Tolstoy, Leo

(1828–1910)

   Novelist and Philanthropist.

   Tolstoy was born into a Russian aristocratic family. He was educated at the University of Kazan and he fought in the Crimean War. After travelling through Europe, he returned to his estate in Tula where he freed the serfs and established schools. Today he is primarily remembered for his two novels (in their English titles) War and Peace and Anna Karenina. These are regarded as masterpieces of Russian literature. Later he turned away from fiction and he concentrated on religious and ethical subjects. He lived a life of simplicity, identifying with the poor and emphasising the moral teachings of Christianity. He rejected the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus Christ and ultimately he was excommunicated from the Russian Church.

   In his final years he took up the cause of the Doukhobors, a peasant sect; adherents believed that the Trinity appeared in the human soul as memory, reason and will and they organised their communities on communist lines. Tolstoy’s last novel, Resurrection, was written in their defence.

   E.J. Simmons, Introduction to Tolstoy’s Writings (1969);

   G. Steiner, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky: An Essay in Contrast (1960);

   S. Tolstoy, Tolstoy Remembered (1961);

   A.N. Wilson, Tolstoy (1988).