A Confession (Annotated with Biography and Critical Essay)

A Confession was written in the last decade of the 19th century and was mainly a treatise on the meaning of life. Tolstoy had by this point had a religious awakening and had wrestled for decades with the purpose of his life on Earth.

Tolstoy had questioned his faith when still an adolescent. He had been raising, like the majority of Russians, in the official established church of the country – the Russian Orthodox Church. The trappings of religion, such as genuflecting, meant nothing to him ...