Resurrection, the last full-length novel written by Leo Tolstoy, was published in 1899 after ten years in the making. A humanitarian cause-the pacifist Doukhobor sect, persecuted by the Russian government, needed funds to emigrate to Canada-prompted Tolstoy to finish the novel and dedicate its ensuing revenues to alleviate their plight. Ultimately, Tolstoy's actions were credited with helping hundreds of Doukhobors emigrate to Canada.
The novel centers on the relationship between NekhlĂșdoff, a Russian landlord, and MĂĄslova, a prostitute whose life took a turn for the worse after NekhlĂșdoff wronged her ten years prior to the novel's events. After NekhlĂșdoff happens to sit in the jury for a trial in which MĂĄslova is accused of poisoning a merchant, NekhlĂșdoff begins to understand the harm he has inflicted upon MĂĄslova-and the harm that the Russian state and society inflicts upon the poor and marginalized-as he embarks on a quest to alleviate MĂĄslova's suffering.
A searing indictment of hypocrisy and injustice wrapped in an unforgettable story of guilt, redemption, and love, Resurrection stands as one of literature's most powerful calls to conscience. Readers drawn to Tolstoy's unflinching moral vision in War and Peace and Anna Karenina will find this late masterwork just as urgent and rewarding, posing questions about justice and mercy that remain as relevant today as when it was written.
NekhlĂșdoff's process of spiritual awakening in Resurrection serves as a framing for many of the novel's religious and political themes, such as the hypocrisy of State Christianity and the injustice of the penal system, which were also the subject of Tolstoy's nonfiction treatise on Christian anarchism, The Kingdom of God Is Within You. The novel also explores the "single tax" economic theory propounded by the American economist Henry George, which drives a major subplot in the novel concerning the management of NekhlĂșdoff's estates.
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