Resurrection

Resurrection is a novel written by Leo Tolstoy and originally published in 1899. It is the last novel published by the Russian writer.

Dmitry Ivanovich Nekhludov is a young aristocrat who wants to redeem himself from some mistakes made in the past. That's all he thinks about, he needs to be at ease with his conscience.

The story really begins when Nekhludov is called to serve as a juror. To his horror, one of the defendants is Ekaterina Maslova: the girl he seduced and abandoned years before. She was an orphan taken in by his aunts, and that is where they met. After he left, she was turned out of the house, and she now stands falsely accused of poisoning a client of the brothel she ended up in.

The encounter forces Nekhludov to face his own part in it, and when the jury's carelessness helps send her to Siberia, he sets out to follow her there and repair what he can.

The novel is a fierce critique of Russian society at the time, harshly attacking the judicial and civil service system, the church, the upper classes.... It also presents profound moral dilemmas about what is evil and what is good or how to be happy in life.

"Though hundreds of thousands had done their very best to disfigure the small piece of land on which they were crowded together, by paving the ground with stones, scraping away every vestige of vegetation, cutting down the trees, turning away birds and beasts, and filling the air with the smoke of naphtha and coal, still spring was spring, even in the town."

For this edition of the book Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy, the English translation by Mrs. Louise Maude has been used.