Big Read: The Death of Ivan Ilyich  Tags: slavic literature  

Tolstoy’s reputation is based not only on his great literary works, but also on his actions as a public figure (his protests against capital punishment, for example, and his pacifism). Research Tolstoy’s activities as a public figure and his influence on others beyond the boundaries of Russia and beyond his lifetime. How would Tolstoy respond to global warming, the war on terror, and violence in American public life? Archive your project.

Research tips: Be sure to check the suggestions under "Searching for Tolstoy", "Google Books", "Another Approach", "Media",and "Biography and Bibliography" if you are having trouble getting started.

Was Tolstoy popular in the West in his own time? Was there controversy surrounding his many philosophical and religious beliefs? How can you find this information?

Actually, if you are working from a library, it is fairly easy to find answers to these questions. Material on Tolstoy's time and his contemporaries is available in a number of full text online databases.

One of the best is the American Periodicals Series which includes the full text of newspapers and journals published in the United States from 1741 to 1940.

Like many databases, you can refine your search to make it as specific or general as you want:

An example of the type of material you can find can be viewed by looking at the image below. You can see that this search was performed on the words "tolstoy and protest". The search was also limited to articles published between 1872 and 1910. Over 50 articles were returned from this search. It is easy to isolate journal and newspaper articles by clicking on the appropriate tab above the list of article titles.

You can also see highlighted here the journal titles. Many of these obviously were particularly focused on politics, protest movements or religion. If you find one that is especially useful, you can limit your search to that publication by clicking on "Refine Search" and specifying that title in the search box labelled "Publication Title". Clicking on any of the article titles will give you access to the full text of the article that is cited.

The article linked below, along with more than 100 others, was returned on a simple search of the words "Tolstoy and America".

"What Tolstoy Means to America"

One very useful thing about this article is that it provides the names of some of Tolstoy's disciples. These can be used in other searches to find more information on Tolstoy's many admirers in the West.