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

A guide to online resources in English about Tolstoy's "Death of Ivan Ilyich"
Last update: Oct 31st, 2008 URL: http://uiuc.libguides.com/ivanilyich  Print Guide  RSS Updates

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Tolstoy and the Church

Tolstoy was a deeply religious thinker, yet he was excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church. Ivan Ilyich’s wife urges him to take final communion, but the experience fails to have meaning for him. What are the religious issues in Tolstoy’s novel? Research the Russian Orthodox Church and its dissident groups in Tolstoy’s time, and explore Tolstoy’s religious writing in his Confession. Archive your investigation.

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.

 

Flier about Tolstoy and Excommunication

 

 

This is very definitely a subject where there is an enormous amount of literature. Searching any of the databases listed on the "Searching for Tolstoy" page will yield material on the subject.

The first step here will be to identify the religious dissident groups. There are a number of ways to go about this, but one simple one is to simply perform a search on "Tolstoy religion" in a database such as American Periodicals Series. This database is especially helpful here as most of the other sources bring up either too much material on the history of the Orthodox church, or material related only to Tolstoy's religious philosophy. Once you have identified the various dissident groups, it is simple enough to perform a search on them.

The next part of this topic involves looking at Tolstoy's Confession. This work was heavily reviewed in the critical literature, so it should not be difficult to find any number of reviews. Below are a number of selected materials from the Gale Literature Resource Center.

The full text of Tolstoy's Confession is available at http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/tolstoy/confession.html. 



 


 

















Tolstoy, Leo (nikolaevich)
Atkins, Gaius Glenn, Tolstoy's Confessions, in Pilgrims of the Lonely Road, Books for Libraries Press, Inc., 1913, pp. 281-334. Reprinted in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 79. Reproduced in Literature Resource Center. 		




Tolstoy, Leo (nikolaevich)
Cain, T. G. S., The Religious Crisis: A Confession, in Tolstoy, Paul Elek Ltd., 1977, pp. 124-36. Reprinted in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 79. Reproduced in Literature Resource Center. 		




Tolstoy, Leo (nikolaevich)
Farrar, F. W., Count Leo Tolstoi, in Social and Present Day Questions, Bradley & Woodruff, 1891, pp. 343-54. Reprinted in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 79. Reproduced in Literature Resource Center. 		




Tolstoy, Leo (nikolaevich)
Farrar, F. W., Count Leo Tolstoi, in The Forum, Vol. VI, No. 2, October, 1888, pp. 109-24. Reprinted in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 79. Reproduced in Literature Resource Center. 		




Tolstoy, Leo (nikolaevich)
Fausset, Hugh I'Anson, The Testimony of Tolstoy, in Poets and Pundits: Essays and Addresses, Jonathan Cape, 1947, pp. 13-30. Reprinted in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 79. Reproduced in Literature Resource Center. 		




Tolstoy, Leo (nikolaevich)
Hubbard, Sara A., The Confession of Count Tolstoi, in The Dial, Vol. 8, No. 90, October, 1887, pp. 125-27. Reprinted in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 79. Reproduced in Literature Resource Center. 		




Tolstoy, Leo (nikolaevich)
James, William, The Sick Soul, in The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature, Longmans, Green and Co., 1902, pp. 149-57. Reprinted in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 79. Reproduced in Literature Resource Center. 		




Tolstoy, Leo (nikolaevich)
Lee, Vernon, Tolstoi as Prophet, in Gospels of Anarchy and Other Contemporary Studies, T. Fisher Unwin, 1908, pp. 105-31. Reprinted in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 79. Reproduced in Literature Resource Center. 		




Tolstoy, Leo (nikolaevich)
Mann, Thomas, Tolstoy, in The Dial, Vol. 85, December, 1928, pp. 453-57. Reprinted in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 79. Reproduced in Literature Resource Center. 		




Tolstoy, Leo (nikolaevich)
Matual, David, The Confession as Subtext in The Death of Ivan Il'ich, in The International Fiction Review, Vol. 8, No. 2, Summer, 1981, pp. 124-28. Reprinted in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 79. Reproduced in Literature Resource Center. 		




Tolstoy, Leo (nikolaevich)
Maude, Aylmer, The Root of Religion, in The Sackbut, Vol. VII, No. II, June, 1927, pp. 314-16. Reprinted in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 79. Reproduced in Literature Resource Center. 		




Tolstoy, Leo (nikolaevich)
Maude, Aylmer, Tolstoy's Teaching, in Tolstoy and His Problems, Grant Richards, 1902, pp. 25-36. Reprinted in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 79. Reproduced in Literature Resource Center. 		




Tolstoy, Leo (nikolaevich)
Maude, Aylmer, "Life of Tolstoy," reprinted in Tolstoy: The Critical Heritage, Edited by A. V. Knowles, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978, pp. 225-32. Reprinted in Novels for Students, Vol. 10. Reproduced in Literature Resource Center. 		




Tolstoy, Leo (nikolaevich)
Patterson, David, The Movement of Faith as Revealed in Tolstoi's Confession, in Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 74, Nos. 3-4, July-October, 1978, pp. 227-43. Reprinted in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 79. Reproduced in Literature Resource Center. 		




Tolstoy, Leo (nikolaevich)
Spence, G. W., Suicide and Sacrifice in Tolstoy's Ethics, in The Russian Review, Vol. 22, No. 2, April, 1963, pp. 157-67. Reprinted in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 79. Reproduced in Literature Resource Center. 		




Tolstoy, Leo (nikolaevich)
Stepun, Fedor, The Religious Tragedy of Tolstoy, in The Russian Review, Vol. 19, No. 2, April, 1960, pp. 157-70. Reprinted in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 79. Reproduced in Literature Resource Center. 		















 
 
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