Resurrection (Auferstehung)

It has been years – decades even – since Prince Nekhlyudov, then a young military officer, met the even younger housemaid Katya Maslova. In his youth, he was enchanted by her and seduced her, and then forgot about her, just like many others since. Now he has been summoned to court as a juror. And in the prostitute accused of murder, he recognises that girl from long ago. He cannot prevent sentence being passed – nor the realisation that he alone is to blame for her blighted life which must now continue, and perhaps end, in Siberian exile. But what can follow on from this? Can a fate be turned around – your own or someone else's? How does atonement work, and how do you achieve forgiveness? And what if the world that Nekhlyudov now wants to change resists all attempts to do so?

Resurrection is both Tolstoy's final novel and the one that points most clearly to the present. It begins in 19th century Moscow and ends in a timeless, nondescript, stark expanse of nothingness. Gathered there are the misunderstood, the spurned, the fighters for justice. This is where the revolution and resistance, passion, wisdom, sickness and utopia find their final resting place among the barking dogs.