Hello, so what did you think of The Kreutzer Sonata?!

The literary bomb of 1889

In 1889 Leo Tolstoy scandalized readers across Russia, Europe and even America with a single publication. The world knew the author of War and Peace as a moral philosopher and a master of realism. The public expected the aging writer to deliver profound spiritual guidance. Instead he published The Kreutzer Sonata. The novella presented a bleak and extreme vision of human sexuality. It explored themes of jealousy, marriage and absolute abstinence.

The text provoked immediate global controversy and drew fierce reactions from prominent figures. The radical narrative even fractured the personal life of the author. It caused immense distress within his marriage and inspired his own family members to publish literary rebuttals.

Pozdnyshev’s Confession

The story follows a minor nobleman named Pozdnyshev who corners a stranger on a train and has a deep desire to confess. He describes his early life and how his debauchery and later attempt to start over in a pure Christian marriage slowly deteriorated into mutual hatred. The couple has five children together, but the pressures of family life only increase their constant arguing. His wife is a pianist who begins to practice music with a male violinist. They play the famous Beethoven composition called The Kreutzer Sonata together. Pozdnyshev becomes consumed by intense jealousy. He returns home unexpectedly from a trip and finds the two musicians spending time together. In a fit of rage he stabs his wife to death with a dagger. A jury later acquits him of murder because they believe his wife was unfaithful.

Tolstoy uses this plot to pose a serious question. He asks the reader whether Pozdnyshev is simply insane or if the institution of marriage naturally drives ordinary people to violent behavior, because marriage is an untenable lie. If we have to end humanity to end this lie, so be it, says Pozdnyshev.

Responses From Prominent Figures

The publication of The Kreutzer Sonata triggered a wave of reactions from writers, politicians and critics. Anton Chekhov initially praised the artistic merit of the work. He later criticized its scientific inaccuracies regarding medicine and human biology. Theodore Roosevelt famously condemned Tolstoy. The American president referred to the Russian author as a sexual moral pervert due to his extreme views on marriage. The American orator Robert G Ingersoll wrote a detailed critique arguing that Tolstoy misunderstood human affection and love.

The French novelist Emile Zola opposed the core message of the novella. Zola believed that Tolstoy was wrong to promote complete physical abstinence as an ideal. The British writer G K Chesterton criticized Tolstoy for his rigid asceticism and his rejection of natural human bonds. The early psychologist Havelock Ellis discussed the book in his studies of human sexuality. Ellis viewed the novella as a symptom of psychological struggles rather than a valid moral guide. Finally, the cultural critic Max Nordau included Tolstoy in his book Degeneration. Nordau used The Kreutzer Sonata as evidence that Tolstoy suffered from mental decay and morbid mysticism.

Tolstoy Family Affair

Tolstoy intended The Kreutzer Sonata to serve as a moral lesson. He believed that society had corrupted the institution of marriage through physical indulgence. He felt that true Christian morality required complete chastity, even within marriage. Because the public misunderstood his message, Tolstoy wrote an afterword in 1890 to explicitly state his philosophical arguments.

His wife, Sophia Tolstaya, experienced the publication as a profound public humiliation. The main character of the novella murders his wife out of jealousy. The public immediately assumed the story was a direct reflection of their private life. Sophia felt that her husband had exposed their private affairs and painted her in a negative light. Despite her personal anger, Sophia traveled to Saint Petersburg to meet with Tsar Alexander III. She successfully convinced the Tsar to lift the censorship ban on the novella. She did this to protect her family income and to show the public she was not ashamed.

Literary Responses And Rewrites

The controversial nature of the novella prompted several authors to write direct literary rebuttals. Sophia Tolstaya wrote two separate novellas to counter the narrative of her husband. She wrote Whose Fault? to show how a husband can destroy a marriage through unreasonable jealousy and emotional neglect. She later wrote Song Without Words to further explore the emotional isolation of women in marriage.

The son of the author, Lev Lvovich Tolstoy, also opposed the moral arguments of his father. He published a story titled Chopin’s Prelude in 1898. This story defended the institution of marriage and argued that physical intimacy is a natural and healthy component of human love. Other Russian writers joined the debate through their own fiction. Nikolai Leskov wrote A Winter Day to address the themes of morality and family conflict raised by Tolstoy.

The Russian writer Mikhail Artsybashev published his controversial novel Sanin in 1907 as a direct rejection of the ascetic ideals promoted by Tolstoy. Artsybashev used his characters to argue for physical freedom and to criticize the strict moral limitations demanded by The Kreutzer Sonata.

Vladimir Nabokov wrote a dramatic monologue in 1926 titled Pozdnyshev’s Address. Nabokov adopted the perspective of the original main character to further explore themes of suspicion and psychological manipulation.

The Czech composer Leoš Janáček created a musical narrative response with his String Quartet Number One in 1923. Janáček explicitly stated that his composition was a psychological defense of the female character in the Tolstoy novella.

Self Contradiction

Tolstoy was in his thirties when he wrote War and Peace and exactly 41 years old when he fully published it. At that time he presented family life and human history as positive forces that give existence meaning.

He was 61 years old when he published The Kreutzer Sonata. The older writer now viewed physical love and marriage as a dangerous trap and argued that human reproduction should cease entirely if people cannot form more honest relationships.

Which Tolstoy was right?