Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy
Writer and Thinker
1828-1910
Ivan Kramskoy
Portrait of Count Leo Tolstoy
(1828-1910)
Born August 28 (Sept. 9) 1828 on family
estate, Yasnaya Polyana
Childhood and Youth
• Born into an
ancient noble
family
• Parents die when
• Tolstoy is young
• Raised by his
• aunts
• Studies law at the
• Kazan’ University
Tolstoy’s Military Career: 1851-56
Serves first in the
Caucasus
Then in an artillery
regiment in
Sebastopol, Crimea
Writes and publishes
his first fiction:
Childhood (1852)
Boyhood (1854)
Youth (1857)
Literary Beginnings
• Moves to
Petersburg, tries
to integrate into
literary circles
• In 1857 visits
France, Italy,
Switzerland and
Germany
• Photo: Tolstoy in
1862
1859: Interest in education
Upon his return
from Europe,
establishes
schools for peasant
children on his
estate at Yasnaya
Polyana
1860 goes to W.
Europe to study
schools
Sophia Andreevna Behrs (1844-1919)
• Tolstoy and
Sophia marry in
1862
• They immediately
settle in Yasnaya
Polyana
• They have 13
children (only 9
survive)
Life with Tolstoy
Sophia Andreevna:
"I lived with Lev
Nikolayevich
for forty-eight years,
but I never really
learned what kind of
man he was.“
The Tolstoys
Tolstoy, his children and
grandchildren
War and Peace (1863-69)
• Begins to appear in literary
magazine Russky vestnik in 1865
• Reflects Tolstoy’s interest in the
Russian narod (“people”)
• Graphic descriptions of slaughter
on the battlefield reflect Tolstoy’s
experience as a soldier, amount to a
pacifist critique of war
Tolstoy in his study
Anna Karenina, 1873-77
• Family novel centred around an
autobiographical hero plus a novel
about adultery (cf. Flaubert’s
Madame Bovary)
• Vehicle for Tolstoy to express his
opinion on the reforms of the
1860s, agriculture, modernity
Critical, Psychological Realism
• Investigation into the more profound
•
•
•
•
•
aspects of life
Social inequality
Motivation, why do we do what we do?
Psychological contradictions
Politics
What is Russia? What is Russia’s role
in the world?
The 1880s: The Spiritual Crisis
• Tolstoy radically questions society,
religion, morality, sex, artistic
practices
• Renounces his previous literary
works
• Publishes A Confession (1884),
Death of Ivan Ilich (1886), Kreuzer
Sonata (1887-89)
Tolstoy’s core beliefs
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•
•
•
•
Non-resistance to evil
Renounce all luxury and wealth
Live by one’s own labour
Be like the humble peasant
Vegetarianism
Tolstoy’s Philosophy
Il’ya Repin. Tolstoy as ploughman
Vladimir Chertkov (1854-1936)
and the Tolstoyans
• Meets Tolstoy in
1883
• 1884 becomes
publisher of Tolstoy’s
and others’ work in
popular cheap
editions
• Educational projects
for moral
improvement
• After Tolstoy’s death
edits his work
The last Chapter
1884 first attempt to
leave home, gave up his
estate in Yasnaya
Polyana
1901 Excommunication
from Russian Orthodox
Church
In November of 1910,
Tolstoy leaves home
His letter to Sofya Andreevna
“My departure will sadden you. But
understand and believe that I cannot act
in any other way. My position in the house
is becoming, or has become, unbearable.
Apart from anything else, I cannot live in
those conditions of luxury in which I have
lived, and am doing what old men of my
age usually do: they abandon the worldly
life to live out in isolation and silence
their last days…”
Tolstoy falls ill on the train,
is taken in by the stationmaster…
…in the small railway station of
Astapovo
Tolstoy’s room in Astapovo
The End
Fell ill and died
seven days later
Thousands of people
came to ask about
the writer’s
condition
Tolstoy’s wife
looking through
the window
Clock at the Astapovo railway station
stopped at the time of Tolstoy’s death
Last words
“There are masses of people, apart
from Leo Tolstoy, but you only pay
attention to Leo Tolstoy…that’s not
how peasants die. … I love the
truth.”
’
Tolstoy’s grave
Leo Tolstoy’s Biography
I clearly realized that my biography, if
it suppressed all the nastiness and
criminality of my life - as they
customarily write biographies - would
be a lie, and that if one is going to
write my biography, one must write the
whole truth.
– Leo Tolstoy
Thoughts from the book "For Every Day“
“That the only object of man's life is selfperfection — the perfecting of immortal
souls — that this is is seen to be correct by
the fact alone that every other object is
senseless in view of death.
Therefore the question whether you have
done what you should have done is of
immense importance, for the only meaning
of your life is in doing in this short term
allowed you that which is desired of you by
Him who or that which has sent you into
life. Are you doing the right thing?”