Leo Tolstoy

Who is Leo Tolstoy?

Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was born in 1828 at Yasnaya Polyana, his family's estate south of Moscow, into the Russian aristocracy. After an unfinished university education and service as an artillery officer in the Crimean War, he turned to writing, drawing on his experiences in the 'Sevastopol Sketches.' He is best known for two monumental novels: 'War and Peace' (1869), an epic of Russian society during the Napoleonic Wars, and 'Anna Karenina' (1877), a tragedy of love and society widely regarded as one of the finest novels ever written. In later life Tolstoy underwent a profound spiritual crisis and developed a distinctive Christian anarchist and pacifist philosophy, expressed in works such as 'The Kingdom of God Is Within You' and 'A Confession.' His doctrine of nonviolent resistance influenced figures including Mahatma Gandhi. He also founded a school for peasant children on his estate. Tolstoy died in 1910 at the railway station of Astapovo after leaving home in his final days.

Sources: Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (1869) · Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1877) · Rosamund Bartlett, Tolstoy: A Russian Life (2010)