Yasnaya Polyana, Russian Empire
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Copyright © 2020 · Totallyhistory.com · All Rights Reserved. | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Contact Us
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Comment about this article, ask questions, or add new information about this topic:.
Personal life, some important facts of his life., some important works of leo tolstoy, leo tolstoy’s impacts on future literature, famous quotes, post navigation.
In order to continue enjoying our site, we ask that you confirm your identity as a human. Thank you very much for your cooperation.
Leo Tolstoy was a Russian writer widely regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time. He is best known for his long novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina , considered by many critics as the greatest works of realist fiction. Tolstoy is also known for his short stories, semi-autobiographical works, essays, plays, and novellas.
Although Tolstoy was born into Russian nobility as the son of Princess Marie Volkonsky and Count Nicolas Tolstoy, later in life his beliefs became increasingly radical: he became a Christian anarchist and pacifist, giving up most of his possessions to live a simpler life that more resembled those of peasants.
In 1910, following an argument with his wife, Tolstoy fled his home to live in a monastery. He fell ill during the journey and died at a railway station. While Tolstoy was nominated several times for both the Nobel Prize for Literature and Nobel Peace Prize in the last decade of his life, he never won.
Anna karenina leo tolstoy.
Anna Karenina was published in serial form from 1873-1877. It created a great stir in society?reports from the time claim that everyone in Russian Society was discussing the book and waiting eagerly for the next installment to appear. The critical...
In July of 1852, a young Count Leo Tolstoy sent his first work to the journal The Contemporary , which forever changed Russian literature. This work was a narrative, Childhood.
For many researchers of Tolstoy’s works, it remains a mystery how a...
The Death of Iv?n Ilych was published in 1886, several years after a period of depression and personal intellectual turmoil (1875-1878) that ended with Tolstoy's conversion to Christianity.
Tolstoy's Christianity is well known, but his ideas about...
Russian author Leo Tolstoy's 1872 short story "God Sees the Truth, But Waits" is about a young merchant who is sent to a Siberian prison camp for a murder he didn't commit. After putting his faith in God, the merchant spends twenty-six years in...
Hadji Murat is a relatively short novel written by Leo Tolstoy. This novel was published in 1912, after his death; Tolstoy's narrative falls under the category of historical fiction.
The novel pivots around a war in which a brave chieftain, Hadji...
“How Much Land Does a Man Need?” is one of Leo Tolstoy’s most gripping and affecting short stories. Published in 1886, the story examines the futility of chasing wealth, depicts the perils of greed and pride, and condemns corrupt economic...
"The Kreutzer Sonata" is Leo Tolstoy's novel, published in 1890 and immediately censored by the tsarist authorities. The book proclaims the ideal of abstinence and describes in the first person anger of jealousy. The name of the story gave number...
War and Peace was published as a serialized novel, completed in 1869. Famous for its girth and sprawling ambition, it merges historical fact with invented characters, and philosophy with fiction. For all these reasons, it initially baffled many...
As you were browsing something about your browser made us think you were a bot. There are a few reasons this might happen:
To regain access, please make sure that cookies and JavaScript are enabled before reloading the page.
Book Summary
booksummary.net
Read original fairy tales >>
Leo Tolstoy was a Russian novelist and one of the greatest writers of realistic fiction during his time. His two most famous novels were War and Peace and Anna Karenina. From within autocratic Russia, Tolstoy fearlessly attacked social inequality and coercive forms of government and church authority.
Biography>>
Summary Leo Tolstoy
"Anna Karenina" is a novel with a contemporary thematic in which the main theme is Anna's adultery because of which she get rejected from society and experiences a tragic end. Parallel to her story we follow up on the destructive love between Anna and Vronsky and the love story between Levin and Kitty based on […]
"War and Peace" is an epic novel about Russian society between 1805 and 1815, just before and after the Napoleonic invasion. Considered one of the greatest books ever written, it contains 559 characters, commemorates important military battles and portrays famous historical personalities but it's main theme is the chronicle of the lives of two main […]
The largest collection of book summaries, analyses, books, study guides and educational resources for students and teachers. Here, you'll find works from more than 250 greatest authors of all time. [more]
Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.
To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to upgrade your browser .
Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.
Kathleen Conti
The enduring success and legacy of Tolstoy's novels often obscures his more complex place within Russian history and culture. Focusing on the conditions of nineteenth and early twentieth century Russia, this chapter situates Tolstoy's life and his work within the rapidly evolving Russian Empire. During his 82 years, Tolstoy witnessed the rise of the Empire in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, the challenges after their defeat in the Crimean Wars, the end of serfdom, the advent of electricity, the beginnings of Russian industrialization, and the increasing social unrest following their defeat in the Russo-Japanese War that would eventually culminate in the empire's dissolution. Starting with the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars that would become the inspiration for his famous War and Peace, this chapter offers a critical overview of serfdom, colonialism, orthodoxy, and industrialization. It connects Tolstoy's life with the larger geopolitics of the era, analyzing Russia's increasingly complex relationship with Europe following the Crimean War where Tolstoy served as an officer and gained fame for his frank, poignant descriptions of the war. Afterwards, he became increasingly radical. The Tsar and his advisors struggled with how to mitigate Tolstoy's inflammatory writings, especially after the Tsar spectacularly failed to govern after catastrophic famines, epidemics, and the stirrings of revolution that ultimately led to the downfall of the Russian Empire in 1917. Through examining the political, cultural, and social environment in which Tolstoy lived and wrote, I demonstrate how Tolstoy's realist writing remained relevant and even essential reading during the tumultuous twentieth century.
Times Literary Supplement, 7 February
Caryl Emerson
Review of Boris Dralyuk "Essential Stories," Liza Knapp "Tolstoy, a Very Short Introduction," and Andrei Zorin, "Leo Tolstoy"
Tolstoy as Philosopher: Essential Short Writings. An Anthology
Academic Studies Press , Inessa Medzhibovskaya
Sample of "Tolstoy as Philosopher: Essential Short Writings. An Anthology" Leo Tolstoy Edited & Translated by Inessa Medzhibovskaya Beginning with Tolstoy’s first extant records of his written œuvre, this anthology assembles seventy-seven unabridged texts that cover more than seven decades of his life, from 1835 to 1910. It constitutes the most complete single-volume edition to date of the rich variety of Tolstoy’s philosophical output: apothegmatic sayings, visions, intimate sketchbook and day notes, book reviews, open letters, dialogues, pedagogic talks, public lectures, programs and rules for personal behavior, fictions, and reminiscences. Most of these newly translated and thoroughly annotated texts have never been available in English. Among the four reprinted translations personally checked and authorized by Tolstoy is the text titled “Tolstoy on Venezuela,” an archival restoration of an authentic first publication in English of “Patriotism, or Peace?” (1896) that had been deemed lost. In the inaugural piece, a seven-year-old Tolstoy describes violent but natural animal life in contrast with the lazy life of a peaceful barnyard in the countryside. The last entry in the anthology written by an eighty-year-old Tolstoy for his grandchildren provides a lesson on vegetarianism and non-violence that a hungry wolf teaches a hungry boy during their conversation when both are on their way to lunch. It was the insolvable, the “scandalous,” problems of philosophy that never gave Tolstoy any rest: freedom of the will, religious tolerance, gender inequality, the tonal shape of music, the value of healthy life habits, the responsibilities of teaching, forms of social protest, cognitive development, science in society, the relation between body and mind, charity and labor, human dignity and public service, sexual psychology, national war doctrines, suicide, individual sacrifice, the purposes of making art. And always: What are the sources of violence? Why should we engage in politics? Why do we need governments? How can one practice non-violence? What is the meaning of our irrepressible desire to seek and find meaning? Why can't we live without loving? The typeset proofs of his final insights were brought to Tolstoy for approval when he was already on his deathbed. The reader will find all the texts in the exact shape and order of completion as Tolstoy left them. No matter their brevity or the occasion on which they were written, these works exemplify Tolstoy as an artistically inventive and intellectually absorbing thinker.
Charles E . Peck Jr.
Brief Sketch of the Life and Times of Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy's midlife crisis wasn't that unusual. Studies show that after professionals like doctors put in tremendous efforts in achieving their goal of becoming doctors, they often feel a let down when they reach their goal. They put in long hours at hospitals as interns as well as tedious hours studying and all that - but when they become established and successful as doctors, they often have let downs, become depressed or spiral into mid-life cycles. The conclusion that many psychologists come to is that it is the striving that makes people happy much more than reaching a goal. That is when people reach a goal, they ask themselves, is this all there is to life? Tolstoy, after he achieved amazing fame and recognition after publishing War and Peace, got depressed and went into an identity-spiritual crisis. What made his historical was first his fame as a writer, second that he was Russian aristocracy who rejected the aristocratic way of life, and third his unique way of resolving a spiritual struggle that lasted for many long years. The life and development of Lev Tolstoy, the novelist and radical Christian was woven into the fabric of Russian Culture and History. After Tolstoy published his epic novel War and Peace and gained wealth and fame, Tolstoy experienced a severe identity-spiritual crisis. He became despondent and suicidal. Tolstoy was perhaps the ultimate rational and logical individual. He concluded that the petty desires of greed, lust, and fame were reprehensible and meaningless. He proceeded to rationally analyze meaning and concluded that rationalism does not in and of itself generate meaning. He finally reached the conclusion that through faith alone does one find true meaning. In his book, Confessions, which is an account of his personal spiritual struggles, Tolstoy observes, “Thus in addition to rational knowledge, which I had hitherto thought to be the only knowledge, I was inevitably led to acknowledge that there does exist another kind of knowledge – an irrational one – possessed by humanity as a whole: faith, which affords the possibility of living.” (Conf p. 53) As a result of his identity-spiritual crisis and his incredibly intense personal search for the meaning of life, Lev Tolstoy became not just a Christina – but a radical Christian – which eventually gave birth to the what is called the Tolstoyan Movement which was a radical “Christian” movement of the times.
Vladimir von Tsurikov
The following memoirs on Tolstoy are the result of, but not limited to, several weeks spent by the author at Iasnaia Poliana as teacher of one of Tolstoy's grandsons. Nikolai Aleksandrovich Tsurikov (1886-1957) was mainly known within the Russian diaspora as a writer (he used the pen names Ivan Belenikhin and Z), literary critic, and publicist. A participant in both World War I and the Russian Civil War, Tsurikov left Russia in 1920 for Constantinople, and in 1923 settled in Prague. Published widely in leading emigre newspapers and journals (Russkaia mys/', Studencheskie gody, Ruf', Rossiia, Vozrozhdenie, Bar 'ba za Rossiiu, Za svobodu, Malva, Mech, and others), he was editor of Den' russkoi kul 'tury and member of the editorial committee of Rossiia i slavianstvo. It is precisely in two of these emigre publications-Rossiia i slavianstvo and Vozrozhdenie-that Tsurikov, often as Ivan Belenikhin, began publishing his reminiscences of life in A T.. k pre-revolutionary Russia in the form of short essays.
Studies in East European Thought
lina steiner
This article discusses Leo Tolstoy's view of the Russian revolutionary movement. Taking as a focal point the writer's lifelong interest in the Decembrist uprising of 1825 and particularly in the personalities of the gentry revolutionaries, the article argues that Tolstoy's fascination for these figures was due to their superior moral qualities, rather than to their political and socioeconomic doctrines. Following Alex-ander Herzen, Tolstoy came to regard the Decembrists as full-fledged individualities and "beautiful souls" (in Friedrich von Schiller's sense of the term). Thus, Tolstoy's much debated "conversion" and subsequent attempts to transform literary art into a medium of religious and moral reform (and thus a peaceful cultural revolution) can also be viewed as extensions of his project of self-understanding and self-formation according to the model of kalokagathia provided by Russia's aristocratic revolutionaries.
Linda Torresin
Leo Tolstoy, the great Russian novelist, was also an excellent educator, teacher and maker of a primer, the ABC Book (Azbuka, 1872). This paper analyzes the ABC Book as the most relevant synthesis of Tolstoy's pedagogy, based on the concept of child development. Rejecting the psychological theories of his time, Tolstoy promoted a didactic scheme of free and global education (" obrazovanye ") of pupils, seen as real beings with their own needs, attitudes, and feelings. The author of this paper concentrates mainly on the short stories of the ABC Book, which are the best result of Tolstoy's educational endeavours. In particular, the role of young learners as Tolstoy's interlocutors and active participants in their upbringing process is emphazised; in fact, pupils are both protagonists and narrators of the stories. In this way, Tolstoy encouraged children's spiritual growth, since their moral models were other children, the same little heroes of Tolstoy's tales.
University of Michigan - Deep Blue
Anna Tanalski
Alexandre Christoyannopoulos
This is a conference paper. Further details of the conference can be found at: http://www.ipsa.org/site/content/view/110/69/lang,en/ and http://hdl.handle.net/2134/6700. In the last thirty years of his life, Leo Tolstoy wrote countless books, essays and pamphlets expounding his radical religious and political views. In these, Tolstoy expresses his deep discontent with the state, with the church, with the economy and with revolutionaries, and he formulated a strategy for change based on his understanding of Christianity. This paper argues that many of his criticisms hold as true today as they did when he penned them a century ago, and that therefore Tolstoy’s political thought has not lost any of its relevance in the twenty-first century. The state – whether autocratic or democratic – continues to use violence or the threat of it to impose its will upon those who dissent from its agenda. The church continues to pay little attention to what Tolstoy sees as the clear and truly revoluti...
Critical Insights: Leo Tolstoy
Orel Beilinson
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.
Russian History
Slavonic and East European Review
Tony Anemone
Nicholas Birns
International Journal of Humanities, Philosophy and Language
faiha alkayed
Daniel Moulin
Russian Review
arsheel iqbal
Timothy E Quinlan PhD
Anarchist Studies
Sociology international journal
Soraya F Conde
Anniversary Essays on Tolstoy
Donna Orwin
Abhijit Basu
EurAsian Journal of BioSciences. Т. 13. № 2.
Svetlana V Rudakova , Volkova V.B. , Ovcharova S. V. , Kolesnikova O.
RumeliDE Dil ve Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi
sevgi ılıca
University of Toronto Quarterly
Paul Romney
Elena D Tolstaya
Anna Grodetskaya
Alexey Vdovin
Social Sciences. A Quarterly Journal of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Elena Stepanova
The Criterion
Hari Sankar
Chetana Pokhriyal
Plot Summary? We’re just getting started.
Add this title to our requested Study Guides list!
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1988
Continue your reading experience.
SuperSummary Plot Summaries provide a quick, full synopsis of a text. But SuperSummary Study Guides — available only to subscribers — provide so much more!
Join now to access our Study Guides library, which offers chapter-by-chapter summaries and comprehensive analysis on more than 5,000 literary works from novels to nonfiction to poetry.
See for yourself. Check out our sample guides:
Toni Morrison
Malcolm Gladwell
David And Goliath
D. H. Lawrence
Whales Weep Not!
Dream children.
A SuperSummary Plot Summary provides a quick, full synopsis of a text.
A SuperSummary Study Guide — a modern alternative to Sparknotes & CliffsNotes — provides so much more, including chapter-by-chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and important quotes.
See the difference for yourself. Check out this sample Study Guide:
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
Leo Tolstoy (born August 28 [September 9, New Style], 1828, Yasnaya Polyana, Tula province, Russian Empire—died November 7 [November 20], 1910, Astapovo, Ryazan province) was a Russian author, a master of realistic fiction and one of the world's greatest novelists. Tolstoy is best known for his two longest works, War and Peace (1865-69 ...
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 ...
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.
Leo Tolstoy at age 20, c. 1848. Tolstoy was born at Yasnaya Polyana, a family estate 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) southwest of Tula, and 200 kilometres (120 mi) south of Moscow. He was the fourth of five children of Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy (1794-1837), a veteran of the Patriotic War of 1812, and Princess Mariya Tolstaya (née Volkonskaya; 1790 ...
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.
Leo Tolstoy Biography. Leo Nicolaevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) was the next to youngest of five children, descending from one of the oldest and best families in Russia. His youthful surroundings were of the upper-class gentry of the last period of serfdom. Though his life spanned the westernization of Russia, his early intellectual and cultural ...
Leo Tolstoy, Russian Lev Nikolayevich, Count Tolstoy, (born Sept. 9, 1828, Yasnaya Polyana, Tula province, Russian Empire—died Nov. 20, 1910, Astapovo, Ryazan province), Russian writer, one of the world's greatest novelists.The scion of prominent aristocrats, Tolstoy spent much of his life at his family estate of Yasnaya Polyana. After a somewhat dissolute youth, he served in the army and ...
Biography. Date and place of birth: August 28, 1828, Yasnaya Polyana, Tula province Date and place of death: November 7, 1910, Astapovo station, Ryazan province Occupation: prose writer, publicist, teacher, philosopher, writer, playwright. Movement: realism. Genre: short story, novel, drama Years of oeuvre: 1847-1910 Leo Tolstoy - Russian writer and thinker, participated in the defense of ...
Leo Tolstoy's wife Sophia was an invaluable asset to his career. A portrait of Leo Tolstoy's wife, Sophia, along with the couple's daughter, Alexandra Tolstaya. / Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain.
Summary. Leo Tolstoy's impact as both artist and moralist continues undiminished. His fictional works, especially his earlier ones, retain a charm that is proof of his enormous descriptive ...
Leo Tolstoy Philosopher Specialty Novelist, realistic fiction Born Sep. 9, 1828 Yasnaya Polyana, Russian Empire Died Nov. 20, 1910 (at age 82) Astapovo, Russian Empire Nationality Russian 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
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 ...
Leo Tolstoy is considered one of the greatest authors of Russian literature who started writing at a young age and touched pinnacles of success in his life. Among his best novels and novellas were, War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Hadji Murad, and The Death of Ivan Ilyich. His earlier attempts of writings were primarily autobiographical such as ...
Leo Tolstoy. Leo Tolstoy was born on September 9th, 1828, in Russia's Tula Province. His family was very well off, his mother being a princess and his father, a count. Tragically, Tolstoy's mother ...
Leo Tolstoy. Biography, Russian Author. Leo Tolstoy was a Russian novelist born in 1828. A profound social and moral thinker, Tolstoy was one of the greatest writers of realistic fiction during his time. The son of a nobleman landowner, Tolstoy was orphaned at the age of 9 and taught mainly by tutors from countries like Germany and France.
War and Peace (Russian: Война и мир, romanized: Voyna i mir; pre-reform Russian: Война и миръ; [vɐjˈna i ˈmʲir]) is a literary work by Russian author Leo Tolstoy.Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the work mixes fictional narrative with chapters discussing history and philosophy.An early version was published serially beginning in 1865, after which the entire book was ...
Biography of. Leo Tolstoy. Leo Tolstoy was a Russian writer widely regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time. He is best known for his long novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, considered by many critics as the greatest works of realist fiction. Tolstoy is also known for his short stories, semi-autobiographical works, essays, plays ...
Leo Tolstoy Biography. Leo Nicolaevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) was the next to youngest of five children, descending from one of the oldest and best families in Russia. His youthful surroundings were of the upper class gentry of the last period of serfdom. Though his life spanned the westernization of Russia, his early intellectual and cultural ...
Summary Leo Tolstoy. "War and Peace" is an epic novel about Russian society between 1805 and 1815, just before and after the Napoleonic invasion. Considered one of the greatest books ever written, it contains 559 characters, commemorates important military battles and portrays famous historical personalities but it's main theme is the chronicle ...
Childhood & Early Life Leo Tolstoy was born on 28 August 1828 at Yasnaya Polyana in Central Russia in a noble Russian family. He was the fourth child of Maria Volkonsky and Nicolay Ilvich Tolstoy. His mother died when he was two. Tolstoy further lost his father at the age of nine and went on to stay with his aunt Madame Ergolsky.
Leo Tolstoy's A Confession, published in 1882, is an autobiographical work that deals with the philosophical and religious aspects of the meaning of life. Tolstoy's struggle with how to live a meaningful life forms the core of the narrative. The author charts the development of his ideas about rationality, faith, and purpose in the context ...
Plot Summary. In Tolstoy: A Biography (1988), British novelist and biographer A.N. Wilson narrates the life of the great Russian author and activist, focusing on what Wilson sees as the wellspring of Tolstoy's creativity: prodigious self-consciousness, and a desire to reimagine himself as an endless series of different characters.