History Atlas

Leo Tolstoy

The Mirror of the Russian Soul · September 9, 1828, Yasnaya Polyana, Russia - November 20, 1910, Astapovo, Russia

Industrial & Victorian Age2 min readwriterphilosopher
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Russian novelist whose War and Peace and Anna Karenina are widely considered the greatest novels ever written. In later life he became a moral philosopher and advocate of nonviolent resistance whose ideas influenced Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

Life and legacy

Leo Tolstoy was born into the Russian aristocracy at the family estate of Yasnaya Polyana, about 200 kilometers south of Moscow. Orphaned young, he was raised by relatives and lived the dissolute life of a young nobleman before joining the army and serving in the Caucasus and during the Crimean War. His Sevastopol Sketches (1855), based on his wartime experiences, brought him literary fame with their unflinching realism.

War and Peace (1869), written over six years, is an epic panorama of Russian society during the Napoleonic Wars that follows the lives of five aristocratic families against the backdrop of Napoleon's invasion of Russia. It is at once a historical novel, a philosophical treatise, and an intimate portrait of human life in all its complexity. Anna Karenina (1877) is a more focused masterpiece - the story of an adulterous love affair set against the social pressures of Russian aristocratic society - that opens with one of the most famous sentences in literature.

In the late 1870s, Tolstoy underwent a profound spiritual crisis that transformed his life and work. He rejected the Russian Orthodox Church, embraced a radical Christianity based on the Sermon on the Mount, and denounced private property, violence, and the state. His philosophical works - including The Kingdom of God Is Within You (1894) - articulated a vision of nonviolent resistance that profoundly influenced Mahatma Gandhi, who corresponded with Tolstoy, and through Gandhi influenced Martin Luther King Jr.

Tolstoy's later years were marked by increasing tension between his radical beliefs and his aristocratic life. He wanted to give away his estate and live as a peasant, while his wife fought to preserve the family's wealth and the copyrights to his works. In October 1910, at the age of eighty-two, Tolstoy fled Yasnaya Polyana in the middle of the night. He fell ill at the remote railway station of Astapovo and died there on November 20, 1910, surrounded by journalists and admirers from around the world.

Key accomplishments

Timeline

The dated lines from the record above, in order, with Leo Tolstoy's age worked out from the birth year (1828).

  1. 1828Born September 9, 1828, Yasnaya Polyana, Russia
  2. 1869Wrote War and Peace (1869), widely considered the greatest novel ever written (around age 41)
  3. 1877Wrote Anna Karenina (1877), a masterpiece of psychological and social realism (around age 49)
  4. 1894Published The Kingdom of God Is Within You (1894), a foundational text of Christian anarchism and pacifism (around age 66)
  5. 1910Died November 20, 1910, Astapovo, Russia

Quotes

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Anna Karenina, opening line (1877)

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

Attributed; commonly associated with Tolstoy but exact source disputed

Related figures

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Fellow giant of Russian literature; contemporaries who never met

Victor Hugo

Both used the novel to explore war, justice, and society on an epic scale

Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon's invasion of Russia is central to War and Peace

Mark Twain

Contemporary literary giant; both grappled with social injustice

Where Leo Tolstoy sits in the atlas

Contemporaries

34 other figures in the atlas were alive at some point during Leo Tolstoy's lifetime (1828-1910). These are the longest overlaps.

Others connected with the same cities

Figures not already listed on this page, nearest in time first.

St. Petersburg (3 figures in the atlas)

More from Industrial & Victorian Age

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