Leo Tolstoy

I

Introduction

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), Russian writer and moral philosopher, one of the world’s greatest novelists. His writings profoundly influenced much of 20th-century literature, and his moral teachings helped shape the thinking of several important spiritual and political leaders.

II

Early Life and Works

Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy was born into a family of aristocratic landowners at Yasnaya Polyana, the family estate south of Moscow. His early education came from tutors at home, but after the deaths of his parents in the 1830s he was raised by relatives. Tolstoy entered Kazan’ State University when he was 16 but preferred to educate himself independently, and in 1847 he gave up his studies without finishing his degree.

Tolstoy’s next 15 years were very unsettled. He returned to manage the family estate, with the determination to improve himself intellectually, morally, and physically and to better the lot of his peasant serfs. After less than two years, however, he abandoned rural life for the pleasures of Moscow. In 1851 Tolstoy traveled to the Caucasus, a region then part of southern Russia, where his brother was serving in the army. He enlisted as a volunteer, serving with distinction in the Crimean War (1853-1856).

Tolstoy began his literary career during his army service, and his first work, the semi-autobiographical short novel Detstvo (1852; translated as Childhood, 1886), brought him acclaim. A series of other stories followed, and when he left the army in 1856 he was acknowledged as a rising new talent in literature. Tolstoy was never comfortable in the literary world, however, and in 1859 he returned to Yasnaya Polyana to manage the estate, set up a school for peasant children, and write about his progressive theories of education.

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Tolstoy’s Childhood and its successors Otrochestvo (1854; Boyhood, 1886) and Iunost’ (1857; Youth, 1886) focus on the psychological and moral development of the hero from age ten to his late teens. Childhood in particular presents a lyrical and charming picture of the innocence and joys of childhood through the fresh and acute observations of the child, along with the mature reflections of the adult narrator. Experiences in the Crimean War provided the material for his three Sevastopolskie rasskazy (1855-1856; Sebastopol Tales, 1888), which pay tribute to the courage of the common soldier while forcefully condemning war. A short novel, Kazaki (1863; The Cossacks, 1887), grew out of Tolstoy’s service in the Caucasus. The hero of the book, Olenin, decides to escape the artificiality of Moscow society to attempt a more natural life among the Cossacks in a Caucasian village. He finds that he cannot abandon his civilized values, and the Cossacks never accept him.

III

Family Life and Literary Masterpieces

In 1862 Tolstoy married Sofya Andreyevna Behrs, the 18-year-old daughter of a Moscow physician. Married life at Yasnaya Polyana, a growing, happy family, and absorption in creating his finest literary work brought him stability for the next 15 years.

Voina i mir (1865-1869; War and Peace, 1886) tells the story of the restless, questing Pierre Bezukhov and two aristocratic families, the Bolkonskys and the Rostovs, in the years leading up to and following French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Russia (1805-1815). The book depicts the everyday lives of four major characters who are also caught up in momentous historical events; they face similar challenges but respond in different ways. Each seeks to find meaning in his or her life: Pierre and the engaging heroine, Natasha Rostov, eventually find fulfillment in the family; Natasha’s brother Nikolai also finds it in family and in running his estate; the doubting intellectual Andrei Bolkonsky finds it only on his deathbed, in withdrawing from life altogether. Tolstoy reveals both the inner and the outer lives of these characters, as well as more than 500 other characters, historical and fictional, through a combination of sharp physical detail and close psychological analysis. The novel also includes an extended essay treating the question of what moves history. Here Tolstoy deflates the notion that history is made by great men such as Napoleon and argues that historical events can be understood only through the actions of extremely large numbers of ordinary people living their daily lives.

After a break of a few years, during which he turned again to educating peasant children, Tolstoy returned to literature with his second masterpiece, Anna Karenina (1875-1877; translated 1886). While not as immense as War and Peace, the novel still paints a broad and detailed picture of all levels of Russian life in the 1870s. Tolstoy examines three marriages: that of the heroine, Anna, who is married to the dry bureaucrat Karenin and who has a passionate affair with a young army officer named Vronsky; the relatively happy and stable marriage of Konstantin Levin and Kitty Shcherbatsky; and the shaky but enduring marriage of Anna’s brother, Stiva, and Kitty’s sister Dolly. The novel is intricately structured, with many subtle comparisons and contrasts among the three marriages. It ends darkly. Excluded from a hypocritical society that cannot tolerate her honest and open expression of love for Vronsky, torn by guilt over her adulterous affair and the forced abandonment of her son, Anna takes her own life. Even Levin, having begun a family with the woman he loves, is beset by doubts about the meaning of his life.

IV

Final Period

While working on the later parts of Anna Karenina, Tolstoy began experiencing bouts of depression, which at times were so severe that he considered suicide. He was tormented by the need to find a meaning for his life that would not be annihilated by death. His Ispoved’ (1882; A Confession, 1885) describes this spiritual struggle and the solution he found: to practice what he saw as the essence of Christianity—that is, universal love and passive resistance to evil. A series of religious writings amplified this new faith. In these, he urged people to live according to the dictates of conscience, which meant practicing universal love and living as far as possible by their own labor. He also declared all forms of violence equally wrong, including war and the compulsion that the state uses against its citizens.

In addition to his works of moral philosophy Tolstoy also wrote about urban poverty, aesthetics, vegetarianism, capital punishment, and the evils of alcohol. The ideas in many of these writings clashed with the dogmas of official religion (Eastern Orthodox Christianity) and were banned in Russia, but they were translated into many languages and became known around the world. Tolstoyan communities sprang up in Europe and the United States, and Yasnaya Polyana became a destination of pilgrimage for people from all walks of life.

Tolstoy eventually returned to writing fiction, but with a growing audience of less educated people in mind. In the mid-1880s he wrote short stories, many of them based on fairy tales or religious legends. Written in a simple but expressive style, they were intended to convey his idea of ethical Christianity. But he also produced powerful and sophisticated pieces of fiction, such as the short novels Smert’ Ivana Ilicha (1886; The Death of Ivan Ilich, 1888) and Khoziain i rabotnik (1895; Master and Man, 1895), which reflect his religious ideas. The heroes of these works are forced to re-examine their lives and values when they face death. Another novella, Kreitserova sonata (1889; The Kreutzer Sonata, 1890), caused a sensation in Russia with its discussion of the damaging effects of sexual attraction and apparent advocacy of universal chastity. The novel Voskresenie (1899; Resurrection, 1899), with a hero who follows the promptings of his conscience and gives up his social position and property, has passages of great power but does not reach the level of Tolstoy’s two great novels. His last work of prose fiction, Hadji-Murad (written 1904; published 1911; translated 1912), returns to the Caucasus, where his stories of the 1850s were set, and includes relatively little moralizing.

Tolstoy himself tried to abide by his new beliefs, simplifying his life, living on his own labor, and giving up material possessions. His wife, however, did not share all of his beliefs, and their marriage suffered under severe strain during their last years together. In November 1910 relations between them had grown so tense that Tolstoy decided to leave home for good. He contracted pneumonia while traveling and died at the small railway station of Astapovo.