CO-PHILOSOPHISING WITH LEO TOLSTOY <i>Review on: Bibihin V.V. Leo Tolstoy’s Diaries. - St. Petersburg: Ivan Limbach Publishing House, 2012. - 480 p. </i>
A monograph by Bibihin V.V. Leo Tolstoy’s Diaries (St. Petersburg: Ivan Limbach Publishing House, 2012) is reviewed in this article. It is argued that, from the one hand, Bibihin uses post scientific discourse, as he avoids terminology and any scholastic elements of style, and suggests his own concepts (eg. instead of “good” appears “fair”). From the other hand, Bibihin’s work is not out of pathos, especially of a prophetism, in regarding Tolstoy’s text as a special sacred message and applying the same attitude to one’s own text. Diaries are interesting for Bibihin’s reading of Tolstoy from a new perspective. The great writer is seen as a unique personality for which writing is marginal and even less important than he himself. In such a way Bibihin proposes a dialogism of Tolstoy instead of canonical reading of Tolstoy’s monologism (M. Bakhtin). From this perspective it is clear why Bibihin writes about the Tolstoy’s family and spiritual crisis, saying that it was not Tolstoy who left the family, but rather he was left by the family.