Introduction to Leo Tolstory

1. Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy
Writer and Thinker
1828-1910

2. Ivan Kramskoy
Portrait of Count Leo Tolstoy
(1828-1910)

3. Born August 28 (Sept. 9) 1828 on family
estate, Yasnaya Polyana

4. Childhood and Youth
• Born into an
ancient noble
family
• Parents die when
• Tolstoy is young
• Raised by his
• aunts
• Studies law at the
• Kazan’ University

5. Tolstoy’s Military Career: 1851-56
Serves first in the
Caucasus
Then in an artillery
regiment in
Sebastopol, Crimea
Writes and publishes
his first fiction:
Childhood (1852)
Boyhood (1854)
Youth (1857)

6. Literary Beginnings
• Moves to
Petersburg, tries
to integrate into
literary circles
• In 1857 visits
France, Italy,
Switzerland and
Germany
• Photo: Tolstoy inPhoto: Tolstoy in
18621862

7. 1859: Interest in education1859: Interest in education
Upon his returnUpon his return
from Europe,from Europe,
establishesestablishes
schools for peasantschools for peasant
children on hischildren on his
estate at Yasnayaestate at Yasnaya
PolyanaPolyana
1860 goes to W.1860 goes to W.
Europe to studyEurope to study
schoolsschools

8. Sophia Andreevna Behrs (1844-1919)Sophia Andreevna Behrs (1844-1919)
• Tolstoy and
Sophia marry in
1862
• They immediately
settle in Yasnaya
Polyana
• They have 13
children (only 9
survive)

9. Life with Tolstoy
Sophia Andreevna:
"I lived with Lev
Nikolayevich
for forty-eight years,
but I never really
learned what kind of
man he was.“

10. The Tolstoys

11. Tolstoy, his children and
grandchildren

12. War and Peace (1863-69)
• Begins to appear in literary
magazine Russky vestnik in 1865
• Reflects Tolstoy’s interest in the
Russian narod (“people”)
• Graphic descriptions of slaughter
on the battlefield reflect Tolstoy’s
experience as a soldier, amount to a
pacifist critique of war

13. Tolstoy in his study

14. Anna Karenina, 1873-77
• Family novel centred around an
autobiographical hero plus a novel
about adultery (cf. Flaubert’s
Madame Bovary)
• Vehicle for Tolstoy to express his
opinion on the reforms of the
1860s, agriculture, modernity

15. Critical, Psychological Realism
• Investigation into the more profound
aspects of life
• Social inequality
• Motivation, why do we do what we do?
• Psychological contradictions
• Politics
• What is Russia? What is Russia’s role
in the world?

16. The 1880s: The Spiritual Crisis
• Tolstoy radically questions society,
religion, morality, sex, artistic
practices
• Renounces his previous literary
works
• Publishes A Confession (1884),
Death of Ivan Ilich (1886), Kreuzer
Sonata (1887-89)

17. Tolstoy’s core beliefs
• Non-resistance to evil
• Renounce all luxury and wealth
• Live by one’s own labour
• Be like the humble peasant
• Vegetarianism

18. Tolstoy’s Philosophy
Il’ya Repin. Tolstoy as
ploughman

20. Vladimir Chertkov (1854-1936)
and the Tolstoyans
• Meets Tolstoy in
1883
• 1884 becomes
publisher of Tolstoy’s
and others’ work in
popular cheap
editions
• Educational projects
for moral
improvement
• After Tolstoy’s death
edits his work

21. The last Chapter
1884 first attempt to
leave home, gave up his
estate in Yasnaya
Polyana
1901 Excommunication
from Russian Orthodox
Church
In November of 1910,
Tolstoy leaves home

22. His letter to Sofya Andreevna
“My departure will sadden you. But understand
and believe that I cannot act in any other way. My
position in the house is becoming, or has become,
unbearable. Apart from anything else, I cannot
live in those conditions of luxury in which I have
lived, and am doing what old men of my age
usually do: they abandon the worldly life to live
out in isolation and silence their last days…”

23. Tolstoy falls ill on the train,
is taken in by the stationmaster…
…in the small railway station of
Astapovo

24. Tolstoy’s room in Astapovo

25. The End
Fell ill and died
seven days later
Thousands of people
came to ask about
the writer’s
condition

26. Tolstoy’s wife
looking through
the window

27. Clock at the Astapovo railway station
stopped at the time of Tolstoy’s death

29. Last words
“There are masses of people, apart
from Leo Tolstoy, but you only pay
attention to Leo Tolstoy…that’s not
how peasants die. … I love the
truth.”

30. ’
Tolstoy’s grave

31. Leo Tolstoy’s Biography
I clearly realized that my biography, if
it suppressed all the nastiness and
criminality of my life - as they
customarily write biographies - would
be a lie, and that if one is going to
write my biography, one must write the
whole truth.
– Leo Tolstoy

32. Thoughts from the book "For Every Day“
“That the only object of man's life is self-perfection — the
perfecting of immortal souls — that this is is seen to be
correct by the fact alone that every other object is senseless
in view of death.
Therefore the question whether you have done what you
should have done is of immense importance, for the only
meaning of your life is in doing in this short term allowed you
that which is desired of you by Him who or that which has
sent you into life. Are you doing the right thing?”