Originally published 1901 | ||
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L. Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky was a critical essay written by Dmitry Merezhkovsky and published between 1900-1901 in Mir iskusstva magazine. The publication coincided with Leo Tolstoy's excommunication by Most Holy Synod and drew a wide public response. L. Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky is considered the most significant work of Merezhkovsky in the genre of literary research essays.
The work was partly devoted to the history of Russian literature and partly to the views of Dmitry Merezhkovsky. An ideological basis of the essay is the dilemma of Christianity and paganism. Alexander Men noted that Tolstoy was described as a pagan here ("seer of flesh"), while Fyodor Dostoyevsky opposed him as a "seer of spirit".
The Merezhkovsky's study on the works of Leo Tolstoy was subsequently recognized as the most detailed and accurate.