lev tolstoy biography

Leo Tolstoy

(1828-1910)

Who Was Leo Tolstoy?

In the 1860s, Russian author Leo Tolstoy wrote his first great novel, War and Peace . In 1873, Tolstoy set to work on the second of his best-known novels, Anna Karenina . He continued to write fiction throughout the 1880s and 1890s. One of his most successful later works was The Death of Ivan Ilyich .

On September 9, 1828, writer Leo Tolstoy was born at his family's estate, Yasnaya Polyana, in the Tula Province of Russia. He was the youngest of four boys. When Tolstoy's mother died in 1830, his father's cousin took over caring for the children. When their father, Count Nikolay Tolstoy, died just seven years later, their aunt was appointed their legal guardian. When the aunt passed away, Tolstoy and his siblings moved in with a second aunt, in Kazan, Russia. Although Tolstoy experienced a lot of loss at an early age, he would later idealize his childhood memories in his writing.

Tolstoy received his primary education at home, at the hands of French and German tutors. In 1843, he enrolled in an Oriental languages program at the University of Kazan. There, Tolstoy failed to excel as a student. His low grades forced him to transfer to an easier law program. Prone to partying in excess, Tolstoy ultimately left the University of Kazan in 1847, without a degree. He returned to his parents' estate, where he made a go at becoming a farmer. He attempted to lead the serfs, or farmhands, in their work, but he was too often absent on social visits to Tula and Moscow. His stab at becoming the perfect farmer soon proved to be a failure. He did, however, succeed in pouring his energies into keeping a journal — the beginning of a lifelong habit that would inspire much of his fiction.

As Tolstoy was flailing on the farm, his older brother, Nikolay, came to visit while on military leave. Nikolay convinced Tolstoy to join the Army as a junker, south in the Caucasus Mountains, where Nikolay himself was stationed. Following his stint as a junker, Tolstoy transferred to Sevastopol in Ukraine in November 1854, where he fought in the Crimean War through August 1855.

Early Works

During quiet periods while Tolstoy was a junker in the Army, he worked on an autobiographical story called Childhood . In it, he wrote of his fondest childhood memories. In 1852, Tolstoy submitted the sketch to The Contemporary , the most popular journal of the time. The story was eagerly accepted and became Tolstoy's very first published work.

After completing Childhood , Tolstoy started writing about his day-to-day life at the Army outpost in the Caucasus. However, he did not complete the work, entitled The Cossacks , until 1862, after he had already left the Army.

Tolstoy still managed to continue writing while at battle during the Crimean War. During that time, he composed Boyhood (1854), a sequel to Childhood , the second book in what was to become Tolstoy's autobiographical trilogy. In the midst of the Crimean War, Tolstoy also expressed his views on the striking contradictions of war through a three-part series, Sevastopol Tales . In the second Sevastopol Tales book, Tolstoy experimented with a relatively new writing technique: Part of the story is presented in the form of a soldier's stream of consciousness.

Once the Crimean War ended and Tolstoy left the Army, he returned to Russia. Back home, the burgeoning author found himself in high demand on the St. Petersburg literary scene. Stubborn and arrogant, Tolstoy refused to ally himself with any particular intellectual school of thought. Declaring himself an anarchist, he made off to Paris in 1857. Once there, he gambled away all of his money and was forced to return home to Russia. He also managed to publish Youth , the third part of his autobiographical trilogy, in 1857.

Back in Russia in 1862, Tolstoy produced the first of a 12 issue-installment of the journal Yasnaya Polyana , marrying a doctor's daughter named Sofya Andreyevna Bers that same year.

'War and Peace'

Residing at Yasnaya Polyana with his wife and children, Tolstoy spent the better part of the 1860s toiling over his first great novel, War and Peace . A portion of the novel was first published in the Russian Messenger in 1865, under the title "The Year 1805." By 1868, he had released three more chapters and a year later, the novel was complete. Both critics and the public were buzzing about the novel's historical accounts of the Napoleonic Wars, combined with its thoughtful development of realistic yet fictional characters. The novel also uniquely incorporated three long essays satirizing the laws of history. Among the ideas that Tolstoy extols in War and Peace is the belief that the quality and meaning of one's life is mainly derived from his day-to-day activities.

'Anna Karenina'

Following the success of War and Peace , in 1873, Tolstoy set to work on the second of his best-known novels, Anna Karenina . Like War and Peace , Anna Karenina fictionalized some biographical events from Tolstoy's life, as was particularly evident in the romance of the characters Kitty and Levin, whose relationship is said to resemble Tolstoy's courtship with his own wife.

The first sentence of Anna Karenina is among the most famous lines of the book: "All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Anna Karenina was published in installments from 1873 to 1877, to critical and public acclaim. The royalties that Tolstoy earned from the novel contributed to his rapidly growing wealth.

Philosophy, Religious Conversion

Despite the success of Anna Karenina , following the novel's completion, Tolstoy suffered a spiritual crisis and grew depressed. Struggling to uncover the meaning of life, Tolstoy first went to the Russian Orthodox Church but did not find the answers he sought there. He came to believe that Christian churches were corrupt and, in lieu of organized religion, developed his own beliefs. He decided to express those beliefs by founding a new publication called The Mediator in 1883.

As a consequence of espousing his unconventional — and therefore controversial — spiritual beliefs, Tolstoy was ousted by the Russian Orthodox Church. He was even watched by the secret police. When Tolstoy's new beliefs prompted his desire to give away his money, his wife strongly objected. The disagreement put a strain on the couple's marriage until Tolstoy begrudgingly agreed to a compromise: He conceded to granting his wife the copyrights — and presumably the royalties — to all of his writing predating 1881.

Later Fiction

'the death of ivan ilyich'.

In addition to his religious tracts, Tolstoy continued to write fiction throughout the 1880s and 1890s. Among his later works' genres were moral tales and realistic fiction. One of his most successful later works was the novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich , written in 1886. In Ivan Ilyich , the main character struggles to come to grips with his impending death. The title character, Ivan Ilyich, comes to the jarring realization that he has wasted his life on trivial matters, but the realization comes too late.

In 1898, Tolstoy wrote Father Sergius , a work of fiction in which he seems to criticize the beliefs that he developed following his spiritual conversion. The following year, he wrote his third lengthy novel, Resurrection . While the work received some praise, it hardly matched the success and acclaim of his previous novels. Tolstoy's other late works include essays on art, a satirical play called The Living Corpse that he wrote in 1890, and a novella called Hadji-Murad (written in 1904), which was discovered and published after his death.

Elder Years

Also during his later years, Tolstoy reaped the rewards of international acclaim. Yet he still struggled to reconcile his spiritual beliefs with the tensions they created in his home life. His wife not only disagreed with his teachings, but she also disapproved of his disciples, who regularly visited Tolstoy at the family estate. Their troubled marriage took on an air of notoriety in the press. Anxious to escape his wife's growing resentment, in October 1910, Tolstoy, his daughter, Aleksandra, and his physician, Dr. Dushan P. Makovitski, embarked on a pilgrimage. Valuing their privacy, they traveled incognito, hoping to dodge the press, to no avail.

Death and Legacy

Unfortunately, the pilgrimage proved too arduous for the aging novelist. In November 1910, the stationmaster of a train depot in Astapovo, Russia opened his home to Tolstoy, allowing the ailing writer to rest. Tolstoy died there shortly after, on November 20, 1910. He was buried at the family estate, Yasnaya Polyana, in Tula Province, where Tolstoy had lost so many loved ones yet had managed to build such fond and lasting memories of his childhood. Tolstoy was survived by his wife and their brood of 8 children. (The couple had spawned 13 children in all, but only 10 had survived past infancy.)

To this day, Tolstoy's novels are considered among the finest achievements of literary work. War and Peace is, in fact, frequently cited as the greatest novel ever written. In contemporary academia, Tolstoy is still widely acknowledged as having possessed a gift for describing characters' unconscious motives. He is also championed for his finesse in underscoring the role of people's everyday actions in defining their character and purpose.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Leo Tolstoy
• Birth Year: 1828
• Birth date: September 9, 1828
• Birth City: Tula Province (Yasnaya Polyana)
• Birth Country: Russia
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Russian author Leo Tolstoy wrote the acclaimed novels 'War and Peace,' 'Anna Karenina' and 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich,' and ranks among the world's top writers.
• Fiction and Poetry
• Astrological Sign: Virgo
• University of Kazan
• Death Year: 1910
• Death date: November 20, 1910
• Death City: Astapovo
• Death Country: Russia

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Leo Tolstoy Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/leo-tolstoy
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: November 14, 2019
• Original Published Date: September 9, 2014
• I put men to death in war, I fought duels to slay others. I lost at cards, wasted the substance wrung from the sweat of peasants, punished the latter cruelly, rioted with loose women, and deceived men. Lying, robbery, adultery of all kinds, drunkenness, violence, and murder, all were committed by me, not one crime omitted, and yet I was not the less considered by my equals to be a comparatively moral man. Such was my life for ten years.

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Biography of Leo Tolstoy, Influential Russian Writer

The great Russian novelist and philosophical writer

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Leo Tolstoy (September 9, 1828-November 20, 1910) was a Russian writer, best known for his epic novels . Born into an aristocratic Russian family, Tolstoy wrote realist fiction and semi-autobiographical novels before shifting into more moral and spiritual works.

Fast Facts: Leo Tolstoy

• Full Name: Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
• Known For: Russian novelist and writer of philosophical and moral texts
• Born : September 9, 1828 in Yasnaya Polyana, Russian Empire
• Parents:  Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy and Countess Mariya Tolstoya
• Died:  November 20, 1910 in Astapovo, Russian Empire
• Education: Kazan University (began at age 16; did not complete his studies)
• Selected Works:   War and Peace (1869), Anna Karenina (1878), A Confession (1880), The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886), Resurrection (1899)
• Spouse:  Sophia Behrs (m. 1862)
• Children:  13, including Count Sergei Lvovich Tolstoy, Countess Tatiana Lvona Tolstoya, Count Ilya Lvovich Tolstoy, Count Lev Lvovich Tolstoy, and Countess Alexandra Lvona Tolstoya
• Notable Quote: “There can be only one permanent revolution—a moral one; the regeneration of the inner man. How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it clearly in himself. And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself."

Tolstoy was born into a very old Russian aristocratic family whose lineage was, quite literally, the stuff of Russian legend. According to family history, they could trace their family tree back to a legendary nobleman named Indris, who had left the Mediterranean region and arrived in Chernigov, Ukraine, in 1353 with his two sons and an entourage of approximately 3,000 people. His descendant then was nicknamed “Tolstiy,” meaning “fat,” by Vasily II of Moscow , which inspired the family name. Other historians trace the family’s origins to 14th or 16th-century Lithuania, with a founder named Pyotr Tolstoy.

He was born on the family’s estate, the fourth of five children born to Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy and his wife, the Countess Maria Tolstoya. Because of the conventions of Russian noble titles, Tolstoy also bore the title of “count” despite not being his father’s eldest son. His mother died when he was 2 years old, and his father when he was 9, so he and his siblings were largely brought up by other relatives. In 1844, at age 16, he began studying law and languages at Kazan University, but was apparently a very poor student and soon left to return to a life of leisure.

Tolstoy did not marry until his thirties, after the death of one of his brothers hit him hard. On September 23, 1862, he married Sophia Andreevna Behrs (known as Sonya), who was only 18 at the time (16 years younger than him) and was the daughter of a doctor at court. Between 1863 and 1888, the couple had 13 children; eight survived to adulthood. The marriage was, reportedly, happy and passionate in the early days, despite Sonya’s discomfort with her husband’s wild past, but as time went on, their relationship deteriorated into deep unhappiness.

Travels and Military Experience

Tolstoy’s journey from dissolute aristocrat to socially agitating writer was shaped heavily by a few experiences in his youth; namely, his military service and his travels in Europe. In 1851, after running up significant debts from gambling, he went with his brother to join the army. During the Crimean War , from 1853 to 1856 , Tolstoy was an artillery officer and served in Sevastopol during the famous 11-month siege of the city between 1854 and 1855.

Although he was commended for his bravery and promoted to lieutenant, Tolstoy did not like his military service. The gruesome violence and heavy death toll in the war horrified him, and he left the army as soon as possible after the war ended. Along with some of his compatriots, he embarked on tours of Europe: one in 1857, and one from 1860 to 1861.

During his 1857 tour, Tolstoy was in Paris when he witnessed a public execution. The traumatic memory of that experience shifted something in him permanently, and he developed a deep loathing and mistrust of government in general. He came to believe that there was no such thing as good government, only an apparatus to exploit and corrupt its citizens, and he became a vocal advocate of non-violence. In fact, he corresponded with Mahatma Gandhi about the practical and theoretical applications of non-violence.

A later visit to Paris, in 1860 and 1861, produced further effects in Tolstoy which would come to fruition in some of his most famous works. Soon after reading Victor Hugo’s epic novel Les Miserables , Tolstoy met Hugo himself. His War and Peace was heavily influenced by Hugo, particularly in its treatment of war and military scenes. Similarly, his visit to the exiled anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon gave Tolstoy the idea for his novel’s title and shaped his views on education. In 1862, he put those ideals to work, founding 13 schools for Russian peasant children in the aftermath of Alexander II’s emancipation of the serfs. His schools were among the first to run on the ideals of democratic education—education which advocates democratic ideals and runs according to them–but were short-lived due to the enmity of the royalist secret police.

Early and Epic Novels (1852-1877)

• Childhood  (1852)
• Boyhood  (1854)
• Youth  (1856)
• "Sevastopol Sketches" (1855–1856)
• The Cossacks  (1863)
• War and Peace  (1869)
• Anna Karenina  (1877)

Between 1852 and 1856, Tolstoy focused on a trio of autobiographical novels: Childhood , Boyhood , and Youth . Later in his career, Tolstoy criticized these novels as being overly sentimental and unsophisticated, but they’re quite insightful about his own early life. The novels are not direct autobiographies, but instead tell the story of a rich man’s son who grows up and slowly realizes that there is an insurmountable gap between him and the peasants who live on the land owned by his father. He also wrote a trio of semi-autobiographical short stories, Sevastopol Sketches , which depicted his time as an army officer during the Crimean War .

For the most part, Tolstoy wrote in the realist style, attempting to accurately (and with detail) convey the lives of the Russians he knew and observed. His 1863 novella, The Cossacks , provided a close look at the Cossack people in a story about a Russian aristocrat who falls in love with a Cossack girl. Tolstoy’s magnum opus was 1869’s War and Peace , a massive and sprawling narrative encompassing nearly 600 characters (including several historical figures and several characters strongly based on real people Tolstoy knew). The epic story deals with Tolstoy’s theories about history, spanning many years and moving through wars , family complications, romantic intrigues, and court life, and ultimately intended as an exploration of the eventual causes of the 1825 Decembrist revolt . Interestingly, Tolstoy did not consider War and Peace to be his first “real” novel; he considered it a prose epic, not a true novel .

Tolstoy believed his first true novel to be Anna Karenina , published in 1877. The novel follows two major plotlines which intersect: an unhappily married aristocratic woman’s doomed affair with a cavalry officer, and a wealthy landowner who has a philosophical awakening and wants to improve the peasantry’s way of life. It covers personal themes of morality and betrayal, as well as larger social questions of the changing social order, contrasts between city and rural life, and class divisions. Stylistically, it lies at the juncture of realism and modernism.

Musings on Radical Christianity (1878-1890)

• A Confession  (1879)
• Church and State  (1882)
• What I Believe  (1884)
• What Is to Be Done?   (1886)
• The Death of Ivan Ilyich  (1886)
• On Life  (1887)
• The Love of God and of One's Neighbour  (1889)
• The Kreutzer Sonata  (1889)

After Anna Karenina , Tolstoy began further developing the seeds of moral and religious ideas in his earlier works into the center of his later work. He actually criticized his own earlier works, including War and Peace and Anna Karenina , as not being properly realistic. Instead, he began developing a radical, anarcho-pacifist, Christian worldview that explicitly rejected both violence and the rule of the state.

Between 1871 and 1874, Tolstoy tried his hand at poetry, branching out from his usual prose writings. He wrote poems about his military service, compiling them with some fairy tales in his Russian Book for Reading , a four-volume publication of shorter works that was intended for an audience of schoolchildren. Ultimately, he disliked and dismissed poetry.

Two more books during this period, the novel The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886) and the non-fiction text What Is to Be Done? (1886), continued developing Tolstoy’s radical and religious views, with harsh critiques of the state of Russian society. His Confession (1880) and What I Believe (1884) declared his Christian beliefs, his support of pacifism and complete non-violence, and his choice of voluntary poverty and asceticism.

Political and Moral Essayist (1890-1910)

• The Kingdom of God Is Within You  (1893)
• Christianity and Patriotism  (1894)
• The Deception of the Church  (1896)
• Resurrection  (1899)
• What Is Religion and What is its Essence?  (1902)
• The Law of Love and the Law of Violence  (1908)

In his later years, Tolstoy wrote almost solely about his moral, political, and religious beliefs. He developed a firm belief that the best way to live was to strive for personal perfection by following the commandment to love God and love one’s neighbor, rather than following the rules set by any church or government on earth. His thoughts eventually garnered a following, the Tolstoyans, who were a Christian anarchist group devoted to living out and spreading Tolstoy’s teachings.

By 1901, Tolstoy’s radical views led to his excommunication from the Russian Orthodox Church , but he was unperturbed. In 1899, he had written Resurrection , his final novel, which critiqued the human-run church and state and attempted to expose their hypocrisy. His criticism extended to many of the foundations of society at the time, including private property and marriage. He hoped to continue spreading his teachings throughout Russia.

For the last two decades of his life, Tolstoy largely focused on essay writing. He continued advocating for his anarchist beliefs while also cautioning against the violent revolution espoused by many anarchists . One of his books, The Kingdom of God Is Within You , was one of the formative influences on Mahatma Gandhi’s theory of nonviolent protest, and the two men actually corresponded for a year, between 1909 and 1910. Tolstoy also wrote significantly in favor of the economic theory of Georgism, which posited that individuals should own the value they produce, but society should share in the value derived from the land itself.

Literary Styles and Themes

In his earlier works, Tolstoy was largely concerned with depicting what he saw around him in the world, particularly at the intersection of the public and private spheres. War and Peace and Anna Karenina , for instance, both told epic stories with serious philosophical underpinnings. War and Peace spent significant time criticizing the telling of history, arguing that it’s the smaller events that make history, not the huge events and famous heroes. Anna Karenina , meanwhile, centers on personal themes such as betrayal, love, lust and jealousy, as well as turning a close eye on the structures of Russian society, both in the upper echelons of the aristocracy and among the peasantry.

Later in life, Tolstoy’s writings took a turn into the explicitly religious, moral, and political. He wrote at length about his theories of pacifism and anarchism, which tied into his highly individualistic interpretation of Christianity as well. Tolstoy’s texts from his later eras were no longer novels with intellectual themes, but straightforward essays, treatises, and other non-fiction work. Asceticism and the work of inner perfection were among the things Tolstoy advocated for in his writings.

Tolstoy did, however, get politically involved, or at least publicly expressed his opinions on major issues and conflicts of the day. He wrote in support of the Boxer rebels during the Boxer Rebellion in China, condemning the violence of the Russian, American, German, and Japanese troops. He wrote on revolution, but he considered it an internal battle to be fought within individual souls, rather than a violent overthrow of the state.

Over the course of his life, Tolstoy wrote in a wide variety of styles. His most famous novels contained sweeping prose somewhere between the realist and modernist styles, as well as a particular style of seamlessly sweeping from quasi-cinematic, detailed but massive descriptions to the specifics of characters’ perspectives. Later, as he shifted away from fiction into non-fiction, his language became more overtly moral and philosophical.

By the end of his life, Tolstoy had reached a breaking point with his beliefs, his family, and his health. He finally decided to separate from his wife Sonya, who vehemently opposed many of the ideas and was intensely jealous of the attention he gave his followers over her. In order to escape with the least amount of conflict, he slipped away secretively, leaving home in the middle of the night during the cold winter.

His health had been declining, and he had renounced the luxuries of his aristocratic lifestyle. After spending a day traveling by train, his destination somewhere in the south, he collapsed due to pneumonia at the Astapovo railway station. Despite the summoning of his personal doctors, he died that day, on November 20, 1910. When his funeral procession went through the streets, police tried to limit access, but they were unable to stop thousands of peasants from lining the streets—although some were there not because of devotion to Tolstoy, but merely out of curiosity about a nobleman who had died.

In many ways, Tolstoy’s legacy cannot be overstated. His moral and philosophical writings inspired Gandhi, which means that Tolstoy’s influence can be felt in contemporary movements of non-violent resistance. War and Peace is a staple on countless lists of the best novels ever written, and it has remained highly praised by the literary establishment since its publication.

Tolstoy’s personal life, with its origins in the aristocracy and his eventual renunciation of his privileged existence, continues to fascinate readers and biographer, and the man himself is as famous as his works. Some of his descendants left Russia in the early 20th century, and many of them continue to make names for themselves in their chosen professions to this day. Tolstoy left behind a literary legacy of epic prose, carefully drawn characters, and a fiercely felt moral philosophy, making him an unusually colorful and influential author across the years.

• Feuer, Kathryn B.  Tolstoy and the Genesis of War and Peace . Cornell University Press, 1996.
• Troyat, Henri. Tolstoy . New York: Grove Press, 2001.
• Wilson, A.N. Tolstoy: A Biography . W. W. Norton Company, 1988.
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Leo Tolstoy

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian author best known for his novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina which are considered to be the greatest novels of realist fiction. Tolstoy is also regarded as world’s best novelist by many. In addition to writing novels, Tolstoy also authored short stories, essays and plays. Also a moral thinker and a social reformer, Tolstoy held severe moralistic views. In later life, he became a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist. His non-violent resistance approach towards life has been expressed in his works such as The Kingdom of God is Within You, which is known to have a profound effect on important 20th century figures, particularly, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi.

Born in Yasnaya Polyana on September 9, 1828, Leo Tolstoy belonged to a well known noble Russian family. He was the fourth among five children of Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy and Countess Mariya Tolstaya, both of whom died leaving their children to be raised by relatives. Wanting to enter the faculty of Oriental languages at Kazan University, Tolstoy prepared for the entry examination by studying Arabic, Turkish, Latin, German, English, and French, also geography, history, and religion. In 1844, Tolstoy was accepted into Kazan University. Unable to graduate beyond the second year, Tolstoy returned to Yasnava Polyana and then spent time travelling between Moscow and St. Petersburg. With some working knowledge of several languages, he became a polyglot. The newly found youth attracted Tolstoy towards drinking, visiting brothels and most of all gambling which left him in heavy debt and agony but Tolstoy soon realized he was living a brutish life and once again attempted university exams in the hope that he would obtain a position with the government, but ended but up in Caucusus serving in the army following in the footsteps of his elder brother. It was during this time that Tolstoy began writing.

In 1862, Leo Tolstoy married Sophia Andreevna Behrs, mostly called Sonya, who was 16 years younger than him. The couple had thirteen children, of which, five died at an early age. Sonya acted as Tolstoy’s secretary, proof-reader and financial manager while he composed two of his greatest works. Their early married life was filled with contentment. However, Tolstoy’s relationship with his wife deteriorated as his beliefs became increasingly radical to the extent of disowning his inherited and earned wealth.

Tolstoy began writing his masterpiece, War and Peace in 1862. The six volumes of the work were published between 1863 and 1869. With 580 characters fetched from history and others created by Tolstoy, this great novel takes on exploring the theory of history and the insignificance of noted figures such as Alexander and Napoleon. Anna Karenina, Tolstoy’s next epic was started in 1873 and published completely in 1878. Among his earliest publications are autobiographical works such as Childhood, Boyhood and Youth (1852-1856). Although they are works of fiction, the novels reveal aspects of Leo’s own life and experiences. Tolstoy was a master of writing about the Russian society, evidence of which is displayed in The Cossacks (1863). His later works such as The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886) and What Is to Be Done? (1901) focus on Christian themes.

In his late years, Tolstoy became increasingly inclined towards ascetic morality and believed sternly in the Sermon on the Mount and non violent resistance. On November 20, 1910, Leo Tolstoy died at the age of 82 due to pneumonia.

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Leo Tolstoy

By michele debczak | apr 24, 2020.

AUTHORS (1828–1910); YASNAYA POLYANA, RUSSIA

When you think about the great works of Russian literature, chances are your mind immediately goes to author Leo Tolstoy. His novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina captivated readers when they debuted, and more than a century after their publications, they are still regarded as some of the best literary works ever put to paper. But book sales are only part of the story—find out more about the life and career of Leo Tolstoy. 

1. Leo Tolstoy didn’t love War and Peace.

Writing War and Peace was a grueling process for Leo Tolstoy. He was constantly revising the work, with the opening scene alone taking him 15 drafts and roughly one year to get just right. Ultimately, all his hard work paid off. War and Peace is arguably his most famous work, as well as one of the most celebrated novels ever written. But despite spending so much time with it (or perhaps because of that fact), Tolstoy grew disdainful of the book.

In a letter to a friend, he shared that he thought the story was bloated, and in his diary, he wrote, “People love me for the trifles— War and Peace and so on—that they think are so important.”

2. Leo Tolstoy's  Anna Karenina  was inspired by true events.

The events of Anna Karenina may have been lifted from a  real-life drama afflicting Leo Tolstoy’s friend and neighbor Aleksandr Nikolaevich Bibikov, who was romantically involved with a woman named Anna Stepanovna Pirogova. But Bibikov started neglecting her in favor of his children’s German governess. Overcome with jealousy, Stepanovna fled to the countryside where she wandered grief-stricken for a few days before stepping in front of a train and died by suicide. Tolstoy was a witness at her autopsy, and the episode affected him enough that, a year later, he decided to turn it into a novel.

3. Leo Tolstoy's wife Sophia was an invaluable asset to his career.

Many great artists benefited from the invisible labor of their partners, but the support Leo Tolstoy got from his wife was especially apparent. Per his wishes, Sophia  (or Sofya ) sat with him while he wrote, and she'd often provide edits and suggestions. She was the one who rewrote all his drafts so he would have a legible manuscript to send to publishers—which must have been quite challenging considering Tolstoy’s high page counts. On the business side, Sophia was the one who urged him to publish War and Peace as a full novel instead of just serialized stories.

4. Leo Tolstoy and Sophia had 13 children.

With his wife, Sophia, Leo Tolstoy had 13 children—eight of whom survived to adulthood. Some took after their father by growing up to be writers, including Ilya Lvovich Tolstoy and Lev Lvovich Tolstoy. Hundreds of his direct descendants are alive today, and biannual Tolstoy family reunions are held at his estate (now a museum) in Yasnaya Polyana, Russia.

5. Leo Tolstoy is one of the best-selling authors of all time.

It’s hard to come up with exact sales numbers for books published prior to the 20th century, but it’s safe to say that Tolstoy’s books are perennial bestsellers. In 2004 alone, Anna Karenina got a boost from Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club, with its publisher increasing that year’s print run from 20,000 to 800,000 copies. War and Peace also sold enough copies to make the UK Bookseller's top 50 list in 2016 when it was adapted for BBC. According to some estimates, more than 400 million copies of Tolstoy’s works have been sold.

6. Leo Tolstoy never won a Nobel Prize.

When the Nobel Prize for Literature debuted in 1901, many people assumed Leo Tolstoy would be the winner. In what’s still considered one of the biggest snubs in the award’s history, he was passed over in favor of French poet Sully Prudhomme . Forty-two Swedish writers and artists wrote Tolstoy to express their disagreement with the Nobel Prize committee, to which he responded, “I was very happy to know the Nobel Prize was not awarded to me. It deprived me of a big problem of how to use the money.” He was nominated each subsequent year until 1906 .

Memorable Leo Tolstoy Quotes

• “If there existed no external means for dimming their consciences, one-half of the men would at once shoot themselves, because to live contrary to one's reason is a most intolerable state, and all men of our time are in such a state.”
• “Faith is the sense of life , that sense by virtue of which man does not destroy himself, but continues to live on. It is the force whereby we live.”
• “The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life.”
• “In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful .”

Biography Online

Leo Tolstoy Biography

Leo Tolstoy was one of the world’s pre-eminent writers becoming famous through his epic novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina . War and Peace has been ranked as one of the greatest novels of all time, for its rich characterisation and sweeping view of Russian society. Tolstoy also became a leading critic of injustice, formal religion and the inequality of Tsarist Russia. While critical of the church, he believed in the essence of gospels and espoused a form of primitive Christianity. In politics, his exposition of pacifism and non-violence had a profound influence on others – most notably Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

“The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the power of my soul, whom I have tried to portray in all his beauty, who has been, is, and will be beautiful, is Truth.”

– Leo Tolstoy

Short Bio – Leo Tolstoy

In his early life, he struggled with his studies and drifted through life ending up with large gambling debts. Fed up with his aimless and empty life he volunteered to serve in the Russian army. However, these experiences as a soldier led him to become a pacifist in later life. He wrote his battlefield observations in Sevastopol Sketches , and this raised his profile as a leading Russian writer, gaining the attention even of the current Tsar. Later, looking back on these years (in his Confessions 1882), he bitterly regretted his misspent years

“I cannot recall those years without horror, loathing, and heart-rending pain. I killed people in war, challenged men to duels with the purpose of killing them, and lost at cards; I squandered the fruits of the peasants’ toil and then had them executed; I was a fornicator and a cheat. Lying, stealing, promiscuity of every kind, drunkenness, violence, murder — there was not a crime I did not commit… Thus I lived for ten years.” – Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy had a deep interest in seeking a greater understanding and justification of life. He travelled widely through Europe but became increasingly disenchanted with the materialism of the European Bourgeoisie. He could be argumentative with those he disagreed with such as Turgenev (widely considered the greatest Russian writer of his generation). He also developed an increasing sympathy with peasants, the poor, and those downtrodden from society. He went out of his way to help and serve them.

War and Peace is breathtaking in its scope, realism and sense of history. Some characters were real historical people; others were invented. It tells a narrative of two families set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars. Tolstoy never saw it as a novel but an epic. Amongst other themes, it suggests the necessity of making the best of life, whatever your situation.

“Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here.”

– Leo Tolstoy from War and Peace

Religious views of Tolstoy

After writing War and Peace and Anna Karenina , Tolstoy underwent a change of religious and philosophical attitude. Influenced by Buddhism and Jesus Christ’s ‘Sermon on the Mount’ he developed a belief in spiritual renewal based on service to the poor and direct relationship with God. He noted his attitudes in ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is within you’ and ‘Confessions’.

“The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity by contributing to the establishment of the kingdom of God, which can only be done by the recognition and profession of the truth by every man.”

Leo Tolstoy , The Kingdom of Heaven is within You. 

His religious views could be described as an early form of Christianity – based on the direct teachings of Jesus Christ, but without the external edifice of religious institutions and ‘myths’ such as the Holy Trinity and Eucharist. Tolstoy felt the power and influence of the church diluted the spiritual essence of religion. Due to his criticism of the Orthodox Church, he was ex-communicated from the church but his legacy as a writer and unique thinker was enhanced throughout the world. His philosophy began to attract disciples, and idealistic Tolstoy communes began to form.

Political views

His religious views also had a direct impact on his political views. He was critical of injustice, greed and the inequality that tended to dominate Tsarist Russia. He developed a pacifist/anarchist philosophy, and became supportive of civil disobedience to improve the welfare of the oppressed. However, his criticism of the Tsar and Russian class system meant the government started to spy on Tolstoy. He was too internationally famous to directly challenge him, but Tolstoy’s strident criticism of the aristocracy was worrying for the authorities.

Life and death

Tolstoy was interested in the meaning of life and death. During his own life, he witnessed the painful death of his brother from tuberculosis, multiple deaths in the Crimean War and a public guillotining in Paris (which contributed to his rejection of the death penalty). He wrote on this theme of death in his short novel Death of Ivan Ilyich. He completed the book in 1882, but it fell foul of Russian censorship and it was not published until 1886. It is written after his religious conversion and touches on the distinction between what gives life value – sympathy, concern and love – and the ‘artificial life’ of social climbing and outer material displays. It is also critical of the attitudes of his former colleagues and friends who are embarrassed by the inconvenience of his fatal illness, but in the novel, he praises the selfless action of a peasant (Gerasim) who turns out to be Ivan’s greatest friend in his painful moments of dying.

Friendship with Gandhi

In the evening of his life, he developed a close relationship with a young Mahatma Gandhi . Tolstoy had written an article supporting Indian independence and Gandhi requested permission to republish it in a South African newspaper. This led to a long correspondence where the two wrote to each other on religious and political matters. Tolstoy wrote to Gandhi.

“Love is the only way to rescue humanity from all ills, and in it you too have the only method of saving your people from enslavement… Love, and forcible resistance to evil-doers, involve such a mutual contradiction as to destroy utterly the whole sense and meaning of the conception of love.” – Letters One from Tolstoy to Gandhi

Gandhi was very impressed with Tolstoy’s belief in non-violent resistance, vegetarianism and brand of ‘anarchist Christianity’. Gandhi later became a pre-eminent proponent of non-violent resistance and credited Tolstoy with being a major inspiration in his religious and political outlook.

Death of Tolstoy

On 28 October 1910, Tolstoy left his family home outside Moscow, leaving a note to his wife saying:

“I am doing what old men of my age usually do: leaving worldly life to spend the last days of my life in solitude and quiet,”

However a few days, later he was taken ill on a train passing through a remote Russian village called Astapovo. Suffering from pneumonia, Tolstoy was taken off the train and looked after at the station master’s house. His final days created worldwide media interest with media outlets sending reporters to cover whether Tolstoy would recover. However, his condition steadily worsened and he began slipping in and out of consciousness. On 7 November 1910, he passed away.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “ Biography of Leo Tolstoy ”, Oxford, UK www.biographyonline.net . Last updated 4 March 2020.  Originally published 22nd Jan. 2009.

Tolstoy: A Russian Life at Amazon

Quotes on Tolstoy

Gandhi said of Tolstoy “the greatest apostle of non-violence that the present age has produced”

Virginia Woolf went on to declare him “greatest of all novelists”

James Joyce said of Tolstoy “He is never dull, never stupid, never tired, never pedantic, never theatrical”

Fyodor Dostoevsky thought him the greatest of all living writers

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Leo Tolstoy

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Leo Tolstoy by Inessa Medzhibovskaya LAST REVIEWED: 20 February 2024 LAST MODIFIED: 20 February 2024 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780190221911-0104

Count Leo Tolstoy (Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy) is one of the greatest writers of all time. Born in Yasnaya Polyana on 9 September 1828 (28 August, Old Style) to Count Tolstoy and Princess Volkonsky, he lived a long, eventful life and became the father of a large family. War and Peace , Anna Karenina , The Cossacks , The Death of Ivan Ilyich , The Kreutzer Sonata , and many other famous texts garnered Tolstoy the admiration of readers well beyond Russia. From as early as the 1880s, the home estate of the author became a beacon for the entire world, as the prophetic force of Tolstoy’s personality compelled him to stand up for justice and promote nonviolence, social and economic equality, and a new type of art. In works of radical nonfiction like A Confession; The Kingdom of God Is Within You , “The Law of Violence and the Law of Love,” and What Is Art? Tolstoy solidified his reputation as much more than a towering literary figure. The tsarist government banned most of these nonliterary writings, heavily censored his artistic works, and arrested or exiled his followers. In 1901, the Russian Orthodox Church issued a determination to excommunicate Tolstoy for his seditious views. Tolstoy was an immediate top nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature—and later, for the Nobel Peace Prize—yet he outright rejected repeated approaches by members of the prize committee, informing them that the very idea of monetary compensation was unacceptable to him, especially since the tainted lucre from dynamite was the source of the funding. At the age of eighty-two, plagued by disputes in his family and among his disciples about his intention to grant free copyright to the entire corpus of his written works, he resolved to leave home, and he died on 20 November 1910 (7 November, Old Style) during his escape. Hundreds of thousands of works in many languages have been written about Tolstoy over the last 165 years, the first 383-page-long bibliography of literature on him having appeared seven years before his death. For too long, Tolstoy scholars tended to downplay the importance of the author’s thought (his “nonartistic” side) and deny that anything was to be gained in studying his sociopolitical, religious, and philosophical views comprehensively. However, this trend in criticism has steadily declined since the beginning of the new millennium. Today, approaches to the study of Tolstoy go beyond literary studies. He is considered a thinker as much as a writer—the two are inseparable in his work—and Tolstoy has left a strong intellectual imprint on world culture. Eleven decades after his death, his ideas are seen as no less than a measure of the state of the world, not just of its state of culture or of the quality of its civilization, but also of its most vital signs.

The more widely read overviews (not to be confused with Short Introductions ) look either at Tolstoy’s entire life or at long periods within it, without neglecting to consider a broader historical perspective. Eikhenbaum 1982a and Eikhenbaum 1982b are the best expressions of a Hegelian evolutionary vision of Tolstoy’s career: considered thus, Tolstoy’s novels, his literary forms and themes of his shorter prose, his realist psychology in drama, and even his departures from literature were historically substantiated. Highlighting that there is no such thing as an “I” in Homer, for Bayley 1988 , on the contrary, Tolstoy is not a writer of Homeric epics in prose, and our focus should be neither the novel nor realism but subjectivity. And this signals the value of theory of subjectivity in reading Tolstoy to scholars. Many studies look at Tolstoy’s dualities and at how he worked to reconcile inevitability (or necessity) and freedom, self-consciousness and rationality, the animal and the divine. Greenwood 2014 argues in favor of Tolstoy’s tragic “failure,” and the author concludes that Tolstoy was a prodigal despite his prophesy of unification. For Gustafson 1986 , Tolstoy is at his most interesting when acting as both a resident in the human realm and its stranger. Orwin 1993 is unsurpassed in the skill with which it explains Tolstoy’s discovery of “thought” in nature and of the godly love among the people of this world through moral education and lessons of self-sacrifice. Kaufman 2011 argues that at his final destination in art and life, Tolstoy discovered the secret that would heal the world from evil (p. 8). More recent studies do not attempt to negotiate an altercation between Tolstoy the artist and Tolstoy the thinker, insisting that his literary greatness is beside the point, that it does not interfere with their examining of his other great contributions. To these monographs, the study of the meaning of life, among Tolstoy’s other preoccupations, lies within the core of Tolstoy’s intellectual biography, and not at its periphery. Wasiolek 1978 sees in Tolstoy primarily a ruthless destroyer of conventional and personal untruths. “The development of Tolstoy’s work,” the author writes, “may be compared to the peeling off of the leaves of an onion. The onion is the world, and the leaves are the deceptions of civilization” (p. 7). Medzhibovskaya 2008 provides a holistic reading of Tolstoy as a religious thinker, reformer, and artist for whom crises and change were as necessary as the search for meaning and that exerted influences on the spiritual thought of the twentieth century. Weir 2011 finds two distinct forms of Tolstoy’s narrative strategy: authorial absence as a way of retaining control and moral “presence” during paradigmatic shifts when characters undergo conversion.

Bayley, John. Tolstoy and the Novel . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.

This time-honored scholarly classic about the writer who wrote great novels without “ever becoming a novelist” undertakes its most memorable investigation of the novelistic peculiarities of War and Peace and Anna Karenina . While early chapters focus on Tolstoy’s Russian background and inevitable comparisons with other great novels, the volume includes a fine, if short, interpretation of Tolstoy’s Resurrection and his short fiction in the final chapters.

Eikhenbaum, Boris. Tolstoy in the Sixties . Translated by Duffield White. Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis, 1982a.

Originally published in 1930 as Lev Tolstoi. Shestidesiatye gody . In the first two parts of this sequel to Lev Tolstoi, Piatidesiatye Gody (“ Tolstoy in the Fifties ” [Leningrad: Priboĭ, 1928]) (which has still not been translated into English), Eikhenbaum shows us a Tolstoy caught between various literary schools: that of art for art’s sake, of the democratic men of letters, of the Slavophiles, and of German theories of pedagogical populism and Tolstoy caught between his pedagogical initiatives and literature. The concluding two parts of Eikhenbaum’s book (Part 3 and Part 4) are preoccupied with explaining the historical background and sources for War and Peace .

Eikhenbaum, Boris. Tolstoy in the Seventies . Translated by Albert Kaspin. Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis, 1982b.

This work was written in 1930 as Lev Tolstoi. Semidesiatye Gody , but published only after Eikhenbaum’s death in 1960. Tolstoy’s work on the Azbuka (ABC Book) and Russian reading books set the stage for his rebirth of interest in prose through a complex strategy of “simplification,” including the abandonment of the novel from the times of Peter the Great, while the deepening acquaintance with Schopenhauer and the problem of free will, along with his reading of John Stuart Mill’s “The Subjection of Women,” were formative for Anna Karenina , on which Eikhenbaum focuses four chapters of influential analysis, describing the book as the product of “gloomy seclusion” (p. 148) that precipitated Tolstoy’s “crisis” in the 1880s.

Greenwood, E. B. Tolstoy: The Comprehensive Vision . New York: Routledge, 2014.

Originally published in 1975 (New York: St. Martin’s). The sixteen chapters that make up this book proceed in the chronological order of Tolstoy’s creations. Each chapter offers an intense interrogation of Tolstoy’s truth and his relation to historicity, death, war, Christian ethics, and the problem of the West, among others. It is a watershed study that attempts to do justice to Tolstoy’s thought. Greenwood concludes that “Tolstoy’s comprehensive vision bears within itself an acknowledgment of its own incompleteness” (p. 102).

Gustafson, Richard F. Leo Tolstoy: Resident and Stranger; A Study in Fiction and Theology . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986.

DOI: 10.1515/9781400860272

This celebrated study of Tolstoy’s fiction and diaries in relation to Russian Orthodox theology is organized thematically rather than chronologically. Gustafson locates points of “affective memory” in the breakthrough visions and auto-psychological realizations of Tolstoy’s characters and of Tolstoy himself, which aim at achieving the “recollective consciousness” of goodness. By learning the “ways to love” and “ways to know” one overcomes estrangement from the brotherhood of humanity to achieve full-time “residence” within life.

Kaufman, Andrew D. Understanding Tolstoy . Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2011.

Kaufman’s personable approach is driven by an earnest quest to understand Tolstoy’s art and worldview as well as to show Tolstoy’s contemporary relevance. The book is premised on the idea that, by engaging in conversation between major criticism and the reader, we can collectively rethink Tolstoy’s fiction. Kaufman discusses Tolstoy’s longer novels as well as his shorter works, including, for example, The Sevastopol Stories , The Cossacks , The Death of Ivan Ilyich , and Hadji-Murat .

Medzhibovskaya, Inessa. Tolstoy and the Religious Culture of His Time: A Biography of a Long Conversion, 1845–1887 . Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2008.

This intellectual biography of Tolstoy investigates the impetuses, crises, and dialectics of his spiritual evolution as well as its orienting metaphors: metanoia, Kairos, hamartia, teleological striving, and the Bible as Bildungsroman. It discusses Tolstoy’s fiction and nonfiction; his spiritual, confessional, and philosophical writings; and conversations he had on faith and philosophy with contemporaries and predecessors, including historical figures such as Socrates, Augustine, Pascal, Rousseau, Gogol, Chaadaev, and the great German thinkers of the nineteenth century.

Orwin, Donna Tussing. Tolstoy’s Art and Thought, 1847–1880 . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.

This authoritative study, whose twenty-fifth anniversary was recently honored in 2018, investigates Tolstoy’s realism before 1880, specifically his desire to develop the writing of “objective poetry” in prose. Subjective poetry has one subject: the inner self; the objective sphere, meanwhile, has an infinity of subjects. In learning to see the whole world beyond the I, in addition to the influence of Rousseau on Tolstoy in this work, Orwin also analyzes the influence of Homer, Schopenhauer, and Pascal.

Wasiolek, Edward. Tolstoy’s Major Fiction . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978.

The nine chapters that constitute this timeless classic focus on disentangling Tolstoy’s characters and their interrelations, exploring, in turn, Childhood and “Three Deaths,” “Polikushka” and Family Happiness , The Cossacks , War and Peace , Anna Karenina , The Death of Ivan Ilyich , “Master and Man,” and Resurrection . Wasiolek concludes by emphasizing Tolstoy’s optimism, claiming that “there are no irredeemable sins in [Tolstoy’s] world” (p. 200).

Weir, Justin. Leo Tolstoy and the Alibi of Narrative . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011.

This major study explores Tolstoy’s narrative strategies in authoring and legitimizing “true fictions” (p. ii). It covers Tolstoy’s three long novels and The Realm of Darkness , Tolstoy’s great drama. The book also offers novel interpretations of some of Tolstoy’s shorter fiction, including The Sevastopol Stories and military tales, Childhood, Boyhood, Youth ; The Cossacks ; The Kreutzer Sonata ; and The Death of Ivan Ilyich .

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Leo Tolstoy Biography

Born: August 28, 1828 Tula Province, Russia Died: November 9, 1910 Astapovo, Russia Russian novelist

The Russian novelist and moral philosopher (person who studies good and bad in relation to human life) Leo Tolstoy ranks as one of the world's great writers, and his War and Peace has been called the greatest novel ever written.

Early years

Leo (Lev Nikolayevich) Tolstoy was born at Yasnaya Polyana, his family's estate, on August 28, 1828, in Russia's Tula Province, the youngest of four sons. His mother died when he was two years old, whereupon his father's distant cousin Tatyana Ergolsky took charge of the children. In 1837 Tolstoy's father died, and an aunt, Alexandra Osten-Saken, became legal guardian of the children. Her religious dedication was an important early influence on Tolstoy. When she died in 1840, the children were sent to Kazan, Russia, to another sister of their father, Pelageya Yushkov.

Tolstoy was educated at home by German and French tutors. He was not a particularly exceptional student but he was good at games. In 1843 he entered Kazan University. Planning on a diplomatic career, he entered the faculty of Oriental languages. Finding these studies too demanding, he switched two years later to studying law. Tolstoy left the university in 1847 without taking his degree.

Tolstoy returned to Yasnaya Polyana, determined to become a model farmer and a "father" to his serfs (unpaid farmhands). His charity failed because of his foolishness in dealing with the peasants (poor, working class) and because he spent too much time socializing in Tula and Moscow. During this time he first began making amazingly honest diary entries, a practice he maintained until his death. These entries provided much material for his fiction, and in a very real sense the collection is one long autobiography.

Army life and early literary career

From November 1854 to August 1855 Tolstoy served in the battered fortress at Sevastopol in southern Ukraine. He had requested transfer to this area, a sight of one of the bloodiest battles of the Crimean War (1853–1956; when Russia battled England and France over land). As he directed fire from the Fourth Bastion, the hottest area in the conflict for a long while, Tolstoy managed to write Youth, the second part of his autobiographical trilogy. He also wrote the three Sevastopol Tales at this time, revealing the distinctive Tolstoyan vision of war as a place of unparalleled confusion and heroism, a special space where men, viewed from the author's neutral, godlike point of view, were at their best and worst.

When the city fell, Tolstoy was asked to make a study of the artillery action during the final assault and to report with it to the authorities in St. Petersburg, Russia. His reception in the capital was a triumphant success. Because of his name, he was welcomed into the most brilliant society. Because of his stories, he was treated as a celebrity by the cream of literary society.

Golden years

In September 1862, Tolstoy married Sofya Andreyevna Bers (or Behrs), a woman sixteen years younger than himself. Daughter of a prominent Moscow doctor, Bers was beautiful, intelligent, and, as the years would show, strong-willed. The first decade of their marriage brought Tolstoy the greatest happiness; never before or after was his creative life so rich or his personal life so full. In June 1863 his wife had the first of their thirteen children.

The first portion of War and Peace was published in 1865 (in the Russian Messenger ) as "The Year 1805." In 1868 three more chapters appeared, and in 1869 he completed the novel. His new novel created a fantastic out-pouring of popular and critical reaction.

Tolstoy's War and Peace represents a high point in the history of world literature, but it was also the peak of Tolstoy's personal life. His characters represent almost everyone he had ever met, including all of his relations on both sides of his family. Balls and battles, birth and death, all were described in amazing detail. In this book the European realistic novel, with its attention to social structures, exact description, and psychological rendering, found its most complete expression.

From 1873 to 1877 Tolstoy worked on the second of his masterworks, Anna Karenina, which also created a sensation upon its publication. The concluding section of the novel was written during another of Russia's seemingly endless wars with Turkey. The novel was based partly on events that had occurred on a neighboring estate, where a nobleman's rejected mistress had thrown herself under a train. It again contained great chunks of disguised biography, especially in the scenes describing the courtship and marriage of Kitty and Levin. Tolstoy's family continued to grow, and his royalties (money earned from sales) were making him an extremely rich man.

Spiritual crisis

The ethical quest that had begun when Tolstoy was a child and that had tormented him throughout his younger years now drove him to abandon all else in order to seek an ultimate meaning in life. At first he turned to the Russian Orthodox Church, visiting the Optina-Pustyn monastery in 1877. But he found no answer.

In 1883 Tolstoy met V. G. Chertkov, a wealthy guard officer who soon became the moving force behind an attempt to start a movement in Tolstoy's name. In the next few years a new publication was founded (the Mediator ) in order to spread Tolstoy's word in tract (pamphlets) and fiction, as well as to make good reading available to the poor. In six years almost twenty million copies were distributed. Tolstoy had long been watched by the secret police, and in 1884 copies of What I Believe were seized from the printer.

During this time Tolstoy's relations with his family were becoming increasingly strained. The more of a saint he became in the eyes of the world, the more of a devil he seemed to his wife. He wanted to give his wealth away, but she would not hear of it. An unhappy compromise was reached in 1884, when Tolstoy assigned to his wife the copyright to all his works before 1881.

Tolstoy's final years were filled with worldwide acclaim and great unhappiness, as he was caught in the strife between his beliefs, his followers, and his family. The Holy Synod (the church leaders) excommunicated (kicked him out) him in 1901. Unable to endure the quarrels at home he set out on his last pilgrimage (religious journey) in October 1910, accompanied by his youngest daughter, Alexandra, and his doctor. The trip proved too much, and he died in the home of the stationmaster of the small depot at Astapovo, Russia, on November 9, 1910. He was buried at Yasnaya Polyana.

For More Information

Rancour-Laferriere, Daniel. Tolstoy on the Couch: Misogyny, Masochism, and the Absent Mother. New York: New York University Press, 1998.

Troyat, Henri. Tolstoy. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967. Reprint, New York: Grove Press, 2001.

Wilson, A. N. Tolstoy. London: H. Hamilton, 1988.

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Leo Tolstoy: A Biography

Leo tolstoy (1828-1910).

Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian novelist. There is a large degree of consensus that his two great novels, War and Peace and Anna Karenina stand on the summit of realist fiction. He has been mentioned again and again as the greatest novelist who ever wrote, and so he wins a place in this list of great writers. He is one of the two giants of Russian literature. The other giant, Dostoyevsky, spoke of him as the greatest of all living novelists.

The French giant, Gustave Flaubert , on reading War and Peace , exclaimed, ‘What an artist and what a psychologist!’ Matthew Arnold, the British poet and man of letters, wrote: ‘a novel by Tolstoy is not a work of art but a piece of life.’

War and Peace is generally considered to be one of the greatest – if not the greatest – novels ever written. Its dramatic breadth and unity is breathtaking. It is a huge canvas that includes 580 characters, some historical, like Napoleon and Alexander I of Russia, and others fictional. The story is set in the homes of families, the camp of Napoleon, the Russian royal court and the battlefields of Austerlitz and Borodino. The novel explores the insignificance of individuals such as Napoleon and Alexander.

Portrait of Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy attempts in his novels realistically to depict the Russian society in which he lived and he draws from all its sectors. The Cossacks describes Cossack life in a story of a Russian aristocrat who falls in love with a Cossack girl. Anna Karenina is the story of an adulterous woman trapped by the conventions and falsities of society and of a philosophical landowner who works alongside the peasants in the fields and seeks to transform their lives.

It goes without saying that Toystoy’s influence on subsequent writers has been immense. Apart from that, though, he has even influenced the course of history. In 1908, he wrote A Letter to a Hindu outlining his belief in non-violence as a means for India to gain independence from British colonial rule. Gandhi read a copy of the letter when he was working as a lawyer in South Africa and just becoming an activist. Tolstoy’s letter was most significant for him. He wrote Tolstoy and that led to further correspondence between them. It was Tolstoy’s influence that led to Gandhi to espouse nonviolent resistance, the approach that won independence for India.

Tolstoy: A Biography

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Tolstoy’s son Ilya recalls that, by this stage of the family history, ‘the world was divided into two camps. . . . with Papa in one and Maman and everyone else in the other’. Yet for his sisters, whose devotion to their father was intense, there was soon to come a time when they felt that they could not serve God and maman. Sofya’s increasing bad temper and absence of sympathy for her husband was to have the effect of alienating some of the children and making them side with their father.

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Correspondence with Tchaikovsky

One letter from Tchaikovsky to Lev Tolstoy has survived, dating from 1876, and has been translated into English on this website:

• Letter 527 – 24 December 1876/5 January 1877, from Moscow

One letter from Tolstoy to Tchaikovsky, also dating from 1876, is preserved in the Tchaikovsky State Memorial Musical Museum-Reserve at Klin .

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Leo Tolstoy

Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, popularly known as Leo Tolstoy, was born in the Tula Province of Russia in September of 1828. Tolstoy was a Great Russian writer who wrote novels and short stories. His work was centered around realistic fiction and he is still considered one of the greatest novelists of all time.

Birth and Early Years

Leo Tolstoy was born into a noble and well-known Russian family. He was the fourth youngest kid amongst five children in the family. Leo’s mother died when he was very young, and father also passed away after some time. Tolstoy and his siblings were raised by relatives. Tolstoy began studying law in 1844, along with oriental languages. However, Tolstoy could never develop great interest in his studies and therefore left them in between.

Tolstoy’s teachers described him as a student who was uninterested and unable to learn. After leaving the university, he spent much of his time in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Tolstoy ran into huge debt due to gambling, which made him move in with his elder brother and join the army. It was around this time Tolstoy started writing. Leo’s two trips to Europe in 1857 and 1860 influenced his literary and political development significantly. He was inspired by Victor Hugo during his European visits, and his writings also drew inspiration from Hugo’s work and writing style as well.

Tolstoy’s Personal Life

In 1862, Tolstoy got married to Sophia Andreevna Behrd, who was 16 years younger than him. Sophia was a court physician’s daughter. The two went on to have a big family, with both having thirteen children between 1863 and 1888. The marriage from the beginning was driven by sexual passion and lack of emotional sensitivity.

Despite Tolstoy disclosing his extensive pre-marital sexual past with Sophia, the early part of their marriage is believed to be very happy and Sophia helped Leo in writing novels and even acted as a proofreader and financial manager. However, it is believed that their relationship turned sour later on due to Tolstoy’s belief turning extremely radical with the times.

Tolstoy’s Work and Achievements

Leo Tolstoy started writing at the age of 24. He published his first short novel Childhood , which like Boyhood and Youth that followed, was inspired by Tolstoy’s own early years.

Leo Tolstoy’s famous work includes the epic War and Peace . It took him seven years (1862 to 1869) to finish the four volumes of this epic. The novel tells the story of several families against the background of Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia.

Another one of the greatest works of Tolstoy includes Anna Karenina , which is known as the most popular realist fiction ever written. The story is about the doomed affair between a high-society woman trapped in a passionless marriage and a dashing officer. Several movies have been made based on this fictional work.

Tolstoy also wrote three plays and a lot of short stories, including Two Hussars , The Kossacks , Master and Man , Father Sergius and Hadji Murad . Most of his stories were based on the problems and the influence of materialism on simple men. In the latter years of Tolstoy’s life, his educational ideas were adopted not only in Russia, but also in other countries.

Tolstoy’s Non-Fiction Works

All of these books were based on social, religious, spiritual and even artistic matters. His later works, such as The Death of Ivan Ilyich and What Is to Be Done are focused on Christian themes. His works have been published many times in enormous editions in all languages. His literary work is included in the school curriculum, and his educational writings are studied at special teacher-training establishments at different levels.

Tolstoy’s Later Years

Despite his fame, his wealth, and his happy family life, Tolstoy was dissatisfied with himself. In his later years, he became increasingly inclined towards ascetic morality and believed sternly in the Sermon on the Mount and non-violent resistance. Mahatma Gandhi was deeply moved by his book, The Kingdom of God is Within You , and he wrote to Tolstoy about his nonviolent resistance movement and their correspondence led to a warm friendship.

Tolstoy died in 1910 at the age of 82. He died of pneumonia after falling sick when he tried to run away from his wife, with whom the relationship had turned very sour.

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Tolstoy: A Biography Paperback – March 17, 2001

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• Print length 626 pages
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• Publication date March 17, 2001
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (March 17, 2001)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 626 pages
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• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393321227
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• #203 in History & Criticism of Russian & Soviet Literature
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Leo Tolstoy

Great Russian writer

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself"

Leo Tolstoy is one of the most famous writers and philosophers in the world. His views and beliefs formed the basis of the whole religious-philosophical movement, which is called Tolstoyism. His literary legacy consists of 90 volumes of fiction and journalism, diary notes and letters, and he was repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Nobel Peace Prize.

Leo Nikolayevich wanted to shine in society, but his natural shyness and lack of outward attractiveness hampered him. The various, as Tolstoy himself defines them, «musings» about the most important questions of our existence — happiness, death, God, love, eternity — were imprinted on his character at that time of his life. The story he told in ‘The Youth’ and ‘The Youth’ and in the novel ‘Resurrection’ about the aspirations of Irteniev and Nekhludoff to self-improvement was taken by Tolstoy from the history of his own ascetic attempts of that time. All this, the critic S. A. Vengerov wrote, led to Tolstoy’s «habit of constant moral analysis, which has destroyed the freshness of feeling and the clarity of reason», as he put it in his novel The Youth. In giving examples of self-analysis of this period, he speaks ironically of the exaggeration of his adolescent philosophical ego and grandeur, and at the same time notes the overwhelming inability «to get used to not being ashamed of every simple word and movement» when faced with real people, whose benefactor he then seemed to himself.

Beginning of a literary career

In 1841 Tolstoy’s first eight poem was engraved on a monument to his aunt in Optina hermitage. From March 11, 1847 Tolstoy was in a Kazan hospital, on March 17 he began to keep a diary, where, imitating Benjamin Franklin, he set goals and objectives for self-improvement, noted successes and failures in these tasks, analyzed his shortcomings and thought process, the motives of his actions. He kept this diary at short intervals throughout his life.

Having completed his treatment, in the spring of 1847 Tolstoy abandoned his studies at university and went to his inherited Yasnaya Polyana; his work there is partly described in his Morning of a Landowner: Tolstoy tried to establish a new relationship with the peasants. In his diary Tolstoy formulated for himself a large number of life rules and goals, but succeeded in following only a small part of them. Among the successful ones are serious studies in English, music, law. In addition, neither his diary nor his letters reflect Tolstoy’s engagement with pedagogy and charity, although in 1849 he first opened a school for peasant children. The principal teacher was Foka Demidovich, a serf, but Leo Tolstoy himself often taught classes.

Participation in the Moscow census

Tolstoy took part in the Moscow census of 1882. He wrote about it as follows: «I proposed to use the census to find out the poverty in Moscow and to help it with deeds and money, and to make sure that there were no poor people in Moscow».

Tolstoy believed that the interest and importance for society of the census is that it gives him a mirror into which all of society and each of us want to look. He chose one of the most difficult areas, Protochny Lane, where there was a night shelter; among Moscow’s rabble this gloomy two-storey building was called ‘Rzhanova Fortress’. Having been instructed by the Duma, Tolstoy began walking around the site a few days before the census on the plan he had been given. Indeed, the filthy dwelling, filled with beggars and desperate people who had sunk to the bottom, served as a mirror for Tolstoy, reflecting the terrible poverty of the people. Freshly impressed by what he saw, Tolstoy wrote his famous article «On the Census in Moscow». In this article, he pointed out that the purpose of the census was scientific, and was a sociological study.

Despite Tolstoy’s declared good aims for the census, the population was suspicious of the undertaking. On this occasion Tolstoy wrote: «When it was explained to us that the people had already learned about the round of flats and were leaving, we asked the landlord to lock the gate, and we ourselves went to the yard to persuade the people to leave». Lev Nikolayevich hoped to arouse sympathy in the rich for urban poverty, raise money, recruit people willing to contribute to the cause, and together with the census go through all the haunts of poverty. In addition to his duties as a census taker, the writer wanted to get in touch with the poor, find out details of their needs and help them with money and work, expulsion from Moscow, placing children in schools, old people and old women in asylums and almshouses.

Tolstoy’s religious and moral imperatives were the source of the Tolstoist movement, built on two fundamental theses: «simplicity» and «non-resistance to evil by violence». The latter, according to Tolstoy, is fixed in a number of places of the Gospel and is the core of Christ’s doctrine, as, indeed, is Buddhism. The essence of Christianity, according to Tolstoy, can be expressed in a simple rule: «Be good and do not counteract evil with violence» — «The law of violence and the law of love» (1908).

The most important basis of Tolstoy’s teachings were the words of the Gospel «Love your enemies» and the Sermon on the Mount. The followers of his teaching, the Tolstoyites, revered the five commandments proclaimed by Leo Tolstoy: Thou shalt not be angry, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not swear, thou shalt not resist evil by violence, thou shalt love thy enemies as thy neighbor.

Tolstoy developed a particular ideology of non-violent anarchism (it can be described as Christian anarchism), which was based on a rationalistic understanding of Christianity. Considering coercion to be an evil, he concluded that the state should be abolished, but not by means of a revolution based on violence, but by the voluntary refusal of every member of society to perform any state duties, be it military service, payment of taxes, etc. Tolstoy believed: «The anarchists are right in everything, both in denying what exists, and in asserting that under existing mores nothing can be worse than violence of power; but they are grossly mistaken in thinking that anarchy can be established by revolution. Anarchy can only be established by having more and more people who do not need the protection of government power and more and more people who are ashamed to exert that power.»

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5 Things You May Not Know About Leo Tolstoy

By: Barbara Maranzani

Updated: October 2, 2023 | Original: January 15, 2016

1. Tolstoy was a self-improvement junkie.

Inspired in part by the 13 virtues Benjamin Franklin spelled out in his autobiography, Tolstoy created a seemingly endless list of rules by which he aspired to live. While some seem pretty accessible by today’s standards (in bed by 10 and up at 5, with no more than a 2-hour nap; eat moderately and avoid sweet foods), others offer insight into Tolstoy’s lifelong struggle with his personal demons—such as his desire to limit his brothel visits to just two a month, and his self-admonition over his youthful gambling habits. Beginning in his late teens, he would sporadically keep a “Journal of Daily Occupations,” minutely accounting for how he spent his day and clearly plotting out how he intended to spend the following day. As if that wasn’t enough, he also compiled an ever-growing list of his moral failures, and even found time to create guides governing everything from listening to music to playing cards while in Moscow.

2. Tolstoy’s wife helped get 'War and Peace' over the finish line.

In 1862, 34-year-old Tolstoy married 18-year-old Sophia Behrs, the daughter of a court physician, just weeks after the pair met. That same year, Tolstoy began work on what would become War and Peace , completing the first draft in 1865. Almost immediately, Tolstoy set about revising…and revising…and revising, with Sophia responsible for writing each version by hand (often using a magnifying glass to decipher Tolstoy’s scribbling on every bit of space on the page, including the margins). Over the next seven years, she rewrote the complete manuscript eight times (and some individual sections nearly 30 times), all while giving birth to four of the couple’s 13 children and managing their estate and business affairs.

3. The Russian Orthodox Church excommunicated him.

Following the successful publication of Anna Karenina in the 1870s, Tolstoy, increasingly uncomfortable with his aristocratic background and ever-increasing wealth, underwent a series of emotional and spiritual crises that ultimately left him questioning his belief in the tenets of organized religion, which he saw as corrupt and at odds with his interpretation of the teachings of Jesus Christ. Tolstoy’s rejection of religious rituals—and his attacks on the role of the state and the concept of property rights—put him on a collision course with Russia’s two most powerful entities. Despite his aristocratic lineage, the czarist government put him under police surveillance, and the Russian Orthodox Church excommunicated him in 1901.

4. He inspired a cult—and Gandhi.

While Russia’s religious and royal leaders hoped to diminish Tolstoy’s popularity, he quickly began to attract adherents to his new faith, which mixed pacifism with Christian anarchism and advocated living a morally and physically ascetic lifestyle. Dozens of these new “Tolstoyans” moved onto the author’s estate to be nearer to their spiritual leader, while thousands of others established settlements in Russia and around the world. While many of these communes were short-lived, some remain operational to this day, including at least two in England. Among those influenced by Tolstoy’s social beliefs was Mahatma (also: Mohandas) Gandhi , who established a cooperative colony named after Tolstoy in South Africa and corresponded with the author, crediting him with his own spiritual and philosophical evolution, particularly with regards to Tolstoy’s teachings on peaceful nonresistance to evil.

5. Tolstoy and his wife had one of the worst marriages in literary history.

Despite the couple’s initial attraction and Sophia’s invaluable assistance to his work, the Tolstoy marriage was far from serene. Things got off to a rocky start when he forced her to read his diaries—chock full of his premarital sexual exploits—the night before their wedding. As Tolstoy’s interest in spiritual matters grew, his interest in his family waned, leaving Sophia to shoulder the burden of running their ever-increasing businesses and navigating Tolstoy’s ever-fluctuating moods.

By the 1880s, with Tolstoy’s disciples living on the family estate and the author cobbling his own shoes and wearing peasant clothing, an increasingly angry Sophia demanded he sign over control of his publishing royalties, lest he bankrupt his family.

By 1910, the deeply unhappy 82-year-old author had seen enough. He fled the family home in the middle of the night with one of his daughters, intending to settle on a small parcel of land owned by his sister. His disappearance caused a media sensation, and when he turned up at a railway station a few days later, so did a news crew (with film camera in tow), a huge crowd and his wife. Already in ill health, Tolstoy refused to return home, and after developing pneumonia, he died at the rural outpost on November 20, 1910.

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• Leo Tolstoy

Born on September 9, 1828, in the Russian Empire, Count Lev Nicolayevich Tolstoy, known as Leo Tolstoy, was one of the greatest novelists of all time as well as an influential and prominent essayist, playwright and philosopher . Also famous for his extreme ascetic and moralist beliefs, Leo Tolstoy was also an important figure of moral reasoning, the reform movement, and of Christian anarchism.

Early Years and Education

Born to wealthy parents belonging to the old Russian aristocracy and who passed away while Leo was still a child, Tolstoy grew up on the family estate – Yasnaya Polyana – together with his four siblings. After receiving his education at home, he attended Kazan University from 1844 until 1847 where he studied oriental languages and law.

After his studies were completed, he returned to his estate and in 1851, he joined the army with his brother and started writing short stories. From 1847 until his death, Tolstoy kept a diary, which has made him one of the more documented authors in history.

In 1862, he married Sophia Andreevna Behrs and they had 13 children together, three of which died in infancy. He was a proponent of democratic education and he founded 13 schools based on the principles set in his essay The School at Yasnaya Polyana , which was published in 1862.

Tolstoy’s Philosophical Beliefs

The most controversial aspect of Tolstoy’s philosophy is represented by his belief in the futility of the government and the efficacy of the ordinary, contrary to the beliefs of the great thinkers of his era. After the moral crisis when he was in his 40s, he started seeking God through logic or reason and truth in order to come to a complete understanding of life.

The metaphysics of Tolstoy focused on finding true religion as our only true connection to what exists – namely to God and the universe. He believed that neither philosophy nor science could establish a person’s relationship with the infinite universe and that it was impossible to be an individual with no religion. He also accepted all world religions and considered that their fundamental morality is based on the concept “Do unto others as you would have done unto thy self.”

Beliefs about Small Events

Tolstoy firmly believed that small incidents and decisions taken by common people, rather than major events, truly make history. The pivotal point of his thought is expressed by his preference for contingency and particularities in everyday life.

In his metaphysical essay Confessions , published in 1882, Tolstoy explained that only in the answers provided by faith, irrespective of its nature, can mankind find the true meaning of life and of a finite existence as part of the infinite, as he referred to the individual. According to Tolstoy, “God is life” and “the cause of everything.”

Other Works and Publications

Tolstoy was a fervent pacifist and his non-fiction masterpiece The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894) was banned in Russia. It was considered a key book for non-violent resistance and Christian anarchist movements worldwide and it greatly influenced prominent personalities of the 20th centuries, including Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi. His most notable and longest literary works include Anna Karenina and War and Peace , two masterpieces of realist fiction.

Death and Personal Life

Leo Tolstoy died of pneumonia at the age of 82 on November 20, 1910, at the railway station in rural Astapovo, Russia. He is buried at his family’s estate of Yasnaya Polyana. He was survived by his wife and their ten children.