Novel
Resurrection
Воскресение
Leo Tolstoy · 1899
Synopsis
Prince Dmitri Nekhlyudov, a juror at a trial, recognises among the accused Katyusha Maslova, a prostitute charged with the murder of a merchant: she is the young ward of his aunts, whom he had seduced and then abandoned years earlier. Pregnant and turned out, she had slid into prostitution. Despite her probable innocence, she is sentenced to exile in Siberia, and Nekhlyudov, stricken with remorse, sets about making amends for his fault.
Context
The novel appeared as a serial in 1899 in the weekly “Niva”, with illustrations by Leonid Pasternak; the censor had passages cut, and the full text appeared in Russia only in 1936. Tolstoy donated the proceeds to the emigration of the Doukhobors, persecuted pacifists, to Canada. The French translation by Édouard Beaux is published in Folio; Louise Maude's English translation appeared as early as 1900.
Who it is for
A long novel of more than six hundred pages, for those interested in justice, prison and the moral conscience.
Prizes and reception
The novel's criticism of the Church played a part in the author's excommunication in 1901.