Andrei Zorin, professor of history and Russian literature at the University of Oxford, has recently published a new book titled "Leo Tolstoy…Critical Lives," exploring the life of the famous Russian Novelist.
The new book shed lights on many aspects in the life of Tolstoy who treated his novels as one complete indivisible unit. The geniality of the Russian novelist according to Zorin "lies in combining the truth and depth; he was ready for any event, no matter how silly it seemed, to make major conclusion about humanity."
Then, he explores the relationship of the "War and Peace" writer with Gorky, Turgenev, Chekhov, and Dostoevsky. He also discusses the political turmoil, mainly the Emancipation of Serfs, which dominated the context of Tolstoy's novels about a country where the authorities lost all aspects of integrity.
But Tolstoy didn't see novels writing as a way to improve the world, according to Zorin. His chaotic political, ethical, radical, anti- modernization views were mixed in a new form of Christian heresy and movements opposing the popular views at the time. According to the Economist magazine, "Leo Tolstoy…Critical Lives" is a book that "doesn't only narrate the life of Tolstoy in a clear and accurate way in the course of the Russian history, but it also focuses on his personality, values, and emotions. It provides new views on how his personal life shaped his literary creations as well."
Commenting on the new book, Donald Rayfield, professor of Russian and Georgian studies at the University of London, said: "I didn't see other biographies written about Tolstoy that are brief, objective, enjoyable, and interesting like this."
