'Atlantic' Gives Harvard A New Tolstoy Epistle

A recently discovered manuscript of Leo Tolstoy advising all young men to resist military conscription is being published in the February issue of The Atlantic Monthly and given to Houghton Library by the magazine.

The manuscript, a letter in 1899 to a young Hessian named Ernst Schramm, stated that "All just people ... must refuse to become soldiers."

"Under no circumstance can we inflict violence on people, torture or kill them because we think such acts could be of use to us or to others," Tolstoy wrote. He delivered this advice to his young correspondent in the knowledge that the penalty for evading conscription into the Hessian army was death, even though it was a time of peace.

'Wrong'

"I can well understand that you, a young man full of life, loving and loved by your mother, friends, perhaps a young woman, think with a natural terror about what awaits you if you refuse conscription; and perhaps you will not feel strong enough to bear the consequences of refusal, and knowing your weakness, will submit and become a soldier. I understand completely, and I do not for a moment allow myself to blame you, knowing very well that in your place I might perhaps do the same thing. Only do not say that you did it because it was useful or because everyone does it. If you did it, know that you did wrong," Tolstoy wrote.

The Hessian post office forwarded Tolstoy's letter to Bavaria. The Atlantic concludes that Schramm decided not to join the army, but to flee the country instead.