I can no longer recall precisely why, in late December, I decided to read Tolstoy’s last big novel Воскресение (Resurrection), but it was a slog — it took me almost two months to read a book that should have taken three weeks or so at my usual pace. Frankly, if it hadn’t been by Tolstoy (and the most widely read book of his during his lifetime) I might well have given up. The problem is that what should have been a hundred-page novella has been stretched out to almost six hundred pages by dawdling, repetition, and ranting. By this time he didn’t really want to be writing fiction at all (he thought he’d given up after Anna Karenina), and only finished and published this one (in 1899, after a decade of desultory work) because he urgently wanted to raise money to help the heretical Dukhobors resettle in Canada. The result is an ungainly mix of gripping characters and plotlines (Tolstoy couldn’t help being Tolstoy) and long-winded preaching, with a side of social mockery. Here’s the meat of Prince Mirsky’s discussion in A History Of Russian Literature, incisive as usual:
Resurrection is not a perfect work of art: the moral idea, profusely supported by texts from the Gospels, is not organically fused into the fabric. The story of Nekhlyúdov’s conversion is on an inferior plane to that of Tolstóy’s own in A Confession, or of Iván Ilyích’s, or of the merchant in Master and Man. It is not a revelation of inner light, but a cold decision to adapt himself to the moral law so as to escape the stings of conscience and acquire inner peace. Resurrection presents Tolstóy and his teaching from the most unattractive side. For all that, it is a book by Tolstóy. But its best qualities are not characteristic of the later Tolstóy: they are rather, in a minor degree, those of Anna Karénina and War and Peace. The best thing in the novel is the minor realistic details he condemned so severely in What Is Art? The early story of Máslova is the best part of the book. It is full of that elusive poetry which reminds one of the subtle poetic atmosphere that accompanies Natásha in War and Peace. The account of the trial is excellent — sustained, concentrated, unexaggerated satire. It has not been surpassed by Tolstóy, except perhaps in the second part of the same novel, where he satirizes the bureaucratic society of Petersburg.
The style is severely impacted by all the moral tales he’d been cranking out for the edification of children and peasants; here’s a sample, from Louise Maude’s widely read translation (which came out the same year as the novel, 1899in 1900):
This is how the things he saw during these three months impressed Nekhludoff: From among the people who were free, those were chosen, by means of trials and the administration, who were the most nervous, the most hot tempered, the most excitable, the most gifted, and the strongest, but the least careful and cunning. These people, not a wit more dangerous than many of those who remained free, were first locked in prisons, transported to Siberia, where they were provided for and kept months and years in perfect idleness, and away from nature, their families, and useful work—that is, away from the conditions necessary for a natural and moral life. This firstly. Secondly, these people were subjected to all sorts of unnecessary indignity in these different places—chains, shaved heads, shameful clothing—that is, they were deprived of the chief motives that induce the weak to live good lives, the regard for public opinion, the sense of shame and the consciousness of human dignity. Thirdly, they were continually exposed to dangers, such as the epidemics so frequent in places of confinement, exhaustion, flogging, not to mention accidents, such as sunstrokes, drowning or conflagrations, when the instinct of self-preservation makes even the kindest, most moral men commit cruel actions, and excuse such actions when committed by others.
Fourthly, these people were forced to associate with others who were particularly depraved by life, and especially by these very institutions—rakes, murderers and villains—who act on those who are not yet corrupted by the measures inflicted on them as leaven acts on dough.
And, fifthly, the fact that all sorts of violence, cruelty, inhumanity, are not only tolerated, but even permitted by the government, when it suits its purposes, was impressed on them most forcibly by the inhuman treatment they were subjected to; by the sufferings inflicted on children, women and old men; by floggings with rods and whips; by rewards offered for bringing a fugitive back, dead or alive; by the separation of husbands and wives, and the uniting them with the wives and husbands of others for sexual intercourse; by shooting or hanging them. To those who were deprived of their freedom, who were in want and misery, acts of violence were evidently still more permissible. All these institutions seemed purposely invented for the production of depravity and vice, condensed to such a degree that no other conditions could produce it, and for the spreading of this condensed depravity and vice broadcast among the whole population.
One can share his indignation at society’s sins without wanting to be browbeaten while reading a novel. (I should mention that over half a century ago Tolstoy’s writings on pacifism and anarchism were extremely helpful to me in forming my own views, and I remain grateful to him; I simply think he should have kept his fiction and his propaganda apart.) I don’t know that I can recommend this novel to anyone (as Lizok reports, George Saunders called it the darkest novel he’s ever read), but I’m glad I got through it.
As matters of linguistic interest, there are a couple of mentions of Siberian dialects (the only actual example is Tolstoy’s footnote explaining that лопоть is a Siberian word for ‘clothing’) and the occasional appearance of English phrases and sentences (one of the characters is modeled on George Kennan); also, the Russian word for ‘resurrection,’ воскресение, is only slightly different from the word for ‘Sunday,’ воскресенье.
How did his writings on pacifism & anarchism influence you?
“They had him locked in a gunny sack
His hands were tied behind his back
He claimed he was a Doukhobor
But they never heard of that in Baltimore
The police said he’d better go home
And he went back alone
Back to the snow”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKkamOYkEXE
As for the Doukhobors: those that moved to British Columbia wanted to live in the forest away from society. But in the 1950’s the governments moved in and took their children and sent then to residential schools. It was just this month that the provincial government apologized for those actions — often bad things happened to children in those schools.
How did his writings on pacifism & anarchism influence you?
They helped make me a pacifist and an anarchist! In fact, quoting Tolstoy (along with Thoreau and other wise men) impressed my draft board enough to get me conscientious-objector status so I didn’t have to go fight (or rather refuse to fight) in Vietnam (or, of course, flee the country). Good man, Tolstoy.
one of the characters is modeled on George Kennan
he sounds fascinating! i’d only known of his namesake until now, somehow!
He was fascinating, and it’s a shame that he’s been so eclipsed by his distant cousin the diplomat.
I too was unaware of the elder Kennan and am pleased to become better-informed. That the Wilson administration reportedly did not heed the elder one’s advice to the same extent the Truman administration heeded the younger one’s advice might have something to do with his loss of prominence?
Strange to say, Resurrection, which I read in English when I was about 14, was the book that ignited my interest in literary fiction.
Amazing! Well, as I said, Tolstoy couldn’t help being Tolstoy, and I imagine he would have been pleased to hear that in some secret part of his complicated soul.
A recent-ish post about Tolstoy seems as good a thread as any to ask a question about Russian with religious/political implications. I have recently read various stories about the apparently-last speech our departed brother A.A. Navalny (vechnaya pamyat!) delivered in court before being returned to prison for the final time. In it he mixed references to the Holy Scriptures with references to (young people today …) Harry Potter. But in the former category he quoted from the Beatitudes, specifically Mt. 5:6, which is the verse conventionally Englished as beginning “blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.” Now, some more recent Russian translations have that as hungering and thirsting after праведности, which the standard references confirm (assuming putting it in the genitive singular makes syntactic sense) means “righteousness.” But the old Synodal translation and the Slavonic versions before that have this verse as hungering and thirsting after правды, which is usually translated as “truth.” Some coverage of Navalny’s remarks seemed to suggest he said правды.
So my question is, what’s up with that? I know there’s been discussion in prior threads of how there are multiple Russian words (pravda versus something else …) that match up with different English senses of “truth,” but did “pravda” historically have a wide enough semantic scope to also include “righteousness,” or was there just an early-medieval glitch in translation from the Greek that became traditional?
In any event, I found myself reflecting on Navalny’s life and death while listening repeatedly to this clip of the Beatitudes being chanted in Slavonic at Valaam, without critiquing the translators’ lexical choices in Slavonic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D1bzmGPlyw
The first Greek equivalent of правьда at the Старославянский словарь [Old Church Slavic dictionary] linked in the right margin is δικαιοσύνη, so I think “righteousness” is right.
I found myself reflecting on Navalny’s life and death while listening …
Thanks for that link, J.W. Brewer. I was happy to join you in such reflections. The world has lost a hero of rare stature.
@hat: interesting, thanks. So I guess the possibilities are that праведность is a more recent coinage intended to be more precise or that historically праведность overlapped in semantic scope with правда, but with more recent writers (or at least Bible translators) eventually wanting to treat them as contrastive rather than synonymous. OTOH, treating the fact that the Slavonic translators of the Gospels unquestionably did use правьда to render δικαιοσύνη as establishing that that’s what правьда “means” in Slavonic sort of just assumes away any possibility of a translation glitch or misunderstanding.
Dunno about Russian, but in all six modern Hungarian Bibles found here, in Matthew 5:6 they’re hungering and thirsting for igazság, which can correspond to both English “truth” and “justice”. All these translations also have Pilate asking Jesus “What is igazság?” (Greek ἀλήθεια) in John 18:38.
treating the fact that the Slavonic translators of the Gospels unquestionably did use правьда to render δικαιοσύνη as establishing that that’s what правьда “means” in Slavonic sort of just assumes away any possibility of a translation glitch or misunderstanding.
I’m pretty sure there was no translation glitch or misunderstanding. The whole complex of words has various shades of meaning that have shifted over time; the праведн- stem means ‘pious’ as well as ‘just,’ for instance.
The PiS(s) party that used to rule Poland and still has far too much influence stands for Prawda i Sprawiedliwość, which gets rendered “law and justice” or anyway Recht und Gerechtigkeit; note the *pravьd- in both, and the fact that the same word (справедливость) seems to mean the same thing in Russian.
The main demand of some medieval peasant uprising in southern Austria was supposedly stara pravda, rendered “old justice” (e.g. that the tithe should really be 1/10 and not more). (The spelling does not look contemporary, of course.)
Given that правда in modern Russian, although broadly meaning “truth”, is supposed to be a human quality more than an ontological one, thinking about the whole complex as having a basic meaning somewhere around “honesty ~ fairness” is perhaps most fruitful.
Now that I think about it, the insistence on equating lie and evil in the Avesta may be related… if all evil is in some way a lie about something, everything that is right is an honest statement…
I am happy to defer to the Slavonicists! Obviously both semantic shift over time and misunderstandings in translation are things that happen in the world (perhaps sometimes even interacting with each other in a given situation in a given language), but I am not competent to assess the evidence and historical record here.
hungering and thirsting for igazság, which can correspond to both English “truth” and “justice”
Oddly, the Dagara version also seems to have “truth” (unlike the versions for both Kusaal dialects and for Mooré.) Assuming that the word in question means the same as its cognates elsewhere; I don’t know of any Dagara dictionaries. It is the word used in John 18:38, too.
I can only surmise that this is the work of African Hungarians.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness.
was supposedly stara pravda, rendered “old justice”
…oh! Русская правда, the Kievan Rus law code.
(I’m guessing that’s not the specific law code that was used in Austria but it must have been the same word.)
“righteousness” is the Protestant translation; “justice” is the Catholic one. biblehub.
I can’t help thinking right : righteousness :: truth : truthiness
@mollymooly: the “Catholic” variation comes from the days when their translations into English were done from the Vulgate, which has “iustitia[m].” Once the Vatican blessed translations directly from the Greek, some of the newer ones plumped for “righteousness” instead.
As Brett alluded to, the same word (i.e. the same in Greek) pops up again a few verses later in the Beatitudes, and most traditional translations (including those into Slavonic & Russian) make the same lexical choice both places. You can find variation in some of the looser modern English versions that have fallen prey to the theory of so-called “dynamic equivalence.” E.g. the NLT has “hunger and thirst for justice” but “persecuted for doing right.” NB that the NLT is not a “Catholic” version, but was apparently prepared for a hypothetical audience of incurious Evangelical readers with limited vocabularies, and by the late 20th century at least “righteousness” was perceived as a more obscure or limited-register lexeme in English than “justice” was.