The controversy about the role of the individual in history: F. M. Dostoevsky's novel "The Raw Youth" against L. N. Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace"
The historical concept of L. N. Tolstoy, expressed in the novel “War and Peace”, denies the possibility for an individual to somehow influence history. History is determined by the irrational power of life, embracing all people and demanding from them the pursuit of the simplest selfish interests. According to Tolstoy, the more primitive a person is in a spiritual sense, the more correctly he implements the dictates of the power of life; the ideal of man is Platon Karataev. In the novel “The Raw Youth”, Dostoevsky argues with the position of Tolstoy, he believes that the history is determined by the few “higher personalities” influencing others and the course of events with the help of “higher ideas” (including religious ones). In the 1870s, Tolstoy experienced an ideological crisis, as a result of which he abandoned his former worldview and created a religious-philosophical doctrine very close to Dostoevsky’s views. In this teaching, Tolstoy demands that people abandon the simplest, “animal” life for the sake of spiritual life.