Tolstoy,
Count Leo Nikolayevich (1828-1910) Russian writer, aesthetic philosopher,
moralist and mystic. He was educated privately and at Kazan University,
where he read law and oriental languages, but did not graduate. In 1851
he accompanied his elder brother Nicholay to the Caucasus, where he joined
an artillery regiment and there began his literary career: Childhood
(1852), Boyhood (1854) and
Youth (1856). Commissioned at
the outbreak of the Crimean War, he commanded a battery during the defense
of Sevastopol (1854-1855). After the war he published Tales of Army
Life and Sketches of Sevastopol. In 1862 he married Sophia
Behrs, who bore him 13 children. He settled on his estate and combined
the duties of a landlord with the literary work. His novel War and Peace
(1863-1869) considered the greatest novel ever written. His second great
work Anna Karenina (1874-1876) carries the seeds of Tolstoy's personal
crisis between the claims of the creative novelist and the moralizing propagator
of his own ethical code. His doctrine founded a "religious" order of his
followers and his estate became a place for piligrimage.
See: Nikolay Gay. Portrait
of Leo Tolstoy.
Ivan Kramskoy. Portrait
of Leo Tolstoy.
Mikhail Nesterov Portrait
of Count Leo Tolstoy.
Ilya Repin Portrait
of Leo Tolstoy, Portrait
of Leo Tolstoy as a Ploughman on a Field, Leo
Tolstoy in His Study.