Abstract:
The article presents a comparative description of several scientific approaches to the study of L.N. Tolstoy's
creativity. The author mainly compares the ways of studying the writer's personality and creativity in the Soviet
academic literature and the latest science of the last twenty years. In the Soviet years, the fundamental
foundations of Tolstoy studies were laid, which are still the basis for understanding the writer's artistic world.
However, according to the authors, there was a significant ideological emphasis in the study of the writer's
work, made by Lenin, who called Tolstoy a mirror of the Russian revolution. The article analyzes the main
trends of post-Soviet Tolstoy studies. Special attention is paid to the research of the writer's spiritual and religious
world, which significantly changes the idea of Tolstoy as an ideologue of the revolution. The authors
conclude that there is a significant change in the interpretation of the personality and creativity of the great
Russian writer.
