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Thread: How Tolstoy Can Save Putin’s Soul

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    Default How Tolstoy Can Save Putin’s Soul

    How Tolstoy Can Save Putin’s Soul

    If Putin preferred Tolstoy over Dostoevsky, what a happier, more peaceful place Ukraine would be right now

    The drama being played out right now in Russia and Ukraine isn’t merely geopolitical. It’s a deep-seated drama of the national soul that’s been around for centuries. And Russian literature is the place we see it in full flower. You see, the question Vladimir Putin is grappling with is the one that recurs throughout the 19th century Russian classics: What is the source of our national greatness?

    In approaching this question, Putin, whose two favorite writers happen to be Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, has two distinct traditions to choose from: Dostoevsky’s belief in Russian exceptionalism or Tolstoy’s belief in the universality of all human experience, regardless of one’s nationality, culture, or religion. Alas, he has chosen Dostoevsky, not Tolstoy.

    Dostoevsky believed that Russia’s special mission in the world is to create a pan-Slavic Christian empire with Russia at its helm. This messianic vision stemmed from the fact that Dostoevsky thought Russia was the most spiritually developed of all the nations, a nation destined to unite and lead the others.

    This sort of triumphalist thinking was anathema to Tolstoy, who believed that every nation had its own unique traditions, none better or worse than the others. Tolstoy was a patriot—he loved his people, as is so clearly demonstrated in War and Peace, for example—but he was not a nationalist. He believed in the unique genius and dignity of every culture. One of the hallmarks of his writing from the beginning was his capacity to uncover the full-blooded truth of each one of his characters, no matter their nationality.


    Continued https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-to...ve-putins-soul

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    Putin took the path of Dostoyevsky's Orthodox pan-slavic nationalism, when he should have taken the path of Tolstoy's Christian pacifism.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cypress View Post
    Putin took the path of Dostoyevsky's Orthodox pan-slavic nationalism, when he should have taken the path of Tolstoy's Christian pacifism.
    Russia's rootin' tootin' Putin relying on Tolstoy's Christian pacifism; which in itself is a misnomer would be no different than Russian Orthodox Church nationalism just as USA Christian Nation Federal Lynching KKK churchstate of hate propaganda practice of one mans law is another mans crime, especially with those fabricated Ukraine Jews are Nazis misnomers as Washington, D.C born USA citizens are Islam in "serve the Pope or die" with Federal Lynching enforcement drug trafficking to maintain suicidal super egos sociopsychopathilogical homicidal human farming; which will not save Putin nor bungling GI Joe Biden.

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