Leo Tolstoy in people. Last years of life

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Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828-1910)

Plan

1. The beginning of L.N.’s journey Tolstoy

2. Mature Tolstoy. Care

Literature

1 . The beginning of L.N.’s journey Tolstoy

If we try to free our perception of Leo Tolstoy from the image of a kind “grandfather” who teaches morality and “loves children,” then this great writer will appear before us as a very difficult figure: he was a difficult, quarrelsome person. It was he who declared Shakespeare's tragedies mediocre, and the worldwide fame of the great playwright as something like mass hysteria. It was he who wrote, in essence, his own version of the Gospel, clearing the canonical text of what he considered unnecessary. This is his social credo, according to the title of one of his journalistic speeches: “I cannot be silent.” It was he who was excommunicated from the church - a situation that would seem unthinkable in modern times. The main tone of his living presence is not at all goodness and kindness, as suggested by the stereotypical image that has replaced Tolstoy in our consciousness; rather, it is a feeling of discomfort, anxiety - the same feeling that inner world causes a conscience that does not allow you to calm down and morally fall asleep.

Personality and fate of L.N. Tolstoy - cultural phenomenon, having the same meaning as his works. He lives very long life(as a child he finds Pushkin alive, the end of his life falls during the time of Blok). The very presence of the great writer, his opinion on certain issues was of decisive importance. And he has been perceived as such an undoubted public authority since the 1860-1870s. - he was given the opportunity to be a Teacher for about half a century.

Tolstoy belongs to an old aristocratic noble family. He loses his parents early (at about the age at which the hero of “Childhood” loses his mother, the writer himself loses his father and remains an orphan; he lost his mother at the very early childhood, he hardly remembers her). Tolstoy is brought up by his aunts (remember a similar context in “Resurrection”). He was not a poor orphan, but the absence own family in childhood can become an important touch to the portrait of a person striving for self-education, to develop own opinion on any question. Tolstoy is not afraid to question and personally test any axioms. He is not afraid of the possibility of seeming naive when he talks about common truths as something unknown (“Tolstoy again discovered the Mediterranean Sea,” I. S. Turgenev said about him).

Tolstoy is a brilliant dropout and self-taught. Having entered Kazan University, having managed to completely change the subject of study within a year, future writer quits studying. University education, in his opinion, is useless, it does not answer the main questions of life - and it really does not answer; on the contrary, the latter questions, as something that cannot be answered accurately, are prohibited here. Young Tolstoy decides to study according to his own plan. He is not interested in private specialized knowledge, he needs immediate meaning human existence. By the second half of the 1840s, by the period early youth writer, include the first plans and sketches - mostly of a philosophical nature. What will the young self-taught person undertake? Of course, for the most ambitious questions. Here is the title from his works and plans of this time: “What is needed for the good of Russia and an outline of Russian morals” (1846).

But let's not forget that Tolstoy proved throughout his life the right to talk about such subjects, to “discover the Mediterranean Sea.”

Since 1847, Tolstoy has kept a diary, and from 1850 he refers to it daily, continuously until his death. This is a specific “Franklin” diary, going back to Masonic forms of moral self-improvement. Here life impressions are not simply recorded, it is a form of moral self-report, here results are summed up every day, the moral meaning of all actions and thoughts is assessed, mistakes and weaknesses are identified and plans for self-correction are made. Such painstaking daily internal work Tolstoy led for sixty years. The diary also became the source of the psychologism of the great writer, the fact that N.G. Chernyshevsky called it “knowledge of the secrets of the human heart.”

Tolstoy’s path - like that of his favorite heroes - goes through crises, disappointments, reassessment of values, “cleansing of the soul,” as it is called in “Resurrection.” This kind of crisis, during which he radically changes his life, occurs approximately once every decade. Having abandoned his studies at the university, the young Count Tolstoy finally loses the direction of his life, and the solution is to go to war. There, the future writer tries to find the meaning of life, the truth, answers to the latest questions that he did not find in his university education.

The author of "War and Peace" is a front-line officer (he was an artilleryman). First he fights in the Caucasus, then in the Crimea (including near Sevastopol). It's time for him literary debut. While at the front, he writes the stories “Childhood” and “Adolescence”, as well as war stories. Tolstoy’s first works are published in Sovremennik; it seems to him that the principles of democratic writers are closest to his pathos of the undisguised truth of life.

2 . Mature Tolstoy. Care

The sixties are the decade of “War and Peace.” Tolstoy finally formed as an artist; he finds happiness in marriage. The sense of meaningfulness of existence that characterized him at this time is reflected in his famous epic novel.

Tolstoy's main philosophical reference point is Rousseau. The pathos of the Russian writer is associated with the idea of primordial morality natural man(hence the interest in the world of the child and common man from the people) and falsity, immorality modern civilization. Tolstoy’s pedagogical activity is built in line with these views: the writer opens a school for peasant children on his estate Yasnaya Polyana. Main idea great thinker: education should not be reduced to the formation of a socially stereotyped person, it is necessary to preserve the primordial childish. There is no need to “teach”, thinking that we, stereotyped according to the laws of a false modern civilization, supposedly know more because of this. What children already have is much more valuable.

The beginning of the 1870s is characterized by Tolstoy’s rejection of his previous views (from the pathos of the prosaic truth of life in the spirit of Sovremennik, the writer comes to “ pure art", getting closer to Botkin and Druzhinin). This can be felt in Anna Karenina - the named novel became the main result of this decade.

1880s - the beginning of Tolstoy’s deepest “cleansing of the soul”; this crisis will continue, essentially, until the end of his life. This is the time of his moral and religious treatises, the time of the publication of his “Confession”, written a little earlier. He tries to literally implement his ideas about life “in truth,” in particular, to distribute all property to the poor, but these plans conflict with the interests of his family. He renounces literature because it is part of modern false civilization and does not teach goodness, but, on the contrary, indulges vice.

The specifics of this period of life and creativity are reflected in the novel “Resurrection,” which Tolstoy wrote intermittently for about ten years and published in 1899.

Leo Tolstoy's life ends with his famous “departure”. He has long felt deep dissatisfaction with the fact that he cannot own life implement your principles.

And so he leaves home secretly from his family in order to live according to the principles of people’s truth, as he understands it. And very soon he dies on the road from pneumonia.

How to feel about the death of this great man? How about a feat in the name of establishing one’s principles at the cost of one’s life, Galileo’s “Still she turns”? Or as another manifestation of Tolstoy’s penchant for extremes, as an unnecessary gesture, as a tragic absurdity that led to such an irreparable loss?

Tolstoy is all about this duality. It cannot simply be ranked among the classics and left to gather dust. bookshelf. He is too non-trivial, too outside all stereotypes.

personality Tolstoy creative philosophical

Literature

Faces: Biographical almanac. M.; St. Petersburg, 1994. T. 4. 479 p.

Tolstoy L.N. Life and creativity: Documents. Photos. Manuscripts. M.: Planeta, 1995. 604 p.

L.N. Tolstoy pro et contra: The personality and work of Leo Tolstoy in the assessment of Russian thinkers and researchers: an anthology. St. Petersburg: RKhGI, 2000. 981 p.

Merezhkovsky D.S. L. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky: Eternal companions. M.: Republic, 1995. 624 p.

Veresaev V.V. Living life: About Dostoevsky and L. Tolstoy. M.: Politizdat, 1991. 336 p.

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The writer's childhood

Lev Nikolaevich was a representative of a large noble family, the fourth child in it. His mother, Princess Volkonskaya, died early. At this time, Tolstoy was not yet two years old, but he formed an idea of his parent from the stories of various family members. In the novel "War and Peace" the image of the mother is represented by Princess Marya Nikolaevna Bolkonskaya.

Biography of Leo Tolstoy early years marked by another death. Because of her, the boy became an orphan. Leo Tolstoy's father, a participant in the War of 1812, like his mother, died early. This happened in 1837. At that time the boy was only nine years old. Leo Tolstoy's brothers, he and his sister, were entrusted to the upbringing of T. A. Ergolskaya, a distant relative who had enormous influence on the future writer. Childhood memories have always been the happiest for Lev Nikolaevich: family legends and impressions of life on the estate became rich material for his works, reflected, in particular, in the autobiographical story “Childhood.”

Study at Kazan University

Biography of Leo Tolstoy early years marked as such important event like studying at a university. When the future writer turned thirteen years old, his family moved to Kazan, to the house of the children’s guardian, a relative of Lev Nikolaevich P.I. Yushkova. In 1844, the future writer was enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy of Kazan University, after which he transferred to the Faculty of Law, where he studied for about two years: study did not arouse keen interest in the young man, so he devoted himself with passion to various social entertainment. Having submitted his resignation in the spring of 1847, due to poor health and “domestic circumstances,” Lev Nikolaevich left for Yasnaya Polyana with the intention of studying full course legal sciences and pass an external exam, as well as learn languages, “practical medicine”, history, agriculture, geographical statistics, study painting, music and write a dissertation.

Years of youth

In the fall of 1847, Tolstoy left for Moscow and then to St. Petersburg in order to pass candidate exams at the university. During this period, his lifestyle often changed: he either studied various subjects all day long, then devoted himself to music, but wanted to start a career as an official, or dreamed of joining a regiment as a cadet. Religious sentiments that reached the point of asceticism alternated with cards, carousing, and trips to the gypsies. The biography of Leo Tolstoy in his youth is colored by the struggle with himself and introspection, reflected in the diary that the writer kept throughout his life. During the same period, interest in literature arose, and the first artistic sketches appeared.

Participation in the war

In 1851, Nikolai, Lev Nikolayevich’s older brother, an officer, persuaded Tolstoy to go to the Caucasus with him. Lev Nikolaevich lived for almost three years on the banks of the Terek, in Cossack village, traveling to Vladikavkaz, Tiflis, Kizlyar, participating in hostilities (as a volunteer, and then was recruited). The patriarchal simplicity of life of the Cossacks and the Caucasian nature struck the writer with their contrast with the painful reflection of the representatives educated society and the life of the noble circle, provided extensive material for the story “Cossacks,” written in the period from 1852 to 1863 based on autobiographical material. The stories “Raid” (1853) and “Cutting Wood” (1855) also reflected his Caucasian impressions. They also left a mark in his story “Hadji Murat,” written between 1896 and 1904, published in 1912.

Returning to his homeland, Lev Nikolayevich wrote in his diary that he really fell in love with this wild land, in which “war and freedom,” things so opposite in their essence, are combined. Tolstoy began to create his story “Childhood” in the Caucasus and anonymously sent it to the magazine “Sovremennik”. This work appeared on its pages in 1852 under the initials L.N. and, along with the later “Adolescence” (1852-1854) and “Youth” (1855-1857), formed the famous autobiographical trilogy. His creative debut immediately brought real recognition to Tolstoy.

Crimean campaign

In 1854, the writer went to Bucharest, to the Danube Army, where the work and biography of Leo Tolstoy received further development. However, soon a boring staff life forced him to transfer to besieged Sevastopol, to the Crimean Army, where he was a battery commander, showing courage (awarded with medals and the Order of St. Anne). During this period, Lev Nikolaevich was captured by new literary plans and impressions. He began to write "Sevastopol stories" that had great success. Some ideas that arose even at that time allow one to guess in the artillery officer Tolstoy the preacher later years: he dreamed of a new “religion of Christ,” purified of mystery and faith, a “practical religion.”

In St. Petersburg and abroad

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy arrived in St. Petersburg in November 1855 and immediately became a member of the Sovremennik circle (which included N. A. Nekrasov, A. N. Ostrovsky, I. S. Turgenev, I. A. Goncharov and others). He took part in the creation of the Literary Fund at that time, and at the same time became involved in conflicts and disputes among writers, but he felt like a stranger in this environment, which he conveyed in “Confession” (1879-1882). Having retired, in the fall of 1856 the writer left for Yasnaya Polyana, and then, at the beginning of the next year, 1857, he went abroad, visiting Italy, France, Switzerland (impressions from visiting this country are described in the story “Lucerne”), and also visited Germany. In the same year in the fall, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy returned first to Moscow and then to Yasnaya Polyana.

Opening of a public school

In 1859, Tolstoy opened a school for peasant children in the village, and also helped establish more than twenty similar educational institutions in the Krasnaya Polyana area. In order to get acquainted with the European experience in this area and apply it in practice, the writer Leo Tolstoy again went abroad, visited London (where he met with A.I. Herzen), Germany, Switzerland, France, and Belgium. However, European schools somewhat disappoint him, and he decides to create his own pedagogical system based on personal freedom, publishes teaching aids and works on pedagogy, applies them in practice.

"War and Peace"

Lev Nikolaevich in September 1862 married Sofya Andreevna Bers, the 18-year-old daughter of a doctor, and immediately after the wedding he left Moscow for Yasnaya Polyana, where he devoted himself entirely to household concerns and family life. However, already in 1863, he was again captured by a literary idea, this time creating a novel about the war, which was supposed to reflect Russian history. Leo Tolstoy was interested in the period of our country's struggle with Napoleon at the beginning of the 19th century.

In 1865, the first part of the work “War and Peace” was published in the Russian Bulletin. The novel immediately evoked many responses. Subsequent parts provoked heated debate, in particular, the fatalistic philosophy of history developed by Tolstoy.

"Anna Karenina"

This work was created in the period from 1873 to 1877. Living in Yasnaya Polyana, continuing to teach peasant children and publish his pedagogical views, Lev Nikolaevich in the 70s worked on a work about the life of his contemporary high society, building his novel on the contrast of two storylines: family drama Anna Karenina and the home idyll of Konstantin Levin, close and psychological drawing, both in convictions and in the way of life of the writer himself.

Tolstoy strove for an externally non-judgmental tone of his work, thereby paving the way for the new style of the 80s, in particular folk stories. The truth of peasant life and the meaning of existence of representatives of the “educated class” - these are the range of questions that interested the writer. “Family thought” (according to Tolstoy, the main one in the novel) is translated into a social channel in his work, and Levin’s self-exposures, numerous and merciless, his thoughts about suicide are an illustration of the author’s spiritual crisis experienced in the 1880s, which had matured even while working on this novel.

1880s

In the 1880s, Leo Tolstoy's work underwent a transformation. The revolution in the writer’s consciousness was reflected in his works, primarily in the experiences of the characters, in the spiritual insight that changes their lives. Heroes like these occupy central place in such works as “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” (years of creation - 1884-1886), “The Kreutzer Sonata” (a story written in 1887-1889), “Father Sergius” (1890-1898), the drama “The Living Corpse” ( remained unfinished, begun in 1900), as well as the story “After the Ball” (1903).

Tolstoy's journalism

Tolstoy's journalism reflects him emotional drama: depicting pictures of the idleness of the intelligentsia and social inequality, Lev Nikolaevich raised questions of faith and life before society and himself, criticized the institutions of the state, going so far as to deny art, science, marriage, court, and the achievements of civilization.

The new worldview is presented in “Confession” (1884), in the articles “So what should we do?”, “On hunger”, “What is art?”, “I cannot remain silent” and others. The ethical ideas of Christianity are understood in these works as the foundation of the brotherhood of man.

As part of a new worldview and a humanistic understanding of the teachings of Christ, Lev Nikolaevich spoke out, in particular, against the dogma of the church and criticized its rapprochement with the state, which led to him being officially excommunicated from the church in 1901. This caused a huge resonance.

Novel "Sunday"

Mine last novel Tolstoy wrote between 1889 and 1899. It embodies the entire range of problems that worried the writer during the years of his spiritual turning point. Dmitry Nekhlyudov, the main character, is a person internally close to Tolstoy, who goes through the path of moral purification in the work, ultimately leading him to comprehend the need for active good. The novel is built on a system of evaluative oppositions that reveal the unreasonableness of the structure of society (falsity social world and the beauty of nature, the falsehood of the educated population and the truth of the peasant world).

Last years of life

The life of Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy in recent years was not easy. The spiritual turning point turned into a break with one’s environment and family discord. The refusal to own private property, for example, caused discontent among the writer’s family members, especially his wife. The personal drama experienced by Lev Nikolaevich was reflected in his diary entries.

In the fall of 1910, at night, secretly from everyone, 82-year-old Leo Tolstoy, whose life dates were presented in this article, accompanied only by his attending physician D.P. Makovitsky, left the estate. The journey turned out to be too much for him: on the way, the writer fell ill and was forced to disembark at the Astapovo railway station. Lev Nikolaevich spent the last week of his life in a house that belonged to her boss. The whole country was following reports about his health at that time. Tolstoy was buried in Yasnaya Polyana; his death caused a huge public outcry.

Many contemporaries came to say goodbye to this great Russian writer.

Leo Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828 in the Tula province (Russia) into a family belonging to the noble class. In the 1860s he wrote his first great novel- “War and Peace”. In 1873, Tolstoy began work on the second of his most famous books, Anna Karenina.

He continued to write fiction throughout the 1880s and 1890s. One of his most successful later works is “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.” Tolstoy died on November 20, 1910 in Astapovo, Russia.

First years of life

On September 9, 1828, the future writer Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born in Yasnaya Polyana (Tula province, Russia). He was the fourth child in big noble family. In 1830, when Tolstoy’s mother, née Princess Volkonskaya, died, cousin father took over the care of the children. Their father, Count Nikolai Tolstoy, died seven years later, and their aunt was appointed guardian. After the death of his aunt, Leo Tolstoy, his brothers and sisters moved to their second aunt in Kazan. Although Tolstoy experienced many losses in early age, he later idealized his childhood memories in his work.

It is important to note that primary education in Tolstoy's biography, he received lessons at home from French and German teachers. In 1843, he entered the Faculty of Oriental Languages at the Imperial Kazan University. Tolstoy failed to succeed in his studies - low grades forced him to transfer to an easier law faculty. Further difficulties in his studies led Tolstoy to eventually leave the Imperial Kazan University in 1847 without a degree. He returned to his parents' estate, where he planned to start farming. However, this endeavor also ended in failure - he was absent too often, leaving for Tula and Moscow. What he really excelled at was keeping his own diary - it was this lifelong habit that inspired Leo Tolstoy to most of his works.

Tolstoy was fond of music, his favorite composers were Schumann, Bach, Chopin, Mozart, Mendelssohn. Lev Nikolaevich could play their works for several hours a day.

One day, Tolstoy’s elder brother, Nikolai, during his army leave, came to visit Lev, and convinced his brother to join the army as a cadet in the south, in the Caucasus mountains, where he served. After serving as a cadet, Leo Tolstoy was transferred to Sevastopol in November 1854, where he fought in the Crimean War until August 1855.

Early publications

During his years as a cadet in the army, Tolstoy had a lot of free time. During quiet periods, he worked on an autobiographical story called Childhood. In it, he wrote about his favorite childhood memories. In 1852, Tolstoy sent a story to Sovremennik, the most popular magazine of the time. The story was happily accepted, and it became Tolstoy's first publication. From that time on, critics put him on a par with already famous writers, among whom were Ivan Turgenev (with whom Tolstoy became friends), Ivan Goncharov, Alexander Ostrovsky and others.

After completing his story “Childhood,” Tolstoy began writing about his daily life at an army outpost in the Caucasus. Started in army years He completed the work “Cossacks” only in 1862, after he had already left the army.

Surprisingly, Tolstoy managed to continue writing while actively fighting in the Crimean War. At this time he wrote “Boyhood” (1854), a continuation of “Childhood”, the second book in autobiographical trilogy Tolstoy. In the midst Crimean War Tolstoy expressed his views on the astonishing contradictions of war through a trilogy of works " Sevastopol stories" In the second book " Sevastopol stories", Tolstoy experimented with relatively new technology: Part of the story is presented as a narration from the soldier's point of view.

After the end of the Crimean War, Tolstoy left the army and returned to Russia. Arriving home, the author enjoyed great popularity on the literary scene of St. Petersburg.

Stubborn and arrogant, Tolstoy refused to belong to any particular school of philosophy. Declaring himself an anarchist, he left for Paris in 1857. Once there, he lost all his money and was forced to return home to Russia. He also managed to publish Youth, the third part of an autobiographical trilogy, in 1857.

Returning to Russia in 1862, Tolstoy published the first of 12 issues of the thematic magazine Yasnaya Polyana. That same year he married the daughter of a doctor named Sofya Andreevna Bers.

Major Novels

Living in Yasnaya Polyana with his wife and children, Tolstoy spent much of the 1860s working on his first famous novel“War and Peace.” Part of the novel was first published in “Russian Bulletin” in 1865 under the title “1805”. By 1868 he had published three more chapters. A year later, the novel was completely finished. Both critics and the public argued about historical justice Napoleonic Wars in the novel, combined with the development of stories that are thoughtful and realistic, but still fictional characters. The novel is also unique in that it includes three long satirical essays on the laws of history. Among the ideas that Tolstoy also tries to convey in this novel is the belief that the position of man in society and the meaning human life are mainly derivatives of his daily activities.

After the success of War and Peace in 1873, Tolstoy began work on the second of his most famous books, Anna Karenina. It was based in part on real events period of the war between Russia and Turkey. Like War and Peace, this book describes some biographical events from the life of Tolstoy himself, this is especially noticeable in romantic relationships between the characters Kitty and Levin, which is said to be reminiscent of Tolstoy's courtship of his own wife.

The first lines of the book “Anna Karenina” are among the most famous: “Everyone happy families are similar to each other, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Anna Karenina was published in installments from 1873 to 1877, and was highly acclaimed by the public. The royalties received for the novel quickly enriched the writer.

Conversion

Despite the success of Anna Karenina, after the completion of the novel Tolstoy experienced spiritual crisis and was depressed. The next stage of Leo Tolstoy's biography is characterized by the search for the meaning of life. The writer first turned to the Russian Orthodox Church, but did not find answers to his questions there. He concluded that Christian churches were corrupt and, instead of organized religion, promoted their own beliefs. He decided to express these beliefs by founding a new publication in 1883 called The Mediator.
As a result, for his unconventional and controversial spiritual beliefs, Tolstoy was excommunicated from Russian Orthodox Church. He was even watched by the secret police. When Tolstoy, driven by his new conviction, wanted to give away all his money and give up everything unnecessary, his wife was categorically against this. Not wanting to escalate the situation, Tolstoy reluctantly agreed to a compromise: he transferred the copyright and, apparently, all royalties on his work until 1881 to his wife.

Late fiction

In addition to his religious treatises, Tolstoy continued to write fiction throughout the 1880s and 1890s. Among the genres of his later works were moral stories and realistic fiction. One of the most successful of his later works was the story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” written in 1886. Main character struggling to fight the death looming over him. In short, Ivan Ilyich is horrified by the realization that he wasted his life on trifles, but this realization comes to him too late.

In 1898, Tolstoy wrote the story “Father Sergius”, work of art, in which he criticizes the beliefs he developed after his spiritual transformation. The following year he wrote his third voluminous novel, Resurrection. Got the job good reviews, but it is unlikely that this success corresponded to the level of recognition of his previous novels. Other late works of Tolstoy are essays on art, these are satirical play entitled “The Living Corpse,” written in 1890, and a story called “Hadji Murat” (1904), which was discovered and published after his death. In 1903 Tolstoy wrote short story“After the Ball,” which was first published after his death, in 1911.

Old age

During his later years, Tolstoy reaped the benefits of international recognition. However, he still struggled to reconcile his spiritual beliefs with the tensions he created in his family life. His wife not only did not agree with his teachings, she did not approve of his students, who regularly visited Tolstoy on the family estate. In an effort to avoid his wife's growing discontent, Tolstoy and his youngest daughter Alexandra went on pilgrimage in October 1910. Alexandra acted as a doctor for her elderly father during the trip. Trying not to show off your privacy, they traveled incognito, hoping to evade unnecessary questions, but sometimes this was to no avail.

Death and legacy

Unfortunately, the pilgrimage proved too onerous for the aging writer. In November 1910, the head of the small Astapovo railway station opened the doors of his house to Tolstoy so that the ailing writer could rest. Shortly after this, on November 20, 1910, Tolstoy died. He was buried in the family estate, Yasnaya Polyana, where Tolstoy lost so many people close to him.

To this day, Tolstoy's novels are considered one of the best achievements literary art. “War and Peace” is often cited as greatest novel ever written. In the modern scientific community, Tolstoy is widely recognized as having a gift for describing the unconscious motives of character, the subtlety of which he championed by emphasizing the role of everyday actions in determining the character and goals of people.

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1. Set a goal and stick to it

April, 1847, Kazan. House on Chernoozerskaya Street, in the yard a dog barks to the tune of the song “Only” by singer Nyusha. The spring sun is coming through the apartment window. A guy sits at a table with short hair and big ears, his name is Leo. In front of him is a notebook. Look what is written there: “The worse the situation, the more you intensify your activity.” And one more thing: “Overcome melancholy with work, not with entertainment.” 19-year-old Leo spent the entire month of March being treated for gonorrhea, and then he came up with and wrote down rules for himself that he was going to follow in his life. So Tolstoy began to keep a diary. Do you think that after a couple of weeks he forgot about this idea and became interested in breeding Djungarian hamsters? Tolstoy wrote down his thoughts about his life and actions until his death at 82! You can trace his determination and desire for self-improvement, for example, in the “Selected Diaries”, which were published by the publishing house from 1978 to 1985. Fiction"(volume 21!).

2. Was brave

Autumn 1851, Chechnya, a place near Kizlyar. The Terek River is seething and goes around the bend, somewhere behind the forest the mountaineers are cleaning their gun barrels. On our shore, a Cossack sleeps as if he had been shot, and the cadet of the 4th battery of the 20th artillery brigade, Lev Tolstoy, watches the sun go down behind the mountains. The writer (by definition a peaceful person) was distinguished by enviable courage on the battlefield. In 1851 Lev went to Caucasian war, and then became a member of the Crimean. From 1854 to 1855, he defended Sevastopol, commanded a battery that was located on the 4th bastion - in one of the most dangerous places. Enemy shells fell there so often that it seemed like some kind of natural phenomenon, like snow in winter. When Lev retired in 1856, the Order of St. Anne and the medal “For the Defense of Sevastopol” hung on his chest.

3. Always fought with myself

Yasnaya Polyana, Tula region, summer 1860. Leo has already grown a beard, large ears hide his hair. He steps along the path. Around green forest, and in Tolstoy’s eyes there is something elusive. Pondering the fate of local peasants? Not at all. “I wandered around in the garden with a vague, voluptuous hope of catching someone in the bush. Nothing prevents me from working,” Tolstoy later wrote about such days. Leo considered his passion for women to be one of his main vices - he either defeated it or lost again in this struggle, which dragged on for many years. As a result, his love for the fairer sex benefited world literature and cinema. As you probably know, main character novel "Anna Karenina" (published in 1878) - a woman. This work by Leo Tolstoy was directed by different countries the world has already been filmed 30 times - the first version of the film was released in 1910, and the last in 2012 (directed by Joe Wright, in leading role Keira Knightley).

4. Wasn't afraid of experiments

In 1859, Leo Tolstoy opened a strange school for peasant children right on his estate. Tolstoy, imagine, was sure that studying should be purely pleasure. “Education cannot be forced and should be enjoyable for students” - that’s what he wrote. In addition to Lev himself, four more people taught at the Yasnaya Polyana school. They were obliged not to hammer knowledge into children, but to interest them in lessons. Schoolchildren could choose which classes to attend, students were allowed to come to classes at any time and leave school whenever they wanted.

Who's with the beard?

Leo Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828 in the family estate Yasnaya Polyana in Tula region. He died of pneumonia on November 20, 1910 in the house of the head of the Astapovo railway station (now Lev Tolstoy, Lipetsk region).

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy is brilliant writer, who was able to leave an indelible mark on the history of Russian literature. Currently, his works are studied in schools, colleges and other educational institutions. Leo Tolstoy was distinguished by his modesty. He simply liked to write, interpret ideas in different ways and convey the main ideas to people. Existence for the writer was an integral part of life, and not to write about everyday life and ordinary life peasants was impossible. Leo Tolstoy - biography: childhood, life principles, creativity, offspring - we’ll talk about all this now.

The writer's life position

Leo Tolstoy called himself a Christian until the end of his days. In his heart he wanted to be equal to others ordinary people and look at their lives, live just like them. By decision of the Synod, he was excommunicated from the Orthodox Church, but this did not stop him from communicating with peasants and learning from them their difficult way of life. In the 70s he became seriously interested in philosophy. Today it is known that he prepared articles for publication in the Posrednik publishing house. These were articles about philosophers of India and the Middle East. The writer remained interested in philosophy until last days his life. Tolstoy knew by heart such works as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

As it became known later, the writer was in a group with famous Indian scientists. From them he learned about the philosophy of India, about the lives of people and about their plans. From the correspondence one could understand that he agreed with the religion of India and was trying to copy the model of life of ordinary Indians.

What was Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy like?

As his contemporaries noted, the writer was a complex person. It was very difficult to prove my point of view to him and convince him. If he considered it necessary to do one way or another, he always did crazy things. This did not stop him from traveling a lot and looking at the world with different eyes. The writer had few friends, so everything was his own free time he spent at work.

The work of Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy did not pass without a trace. In his article “The First Step,” he proved the sequence of acquiring virtues. He believed that the first virtue should be abstinence. And it doesn’t matter at all what you do, the main thing is to abstain and try to overcome your desires. He himself forbade himself from basic things: sitting for a long time reading books, thinking a lot and traveling. However, all this could be noticed throughout unusual life writer.

The children of Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy positively assessed his work. His daughter Tatyana joined the teachings and helped the writer defend the foundations of the new teaching. Tatyana Lvovna wrote a collection that is associated with the doom of philosophy and self-knowledge. The article was published by the Posrednik publishing house. Tolstoy's youngest daughter translated from English language the book “Ethics of Food” into Russian.

Leo Tolstoy had 13 children, many of them died in infancy. All children are from his wife Sofia Andreevna Bers. They got married when Sophia was only 17 years old, and Leo Tolstoy was in his fourth decade. However, the large age difference did not interfere with their family happiness. His wife became the writer’s life support and assistant in his work. She rewrote, reread and corrected his texts, and helped shape the phrases and thoughts of his works.

Leo Tolstoy was a vegetarian. In this regard, the Tolstoy family was divided into two parts. On the one hand, there was his wife Sofya Tolstaya, who was against her husband’s vegetarian beliefs, on the other, the daughters who supported their father. The writer believed that soon everyone would give up meat and be happy. He thought so before his death, but his beliefs did not come true.

Leo Tolstoy was a difficult person, like all geniuses. However, he left a great legacy to Russian literature - his immortal and famous works.