Russia, late nineteenth century. A prostitute, Katerina Maslova, is accused of murder. Present at her trial as a juror is Prince Dmitri Ivanovich Nekhlyudov. He is the one who, when she was still young, seduced her and abandoned her pregnant with their child, little Mitienka.
The accused is sentenced to four years of hard labor in Siberia. Nekhlyudov, tormented by the Erinyes, follows Katerina into exile and her suffering. The tragic story of Katerina Maslova provides Tolstoy the opportunity to unleash his venomous arrows targeting the sadly decayed institutions – from family to justice – of a Russia collapsing into the twilight of the nineteenth century.
In Resurrection, the moral reflections, spiritual concerns, and political ideas that Tolstoy cultivated towards the end of his life reach their peak and expression, as he began to reevaluate his relationship with the state, condemned despotism, the degradation of poor peasants, and feudalism as the core of the Tsarist regime.
And although he still considered himself a Christian, he was not afraid to criticize the hypocrisy of the official Church. Resurrection is a classic novel of world literature. A masterpiece that in its time (1899) surpassed the sales of War and Peace and Anna Karenina. The last great work of Leo Tolstoy.
