China and the West

Leo Tolstoy general
Tolstoy's books about China (Yasnaya Polyana) :
Abel-Rémusat, Jean-Pierre. Mélanges asiatiques [ID D1979]. [Auszüge].
Abel-Rémusat, Jean-Pierre. Mélanges posthumes d'histoire orientales [ID D5231]. [Auszüge].
Abel-Rémusat, Jean-Pierre. Mémoire sur la vie et les opinions de Lao-tseu [ID D11899].
Abel-Rémusat, Jean-Pierre. Nouveaux mélanges asiatiques [ID D1984]. [Auszüge].
Balfour, Frederic Henry. Taoist texts : ethical, political, and speculative [ID D5888].
Beal, Samuel. A catena of buddhist scriptures from the Chinese [ID D8375].
Beal, Samuel. The romantic legend os Sâkya Buddha [ID D8366].
Carus, Paul. Lao-tze. Tao-teh-king [ID D5896].
Chalmers, John. The origin of the Chinese [ID D7404].
Chalmers, John. The speculations on metaphysics, polity, and morality, of "the old philosopher", Lau-tsze [ID D4588].
Faber, Ernst. A systematical digest of the doctrines of Confucius, according to the Analects, Great learning, and Doctrine of the mean ; with an introduction on the authorities upon Confucius and Confucianism. (Hong Kong : China Mail Office, 1875).
Georgievskij, Sergej Michajlovic. Principy zizny Kitaja [ID D35697].
Gu, Hongming. Et nunc, reges, intelligite! : the moral causes of the Russo-Japanese war. (Shanghai : Shanghai Mercury, 1906).
Gu, Hongming. The great learning of higher education.
Gu, Hongming. Papers from a viceroy's yamen. A Chinese plea for the cause of good government and true civilization in China. (Shanghai : Shanghai Mercury, 1901).
Gu, Hongming. The universal order, or conduct of life [ID D10718].
Harlez, C[harles Joseph] de. Textes taoïstes [ID D5886].
Hearn, Lafcadio. Gleanings in Buddha-fields : studies of hand and soul in the Far East. (Boston : Houghton, Mifflin, 1897).
Heysinger, Isaac W. Lao, Tsze. The light of China : the Tao Teh King of Lao Tsze [ID D36183].
Julien, Stanislas. Les Avadânas [ID D5235].
Julien, Stanislas. Lao-tseu. Tao-te-king : le livre de la voie et de la vertu [ID D2060].
Karyagin, K.M. Konfutsi, yevo zhizn I filosofskaya deyatelnost. (S. Peterburg 1897).
Konishi, D.P. Konfutsi. (Moscow 1896).
Konishi, D.P. Laosi. Tao-teking. (Moscow 1895).
Konishi, D.P. Velikaya nauka Konfutsiya. In : Voprosy filosofii I psikhologii (1893).
Legge, James. The Chinese classics. Vol. 1 : The life and teachings of Confucius. Vol. 2 : The life and works of Mencius. Vol. 3 : The She king. (1867-1876). [Original = ID D2212].
Liang, Qichao. Likhunchzhan, ili politicheskaya istoriya Kitaya za posledniya. (1905).
Meadows, Thomas Taylor. The Chinese and their rebellions, viewed in connection with their national philosophy, ethics, legislation and administration, to which is added an essay on civilisation and its present state in the East and West [ID D4620].
Müller, F. Max. The religions of China [ID D36161].
Müller, F. Max. Sacred books of the East [ID D8367].
Pauthier, G[uillaume] ; Bazin, [Antoine]. Chine moderne, ou Description historique, geographique et littéraire de ce vaste empire, d'après des documents chinois [ID D5286].
Pauthier, Guillaume. Les livres sacrés de l'Orient [ID D2040].
Pauthier, Guillaume. Lao-tseu. Le Tao-te-king, ou, Le livre révéré de la raison suprëme et de la vertu [ID D5892].
Plaenckner, Reinhold von. Lao-tse. Tao-te-king : der Weg zur Tugend [ID D4608].
Rosny, Léon de. Le taoïsme [ID D36182].
Schott, Wilhelm. Khung-Fu-Dsü. Werke des chinsischen Weisen Khung-Fu-Dsü und seiner Schüler [ID D1373]. [Lun yu].
Simon, G. Eugène. La cité chinoise [ID D2437].
Strauss, Victor von. Lao-tse. Tao te king [ID D4587].
Vasil'ev, Vasilii Pavlovic. Religii vostoka : konfucianstvo, buddizm i daosizm [ID D35619].
The world's Chinese students' journal. Shanghai, no 4 (1906).

General
Derk Bodde : Leo Tolstoy's knowledge and appreciation of Chinese civilization, and specially of Chinese philosophy and religion, was deep and sincere. The interest in China came as a direct result of Tolstoy's religious 'crisis', which, beginning in the second half of the 1870s, caused him to turn away from a fruitful literary career and devote his remaining years to a search for the religious meaning of life and death. This search led him to China and her sages.
Tolsty – in addidtion to Christianity itself – at first confined himself to the study of Buddhism and Islam. Only in 1882 did his intellectual horizons expand to include the Far East.
What was it that made Tolstoy feel so akin to the Chinese people : In part, it was the warm and repeatedly expressed sympathy which he felt toward all peoples who were victims of Western imperialism. But more specifically it seems to have been the qualities of pacifism, frugality, industriousness, and simplicity of living for which he lauds them, quite justly, in his Chinese wisdom. The fact that China was a great agrarian country, made up in large part of hardworking peasants. The simple and close-to-earth life of these peasants was, in Tolstoy's eyes, far superior to the corruptions, artificialities and class struggles which he saw in the industrialized countries of Western Europe, with their great factories and crowded urban communities. In this agrarian mode of life, he recognized a factor of basic importance which not only linked China with Russia, but also brought these two nations into spiritual kinship with the other great agrarian countries of Asia, especially India. In China itself, Tolstoy found the highest spiritual expression of this 'genuine' way of life in the Confucian writings and the book of Lao Tzu.
In Taoism, as in Confucianism, Tolstoy was not satisfied merely to seek for self-perfection on the human plane. He looked further for a clue to that higher spiritual force which he believed with his whole being underlies all human activity and gives it its meaning and justification. In the case of Taoism, he did not need to seek far, for the essence of Lao Tzu's philosophy is that underlying the universe, as we see it, there is an absolute first cause or principle, called the 'Tao' or Way, from which all being is evolved, and to the eternal laws of which man must conform if he is to gain enlightenment and true happiness.

Alexander Lukin : For Tolstoy, Achina was an important example of a nonindustrial, nonviolent, nonprogressive and close-to-nature way of life. He had always admired Chinese thought, was involved in several translations of Chinese classics, and even once wanted to study Chinese. Tolstoy especially admired the concept of ‘nonaction’ (wuwei, which he translated as nedelanie) as stated by Laozi, and he used it to attack the European fascination with the advances in science and technology and the intensification of labor. He found ideas in both Laozi and many other Chinese popular sayings that were close to his own ideals : life in manual labor and unity with nature.