MOSCOW — A couple of months ago one of Russia’s elder statesmen set out on a paradoxical mission: to rehabilitate one of the most beloved figures in Russian history, Tolstoy.Read the rest here.
This would have seemed unnecessary in 2010, a century after the author’s death. But last year Russians wrestled over Tolstoy much as they did when he was alive. Intellectuals accused the Russian Orthodox Church of blacklisting a national hero. The church accused Tolstoy of helping speed the rise of the Bolsheviks. The melodrama of his last days, when he fled his family estate to take up the life of an ascetic, was revived in all its pulpy detail, like some kind of early-stage reality television.
And in a country that rarely passes up a public celebration, the anniversary of his death, on Nov. 20, 1910, was not commemorated by noisy galas or government-financed cinematic blockbusters. Officially speaking, it was barely noted at all.
With this in mind Sergei V. Stepashin, a former prime minister here, sat down to write to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has become an arbiter of politics and culture. In painstakingly diplomatic language, acknowledging “the particular sensitivity” of “this delicate theme,” Mr. Stepashin asked forgiveness on behalf of Tolstoy, who was excommunicated 110 years ago.
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6 comments:
Tolstoy dies an excommunicate did he not? You can't lift an excommunication from the dead.
You can do anything you want since time does not exist.
Why does anyone think Tolstoy would want his excommunication lifted?
I'm with the Archer of the Forest up there. Love or hate Tolstoy, it would be greater disrespect to his life and work, and demeaning to the Russian Orthodox, to have the Church whitewash their own opinion of him and 'sanitize' him in a way to make him seem like something he wasn't.
It is unfortunate that Tolstoy must continue to be a divisive figure in death as he was in life, but I dislike this tendency among many modern people to pretend like any and all division is bad in and of itself.
I would much rather Russians wrestle with Tolstoy's legacy than to see his legacy become the product of a modern socio-political PR machine that everyone can "agree on" simply because it's an artifice.
More evidence, if any were needed, that the media don't "get" religion. It would be dishonest of the ROC to pretend that Tolstoy was Orthodox when he wasn't. They acknowledge that he was a great writer, but he was not Orthodox.
And here's the heart of the matter:
“Any power tries to adapt great people to its needs,” he added. “The current authorities don’t adapt him, or they are not clever enough. Maybe they are so self-confident they don’t think they need to.”
Thank God the Russian Church doesn't feel the need to play the sordid little power games that the media and "intellectuals" seem to expect of it.
Correct me if I am wrong but excommunications have been revoked after death. Second, did not Tolstoy attempt to be restored to communion in his final moments?
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