Full Description
Published in 1900, 'Resurrection' is Tolstoy's final large-scale novel. It's a morally-driven tale of personal redemption, featuring fewer characters than either War and Peace or Anna Karenina. Here we focus on one man and a single story line that spirals around a long-forgotten incident in his youth, which turns out to have had tragic consequences for another. The hero is the young St Petersburg aristocrat, Prince Dmitri. Having seduced a woman - Katyusha - and made her pregnant, he'd left her on her on her own and had thought no more about her until ten years later, he finds himself on a jury trying her for murder. It becomes apparent that her life fell apart after their brief liaison; the baby died, and she drifted into alcoholism and prostitution. As he hears the story, Dmitri feels personally responsible for all that has happened, and after Katyusha is unjustly sent to Siberia, he begins a spiritual journey to save both her and himself. Can he ever make up for what he did to her all those years ago? It's a quest which takes him to the highest offices in the land and to the bleakest prisons, as the absurdities and inequalities of pre-revolution Russia are savagely exposed.Dmitri uncovers a moral wasteland of vested interest and uncaring attitudes, with Tolstoy particularly hostile towards the Orthodox Church, which excommunicated him a year later, and the Russian penal system. Just as Dickens did in England, Tolstoy exposes the misery of the Russian under-class, but he's less sentimental than Dickens and angrier. And there are echoes here of another voice as well. As Boyd Tonkin said, 'Nowhere does Tolstoy sound closer in spirit to his old foe, Dostoyevsky.' There is an interesting back-story to the book itself. Though finished in 1899 and published in 1900, it was started ten years previously in 1889, and might never have been completed but for Tolstoy's desire to help raise funds for the persecuted Doukhobor sect. The royalties from the book were given to the Doukhabors to fund their emigration to Canada. In the Doukhabors, (which literally means, 'spiritual wrestlers') Tolstoy found an antidote to the religion and society he denounces in 'Resurrection'; and a living embodiment of his own religious and social ideas.Here were a people committed to honest toil, living off the land, communal sharing, pacifist principles and the teachings of Christ in deed. As Tolstoy wrote in one of his many letters to them, 'You are taking the lead and many are grateful to you for that. There is so much I'd like to tell you, and so much to learn from you.' The book continues to divide literary opinion. As a conduit for both beautiful writing and naked sermonising, 'Resurrection' is not a novel that invites the reader to make up their own mind. Instead, here is the raw energy of rage which finally erupted in the volcano that was the Russian Revolution of 1917.
Contents
TRANSLATORS PREFACE BOOK ONE CHAPTER 1. MASLOVA IN PRISON. CHAPTER 2. MASLOVA'S EARLY LIFE. CHAPTER 3. NEKHLUDOFF. CHAPTER 4. MISSY. CHAPTER 5. THE JURY MEN. CHAPTER 6. THE JUDGES. CHAPTER CHAPTER 9. THE TRIAL: THE PRISONERS QUESTIONED. CHAPTER 10. THE TRIAL: THE INDICTMENT. CHAPTER 11. THE TRIAL: MASLOVA CROSS-EXAMINED. CHAPTER 14. THE SECOND MEETING WITH MASLOVA. CHAPTER 15. THE EARLY MASS. CHAPTER 16. THE FIRST STEP. CHAPTER 17. NEKHLUDOFF AND KATUSHA. CHAPTER 18. AFTERWARDS. CHAPTER 19. THE TRIAL: RESUMPTION. CHAPTER 20. THE TRIAL: THE MEDICAL REPORT. CHAPTER 21. THE TRIAL: THE PROSECUTOR AND THE ADVOCATES. CHAPTER 22. THE TRIAL: THE SUMMING UP. CHAPTER 23. THE TRIAL: THE VERDICT. CHAPTER 24. THE TRIAL: THE CHAPTER 31. THE PRISONERS. CHAPTER 32. A PRISON QUARREL. CHAPTER MASLOVA. CHAPTER 37. MASLOVA RECALLS THE PAST. CHAPTER 38. SUNDAY IN PRISON: PREPARING FOR MASS. CHAPTER 39. THE PRISON CHURCH: BLIND VISITING DAY: THE MEN'S WARD. CHAPTER 42. VISITING DAY: THE WOMEN'S WARD. CHAPTER 43. NEKHLUDOFF VISITS MASLOVA. CHAPTER 44. MASLOVA'S CHAPTER 46. A PRISON FLOGGING. CHAPTER 47. NEKHLUDOFF AGAIN VISITS THE CELLS. CHAPTER 52. NUMBER TWENTY ONE. CHAPTER 53. VICTIMS OF GOVERNMENT. CHAPTER 54. PRISONERS AND FRIENDS. CHAPTER 55. VERA DOUKHOVA EXPLAINS. CHAPTER 56. NEKHLUDOFF AND THE PRISONERS. CHAPTER 57. THE VICE-GOVERNOR'S "AT-HOME". CHAPTER 58. THE VICE-GOVERNOR SUSPICIOUS. CHAPTER 59. NEKHLUDOFF'S THIRD INTERVIEW WITH MASLOVA IN LAND RESTORATION. CHAPTER 3. OLD ASSOCIATIONS. CHAPTER 4. THE PEASANTS' LOT. CHAPTER 5. MASLOVA'S AUNT. CHAPTER 6. REFLECTIONS OF A LANDLORD. CHAPTER 7. THE DISINHERITED. CHAPTER 8. GOD'S PEACE IN THE HEART. CHAPTER 9. THE LAND SETTLEMENT. CHAPTER X. NEKHLUDOFF NURSE MASLOVA. CHAPTER 14. AN ARISTOCRATIC CIRCLE. CHAPTER 15. AN AVERAGE STATESMAN. CHAPTER 16. AN UP-TO-DATE SENATOR. CHAPTER 17. COUNTESS KATERINA IVANOVNA'S DINNER PARTY. CHAPTER 18. OFFICIALDOM. CHAPTER 21. THE APPEAL DISMISSED. CHAPTER 22. AN OLD FRIEND. CHAPTER 23. THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR. CHAPTER 24. MARIETTE TEMPTS NEKHLUDOFF. CHAPTER 25. LYDIA SHOUSTOVA'S HOME. CHAPTER 26. LYDIA'S AUNT. CHAPTER 27. THE STATE CHURCH AND THE PEOPLE. CHAPTER 28. THE GOD'S. CHAPTER 30 THE ASTONISHING INSTITUTION CALLED CRIMINAL LAW. CHAPTER 31. NEKHLUDOFF'S SISTER AND HER HUSBAND. CHAPTER 32. THE PRISONERS START FOR SIBERIA. CHAPTER 35. NOT MEN BUT STRANGE AND TRAIN. CHAPTER 39. BROTHER AND SISTER. CHAPTER 40. THE FUNDAMENTAL GRAND MONDE. BOOK THREE CHAPTER 1. MASLOVA MAKES NEW FRIENDS. CHAPTER 4. SIMONSON CHAPTER 5. THE POLITICAL PRISONERS. CHAPTER 6. MASLOVA. CHAPTER 8. NEKHLUDOFF AND THE OFFICER. CHAPTER 9. THE POLITICAL PRISONERS. CHAPTER 10. MAKAR DEVKIN. CHAPTER 11. MASLOVA AND HER COMPANIONS. CHAPTER 12. NABATOFF AND MARKEL. CHAPTER 13. CHAPTER 21. "JUST A WORTHLESS TRAMP." CHAPTER 22. NEKHLUDOFF SEES THE GENERAL. CHAPTER 23. THE SENTENCE COMMUTED. CHAPTER 24. THE GENERAL'S HOUSEHOLD. CHAPTER 25. MASLOVA'S DECISION. CHAPTER 26. NEW LIFE DAWNS FOR NEKHLUDOFF.
