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A Confession — cover

Essay · 1879–82

A Confession

Исповедь

At the height of his fame, Tolstoy asks what it is all for — and rebuilds his life around the answer.

LT Leo Tolstoy Leo Tolstoy 1828 – 1910 · Russia

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In the late 1870s, at the height of his fame, Tolstoy found himself asking a question he could not answer: what is the point of anything, if death comes anyway? A Confession is his plain, searching account of that crisis — the doubt, the despair and the new faith he found in the teachings of the Gospels.

It was censored in Russia and circulated for years in copies passed from hand to hand. It is the key to everything he wrote afterwards.

See it on Tolstoy’s timeline
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