Gerasimova Svetlana Valentinovna

Gerasimova Svetlana Valentinovna

Aug., 2025

L. Tolstoy, I. Kant, Categorical imperative, natural theology, revelation, confession.

Leo Tolstoy's legacy contains descriptions of the voice of conscience as Divine Revelation and as a natural law operating in human nature. The purpose of the article is to outline a problem worthy of further study. We musr decide how the Russian tradition, which assumes the divine status of conscience, and the European enlightenment concept of natural revelation competed in the interpretation of the voice of conscience sounding in the souls of Tolstoy's heroes. The material for the study was «Immanuel Kant's Thoughts, Selected by L.N. Tolstoy»; episodes from the story «The Cossacks» and the novels «War and Peace» and «Anna Karenina» were also used for the analysis. It is concluded that Leo Tolstoy became a hostage to the idea of the uselessness of deathbed confession, expressed in one of Kant’s maxims chosen by Tolstoy for translation, and that the Enlightenment natural revelation won out in Tolstoy's late work over the Russian traditional perception of conscience as the voice of God.

© 2025, the Authors. Published by ISCCAC

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