Monthly Readings

February Monthly Reading: From "Whom to Serve?"

Iz "Komu sluzhit'?"

A. I. Arkhangelsky (pen name: Buka)

Alexander Ivanovich Arkhangelsky (1846-1927), who wrote under the pen name "Buka," was a peasant philosopher and Tolstoyan whose book *Whom to Serve?* developed a radical critique of state and church

March Monthly Reading: From "Whom to Serve?"

Iz "Komu sluzhit'?"

A. I. Arkhangelsky (pen name: Buka)

This excerpt addresses political idolatry—the error of creating kings and governments as objects of worship. The reference to 1 Samuel 8 was central to Tolstoyan anarchism: God's warning that choosing

From "Patriotism and Government"

Iz "Patriotizm i pravitel'stvo"

Leo Tolstoy

This excerpt is from Tolstoy's essay "Patriotism and Government" (*Patriotizm i pravitel'stvo*), written in 1900. The full essay was published in England by the Free Word Publishing House because it c

May Monthly Reading: Voluntary Slavery and Military Refusal

Part I: Étienne de La Boétie (translated by Tolstoy); Part II: Dr. Albert Škarvan

A two-part meditation on why people submit to tyranny and how to resist it. La Boétie's sixteenth-century analysis of "voluntary servitude" argues that tyranny rests entirely on the cooperation of the

Life and Death of E. N. Drozhzhin

Zhizn' i smert' E. N. Drozhzhina

E. I. Popov

Evdokim Nikitich Drozhzhin (1866-1894) was a Russian village schoolteacher from Kursk province who, influenced by Tolstoy's religious writings, refused military service on grounds of conscience in Aug

August Monthly Reading: From "Whom to Serve?"

Iz "Komu sluzhit'?"

A. I. Arkhangelsky (pen name: Buka)

This excerpt dramatizes a Tolstoyan's encounter with authorities demanding military registration, demonstrating the practice of non-cooperation that Tolstoy advocated. The narrator calmly explains tha

October Monthly Reading: From "Whom to Serve?"

Iz "Komu sluzhit'?"

A. I. Arkhangelsky (pen name: Buka)

This excerpt addresses the futility of religious and political coercion, arguing that legislators who claim to act for God are in fact replacing divine reason with their own flawed inventions. The app

Labor and Idleness

Trudolyubie i tuneyadstvo

Timofei Mikhailovich Bondarev (1820-1898), with preface by Leo Tolstoy

Timofei Bondarev was a Siberian peasant and religious thinker who, though barely literate, wrote a remarkable treatise arguing that manual labor—specifically the labor of growing bread—was God's funda