The murmur of culture: semiotics and the meaning of life

Abstract

The article proposes a semiotic reading of one of Tolstoy’s most enigmatic writings, Ispoved’ (Confession), so as to formulate a hypothesis about the genesis and the meaning of cultural change. Why, in the second part of his life, and after a deep existential crisis, did the Russian literary genius decide that the form of life of the people was the only one able to grant him spiritual tranquility? How can this choice be read in the frame of a semiotics of culture and forms of life?