The Importance of Leo Tolstoy

Celebrated as Russia’s most renown author, Leo Tolstoy left and indelible mark on the world. He was a man full of new ideas; a visionary; a brilliant mind; a perspicacious author. He suffered through traumatic trials and came out strong. He took his education upon himself and learned more in the first 20 years of his life than many moderns today learn in a lifetime. He lived a self-imposed life of pauperism and ventured to better others with what he had been blest. He influenced writers, laymen, poets, politicians, and average people--his prestige in literature cannot be erased.

Count Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born in 1828 to a wealthy Russian family. In the early years of his life, Tolstoy faced some of life’s toughest challenges. He was only two years old when his mother died--that was just the beginning of his suffering. His father, a recognized military officer, did not have much time to spend with his family but did provide good educations for his children and encouraged them to pursue the fine arts. One of his aunts and his paternal grandmother helped Count Tolstoy look after and care for his four children; family life and relationships were prized highly by all his close relatives. By the time young Tolstoy was 13, his father, aunt, and grandmother had all died and it would be just a matter of years before both of his brothers would succumb to death as well.

It was through these miserable years that Leo Tolstoy found comfort in perfervid study. Over the course of his scholastic pursuits, Tolstoy, inspired by his father and grandfather, improved his mind my memorizing poetry, songs, and Russian history, learning to converse fluently in more than 12 different languages, and reading English, French, and Russian authors. He graduated from school and enrolled in a university to study law and languages. Unsatisfied with the quality of education he was receiving, he did not remain long at college and moved on to educate himself. Shortly afterwards, Tolstoy began his stupendous literary career when wrote and published his first book in 1852--the first of an autobiographical trilogy (the other two were soon to follow).

Disapproving the general method of schooling available to the public, he started a school for the peasants, hoping to reform the modern system of education. This endeavor failed, but his aspirations for changing the way people thought did not flicker. All in all, Leo Tolstoy wrote 19 books and countless short stories and essays. Tolstoy decided to use pen and ink to inspire his readers to greatness. Most of his writings are based on his life experiences, as evidenced in his two most esteemed novels. Following in his father’s footsteps, Tolstoy joined the Russian army, commanding and fighting in the Crimean War (1853-1856). From this experience, Tolstoy drew the lion’s share of information needed to write the famed War and Peace. Written over four years and published in 1878, Anna Karenina is based solely on Tolstoy’s firsthand knowledge of the twists, turns, and sorrows of humanity, “happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”An exorbitant amount of his life story appears in the pages of this book. After it was published, he actually said that his whole life was part of his novel, “I wrote everything into Anna Karenina and nothing was left over.”

Plagued about the meaning and importance of life and death, Tolstoy struggled internally over these philosophical questions for a better part of his life. He searched for answers everywhere and eventually found his way to the Russian Orthodox Church. For the first time he could make sense of his confused and perturbed questions, ideas, and beliefs. Immediately he began to rectify his thoughts and put his faith into practice. This step towards Christianity radically changed him. Striving for peace and a “better” life, he gave away the majority of his money, lived as a peasant, and tried to show Christ’s loving care to the people around him.

Until Tolstoy was brought to a saving faith in Christ, his life was one of debauchery and vile pursuits. He kept a journal of his activities, which ended in causing marital strife later on. After his conversion he wrote several essays and short stories in which he laid out the basis of his faith and showed how Christianity had changed his life. In 1862 Leo Tolstoy married Sofia Andreyevna Behrs. Together, over the next 33 years, they had 12 children (one died right after birth). Undervaluing the time spent with his family, Tolstoy eventually abandoned his wife and children to find a “deeper meaning” in life--he died at the railroad station that night (1877). Throughout his life, Tolstoy remained active in the political arena, was interested in reforming Russian society, and was writing dynamic literature.

During his lifetime Tolstoy was heavily influenced by ancient authors as well as many of his contemporaries--he actually kept up a correspondence with Noah Webster. Some of his “mentors” were: Charles Dickens, Aristotle, Jean Jacques Rousseau, George Elliot, Henry David Thoreau, Plato, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Alexander Pushkin.

*Tolstoy lived during the same time as a plethora of classic authors. Here are a few that I found:

Emily Bronte

Charles Dickens

Alexandre Dumas

Wilkie Collins

Fydor Dostoevsky

George Elliot

Mahatma Gandhi

Elizabeth Gaskell

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Victor Hugo

Jean Jacques Rousseau

Henry David Thoreau

Noah Webster