Death is one of the central themes of Russian intellectual history. The Russian understanding of the opposition between life and death differs significantly from the Western perspective. This stems from the unique identity of Russian culture, which has been shaped by Western, Eastern, and especially Byzantine influences. The folkloric understanding of death, although pushed to the background by the Christianization of Russia, allows the Russian people to believe that the dead enter a world similar to that of the living and that the deceased can influence earthly life. For Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, death is directly related to the question of the meaning of life. On one hand, according to Tolstoy, those who wish to exit life have lost faith in its meaning. On the other hand, one dies as one lives.