Van de Schoonheid en de Troost — Season 1, Episode 21: Don't Look Back: Tatjana Tolstaja

Episode synopsis

Interview with Tatjana Tolstaja, Russian writer and granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy. Tolstaja talks about her deceased father, who was a physicist and with whom she still keeps in touch despite his death, what she learned from him, including asking good questions about life, showing interest in life, the political history of Russia, human suffering, Lenin's politics, why she finds Russia fascinating, taking responsibility for your own life, what she finds comfort in, the universality of experiences, what she understands by harmony, the existence of a self-contained reality, her experience that she probably had multiple lives before this life, the feeling of immortality, her near-death experience, her belief in God, life after death, free will versus fate and the importance of humor and self-mockery in finding comfort.

About Van de Schoonheid en de Troost

To his guests – artists, scientists, writers, philosophers and musicians – Wim Kayzer in Of Beauty and Consolation asks the philosophical question: What makes this life worth living?

More episodes from Season 1

• E1Fathers Roses: Wole Soyinka
• E2Homecoming: Roger Scruton
• E3Alone on the mountain: Jane Goodall
• E4The Code of Pasternak: George Steiner
• E5The End of the Thirteenth: Vladimir Ashkenazy
• E6Thor, Newton, Einstein: Steven Weinberg
• E7Guilt: Martha Nussbaum
• E8You Are There and You Are Not: Karel Appel
• E9The Greatest Mystery Is Not the Universe: Edward Witten
• E10Dear Mother: Elizabeth Loftus
• E11When My Father Was Still Big: Rutger Kopland
• E12What's Mary Doing in the Cave: Gary Lynch