The Wisdom of Humankind

"To say that Tolstoy was a very great writer, or even that his stature surpassed that of any twentieth-century theologian, may be very safe and trite. But a much bolder claim is worth considering: perhaps he is more important for the history of religion during the [20th century] than any theologian; perhaps he has contributed more of real importance and originality and issues a greater challenge to us" Walter Kaufmann, Religion From Tolstoy to Camus, New York: Harper Torchbooks (1964), 1.

Kaufmann's "much bolder claim" is, in my view, amply justified by Shaykh Tolstoy's final attempt to compile a comprehensive work that would serve as an encyclopedic summary, synthesis and, in characteristic fashion, Tolstoyan interpretation of "the wisdom of humankind." It was to be his legacy to the ages; the result was first published in Russian in 1911, a year after his death.

After 17 years of work, Guy de Mallac, one of the few academic Tolstoy scholars who may also be considered a convinced Tolstoyan, produced an abridged English edition of the text in 1998. De Mallac taught Russian literature at the University of California, Irvine, for almost three decades and died on November 17, 2007.

In his Introduction to Tolstoy's Wisdom, de Mallac observed that this final effort of the great novelist "embodied an ideal toward which he had long been striving--the fusion of his discourse with that of the New Testament and other spiritual texts. His aim was to emulate the directness, simplicity, and compelling force of Scripture in order to achieve the striking effectiveness of scriptural discourse" [de Mallac, 12-13].

De Mallac's translation and condensation of Tolstoy's desire to produce a viable Scripture for the modern age is a great service to Tolstoyans everywhere. The general neglect of Tolstoy as a religious genius is but a reflection of the degree to which he strikes a nerve on every page.

We ignore him because we know that he is right.