Lev Tolstoy Goes to Hollywood

   Few people have had the impact on Russian literature that Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) has had.  His novels and short stories have been translated into numerous languages and people from various cultures are familiar with these stories.  Three of his stories including Anna Karenina, one of the greatest novels ever written, The Kreutzer Sonata, and Two Hussars were even made into American films.  These three films were all produced by British producer Bernard Rose (b. 1960). His adaptation of Anna Karenina was certainly not the only one produced for an English speaking audience, but it was certainly one of the best adaptations. 

    In this article I will look at these three films, namely “Anna Karenina” (1997), “The Kreutzer Sonata” (2008), and “Two Jacks” (2011).  I will examine these three films in order to see how faithful they are to the novels themselves and how well they correspond with one another. 

    The 1997 film “Anna Karenina” which stars Sophie Marceau (b. 1966) in the title role, is a very interesting adaption of Tolstoy’s novel.  It was obvious that Rose had borrowed several ideas from the 1948 film with Vivien Leigh, but he also added some new elements which were not present in the earlier films.  For example, the story, in this film, is told by Lev Tolstoy through the character of Constantine Levin.  However, some of the elements of the earlier films about this novel, such as the difficulties between Stepan and Dolly at the beginning of the film, are not present. 

    Sir Georg Solti’s (1912-1997) choice of music also had a profound impact on the film.  Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky’s (1840-1893) Sixth Symphony, which he wrote prior to his own death, the choice of Tatiana’s aria from the opera “Evgeny Onegin”, and the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) helped to tell the story, even without words. For some reason, Sir George did not list this film among the films he is credited with serving as music director for.¹  
    Eleven years later, Bernard Rose decided to produce a modern film version of The Kreutzer Sonata. This novella is believed, by some, to be Tolstoy’s argument in favor of sexual abstinence and against marriage.² It also deals with the question of whether or not true love is possible.³  

     This film was a very interesting 21^st century “American” approach to a 19^th century Russian novella.  Set in Los Angeles, California, this film remains quite faithful to the story line of the novel; however, it can be seen as extremely pornographic, especially if one of the original themes of Tolstoy’s novella was the virtue of sexual abstinence.⁴  

     I have no objection to nudity in a film if it is used for artistic reasons, such as to enhance the storyline; however in this film the constant nudity almost became the storyline. 

     It is unfortunate that modern American films must contain graphic nudity, excessive killings, and/or massive explosions; otherwise they will not do well at the box office.  Some people will argue this is not true and point to the 2012 film version of “Anna Karenina” as an example. However, that film won an Academy Award for “Best Costume Design”, not for “Best Picture”.  Hollywood markets films in the same way cigarettes are marketed according to the late great Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986) ⁵ What Tarkovsky said in the 1980s is even more true today.

     The third film is “Two Jacks” a 2011 film based upon an 1856 short story entitled Two Hussars by Tolstoy. ⁶   There was also a 1984 Soviet film entitled “Two Hussars” which was also based upon this short story.⁷  In the original story the reader is meant to understand that the son is not only a different generation than his father, but that this later generation has actually become worse.  This insight was made quite clear in Bernard Rose’s 2011 film; however, it was not as clear in the 1984 Soviet film. 

      In the 1984 film the father and son were both played by the same actor (with an implied time lapse in the film) and it was difficult to understand why the son was less likeable than the father.  However, this was more obvious in the 2011 film. 

      Danny Huston (b. 1962) plays “Jack, Sr.” and his nephew Jack Huston (b. 1982) plays “Jack, Jr.” and it is somewhat easy to see why Jack, Sr. was a much more likeable character than Jack, Jr.  The movie begins with the audience being introduced to Jack, Sr. at the airport and the film ends with Jack, Jr. at the same airport (in the same terminal) twenty years later. 

    This was the third time that Rose included Danny Huston in one of his films. In addition to playing Jack, Sr. in this film, Huston also played Stepan, Anna Karenina’s brother, in the 1997 film and he played the main character in “The Kreutzer Sonata”.  It would appear that Bernard Rose is quite impressed with Danny Huston’s acting ability. 

     Each of these films remained quite faithful to the novel or short story they were based upon.  These three stories explore very important issues which are still as relevant today as they were when they were written in the 19^th century. With the current divorce rate at over 50%, many young people ask themselves if true love is really possible. 

    In Ezekiel 18 it is written, “The father eats green grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”  What the prophet Ezekiel is saying that the actions of the parents have a direct impact on their children.  Another phrase we often heard used is “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”.  Based upon “Two Jacks”, both the quote by the Prophet Ezekiel and the apple are still quite true.  Lev Tolstoy was a deeply religious man and he may very well have had the Bible quote from Ezekiel 18 in mind when he wrote Two Hussars.

      Bernard Rose showed us that the same personalities which could be found in Anna Karenina, The Kreutzer Sonata, and Two Hussars are still very much alive today.   This is a hallmark of classic literature and it is wonderful that this producer was able to introduce these stories by Lev Tolstoy to an audience who may have been familiar with only Anna Karenina and War and Peace.    

                                                          End Notes

1)    “Anna Karenina: A Cinematic Journey on the Silver Screen from 1927 to 2012” http://heideggerm1.blogspot.com/2013/03/anna-karenina-cinematic-journey-on.html 

2)    “The Kreutzer Sonata” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kreutzer_Sonata  

3)    “The Possibility of True Love” http://heideggerm1.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-possibility-of-true-love.html  

4)    “The Kreutzer Sonata (2008 film)” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kreutzer_Sonata_(2008_film)  

5)    “Andrei Tarkovsky: A Poet in the Cinema (1983)” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTvIybrtMqU (47:55)

6)    “Two Hussars” http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Two_Hussars

7)    “Two Hussars (Russian Film)” http://rusact.com/movie-opinion-10792-Dva-Gusara-Two-Hussars-Velikolepnaya-Klassika  

Film Adaptations of Classic Russian Novels

  There has been a long history of adapting classic Russian novels to film in the English speaking world.  These classic novels by authors like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pasternak, and others allow an English speaking audience to enter into a world with which they are completely unfamiliar and see that the issues which these people face are dealt with all over the world. 

   In this article I will look at the 1935 American film adaptation of “Crime and Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoevsky, the 1956 film “War and Peace”, “Brothers Karamazov” (1958), the 1965 film “Doctor Zhivago”, and the 2002 BBC adaptation of “Crime and Punishment”.  I will examine several films and television series about classic Russian novels in order to see how faithful they are to the novels themselves and how well they correspond with one another. 

  Joseph von Sternberg (1894-1969) directed “Crime and Punishment”¹, a 1935 film based upon the novel of the same name by Fyodor Dostoevsky. This film starred Peter Lorre in the title role as Rodin Raskolnikov (his first name was changed to Roderick for an American audience).  This film bore little, if any resemblance, to the novel.  In fact, the director was so disappointed with this film that he does not list it among the films he is credited with directing.         

    What was America’s fascination with classic Russian literature that in a span of two years, from 1956 to 1958, both War and Peace by Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) and “Brothers Karamazov” by Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881) were made into films?  The American people would have known very little about Russia in 1956.  Both countries were in the middle of the Cold War and there was a great deal of propaganda on both sides regarding how horrible the other country was.

    The 1956 film “War and Peace”² starred Henry Fonda as Pierre Bezuhov and Audrey Hepburn as Natasha Rostova (the two main characters).  This film does not cover every aspect of Tolstoy’s original novel, but focuses on the relationship of three of the main characters.  Very early in the film there is a scene where Pierre is getting drunk with a group of friends.  This scene contains every almost every possible Russian stereotype, except for a dancing bear.  At one point in the scene one of the characters is standing backward on the window ledge and facing inside the room.  He begins to bend over backward while drinking a bottle of vodka.  Apparently, the winner was the person who could finish drinking the vodka without falling out of the window.  Other than feeding into a Russian stereotype, what was the point of this “game”?  This scene is not in the novel; however, the director, King Vidor (1894-1982) felt it necessary to put it in the movie.

    The costumes are wonderful.  In typical Hollywood style of the time, the film makes everything appear almost larger than life by virtue of the camera angles.  This film has a wonderful cast of actors, but financially it was unsuccessful.  It earned only $250,000 for the studio. A large part of the reason might have been that this was an epic film about a Russian novel.  Americans did not normally watch epic films, particularly those about Russian novels.

     It is not that Americans were opposed to epic films.  In the same year that “War and Peace” was completed, Cecil B. DeMille completed “The Ten Commandments” for a different studio.  “The Ten Commandments” is also an epic film, but the story of Moses would have been much better known by an American audience. 

     Two years after the completion of “War and Peace”, Richard Brooks (1912-1992) directed “Brothers Karamazov”³.  This movie is based upon a novel of the same name by Fyodor Dostoevsky.  The novel tells the story of three brothers (Dmitry, Alexei, and Ivan) and their relationship with each other and their father, Fyodor.  It is also a “murder mystery” since Fyodor is killed and the reader must determine who committed the murder.

     Fyodor Karamazov (played by Lee J. Cobb) is not a very likeable figure.  In the one of the first scenes in the film, the audience is introduced to Fyodor Karamazov after he has tied a woman to his bed and is interrupted because his son, Alexei (film debut for William Shatner) has arrived at his home.  Fyodor is a rather boorish man who seems to respect Alexei only. 

      In the novel, Dmitry Karamazov sees himself as being a rather foolish person and his actions reflect his belief about himself.  In the movie, Dmitry (played by Yul Brenner) comes across as a rather self-confident, if not arrogant, person.  He constantly borrows money from his father and this has become a source of tension between the two of them since Dmitry never paid back what he borrowed. 

     Another character is Smerdyakov, half-brother to the Karamazov brothers and son of Fyodor.  Smerdyakov is treated very poorly by Fyodor Karamazov in the film.  Dmitry is accused of murdering Fyodor; however, Smerdyakov confesses to Ivan Karamazov (played by Richard Basehart) that he killed Fyodor. Dmitry is put on trial for murder, but, instead of Smerdyakov confessing in court that he killed Fyodor, he kills himself. 

     In both the novel and film, Dmitry is convicted of murdering his father.  However, in the novel he accepts his fate and considers himself to be a martyr for love.  After being convicted of murder, Dmitry is sent to prison in Siberia and the woman he loved went to be with him in Siberia.

     The film shows Dmitry deciding to escape rather than board a train bound for Siberia.  He became a fugitive and the rest of the film deals with the topic: “Will Dmitry escape from Russia?”  What was the reason why Richard Brooks decided to add this into the film when it was not in the novel?  We do not know.  It is possible he did so because of the lack of justice in Dmitry’s conviction.  He was wrongfully convicted and should be able to escape rather than going to prison.  The movie ends without the audience knowing if he ever escaped from Russia. 

    It is also interesting that Yul Brenner is the only person in this film who had any connection to Russia.  He was born in Russia, but lived most of his life in either the US or Western Europe. 

    Another Western adaptation of a classic Russian novel was the 1965 film “Doctor Zhivago”⁴ starring Omar Sharif as Yuri Zhivago.  This film was based upon the novel of the same name by well-known poet, Boris Pasternak (1890-1960)⁵.  This novel was first published in Milan in 1957. Pasternak won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958 for Doctor Zhivago, but was forbidden to attend the award ceremony by the Soviet government of Nikita Khrushchev. 

    This film continues to be extremely popular.  Like “War and Peace” this was an epic film, but it was much more acceptable to an American audience.  Perhaps it was simply the period of history when this film was made or the strong love story plot of the film, but it earned over $100,000,000 for its studio.  In the US, the success of a film is based largely upon the amount of money that the film earned rather than the depth of the subject matter. 

     Pasternak depicts Lara as an almost unscrupulous woman who uses her sexuality to obtain what she wants from life, but in the film David Lean (1908-1991), the director, presents Lara (portrayed by Julie Christie) as more of a victim.  In the 2006 Russian TV series “Doctor Zhivago”, Lara is not a very likeable character.   

     Since this film was released in 1965 and the US was still involved in the Cold War with the USSR, David Lean did not spend as much time focusing on the events of the Russian revolution as Pasternak did.   The love story between Yuri and Lara is what made this film successful along with the beauty of the Russian scenery which an American audience would never have seen in person.

      A very good English speaking adaptation of a classic Russian novel was the 2002 TV mini-series “Crime and Punishment” produced by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC). This series was extremely faithful to the novel.  The BBC felt no obligation to change the story line in order to adapt this novel to television.  This is much easier to do with a mini-series since it continues over several episodes instead of a film which only lasts for a few hours, at most. 

    Since I wrote about the various adaptations of Anna Karenina by Lev Tolstoy (1828-1910) in another article⁶, I have decided to forego writing about it here.  One important fact to remember is that no other novel has had more film adaptations made about it than Anna Karenina. 

    Attempting to turn a novel into a film while, at the same time, remaining faithful to the original novel is not an easy process; however, this is very important. Poetic license does allow for some changes, but how many changes can be made before a movie is no longer connected with a particular novel?  I once heard it said, “Never judge a book by its movie”⁷ and there is a great deal of truth in that statement.

                                                          End Notes

1)    “Crime and Punishment: (1935 American Film)” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_and_Punishment_(1935_American_film) 

2)    “War and Peace (1956 film)” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_and_Peace_(1956_film)

3)    “The Brothers Karamazov (1958 film)” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brothers_Karamazov_(1958_film)

4)    “Doctor Zhivago (film)” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Zhivago_(film)

5)    “Boris Pasternak” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Pasternak

6)    “Anna Karenina: A Cinematic Journey on the Silver Screen from 1927 to 2012” http://heideggerm1.blogspot.com/2013/03/anna-karenina-cinematic-journey-on.html  

7)    Quote by J. W. Eagan: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-11-17/features/9611170349_1_thomas-campion-faults-bear

 

 

  

Life Can Be Challenging

   Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was born at Yasnaya Polyana, his family's estate outside of Moscow, on August 28, 1828, in Russia's Tula Province, the youngest of four sons. His mother died when he was two years old, whereupon his father's distant cousin Tatyana Ergolsky took charge of the children. In 1837 Tolstoy's father died, and an aunt, Alexandra Osten-Saken, became legal guardian of the children. Her religious dedication was an important early influence on Tolstoy. When she died in 1840, the children were sent to Kazan, Russia, to another sister of their father, Pelageya Yushkov.
   Tolstoy was educated at home by German and French tutors. He was not a particularly exceptional student but he was good at games. In 1843 he entered Kazan University. Planning on a diplomatic career, he entered the faculty of Oriental languages. Finding these studies too demanding, he switched two years later to studying law. Tolstoy left the university in 1847 without taking his degree.
    He returned to Yasnaya Polyana, determined to become a model farmer and a "father" to his serfs (unpaid farmhands). His charity failed because of his foolishness in dealing with the peasants (poor, working class) and because he spent too much time socializing in Tula and Moscow. During this time he first began making amazingly honest diary entries, a practice he maintained until his death. These entries provided much material for his fiction, and in a very real sense the collection is one long autobiography.
   In September 1862, Tolstoy married Sofya Andreyevna Bers (or Behrs), a woman sixteen years younger than himself. Daughter of a prominent Moscow doctor, Bers was beautiful, intelligent, and, as the years would show, strong-willed. The first decade of their marriage brought Tolstoy the greatest happiness; never before or after was his creative life so rich or his personal life so full. In June 1863 his wife had the first of their thirteen children.
   The first portion of War and Peace was published in 1865 (in the Russian Messenger) as "The Year 1805." In 1868, three more chapters appeared and in 1869 he completed the novel. His new novel created a fantastic out-pouring of popular and critical reaction.
    Tolstoy's War and Peace represents a high point in the history of world literature, but it was also the peak of Tolstoy's personal life. His characters represent almost everyone he had ever met, including all of his relations on both sides of his family. Balls and battles, birth and death, all were described in amazing detail. In this book the European realistic novel, with its attention to social structures, exact description, and psychological rendering, found its most complete expression.
   From 1873 to 1877 Tolstoy worked on the second of his masterworks, Anna Karenina, which also created a sensation upon its publication. The concluding section of the novel was written during another of Russia's seemingly endless wars with Turkey. The novel was based partly on events that had occurred on a neighboring estate, where a nobleman's rejected mistress had thrown herself under a train. It also contained great chunks of disguised biography, especially in the scenes describing the courtship and marriage of Kitty and Levin. Tolstoy's family continued to grow, and his royalties (money earned from sales) were making him an extremely rich man.1
     After finishing Anna Karenina, Tolstoy renounced all his earlier works. "I wrote everything into Anna Karenina," he later confessed, "and nothing was left over." Voskresenia (1899, Resurrection) was Tolstoy's last major novel, and affirmed his belief in the individual over the collective. Prince Dmitrii Ivanovich Nekhliudov has abandoned the prostitute Ekaterina Maslova with their child as a young man. The novel begins when Maslova is called to court on charges of murdering a client. Nekhliudov is a member of the jury. He realizes that he also is accused but in the court of his own conscience. Maslova is wrongly sentenced to four years' penal service in Siberia. Nekhliudov follows her convoy to Siberia and manages to obtain commutation of her sentence from hard labor with common criminals to exile with the "political prisoners". Before the emergence of the gulag fiction, the novel enjoyed vast popularity during the reign of Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) as Soviet premier. It has been claimed, that while writing the story Tolstoy relived some of his guilt-ridden memories of his youth about a girl he had seduced and abandoned. 
    In the 1880s Tolstoy wrote such philosophical works as A Confession and What I Believe, which was banned in 1884. He started to see himself more as a sage and moral leader than an artist. In 1884 occurred his first attempt to leave home. He gave up his estate to his family, and tried to live as a poor, celibate peasant. Attracted by Tolstoy's writings, Yasnaya Polyana was visited by hundreds of people from all over the world. Pilgrims and his disciples enjoyed a smooth ride on a tarmac road, which the Czarist government ordered to be built down to Tula.  In 1901 the Russian Orthodox Church excommunicated the author. Tolstoy became seriously ill and he recuperated in Crimea, Ukraine.
    In his study, What is Art? (1898) Tolstoy condemned Shakespeare, Beethoven, and Dante, but not really convincingly; his misreading of Shakespeare is deliberate. Tolstoy states that art is a conveyor of feelings, good and bad, from the artist to others. Through feeling, the artist 'infects' another with the desire to act well or badly. "Art is a human activity having for its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen." Tolstoy used ordinary events and characters to examine war, religion, feminism, and other topics. He was convinced that philosophical principles could only be understood in their concrete expression in history. All of his work is characterized by uncomplicated style, careful construction, and deep insight into human nature. His chapters are short, and he paid much attention to the details of everyday life. Tolstoy also refused to recognize the conventional climaxes of narrative – War and Peace begins in the middle of a conversation and ends in the first epilogue in the middle of a sentence.
   Tolstoy's form of Christianity was based on the Sermon on the Mount and crystallized in five leading ideas: human beings must suppress their anger, whether warranted or not; no sex outside marriage; no oaths of any sort; renunciation of all resistance to evil; and love of enemies. "The main feature, or rather the main note which resounds through every page of Tolstoi, even the seemingly unimportant ones, is love, compassion for Man in general (and not only for the humiliated and the offended), pity of some sort for his weakness, his insignificance, for the shortness of his life, the vanity of his desires... Yes, Tolstoi is for me the dearest, the deepest, and greatest of all artists. But this concerns the Tolstoi of yesterday, who has nothing in common with the exasperating moralist and theorizer of today." (The composer Peter Tchaikovsky in Vladimir Volkoff's biography Tchaikovsky: A Self-portrait, 1975) 2
       Throughout his life, Tolstoy struggled with the issue of the meaning of life.  This question became even more of an issue for him as he matured.  One of the most interesting statements he made was in 1875.  He wrote, “I am 47….And so I have reached old age, that inner spiritual condition to which nothing from the outer world has any interest, in which there are no desires and one sees nothing but death ahead of one.  Life really is a stupid and empty joke…and so I began to search for a view of life that could do away with its apparent senselessness.  That is the aim and content of what I am writing at present….I would like to expound this whole mass of religions and scientific views of our time, to show the gaps and—forgive my boldness—without denying anything, to fill these gaps.”3
     It is interesting that I am 47.  I do not believe that I have reached old age; however, I do understand Tolstoy’s interest regarding the meaning of life.  I try not to reflect upon this issue on a constant basis, but it is definitely part of my thoughts.  I can understand Tolstoy’s comment regarding the apparent senseless of life.  At time there seems to be no rhyme or reason to making things which take place in our lives.  I also turned to religion in order to find meaning in my life, but became somewhat discontented over time.
    His later life seemed to be consumed by his newly created religion.   In fact, he had many “Tolstoyites” who chose to follow his belief system.  His classic novels had become a thing of the past and he devoted his writing talent to works of religion and/or philosophy.  He became so dedicated to his religious beliefs that be walked away from his estate, left his family, and began a spiritual journey. 
     Russians love few things better than a good anniversary — any excuse to celebrate the country’s rich cultural history gives rise to festivals and forums, concerts and commemorative films.
     As 2010 marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of Anton Chekhov, President Dmitry Medvedev flew to the playwright’s small southern hometown and laid a bouquet of white roses. One hundred years after his death in 1837, poet Alexander Pushkin was celebrated across the country — a city was even named after him.
    Why, then, the silence in Russia around Leo Tolstoy, widely considered to be one of the greatest writers who ever lived?
   November 20, 2010 will mark 100 years since Tolstoy’s dramatic death. Having achieved world fame and acclaim with "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina," Tolstoy turned later in life to the spiritual treatises that would lead to his excommunication from the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1910, at the age of 82, he abandoned his family and his estate in Yasnaya Polyana, outside Moscow, dying days later at a nearby train station, never having recovered from the pneumonia that had long plagued him.
    It’s a dramatic end befitting a novelist who explored, with poetic realism, life’s greatest thrills: family, war, love.
    At least, that’s how he is remembered in the West. In Russia, Tolstoy’s writing is always and everywhere linked with his work as a philosopher, one who preached principles of nonviolence, simple living and brotherly love. That may be where the problem lies.
    “Lev Nikolayevich posed very uncomfortable questions,” said Fyokla Tolstaya, a great-great-granddaughter of the writer, using his Russian name and patronymic. “He is a very difficult author for today’s leadership,” she said.
    Perhaps that is why, on a government level, the anniversary is being entirely ignored.
    “We’ve received no orders to prepare for the anniversary,” said a woman who answered the phone at the Culture Ministry’s anniversaries committee, but declined to provide her name. For anniversaries honoring many of Russia’s other great writers, less well-known in the West but celebrated here, the department is given years to plan and organize. The department first received an order in 2007 to prepare for this year’s celebrations marking 150 years since Chekhov’s birth, she said by way of example.
     “The government, which is normally very proactive in organizing anniversaries seems to have put Tolstoy away on the shelf,” said Catherine Tolstoy, a 22-year-old member of the abundant Tolstoy clan.
     “He is very well respected, but he’s not useful and hasn’t got the right views,” she said. “He’s got very different values from the current government.”
     Yet other celebrated writers, including Chekhov and the great satirist Nikolai Gogol, also criticized the country for issues that remain little changed today: officials’ corruption, their countrymen’s love of vodka, treatment of prisoners.
     The government’s decision to ignore Tolstoy’s centenary is something that has surprised some of his greatest champions, yet is something they overwhelmingly choose to explain away by saying that it is births, not deaths, that should be celebrated.
   “There hasn’t been one television program dedicated to him, but that doesn’t mean we don’t value him,” said Marina Tikhonycheva, the head of the Tolstoy Institute. All 10th graders in Russia, she noted, are required to plow through "War and Peace." (She later noted that Russia’s Kultura channel recently aired a celebrated film adaptation, failing to note that it was Tolstoy’s centenary but celebrating the fact that it was the 90th anniversary of director and star Sergei Bondarchuk’s birth.)
    Others see something more deliberate in the Tolstoy void, blaming his relationship with the Orthodox Church, which expelled him in 1901 citing his repudiation of Jesus Christ and the church.
    “The church’s position to Tolstoy has not changed,” said a source inside the Orthodox Church’s committee on culture. “Tolstoy is anti-Christian. He is excommunicated and therefore presents no interest for the church.”
    Tolstoy’s family has put in several requests to have the church re-examine the writer’s excommunication. However, it categorically refuses to do so.
    “The order can only change if a person himself repents. This can’t happen after a person is dead,” the church source said.
     “The church does pressure culture, but not to such a degree,” said Boris Felikov, an associate professor of religion at the Russian State University for the Humanities.
     Some members of Tolstoy’s family disagree. “The government is very friendly with the church, as it was in pre-revolutionary times, and puts a lot of pressure on the state,” said Tolstaya. In Soviet times, his views against organized religion and in support of the country’s peasantry made him a hero of the communist regime (Lenin even published an essay titled “Tolstoy as Mirror of the Revolution”).
   “Now there’s a different approach,” Tolstaya said. “He isn’t comfortable and he isn’t needed.”
   That may be true of the Russian government and its powerful church, but not so in the West. To mark the centenary of Tolstoy’s death, new translations of his novels have been issued. A film about his last days, “The Last Station,” was released to critical acclaim, its lead actors (Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer) both nominated for Oscars. New biographies of Tolstoy’s wife, Sophia, were released, as well as her letters.
    Inside Russia, the Tolstoy estate, as well as a handful of museums and institutes in Moscow, are organizing forums. On November 20, they will open a small museum at Ostankino, the provincial railway station where Tolstoy met his death.
    “Tolstoy is still relevant,” said Tolstaya, his great-great-granddaughter. “The question becomes: what have the people in Russia done in the 100 years since he left us? Have we managed to answer his questions? The answer is no.” 4
     There is no denying that Tolstoy is one of the greatest authors of all time.  His classic novels, War and Peace and Anna Karenina are not only read by today’s students in the former USSR, but they were even made into films in the United States.  “Anna Karenina” was also made into a miniseries by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC). These novels have been translated into several different languages and are definitely worth reading.   I would also recommend reading A Confession and Resurrection in order to understand his views regarding the meaning of life.
      Life certainly can be challenging.  The fact that Russia made no formal effort to mark the one hundredth anniversary of the death of this great novelist is proof of that.  It is true that some of his writings were considered controversial; however, how will any of us be judged one hundred years after we die?
                                                           End Notes
1) “Leo Tolstoy: Biography” http://www.notablebiographies.com/St-Tr/Tolstoy-Leo.html   (accessed 5/26/12)
2) “Leo Tolstoi” http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ltolstoi.htm  (accessed 5/26/12) 
3) R.F. Christian (trans.) Tolstoy’s Letters (NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1978) Vol. 1, p. 288
4) “Russia Snubs Tolstoy” http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/russia/101011/leo-tolstoy-death (written 10/12/10, accessed 5/26/12)

Love and Be Loved

   In 1964 The Beatles recorded a song entitled “Can’t Buy Me Love”.  The premise of the song is that money cannot buy love.   It has also been said that money cannot buy happiness either.  However, this certainly does not prevent people from attempting to prove this theory wrong.  In every age there are people who believe that if they only had money then people would treat them differently.  They believe that people who respect them and they would be considered important. 

    While it is true that the wealthy receive a certain amount of respect by virtue of their money, the fact remains that simply having money does not guarantee that someone is worthy of such respect.  This is particularly true of those who win the lottery.  They suddenly acquire money and now they expected to be accepted by high society.

    Study after study has shown wealth has surprisingly little effect on how happy you are. Most of us tend to think that if we just made a bit more money, we'd get more satisfaction out of life or have a greater sense of well-being. But on the whole, this turns out not to be true. So why doesn't money make us happy? Recent research suggests the answer lies, at least in part, in how wealthier people lose touch with their ability to savor life's pleasures.

   Savoring is a way of increasing and prolonging our positive experiences. When we focus on what we are doing in the moment, when we eagerly anticipate something or relish our memories of it, and when we relive it by describing it to others, we are savoring -- and in the process we are enhancing our own happiness. Taking time to experience the subtle flavors in a piece of dark chocolate, imagining the fun you'll have on an upcoming vacation (and leafing through your trip photos afterward) and telling all your friends on Facebook about the hilarious movie you saw over the weekend -- these are all acts of savoring, and they help us squeeze every bit of joy out of the good things that happen to us.

   Why, then, don't wealthier people savor if it feels so good? It's obviously not for a lack of things to savor. The basic idea is that when you have the money to eat at fancy restaurants every night and buy designer clothes from chic boutiques, those experiences diminish the enjoyment you get out of the simpler, more everyday pleasures, like the smell of a steak sizzling on your backyard grill or the bargain you got on the sweet little sundress from Target.

   These new studies show people who have higher incomes spend significantly less time savoring their experiences than their relatively poorer peers do. Interestingly, just being exposed to images of wealth can dampen your savoring skills! In one study, college students who had recently seen a photo of a stack of money spent far less time eating a bar of chocolate -- gulping it down rather than relishing each bite -- and displayed far fewer signs of enjoyment than those students who hadn't seen the money. Just thinking about wealth can make us lose sight of the good things happening to us right now. ¹

      Russian society in the nineteenth century was well known for the importance which it placed upon social standing.  Actually, this was not unique to Russian society; however, in his novel War and Peace, Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) made a point of emphasizing this fact. 

    The main character, Pierre Bezuhov is a large-bodied, slightly overweight, and socially awkward illegitimate son of an old Russian grandee. After being educated abroad he returns to Russia as a misfit. His unexpected inheritance of a large fortune makes him socially desirable. Pierre is the central character and often a voice for Tolstoy's own beliefs or struggles.  Initially he is rejected by Russian high society; however, upon receiving his father’s substantial inheritance he is suddenly accepted by all who meet him.  He ends up becoming the most eligible bachelor in Russia.

    Pierre proposes marriage to Princess Elena Vasilyevna (Hélène) Kuragin, a woman he is sexually attracted to, but is rumored to be having an incestuous affair with her brother, Prince Anatol.  Hélène marries Pierre, but informs him that she will not bear him any children.  She appears to have married him for his money and she spends it freely on fashions and jewels to enhance her image as the most beautiful and desirable woman in St. Petersburg. However, she ends up lonely and unloved.

    Pierre becomes concerned because his new found wealth has not given him the happiness he seeks.  Pierre joins the Freemasons, and becomes embroiled in Masonic internal politics. Much of Book Two concerns his struggles with his passions and his spiritual conflicts to be a better man. Now a rich aristocrat, he abandons his former carefree behavior and enters upon a philosophical quest particular to Tolstoy: how should one live a moral life in an ethically imperfect world? The question continually baffles and confuses Pierre. He attempts to liberate his serfs, but ultimately achieves nothing of note. ²

   He decided that he wants to experience what war is like, so he leaves home and takes part in a quest to assassinate Napoleon. He becomes an anonymous man in all the chaos, shedding his responsibilities by wearing peasant clothes and shunning his duties and lifestyle. The only people he sees while in this garb are Countess Natasha Rostova and some of her family, as they depart Moscow. Natasha recognizes and smiles at him, and Pierre, in turn, realizes the full scope of his love for her.

    Our main character saves the life of a French officer who fought at Borodino, yet is taken prisoner by the retreating French during his attempted assassination of Napoleon, after saving a woman from being raped by soldiers in the French Army. He becomes friends with a fellow prisoner, Platon Karataev, a peasant with a saintly demeanor, who is incapable of malice. In Karataev, Pierre finally finds what he has been seeking: an honest person of integrity (unlike the aristocrats of Petersburg society) who is utterly without pretense. Pierre discovers meaning in life simply by living and interacting with him. After witnessing French soldiers sacking Moscow and shooting Russian civilians arbitrarily, Pierre is forced to march with the Grand Army during its disastrous retreat from Moscow in the harsh Russian winter. After months of trial and tribulation—during which the fever-plagued Karataev is shot by the French—Pierre is finally freed by a Russian raiding party, after a small skirmish with the French that sees the young Petya Rostov, the youngest member of the Rostov family, killed in action. Given the fact that Leo Tolstoy chose to spend most of his time on his estate in central Russia surrounded by his serf, it is not surprising that a serf becomes the most honorable person that Pierre meets.

   As the novel draws to a close, Pierre's wife Hélène dies ambiguously. Pierre is reunited with Natasha, while the victorious Russians rebuild Moscow. Natasha speaks of Prince Andrei's death and Pierre of Karataev's. Both are aware of a growing bond between them in their bereavement. With the help of Princess Maria, Pierre finds love at last and, revealing his love after being released by his former wife's death, marries Natasha.

   Pierre finds love and happiness, not through acquiring wealth, but as a result of living the life he chose for himself.  Money does not bring Pierre any happiness.  His wealth brought him into contact with people that he would not have otherwise met, but this was no guarantee of happiness.  In fact, Pierre seemed to be genuinely unhappy surrounded by people of St. Petersburg high society who lacked integrity.  

   Money can assist in many ways.  It eliminates the issue of paying for the basic necessities of life; however, this does not guarantee happiness.  There are numerous accounts throughout history of people who had more money than they could ever possibly spend; however, they were miserable.  The Beatles informed us that money cannot buy us love and it cannot buy happiness either.  Lev Tolstoy provides a wonderful quote, which gives us some insight into his understanding of happiness, when he says, “Seize the moment of happiness, love and be loved! This is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.”

                                                       End Notes

1)    “Money Can’t Buy Happiness at All” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/heidi-grant-halvorson-phd/money-happiness_b_884975.html

2)    “War and Peace” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_and_Peace