Artistic originality of the late Leo Tolstoy

The literature on Leo Tolstoy shows that each era has approached the assessment of his work with its own criterion. What seemed to the democratically minded representative of realistic literary thought of the second half of the last century, N. N. Strakhov, in Tolstoy's work to be of undeniable value, was precisely what the reactionary decadent D. Merezhkovsky considered the great writer's artistic impotence. They make no exception to this general approach to the study of L. Tolstoy's work and his late works. However, compared to the vast literature devoted to the brilliant writer, there are few publications on his late work. Nevertheless, they very clearly outline the main trends in pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary Russian science, which, with few exceptions, are reduced to denying the creative potential of the old Tolstoy and the artistic significance of his works - The Kreutzer Sonata, Father Sergius, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, After the Ball, etc.