In 1886, shortly after completing The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Lev Tolstoi almost died himself. A wound on his leg became infected and it was only the timely arrival of a doctor that saved him from a fatal case of septicemia. Bed-ridden for three months, Tolstoi began planning a treatise on death. Yet it is emblematic of his thought process that this treatise ultimately became On Life—a work that defies the very fact of death. On Life is a bold profession de foi that Tolstoi saw as the culmination of his decades-long quest to determine the meaning of life. It puts forth a vision of living for others—not as a rejection of the self, but as a reasoned awareness that this is the only true path to happiness. Some of the ideas are recognizable from Tolstoi's Confession (1882) and the essays on science and art that he was drafting in the 1880s, but the overall philosophy is strikingly new.

While On Life has been translated into English before, Inessa Medzhibovskaya and Michael Denner's new edition is sorely needed. The translation is clear and readable, retaining Tolstoi's tone that shifts between the polemical and the sagacious, full of analogies and touches of humor that make the prose accessible to the broad audience for which Tolstoi intended it. Medzhibovskaya and Denner have made logical choices for translating Tolstoi's terminology that read more smoothly than Isabel Hapgood's or Aylmer Maude's (such as selecting “animal individuality” for zhivotnaia lichnost΄, rather than “animal personality,” which Hapgood and Maude chose).

Tolstoi's central concept is razumnoe soznanie, which Medzhibovskaya and Denner translate as “reasonable consciousness” (Hapgood uses “intelligent consciousness” and Maude chooses “rational consciousness”). The awakening of this consciousness is a traumatic, but necessary step on the path from the false belief that life exists in one's individuality (and for the purpose of seeking personal well-being, which is where Tolstoi assumes we all begin) toward an understanding of life existing outside of space and time. As Tolstoi explains in the chapter titled “What Is Necessary Is Not the Negation of Our Individuality but Obedience to Reasonable Consciousness”: “The misery of the human condition occurs not because someone is an individual but because he understands his individual life to be his life and his happiness” (“happiness” is blago, or well-being, rather than pleasure-seeking, 120).

Tolstoi aims to take us beyond this misery through a correct understanding of life. “A reasonable person cannot help seeing that, when he imagines the possibility that instead of pursuing his own happiness he seek the happiness of other creatures, his life becomes reasonable and happy, instead of its former unreasonableness and misery” (114). Indeed, love becomes “the only reasonable activity of man” (125). And when we recognize life as existing not in a physical body that is in a constant state of decay, but as a “relationship toward the world” (153), then there is no death. In the chapter aptly titled “Life of the Deceased Does Not Cease in This World,” Tolstoi uses the “loss” of his brother to illustrate that “That force of life that was once in my brother not only did not disappear or diminish, nor, too, did it stay the same: it increased, and it affects me now more powerfully than before” (157). In other words, Tolstoi's brother is present in his reminiscences, and therefore still “exists” (157). And so does Christ: “We say that this is not the life of Christ but its consequence. By saying these words that mean nothing, it seems to us that we have uttered something clearer and more definite than the fact that this force is the living Christ himself” (158). One could question the difference between “existing” (continuing to have an impact in the world) and being “alive,” but Tolstoi's definition of life as “a certain relationship toward the world” circumvents such a challenge. Death, like falling asleep, is just a cessation of “temporal consciousness” (151).

Not only is this new translation of On Life more accurate than earlier ones, it is also meticulously researched. The accompanying Introduction, Notes, and Historical Supplement by Medzhibovskaya provide critical context not available in earlier editions. Even the Russian Jubilee Edition of Tolstoi's complete works lacks such rigorous critical commentary. As Medzhibovskaya explains in her Introduction, Volume 26 (where On Life appeared), was edited and printed during the purges in 1936. As Tolstoi's philosophy did not align with Soviet ideology, the editor was unable to adequately engage with it. Medzhibovskaya's superb introduction and detailed notes are an invaluable aid for situating Tolstoi's views in the philosophical context of their time and also explain the complicated history of On Life that has kept it from becoming better known. The selected letters and critical responses allow readers to engage with some of this context directly and will be an excellent resource for anyone teaching the text.

Tolstoi considered On Life “a resume of his ideas on the meaning of life” (Medzhibovskaya's words, 30), and for this reason, if for no other, it deserves a more prominent place in discussions of his thought. But readers will have to decide for themselves whether it is truly an “unsung classic of Russian thought” deserving of a place alongside Blaise Pascal, Michel de Montaigne, Arthur Schopenhauer, Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and others as a classic of the philosophical tradition (32). Some readers are sure to be rankled by Tolstoi's frequent use of absolute language like “Man cannot help seeing. . .” or “Who among the living does not know. . .” that assumes everyone must view the world as Lev Tolstoi does. On Life also demonstrates Tolstoi's characteristic rejection of scientific study because it fails to answer the questions that interest him (he claims the study of cells and microscopic organisms “distorts the concept of life,” 183). This leads to totalizing statements like “One studies life only to make it better” (52). Tolstoi studies life only to make it better, and On Life makes a powerful contribution to this aim.