Tolstoy

Summary

According to Stefan Zweig, no contemporary author, not even Marx or Nietzsche, delivered the radical spiritual shock that Tolstoy's works gave millions and millions of people around the world. But which Tolstoy are we talking about? For Zweig it is the essayist Tolstoy, the radical thinker and incorruptible anarchist. The Tolstoy who claims that the state is the great cover-up of social injustice through a complex system of violence based on parliaments, prisons, judges, tax collectors, the police and armies. The Tolstoy, who asserts that the religious and moral convictions of every individual are inalienable and that no outside power can establish their domain there. This audiobook contains an English translation of an essay about Tolstoy written by Stefan Zweig in his 1928 book „Drei Dichter ihres Lebens: Casanova, Stendhal, Tolstoi“. The biographical study, which does not skimp on criticism, offers an interesting perspective on what is probably the most important Russian novelist of the 19th century.