Leo Tolstoy and Vasily Rozanov: two confessions

Abstract

The article compares two literary texts of confessions – by Leo Tolstoy and Vasily Rozanov. The author takes into account the change of literary styles, associated with the transition from Tolstoy’s realism to the modernism reflected in Rozanov’s «fallen leaves». Tolstoy’s confessionalism, created in line with the tradition of Augustine and Rousseau, becomes the catalyst for the new forms of confession reflected in the ironic philosophy of Rozanov. The text by Tolstoy is a confession of the autonomous self, who strives to overcome his carnal beginning on the way to the spiritualization of the personality. The latter is achieved by estrangement from his social circle, his profession as a writer, his family, that is, from himself for the sake of spiritual salvation. This way is about returning to Christ as a bastion of love and non-resistance to evil, as well as establishing a loving spiritual connection with the world of others. Rozanov’s confession is different: it is possible only in the form of an initial unity of the Self with Others: with the world of his family, his wife, friends, readers, and even with the world of things around him. What Tolstoy separates in man and the world – the carnal and the spiritual – Rozanov sees as initially united in any phenomenon. The comparison of two confessions allows us to demonstrate a number of fundamental shifts in philosophy and literature in the early XX^th century.