What is the title of Leo Tolstoy’s 1889 novella centered on Pozdnyshev’s confession?

Leo Tolstoy’s 1889 novella centered on Pozdnyshev’s confession is The Kreutzer Sonata.

The story is framed as a conversation on a train. Pozdnyshev recounts the jealousy, sexual suspicion, and marital conflict that led him to murder his wife. The title refers to Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 9, commonly called the Kreutzer Sonata, whose performance becomes associated with emotional and erotic danger.

Tolstoy completed the work in 1889, but Russian censors initially objected to its treatment of marriage, sexuality, and social morality. It was eventually published in Russia in 1891 after intervention by officials and approval from Alexander III.

The novella is sometimes confused with an essay or a conventional love story. It is instead a provocative philosophical narrative about marriage, desire, gender relations, and moral reform. Beethoven’s sonata inspired the title but is not the novella’s setting.