Showing results by author "Leo Tolstoy" in All Categories

The Death of Ivan Ilyitch is the story of a socially ambitious middle-aged judge who contracts an unexplained and untreatable illness. As Ivan Ilyitch is forced to face the death he fears, he asks himself whether the life he thought was so correct was, in fact, a moral life after all. Written after Tolstoy's religious conversion, the novella is widely considered to be one of his masterpieces.View our full collection of podcasts at our website: https://www.solgoodmedia.com or YouTube channel: https://www.solgood.org/subscribe Check out our ad free subscription: http://www.adfreesounds.com for ...

Leo Tolstoy's "A Confession," written in 1882 shortly after a life-altering spiritual crisis, is a brutally sincere reflection on life, morality, and the nature of faith. Tolstoy describes in great detail the process by which he lost his faith in established Christian churches, the meaninglessness of wealth and fame, the agony of acute depression, and how he overcame misery and dread through personal study of the teachings of Jesus Christ. Along the way, he contrasts the artificial faith and arrogance of educated people with the genuine faith and humility of the Russian peasant. This work, and...

Boyhood is the second in Tolstoy's trilogy of three autobiographical novels, including Childhood and Youth, published in a literary journal during the 1850s.View our full collection of podcasts at our website: https://www.solgoodmedia.com or YouTube channel: https://www.solgood.org/subscribe Check out our ad free subscription: http://www.adfreesounds.com for our Premium, 10 Hour Sounds

Two love stories are set against the backdrop of high society in Tsarist Russia. Anna awakes from a loveless marriage to find herself drawn irresistibly to the dashing cavalry officer, Count Vronsky. Levin struggles with self-esteem, and even flees to the country, before gaining courage to return and offer himself to the beautiful and pure Kitty. Through troubled courtships, reconciliations, marriage and the birth of each one’s first child, Anna and Levin experience joy and despair as they each struggle to find their place in the world and meaning for their lives.View our full collection of ...

When Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace was published in 1869, his genius was immediately recognized by people all over the world. In the later part of Leo Tolstoy's life, however, he began to share his deepest thoughts about Christianity in his writing. His definition of Christianity was not the same as the priests and bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church where there was so much pomp and pageantry. Tolstoy could care less for all that ceremony. He was a radical follower of Jesus Christ's teachings, particularly as found in the Sermon on the Mount (including Christ's controversial admonitions to "...

Diese Novelle gilt in der Literatur als die "die gewaltigste Sterbegeschichte, die jemals geschrieben wurde". Das Thema des Todes ist das Zentrum, die beklemmend-eindringliche Schilderung dieses Weges zum Tod, die tragische Geschichte eines erfolgreichen Menschen in der Blüte seines Lebens.

Das ist die Geschichte der adligen Familie Karenin, einer dekadenten, in gesellschaftlichen Normen erstarrten Sippe. Die Kälte ihres Gatten treibt die sensible Anna dem wesentlich jüngeren Grafen Wronskij in die Arme. Diese stark sexuell orientierte Beziehung endet im Fiasko. Schließlich richtet Anna sich selbst, aber auch ihren Mann und den Geliebten zugrunde. In der anderen großen Figur des Romans, dem Gutsbesitzer Lewin, hatte sich Tolstoi selbst verewigt. Nach "Krieg und Frieden" war dies der zweite große Roman seines Lebens und begründete damit seinen Weltruhm als Schriftsteller.

A Confession is a beautiful and thorough dive into that timeless question, “What is the meaning of life?”. After fifty-one years of life and during the height of his fame, Tolstoy began to question everything. Through a creative and insightful analogy, Tolstoy depicts the crisis of reality that emerges when one questions the existence of God. An existence that he had been taught since childhood and had followed along with his whole life. He uses deduction and logic, rationality and reason, then allows for emotions and reactions and is ultimately able to land on the answers to his questions.

Beautiful and intelligent young Anna suffers in her loveless marriage, dreaming of the romantic life she should be living, and the love that others around her should be sharing honestly with one another. When she meets the dashing Vronsky he seems to offer everything she has been craving, but the cost she will pay is higher than she could have imagined. Meanwhile Konstantin Levin, a gentle landowner who shares Anna's belief in sincerity, attempts to channel his beliefs into his land, his family, and his love for beautiful aristocrat Kitty.

It happened in the seventies in winter, on the day after St. Nicholas's Day. There was a fete in the parish and the innkeeper, Vasili Andreevich Brekhunov, a Second Guild merchant, being a church elder had to go to church, and had also to entertain his relatives and friends at home. But when the last of them had gone he at once began to prepare to drive over to see a neighbouring proprietor about a grove which he had been bargaining over for a long time. He was now in a hurry to start, lest buyers from the town might forestall him in making a profitable purchase.