Leo Tolstoy Biography: Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was born on August 28, 1828, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time. His works, including “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina,” are regarded as the finest examples of realist fiction. The semi-autobiographical trilogy “Childhood,” “Boyhood,” and “Youth,” as well as “Sevastopol Sketches,” which were meant to document his experience in the Crimean War, brought him fame in his twenties. He was a Christian anarchist and pacifist who firmly believed in the concept of nonviolent resistance, a belief that influenced the likes of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
Leo Tolstoy Birthday
Leo Tolstoy was born into Russian nobility in Yasnaya Polyana. He was the second-youngest child of Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy and Princess Mariya Tolstaya, who both died before he turned 12 years old. He was a law and oriental languages student at Kazan University, but he soon left and returned to Yasnaya Polyana to enjoy a life of leisure. This is when he wrote his first novel, “Childhood” (1852), a fictionalised account of his childhood.
After accumulating substantial wagering debts in 1851, he joined the military to serve in the Crimean War. During his military service, he was commended for his bravery and promoted to lieutenant. Tolstoy, however, left the army at the conclusion of the war, disgusted by the deaths caused by war. This experience was the foundation of his nonviolence and spiritual anarchy beliefs. In 1857, after observing an execution in Paris, he declared: “The State is a conspiracy devised to not only exploit but also corrupt its citizens…. I will never again service any government anywhere.” Tolstoy later produced some of his most influential and well-known works, including “War and Peace” (1867) and “Anna Karenina” (1878).
In 1860, Tolstoy wed the daughter of a court physician, Sophia Andreyevna Behrs, with whom he had 13 children, eight of whom survived childhood. Tolstoy was sixteen years older than Behrs. However, the later years of their marriage were described as exceedingly miserable. Tolstoy’s increasingly radical beliefs as he aged led him to renounce his possessions, including the copyrights to his works. He passed away on November 10, 1910 from pneumonia.
Leo Tolstoy Net Worth, Height
Name | Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy |
Birth date | August 28, 1828 |
Death date | November 20, 1910 (age 82) |
Zodiac Sign | Virgo |
Height | 5′ 11″ |
Leo Tolstoy Biography: 5 SURPRISE FACTS
Tolstoy disliked Shakespeare so much that he said he could not bear him.
Tolstoy resolved around age 50 to become a vegetarian.
Tolstoy was a linguist who, among other languages, spoke English, French, German, Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian, Ukrainian, Turkish, and Bulgarian.
Tolstoy was excommunicated by the Russian Church for publicly criticising several of its tenets.
Tolstoy was well-known for his propensity to gamble and incur massive losses.