Tolstoy's biography is the most important thing. Short biography of Leo Tolstoy: the most important events. The early years of the writer

Leo Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828 in the Tula province (Russia) into a family belonging to the noble class. In the 1860s, he wrote his first major novel, War and Peace. In 1873, Tolstoy began work on the second of his most famous books, Anna Karenina.

He continued to write fiction throughout the 1880s and 1890s. One of his most successful later works is The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Tolstoy died on November 20, 1910 in Astapovo, Russia.

The first years of life

On September 9, 1828, the future writer Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born in Yasnaya Polyana (Tula province, Russia). He was the fourth child in a large noble family. In 1830, when Tolstoy's mother, nee Princess Volkonskaya, died, his father's cousin took over the care of the children. Their father, Count Nikolai Tolstoy, died seven years later, and their aunt was appointed guardian. After the death of aunt Leo Tolstoy, his brothers and sisters moved to their second aunt in Kazan. Although Tolstoy experienced many losses at an early age, he later idealized his childhood memories in his work.

It is important to note that primary education in the biography of Tolstoy was received at home, he was given lessons by French and German teachers. In 1843 he entered the Faculty of Oriental Languages \u200b\u200bat the Imperial Kazan University. Tolstoy did not succeed in his studies - low marks forced him to move to an easier law faculty. Further learning difficulties led Tolstoy to eventually leave the Imperial Kazan University in 1847 without a degree. He returned to his parents' estate, where he was going to start farming. However, his undertaking ended in failure - he was absent too often, leaving for Tula and Moscow. What he really excelled at was keeping his own diary - it was this lifelong habit that inspired Leo Tolstoy for most of his works.

Tolstoy was fond of music, his favorite composers were Schumann, Bach, Chopin, Mozart, Mendelssohn. Lev Nikolaevich could play their works for several hours a day.

Once, the elder brother of Tolstoy, Nikolai, during his army leave, came to visit Lev, and persuaded his brother to join the army as a cadet to the south, to the Caucasus mountains, where he served. After serving as a cadet, Leo Tolstoy in November 1854 was transferred to Sevastopol, where he fought in the Crimean War until August 1855.

Early publications

During his years as a cadet in the army, Tolstoy had a lot of free time. During quiet periods he worked on an autobiographical story called Childhood. In it, he wrote about his favorite childhood memories. In 1852, Tolstoy submitted the story to Sovremennik, the most popular magazine of the time. The story was happily accepted, and it became Tolstoy's first publication. Since that time, critics have put him on a par with already well-known writers, among whom were Ivan Turgenev (with whom Tolstoy made friends), Ivan Goncharov, Alexander Ostrovsky and others.

After completing the novella Childhood, Tolstoy began writing about his daily life at an army outpost in the Caucasus. Started in the army years, the work "Cossacks", he finished only in 1862, after he had already left the army.

Surprisingly, Tolstoy managed to continue writing during the active battles in the Crimean War. During this time, he wrote Boyhood (1854), a sequel to Childhood, the second book in Tolstoy's autobiographical trilogy. At the height of the Crimean War, Tolstoy expressed his views on the striking contradictions of the war through the trilogy of Sevastopol Tales. In the second book of Sevastopol Tales, Tolstoy experimented with a relatively new technique: part of the story is presented as a narrative from the person of a soldier.

After the end of the Crimean War, Tolstoy left the army and returned to Russia. Arriving home, the author was very popular on the literary scene of St. Petersburg.

Stubborn and arrogant, Tolstoy refused to belong to any particular school of philosophy. Declaring himself an anarchist, he left for Paris in 1857. Once there, he lost all his money and was forced to return home to Russia. He also managed to publish Youth, the third part of an autobiographical trilogy, in 1857.

Returning to Russia in 1862, Tolstoy published the first of 12 issues of the thematic magazine Yasnaya Polyana. In the same year he married the daughter of a doctor named Sofya Andreevna Bers.

Major novels

Living in Yasnaya Polyana with his wife and children, Tolstoy spent most of the 1860s working on his first famous novel, War and Peace. Part of the novel was first published in the Russian Bulletin in 1865 under the title Year 1805. By 1868, he had released three more chapters. A year later, the novel was completely finished. Both critics and the public have argued about the historical justice of the Napoleonic Wars in the novel, combined with the development of the stories of its thoughtful and realistic, yet fictional characters. The novel is also unique in that it includes three long satirical essays on the laws of history. Among the ideas that Tolstoy also tries to convey in this novel is the conviction that a person's position in society and the meaning of human life are mainly derivatives of his daily activities.

After the success of War and Peace in 1873, Tolstoy began work on his second most famous book, Anna Karenina. It was based in part on real events during the war between Russia and Turkey. Like War and Peace, this book describes some biographical events from the life of Tolstoy himself, this is especially noticeable in the romantic relationship between the characters of Kitty and Levin, which is said to be reminiscent of Tolstoy's courtship of his own wife.

The first lines of the book "Anna Karenina" are one of the most famous: "All happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Anna Karenina was published in parts from 1873 to 1877, and was highly acclaimed by the public. The royalties received for the novel rapidly enriched the writer.

Conversion

Despite the success of Anna Karenina, after the completion of the novel, Tolstoy experienced a spiritual crisis and was depressed. The next stage in the biography of Leo Tolstoy is characterized by the search for the meaning of life. The writer first turned to the Russian Orthodox Church, but did not find answers to his questions there. He concluded that Christian churches were corrupt and, instead of an organized religion, promoted their own beliefs. He decided to express these beliefs by founding a new publication in 1883 called The Mediator.
As a result, for his non-standard and conflicting spiritual beliefs, Tolstoy was excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church. He was even watched by the secret police. When Tolstoy, driven by his new conviction, wanted to give away all his money and give up everything that was superfluous, his wife was categorically against it. Not wanting to escalate the situation, Tolstoy reluctantly agreed to a compromise: he transferred the copyright to his wife and, apparently, all deductions for his work until 1881.

Late fiction

In addition to his religious treatises, Tolstoy continued to write fiction throughout the 1880s and 1890s. Among the genres of his later works were moral stories and realistic fiction. One of the most successful among his later works was the story "The Death of Ivan Ilyich", written in 1886. The main character is struggling to fight the death looming over him. In short, Ivan Ilyich is horrified by the realization that he wasted his life on trifles, but this realization comes to him too late.

In 1898, Tolstoy wrote Father Sergius, a work of fiction in which he criticizes the beliefs he developed after his spiritual transformation. The following year, he wrote his third voluminous novel, Resurrection. The work received good reviews, but this success hardly matched the level of recognition of his previous novels. Other later works by Tolstoy are essays on art, a satirical play called The Living Corpse, written in 1890, and a story called Hadji Murad (1904), which was discovered and published after his death. In 1903, Tolstoy wrote a short story "After the Ball", which was first published after his death, in 1911.

Old age

During his later years, Tolstoy reaped the benefits of international recognition. However, he was still struggling to reconcile his spiritual beliefs with the tensions he created in his married life. His wife not only did not agree with his teachings, she did not approve of his students, who regularly visited Tolstoy in the family estate. In an effort to avoid his wife's growing discontent, in October 1910, Tolstoy and his youngest daughter Alexandra embarked on a pilgrimage. Alexandra was the doctor for her elderly father during the trip. Trying not to flaunt their privacy, they traveled incognito, hoping to evade unnecessary inquiries, but sometimes to no avail.

Death and legacy

Unfortunately, the pilgrimage proved too burdensome for the aging writer. In November 1910, the head of the small Astapovo railway station opened the doors of his house for Tolstoy so that the sick writer could rest. Shortly thereafter, on November 20, 1910, Tolstoy died. He was buried in his family estate, Yasnaya Polyana, where Tolstoy lost so many people close to him.

To this day, Tolstoy's novels are considered among the best achievements of literary art. War and Peace is often cited as the greatest novel ever written. In the modern scientific community, Tolstoy is widely recognized as the owner of the gift of describing the unconscious motives of character, the refinement of which he defended, emphasizing the role of everyday actions in determining the character and goals of people.

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Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on August 28 (September 9), 1828 on the estate of his mother Yasnaya Polyana, Krapivensky district, Tula province. The Tolstoy family belonged to a wealthy and noble count family. By the time Leo was born, the family already had three eldest sons: - Nikolai (1823-1860), Sergei (1826-1904) and Dmitry (1827 - 1856), and in 1830 Leo's younger sister Maria was born.

A few years later, his mother died. In Tolstoy's autobiographical Childhood, Irteniev's mother dies when the boy turns 10 - 12 years old and he is fully conscious. However, the portrait of the mother is described by the writer exclusively from the stories of his relatives. After the death of the mother, a distant relative T.A.Yergolskaya took up the bereaved children. She is represented by Sonya from War and Peace.

In 1837, the family moved to Moscow, because elder brother Nikolai needed to prepare for entering the university. But a tragedy suddenly occurred in the family - the father died, leaving things in a bad state. The three youngest children were forced to return to Yasnaya Polyana under the education of T. A. Ergolskaya and her father's aunt, Countess A. M. Osten-Saken. Lev Tolstoy remained here until 1840. This year Countess A.M. Osten-Saken died and the children were moved to Kazan to the father's sister P.I.Yushkova. LN Tolstoy conveyed this period of his life quite accurately in his autobiography "Childhood".

Tolstoy at the first stage was educated under the guidance of the rude French governor Saint-Thomas. He is depicted by a certain M-r Jerome from Boyhood. Later he was replaced by the good-natured German Reselman. Lev Nikolaevich lovingly portrayed him in Childhood under the name of Karl Ivanovich.

In 1843, following his brother Tolstoy, he entered Kazan University. There, until 1847, Lev Tolstoy was preparing to enter the only Russian Faculty of Oriental Studies in the category of Arabic-Turkish literature. During the year of his studies, Tolstoy showed himself as the best student of this course. However, a conflict existed between the poet's family with a teacher of Russian history and a German one, a certain Ivanov. This entailed the fact that, according to the results of the year, L.N. Tolstoy had poor progress in the relevant subjects and had to re-pass the first year program. To avoid a complete repetition of the course, the poet is transferred to the Faculty of Law. But even there problems with the teacher of German and Russian continue. Soon Tolstoy loses all interest in studies.

In the spring of 1847, Lev Nikolaevich left the university and settled in Yasnaya Polyana. All that Tolstoy did in the village can be found out by reading "The Landowner's Morning", where the poet presents himself in the role of Nekhlyudov. There, a lot of time was spent on revelry, games and hunting.

In the spring of 1851, on the advice of his elder brother Nikolai, in order to cut costs and pay off debts, Lev Nikolayevich left for the Caucasus.

In the fall of 1851, he became a cadet of the 4th battery of the 20th artillery brigade, stationed in the Cossack village of Starogladov near Kizlyar. Soon L.N. Tolstoy became an officer. When the Crimean War began at the end of 1853, Lev Nikolaevich transferred to the Danube Army, took part in the battles of Oltenitsa and Silistria. From November 1854 to August 1855 he participated in the defense of Sevastopol. After the assault on August 27, 1855, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was sent to St. Petersburg. A noisy life began there: drinking, cards and carousing with gypsies.

In St. Petersburg, L.N. Tolstoy met with the staff of the magazine "Sovremennik" with N.A. Nekrasov, I.S. Turgenev, I.A.Goncharov, N.G. Chernyshevsky.

At the beginning of 1857, Tolstoy went abroad. He spends a year and a half traveling around Germany, Switzerland, England, Italy, France. Travel does not bring him pleasure. He expressed his disappointment with European life in the story "Lucerne". And returning to Russia, Lev Nikolaevich took up the improvement of schools in Yasnaya Polyana.

In the late 1850s, Tolstoy got to know Sophia Andreevna Bers, born in 1844, the daughter of a Moscow doctor from the Eastsee Germans. He was almost 40 years old, and Sophia was only 17. It seemed to him that this difference was too great and sooner or later Sophia would fall in love with a young, non-obsolete guy. These experiences of Lev Nikolaevich are described in his first novel, "Family Happiness".

In September 1862, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy nevertheless married 18-year-old Sophia Andreevna Bers. For 17 years of marriage, they had 13 children. During the same period, War and Peace and Anna Karenina were created. In 1861-62. finishes his story "Cossacks", the first of the works in which the great talent of Tolstoy was recognized as a genius.

In the early 70s, Tolstoy again showed interest in pedagogy, wrote "ABC" and "New ABC", wrote fables and stories, which made up four "Russian books for reading."

To give an answer to the questions and doubts of a religious nature that tormented him, Lev Nikolaevich began to study theology. In 1891, in Geneva, the writer wrote and published A Study of Dogmatic Theology, in which he criticized Bulgakov's Orthodox Dogmatic Theology. He first began to conduct conversations with priests and monarchs, read the Bogoslav tracts, studied ancient Greek and Hebrew languages. Tolstoy meets the schismatics, joins the sectarian peasants.

At the beginning of 1900. By the Holy Synod, Lev Nikolaevich was excommunicated from the Orthodox Church. LN Tolstoy lost all interest in life, he was tired of taking advantage of the well-being achieved, the thought of suicide arose. He is fond of simple physical labor, becomes a vegetarian, gives his family all his suck, renounces literary property rights.

On November 10, 1910, Tolstoy secretly left Yasnaya Polyana, but on the way he became very ill. On November 20, 1910, at the Astapovo station of the Ryazan-Ural railway, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy died.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy is a great Russian writer, by origin - a count from a famous noble family. He was born on 08/28/1828 in the Yasnaya Polyana estate in the Tula province, and died on 10/7/1910 at the Astapovo station.

Childhood of the writer

Lev Nikolaevich was a representative of a large noble family, the fourth child in it. His mother, Princess Volkonskaya, died early. At this time, Tolstoy was not yet two years old, but he formed an idea of \u200b\u200bhis parent from the stories of various family members. In the novel "War and Peace" the image of the mother is represented by Princess Marya Nikolaevna Bolkonskaya.

The biography of Leo Tolstoy in the early years was marked by another death. Because of her, the boy was left an orphan. Leo Tolstoy's father, a participant in the 1812 war, like his mother, died early. This happened in 1837. At the time, the boy was only nine years old. The brothers of Lev Tolstoy, he and his sister were transferred to the education of T.A.Yergolskaya, a distant relative who had a huge influence on the future writer. Memories of childhood have always been the happiest for Lev Nikolaevich: family legends and impressions of life in the estate became rich material for his works, reflected, in particular, in the autobiographical story "Childhood".

Studying at Kazan University

The biography of Leo Tolstoy in his youth was marked by such an important event as studying at the university. When the future writer was thirteen years old, his family moved to Kazan, to the house of the guardian of the children, a relative of Lev Nikolaevich P.I. Yushkova. In 1844, the future writer was enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy of Kazan University, after which he transferred to the law department, where he studied for about two years: the young man did not like his studies, so he devoted himself with passion to various secular entertainments. Having submitted a letter of resignation in the spring of 1847, due to poor health and "domestic circumstances", Lev Nikolayevich left for Yasnaya Polyana with the intention to study a full course of legal sciences and pass an external exam, as well as learn languages, "practical medicine", history, rural economy, geographic statistics, painting, music and writing a thesis.

Years of adolescence

In the fall of 1847, Tolstoy left for Moscow, and then for Petersburg, in order to pass the candidate's examinations at the university. During this period, his lifestyle changed often: he either taught various subjects all day, then devoted himself to music, but wanted to start a career as an official, then dreamed of joining a regiment as a cadet. Religious moods that reached asceticism alternated with cards, revelry, and trips to the gypsies. The biography of Leo Tolstoy in his youth is colored by the struggle with himself and introspection, reflected in the diary that the writer kept throughout his life. In the same period, an interest in literature arose, and the first artistic sketches appeared.

Participation in the war

In 1851, Nikolai, Lev Nikolaevich's elder brother, an officer, persuaded Tolstoy to go to the Caucasus with him. Lev Nikolayevich lived for almost three years on the banks of the Terek, in the Cossack village, leaving for Vladikavkaz, Tiflis, Kizlyar, participating in hostilities (as a volunteer, and then was recruited). The patriarchal simplicity of life of the Cossacks and Caucasian nature amazed the writer with their contrast with the painful reflection of representatives of an educated society and the life of the noble circle, gave extensive material for the story "Cossacks", written in the period from 1852 to 1863 on autobiographical material. The stories "Raid" (1853) and "Cutting of the forest" (1855) also reflected his Caucasian impressions. They left their mark in his story "Hadji Murad", written in the period from 1896 to 1904, published in 1912.

Returning to his homeland, Lev Nikolayevich wrote in his diary that he fell in love with this wild land, in which "war and freedom" are united, things so opposite in their essence. Tolstoy in the Caucasus began to create his story "Childhood" and anonymously sent it to the magazine "Contemporary". This work appeared on its pages in 1852 under the initials L. N. and, along with the later "Adolescence" (1852-1854) and "Youth" (1855-1857), made the famous autobiographical trilogy. The creative debut immediately brought real recognition to Tolstoy.

Crimean campaign

In 1854, the writer went to Bucharest, to the Danube Army, where the work and biography of Leo Tolstoy were further developed. However, soon the boring staff life forced him to transfer to the besieged Sevastopol, to the Crimean army, where he was a battery commander, showing courage (he was awarded medals and the Order of St. Anna). Lev Nikolaevich during this period was captured by new literary plans and impressions. He began to write "Sevastopol stories", which had great success. Some ideas that arose at that time allow one to guess in the artillery officer of Tolstoy the preacher of later years: he dreamed of a new "religion of Christ", purged of mystery and faith, a "practical religion."

In St. Petersburg and abroad

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy arrived in St. Petersburg in November 1855 and immediately became a member of the Sovremennik circle (which included N. A. Nekrasov, A. N. Ostrovsky, I. S. Turgenev, I. A. Goncharov and others). He took part in the creation of the Literary Fund at that time, and at the same time found himself involved in conflicts and disputes between writers, but felt like a stranger in this environment, which he conveyed in Confessions (1879-1882). Having retired, in the fall of 1856, the writer left for Yasnaya Polyana, and then, at the beginning of the next, 1857, he went abroad, having visited Italy, France, Switzerland (impressions of visiting this country are described in the story "Lucerne"), and also visited Germany. In the same year, in the fall, Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy returned first to Moscow, and then to Yasnaya Polyana.

Opening of a public school

Tolstoy in 1859 opened a school for the children of peasants in the village, and also helped to arrange more than twenty similar educational institutions in the Krasnaya Polyana area. In order to get acquainted with the European experience in this area and apply it in practice, the writer Leo Tolstoy again went abroad, visited London (where he met with A.I. Herzen), Germany, Switzerland, France, Belgium. However, European schools disappoint him a little, and he decides to create his own pedagogical system based on personal freedom, publishes textbooks and works on pedagogy, applies them in practice.

"War and Peace"

In September 1862, Lev Nikolaevich married Sofya Andreevna Bers, the 18-year-old daughter of a doctor, and immediately after the wedding he left Moscow for Yasnaya Polyana, where he completely devoted himself to household chores and family life. However, already in 1863 he was again captured by the literary concept, this time creating a novel about the war, which was to reflect Russian history. Leo Tolstoy was interested in the period of our country's struggle with Napoleon at the beginning of the 19th century.

In 1865, the first part of the work "War and Peace" was published in the "Russian Bulletin". The novel immediately drew a lot of responses. The subsequent parts provoked heated debates, in particular, the fatalistic philosophy of history developed by Tolstoy.

"Anna Karenina"

This work was created in the period from 1873 to 1877. Living in Yasnaya Polyana, continuing to teach peasant children and publish his pedagogical views, Lev Nikolaevich in the 70s worked on a work about the life of modern high society, building his novel on the contrast of two plot lines: the family drama of Anna Karenina and the home idyll of Konstantin Levin , close both in psychological drawing, and in convictions, and in the way of life to the writer himself.

Tolstoy strove for the external valuelessness of the tone of his work, thereby paving the way for a new style of the 80s, in particular, folk stories. The truth of peasant life and the meaning of the existence of representatives of the "educated class" - this is the range of issues that interested the writer. "Family thought" (according to Tolstoy, the main one in the novel) is translated in his creation into a social channel, and Levin's self-disclosures, numerous and merciless, his thoughts of suicide are an illustration of the author's spiritual crisis experienced in 1880, which had matured even while working on this novel.

1880s

In the 1880s, Leo Tolstoy's art underwent a transformation. The revolution in the mind of the writer was reflected in his works, primarily in the experiences of the characters, in that spiritual insight that changes their lives. Such heroes occupy a central place in such creations as "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" (years of creation - 1884-1886), "The Kreutzer Sonata" (a story written in 1887-1889), "Father Sergius" (1890-1898), drama "Living Corpse" (left unfinished, begun in 1900), as well as the story "After the Ball" (1903).

Tolstoy's journalism

Tolstoy's journalism reflects his spiritual drama: depicting pictures of the idleness of the intelligentsia and social inequality, Lev Nikolaevich posed questions of faith and life to society and himself, criticized the institutions of the state, reaching the point of denying art, science, marriage, court, and the achievements of civilization.

The new worldview is presented in "Confessions" (1884), in the articles "So what should we do?", "About hunger", "What is art?", "I can not be silent" and others. The ethical ideas of Christianity are understood in these writings as the foundation of the brotherhood of people.

Within the framework of a new attitude and a humanistic view of the teaching of Christ, Lev Nikolaevich spoke out, in particular, against the dogma of the church and criticized its rapprochement with the state, which led to the fact that he was officially excommunicated from the church in 1901. This caused a huge resonance.

The novel "Sunday"

Tolstoy wrote his last novel between 1889 and 1899. It embodies the entire spectrum of problems that worried the writer during the years of the spiritual breakthrough. Dmitry Nekhlyudov, the main character, is a person who is internally close to Tolstoy, who goes through the path of moral purification in the work, eventually leading him to comprehend the need for active good. The novel is based on a system of evaluative oppositions that reveal the unreasonableness of the structure of society (the falsity of the social world and the beauty of nature, the falsity of the educated population and the truth of the peasant world).

last years of life

The life of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy in recent years has been difficult. The spiritual break turned into a break with his environment and family discord. Refusal to own private property, for example, aroused the discontent of the writer's family members, especially his wife. The personal drama experienced by Lev Nikolaevich was reflected in his diary entries.

In the fall of 1910, at night, secretly from everyone, 82-year-old Leo Tolstoy, whose dates of life were presented in this article, accompanied only by his attending physician D.P. Makovitsky, left the estate. The path turned out to be unbearable for him: on the way the writer fell ill and was forced to disembark at the Astapovo railway station. In the house that belonged to her boss, Lev Nikolayevich spent the last week of his life. Reports of his health were monitored throughout the country at the time. Tolstoy was buried in Yasnaya Polyana, his death caused a huge public outcry.

Many contemporaries arrived to say goodbye to this great Russian writer.

Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich (28.08. (09.09.) 1828-07 (20) .11.1910)

Russian writer, philosopher. Born in Yasnaya Polyana, Tula province, into a wealthy aristocratic family. He entered Kazan University, but then left it. At the age of 23, he went to war with Chechnya and Dagestan. Here he began to write the trilogy "Childhood", "Boyhood", "Youth".

In the Caucasus, he took part in hostilities as an artillery officer. During the Crimean War, he went to Sevastopol, where he continued to fight. After the end of the war, he left for St. Petersburg and published Sevastopol Stories in the Sovremennik magazine, which vividly reflected his outstanding writing talent. In 1857, Tolstoy went on a trip to Europe, which disappointed him.

From 1853 to 1863 wrote the story "Cossacks", after which he decided to interrupt his literary activity and become a landowner-landowner, doing educational work in the countryside. To this end, he left for Yasnaya Polyana, where he opened a school for peasant children and created his own system of pedagogy.

In 1863-1869. wrote his fundamental work "War and Peace". In 1873-1877. created the novel "Anna Karenina". During these years, the writer's worldview, known as "Tolstoyism", was fully formed, the essence of which can be seen in the works: "Confession", "What is my faith?", "Kreutzer Sonata".

The doctrine is set forth in the philosophical and religious works "Study of Dogmatic Theology", "Connection and Translation of the Four Gospels", where the main emphasis is on the moral improvement of man, exposure of evil, non-resistance to evil by violence.
Later, a dilogy was published: the drama "The Power of Darkness" and the comedy "The Fruits of Enlightenment", then a series of stories-parables about the laws of being.

Admirers of the work of the writer came from all over Russia and the world to Yasnaya Polyana, whom they regarded as a spiritual mentor. In 1899 the novel "Resurrection" was published.

The last works of the writer are the stories “Father Sergius”, “After the Ball”, “Posthumous Notes of Elder Fyodor Kuzmich” and the drama “Living Corpse”.

Tolstoy's confessional journalism gives a detailed idea of \u200b\u200bhis mental drama: painting pictures of social inequality and idleness of the educated strata, Tolstoy in a harsh form posed questions of the meaning of life and faith to society, criticized all state institutions, reaching the point of denying science, art, court, marriage, achievements of civilization.

Tolstoy's social declaration is based on the idea of \u200b\u200bChristianity as a moral doctrine, and the ethical ideas of Christianity are interpreted by him in a humanistic way, as the basis of the worldwide brotherhood of people. In 1901, the reaction of the Synod followed: the world famous writer was officially excommunicated, which caused a huge public outcry.

On October 28, 1910, Tolstoy left Yasnaya Polyana secretly from his family, fell ill on the way and had to get off the train at the small Astapovo railway station of the Ryazan-Uralskaya railway. Here, at the station master's house, he spent the last seven days of his life.

Russian writer, Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on September 9 (August 28, old style), 1828 in the Yasnaya Polyana estate of the Krapivensky district of the Tula province (now the Schekinsky district of the Tula region).

Tolstoy was the fourth child in a large noble family. His mother, Maria Tolstaya (1790-1830), nee Princess Volkonskaya, died when the boy was not yet two years old. Father, Nikolai Tolstoy (1794-1837), a participant in the Patriotic War, also died early. Tatiana Ergolskaya, a distant relative of the family, was engaged in raising children.

When Tolstoy was 13 years old, the family moved to Kazan, to the house of Pelageya Yushkova, the father's sister and guardian of the children.

In 1844, Tolstoy entered the Kazan University at the Department of Oriental Languages \u200b\u200bof the Faculty of Philosophy, then transferred to the Faculty of Law.

In the spring of 1847, having filed a petition for dismissal from the university "for health and domestic reasons," he went to Yasnaya Polyana, where he tried to establish a new relationship with the peasants. Frustrated by his unsuccessful management experience (this attempt was captured in the story "The Landowner's Morning", 1857), Tolstoy soon left first for Moscow, then for St. Petersburg. His lifestyle during this period changed frequently. Religious moods, reaching asceticism, alternated with carousing, cards, trips to the gypsies. At the same time, he had the first unfinished literary sketches.

In 1851, Tolstoy left for the Caucasus with his brother Nikolai, an officer in the Russian troops. He took part in hostilities (first voluntarily, then received an army post). Tolstoy sent his story "Childhood" written here to the magazine "Contemporary" without disclosing his name. It was published in 1852 under the initials L. N. and, together with the later stories "Adolescence" (1852-1854) and "Youth" (1855-1857), made up an autobiographical trilogy. His literary debut brought recognition to Tolstoy.

Caucasian impressions were reflected in the story "Cossacks" (18520-1863) and in the stories "Raid" (1853), "Cutting the forest" (1855).

In 1854, Tolstoy went to the Danube Front. Soon after the start of the Crimean War, at his personal request, he was transferred to Sevastopol, where the writer had a chance to survive the siege of the city. This experience inspired him to the realistic "Sevastopol Tales" (1855-1856).
Soon after the end of hostilities, Tolstoy left military service and lived for some time in St. Petersburg, where he had great success in literary circles.

He entered the Sovremennik circle, met Nikolai Nekrasov, Ivan Turgenev, Ivan Goncharov, Nikolai Chernyshevsky and others. Tolstoy took part in dinners and readings, in the establishment of the Literary Fund, became involved in the disputes and conflicts of writers, but he felt like a stranger in this environment.

In the fall of 1856 he left for Yasnaya Polyana, and at the beginning of 1857 he went abroad. Tolstoy visited France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, in the fall he returned to Moscow, then again to Yasnaya Polyana.

In 1859, Tolstoy opened a school for peasant children in the village, and also helped to arrange more than 20 similar institutions in the vicinity of Yasnaya Polyana. In 1860 he went abroad a second time to get acquainted with the schools of Europe. In London, he often saw Alexander Herzen, was in Germany, France, Switzerland, Belgium, studied pedagogical systems.

In 1862, Tolstoy began publishing the pedagogical journal Yasnaya Polyana with reading books as an attachment. Later, in the early 1870s, the writer created "ABC" (1871-1872) and "New ABC" (1874-1875), for which he composed original stories and transcriptions of fairy tales and fables, constituting four "Russian books for reading".

The logic of the ideological and creative searches of the writer at the beginning of the 1860s - the desire to depict folk characters ("Polikushka", 1861-1863), the epic tone of the narrative ("Cossacks"), attempts to turn to history to understand modernity (the beginning of the novel "The Decembrists" , 1860-1861) - led him to the idea of \u200b\u200bthe epic novel War and Peace (1863-1869). The time of the creation of the novel was a period of elation, family happiness and quiet solitary work. At the beginning of 1865, the first part of the work was published in the Russian Bulletin.

In 1873-1877, another great novel by Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (published in 1876-1877), was written. The problematic of the novel directly led Tolstoy to the ideological "turning point" of the late 1870s.

At the height of his literary glory, the writer entered a period of deep doubt and moral quest. In the late 1870s - early 1880s, philosophy and journalism came to the fore in his work. Tolstoy condemns the world of violence, oppression and injustice, believes that it is historically doomed and must be radically changed in the near future. In his opinion, this can be achieved by peaceful means. Violence, however, should be excluded from social life, it is opposed to non-resistance. Non-resistance was not understood, however, as an exclusively passive attitude towards violence. A whole system of measures was proposed to neutralize the violence of state power: the position of non-participation in what supports the existing system - the army, courts, taxes, false doctrine, etc.

Tolstoy wrote a number of articles reflecting his worldview: "On the census in Moscow" (1882), "So what should we do?" (1882-1886, published in full in 1906), "On Hunger" (1891, published in English in 1892, in Russian in 1954), "What is art?" (1897-1898) and others.

Religious and philosophical treatises of the writer - "Study of dogmatic theology" (1879-1880), "The connection and translation of the four Gospels" (1880-1881), "What is my faith?" (1884), "The kingdom of God is within you" (1893).

At this time, such stories were written as "Notes of a Madman" (work was carried out in 1884-1886, not completed), "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" (1884-1886), etc.

In the 1880s, Tolstoy lost interest in artistic work and even condemned his previous novels and stories as lordly "fun". He was carried away by simple physical labor, plowed, sewed boots for himself, switched to vegetarian food.

The main artistic work of Tolstoy in the 1890s was the novel Resurrection (1889-1899), which embodied the whole spectrum of problems that worried the writer.

Within the framework of the new worldview, Tolstoy opposed Christian dogma and criticized the rapprochement between the church and the state. In 1901, the Synod's reaction followed: the world-renowned writer and preacher was officially excommunicated, which caused a huge public outcry. The years of the turning point also led to family discord.

Trying to bring his way of life into harmony with his convictions and burdened by the life of a landlord's estate, Tolstoy secretly left Yasnaya Polyana in the late autumn of 1910. The road turned out to be unbearable for him: on the way, the writer fell ill and was forced to make a stop at the Astapovo railway station (now Lev Tolstoy station, Lipetsk region). Here, at the station master's house, he spent the last few days of his life. All of Russia followed the reports about the health of Tolstoy, who by this time had acquired world fame not only as a writer, but also as a religious thinker.

November 20 (November 7 old style) 1910 Leo Tolstoy died. His funeral in Yasnaya Polyana became an event of an all-Russian scale.

Since December 1873, the writer was a corresponding member of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (now the Russian Academy of Sciences), since January 1900 - an honorary academician in the category of fine literature.

For the defense of Sevastopol, Leo Tolstoy was awarded the Order of St. Anna, IV degree with the inscription "For Bravery" and other medals. Subsequently, he was also awarded medals "In Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Defense of Sevastopol": silver as a participant in the defense of Sevastopol and bronze as the author of "Sevastopol Tales".

Leo Tolstoy's wife was the doctor's daughter Sophia Bers (1844-1919), whom he married in September 1862. For a long time Sofya Andreevna was a faithful assistant in his affairs: a copyist of manuscripts, translator, secretary, publisher of works. Thirteen children were born in their marriage, five of whom died in childhood.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources