The Diaries of Leo Tolstoy

A reissue of the lecture course delivered by V. V. Bibikhin at the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University in the fall semester of 2000 and the spring semester of 2001.

"Tolstoy's diaries and his notebooks are flashes of insights, and just as a person quickly grabs a pencil or a nail to write something down, Tolstoy captures the first words that come to him.

An analytical breakdown of these records will yield nothing, the only chance is to see the spark, always the same one, which illuminated the darkness for him and then immediately went out... At the foundation of everything, in the mind of existence, both living and he is convinced also of the non-living, he sees love and poetry. 

These two things are crazy, reckless, sacrificial, and unforeseen. Life comes from them".