Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy is a talented person whose works are read not only by adults, but also by schoolchildren. Who doesn’t know such works as, or Anna Karenina? It is probably difficult to find a person who is not familiar with the work of this writer. Let's get to know the writer Tolstoy better by briefly studying his biography.

Brief biography of Tolstoy: the most important things

L.N. Tolstoy is a philosopher, playwright, a most talented person who gave us his legacy. Studying his short biography for children in grades 5 and 4 will allow you to better understand the writer and study his life, from birth to his last days.

The childhood and youth of Leo Tolstoy

The biography of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy begins with his birth in the Tula province. This happened in 1828. He was the fourth child in a noble family. If we talk briefly about the writer’s childhood and his biography, then at the age of two he lost his father, and seven years later he lost his father and was raised by his aunt in Kazan. The first story of Leo Tolstoy’s famous trilogy “Childhood” tells us about the writer’s childhood years.

Leo Tolstoy received his primary education at home, after which he entered Kazan University at the Faculty of Philology. But the young man had no desire to study, and Tolstoy wrote a letter of resignation. On his parents' estate he tries his hand at farming, but the endeavor ends in failure. After which, on the advice of his brother, he goes to fight in the Caucasus, and later becomes a participant in the Crimean War.

Literary creativity and heritage

If we talk about Tolstoy’s work, his first work is the story Childhood, written in his cadet years. In 1852, the story was published in Sovremennik. Already at this time, Tolstoy was put on a par with such writers as Ostrovsky and.

While in the Caucasus, the writer will write Cossacks, and then begin writing, which will be a continuation of the first story. There will be other works for the young writer, because creative activity did not interfere with serving Tolstoy and went hand in hand with his participation in the Crimean War. Sevastopol stories appear from the writer's pen.

After the war he lives in St. Petersburg, in Paris. Upon returning to Russia, Tolstoy wrote the third story in 1857, which belongs to the autobiographical trilogy.

Having married Sophia Burns, Tolstoy stayed at his parents' estate, where he continued to create. His most popular work and his first major novel is War and Peace, which was written over a period of ten years. After him, he writes the no less famous work Anna Karenina.

The eighties were fruitful for the writer. He wrote comedies, novels, dramas, including After the Ball, Sunday and others. At that time, the writer’s worldview had already been formed. The essence of his worldview is clearly visible in his “Confession”, in the work “What is my faith?” Many of his admirers began to regard Tolstoy as a spiritual mentor.

In his work, the writer harshly posed questions of faith and the meaning of life, and criticized state institutions.

The authorities were very afraid of the writer’s pen, so they kept an eye on him, and also had a hand in ensuring that Tolstoy was excommunicated from the church. However, people continued to love and support the writer.

In the early nineties, Tolstoy began to get sick. In 1910, while he was on the road, he became ill. He stopped at Astapovo station, where he died 7 days later.

There are also interesting facts in Tolstoy’s biography. So the writer created not only works for adults, but also gave children such works as ABC and Reading Book.
The writer had thirteen children, although only ten of them survived.

War and Peace is a novel that was rewritten about eight times, and its individual episodes were rewritten even more. In addition, at first it was called 1805, later it was renamed two more times.

Tolstoy kept diaries where he described the situations that happened to him, made his notes, and shared his emotions. And since he had terrible handwriting, his wife copied the diaries.

Count Leo Tolstoy, a classic of Russian and world literature, is called a master of psychologism, the creator of the epic novel genre, an original thinker and teacher of life. The works of this brilliant writer are Russia’s greatest asset.

In August 1828, a classic of Russian literature was born on the Yasnaya Polyana estate in the Tula province. The future author of War and Peace became the fourth child in a family of eminent nobles. On his father's side, he belonged to the old family of Count Tolstoy, who served and. On the maternal side, Lev Nikolaevich is a descendant of the Ruriks. It is noteworthy that Leo Tolstoy also has a common ancestor - Admiral Ivan Mikhailovich Golovin.

Lev Nikolayevich’s mother, nee Princess Volkonskaya, died of childbirth fever after the birth of her daughter. At that time, Lev was not even two years old. Seven years later, the head of the family, Count Nikolai Tolstoy, died.

Caring for the children fell on the shoulders of the writer’s aunt, T. A. Ergolskaya. Later, the second aunt, Countess A. M. Osten-Sacken, became the guardian of the orphaned children. After her death in 1840, the children moved to Kazan, to a new guardian - their father’s sister P. I. Yushkova. The aunt influenced her nephew, and the writer called his childhood in her house, which was considered the most cheerful and hospitable in the city, happy. Later, Leo Tolstoy described his impressions of life at the Yushkov estate in his story “Childhood.”

Silhouette and portrait of Leo Tolstoy's parents

The classic received his primary education at home from German and French teachers. In 1843, Leo Tolstoy entered Kazan University, choosing the Faculty of Oriental Languages. Soon, due to low academic performance, he transferred to another faculty - law. But he did not succeed here either: after two years he left the university without receiving a degree.

Lev Nikolaevich returned to Yasnaya Polyana, wanting to establish relations with the peasants in a new way. The idea failed, but the young man regularly kept a diary, loved social entertainment and became interested in music. Tolstoy listened for hours, and...

Disappointed with the life of the landowner after spending the summer in the village, 20-year-old Leo Tolstoy left the estate and moved to Moscow, and from there to St. Petersburg. The young man rushed between preparing for candidate exams at the university, studying music, carousing with cards and gypsies, and dreams of becoming either an official or a cadet in a horse guards regiment. Relatives called Lev “the most trifling fellow,” and it took years to pay off the debts he incurred.

Literature

In 1851, the writer’s brother, officer Nikolai Tolstoy, persuaded Lev to go to the Caucasus. For three years Lev Nikolaevich lived in a village on the banks of the Terek. The nature of the Caucasus and the patriarchal life of the Cossack village were later reflected in the stories “Cossacks” and “Hadji Murat”, the stories “Raid” and “Cutting the Forest”.

In the Caucasus, Leo Tolstoy composed the story “Childhood,” which he published in the magazine “Sovremennik” under the initials L.N. Soon he wrote the sequels “Adolescence” and “Youth,” combining the stories into a trilogy. The literary debut turned out to be brilliant and brought Lev Nikolaevich his first recognition.

The creative biography of Leo Tolstoy is developing rapidly: an appointment to Bucharest, a transfer to besieged Sevastopol, and command of a battery enriched the writer with impressions. From the pen of Lev Nikolaevich came the series “Sevastopol Stories”. The works of the young writer amazed critics with their bold psychological analysis. Nikolai Chernyshevsky found in them a “dialectic of the soul,” and the emperor read the essay “Sevastopol in December” and expressed admiration for Tolstoy’s talent.

In the winter of 1855, 28-year-old Leo Tolstoy arrived in St. Petersburg and entered the Sovremennik circle, where he was warmly welcomed, calling him “the great hope of Russian literature.” But over the course of a year, I got tired of the writing environment with its disputes and conflicts, readings and literary dinners. Later in Confession Tolstoy admitted:

“These people disgusted me, and I disgusted myself.”

In the fall of 1856, the young writer went to the Yasnaya Polyana estate, and in January 1857 he went abroad. Leo Tolstoy traveled around Europe for six months. Visited Germany, Italy, France and Switzerland. He returned to Moscow, and from there to Yasnaya Polyana. On the family estate, he began arranging schools for peasant children. With his participation, twenty educational institutions appeared in the vicinity of Yasnaya Polyana. In 1860, the writer traveled a lot: in Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium, he studied the pedagogical systems of European countries in order to apply what he saw in Russia.

A special niche in the work of Leo Tolstoy is occupied by fairy tales and works for children and teenagers. The writer has created hundreds of works for young readers, including good and instructive fairy tales “Kitten”, “Two Brothers”, “Hedgehog and Hare”, “Lion and Dog”.

Leo Tolstoy wrote the school textbook “ABC” to teach children writing, reading and arithmetic. The literary and pedagogical work consists of four books. The writer included instructive stories, epics, fables, as well as methodological advice for teachers. The third book includes the story “Prisoner of the Caucasus.”

Leo Tolstoy's novel "Anna Karenina"

In the 1870s, Leo Tolstoy, while continuing to teach peasant children, wrote the novel Anna Karenina, in which he contrasted two storylines: the family drama of the Karenins and the home idyll of the young landowner Levin, with whom he identified himself. The novel only at first glance seemed to be a love affair: the classic raised the problem of the meaning of existence of the “educated class”, contrasting it with the truth of peasant life. "Anna Karenina" was highly appreciated.

The turning point in the writer’s consciousness was reflected in the works written in the 1880s. Life-changing spiritual insight occupies a central place in the stories and stories. “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”, “The Kreutzer Sonata”, “Father Sergius” and the story “After the Ball” appear. The classic of Russian literature paints pictures of social inequality and castigates the idleness of the nobles.

In search of an answer to the question of the meaning of life, Leo Tolstoy turned to the Russian Orthodox Church, but even there he did not find satisfaction. The writer came to the conclusion that the Christian Church is corrupt, and under the guise of religion, priests are promoting false teaching. In 1883, Lev Nikolaevich founded the publication “Mediator,” where he outlined his spiritual beliefs and criticized the Russian Orthodox Church. For this, Tolstoy was excommunicated from the church, and the writer was monitored by the secret police.

In 1898, Leo Tolstoy wrote the novel Resurrection, which received favorable reviews from critics. But the success of the work was inferior to “Anna Karenina” and “War and Peace”.

For the last 30 years of his life, Leo Tolstoy, with his teachings on non-violent resistance to evil, was recognized as the spiritual and religious leader of Russia.

"War and Peace"

Leo Tolstoy disliked his novel War and Peace, calling the epic “wordy rubbish.” The classic writer wrote the work in the 1860s, while living with his family in Yasnaya Polyana. The first two chapters, entitled “1805,” were published by Russkiy Vestnik in 1865. Three years later, Leo Tolstoy wrote three more chapters and completed the novel, which caused heated controversy among critics.

Leo Tolstoy writes "War and Peace"

The novelist took the features of the heroes of the work, written during the years of family happiness and spiritual elation, from life. In Princess Marya Bolkonskaya, the features of Lev Nikolaevich’s mother are recognizable, her penchant for reflection, brilliant education and love of art. The writer awarded Nikolai Rostov with his father's traits - mockery, love of reading and hunting.

When writing the novel, Leo Tolstoy worked in the archives, studied the correspondence of Tolstoy and Volkonsky, Masonic manuscripts, and visited the Borodino field. His young wife helped him, copying his drafts out clean.

The novel was read avidly, striking readers with the breadth of its epic canvas and subtle psychological analysis. Leo Tolstoy characterized the work as an attempt to “write the history of the people.”

According to the calculations of literary critic Lev Anninsky, by the end of the 1970s, the works of the Russian classic were filmed 40 times abroad alone. Until 1980, the epic War and Peace was filmed four times. Directors from Europe, America and Russia have made 16 films based on the novel “Anna Karenina”, “Resurrection” has been filmed 22 times.

“War and Peace” was first filmed by director Pyotr Chardynin in 1913. The most famous film was made by a Soviet director in 1965.

Personal life

Leo Tolstoy married 18-year-old in 1862, when he was 34 years old. The count lived with his wife for 48 years, but the couple’s life can hardly be called cloudless.

Sofia Bers is the second of three daughters of the Moscow palace office doctor Andrei Bers. The family lived in the capital, but in the summer they vacationed on a Tula estate near Yasnaya Polyana. For the first time Leo Tolstoy saw his future wife as a child. Sophia was educated at home, read a lot, understood art, and graduated from Moscow University. The diary kept by Bers-Tolstaya is recognized as an example of the memoir genre.

At the beginning of his married life, Leo Tolstoy, wanting there to be no secrets between him and his wife, gave Sophia a diary to read. The shocked wife learned about her husband’s stormy youth, passion for gambling, wild life and the peasant girl Aksinya, who was expecting a child from Lev Nikolaevich.

The first-born Sergei was born in 1863. In the early 1860s, Tolstoy began writing the novel War and Peace. Sofya Andreevna helped her husband, despite her pregnancy. The woman taught and raised all the children at home. Five of the 13 children died in infancy or early childhood.

Problems in the family began after Leo Tolstoy finished his work on Anna Karenina. The writer plunged into depression, expressed dissatisfaction with the life that Sofya Andreevna so diligently arranged in the family nest. The count's moral turmoil led to Lev Nikolayevich demanding that his relatives give up meat, alcohol and smoking. Tolstoy forced his wife and children to dress in peasant clothes, which he made himself, and wanted to give his acquired property to the peasants.

Sofya Andreevna made considerable efforts to dissuade her husband from the idea of ​​​​distributing goods. But the quarrel that occurred split the family: Leo Tolstoy left home. Upon returning, the writer entrusted the responsibility of rewriting drafts to his daughters.

The death of their last child, seven-year-old Vanya, briefly brought the couple closer together. But soon mutual grievances and misunderstandings alienated them completely. Sofya Andreevna found solace in music. In Moscow, a woman took lessons from a teacher for whom romantic feelings developed. Their relationship remained friendly, but the count did not forgive his wife for “half-betrayal.”

The couple's fatal quarrel occurred at the end of October 1910. Leo Tolstoy left home, leaving Sophia a farewell letter. He wrote that he loved her, but could not do otherwise.

Death

82-year-old Leo Tolstoy, accompanied by his personal doctor D.P. Makovitsky, left Yasnaya Polyana. On the way, the writer fell ill and got off the train at the Astapovo railway station. Lev Nikolaevich spent the last 7 days of his life in the stationmaster's house. The whole country followed the news about Tolstoy’s health.

The children and wife arrived at the Astapovo station, but Leo Tolstoy did not want to see anyone. The classic died on November 7, 1910: he died of pneumonia. His wife survived him by 9 years. Tolstoy was buried in Yasnaya Polyana.

Quotes by Leo Tolstoy

• Everyone wants to change humanity, but no one thinks about how to change themselves.
• Everything comes to those who know how to wait.
• All happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
• Let everyone sweep in front of his own door. If everyone does this, the whole street will be clean.
• It's easier to live without love. But without it there is no point.
• I don't have everything I love. But I love everything I have.
• The world moves forward because of those who suffer.
• The greatest truths are the simplest.
• Everyone is making plans, and no one knows whether he will survive until the evening.

Bibliography

• 1869 – “War and Peace”
• 1877 – “Anna Karenina”
• 1899 – “Resurrection”
• 1852-1857 – “Childhood”. "Adolescence". "Youth"
• 1856 – “Two Hussars”
• 1856 – “Morning of the Landowner”
• 1863 – “Cossacks”
• 1886 – “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”
• 1903 – “Notes of a Madman”
• 1889 – “Kreutzer Sonata”
• 1898 – “Father Sergius”
• 1904 – “Hadji Murat”

Russian writer and philosopher Leo Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828 in Yasnaya Polyana, Tula province, the fourth child in a wealthy aristocratic family. Tolstoy lost his parents early; his further upbringing was carried out by his distant relative T. A. Ergolskaya. In 1844, Tolstoy entered Kazan University at the Department of Oriental Languages ​​of the Faculty of Philosophy, but because... classes did not arouse any interest in him, in 1847. submitted his resignation from the university. At the age of 23, Tolstoy, together with his older brother Nikolai, left for the Caucasus, where he took part in hostilities. These years of the writer's life were reflected in the autobiographical story "Cossacks" (1852-63), in the stories "Raid" (1853), "Cutting Wood" (1855), as well as in the later story "Hadji Murat" (1896-1904, published in 1912). In the Caucasus, Tolstoy began to write the trilogy “Childhood”, “Adolescence”, “Youth”.

During the Crimean War he went to Sevastopol, where he continued to fight.

After the end of the war, he left for St. Petersburg and immediately joined the Sovremennik circle (N. A. Nekrasov, I. S. Turgenev, A. N. Ostrovsky, I. A. Goncharov, etc.), where he was greeted as " the great hope of Russian literature" (Nekrasov), published "Sevastopol Stories", which clearly reflected his outstanding writing talent.

In 1857, Tolstoy went on a trip to Europe, which he was later disappointed with.

Admirers of the writer’s work came to Yasnaya Polyana from all over Russia and the world, whom they treated as a spiritual mentor.

In 1899, the novel “Resurrection” was published.

The writer’s latest works were the stories “Father Sergius”, “After the Ball”, “Posthumous Notes of Elder Fyodor Kuzmich” and the drama “The Living Corpse”.

In the late autumn of 1910, at night, secretly from his family, 82-year-old Tolstoy, accompanied only by his personal doctor D.P. Makovitsky, left Yasnaya Polyana, fell ill on the road and was forced to get off the train at the small Astapovo railway station of the Ryazan-Ural Railway. Here, in the house of the station chief, he spent the last seven days of his life. November 7 (20) Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy died.

A classic of Russian literature, Leo Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828 into the noble family of Nikolai Tolstoy and his wife Maria Nikolaevna. The father and mother of the future writer were nobles and belonged to revered families, so the family lived comfortably in their own Yasnaya Polyana estate, located in the Tula region.

Leo Tolstoy spent his childhood in the family estate. In these places he first saw the course of life of the working people, heard an abundance of old legends, parables, fairy tales, and here his first attraction to literature arose. Yasnaya Polyana is a place to which the writer returned at all stages of his life, drawing wisdom, beauty, and inspiration.

Despite his noble origin, Tolstoy had to learn the bitterness of orphanhood from childhood, because the future writer’s mother died when the boy was only two years old. His father passed away not much later, when Leo was seven years old. The grandmother first took custody of the children, and after her death, Aunt Palageya Yushkova, who took the four children of the Tolstoy family with her to Kazan.

Growing up

The six years of living in Kazan became the informal years of the writer’s growing up, because during this time his character and worldview were formed. In 1844, Leo Tolstoy entered Kazan University, first to the eastern department, then, not finding himself in the study of Arabic and Turkish, to the Faculty of Law.

The writer did not show significant interest in studying law, but he understood the need to obtain a diploma. After passing the external exams, in 1847 Lev Nikolaevich received the long-awaited document and returned to Yasnaya Polyana, and then to Moscow, where he began to engage in literary creativity.

Not having time to finish two planned stories, in the spring of 1851 Tolstoy went to the Caucasus with his brother Nikolai and began military service. The young writer takes part in military operations of the Russian army, acts as one of the defenders of the Crimean Peninsula, liberates his native land from Turkish and Anglo-French troops. Years of service gave Leo Tolstoy invaluable experience, knowledge of the life of ordinary soldiers and citizens, their characters, heroism, and aspirations.

The years of service are vividly reflected in Tolstoy’s stories “Cossacks”, “Hadji Murat”, as well as in the stories “Demoted”, “Cutting Wood”, “Raid”.

Literary and social activities

Returning to St. Petersburg in 1855, Leo Tolstoy was already well-known in literary circles. Remembering the respectful attitude towards serfs in his father’s house, the writer strongly supports the abolition of serfdom, illuminating this issue in the stories “Polikushka”, “Morning of the Landowner”, etc.

In an effort to see the world, in 1857 Lev Nikolaevich went on a trip abroad, visiting the countries of Western Europe. Getting acquainted with the cultural traditions of peoples, the master of words records information in his memory in order to later display the most important moments in his work.

Actively engaged in social activities, Tolstoy opens a school in Yasnaya Polyana. The writer strongly criticizes corporal punishment, which was widely practiced at that time in educational institutions in Europe and Russia. In order to improve the educational system, Lev Nikolaevich publishes a pedagogical magazine called “Yasnaya Polyana”, and in the early 70s he compiled several textbooks for primary schoolchildren, including “Arithmetic”, “ABC”, “Books for Reading”. These developments were effectively used in teaching several more generations of children.

Personal life and creativity

In 1862, the writer cast his lot with the daughter of doctor Andrei Bers, Sophia. The young family settled in Yasnaya Polyana, where Sofya Andreevna diligently tried to provide an atmosphere for her husband’s literary work. At this time, Leo Tolstoy was actively working on the creation of the epic “War and Peace”, and also, reflecting life in Russia after the reform, wrote the novel “Anna Karenina”.

In the 80s, Tolstoy moved with his family to Moscow, seeking to educate his growing children. Observing the hungry life of ordinary people, Lev Nikolaevich contributes to the opening of about 200 free tables for those in need. Also at this time, the writer published a number of topical articles about the famine, strongly condemning the policies of the rulers.

The period of literature of the 80-90s includes: the story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”, the drama “The Power of Darkness”, the comedy “Fruits of Enlightenment”, the novel “Sunday”. For his strong attitude against religion and autocracy, Leo Tolstoy was excommunicated from the church.

last years of life

In 1901 - 1902 the writer became seriously ill. For the purpose of a speedy recovery, the doctor strongly recommends a trip to Crimea, where Leo Tolstoy spends six months. The prose writer's last trip to Moscow took place in 1909.

Beginning in 1881, the writer sought to leave Yasnaya Polyana and retire, but stayed, not wanting to hurt his wife and children. On October 28, 1910, Leo Tolstoy nevertheless decided to take a conscious step and live the rest of his years in a simple hut, refusing all honors.

An unexpected illness on the road becomes an obstacle to the writer’s plans and he spends his last seven days of life in the house of the station master. The day of death of the outstanding literary and public figure was November 20, 1910.

Lev Tolstoy- the most famous Russian writer, famous throughout the world for his works.

short biography

Born in 1828 in the Tula province into a noble family. He spent his childhood on the Yasnaya Polyana estate, where he received his primary education at home. He had three brothers and a sister. He was raised by his guardians, so in early childhood, at the birth of his sister, his mother died, and later, in 1840, his father, which is why the whole family moved to relatives in Kazan. There he studied at Kazan University in two faculties, but decided to quit his studies and return to his native place.

Tolstoy spent two years in the army in the Caucasus. Bravely participated in several battles and was even awarded an order for the defense of Sevastopol. He could have had a good military career, but he wrote several songs ridiculing the military command, as a result of which he had to leave the army.

At the end of the 50s, Lev Nikolaevich went to travel around Europe and returned to Russia after the abolition of serfdom. Even during his travels, he was disappointed with the European way of life, as he saw a very big contrast between the rich and the poor. That is why, when he returned to Russia, he was glad that the peasants had now risen.

He got married and had 13 children, 5 of whom died in childhood. His wife, Sophia, helped her husband by copying out all her husband’s creations in neat handwriting.

He opened several schools, in which he furnished everything according to his wishes. He himself compiled the school curriculum - or rather, the lack thereof. Discipline did not play a key role for him; he wanted children to strive for knowledge themselves, so the main task of the teacher was to interest students so that they wanted to learn.

He was excommunicated from the church because Tolstoy put forward his theories about what the church should be like. Just a month before his death, he decided to secretly leave his native estate. As a result of the trip, he became very ill and died on November 7, 1910. The writer was buried in Yasnaya Polyana near the ravine where he loved to play as a child with his brothers.

Literary contribution

Lev Nikolaevich began writing while still studying at the University - mainly it was homework comparing various literary works. It is believed that it was because of literature that he abandoned his studies - he wanted to devote all his free time to reading.

In the army he worked on his “Sevastopol Stories”, and also, as already mentioned, composed songs for his colleagues. Upon returning from the army, he took part in a literary circle in St. Petersburg, from where he went to Europe. He noticed the characteristics of people well and tried to reflect this in his works.

Tolstoy wrote many different works, but gained worldwide fame thanks to two novels - “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina”, in which he accurately reflected the life of people of those times.

The contribution of this great writer to world culture is enormous - it was thanks to him that many people learned about Russia. His works are still published to this day, plays are staged and films are made based on them.

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