The first illegal copies were the cause for gossip about the marital situation of the Tolstoys. Chekhov initially praised it, but after his epic journey to Sakhalin he changed his mind and said it was ridiculous. Tsar Alexander III thought it ‘magnificent’, but his wife was shocked. While she was trying to get the novella approved by the infamous censor, illegal copies produced by the Samizdat started circulating, most probably the work of Chertkov. Tolstoy had by then renounced his copyright and let Sofia and and his friend and follower Chertkov fight over publication. She wanted to publish it in the latest part of Tolstoy’s collected works, a project that she had started to generate income for their large family. When it was finished, interestingly enough, his wife Sofia read it to the older children. He re-wrote it nine times with the help of his daughter Masha, who was then 19. He started writing the story in 1887, left it for a bit, and finished it in 1889. Tolstoy got the idea from a friend who told him an anecdote about a man in the train who had told him all about his unfaithful wife. Even music is condemned, because it can make people want to have sex. Sex is portrayed by society as something healthy, women only want to look attractive in order to trap innocent men, and doctors are the promotors and facilitators of sex. And what a monologue it is! He is obsessed with sex, women and doctors. Confessions of a murdererįor most of the novella we are listening to the monologue of Pozdnyshev. Unable to cope with the stress any longer, he murders her.

His dispair culminates when he becomes convinced that his wife is deceiving him with a violinist. Disillusioned, Pozdnyshev becomes more and more desperate and tense. Instead of the happy family life that Pozdnyshev was expecting, marriage turned out to be nothing more than alternating periods of arguments and lust. We know from the start that Pozdnyshev has murdered his wife, but the tension is kept in the story by the question what drove him to it. Why was it written, what did Tolstoy mean with it, and how much of it represents Tolstoy’s own views? A Crime Passionel The most Dostoevskian work by Tolstoy: The Kreutzer Sonata. Let’s tackle this weird piece of literature.

The kreutzer sonata book