This book is published in English. Following the completion of his major novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Russian writer Leo Tolstoy experienced a spiritual crisis that led him to denounce the privileges of his social class and its attendant material wealth and embrace the simple rural life of the peasantry. In the persecuted Russian Doukhobor sect, who also rejected militarism and church ritual in favour of finding God in their hearts, he saw a prime example of how it was possible to live his new-found pacifist ideals in everyday life. He was so taken with their lifestyle, calling the Doukhobors “people of the 25th century,” that, in 1898, he decided to help finance their mass emigration to Canada, away from the persecutions of the Russian church and state. Donskov’s expanded study presents an outline of Doukhobor history and beliefs, their harmony with Tolstoy’s lifelong aim of “unity of people”, and the portrayal of Doukhobors in Tolstoy’s writings. This edition features Tolstoy’s complete correspondence with Doukhobor leader Pëtr Vasil’evich Verigin. Three guest essays by prominent Canadian Doukhobors are also included. Supported by a considerable array of source materials, Donskov’s monograph will be of relevance to anyone interested in religious, philosophical, sociological, pacifist, historical, or literary studies.

The theme of the peasantry is central throughout most of Tolstoy’s long career. His obsession with this class is seen not just as a matter of social or humanitarian concern, but as a response to the questions of “how to live a good life” and “what is the meaning of life that an inevitable death will not destroy?” These questions plagued him his entire life. The letters he exchanged with the four major peasant sectarian writers (Bondarev, Zheltov, Verigin, and Novikov) reveal that Tolstoy was matched as a profound thinker by his correspondents, as they converse on religious-moral questions, the meaning of life and how one should strive to find it, and on a wide array of burning social and personal problems. Reading through the analysis and the extensively annotated letters as a unified whole, elucidates the progressive development of the ideas they shared (and where these diverged) and which guided Tolstoy’s and his correspondents’ lives. Juxtaposing Tolstoy’s letters with those of his four sectarian correspondents makes them even more significant as it shows them in their original context – a dialogue, or conversation. Also, with the aim to present the conversation in an even broader context, Andrew Donskov briefly discusses Tolstoy’s relationship with peasants in general as well as with each of the four individual writers in particular. In addition, he provides a background sketch of two major religious groups, namely the Doukhobors and the Molokans, both of which still claim sizeable populations of followers in North America today. Originally published in 2008 by the Slavic Research Group at the University of Ottawa under the title Leo Tolstoy and Russian peasant sectarian writers: Selected correspondence, the expanded University of Ottawa Press edition includes 44 letters never published in English, out of the total 155 letters. Correspondence translated by John Woodsworth. This book is published in English. - La paysannerie traverse la longue carrière de Tolstoï. Son obsession avec cette classe sociale doit être comprise non seulement comme une préoccupation sociale ou humanitaire, mais aussi comme une réponse aux questions « Comment mener une belle vie? » et « Quel est le sens de la vie que la mort inévitable ne saurait détruire? » qui l’ont hanté sa vie durant. La correspondance qu’ont échangée Tolstoï et quatre écrivains sectaires et liés à la paysannerie (Bondarev, Zheltov, Verigin et Novikov) révèle de grands penseurs. Au fil des échanges, les questions de religion et de moralité, du sens de la vie et comment faire pour le découvrir, et d’une gamme de questions sociales et personnelles du jour sont abordées. La lecture et l’analyse de cet ensemble d’échanges épistolaires enrichis de notes détaillées témoigne du développement progressif des idées qu’ils partageaient (ainsi que leurs divergences), et qui ont guidé la vie de chacun d’entre eux. La juxtaposition des lettres de Tolstoï et de ses quatre correspondants sectaires, qui sont présentées dans leur contexte original de dialogue – ou de conversation – permet d’en pleinement apprécier l’importance. Dans le but de situer cette conversation dans un contexte plus grand, Andrew Donskov aborde la question de la relation qu’entretient Tolstoï avec les paysans en général, d’une part, de même qu’avec chacun de ces quatre écrivains, d’autre part. Il offre par ailleurs un texte de présentation sur les Doukhobors et les Molokans, deux groupes confessionnaux qui comptent encore aujourd’hui un nombre appréciable d’adeptes en Amérique du Nord. Ce livre est publié en anglais.

With over 100 colour photographs, Folk Furniture of Canada's Doukhobors, Hutterites, Mennonites and Ukrainians offers a stunning visual record of the culture and values of these four ethno-cultural groups. Authors John Fleming and Michael Rowan take an interpretive approach to the importance of folk furniture and its intimate ties to people's values and beliefs. Photographer James Chambers beautifully captures both representative and exceptional artifacts, from large furniture items such as storage chests, benches, cradles, and tables, to small kitchen items including spoons, breadboxes, and cookie cutters.

Likened to a second Tsar in Russia and attaining prophet-like status around the globe, Tolstoy made an impact on literature and the arts, religion, philosophy, and politics. His novels and stories both responded to and helped to reshape the European and Russian literary traditions. His non-fiction incensed readers and drew a massive following, making Tolstoy an important religious force as well as a stubborn polemicist in many fields. Through his involvement with Gandhi and the Indian independence movement, his aid in relocating the Doukhobors to Canada, his correspondence with American abolitionists and his polemics with scientists in the periodical press, Tolstoy engaged a vast array of national and international contexts of his time in his life and thought. This volume introduces those contexts and situates Tolstoy—the man and the writer—in the rich and tumultuous period in which his intellectual and creative output came to fruition.

The centenary of Doukhobor settlement in Canada (1899-1999) marks a unique chapter in the story of this country and its peoples. Twenty-six contributors from Canada, Russia, Japan and the United States offer important insights into the legacy of the Doukhobors with discussions on Doukhobor philosophy and spirituality, song traditions and history to aspects of material culture—textile arts, dress and furnishings—and museological concerns.

How do we know what we should teach? And how should we go about teaching it? These deceptively simple questions about education perplexed Tolstoy. Before writing his famous novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Tolstoy opened an experimental school on his estate to try and answer them. His experiences there incited his life-long inquiry into the meaning and purpose of religion, literature, art and life itself. In this text, Daniel Moulin tells the story of the course of Tolstoy's educational thought, and how it relates to Tolstoy's fiction and other writings. It begins with his experience of being a child and adolescent, incorporates his travels in Europe, the experimental school, his literature, and his views on art, philosophy, and spirituality. Throughout, the relevance and impact of Tolstoy's thinking on education are translated into applicable theory for today's education students.

Both Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828–1910) and his wife Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya (1844–1919) were prolific letterwriters. Lev Nikolaevich wrote approximately 10,000 letters over his lifetime — 840 of these addressed to his wife. Letters written by (or to) Sofia Andreevna over her lifetime also numbered in the thousands. When Tolstaya published Lev Nikolaevich’s letters to her, she declined to include any of her 644 letters to her husband. The absence of half their correspondence obscured the underlying significance of many of his comments to her and occasionally led the reader to wrong conclusions. The current volume, in presenting a constantly unfolding dialogue between the Tolstoy-Tolstaya couple — mostly for the first time in English translation — offers unique insights into the minds of two fascinating individuals over the 48-year period of their conjugal life. Not only do we ’peer into the souls’ of these deep-thinking correspondents by penetrating their immediate and extended family life — full of joy and sadness, bliss and tragedy but we also observe, as in a generation-spanning chronicle, a variety of scenes of Russian society, from rural peasants to lords and ladies. This hard-cover, illustrated critical edition includes a foreword by Vladimir Il’ich Tolstoy (Lev Tolstoy’s great-great-grandson), introduction, maps, genealogy, as well as eleven additional letters by Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya published here for the very first time in either Russian or English translation. It is a beautiful complement to My Life, a collection of Sofia Tolstaya’s memoirs published in English in 2010 at the University of Ottawa Press.

Janet Mancini Billson provides extended interviews with Russian, Bhutanese, Rohingya, and Kurdish refugees, and the resettlement workers who smooth their transition into Canada, in order to paint a complex picture of creating a new life in a new land. Refugee Pathways to Freedom: Escaping Persecution and Statelessness shows how the agonies of losing one’s home and leaving loved ones behind are coupled with the dangers of escaping into unknown territory, and that those who make the journey to freedom know that the dream of a safe and secure future is fraught with risks and disappointment. She argues that refugees and refugee agencies bring powerful ideas for revamping an overwhelmed global system that freezes victims of persecution in years of political and emotional limbo. She examines how shrinking refugee flows by addressing root causes of displacement is critical, but so is speeding up selection processes to reduce despair and lost years. She further posits that drastically limiting time in refugee camps would prevent counterproductive education and work gaps and that reducing language barriers to employment ensures well-being and successful integration.