Resurrection (Воскресение) part.1 — Tolstoy

Resurrection, Vol. 1

Author

Tolstoy

Publisher

Mineumsa | published 2003-11-11

Category

Novel

Book description

A masterpiece the great Russian writer Tolstoy completed in his later years, like 'War and Peace'...

Nekhlyudov and Maslova. The book's two themes emerge through these two characters. I haven't finished Vol. 2 yet, so it'll be hard to describe perfectly which themes it's built on. But I can give a rough account, so let me briefly explain what I felt in Vol. 1 and talk about what Tolstoy had in mind writing this book (in my view). He didn't write Anna Karenina right before this, but research papers often write that the ideal of religious sublimation that appeared in 'Anna Karenina' was completed in Resurrection, so I decided to read this book. It was a thought that had settled in my mind to some degree from when I read a few papers on Tolstoy and Dostoevsky before reading Anna Karenina, but I started acting on it later than expected. 'Les Misérables' was in the way, so it couldn't be helped.

This book's main characters, Maslova and Nekhlyudov, appear at different points and meet in one space — the 'courtroom.' At the time it was written, the period of trials and exile for 'thought criminals' was at its height. Maslova was not a thought criminal; she was on trial under suspicion of murder, and Nekhlyudov, as a rich young gentleman, came to take part in this trial as one of the jurors. The incident unfolded like this. Maslova, having reached the very bottom of life and become a prostitute, was drinking with a man, slipped a drug she didn't really know (thinking it was a sleeping pill) into his drink, and because of that drug the man died; she was brought to court along with two other suspects who had led this murder. All three were under suspicion of murder, but the two besides Maslova hired an expensive lawyer with money stolen from the dead man and tried to pin the crime on Maslova; however, because Nekhlyudov — who remembered Maslova, the very Maslova with whom he had shared affection and fallen in love in his youth — was on the jury, there arose a chance to dramatically save Maslova, and the guilt seemed to fall to the other 'two.' But due to a single momentary slip of a sentence, Maslova, though without intent, was treated as 'guilty,' and in the end is sent back to prison. At this, Nekhlyudov thinks that saving Maslova is the way to repent of the 'sin' that had until now been invisible to him, and to realize the religious ideal he envisions, he sets out and begins running about.

That's roughly the opening of the story. Nekhlyudov began this work for repentance. But repentance toward Maslova is not the only content of this book. At the same time there's one larger matter — the problem of 'land.' Agriculture was still, even then, the main livelihood of country people. To him, the title of landlord must have been a seat full of power. He intended not to turn people into serfs and exploit their income, but to lease land at a low price and manage it himself. And he'd manage it only out of necessity. For if no one managed it and a merchant could buy it, that merchant would buy up all the land, and as a result no one would be able to farm. He didn't want to do even minimal management, but for the good of the nation and the people he wanted to sacrifice himself and act.

As he began visiting Maslova, he begins to ponder 'prison' — no, the very system of society's laws and punishments. He thinks about whether the laws humans made — putting people in jails and prisons, severing them from society to reduce crime and lead people to obey the law — were actually realized.

The suffering Menshov endured for no reason was utterly absurd. But what was most terrible was not the physical suffering he underwent; it was the doubt and distrust about good and evil that he would come to hold because of the cruel people who inflicted pain on him without any reason to. And it was terrible, too, that hundreds of people who had committed no wrong were locked up and humiliated and tormented merely because a date written on a document had passed. The faces of the unfeeling guards, who tormented fellow human beings, their own brethren, while believing this to be the most desirable, good profession, were also in fact terrible. But what frightened Nekhlyudov even more was the existence of that kind warden who, with an unhealthy body already entering life's final stretch, had to separate mothers and sons, fathers and daughters — people just like himself and his own children — from one another.

'Why must it be this way?' Nekhlyudov asked himself, feeling the spiritual nausea that turns physical, which he felt each time he visited the prison. But the answer never came to mind.

The author reveals his reflections on the social system through 'Nekhlyudov.' He's saying that once you sever someone from society, it rather causes a counter-effect, failing to remove society's overall problems and coming back around. Through the sight of people who had never once fallen becoming accustomed to the waters of corruption and turning antisocial, or people who are entirely innocent but cannot get out of prison for 'administrative' reasons — there are various reasons, but seeing officials leave things as they are, unable to do otherwise because of the 'bureaucratic' nature of having to follow orders, Nekhlyudov agonizes over whether this is truly a correct reality.

Because Tolstoy unfolded, through Nekhlyudov, the contents of his pondering what the true teaching of religion is and what a true society and communal life are while spreading out his ideals, I could feel the 'high-society' culture that was the Russian society of the time's own private league, and its severance from the common people.

In Vol. 2 I should talk a little about religion, talk about Tolstoy overall, and wrap up. Resurrection, following Anna Karenina, seems to be something I gained more by internalizing myself than by leaving in writing.