Resurrection Summary | Chapterly

Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: A Complete Summary "One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between man and nature shall not be broken." Overview Resurrection (1899) is Leo Tolstoy's last major novel and his most politically radical work. Written when Tolstoy was in his seventies and had undergone his famous spiritual crisis, it is a fierce indictment of every institution in Russian society: the courts, the prisons, the church, the aristocracy, and the government itself. The story begins when Prince Dmitri Nekhlyudov, serving on a jury, recognizes the defendant: Katusha Maslova, a woman he seduced and abandoned ten years earlier when she was a young servant. She has since fallen into prostitution and is now falsely convicted of murder. Nekhlyudov, stricken by guilt, devotes himself to saving her, following her through the prison system and ultimately to Siberia. The novel is Tolstoy at his most didactic but also at his most passionate. His anger at injustice burns on every page. The institutions that claim to uphold morality are shown to be the primary sources of immorality. The rich destroy the poor and call it civilization. Plot Summary The Trial Prince Nekhlyudov, a wealthy aristocrat, is called for...