How Tolstoy Battled His Depression
A journey through his book ‘A Confession’
Source-Wikipedia
As Leo Tolstoy turned 50, he started experiencing an existential crisis and sank into a state of depression and melancholy. Despite being one of the wealthiest and most admired men in Russia, deep inside, he felt miserable. By this time, Tolstoy had already established his literary abilities and wrote two masterpieces War and Peace (1865–68) and Anna Karenina (1874–76). But he rejected his literary success and labeled his latter novel as “an abomination that no longer exists for me.”
Just as he reached the worst phase of his life and started experiencing suicidal thoughts, he wanted to give himself that one last chance to see light amidst the darkness of his existence. And that’s when he translated his mental turmoil into an autobiographical memoir The Confession. This book is the author’s struggle with his mental health and tries to discover the answers to the ultimate philosophical questions—
“If God does not exist, since death is inevitable, what is the meaning of life?.”
This article focuses on the trigger behind Tolstoy’s depression, his general observation on how possibly others dealt with their mental health issues, and lastly, the solution to his mid-life existential crisis.
