Leo Tolstoy: the story on HearLore

Leo Tolstoy

Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, known to the world as Leo Tolstoy, was born on the 9th of September 1828 at Yasnaya Polyana, a family estate located southwest of Tula and south of Moscow. He was the fourth of five children born to Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy, a veteran of the Patriotic War of 1812, and Princess Mariya Tolstaya, née Volkonskaya. His mother died when he was only two years old, and his father passed away when he was nine, leaving him and his siblings to be raised by distant relatives. This early loss of parental guidance set the stage for a life of intense introspection and a relentless search for meaning. Tolstoy began his formal education at Kazan University in 1844, studying law and oriental languages, but his teachers described him as both unable and unwilling to learn. He left the university in the middle of his studies, returning to Yasnaya Polyana to lead a lax and leisurely lifestyle that would eventually give way to a profound moral crisis. Tolstoy's early literary career was marked by the publication of his semi-autobiographical trilogy, Childhood, Boyhood and Youth, between 1852 and 1856, which brought him immediate acclaim. However, it was his experiences during the Crimean War that truly transformed him. In 1851, after running up heavy gambling debts, he joined the army and served as a young artillery officer. He was present in Sevastopol during the 11-month-long siege of 1854, 55, including the Battle of the Chernaya, where he was recognized for his courage and promoted to lieutenant. The war left him appalled by the number of deaths involved in warfare, and he left the army after its conclusion. This experience, combined with two trips around Europe in 1857 and 1860, 61, converted him from a dissolute and privileged society author to a non-violent and spiritual anarchist. During his 1857 visit to Paris, he witnessed a public execution, a traumatic experience that marked the rest of his life. In a letter to his friend Vasily Botkin, Tolstoy wrote, The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens. Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere.

The Epic of War and Peace

Tolstoy's masterpiece, War and Peace, is generally thought to be one of the greatest novels ever written, remarkable for its dramatic breadth and unity. Its vast canvas includes 580 characters, many historical with others fictional. The story moves from family life to the headquarters of Napoleon, from the court of Alexander I of Russia to the battlefields of Austerlitz and Borodino. Tolstoy's original idea for the novel was to investigate the causes of the Decembrist revolt, to which it refers only in the last chapters, from which can be deduced that Andrei Bolkonsky's son will become one of the Decembrists. The novel explores Tolstoy's theory of history, and in particular the insignificance of individuals such as Napoleon and Alexander. Somewhat surprisingly, Tolstoy did not consider War and Peace to be a novel, nor did he consider many of the great Russian fictions written at that time to be novels. This view becomes less surprising if one considers that Tolstoy was a novelist of the realist school who considered the novel to be a framework for the examination of social and political issues in nineteenth-century life. War and Peace, which is to Tolstoy really an epic in prose, therefore did not qualify. Tolstoy called Anna Karenina his first novel. The creation of War and Peace was a monumental task that required immense dedication. Tolstoy's wife, Sophia Andreevna Behrs, known as Sonya, acted as his secretary, editor, and financial manager. She was copying and hand-writing his epic works time after time. Tolstoy would continue editing War and Peace and had to have clean final drafts to be delivered to the publisher. The novel's influence extended beyond literature, as it was read by Victor Hugo during his 1860, 61 European trip, and the similar evocation of battle scenes in Hugo's novel Les Misérables and Tolstoy's War and Peace indicates this influence. Tolstoy's political philosophy was also influenced by a March 1861 visit to French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, then living in exile under an assumed name in Brussels. Tolstoy reviewed Proudhon's forthcoming publication, La Guerre et la Paix, and later used the title for his masterpiece. The two men also discussed education, as Tolstoy wrote in his educational notebooks: If I recount this conversation with Proudhon, it is to show that, in my personal experience, he was the only man who understood the significance of education and of the printing press in our time.

When and where was Leo Tolstoy born?

Leo Tolstoy was born on the 9th of September 1828 at Yasnaya Polyana, a family estate located southwest of Tula and south of Moscow. He was the fourth of five children born to Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy and Princess Mariya Tolstaya, née Volkonskaya.

What major life events transformed Leo Tolstoy from a privileged author to a spiritual anarchist?

Leo Tolstoy transformed from a privileged author to a spiritual anarchist after serving as an artillery officer in the Crimean War and witnessing a public execution in Paris during 1857. These experiences led him to renounce government service and adopt non-violent beliefs.

Who was Leo Tolstoy's wife and how many children did they have?

Leo Tolstoy married Sophia Andreevna Behrs, known as Sonya, on the 23rd of September 1862. They had 13 children, eight of whom survived childhood.

When did Leo Tolstoy die and where did his death occur?

Leo Tolstoy died on the 20th of November 1910 at the age of 82 of pneumonia at Astapovo railway station. He had traveled south by train and was taken to the stationmaster's apartment where he received medical treatment before passing.

How did Leo Tolstoy influence Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence?

Leo Tolstoy influenced Mahatma Gandhi through his concept of truth and nonresistance to evil, which formed the basis of Gandhi's satyagraha movement. Gandhi derived his understanding of truth from Tolstoy's interpretation of Christianity rather than from Hindu tradition.

The Marriage That Broke

The death of his brother Nikolay in 1860 had an impact on Tolstoy, and led him to a desire to marry. On the 23rd of September 1862, Tolstoy married Sophia Andreevna Behrs, who was sixteen years his junior and the daughter of a court physician. She was called Sonya, the Russian diminutive of Sofia, by her family and friends. They had 13 children, eight of whom survived childhood: Count Sergei Lvovich Tolstoy, Countess Tatyana Lvovna Tolstaya, Count Ilya Lvovich Tolstoy, Count Lev Lvovich Tolstoy, Countess Maria Lvovna Tolstaya, Count Peter Lvovich Tolstoy, Count Nikolai Lvovich Tolstoy, Countess Varvara Lvovna Tolstaya, Count Andrei Lvovich Tolstoy, Count Michael Lvovich Tolstoy, Count Alexei Lvovich Tolstoy, Countess Alexandra Lvovna Tolstaya, and Count Ivan Lvovich Tolstoy. Tolstoy, on the eve of their marriage, gave her his diaries detailing his extensive sexual past and the fact that one of the serfs on his estate had borne him a son. Even so, their early married life was happy and allowed Tolstoy much freedom and the support system to compose War and Peace and Anna Karenina, with Sonya acting as his secretary, editor, and financial manager. However, their later life together has been described by A.N. Wilson as one of the unhappiest in literary history. Tolstoy's relationship with his wife deteriorated as his beliefs became increasingly radical. This saw him seeking to reject his inherited and earned wealth, including the renunciation of the copyrights on his earlier works. When he was finishing up the last installments of Anna Karenina, Tolstoy was in an anguished state of mind and he began putting away guns and ropes out of fear that he would kill himself. The conflict between Tolstoy's radical Christian anarchist beliefs and his wife's practical needs created a chasm that could not be bridged. Sonya argued that his vegetarian diet did not provide him enough nourishment and contributed to his digestive ailments, however, Tolstoy stated that his health was not deprived on the diet but had improved. Critics of Tolstoy such as I. S. Listovsky suggested that Tolstoy's writing talent went into decline after he adopted a meatless diet. The tension between his public persona as a moral leader and his private life as a husband and father became a source of constant strife.

The Gospel of Nonresistance

In 1884, Tolstoy wrote a book called What I Believe, in which he openly confessed his Christian beliefs. He affirmed his belief in Jesus Christ's teachings and was particularly influenced by the Sermon on the Mount, and the injunction to turn the other cheek, which he understood as a commandment of non-resistance to evil by force and a doctrine of pacifism and nonviolence. In his work The Kingdom of God Is Within You, he explains that he considered mistaken the Church's doctrine because they had made a perversion of Christ's teachings. Tolstoy also received letters from American Quakers who introduced him to the non-violence writings of Quaker Christians such as George Fox, William Penn, and Jonathan Dymond. Later, various versions of Tolstoy's Bible were published, indicating the passages Tolstoy most relied on, specifically, the reported words of Jesus himself. Tolstoy believed that a true Christian could find lasting happiness by striving for inner perfection through following the Great Commandment of loving one's neighbor and God, rather than guidance from the Church or state. Another distinct attribute of his philosophy based on Christ's teachings is nonresistance during conflict. This idea in Tolstoy's book The Kingdom of God Is Within You directly influenced Mahatma Gandhi and therefore also nonviolent resistance movements to this day. Tolstoy believed that the aristocracy was a burden on the poor. He opposed private land ownership and the institution of marriage, and valued chastity and sexual abstinence, ideals also held by the young Gandhi. Tolstoy's passion from the depth of his austere moral views is reflected in his later work. One example is the sequence of the temptation of Sergius in Father Sergius. Maxim Gorky relates how Tolstoy once read this passage before him and Chekhov, and Tolstoy was moved to tears by the end of the reading. Later passages of rare power include the personal crises faced by the protagonists of The Death of Ivan Ilyich, and of Master and Man, where the main character in the former and the reader in the latter are made aware of the foolishness of the protagonists' lives.

The Voice of the Voiceless

Tolstoy had a profound influence on the development of Christian anarchist thought. Tolstoy believed being a Christian required him to be a pacifist; the apparently inevitable waging of war by governments is why he is considered a philosophical anarchist. The Tolstoyans were a small Christian anarchist group formed by Tolstoy's companion, Vladimir Chertkov, to spread Tolstoy's religious teachings. From 1892, he regularly met with the student-activist Vasily Maklakov who would defend several Tolstoyans; they discussed the fate of the Doukhobors. Philosopher Peter Kropotkin wrote of Tolstoy in the article on anarchism in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica: Without naming himself an anarchist, Leo Tolstoy, like his predecessors in the popular religious movements of the 15th and 16th centuries, Chojecki, Denk and many others, took the anarchist position as regards the state and property rights, deducing his conclusions from the general spirit of the teachings of Jesus and from the necessary dictates of reason. With all the might of his talent, Tolstoy made a powerful criticism of the church, the state and law altogether, and especially of the present property laws. He describes the state as the domination of the wicked ones, supported by brutal force. Robbers, he says, are far less dangerous than a well-organized government. He makes a searching criticism of the prejudices which are current now concerning the benefits conferred upon men by the church, the state, and the existing distribution of property, and from the teachings of Jesus he deduces the rule of nonresistance and the absolute condemnation of all wars. His religious arguments are, however, so well combined with arguments borrowed from a dispassionate observation of the present evils, that the anarchist portions of his works appeal to the religious and the non-religious reader alike. In hundreds of essays over the last 20 years of his life, Tolstoy reiterated the anarchist critique of the state and recommended books by Kropotkin and Proudhon to his readers, while rejecting anarchism's espousal of violent revolutionary means.

The Diet of the Soul

Tolstoy first became interested in vegetarianism in 1882; however, his conversion to a vegetarian diet was a long and gradual process. William Fay, who visited Tolstoy in Autumn 1885, influenced Tolstoy to become vegetarian. In 1887, Tolstoy was lapsing from a vegetarian diet by occasionally eating meat. It was only from 1890 that he adopted a strict vegetarian diet which he was alleged to have never consciously betrayed. Tolstoy's wife Sophia argued that his vegetarian diet did not provide him enough nourishment and contributed to his digestive ailments, however, Tolstoy stated that his health was not deprived on the diet but had improved. Critics of Tolstoy such as I. S. Listovsky suggested that Tolstoy's writing talent went into decline after he adopted a meatless diet. Tolstoy became a vegetarian for ethical and spiritual reasons, associating a meatless diet with high moral views on life. He viewed both hunting and eating meat as a moral evil as they involve unnecessary cruelty to animals and regretted his former habits. In 1891, Tolstoy obtained a copy of Howard Williams's book The Ethics of Diet from Chertkov. His daughters translated the book into Russian and Tolstoy wrote an introductory essay titled The First Step, published in 1893. In his introductory essay, he described a cruel experience he had witnessed at a visit to a slaughterhouse in Tula. The cruelty he had witnessed confirmed his belief that meat should be removed from the diet. In the essay he wrote that meat eating is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to moral feeling , killing. Whilst on his vegetarian diet, Tolstoy was eating eggs daily but was questioned by one of his friends if eating eggs amounts to taking life. He commented that Yes, I ought to have stopped taking eggs. At least from now I shall stop it. By 1903, Tolstoy had removed eggs from his diet. Vasily Rozanov who had visited Tolstoy noted that vegetarianism was a way of living for Tolstoy and at the dinner table surrounded by family and guests who were eating meat and scrambled eggs, Tolstoy was eating kasha.

The Legacy of a Giant

Tolstoy's ideas and works still influenced other socialist thinkers throughout history. He held an unromantic view of governments as being essentially violent forces held together by intimidation from state authority, corruption on behalf of officials, and the indoctrination of people from a young age. In regard to his view of economics, he advocated for a return to subsistence agriculture. In his view, a simplified economy would afford a lesser need for the exchange of goods, and as such, factories and cities , the centers of industry , would become obsolete. Vladimir Lenin wrote several essays about Tolstoy, suggesting that a contradiction exists within his critique of Russian society. According to Lenin, Tolstoy , who adored the peasantry and voiced their discontent with imperial Russian society , may have been revolutionary in his critiques but his political consciousness was not fully developed for a revolution. Tolstoy's philosophy of nonresistance to evil made an impact on Mahatma Gandhi's political thinking. Gandhi was deeply moved by Tolstoy's concept of truth, which, in his view, constitutes any doctrine that reduces suffering. For both Gandhi and Tolstoy, truth is God, and since God is universal love, truth must therefore also be universal love. The Gujarati word for Gandhi's non-violent movement is satyagraha, derived from the word sadagraha , the sat portion translating to truth, and the agraha translating to firmness. Gandhi's conception of satyagraha was birthed from Tolstoy's understanding of Christianity rather than from Hindu tradition. Tolstoy's influence extended to film and television as well, with The Death of Ivan Ilyich being adapted by Akira Kurosawa as Ikiru in 1952 and later as Living in 2022. A 2009 film about Tolstoy's final year, The Last Station, was made by director Michael Hoffman with Christopher Plummer as Tolstoy and Helen Mirren as Sofya Tolstoya, with both performers nominated for Oscars for their roles. There have been other films about the writer, including Departure of a Grand Old Man, made in 1912 just two years after his death, How Fine, How Fresh the Roses Were in 1913, and Lev Tolstoy, directed by and starring Sergei Gerasimov in 1984. There is also a famous lost film of Tolstoy made a decade before he died. In 1901, the American travel lecturer Burton Holmes visited Yasnaya Polyana with Albert J. Beveridge, the U.S. senator and historian. As the three men conversed, Holmes filmed Tolstoy with his 60-mm movie camera. Afterwards, Beveridge's advisers succeeded in having the film destroyed, fearing that the meeting with the Russian author might hurt Beveridge's chances of running for the U.S. presidency.