Master of Arts, Miami University, 2014, History

The following thesis examines the creation, publication, and reception of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy's posthumous novel, Khadzhi Murat in both the Imperial and Soviet Russian Empire. The anti-imperial content of the novel made Khadzhi Murat an incredibly vulnerable novel, subjecting it to substantial early censorship. Tolstoy's status as a literary and cultural figure in Russia – both preceding and following his death – allowed for the novel to become virtually forgotten despite its controversial content. This thesis investigates the absorption of Khadzhi Murat into the broader canon of Tolstoy's writings within the Russian Empire as well as its prevailing significance as a piece of anti-imperial literature in a Russian context.

Committee: Stephen Norris Ph.D. (Advisor); Daniel Prior Ph.D. (Committee Member); Margaret Ziolkowski Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: History; Literature; Russian History; Slavic Literature; Slavic Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1973, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Literature

Master of Humanities (MHum), Wright State University, 1994, Humanities

The origins of nonviolence currently identified with Tolstoy and Gandhi can be traced to earlier elements in the American tradition of nonviolence, particularly to the writings of Adin Ballou. In 1838, speaking before the New England Non-Resistant Society, Ballou emphasized the high moral priority-- and the ultimate effectiveness-- of harmlessly resisting evil at all costs . As an opponent of war and slavery, Ballou's 50 years of peace and justice ministry raised some of the same questions, and gave similar answers to some of the same problems, as those later faced by Tolstoy and Gandhi. Thus this interdisciplinary study in religion and history shows how ideas of religious pacifism, generated in an atmosphere of democratic liberty and religious freedom, moved from West to East. This paper begins by highlighting the pacifist writjngs of Adin Ballou, whose distinctive interpretation of original Christianity advocated non-retaliation by physical force, non-return of evil for evil, and absolute non-injury of others. As leading theoretician for the radical peace society of his century in America, Ballou departed from the compliant non-resistance of his predecessors. He based his defense of peace on natural , reasonable, and religious grounds, making recourse in his arguments to what he termed "radical religion ." He held it necessary for good men and women to stake their lives, if necessary, to attain a just and lasting peace on earth. In each of these ways and more , Ballou prefigured Tolstoy and Gandhi. Ballou, Tolstoy, and Gandhi each sought to promote an ideal peaceful social condition. Each considered the secular aims of eradicating war and eliminating its attendant evils to be closely allied with essential religious purposes. And each contributed to an evolving ethic of non-violent practice. This study examines the actual correspondence, in letters, between Ballou, Tolstoy, and Gandhi concludes, on the basis of a variety of texts, that t (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Katharine Dvorak Ph.D. (Committee Co-Chair); Matthew Melko Ph.D. (Committee Co-Chair); Lawrence Cross Ph.D. (Committee Member); David Matual Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Peace Studies

BA, Oberlin College, 2010, Russian

This paper focuses on Fyodor Dostoevsky and Lev Tolstoy's subtle responses to the work and philosophy of the radical intelligent, literary critic and philosopher Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky. Dostoevsky and Tolstoy had deep qualms about Chernyshevsky's ideas and their consequences, both for the individual and Russian society at large. The goal of this paper is to describe these ideas and consequences as they appear in two of the most famous and important works of 19th century Russian and world literature, Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" and Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina." Discussion begins with exegesis of the radical utilitarian and utopian philosophy advocated by Chernyshevsky in his influential "What is to be Done?" and "The Anthropological Principle in Philosophy". Having discussed the main tenants of Chernyshevsky's philosophic system, the author continues to investigate the appearance of these ideas in "Crime and Punishment" and "Anna Karenina" through an analysis of primary and secondary characters in each novel. The polyphony of Dostoevsky's prose extends, the author claims, to issues of Chernyshevsky's philosophy and its influence on Russia, and characters of "Crime and Punishment," primarily Raskolnikov, Razumikhin and Luzhin, are analyzed through this lens. Karenin, Vronsky, Anna Karenina and Levin provide the primary focus for analysis of Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina." As much as is possible, the author aspires to include biographical and philosophic detail about Dostoevsky and Tolstoy in order to remain close and true to the two authors' respective visions for and understandings of Russia. Dostoevsky and Tolstoy held views of human nature, Russia, and man's interactions with fellow man which drastically differed from those of Chernyshevsky and the radical intelligentsia. Dostoevsky and Tolstoy's hesitance to embrace Chernyshevsky's philosophy appears in their works, at times with great subtlety, and elucidation of the literary manifestations of their ph (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Thomas Newlin (Advisor); Arlene Forman (Committee Member); Heather Hogan (Committee Member) Subjects: Russian History; Slavic Literature

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2009, Spanish

Emilia Pardo Bazan's perception of Leo Tolstoy culminates in her short story trilogy: El conde llora, El conde suena, and El espiritu del conde. For Pardo Bazan, who popularized Russian literature in late nineteenth-century Spain, Tolstoy was initially a model realist but then was viciously critiqued in these three works. The present thesis shows that Pardo Bazan inherited the myth of Tolstoy created in Melchior de Vogue's Le roman russe and adopted by the Russian anarchists in France and Spain for political propaganda. Investigation of Dona Emilia's Tolstoyan trilogy and critical works reveals that her final bitter appraisal of the author of War and Peace, filtered through a naturalist framework, was the fruit of disillusionment with his social and religious thought. This disappointment stemmed from the Marxist critics who influenced Pardo Bazan and hastened to destroy the image of Tolstoy, as the Russian writer was a key ideological weapon for their anarchist rivals.

Committee: José Domínguez-Búrdalo PhD (Advisor); Beatriz Celaya-Carrillo PhD (Committee Member); Paula Gandara PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Romance Literature; Russian History

Master of Arts in English, Cleveland State University, 2008, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

In this study I consider Lev Tolstoy's life and thought by reference to their national and historical context. My purposes here, of course, have to do with understandingthat context as well as with understanding Tolstoy. In Chapter II, I consider and try to evoke the nineteenth-century Russian landscape to which Tolstoy was born. Also in Chapter II, I introduce, for comparative purposes, a figure from a generation of Russians later than Tolstoy's, a man very different from Tolstoy who nonetheless admired him greatly. I am referring to the man who became known as Lenin. I extend and expand the Tolstoy/Lenin comparison in Chapters III and IV, with an eye to what it might tell us about a number of things Tolstoyan. These include the fictive,historic, and theoretical subject matter of "War and Peace", the interplay and differences between Western Europe and Russia before, during,and after the Napoleonic Wars, and the question of what Tolstoy's take on those wars might tell us about Bolshevism. Throughout this study I speak of a thematic interplay between the finite and the infinite which I discern in Tolstoy's work. In Chapter V I consider, by way of a brief overview of his literary career, how Tolstoy might have embodied that interplay in his own person.

Committee: Rachel Carnell PhD (Committee Chair); Jeff Karem PhD (Committee Member); Gary Dyer PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Slavic Literature