The face of truth, with Tolstoy
Lev Tolstoy was more than a man, a conscience of humanity made flesh. We pay homage to the great writer in his loving memory
"There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness, and truth".
These words were written by a man who, for all his existence, pursued the face of truth. A writer, whose oeuvre – an ungovernable torrent of inspiration – left behind not words, but worlds to explore for centuries. Who, as Maxim Gorky had felt, was more than a man, a conscience of humanity made flesh. He was a prophet, a saint, and still somehow a farmer, sowing the seeds of kindness and rebellion against all that is born of spite.
His name was Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy.
Tolstoy's life was one profound collection of contradictions, and the solemn consequences that it yielded. Born into the Russian aristocracy in 1828, Tolstoy's early life bore the symbols of privilege and excess.
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Orphaned at a young age, he inherited vast estates and wealth, yet he consistently grappled with dissonance and dissatisfaction. The young Tolstoy indulged in gambling and short-lived relationships, and even then, he would identify the emptiness of such pursuits.
It could have been the burdens of nobility or the keen intellect to be ready to dispose of it all, that Tolstoy's early journals like Childhood and Youth brimmed with immense self-scrutiny. "Why do I exist? What is the purpose of this life so shrouded in darkness?", he would ask. The carousel of opulence and existential crises, though still latent, would only later erupt into a grand spiritual awakening to give his life newer directions.
"If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed", wrote Tolstoy, in War and Peace, a philosophical meditation rendered in ink.
Pierre Bezukhov and Prince Andrei, avatars of Tolstoy's inner struggles, wandered through the novel's labyrinthine corridors of faith, love, and the menace of death, as history became the author's canvas for the pragmatic inquiry – are the tides of human fate shaped by great men or by the teeming multitude of the ordinary?
Then, with Anna Karenina, Tolstoy tilted his lens outward, dissecting the fragility of human love against the grinding machinery of societal expectations. Tolstoy questioned the conventional architecture of morality, marriage, and freedom, leaving readers to cope with the blatant truth – the heart's desires often clash innocently with the world's strictures. Through Anna, he spoke, "All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow".
By the late 1870s, Tolstoy started to feel rather disillusioned by the praise his works received and repulsed by the materialism of his class. "I could give no reasonable meaning to any actions of my life", he admitted in "A Confession.
Tolstoy then sought answers not in literature but in faith, immersing himself in Christian texts and Eastern philosophies. His search for salvation, however, spurned orthodoxy, and rejecting the institutional Church as a bastion of hypocrisy, Tolstoy embraced austere Christianity rooted in the Sermon on the Mount.
His gospel – love, humility, and nonviolence – now became a call to arms against injustice. His writings in What I Believe and The Kingdom of God Is Within You reflected this philosophy, influencing monumental figures like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
Tolstoy's coming years saw a manifestation of radical simplicity. He renounced his aristocratic privileges, dressed as a peasant, and took to manual labor, believing that material wealth and social hierarchies were adversative to his values.
"Do not resist evil", Tolstoy quotes Matthew 5:39, emphasizing that most of human kind's actions, deemed unreasonable or selfish, are rarely carried out intrinsically, and as long as one can respond with kindness, there could be no better alternative. This ideal, though often criticized to be utopian, had inspired historical movements like the American civil rights struggle for peace and justice. Gandhi, for instance, called Tolstoy's Letter to a Hindu a catalyst for his own philosophy of satyagraha.
Tolstoy's uncompromising principles often clashed with his family, particularly his wife, Sofya Behrs. While she supported his literary endeavors, Sofya resented Tolstoy's renunciation of wealth and his relentless idealism, fearing for their children's security. The tender yet tumultuous domestic discord haunted Tolstoy, eventually leading to his decision to leave home at the age of 82.
The silent withdrawal would see Tolstoy's ultimate departure, shrouded by mist as cold as one's remorse, at the Astapovo railway station. And the hands of the station clock froze at 6:05, as the literary titan slowly succumbed to pneumonia, like a fleeting train that blew its last ever whistle, leaving behind a hangover of ideals and realities.
Tolstoy stood solitary, wrestling the leviathan of human brutality with the frail but determined sword of moral convictions. A century later, his characters still help readers navigate an existence defined by contradiction, where love battles ego, faith clashes with skepticism, and the mundane coexists with the profound. Tolstoy only demanded verity – the raw, and brutal truth which lay bare one's cowardice, and compels them to rise.
Tolstoy's truth lies in his refusal to rest. His search for the ineffable thread that binds all of existence suggests that the very act of seeking is itself a form of redemption.
Tasbir Iftekhar is a Communications Professional.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.
