Count Leo Tolstoy, a classic of Russian and world literature, is called a master of psychologism, the creator of the epic novel genre, an original thinker and teacher of life. Works brilliant writer- Russia's greatest asset.
In August 1828, a classic of Russian literature was born on the Yasnaya Polyana estate in the Tula province. Future author"War and Peace" became the fourth child in a family of eminent nobles. On his father's side, he belonged to the old family of Count Tolstoy, who served and. On the maternal side, Lev Nikolaevich is a descendant of the Ruriks. It is noteworthy that Leo Tolstoy also has a common ancestor - Admiral Ivan Mikhailovich Golovin.
Lev Nikolayevich’s mother, nee Princess Volkonskaya, died of childbirth fever after the birth of her daughter. At that time, Lev was not even two years old. Seven years later, the head of the family, Count Nikolai Tolstoy, died.
Caring for the children fell on the shoulders of the writer’s aunt, T. A. Ergolskaya. Later, the second aunt, Countess A. M. Osten-Sacken, became the guardian of the orphaned children. After her death in 1840, the children moved to Kazan, to a new guardian - their father’s sister P. I. Yushkova. The aunt influenced her nephew, and the writer called his childhood in her house, which was considered the most cheerful and hospitable in the city, happy. Later, Leo Tolstoy described his impressions of life at the Yushkov estate in his story “Childhood.”
Silhouette and portrait of Leo Tolstoy's parents Elementary education the classic received at home from German and French teachers. In 1843, Leo Tolstoy entered Kazan University, choosing the Faculty of Oriental Languages. Soon, due to low academic performance, he transferred to another faculty - law. But he did not succeed here either: after two years he left the university without receiving a degree.
Lev Nikolaevich returned to Yasnaya Polyana, wanting to establish relations with the peasants in a new way. The idea failed, but the young man regularly kept a diary, loved social entertainment and became interested in music. Tolstoy listened for hours, and...
Disappointed with the life of the landowner after spending the summer in the village, 20-year-old Leo Tolstoy left the estate and moved to Moscow, and from there to St. Petersburg. The young man rushed between preparing for candidate exams at the university, studying music, carousing with cards and gypsies, and dreams of becoming either an official or a cadet in a horse guards regiment. Relatives called Lev “the most trifling fellow,” and it took years to pay off the debts he incurred.
Literature
In 1851, the writer’s brother, officer Nikolai Tolstoy, persuaded Lev to go to the Caucasus. For three years Lev Nikolaevich lived in a village on the banks of the Terek. The nature of the Caucasus and the patriarchal life of the Cossack village were later reflected in the stories “Cossacks” and “Hadji Murat”, the stories “Raid” and “Cutting the Forest”.
In the Caucasus, Leo Tolstoy composed the story “Childhood,” which he published in the magazine “Sovremennik” under the initials L.N. Soon he wrote the sequels “Adolescence” and “Youth,” combining the stories into a trilogy. The literary debut turned out to be brilliant and brought Lev Nikolaevich his first recognition.
The creative biography of Leo Tolstoy is developing rapidly: an appointment to Bucharest, a transfer to besieged Sevastopol, and command of a battery enriched the writer with impressions. From the pen of Lev Nikolaevich came the cycle “ Sevastopol stories" The works of the young writer amazed critics with their bold psychological analysis. Nikolai Chernyshevsky found in them a “dialectic of the soul,” and the emperor read the essay “Sevastopol in December” and expressed admiration for Tolstoy’s talent.
In the winter of 1855, 28-year-old Leo Tolstoy arrived in St. Petersburg and entered the Sovremennik circle, where he was warmly welcomed, calling him “the great hope of Russian literature.” But over the course of a year, I got tired of the writing environment with its disputes and conflicts, readings and literary dinners. Later in Confession Tolstoy admitted:
“These people disgusted me, and I disgusted myself.”
In the fall of 1856, the young writer went to the Yasnaya Polyana estate, and in January 1857 he went abroad. Leo Tolstoy traveled around Europe for six months. Visited Germany, Italy, France and Switzerland. He returned to Moscow, and from there to Yasnaya Polyana. On the family estate, he began arranging schools for peasant children. In the vicinity of Yasnaya Polyana, with his participation, twenty educational institutions. In 1860, the writer traveled a lot: in Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium he studied pedagogical systems European countries to apply what we saw in Russia.
A special niche in the work of Leo Tolstoy is occupied by fairy tales and works for children and teenagers. The writer has created hundreds of works for young readers, including good and cautionary tales“Kitten”, “Two Brothers”, “Hedgehog and Hare”, “Lion and Dog”.
Leo Tolstoy wrote the school textbook “ABC” to teach children writing, reading and arithmetic. The literary and pedagogical work consists of four books. The writer included instructive stories, epics, fables, as well as methodological advice for teachers. The third book includes the story “ Prisoner of the Caucasus».
Leo Tolstoy's novel "Anna Karenina" In the 1870s, Leo Tolstoy, while continuing to teach peasant children, wrote the novel Anna Karenina, in which he contrasted the two storylines: family drama Karenins and home idyll young landowner Levin, with whom he identified himself. The novel only at first glance seemed to be a love affair: the classic raised the problem of the meaning of existence of the “educated class”, contrasting it with the truth of peasant life. "Anna Karenina" was highly appreciated.
The turning point in the writer’s consciousness was reflected in the works written in the 1880s. Life-changing spiritual insight occupies a central place in the stories and stories. “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”, “The Kreutzer Sonata”, “Father Sergius” and the story “After the Ball” appear. A classic of Russian literature paints pictures social inequality, castigates the idleness of the nobles.
In search of an answer to the question about the meaning of life, Leo Tolstoy turned to the Russian Orthodox Church, but didn’t find satisfaction there either. The writer came to the conclusion that the Christian church is corrupt, and under the guise of religion, priests are promoting false teaching. In 1883, Lev Nikolaevich founded the publication “Mediator,” where he outlined his spiritual beliefs and criticized the Russian Orthodox Church. For this, Tolstoy was excommunicated from the church, and the writer was monitored by the secret police.
In 1898, Leo Tolstoy wrote the novel Resurrection, which received favorable reviews from critics. But the success of the work was inferior to “Anna Karenina” and “War and Peace”.
For the last 30 years of his life, Leo Tolstoy, with his teachings on non-violent resistance to evil, was recognized as the spiritual and religious leader of Russia.
"War and Peace"
Leo Tolstoy disliked his novel War and Peace, calling the epic “wordy rubbish.” The classic writer wrote the work in the 1860s, while living with his family in Yasnaya Polyana. The first two chapters, entitled “1805,” were published by Russkiy Vestnik in 1865. Three years later, Leo Tolstoy wrote three more chapters and completed the novel, which caused heated controversy among critics.
Leo Tolstoy writes "War and Peace" The novelist took the features of the heroes of the work, written during the years of family happiness and spiritual elation, from life. In Princess Marya Bolkonskaya, the features of Lev Nikolaevich’s mother are recognizable, her penchant for reflection, brilliant education and love of art. The writer awarded Nikolai Rostov with his father’s traits - mockery, love of reading and hunting.
When writing the novel, Leo Tolstoy worked in the archives, studied the correspondence of Tolstoy and Volkonsky, Masonic manuscripts, and visited the Borodino field. His young wife helped him, copying his drafts out clean.
The novel was read avidly, striking readers with the breadth of its epic canvas and subtle psychological analysis. Leo Tolstoy characterized the work as an attempt to “write the history of the people.”
According to the calculations of literary critic Lev Anninsky, by the end of the 1970s, only works abroad Russian classic filmed 40 times. Until 1980, the epic War and Peace was filmed four times. Directors from Europe, America and Russia have made 16 films based on the novel “Anna Karenina”, “Resurrection” has been filmed 22 times.
“War and Peace” was first filmed by director Pyotr Chardynin in 1913. The most famous film was made by a Soviet director in 1965.
Personal life
Leo Tolstoy married 18-year-old in 1862, when he was 34 years old. The count lived with his wife for 48 years, but the couple’s life can hardly be called cloudless.
Sofia Bers is the second of three daughters of the Moscow palace office doctor Andrei Bers. The family lived in the capital, but in the summer they vacationed on a Tula estate near Yasnaya Polyana. For the first time Leo Tolstoy saw his future wife as a child. Sophia was educated at home, read a lot, understood art, and graduated from Moscow University. The diary kept by Bers-Tolstaya is recognized as an example of the memoir genre.
At the beginning of his married life, Leo Tolstoy, wanting there to be no secrets between him and his wife, gave Sophia a diary to read. The shocked wife found out about her husband's turbulent youth, his passion gambling, wild life and the peasant girl Aksinya, who was expecting a child from Lev Nikolaevich.
The first-born Sergei was born in 1863. In the early 1860s, Tolstoy began writing the novel War and Peace. Sofya Andreevna helped her husband, despite her pregnancy. The woman taught and raised all the children at home. Five of the 13 children died in infancy or early childhood childhood.
Problems in the family began after Leo Tolstoy finished his work on Anna Karenina. The writer plunged into depression, expressed dissatisfaction with the life that Sofya Andreevna so diligently arranged in the family nest. The count's moral turmoil led to Lev Nikolayevich demanding that his relatives give up meat, alcohol and smoking. Tolstoy forced his wife and children to dress in peasant clothes, which he himself made, and wished to give the acquired property to the peasants.
Sofya Andreevna made considerable efforts to dissuade her husband from the idea of distributing goods. But the quarrel that occurred split the family: Leo Tolstoy left home. Upon returning, the writer entrusted the responsibility of rewriting drafts to his daughters.
Death last child– seven-year-old Vanya – brought the spouses closer together for a short time. But soon mutual grievances and misunderstandings alienated them completely. Sofya Andreevna found solace in music. In Moscow, a woman took lessons from a teacher for whom romantic feelings developed. Their relationship remained friendly, but the count did not forgive his wife for “half-betrayal.”
The couple's fatal quarrel occurred at the end of October 1910. Leo Tolstoy left home, leaving Sophia Farewell letter. He wrote that he loved her, but could not do otherwise.
Death
82-year-old Leo Tolstoy, accompanied by his personal doctor D.P. Makovitsky, left Yasnaya Polyana. On the way, the writer fell ill and got off the train. railway station Astapovo. Lev Nikolaevich spent the last 7 days of his life in the house stationmaster. The whole country followed the news about Tolstoy’s health.
The children and wife arrived at the Astapovo station, but Leo Tolstoy did not want to see anyone. The classic died on November 7, 1910: he died of pneumonia. His wife survived him by 9 years. Tolstoy was buried in Yasnaya Polyana.
Quotes by Leo Tolstoy
- Everyone wants to change humanity, but no one thinks about how to change themselves.
- Everything comes to those who know how to wait.
- All happy families are similar to each other, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
- Let everyone sweep in front of his own door. If everyone does this, the whole street will be clean.
- It's easier to live without love. But without it there is no point.
- I don't have everything I love. But I love everything I have.
- The world moves forward because of those who suffer.
- The greatest truths are the simplest.
- Everyone is making plans, and no one knows whether he will survive until the evening.
Bibliography
- 1869 – “War and Peace”
- 1877 – “Anna Karenina”
- 1899 – “Resurrection”
- 1852-1857 – “Childhood”. "Adolescence". "Youth"
- 1856 – “Two Hussars”
- 1856 – “Morning of the Landowner”
- 1863 – “Cossacks”
- 1886 – “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”
- 1903 – “Notes of a Madman”
- 1889 – “Kreutzer Sonata”
- 1898 – “Father Sergius”
- 1904 – “Hadji Murat”
Russian writer and philosopher Leo Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828 in Yasnaya Polyana, Tula province, the fourth child in a wealthy aristocratic family. Tolstoy lost his parents early; his further upbringing was carried out by his distant relative T. A. Ergolskaya. In 1844, Tolstoy entered Kazan University at the Department of Oriental Languages of the Faculty of Philosophy, but because... classes did not arouse any interest in him, in 1847. submitted his resignation from the university. At the age of 23, Tolstoy, together with his older brother Nikolai, left for the Caucasus, where he took part in hostilities. These years of the writer's life were reflected in the autobiographical story "Cossacks" (1852-63), in the stories "Raid" (1853), "Cutting Wood" (1855), as well as in the later story "Hadji Murat" (1896-1904, published in 1912). In the Caucasus, Tolstoy began to write the trilogy “Childhood”, “Adolescence”, “Youth”.
During Crimean War went to Sevastopol, where he continued to fight. After the end of the war, he left for St. Petersburg and immediately joined the Sovremennik circle (N. A. Nekrasov, I. S. Turgenev, A. N. Ostrovsky, I. A. Goncharov, etc.), where he was greeted as " the great hope of Russian literature" (Nekrasov), published "Sevastopol Stories", which clearly reflected his outstanding writing talent. In 1857, Tolstoy went on a trip to Europe, which he was later disappointed with.
In the fall of 1856, Tolstoy, having retired, decided to interrupt his literary activity and become a landowner, went to Yasnaya Polyana, where he studied educational work, opened a school, created his own pedagogy system. This activity fascinated Tolstoy so much that in 1860 he even went abroad to get acquainted with the schools of Europe.
In September 1862, Tolstoy married the eighteen-year-old daughter of a doctor, Sofya Andreevna Bers, and immediately after the wedding he took his wife from Moscow to Yasnaya Polyana, where he devoted himself completely to family life and economic concerns, but by the autumn of 1863 he was captured by a new literary idea, as a result of which the fundamental work “War and Peace” was born. In 1873-1877 created the novel Anna Karenina. During these same years, the writer’s worldview, known as Tolstoyism, was fully formed, the essence of which is visible in the works: “Confession”, “What is my faith?”, “The Kreutzer Sonata”.
Admirers of the writer’s work came to Yasnaya Polyana from all over Russia and the world, whom they treated as a spiritual mentor. In 1899, the novel “Resurrection” was published.
Latest works The writer's stories were “Father Sergius”, “After the Ball”, “ Posthumous notes Elder Fyodor Kuzmich" and the drama "The Living Corpse".
In the late autumn of 1910, at night, secretly from his family, 82-year-old Tolstoy, accompanied only by his personal doctor D.P. Makovitsky, left Yasnaya Polyana, fell ill on the way and was forced to get off the train at the small Astapovo Ryazan-Uralskaya railway station railway. Here, in the house of the station chief, he spent the last seven days of his life. November 7 (20) Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy died.
November 20 (November 7, old style) marks exactly one hundred years since the death of the Russian writer Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy.
The great Russian writer, playwright, publicist, 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 Shchekinsky district of the Tula region) into one of the most notable Russian noble families. He was the fourth child in the family. The future writer spent his childhood in Yasnaya Polyana. He was orphaned early, losing first his mother, who died when the boy was two years old, and then his father.
In 1837, the family moved from Yasnaya Polyana to Moscow. The guardian of the orphaned children was their aunt, their father’s sister Alexandra Ilyinichna Osten-Saken. In 1841, after her death, young Tolstoy with his sister and three brothers moved to Kazan, where another aunt lived, Pelageya Ilyinichna Yushkova, who became their guardian.
Tolstoy spent his youth in Kazan. In 1844, he entered Kazan University at the Department of Oriental Languages of the Faculty of Philosophy, then transferred to the Faculty of Law, where he studied for less than two years: his studies did not arouse his interest and he indulged in secular entertainment. In the spring of 1847, disappointed in his university education, he submitted a request for dismissal from the university “due to poor health and domestic circumstances” and left for Yasnaya Polyana, which he received as property under the division of his father’s inheritance.
In Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy engaged in self-education; tried to reorganize the life of the peasants, however, disappointed by the unsuccessful management experience, in the fall of 1847 he first went to Moscow, where he led social life, and in the spring of 1849 he went to St. Petersburg to take exams at the university for the degree of candidate of law. His lifestyle during this period often changed: either he was preparing and passing exams, then he was passionately devoted to music, then he intended to begin an official career, having decided in the fall of 1849 to serve as a clerical employee in the Tula Noble Deputy Assembly, then he dreamed of joining a horse guards regiment as a cadet. Tolstoy's religious sentiments during this period, reaching the point of asceticism, alternated with revelry, cards, and trips to the gypsies. In the family he was considered “the most trifling fellow,” and he was able to repay the debts he incurred then only many years later. However, it was during these years that he developed a serious desire to write and his first unfinished artistic sketches appeared.
In the spring of 1851, on the advice of his older brother Nikolai, Lev Nikolaevich entered the military service in the Caucasus. In the fall of 1851, he became a cadet of the 4th battery of the 20th artillery brigade, and then, having passed the junior officer rank exam, became an officer.
In 1851-1853, Tolstoy took part in military operations in the Caucasus (first as a volunteer, then as an artillery officer), and in 1854 he went to the Danube Army. Soon after the start of the Crimean War, at his personal request, he was transferred to Sevastopol.
From November 1854 to August 1855 he participated in the defense of Sevastopol (in the besieged city he fought on the famous 4th bastion). He was awarded the Order of Anna and medals “For the Defense of Sevastopol” and “In Memory of the War of 1853-1856.” More than once he was nominated for the military Cross of St. George, but he never received the “George”.
The writer's impressions of Caucasian War reflected in the stories "Raid" (1853), "Cutting Wood" (1855), "Demoted" (1856), in the story "Cossacks" (1852 -1863), artistic essays "Sevastopol in December" (1855), "Sevastopol in May" (1855) and "Sevastopol in August 1855" (1856). These essays, called "Sevastopol Stories", made a huge impression on Russian society. In the Caucasus, the story “Childhood” was completed, which was published under the title “The History of My Childhood” in the magazine “Sovremennik” in 1852 and brought Tolstoy great success and fame as one of the most talented Russian writers. Two years later, a continuation appeared in Sovremennik - the story "Adolescence", and in 1857 the story "Youth" was published.
In November 1855, Tolstoy arrived in St. Petersburg and immediately joined the Sovremennik circle (Nikolai Nekrasov, Ivan Turgenev, Alexey Ostrovsky, Ivan Goncharov, etc.).
In the fall of 1856, Leo Tolstoy, having retired with the rank of lieutenant, left for Yasnaya Polyana, and at the beginning of 1857 he went abroad. He visited France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany (Swiss impressions are reflected in the story “Lucerne”), in the fall he returned to Moscow, then to Yasnaya Polyana, where he began improving schools.
In 1859, he opened a school for peasant children in Yasnaya Polyana, and then helped open more than 20 schools in the surrounding villages. To direct their activities along the right path, from his point of view, he published the pedagogical magazine Yasnaya Polyana (1862). Tolstoy wrote eleven articles about school and pedagogy (“On public education”, “Upbringing and education”, “On social activities in the field of public education", etc.).
In order to study the organization of school affairs in foreign countries, the writer went abroad for the second time in 1860.
In May 1861 (the year of the abolition of serfdom) he returned to Yasnaya Polyana, where, having accepted the position of peace mediator, he actively defended the interests of the peasants, resolving their disputes with the landowners about land. Soon the Tula nobility, dissatisfied with his actions, demanded his removal from office, and in 1862 the Senate issued a decree dismissing Tolstoy. Secret surveillance of him began from Section III.
In the summer of 1862, after a police search, Tolstoy had to close the Yasnaya Polyana school and stop publishing a pedagogical magazine. The reason was the authorities' suspicions that students teaching at the school were engaged in anti-government activities.
In September 1862, Tolstoy married the daughter of a Moscow doctor, Sofya Andreevna Bers, and immediately after the wedding, he took his wife from Moscow to Yasnaya Polyana, where he completely devoted himself to family life and household concerns. For 17 years life together they had 13 children.
From the autumn of 1863 to 1869, Leo Tolstoy worked on the novel War and Peace.
In the early 1870s, the writer was again fascinated by pedagogy and he created “ABC” and “New ABC” and compiled a “Book for Reading”, where he included many of his stories.
In the spring of 1873, Tolstoy began and four years later completed work on a great novel about modernity, calling it by name main character- "Anna Karenina".
The spiritual crisis experienced by Tolstoy in the late 1870s and early 1880s culminated in a turning point in his worldview. In "Confession" (1879-1882), the writer talks about a revolution in his views, the meaning of which he saw in a break with the ideology of the noble class and a transition to the side of the "simple working people."
In the early 1880s, the Tolstoy family moved to Moscow to educate their growing children. From this time on, Tolstoy spent winters in Moscow.
In the 1880s, Tolstoy's stories "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" and "Kholstomer" ("The Story of a Horse"), "The Kreutzer Sonata", the story "The Devil", the story "Father Sergius" appeared.
In 1882, he took part in the census of the Moscow population and became closely acquainted with the life of the inhabitants of the city slums, which he described in the treatise “So what should we do?” (1882-1886).
In simplification, in likening himself to people from the people, Tolstoy saw the purpose and duty of nobles, intellectuals - everyone who is part of the privileged classes. During this period, the writer comes to a complete denial of his previous literary activity, is engaged physical labor, plows, sews boots, switches to vegetarian food.
In the 1880s, a conflict arose between Tolstoy and Sofya Andreevna over property and income from publishing the writer’s works. On May 21, 1883, he granted his wife full power of attorney to manage all property affairs, and two years later he divided all his property between his wife, sons and daughters. He wanted to distribute all his property to the needy, but he was stopped by his wife’s threat to declare him crazy and establish guardianship over him. Sofya Andreevna defended the interests and well-being of the family and children. Tolstoy granted all publishers the right to freely publish all his works published after 1881 (Tolstoy considered this year to be the year of his own moral turning point). But Sofya Andreevna demanded the privilege for herself to publish her husband’s collected works. In the relationship between Tolstoy and his wife and sons, mutual alienation is growing.
The writer’s new worldview is also reflected in his articles “On the census in Moscow”, “On hunger”, “What is art?”, “Slavery of our time”, “On Shakespeare and drama”, “I cannot remain silent”. In these and subsequent years, Tolstoy also wrote religiously philosophical works: "Critique of Dogmatic Theology", "What is My Faith?", "Connection, Translation and Study of the Four Gospels", "The Kingdom of God is Within You." In them, the writer not only showed a change in his religious and moral views, but also subjected to a critical revision of the main dogmas and principles of the teaching of the official church.
Socially religious and philosophical quests led Tolstoy to the creation of his own religious philosophical system(Tolstoyanism). Tolstoy preached in life and works of art the need for moral improvement, universal love, non-resistance to evil through violence, for which he was attacked both by revolutionary democratic figures and by the church. At the beginning of 1900, he wrote a series of articles exposing the entire system of public administration. The government of Nicholas II issues a resolution according to which the Holy Synod (the highest church institution in Russia) in February 1901 excommunicates Tolstoy from the Orthodox Church as a “heretic.”
In 1901, the writer lived in Crimea, recovering from a serious illness.
IN last decade During his life, he wrote the story "Hadji Murat", the plays "The Living Corpse", "The Power of Darkness", "The Fruits of Enlightenment", the stories "After the Ball", "For What?", and the novel "Sunday".
In the last years of his life, Tolstoy found himself at the center of intrigue and contention between the “Tolstoyites,” on the one hand, and his wife, who defended the well-being of her family and children, on the other.
On July 22, 1910, Tolstoy drew up a will in which he granted all publishers the right to publish his works - both those written after 1881 and earlier. The new will strained relations with his wife.
On November 10 (October 28, old style), 1910, at five o’clock in the morning, Leo Tolstoy, accompanied only by his personal physician Dushan Makovitsky, left Yasnaya Polyana secretly from his family. On the way, Tolstoy fell ill, his temperature rose and he was forced to get off the train en route to Rostov-on-Don. At the small Astapovo railway station of the Ryazan-Ural Railway, in the house of the station master, the writer spent the last seven days of his life. Doctors diagnosed pneumonia.
On November 20 (November 7, old style), 1910, at Astapovo station (now Lev Tolstoy station), Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy died. His funeral in Yasnaya Polyana became a nationwide event.
The material was prepared based on information from open sources
Born into the noble family of Maria Nikolaevna, nee Princess Volkonskaya, and Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy in the Yasnaya Polyana estate in Krapivensky district of the Tula province, he was the fourth child. Happy marriage His parents became the prototype of the heroes in the novel “War and Peace” - Princess Marya and Nikolai Rostov. Parents died early. The future writer was educated by Tatyana Aleksandrovna Ergolskaya, a distant relative, and educated by tutors: the German Reselman and the Frenchman Saint-Thomas, who became the heroes of the writer’s stories and novels. At the age of 13, the future writer and his family moved to the hospitable house of his father’s sister P.I. Yushkova in Kazan.
In 1844, Leo Tolstoy entered the Imperial Kazan University at the Department of Oriental Literature of the Faculty of Philosophy. After the first year, he failed the transition exam and transferred to the Faculty of Law, where he studied for two years, plunging into secular entertainment. Leo Tolstoy, naturally shy and ugly, acquired secular society reputation for “thinking” about the happiness of death, eternity, love, although he himself wanted to shine. And in 1847 he left the university and went to Yasnaya Polyana with the intention of pursuing science and “achieving highest degree excellence in music and painting."
In 1849, the first school for peasant children was opened on his estate, where Foka Demidovich, his serf, taught. former musician. Yermil Bazykin, who studied there, said: “There were about 20 of us boys, the teacher was Foka Demidovich, a yard man. Under father L.N. Tolstoy he performed the position of musician. The old man was good. He taught us the alphabet, counting, sacred history. Lev Nikolaevich also came to us, also studied with us, showed us his diploma. I went every other day, every other day, or even every day. He always ordered the teacher not to offend us...”
In 1851, under the influence of his older brother Nikolai, Lev left for the Caucasus, having already begun to write “Childhood”, and in the fall he became a cadet in the 4th battery of the 20th artillery brigade, stationed in Cossack village Starogladovskaya on the Terek River. There he finished the first part of “Childhood” and sent it to the magazine “Sovremennik” to its editor N.A. Nekrasov. On September 18, 1852, the manuscript was published with great success.
Leo Tolstoy served for three years in the Caucasus and, having the right to the most honorable St. George Cross for bravery, “ceded” it to a fellow soldier, as giving a lifelong pension. At the beginning of the Crimean War of 1853-1856. transferred to the Danube Army, participated in the battles of Oltenitsa, the siege of Silistria, and the defense of Sevastopol. Then the story “Sevastopol in December 1854” was written. was read by Emperor Alexander II, who ordered to take care of the talented officer.
In November 1856, already recognized and famous writer leaves military service and goes to travel around Europe.
In 1862, Leo Tolstoy married seventeen-year-old Sofya Andreevna Bers. Their marriage produced 13 children, five died in early childhood, the novels “War and Peace” (1863-1869) and “Anna Karenina” (1873-1877) were written, recognized as great works.
In the 1880s. Leo Tolstoy experienced a powerful crisis that led to the denial of official state power and its institutions, awareness of the inevitability of death, faith in God and the creation of his own teaching - Tolstoyism. He lost interest in the usual lordly life, he began to have thoughts about suicide and the need to live correctly, become a vegetarian, engage in education and physical labor - he plowed, sewed boots, taught children at school. In 1891 he publicly renounced copyright on his literary works, written after 1880
During 1889-1899 Leo Tolstoy wrote the novel “Resurrection,” whose plot is based on a real court case, and scathing articles about the system of government - on this basis, the Holy Synod excommunicated Count Leo Tolstoy from the Orthodox Church and anathematized him in 1901.
On October 28 (November 10), 1910, Leo Tolstoy secretly left Yasnaya Polyana, setting off on a journey without a specific plan for the sake of his moral and religious ideas of recent years, accompanied by the doctor D.P. Makovitsky. On the way, he caught a cold, fell ill with lobar pneumonia and was forced to get off the train at Astapovo station (now Lev Tolstoy station in the Lipetsk region). Leo Tolstoy died on November 7 (20), 1910 in the house of the station chief I.I. Ozolin and was buried in Yasnaya Polyana.