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Prince Dmitri Nekhlyudov, a rich and idle nobleman, is serving on a jury in Moscow when he recognises the prisoner, Katusha Maslova, accused of poisoning a…
Prince Dmitri Nekhlyudov, a rich and idle nobleman, is serving on a jury in Moscow when he recognises the prisoner, Katusha Maslova, accused of poisoning a merchant. She was the young servant girl he seduced and abandoned years before; dismissed and pregnant, she fell into prostitution. Through the carelessness of the court she is wrongly sentenced to hard labour in Siberia. Stricken with guilt, Nekhlyudov appeals for her, gives his land to his peasants and follows her convoy east, and on the way he discovers the cruelty of the courts, the prisons and the whole social order he had taken for granted.
Context and significance
Leo Tolstoy published his last novel in 1899 and gave the money it earned to help the Doukhobors, a persecuted religious sect, emigrate to Canada. Its mocking picture of an Orthodox church service contributed to his excommunication in 1901. This translation is by Louise Maude, who knew Tolstoy personally. It shows the moral passion of his later years, set out in The Kingdom of God Is Within You.
About the author
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), born at Yasnaya Polyana and a veteran of the Crimean War, wrote two of the summits of the novel, War and Peace and Anna Karenina.
In later life he preached simplicity and non-violence in The Kingdom of God Is Within You, a book that deeply influenced Gandhi.