A new year is a good time to give thanks, and I give thanks to literature. After all, I owe my existence to a novel.
My mother’s people are Russian pacifists. Late in the 19th century their commitment to peace clashed with the Tsar’s commitment to a large army, with predictable results. Leo Tolstoy was impressed by the Doukhobor stand, even in the face of imprisonment and exile (one of my ancestors died on the way to Siberia). He brought their plight to the attention of the European intelligentsia. The Quakers took an interest, and began a letter writing campaign that eventually reached Queen Victoria. She persuaded Tsar Nicholas II to allow the Doukhobors to relocate to Canada, whose government agreed to set them up in Saskatchewan.
Leo Tolstoy dedicated the profits from Resurrection to pay for the relocation. With this money, and the assistance of one of the Count’s sons, close to 6000 Doukhobors escaped to a new life in Canada in 1899.
Resurrection is not one of Tolstoy’s better known works. It isn’t mentioned in most discussions of his literary output. I’ve never even seen an English translation, and my Russian isn’t good enough to read it in the original. Nevertheless, I honor the book because without it, my mother would never have met the American who became her husband.
So, as you are wondering if it’s all worth it – the writing, the rewriting, the rejections – remember that we never know what our stories will do. That essay you published in a small college press, the blog you sent out with a mouse click and a prayer, the poem that appeared in the newspaper and was seemingly forgotten – those words may be more powerful than you will ever know. Make them good.