Chapter XV explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Social Conventions vs. Individual Desire

  The core conflict is between societal/political pressure to support a popular national cause and the individual's right to question or reject that sentiment. Levin and the Prince assert individual conscience against the collective will championed by Sergey Ivanovitch.

• Hypocrisy and Social Pretense

  Levin implicitly accuses the volunteer movement and its supporters of hypocrisy or false consciousness, suggesting the 'people's will' is manufactured by a few (like Ivan Ivanovitch Ragozov and Countess Lidia Ivanovna) and blindly followed by others.

• Isolation and Misunderstanding

  Levin feels isolated in his views, stating 'I'm one of the people myself, and I don’t feel it.' The debate highlights a fundamental misunderstanding between the intellectual elite's idea of the people and the actual, possibly indifferent, populace represented by the beekeeper.

Characters to notice

• Konstantin Dmitrievitch Levin

  Argues passionately against the volunteer movement, questioning whether it represents the true will of the Russian people and asserting that war is a matter for governments, not private sentiment.

• Sergey Ivanovitch Koznishev

  Champions the volunteer cause as a noble expression of Christian and national feeling, defending it as the direct will of the people against Levin's skepticism.

• Darya Alexandrovna Oblonskaya

  Hosts the gathering, interjects briefly in the debate, and is primarily occupied with doling out food to the children and swatting away insects.

• Prince Shcherbatsky

  Sides with Levin, expressing his own inability to feel the sudden popular affection for the Slavonic brethren and questioning the legitimacy of the movement.

• Professor Katavasov

  Supports Sergey Ivanovitch, challenging Levin's views and describing the enthusiastic scenes at the station as volunteers depart.

• Count Alexey Kirillovitch Vronsky

  Mentioned in absentia; Dolly reveals he is traveling to Serbia, taking a squadron at his own expense, tying him directly to the debate's central issue.

• Grisha

  Present as one of Dolly's children being fed during the conversation.

• Mihail Vassilievitch Sludin

  The old beekeeper (Mihalitch); when asked about the war, he defers completely to the Tsar's authority, embodying the peasant perspective that Levin references.

Key passages

• “"I’m one of the people myself, and I don’t feel it."”

  Levin claims his own lack of patriotic fervor disproves the idea of a unified popular will.

  Highlights Levin's identification with the peasantry and his skepticism of abstract intellectual causes.

• “"It means, to my thinking... that among eighty millions of people there can always be found not hundreds, as now, but tens of thousands of people who have lost caste, ne’er-do-wells, who are always ready to go anywhere."”

  Levin dismisses the volunteers as social outcasts and adventurers, not the 'best representatives of the people.'

  A harsh, cynical view that reduces noble sentiment to rootless desperation, sparking Sergey Ivanovitch's ire.

• “"Alexander Nikolaevitch our Emperor has thought for us; he thinks for us indeed in all things. It’s clearer for him to see."”

  The beekeeper, Mihalitch, defers all political and moral decision-making to the Tsar.

  Illustrates the passive, traditional peasant mindset Levin believes is the true majority, undermining the idea of an informed public will.

• “"But who has declared war on the Turks?—Ivan Ivanovitch Ragozov and Countess Lidia Ivanovna, assisted by Madame Stahl?"”

  The old prince sarcastically suggests the war is a project of a few fashionable society figures, not a state action.

  Mocks the perceived artificiality and social posturing behind the volunteer movement.