Progressive Technologies, Conservative Fictions?: Lev Tolstoy’s Late Writings

• In Event: Nineteenth-Century Russian Conservative Imaginaries

Abstract

Tolstoy has often been discussed in relation to the socially conservative ethos of his fiction. Yet, Tolstoy also embraced the technological innovations of his time—such as the gramophone and camera—arguing that they could benefit the public good. How could an advocate of technology for societal progress produce socially conservative fiction? This paper argues that it was precisely Tolstoy’s critical analysis of these technologies of mass spectatorship—and the resulting distinction between public and individuating technology—that enabled him to develop a new formal approach to writing. The result was public-facing, socially conservative fiction that resisted the individual spectatorial impulse and ceded some of its social consciousness in order to become socially reparative.

Author

• Valeria Mutc, UC Davis