The Ethico-religious Imperatives of Lev Tolstoy’s Life and Work

Russian Studies in Philosophy. 2021. Vol. 59. No. 5. P. 345–350.

Klimova S.

The article examines the most important intellectual milestones in Tolstoy's life in the context of world events of the 20th century. The twenty-first century is linked to certain dates in Tolstoy’s life that are important not only for us, but also for world culture. It has been exactly 120 years since the infamous Synodal Act of February 20–22, 1901, which discussed Count Tolstoy’s “lapse” from the Church. This event was not so much religious as socio-political, an event with global consequences for the changing consciousness of many thousands of people in Russia and around the world. The intentions of the church hierarchs met with opposite results as the name Tolstoy became much more attractive to inquiring minds than it had been before. This led to an axiological inversion typical of Russian ideological politics: Tolstoy gained the status of “sacrificial lamb” of the system, which served as additional confirmation that his criticism of the church was just.

Keywords: смысл жизни, The meaning of life, L. N. Tolstoy, Л. Н. Толстой, Religious Type, религиозный тип

Publication based on the results of: Artificial Intelligence and “Homo Sapiens” as an object of ethical and philosophical analysis (2021)