SOURCE: "Tolstoy Versus Dostoevsky," in Existentialism, Religion, and Death: Thirteen Essays, New American Library, 1976, pp. 15-27.

In the following essay, Kaufmann contrasts the political and philosophical views of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.

I

It is customary to think of Tolstoy as a very great novelist who wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina, but who then became immersed in religion and wrote tracts. His later concerns are generally deplored, and many readers and writers wish that instead he might have written another novel of the caliber of his masterpieces. A very few of his later works are excepted: chief among these is The Death of Ivan Ilyitch, which is acknowledged as one of the masterpieces of world literature. And some of those who have read the less well-known fable, How Much Land Does a Man Need? have said that it may well be the greatest short story ever written...