About Life - An investigation into the nature and meaning of life

The seed of this book appeared in an article published by Tolstoy entitled "Essay on Life" in the magazine "Russian Wealth", and Obolensky, Tolstoy''s friend, had often urged him to write it. Tolstoy says in one of his letters to him: "I am now writing thoughts about life and death and paraphrasing what I have read. This topic seems to me very important..." After a conversation between Tolstoy and Y. Grote, a professor at Moscow University, about the concept of life, and reading a report entitled "The Concept of Life" at the Psychological Society of Moscow University on March 14, 1887, the idea came to Tolstoy''s mind to write He wrote a special book about the matter: "It began with me writing about life and death, but when I finished it became clear to me that I had to remove the second half of the title, because this word - at least for me - had completely lost its meaning." The article was finally published in 1888 in the magazine " The Moscow Psychological Society published another title, "Questions of Philosophy and Psychology," and professors of Moscow University and members of the society discussed the article. The book "On Life" is a philosophical study into the nature of life, and is characterized by simple and clear language, despite it touching on deep philosophical issues. Tolstoy never stopped thinking about the meaning of his life and the lives of people in general, and in this book the reader meets Tolstoy, the anxious thinker and philosopher who never stopped reviewing and amending his ideas, just as he never stopped reviewing the proofs of his works. This dynamic, non-stop mental process is one of the most important features of this mighty mind.