Leo Tolstoy
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Lev Nikolayevich Count Tolstoy (; b. 9 September 1828 in Yasnaya Polyana, Russian Empire; d. 20 November 1910 in Astapovo, Russian Empire) was a Russian author, a master of realistic fiction, and one of the worldโs greatest novelists. He is best known for the novels War and Peace (1865โ69) and Anna Karenina (1875โ77).
Life
Especially later in his life, Tolstoy became known for moral and religious teachings. He preached nonviolence and a simplicity of life. Tolstoy had a profound influence on the development of Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist thought. He was excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church in 1901.
The "Tolstoyan movement" was a Christian anarchist pacifist movement based on his teachings. Various communities tried to implement his ideas, but failed, such as in Russia following the revolutions of 1917, where they were repressed by the non-pacifist Communists.
Death
Tolstoy died in 1910, at the age of 82. He died of pneumonia at Astapovo train station, after falling ill when he left home in the middle of winter. His death came only days after gathering the nerve to abandon his family and wealth and take up the path of a wandering ascetic, a path that he had agonized over pursuing for decades. He had not been at the peak of health before leaving home; his wife and daughters were all actively engaged in caring for him daily. He had been speaking and writing of his own death in the days preceding his departure from home, but fell ill at the station not far from home. The station master took Tolstoy to his apartment, where his personal doctors were called to the scene. He was given injections of morphine and camphor. The police tried to limit access to his funeral procession, but thousands of peasants lined the streets at his funeral. Still, some peasants were heard to say that, other than knowing that "some nobleman had died," they knew little else about Tolstoy.
Family
Marriage
On 23 September 1862, Tolstoy married Sophia (Sophie) Andreyevna Behrs (1844โ1919), who was 16 years his junior and one of three daughters of German court physician Andreas Gustav Behrs (1808โ1868).[1] Her great-grandfather, German officer Johann "Hans" Behrs, was sent to Russia by the King of Prussia in the middle of the 18th century as an instructor in the army of Tsarina Elisabeth. She was called Sonya, the Russian diminutive of Sofya, by her family and friends. They had thirteen children, five of whom died during childhood.
The marriage was marked from the outset by sexual passion and emotional insensitivity when 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 ostensibly happy and allowed Tolstoy much freedom to compose War and Peace and Anna Karenina with Sonya acting as his secretary, proof-reader and financial manager.
However, their latter 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.
See also
- Confirmation bias, a psychological phenomenon of which Tolstoy was an early informal observer
Further reading
- Autobiography of Countess Tolstoy, 1922 (originally from 1913)
- A Marriage of Heaven and Hell: Inside the Tolstoy Marriage, 2019 (Archive)
External links
Encyclopedias
- Encyclopedia Britannica: Leo Tolstoy
- Encyclopedia Britannica 1911 Edition: Leo Tolstoy
- Encyclopedia.com: Leo Tolstoy
- Encyclopedia.com: Tolstoy, Lev (Leo) Nikolaevich (1828โ1910)
References
- โ Behrs had five children, Elizabeth, Sophia/Sophie, Alexander, Tatiana and Vladimir. Historian Anne Edwards mentions his family briefly in her book Sonya: The Life of Countess Tolstoy.