of 00:16:21.509 --> 00:16:24.250 his own despair. Schopenhauer, whose magnum opus 00:16:24.250 --> 00:16:27.509 was The World as Will and Representation. That's 00:16:27.509 --> 00:16:30.970 some dense stuff. How did a deeply metaphysical 00:16:30.970 --> 00:16:34.509 critique of human desire translate into Tolstoy's 00:16:34.509 --> 00:16:37.289 practical ethical choices? It's a great question. 00:16:37.899 --> 00:16:39.740 Schopenhauer argues that the world is driven 00:16:39.740 --> 00:16:43.259 by this restless, irrational will, an internal 00:16:43.259 --> 00:16:45.799 driving force of desire that guarantees perpetual 00:16:45.799 --> 00:16:49.740 suffering. The only path to genuine peace, Schopenhauer 00:16:49.740 --> 00:16:52.179 argued, was through the denial of the will. Which 00:16:52.179 --> 00:16:54.220 you could achieve through aesthetic contemplation 00:16:54.220 --> 00:16:56.940 or... Or, and this is the critical part for Tolstoy, 00:16:57.059 --> 00:16:59.879 through aesthetic morality. Complete denial of 00:16:59.879 --> 00:17:02.519 self, voluntary poverty, self -sacrifice. He 00:17:02.519 --> 00:17:04.819 cited figures like Buddha and Francis of Assisi. 00:17:04.940 --> 00:17:07.299 Scholesway took that metaphysical denial and 00:17:07.299 --> 00:17:09.519 applied it as a practical social imperative. 00:17:10.089 --> 00:17:12.289 He concluded that the moral obligation for the 00:17:12.289 --> 00:17:14.710 rich upper classes was to adopt this self -denial 00:17:14.710 --> 00:17:16.970 and voluntary poverty. That provides the intellectual 00:17:16.970 --> 00:17:19.549 route for his later wholesale rejection of his 00:17:19.549 --> 00:17:21.829 own aristocratic status. But the second influence 00:17:21.829 --> 00:17:23.930 was far more visceral, shocking, and it happened 00:17:23.930 --> 00:17:26.470 much earlier. That would be the public execution 00:17:26.470 --> 00:17:29.890 he witnessed in Paris in 1857. This experience 00:17:29.890 --> 00:17:33.089 wasn't intellectual. It was raw trauma. He was 00:17:33.089 --> 00:17:35.450 deeply horrified by the state -sanctioned murder, 00:17:35.630 --> 00:17:37.930 seeing the mechanism of government applied for 00:17:37.930 --> 00:17:40.230 the purpose of killing. And he wrote about it. 00:17:40.289 --> 00:17:42.549 He did. In a letter to a friend shortly thereafter, 00:17:42.869 --> 00:17:45.170 he wrote that the experience solidified his total 00:17:45.170 --> 00:17:47.650 permanent rejection of state violence in any 00:17:47.650 --> 00:17:50.289 form of political service, stating, The truth 00:17:50.289 --> 00:17:52.490 is that the state is a conspiracy designed not 00:17:52.490 --> 00:17:55.029 only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its 00:17:55.029 --> 00:17:58.049 citizens. Henceforth, I shall never serve any 00:17:58.049 --> 00:18:01.619 government anywhere. Wow. That one horrifying 00:18:01.619 --> 00:18:04.500 moment essentially laid the ideological genesis 00:18:04.500 --> 00:18:07.519 for his entire anarchist anti -state platform 00:18:07.519 --> 00:18:09.819 almost 20 years before his spiritual awakening 00:18:09.819 --> 00:18:12.400 formalized it. Precisely. And armed with this 00:18:12.400 --> 00:18:14.920 clarity, the Schopenhauerian asceticism provided 00:18:14.920 --> 00:18:17.119 the ethical how and the execution provided the 00:18:17.119 --> 00:18:20.299 political why, he articulated his specific highly 00:18:20.299 --> 00:18:22.759 stripped down Christian beliefs in what I believe 00:18:22.759 --> 00:18:25.460 in 1884. He wasn't interested in theology or 00:18:25.460 --> 00:18:28.519 miracles? No, not at all. He sought a literal, 00:18:28.640 --> 00:18:31.740 ethical interpretation of Jesus' teachings, centering 00:18:31.740 --> 00:18:33.799 almost exclusively on the Sermon on the Mount. 00:18:34.039 --> 00:18:37.289 He wanted a faith he could actually live. And 00:18:37.289 --> 00:18:40.170 his entire new philosophy hinged on that famous 00:18:40.170 --> 00:18:43.630 central commandment from Matthew 5 .39. But I 00:18:43.630 --> 00:18:45.990 say to you, do not resist the one who is evil, 00:18:46.130 --> 00:18:48.890 but if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn 00:18:48.890 --> 00:18:51.369 to him the other also. That phrase, which he 00:18:51.369 --> 00:18:54.029 interpreted as non -resistance to evil by force, 00:18:54.170 --> 00:18:56.829 became the absolute bedrock of his doctrines 00:18:56.829 --> 00:19:00.069 of pacifism and absolute nonviolence. He also 00:19:00.069 --> 00:19:01.910 deepened this conviction through corresponding 00:19:01.910 --> 00:19:04.250 with American Quakers, who introduced him to 00:19:04.250 --> 00:19:06.049 the writings of George Fox and William Penn. 00:19:06.519 --> 00:19:08.359 further bolstering his nonviolent convictions. 00:19:08.700 --> 00:19:11.279 For Tolstoy, if Christ meant it, it must be taken 00:19:11.279 --> 00:19:14.099 literally. Absolutely. Any use of physical force 00:19:14.099 --> 00:19:16.920 by an individual, or more damningly, by a state, 00:19:17.079 --> 00:19:19.980 was a direct betrayal of true Christianity. And 00:19:19.980 --> 00:19:22.420 this emphasis on a stripped -down, purely ethical, 00:19:22.640 --> 00:19:25.160 anti -state Christianity inevitably put him on 00:19:25.160 --> 00:19:26.880 a collision course with the institutional Russian 00:19:26.880 --> 00:19:30.480 Orthodox Church. Irreconcilably so. He viewed 00:19:30.480 --> 00:19:33.200 the church not as a keeper of faith, but as a 00:19:33.200 --> 00:19:35.680 political instrument that had perpetuated a perversion 00:19:35.680 --> 00:19:38.359 of Christ's original revolutionary teachings. 00:19:38.740 --> 00:19:40.619 He argued the church had corrupted the message 00:19:40.619 --> 00:19:43.400 by embracing rituals, seeking temporal power, 00:19:43.539 --> 00:19:46.779 and worst of all, endorsing state violence, the 00:19:46.779 --> 00:19:49.240 military, and the absolute authority of the Tsar. 00:19:49.440 --> 00:19:51.900 Yes, he believed that true and lasting happiness 00:19:51.900 --> 00:19:54.240 came only from striving for inner perfection 00:19:54.240 --> 00:19:57.539 and loving one's neighbor and God, rather than 00:19:57.539 --> 00:19:59.859 relying on external guidance. or authority from 00:19:59.859 --> 00:20:02.380 either the state or the church. And that stance 00:20:02.380 --> 00:20:04.940 led, quite predictably, to the ultimate symbolic 00:20:04.940 --> 00:20:08.380 rejection of the establishment, his formal excommunication 00:20:08.380 --> 00:20:11.400 from the Russian Orthodox Church in 1901. It 00:20:11.400 --> 00:20:14.339 was inevitable. His novel resurrection directly 00:20:14.339 --> 00:20:17.019 attacked the church's rituals, and his tracts 00:20:17.019 --> 00:20:19.900 challenged its core doctrines. The church, which 00:20:19.900 --> 00:20:21.740 was heavily intertwined with czarist authority, 00:20:22.119 --> 00:20:24.660 could not allow a man of his stature and popularity 00:20:24.660 --> 00:20:27.160 to continue asserting that they were fundamentally 00:20:27.160 --> 00:20:29.480 misleading the populace. The excommunication 00:20:29.480 --> 00:20:31.779 served as a clear warning to others, I imagine. 00:20:32.079 --> 00:20:35.680 It did, yet it also cemented Tolstoy's status 00:20:35.680 --> 00:20:39.240 globally as a fearless moral dissident. He had 00:20:39.240 --> 00:20:41.859 literally been exiled by both the literary and 00:20:41.859 --> 00:20:44.450 the religious establishment, which only increased 00:20:44.450 --> 00:20:46.970 his credibility among the common people and international 00:20:46.970 --> 00:20:50.009 thinkers. So the next stage of his life solidified 00:20:50.009 --> 00:20:52.589 his identity not just as a writer or a Christian, 00:20:52.809 --> 00:20:56.430 but as a full -fledged radical philosopher. His 00:20:56.430 --> 00:20:59.069 rejection of state and church institutions ultimately 00:20:59.069 --> 00:21:02.289 made him, by definition, a nonviolent and spiritual 00:21:02.289 --> 00:21:05.170 anarchist. Indeed. His political development 00:21:05.170 --> 00:21:07.509 was heavily chased by direct engagement with 00:21:07.509 --> 00:21:10.349 contemporary anarchist thought. He had traveled 00:21:10.349 --> 00:21:12.400 and met with the French anarchist Pierre -Joseph 00:21:12.400 --> 00:21:15.960 Proudhon back in 1861, primarily discussing educational 00:21:15.960 --> 00:21:18.420 theory. And later he engaged with others. Oh, 00:21:18.420 --> 00:21:20.200 yes. He later engaged deeply with the works of 00:21:20.200 --> 00:21:22.400 the Russian revolutionary anarchist Peter Kropotkin. 00:21:22.619 --> 00:21:25.119 The resulting ideology, Christian anarchism, 00:21:25.180 --> 00:21:27.859 was just uncompromising in its critique of centralized 00:21:27.859 --> 00:21:30.130 power. And his definition of the state is brutal. 00:21:30.349 --> 00:21:32.670 He viewed it openly as a conspiracy designed 00:21:32.670 --> 00:21:35.170 solely to exploit and corrupt citizens based 00:21:35.170 --> 00:21:38.490 on organized violence. He used incredibly provocative 00:21:38.490 --> 00:21:41.430 language. He called the state the domination 00:21:41.430 --> 00:21:44.289 of the wicked ones supported by brutal force. 00:21:44.589 --> 00:21:47.990 For him, government was simply institutionalized 00:21:47.990 --> 00:21:50.880 criminality. Is that famous quote. Right. He 00:21:50.880 --> 00:21:53.900 was often quoted asserting robbers are far less 00:21:53.900 --> 00:21:56.539 dangerous than a well -organized government because 00:21:56.539 --> 00:21:58.880 the state's violence is supported by legality, 00:21:58.960 --> 00:22:02.059 patriotism and religious sanction, making it 00:22:02.059 --> 00:22:04.819 far more insidious and destructive. And his followers, 00:22:04.980 --> 00:22:07.920 who began to call themselves Tolstoyans, led 00:22:07.920 --> 00:22:10.940 by his confidant, Vladimir Chertkov, they formed 00:22:10.940 --> 00:22:13.259 to propagate these radical religious and political 00:22:13.259 --> 00:22:16.079 teachings. Yet even as an anarchist, he had a 00:22:16.079 --> 00:22:18.640 crucial non -negotiable disagreement with other 00:22:18.640 --> 00:22:21.000 anarchists. regarding the method of achieving 00:22:21.000 --> 00:22:24.059 anarchy. Most anarchists advocate for revolution. 00:22:24.440 --> 00:22:26.940 And that is the essential dividing line. While 00:22:26.940 --> 00:22:28.900 he fully agreed with their sharp critique of 00:22:28.900 --> 00:22:31.680 the existing social and political order, he sharply 00:22:31.680 --> 00:22:34.180 criticized their willingness to use violent revolutionary 00:22:34.180 --> 00:22:36.900 means to overthrow it. For Tolstoy, violence 00:22:36.900 --> 00:22:39.180 only replaced one form of domination with another. 00:22:39.480 --> 00:22:42.519 Exactly. Anarchy could only be instituted through 00:22:42.519 --> 00:22:45.359 a permanent moral revolution, what he termed 00:22:45.359 --> 00:22:48.259 the regeneration of the inner man. So he believed 00:22:48.259 --> 00:22:50.519 political change had to be a personal, spiritual 00:22:50.519 --> 00:22:53.380 transformation first. Precisely. In his 1900 00:22:53.380 --> 00:22:56.619 essay on anarchy, he maintained that while anarchists 00:22:56.619 --> 00:22:58.920 were right in their negation of the state, they 00:22:58.920 --> 00:23:00.960 were mistaken in thinking revolution could achieve 00:23:00.960 --> 00:23:03.980 true anarchy. True statelessness, he argued, 00:23:04.140 --> 00:23:06.059 would only be achieved when people gradually 00:23:06.059 --> 00:23:08.940 chose not to participate in or require the state's 00:23:08.940 --> 00:23:10.910 protection or authority. His vision required 00:23:10.910 --> 00:23:13.829 millions of individual moral choices, not a single 00:23:13.829 --> 00:23:16.710 violent uprising. It did. This insistence on 00:23:16.710 --> 00:23:19.230 nonviolence is perhaps his most enduring global 00:23:19.230 --> 00:23:22.170 contribution. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, 00:23:22.549 --> 00:23:24.630 outlined most forcefully in The Kingdom of God 00:23:24.630 --> 00:23:27.549 is Within You from 1894, had an almost immediate 00:23:27.549 --> 00:23:30.349 and massive international impact. The best and 00:23:30.349 --> 00:23:32.490 most historically significant example, of course, 00:23:32.569 --> 00:23:35.279 is his direct influence on Mahatma Gandhi. Their 00:23:35.279 --> 00:23:37.740 correspondence, which lasted from 1909 until 00:23:37.740 --> 00:23:40.740 Tolstoy's death in 1910, is one of the great 00:23:40.740 --> 00:23:43.339 ideological exchanges of the 20th century. Gandhi 00:23:43.339 --> 00:23:45.380 was a young lawyer then, practicing in South 00:23:45.380 --> 00:23:49.720 Africa. He was, and he read Tolstoy's crew. A 00:23:49.720 --> 00:23:52.480 letter to a Hindu, and subsequently reached out 00:23:52.480 --> 00:23:55.220 to the Russian sage. What did that letter contain 00:23:55.220 --> 00:23:58.180 that so resonated with Gandhi? A letter to a 00:23:58.180 --> 00:24:00.819 Hindu was an uncompromising argument against 00:24:00.819 --> 00:24:03.299 British rule and the violence used to uphold 00:24:03.299 --> 00:24:06.309 it. It asserted that British power rested entirely 00:24:06.309 --> 00:24:08.789 on the submission and lack of moral resistance 00:24:08.789 --> 00:24:11.650 from the Indian people. It was a call to spiritual 00:24:11.650 --> 00:24:14.630 awakening and non -cooperation. And Gandhi saw 00:24:14.630 --> 00:24:17.990 the kinship in their beliefs. Immediately. He 00:24:17.990 --> 00:24:20.269 acknowledged his immense debt, calling Tolstoy 00:24:20.269 --> 00:24:22.710 the greatest deposit of nonviolence that the 00:24:22.710 --> 00:24:25.329 present age has produced. He was directly inspired 00:24:25.329 --> 00:24:27.529 to establish the Tolstoy Forum in South Africa 00:24:27.529 --> 00:24:29.910 for his followers. That philosophical debt flows 00:24:29.910 --> 00:24:31.950 directly down the 20th century, right through 00:24:31.950 --> 00:24:34.359 the American civil rights movement. Absolutely. 00:24:34.700 --> 00:24:37.240 Tolstoy's nonviolence served as a philosophical 00:24:37.240 --> 00:24:39.940 blueprint for Martin Luther King Jr., who studied 00:24:39.940 --> 00:24:42.980 the concept of non -resistance. It also influenced 00:24:42.980 --> 00:24:45.980 other key figures like James Govel. These thinkers 00:24:45.980 --> 00:24:48.460 adopted and adapted the ethical foundation established 00:24:48.460 --> 00:24:51.440 by Tolstoy, proving that his spiritual anarchism 00:24:51.440 --> 00:24:54.059 could be operationalized into a method of mass 00:24:54.059 --> 00:24:56.680 political action that transcended religious doctrine. 00:24:56.819 --> 00:25:00.039 His pacifism was also intensely anti -imperialist, 00:25:00.059 --> 00:25:02.400 which gave him the authority to condemn virtually 00:25:02.400 --> 00:25:05.440 all modern state wars and conflicts. He used 00:25:05.440 --> 00:25:08.369 his vast global platform fearlessly. For instance, 00:25:08.529 --> 00:25:11.009 he wrote the epistle to the Chinese people, denouncing 00:25:11.009 --> 00:25:12.730 the intervention by the Eight Nation Alliance, 00:25:12.910 --> 00:25:15.130 which included Russia, in the Boxer Rebellion. 00:25:15.170 --> 00:25:17.109 He also condemned the bloody Russo -Japanese 00:25:17.109 --> 00:25:20.109 War. He did not reserve his criticism for distant 00:25:20.109 --> 00:25:22.569 foreign powers. He went after his own government. 00:25:22.789 --> 00:25:25.950 He went so far as to accuse his own ruler, Tsar 00:25:25.950 --> 00:25:29.250 Nicholas II, alongside Kaiser Wilhelm II, of 00:25:29.250 --> 00:25:31.849 Christian brutality for their actions in China. 00:25:32.200 --> 00:25:35.000 He specifically cited the looting, rapes, and 00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:36.980 murders committed by the Allied troops during 00:25:36.980 --> 00:25:39.000 the suppression of the rebellion, calling the 00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:41.859 intervention terrible for its injustice and cruelty. 00:25:42.160 --> 00:25:45.019 This wasn't armchair philosophy. This was a direct 00:25:45.019 --> 00:25:47.319 political challenge to the heads of state, and 00:25:47.319 --> 00:25:50.339 he was fully aware of the consequences. And he 00:25:50.339 --> 00:25:52.960 didn't just write critiques. He actively supported 00:25:52.960 --> 00:25:55.359 those who embodied non -resistance in their lives. 00:25:55.579 --> 00:25:58.380 He became a major advocate and fundraiser for 00:25:58.380 --> 00:26:01.039 the Dukobors, a pacifist religious group in Russia. 00:26:01.420 --> 00:26:03.059 This was after they burned their webhouse in 00:26:03.059 --> 00:26:06.259 protest in 1895. Yes, a powerful public act. 00:26:06.599 --> 00:26:08.980 After that, they faced severe persecution from 00:26:08.980 --> 00:26:11.500 the czarist regime. Tolstoy helped bring international 00:26:11.500 --> 00:26:13.880 attention to their plight and crucially aided 00:26:13.880 --> 00:26:16.019 their eventual migration to Canada, providing 00:26:16.019 --> 00:26:18.500 the moral and financial support necessary for 00:26:18.500 --> 00:26:20.400 them to establish a life free of the violent 00:26:20.400 --> 00:26:23.309 state. So we have Christian ethics. We have nonviolent 00:26:23.309 --> 00:26:25.609 anarchism. But late in life, Tolstoy took on 00:26:25.609 --> 00:26:28.069 a very specific practical economic philosophy, 00:26:28.470 --> 00:26:31.170 Georgism. From the American economist Henry George. 00:26:31.390 --> 00:26:33.609 Right. This seems like a surprisingly technical 00:26:33.609 --> 00:26:36.710 layer to add to his otherwise spiritual radicalism. 00:26:36.710 --> 00:26:38.589 But it was the necessary practical application. 00:26:38.990 --> 00:26:41.950 Yeah. Tolstoy had long identified the fundamental 00:26:41.950 --> 00:26:45.369 economic evil underpinning the aristocratic system 00:26:45.369 --> 00:26:48.450 he despised. private property, and land. Which 00:26:48.450 --> 00:26:51.150 was the main non -productive source of income 00:26:51.150 --> 00:26:54.630 for the Russian aristocracy. Exactly. Georgism 00:26:54.630 --> 00:26:57.450 provided a non -violent, revolutionary economic 00:26:57.450 --> 00:27:00.569 solution. Henry George argued that while people 00:27:00.569 --> 00:27:03.250 should own the foods of their labor, the land 00:27:03.250 --> 00:27:06.549 itself, all natural resources, should not be 00:27:06.549 --> 00:27:08.849 subject to private ownership as was created by 00:27:08.849 --> 00:27:12.380 God or nature. for everyone. So Georgism proposes 00:27:12.380 --> 00:27:14.839 a single tax on the rental value of land. Which 00:27:14.839 --> 00:27:16.819 essentially abolishes the economic profitability 00:27:16.819 --> 00:27:19.460 of mere land speculation and removes the basis 00:27:19.460 --> 00:27:22.099 of aristocratic power, ensuring equal access 00:27:22.099 --> 00:27:24.579 to natural resources without state seizure or 00:27:24.579 --> 00:27:27.099 revolution. That perfectly aligns with his goal 00:27:27.099 --> 00:27:29.279 of dismantling the aristocratic system without 00:27:29.279 --> 00:27:32.960 resorting to violence. Precisely. It was a nonviolent 00:27:32.960 --> 00:27:35.299 method of fundamentally restructuring wealth 00:27:35.299 --> 00:27:37.720 distribution, making it the perfect economic 00:27:37.720 --> 00:27:40.630 fit for his Christian anarchism. He was utterly 00:27:40.630 --> 00:27:43.470 dedicated to promoting this idea. He said something 00:27:43.470 --> 00:27:45.950 like, people don't argue with it. They simply 00:27:45.950 --> 00:27:48.769 do not know it. And it is impossible to do otherwise 00:27:48.769 --> 00:27:51.170 with his teaching, for he who becomes acquainted 00:27:51.170 --> 00:27:54.349 with it cannot but agree. He believed it was 00:27:54.349 --> 00:27:57.329 an unassailable truth that simply needed dissemination. 00:27:57.529 --> 00:28:00.470 And he incorporated this specific economic doctrine 00:28:00.470 --> 00:28:03.569 directly into his creative work. He did. He wove 00:28:03.569 --> 00:28:06.250 Georgism into his last major novel, Resurrection, 00:28:06.410 --> 00:28:10.539 in 1899. The protagonist, Dmitri Ivanovich Niklidov, 00:28:10.539 --> 00:28:13.200 undergoes a transformation that includes realizing 00:28:13.200 --> 00:28:15.839 the immorality of land ownership. And this book, 00:28:15.920 --> 00:28:18.079 which functioned as a critique of man -made laws 00:28:18.079 --> 00:28:20.759 in the church, was one of the major direct causes 00:28:20.759 --> 00:28:23.279 for his excommunication. It was a total published 00:28:23.279 --> 00:28:25.559 rejection of the economic, legal, and religious 00:28:25.559 --> 00:28:28.200 pillars of the Tsarist state. That drive for 00:28:28.200 --> 00:28:30.500 reform also extended into practical education. 00:28:30.920 --> 00:28:34.519 After serfdom was abolished in 1861, Tolstoy 00:28:34.519 --> 00:28:37.079 didn't just philosophize. He returned to Yasnaya 00:28:37.079 --> 00:28:39.980 Polyana and founded 13 schools specifically for 00:28:39.980 --> 00:28:42.259 peasant children. These short -lived experiments 00:28:42.259 --> 00:28:44.700 were crucial precursors to modern democratic 00:28:44.700 --> 00:28:47.519 and progressive education. He outlined the principles 00:28:47.519 --> 00:28:50.680 in his 1862 essay, The School at Yasnaya Polyana, 00:28:50.859 --> 00:28:53.619 emphasizing student freedom and the importance 00:28:53.619 --> 00:28:55.880 of allowing the child to define their own path 00:28:55.880 --> 00:28:58.099 of inquiry. And they were shut down. They were. 00:28:58.339 --> 00:29:00.680 They faced harassment and were eventually shut 00:29:00.680 --> 00:29:03.299 down by the Tsarist secret police. But they are 00:29:03.299 --> 00:29:05.640 justly claimed as the first examples of a coherent 00:29:05.640 --> 00:29:08.279 theory of democratic education, foreshadowing 00:29:08.279 --> 00:29:10.380 later efforts like A .S. Neal's Summerhill School. 00:29:10.730 --> 00:29:13.049 For Tolstoy, education was an essential tool 00:29:13.049 --> 00:29:15.950 for the regenerated inner man needed for anarchy 00:29:15.950 --> 00:29:18.349 to thrive. To truly understand the intensity 00:29:18.349 --> 00:29:20.609 of this radical shift, we have to look closely 00:29:20.609 --> 00:29:23.130 at his personal life. The gap between his aristocratic 00:29:23.130 --> 00:29:25.529 reality and his ethical ideals created immense 00:29:25.529 --> 00:29:28.450 tragic tension, especially in his marriage. The 00:29:28.450 --> 00:29:30.250 private life of the public revolutionary was 00:29:30.250 --> 00:29:32.650 constantly on the bunk. His marriage to Sofia 00:29:32.650 --> 00:29:35.990 Barrisonia in 1862, when she was 16 years his 00:29:35.990 --> 00:29:39.180 junior, it reads like its own novel. Initially, 00:29:39.180 --> 00:29:41.319 their partnership was the bedrock of his literary 00:29:41.319 --> 00:29:44.579 success. Sonia was essential. She was. She acted 00:29:44.579 --> 00:29:46.799 as his secretary, editor, financial manager, 00:29:46.920 --> 00:29:50.160 enduring the arduous task of hand copying the 00:29:50.160 --> 00:29:53.079 notoriously complex drafts of War and Peace multiple 00:29:53.079 --> 00:29:55.819 times so he could continue editing and provide 00:29:55.819 --> 00:29:59.039 clean, final versions to the publisher. Her labor 00:29:59.039 --> 00:30:01.319 made those monumental works possible. So she 00:30:01.319 --> 00:30:03.940 was literally the intellectual and logistical 00:30:03.940 --> 00:30:06.720 bedrock of his genius. But our sources describe 00:30:06.720 --> 00:30:08.880 their later life as one of the unhappiest in 00:30:08.880 --> 00:30:11.420 literary history. What caused such a complete 00:30:11.420 --> 00:30:14.039 collapse? The conflict was driven entirely by 00:30:14.039 --> 00:30:16.960 his increasing uncompromising radicalism. As 00:30:16.960 --> 00:30:19.319 Tolstoy sought to fully embody his ascetic morality, 00:30:19.640 --> 00:30:21.799 he tried repeatedly to renounce his inherited 00:30:21.799 --> 00:30:24.059 and earned wealth. And crucially, he attempted 00:30:24.059 --> 00:30:26.180 to renounce the copyrights on his most famous 00:30:26.180 --> 00:30:29.710 and lucrative works. Yes. And for Sonia, who 00:30:29.710 --> 00:30:32.109 was raising their surviving children and managing 00:30:32.109 --> 00:30:35.910 their vast, complex estate, this attempt to unilaterally 00:30:35.910 --> 00:30:38.329 impoverish the family, to essentially dissolve 00:30:38.329 --> 00:30:41.670 their financial security, it created a severe, 00:30:41.970 --> 00:30:45.069 unbearable, and ultimately irreconcilable tension. 00:30:45.480 --> 00:30:48.480 He was ethically pure. She was practically responsible. 00:30:48.980 --> 00:30:51.259 A perfect summary. And that leads us back to 00:30:51.259 --> 00:30:53.119 the earlier point about his mental state. That 00:30:53.119 --> 00:30:55.700 detail about him putting away guns and ropes 00:30:55.700 --> 00:30:58.420 while finishing Anna Karenina out of fear of 00:30:58.420 --> 00:31:01.160 killing himself, it just illustrates the depth 00:31:01.160 --> 00:31:03.960 of his internal suffering. It does. This wasn't 00:31:03.960 --> 00:31:06.099 merely a philosophical disagreement with Sonia. 00:31:06.140 --> 00:31:08.420 It was an existential war he was fighting within 00:31:08.420 --> 00:31:11.140 himself. The sincerity of his moral philosophy 00:31:11.140 --> 00:31:13.839 was validated by the physical and mental anguish 00:31:13.839 --> 00:31:16.240 it caused him. And this commitment to his ethical 00:31:16.240 --> 00:31:18.680 philosophy drove radical changes, not just in 00:31:18.680 --> 00:31:20.680 his politics, but in his day -to -day habits, 00:31:20.799 --> 00:31:22.599 particularly regarding his relationship with 00:31:22.599 --> 00:31:24.799 the natural world and animals. We know he was 00:31:24.799 --> 00:31:27.039 a passionate outdoorsman. He was introduced to 00:31:27.039 --> 00:31:29.480 hunting by his father and was a passionate huntsman 00:31:29.480 --> 00:31:32.700 for decades, actively including hunting scenes 00:31:32.700 --> 00:31:35.380 in War and Peace. He was a typical aristocratic 00:31:35.380 --> 00:31:37.700 huntsman, shooting everything from ducks and 00:31:37.700 --> 00:31:41.220 quail to otters. And yet, sometime in the 1880s, 00:31:41.220 --> 00:31:43.599 driven by his burgeoning ethical philosophy, 00:31:43.980 --> 00:31:47.539 He stopped. Completely. He wrote a preface for 00:31:47.539 --> 00:31:50.220 an anti -hunting pamphlet in 1890, confirming 00:31:50.220 --> 00:31:53.380 his new staunch opposition. He saw killing animals 00:31:53.380 --> 00:31:56.980 for sport as an unnecessary cruelty. It violated 00:31:56.980 --> 00:31:59.880 his principle of universal love. Though in a 00:31:59.880 --> 00:32:02.660 classic Tolstoyan contradiction, it's noted that 00:32:02.660 --> 00:32:04.579 he never gave up his love for vigorous horse 00:32:04.579 --> 00:32:07.170 riding. He still enjoyed the physicality of the 00:32:07.170 --> 00:32:10.150 animal, just without the violence. And this concern 00:32:10.150 --> 00:32:12.390 for animals translated directly to his plate 00:32:12.390 --> 00:32:14.549 through his eventual conversion to vegetarianism. 00:32:14.569 --> 00:32:17.269 This was a long, gradual process beginning around 00:32:17.269 --> 00:32:21.089 1882. But by 1890, he adopted a strict vegetarian 00:32:21.089 --> 00:32:23.569 diet that he was alleged never to have consciously 00:32:23.569 --> 00:32:25.890 violated. And he pursued this for purely ethical 00:32:25.890 --> 00:32:28.930 and spiritual reasons. Exactly. He argued that 00:32:28.930 --> 00:32:31.109 abstaining from meat was linked to high moral 00:32:31.109 --> 00:32:33.940 views on life. He viewed meat -eating as simply 00:32:33.940 --> 00:32:36.200 immoral because it involved the unnecessary cruelty 00:32:36.200 --> 00:32:38.839 of taking life. Was there a specific moment or 00:32:38.839 --> 00:32:41.160 catalyst that solidified this commitment for 00:32:41.160 --> 00:32:43.720 him? Yes, there is a memorable and very vivid 00:32:43.720 --> 00:32:46.339 detail he shared. In his introductory essay, 00:32:46.539 --> 00:32:49.259 The First Step, he recounted witnessing a cruel 00:32:49.259 --> 00:32:52.400 experience at a slaughterhouse in Tula. The visceral 00:32:52.400 --> 00:32:54.500 experience of observing the mechanized, cold 00:32:54.500 --> 00:32:56.859 -blooded killing confirmed his belief that meat 00:32:56.859 --> 00:32:59.359 -eating is simply immoral. as it involves the 00:32:59.359 --> 00:33:01.680 performance of an act which is contrary to moral 00:33:01.680 --> 00:33:04.680 feeling killing. He refused to be complicit in 00:33:04.680 --> 00:33:07.099 that organized violence. And his diet became 00:33:07.099 --> 00:33:09.660 increasingly restrictive as his moral demands 00:33:09.660 --> 00:33:13.180 intensified, going far beyond mere vegetarianism. 00:33:13.240 --> 00:33:16.460 He was aiming for austerity. By 1903, he had 00:33:16.460 --> 00:33:18.960 removed eggs from his diet after a friend questioned 00:33:18.960 --> 00:33:21.119 whether eating them constituted taking life. 00:33:21.470 --> 00:33:23.529 He wrote to a Dutch medical student that his 00:33:23.529 --> 00:33:25.710 health had improved significantly since he gave 00:33:25.710 --> 00:33:28.309 up not just meat, but also milk, butter and eggs, 00:33:28.390 --> 00:33:30.849 alongside sugar, tea and coffee. So what was 00:33:30.849 --> 00:33:33.410 he eating? His later diet consisted primarily 00:33:33.410 --> 00:33:35.569 of simple whole grains like oatmeal porridge, 00:33:35.990 --> 00:33:38.589 kasha, which is buckwheat, whole wheat bread 00:33:38.589 --> 00:33:41.390 and vegetable soups. He fully committed to the 00:33:41.390 --> 00:33:43.630 austerity he preached, insisting that the physical 00:33:43.630 --> 00:33:45.869 body should mirror the spiritual purity he sought. 00:34:05.279 --> 00:34:08.769 He secretly left home. He just left. a dramatic 00:34:08.769 --> 00:34:11.110 exit designed to live out his final days as a 00:34:11.110 --> 00:34:13.750 true pauper, unshackled from property. And he 00:34:13.750 --> 00:34:15.989 died only a few days later, from pneumonia, on 00:34:15.989 --> 00:34:19.510 November 20, 1910, at Astapovo Railway Station, 00:34:19.769 --> 00:34:23.130 after a brief, brutal train journey south. His 00:34:23.130 --> 00:34:25.610 health deteriorated so rapidly that the stationmaster 00:34:25.610 --> 00:34:27.829 housed him in his small apartment, where he soon 00:34:27.829 --> 00:34:30.219 expired. Just imagine that scene. The most famous 00:34:30.219 --> 00:34:32.219 living writer in the world, the Count, who authored 00:34:32.219 --> 00:34:34.340 War and Peace, running away from his own life 00:34:34.340 --> 00:34:36.559 only to die of exposure and pneumonia in a rural 00:34:36.559 --> 00:34:39.000 railway station, surrounded by reporters and 00:34:39.000 --> 00:34:41.500 onlookers who were captivated by his final moral 00:34:41.500 --> 00:34:44.409 act. It was a global media event. It attracted 00:34:44.409 --> 00:34:46.809 reporters and cameras from all across Europe. 00:34:46.989 --> 00:34:49.610 And even in his final moments, our sources note 00:34:49.610 --> 00:34:51.929 that he reportedly spent his last conscious hours 00:34:51.929 --> 00:34:54.809 preaching the core tenets of his final philosophy, 00:34:55.170 --> 00:34:59.070 universal love, absolute nonviolence, and Georgism 00:34:59.070 --> 00:35:01.610 to his fellow train passengers and anyone who 00:35:01.610 --> 00:35:03.690 happened to be nearby. It was the final testament 00:35:03.690 --> 00:35:06.389 of the apostle. It really was. His funeral reflected 00:35:06.389 --> 00:35:09.389 both the massive public impact he had and the 00:35:09.389 --> 00:35:11.730 caution with which the state viewed this charismatic 00:35:11.730 --> 00:35:21.769 man. And despite that request for silence, the 00:35:21.769 --> 00:35:24.710 entire event was marked by a quiet... pervasive 00:35:24.710 --> 00:35:27.849 police presence. The Tsarist regime was clearly 00:35:27.849 --> 00:35:30.610 terrified that this enormous gathering of mourners, 00:35:30.769 --> 00:35:33.289 many of them peasants and followers, would transform 00:35:33.289 --> 00:35:35.889 into a massive political demonstration against 00:35:35.889 --> 00:35:38.190 the state and its authority. So the burial itself 00:35:38.190 --> 00:35:41.210 under the trees at Yasnaya Polyana remained silent, 00:35:41.329 --> 00:35:44.190 simple, and anti -clerical. Exactly as he wished. 00:35:44.329 --> 00:35:47.010 His complex legacy proved particularly volatile 00:35:47.010 --> 00:35:49.349 in the years that followed, especially with the 00:35:49.349 --> 00:35:52.760 rise of Bolshevism and Soviet Russia. The Tolstoyan 00:35:52.760 --> 00:35:55.579 movement, championing nonviolence, anti -urbanism, 00:35:55.579 --> 00:35:57.840 and opposition to the state, was fundamentally 00:35:57.840 --> 00:36:01.079 at odds with communist ideology. How did the 00:36:01.079 --> 00:36:03.420 fiercely anti -state moralist become the Soviet 00:36:03.420 --> 00:36:05.699 Union's best -selling author? It was a fascinating 00:36:05.699 --> 00:36:08.920 act of ideological co -option. His daughter, 00:36:09.079 --> 00:36:11.800 Alexandra Sasha, whom he named heir to his works 00:36:11.800 --> 00:36:13.619 to ensure they were published cheaply for the 00:36:13.619 --> 00:36:16.079 Russian people, alongside his editor, Vladimir 00:36:16.079 --> 00:36:18.960 Chertkov, they faced huge resistance from the 00:36:18.960 --> 00:36:21.559 new regime. But the Soviets recognized his immense 00:36:21.559 --> 00:36:24.320 popular appeal. And his usefulness as a critic 00:36:24.320 --> 00:36:26.840 of the aristocracy and the church. So he was 00:36:26.840 --> 00:36:30.079 selectively rehabilitated. Right. In 1928, an 00:36:30.079 --> 00:36:31.760 agreement was reached for the publishing of a 00:36:31.760 --> 00:36:34.260 monumental 92 -volume collection of his works. 00:36:34.360 --> 00:36:37.019 And over 400 million copies of his works were 00:36:37.019 --> 00:36:39.500 eventually printed in the Soviet Union. He was 00:36:39.500 --> 00:36:41.780 repurposed. How did they manage that? Anatoly 00:36:41.780 --> 00:36:44.179 Lancharski, the head of the People's Commissariat 00:36:44.179 --> 00:36:46.719 for Education, gave a major speech during the 00:36:46.719 --> 00:36:49.780 1928 Jubilee celebration attempting to reconcile 00:36:49.780 --> 00:36:52.820 Tolstoy with the communist state. Lancharski 00:36:52.820 --> 00:36:56.199 praised Tolstoy's love for equality and his disdain 00:36:56.199 --> 00:36:58.500 for wealth, the church, and private property. 00:36:58.679 --> 00:37:02.219 But conveniently minimized his fiercely pacifistic, 00:37:02.300 --> 00:37:05.539 religious, and anti -patriotic sentiments. That's 00:37:05.539 --> 00:37:07.949 the tightrope walk. Praising the revolutionary 00:37:07.949 --> 00:37:10.230 spirit while discarding the revolutionary method, 00:37:10.389 --> 00:37:12.789 it was essential for the state, especially as 00:37:12.789 --> 00:37:14.750 they geared up for later conflicts. They even 00:37:14.750 --> 00:37:16.929 had a literary historian write a biography trying 00:37:16.929 --> 00:37:19.550 to convince people that Tolstoy would have revised 00:37:19.550 --> 00:37:22.670 his views for World War II. Yes, Nikolai Gudzi 00:37:22.670 --> 00:37:25.210 argued that Tolstoy would have revised his pacifistic 00:37:25.210 --> 00:37:27.349 and anti -patriotic views had he lived to see 00:37:27.349 --> 00:37:30.670 WWII. the regime needed to neutralize his anti 00:37:30.670 --> 00:37:33.449 -war message. Even as a state, Yasnaya Polyana, 00:37:33.570 --> 00:37:36.449 which was briefly allowed to exist as a commune 00:37:36.449 --> 00:37:38.769 for the Tolstoyans, was eventually taken over 00:37:38.769 --> 00:37:41.110 by state commissariats and turned into a more 00:37:41.110 --> 00:37:43.630 controlled museum. Interestingly, his impact 00:37:43.630 --> 00:37:45.869 was felt just as strongly by the Bolsheviks' 00:37:45.949 --> 00:37:49.010 ideological opponents as their proponents. Vladimir 00:37:49.010 --> 00:37:51.969 Lenin wrote several essays on Tolstoy, acknowledging 00:37:51.969 --> 00:37:55.030 that his powerful hatred for feudalism and capitalism 00:37:55.030 --> 00:37:58.269 marked a necessary prelude to proletarian socialism. 00:37:58.610 --> 00:38:01.349 However, Lenin's praise came with a sharp rebuke. 00:38:01.369 --> 00:38:04.230 He focused his critique on Tolstoy's core concept 00:38:04.230 --> 00:38:08.420 of non -resistance to evil. For Lenin, this pacifism 00:38:08.420 --> 00:38:11.360 was exactly why the 1905 Russian Revolution failed. 00:38:11.559 --> 00:38:14.000 He argued the movement was not militant enough. 00:38:14.260 --> 00:38:16.599 Right. He said it allowed the autocracy to easily 00:38:16.599 --> 00:38:19.219 crush it. For Lenin, Tolstoy's philosophical 00:38:19.219 --> 00:38:21.659 consciousness was simply not fully developed 00:38:21.659 --> 00:38:23.880 for a revolution that required violent, decisive 00:38:23.880 --> 00:38:26.500 action. And in stark, almost poetic contrast, 00:38:26.739 --> 00:38:29.320 Gandhi confirmed the direct transformative debt 00:38:29.320 --> 00:38:31.239 he owed to Tolstoy's understanding of Christianity. 00:38:31.719 --> 00:38:34.659 That is the ultimate global legacy of Tolstoy's 00:38:34.659 --> 00:38:37.719 moral vision. Gandhi's Gujarati word for his 00:38:37.719 --> 00:38:40.480 nonviolent movement, satyagraha, which translates 00:38:40.480 --> 00:38:43.820 to firmness in truth, was birthed directly from 00:38:43.820 --> 00:38:46.760 Tolstoy's idea of truth as universal love, rooted 00:38:46.760 --> 00:38:48.880 in his literal reading of the Sermon on the Mount. 00:38:49.000 --> 00:38:51.460 It defined the method by which India gained independence. 00:38:51.920 --> 00:38:54.380 And finally, his moralizing novellas, which he 00:38:54.380 --> 00:38:56.420 later prized over his epic novels, they endorse 00:38:56.420 --> 00:38:58.639 strongly in popular culture. They absolutely 00:38:58.639 --> 00:39:00.980 do. The death of Ivan Ilyich, which captures 00:39:00.980 --> 00:39:03.159 the protagonist's intense personal crisis in 00:39:03.159 --> 00:39:05.300 search for truth, has been adapted repeatedly, 00:39:05.659 --> 00:39:09.400 most famously by Akira Kurosawa as Ikiru in 1952, 00:39:09.500 --> 00:39:12.619 and more recently as the 2022 film Living. And 00:39:12.619 --> 00:39:14.639 of course, the dramatic circumstances of his 00:39:14.639 --> 00:39:17.420 final anguished year of life, the flight, the 00:39:17.420 --> 00:39:19.639 conflict with Sonia, were captured in the 2009 00:39:19.639 --> 00:39:22.739 film The Last Station. His life, like his books, 00:39:22.940 --> 00:39:26.300 remains profoundly dramatic. So what we have 00:39:26.300 --> 00:39:28.559 explored today is the astonishing duality of 00:39:28.559 --> 00:39:30.860 a man who was simultaneously an aristocratic 00:39:30.860 --> 00:39:34.219 literary genius and a revolutionary moral reformer. 00:39:34.239 --> 00:39:37.059 His life path led him from chronicling the vast 00:39:37.059 --> 00:39:39.639 chaos of the Napoleonic Wars in War and Peace 00:39:39.639 --> 00:39:42.539 to dedicating his final decades to spreading 00:39:42.539 --> 00:39:45.699 the simple, uncompromising message of non -resistance 00:39:45.699 --> 00:39:48.940 in the kingdom of God. is within you it was a 00:39:48.940 --> 00:39:51.300 complete decades -long rejection of the material 00:39:51.300 --> 00:39:54.019 world and his own literary fame in pursuit of 00:39:54.019 --> 00:39:57.260 a pure unassailable truth his entire life especially 00:39:57.260 --> 00:39:59.500 the second half became a dramatic and ultimately 00:39:59.500 --> 00:40:01.619 tragic struggle to align his personal actions 00:40:01.619 --> 00:40:04.639 in his vast inherited wealth with the uncompromising 00:40:04.639 --> 00:40:06.840 ethical ideals he derived from his literal reading 00:40:06.840 --> 00:40:09.539 of jesus exposure to schopenhauer's asceticism 00:40:09.539 --> 00:40:11.539 and the specific economic principles of henry 00:40:11.539 --> 00:40:14.070 george He was striving for a radical internal 00:40:14.070 --> 00:40:16.670 perfection, believing this moral revolution was 00:40:16.670 --> 00:40:18.929 the only honest and permanent path to lasting 00:40:18.929 --> 00:40:21.610 social change. A stunning story of conversion, 00:40:21.969 --> 00:40:24.889 contradiction, and global consequence. Indeed. 00:40:25.110 --> 00:40:27.449 And for our closing thought, we have to return 00:40:27.449 --> 00:40:29.489 to that fundamental contradiction we discussed 00:40:29.489 --> 00:40:32.570 earlier. Although Tolstoy himself rejected his 00:40:32.570 --> 00:40:34.889 great realist novels like War and Peace and Anna 00:40:34.889 --> 00:40:37.389 Karenina as nothing more than counterfeit art, 00:40:37.800 --> 00:40:40.579 Considering them inferior in utility to his political 00:40:40.579 --> 00:40:44.400 and religious tracks, consider this. Did the 00:40:44.400 --> 00:40:46.739 power and realism he mastered in his fiction, 00:40:46.900 --> 00:40:50.219 the ability to show the horrors of war, the complexities 00:40:50.219 --> 00:40:53.019 of human motivation, or the falsities of aristocratic 00:40:53.019 --> 00:40:56.219 society, did that actually give his later philosophical 00:40:56.219 --> 00:40:58.719 works the global authority and weight needed 00:40:58.719 --> 00:41:00.840 to influence transformative figures like Gandhi? 00:41:01.239 --> 00:41:03.860 Was the depth and credibility of the artist absolutely 00:41:03.860 --> 00:41:06.340 essential for the eventual impact of the Apostle? 00:41:06.599 --> 00:41:08.380 That's something to continue thinking about as 00:41:08.380 --> 00:41:10.559 you reflect on the scope of Leo Tolstoy's radical 00:41:10.559 --> 00:41:11.039 life.