Philosophical and Religious Works of L.N. Tolstoy as a Starting Point in the Culture of the Silver Age

Abstract

This paper examines the philosophical and religious creativity of the Great Russian writer and thinker Leo Tolstoy as a founder of national culture of the Silver Age. The author of this article argues that Tolstoy's works, both artistic and figurative, as well as his journalistic works, were imbued with religious content, which constituted the generic specificity of the culture of the Silver Age. For Tolstoy culture is based on spiritual and moral principles, which are inseparable from the Christian and religious foundation, which was the subject of this study. The aim of the paper was to identify and analyze such fundamental categories of Tolstoy's philosophy as Christian love and social nonviolence. Love according to Tolstoy is an emblematic fragment of the religious worldview, and non-resistance to evil by violence acts as a social and moral component, which is the only way to break the vicious circle of social and individual evil in human society. To prove his philosophical generalizations, Tolstoy makes extensive use of historical-cultural methodology and, as a rational thinker, uses the Cartesian paradigm of the priority of rationality and evidence. Tolstoy's unconditional faith is deeply rationalistic in character, as well illustrated by his commitment to moral utilitarianism or moral pragmatism. The problems and content of the article are relevant in light of the challenges that have become deeply pressing today in the upbringing of the younger generations. The conclusions of the work are significant not only in historical and philosophical terms, but they contribute to the substantiation of the idea of the importance of religious consciousness for contemporary Russian society.