Leo Tolstoy - Resurrection. Gift book bound in leather

Ten years of work, publication bans, and Tolstoy's late spiritual quest

Resurrection is Tolstoy's last novel, it reflects the spiritual and creative quest of the last years of the writer's life. Started in 1889, the novel was finished and was published 10 years later — in 1899. In the Russian press, many scenes and even chapters were banned from publication. The novel "Resurrection" was among those works of Tolstoy, because of which he was excommunicated from the Church. After the revolution of 1917, the situation changed dramatically: the novel, where the clergy were criticized and exiled revolutionaries were portrayed, was willingly printed in large editions, in Soviet interpretations it turned almost into a political agitation, and the story of the resurrection of Prince Nekhludoff and Katyusha Maslova appeared edifying and implausible. Today the novel is read differently. Tolstoy's insightful and ambiguous attitude to the coming changes is felt in him, and his desire to get away from any kind of bias, and his attraction to a comprehensive and deep coverage of Russian reality of the last third of the XIX century.