Russian writer, one of the world's greatest writers. He is known for his works "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina", which are among the most important novels of all time.
Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, known to the Greek public as Leon Tolstoy, was born on September 9, 1828 (August 28, in the old calendar) in Yasnaya Polyana, Russia, to an aristocratic family. However, he was orphaned by both father and mother before he was ten years old.
He studied oriental languages and law at the University of Kazan, but did not get his diploma. He was a restless nature, full of plans and reforming ideas, influenced by the French Revolution. He wanted to uplift the Russian peasants and educate their children. He even founded a school and published an educational magazine with the title "Yasnaya Polyana".
Having large debts from gambling, he decided to enlist in the army. He took part in the Crimean War (1853-1856), where he got to know the soul of the Russian soldier and the horrors of war. He then attempted two trips and returning to Russia, he married (1862), started a family and lived happily "like a patriarch", as he wrote. With his 16-year-younger wife, Sophia Bers, he had 13 children. During this period he wrote his two masterpieces "War and Peace" (1869), which brings to life the Napoleonic era, and "Anna Karenina" (1877), a powerful psychological and family drama.
His worry, however, again disturbs his life. He had regrets for living in wealth while so many others are miserable. He wants to leave everything, property, family, glory and live simply, according to his ideas. Then he writes his plays with the great problems and high moral principles of love, kindness and compassion: "Father Sergius" (1898), "Kreutzer Sonata" (1889), "Master and Slave" (1895) and "Resurrection" (1899). He also wrote a dramatic work, "The State of the Peasant" (1886) and a wonderful long short story "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" (1866).
In 1910 he decides to abandon the "worldly", to deny everything and live a simple life in nature. But he is now 82 years old and his health is failing. On November 20 (November 7 in the old calendar) the great Russian writer, "the giant of the Russian land", as he is called, breathed his last at the railway station of the city of Astakovo, Russia.
Tolstoy's life was characterized by great contrasts, as the early profligate years of aristocracy were followed by his radical conversion to the denial of wealth, philanthropy, and a peculiar pacifist and Christian anarchism, admired by figures such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, and sealed with the excommunication of the Russian Church.
