Shaykh Tolstoy (Again)

When last I mentioned Shaykh Tolstoy in this blog, it was to include him in the august, international body of Pantagruelists--for Tolstoy was a Pantagruelist and every Pantagruelist is, in turn, a Tolstoyan...

I have just re-read, for the third time, George Steiner's magisterial study, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky: An Essay in the Old Criticism (published in 1959). Back then, Steiner had to admit that the way of Dostoevsky (who was distrustful of any programmatic attempt to better the lot of human beings) seemed to be remarkably prescient, given the then-prevailing post-Stalinist view of the Soviet Union. By comparison, Tolstoy's religious humanism appeared to be naive at best, rigidly dogmatic at worst.

And yet, half a century on, Dostoevsky's mystery-mongering loses its luster in the light of the religious Right's persistent obscurantism and militarism. It would be grand if Steiner, still vital at 80, would re-visit this fateful pair of 19th century Russian geniuses and essay, again, their meaning for our time.