On September 9, 1828 Leo Tolstoy was born in the Tula province, Russia. In 1860, he wrote the first of his great novels, “War and Peace”. In 1873, Tolstoy began to work on the second successful novel, “Anna Karenina”. The author continued to write fiction during 1880 and 1890. One of the most successful works was “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”. Tolstoy passed away on November 20, 1910 in Astapovo, Russia.
The first years of life
Lev Tolstoy was born on his family property, Yasnaya Polyana in Tula Province, Russia, on September 9, 1828. He was the youngest of four boys of the family. In 1830, when Tolstoy’s mother, born Princess Volkonskaya, died, his father’s cousin was in charge of childrens.
After their father, Count Nikolay Tolstoy, passed away just seven years later, their aunt was named tutor. When the aunt died, Tolstoy and his brothers moved to a second aunt in Kazan, Russia. Although Tolstoy suffered many losses in a quite early age, later, he will idealize the childhood memories in his writings.
Tolstoy went through primary school at home with the help of some german and french teachers. In 1843, he enrolled in a program of oriental languages at the University of Kazan. There, the writer hasn’t excelled as a student. His low grades forced him to transfer to a easier program, of law.
Tolstoy abandoned, finally, the University of Kazan in 1847, without a degree, the reason being his inclination towards excessive partying. He returned to his parents’ property where he became a farmer. The writer has tried to coordinate the work of the serfs, only that he was pretty much absent because of the courtesy visits to Tula and Moscow.
His attempt to become the perfect farmer soon failed. He managed, however, to channel his energy into keeping a journal – the start of a habit that he often inspired for his works. While Tolstoy failed in farm , his older brother, Nikolai, came to visit during military permissions. Nicolai persuaded Lev to join the army as cadet in southern Caucasus Mountains where he was also assigned. Following the cadet obligation, Tolstoy was transferred to Sevastopol in Ukraine in November 1854, where he fought in the Crimean War during the august month 1855.
The first publications
During the time Tolstoy worked as cadet for army, he had a lot of free time. During periods of peace, he was working on a autobiographical story called “Childhood” which contained the fondest childhood memories. In 1852, Lev Tolstoy sent the sketch to “Contemporary” magazine, the most popular magazine of the time.
The story was eagerly accepted and became his first work that was published. After finishing the story “Childhood” Tolstoy began to write about his daily life in the military outpost in the Caucasus. However, he failed to finish his work called “Cossacks” until 1862, after leaving the army.
Amazingly, Lev managed to write while he was on the battlefield during the Crimean War. In all that time, wrote “Adolescence” (1854), a continuation of the story “Childhood”, the second book of what became Lev Tolstoy’s autobiographical trilogy. In the midst of the Crimean War, he expressed his views on the amazing contradictions of the war through a novel of three parts “Sevastopol Stories”. In the second part of the trilogy, Tolstoy experienced a new technique of writing: a part of the story is presented from the perspective of a soldier’s conscience.
With the war ending, Tolstoy left military service and returned to Russia. Home, the author saw that he was very popular on the literary scene in St. Petersburg. Stubborn and arrogant by nature, Tolstoy refused to identify himself with a particular school of thought and intellectual, declaring himself an anarchist, he went to Paris in 1857. Once there, he lost all his money gambling and was forced to return to Russia. Lev has also managed to publish “Youth”, the third part of the autobiographical trilogy in 1857.
In Russia, in 1862, Tolstoy published the first of the 12 numbers of the Yasnaya Polyana magazine and married the daughter of a doctor, Sofia Andreyevna Bers in the same year.
The main novels
Lev Tolstoy lived in Yasnaya Polyana with his wife and children and spent most of the 1860s working on the first great novel, “War and Peace”. A part of this novel was published in “Russian Messenger” in 1865 under the title “Year 1805”. Until 1868, he launched others three chapters.
A year later, the novel was finished. Both critics and audiences buzzed about historical descriptions of the novel about the Napoleonic wars combined with careful development of the fictional but realistic characters. The novel integrated, uniquely, three long essays that satirized the laws of history. Among the ideas that Lev Tolstoy glorify in “War and Peace” is also the faith that the meaning and quality of life of a man are acquired from daily activities.
Following the success of “War and Peace”, in 1873 Tolstoy started working on the second of his best novels, “Anna Karenina”. The novel was based in part on current events since when Russia was in war with Turkey. Like the previous novel, in “Anna Karenina” were transposed fictitious events from the life of the author, as is obvious, particularly, the romance between Kitty and Levin characters whose relationship is said to resemble that of Tolstoy and his wife.
The first sentence that opens the novel “Anna Karenina” is one of the most famous from the book: “All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” “Anna Karenina” was published in fascicles from 1873 until 1877, for critics and the public ovations. The copyright rights he won for the novel contributed to the rapid growth of his wealth.
The religious conversion
Despite the success he had after the novel “Anna Karenina”, Tolstoy underwent a spiritual crisis and developed a depression. The writer struggled to find the meaning of life and went to the Russian Orthodox Church, but he didn’t find the answers he seeked.
He came to believe that christian churches were corrupt and instead of organized religion, Lev Tolstoy developed his own beliefs. He decided to express his faith by founding a new publication called “the mediator” in 1883.
One of the controversial consequence of the embrace of unconventional spiritual beliefs, Tolstoy was excluded from the Russian Orthodox Church and was supervised by the secret police. When Tolstoy’s new beliefs requested his desire to donate his money, his wife strongly opposed. This disagreement has strained the couple’s marriage, until Tolstoy agreed, reluctantly, to compromise: admitted granting the copyright of his all written works until 1881 to his wife.
Late work
Tolstoy continued to write fiction over the years 1880-1890. Among his later works genres are stories with meaningful and realistic work. One of the most successful works was the novel “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” written in 1886. In this work, the main character struggles to overcome imminent death. The character name, Ivan Ilyich, finds the discordant note that his life is wasted with trivial matters, but finding comes too late.
In 1898, Lev Tolstoy wrote “Father Sergius” fictional work that seems to refute beliefs that he developed after spiritual conversion. The following year, he wrote the third longest novel, “Resurrection”. Although the work received praise, could not equal the success and applause of previous novels. Other works of Tolstoy’s are essays on art, a satirical play called “The Living Corpse” which he wrote in 1890, and a short story called “Hadji Murad” (written in 1904) which was discovered and published after his death.
The old age
In the last 30 years of his life, Tolstoy autoproclaimed the religious and moral leader . His ideas about non-violent resistance against the evil influenced Mahatma Gandhi’s sympathy.
During recent years, Tolstoy was picking the fruits of international appreciation. However, he was still struggling to reconcile the spiritual beliefs that have created tensions in his home. His wife, not only didn’t agreed with his convictions, she disapproved his followers who regularly visited the family property.
Their marriage problems grew in the press. Eager to escape the resentment (increasingly larger) of his wife, in 1910, Lev Tolstoy and his daughter, Aleksandra, embarked on a long journey. Aleksandra, Tolstoy’s youngest daughter, will become the doctor of her father during the journey. They traveled incognito, hoping to avoid the press, in vain.
The legacy
Unfortunately, the pilgrimage has proven to be too dangerous for the old novelist. In November 1910, the head station of a train depot in Astapovo, Russia, opened his house for Tolstoy, allowing the sick writer to rest. Lev Tolstoy died shortly afterwards, on 20 November 1910.
He was buried on his family property, Yasnaia Polyana, in Tula province, where the writer has lost many loved ones and yet managed to keep long and beautiful memories of his childhood. Tolstoy’s wife and their 10 children have lived more than him. (the couple had 13 children, but only 10 have survived the young age).
Until today, Lev Tolstoy’s novels are considered some of the finest literary achievements. “War and Peace” is cited as the greatest novel ever written. In contemporary academy, Tolstoy is still recognized worldwide for his gift of describing unconscious motives of his characters. He is also known for its delicacy in determining the role of each man’s actions in everyday life, in defining their character and purpose.
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