Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy cluster. Leo Tolstoy complete biography

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy born on August 28 (September 9), 1828 on his mother’s estate Yasnaya Polyana, Krapivensky district, Tula province. Tolstoy's family belonged to a wealthy and noble count family. By the time Leo was born, the family already had three eldest sons: Nikolai (1823-1860), Sergei (1826 -1904) and Dmitry (1827 - 1856), and in 1830 she was born younger sister Leva Maria.

A few years later, the mother died. In Tolstoy’s autobiographical “Childhood,” Irtenyev’s mother dies when the boy is 10–12 years old and is fully conscious. However, the portrait of the mother is described by the writer exclusively from the stories of his relatives. After the death of their mother, the orphaned children were taken in by a distant relative, T. A. Ergolskaya. She is represented by Sonya from War and Peace.

In 1837, the family moved to Moscow because... older brother Nikolai needed to prepare to enter university. But a tragedy suddenly occurred in the family - the father died, leaving affairs in poor condition. The three youngest children were forced to return to Yasnaya Polyana to be raised by T. A. Ergolskaya and their father’s aunt, Countess A. M. Osten-Saken. Here Leo Tolstoy remained until 1840. This year Countess A. M. Osten-Saken died and the children were moved to Kazan to live with their father’s sister P. I. Yushkova. L. N. Tolstoy quite accurately conveyed this period of his life in his autobiography “Childhood.”

At the first stage, Tolstoy received his education under the guidance of a rude French tutor, Saint-Thomas. He is depicted by a certain Mr. Jerome from Boyhood. He was later replaced by the good-natured German Reselman. Lev Nikolaevich lovingly portrayed him in “Childhood” under the name of Karl Ivanovich.

In 1843, following his brother, Tolstoy entered Kazan University. There, until 1847, Leo Tolstoy was preparing to enter the only Oriental Faculty in Russia in the category of Arabic-Turkish literature. During his year of study, Tolstoy proved himself to be the best student of this course. However, between the poet’s family and the teacher Russian history and German, by a certain Ivanov, there was a conflict. This entailed that, according to the results of the year, L.N. Tolstoy had poor performance in the relevant subjects and had to re-take the first-year program. To avoid a complete repetition of the course, the poet is transferred to the Faculty of Law. But there, too, problems with the German and Russian teacher continue. Soon Tolstoy loses all interest in studying.

In the spring of 1847, Lev Nikolaevich left the university and settled in Yasnaya Polyana. Everything that Tolstoy did in the village can be found out by reading “The Morning of the Landowner,” where the poet imagines himself in the role of Nekhlyudov. There, a lot of time was spent on carousing, games and hunting.

In the spring of 1851, on the advice of his older brother Nikolai, in order to reduce expenses and pay off debts, Lev Nikolaevich left for the Caucasus.

In the fall of 1851, he became a cadet of the 4th battery of the 20th artillery brigade stationed in the Cossack village of Starogladov near Kizlyar. Soon L.N. Tolstoy became an officer. When the Crimean War began at the end of 1853, Lev Nikolaevich transferred to the Danube Army and took part in the battles of Oltenitsa and Silistria. From November 1854 to August 1855 he took part in the defense of Sevastopol. After the assault on August 27, 1855, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was sent to St. Petersburg. A noisy life began there: drinking parties, cards and carousing with gypsies.

In St. Petersburg, L.N. Tolstoy met the staff of the Sovremennik magazine: N.A. Nekrasov, I.S. Turgenev, I.A. Goncharov, N.G. Chernyshevsky.

At the beginning of 1857, Tolstoy went abroad. He spends a year and a half traveling around Germany, Switzerland, England, Italy, and France. Traveling does not bring him pleasure. Your disappointment European life he expressed it in the story "Lucerne". And returning to Russia, Lev Nikolaevich began improving schools in Yasnaya Polyana.

At the end of the 1850s, Tolstoy met Sofia Andreevna Bers, born in 1844, the daughter of a Moscow doctor from the Baltic Germans. He was almost 40 years old, and Sophia was only 17. It seemed to him that this difference was too great and sooner or later Sophia would fall in love with a young guy who had not outlived himself. These experiences of Lev Nikolaevich are set out in his first novel, “Family Happiness.”

In September 1862, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy nevertheless married 18-year-old Sofya Andreevna Bers. For 17 years life together they had 13 children. During the same period, War and Peace and Anna Karenina were created. In 1861-62 finishes his story “Cossacks,” the first of the works in which Tolstoy’s great talent was recognized as a genius.

In the early 70s, Tolstoy again showed interest in pedagogy, writing “The ABC” and “ New ABC”, composes fables and stories that made up four “Russian books for reading”.

To answer the questions and doubts of a religious nature that tormented him, Lev Nikolaevich began to study theology. In 1891 in Geneva, the writer writes and publishes “A Study of Dogmatic Theology,” in which he criticizes Bulgakov’s “Orthodox Dogmatic Theology.” He first began to have conversations with priests and monarchs, read Bogoslav tracts, and studied ancient Greek and Hebrew. Tolstoy meets schismatics and joins the sectarian peasants.

At the beginning of 1900 Lev Nikolaevich was excommunicated by the Holy Synod Orthodox Church. L.N. Tolstoy lost all interest in life, he was tired of enjoying the prosperity he had achieved, and the thought of suicide arose. He becomes interested in simple physical labor, becomes a vegetarian, gives his entire income to his family, and renounces literary property rights.

On November 10, 1910, Tolstoy secretly left Yasnaya Polyana, but on the way he became very ill. November 20, 1910 at the Astapovo station in Ryazan-Uralskaya railway Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy died.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy - a great Russian writer, by birth - a count from the famous noble family. He was born on August 28, 1828 in the Yasnaya Polyana estate located in the Tula province, and died on October 7, 1910 at the Astapovo station.

The writer's childhood

Lev Nikolaevich was a representative of a large noble family, the fourth child in it. His mother, Princess Volkonskaya, died early. At this time, Tolstoy was not yet two years old, but he formed an idea of ​​​​his parent from the stories of various family members. In the novel "War and Peace" the image of the mother is represented by Princess Marya Nikolaevna Bolkonskaya.

Biography of Leo Tolstoy early years marked by another death. Because of her, the boy became an orphan. Leo Tolstoy's father, a participant in the War of 1812, like his mother, died early. This happened in 1837. At that time the boy was only nine years old. Leo Tolstoy's brothers, he and his sister, were entrusted to the upbringing of T. A. Ergolskaya, a distant relative who had enormous influence on the future writer. Childhood memories have always been the happiest for Lev Nikolaevich: family legends and impressions of life in the estate became rich material for his works, reflected, in particular, in the autobiographical story “Childhood”.

Study at Kazan University

Biography of Leo Tolstoy early years marked by such an important event as studying at the university. When the future writer turned thirteen years old, his family moved to Kazan, to the house of the children’s guardian, a relative of Lev Nikolaevich P.I. Yushkova. In 1844, the future writer was enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy at Kazan University, after which he transferred to the Faculty of Law, where he studied for about two years: study did not arouse keen interest in the young man, so he devoted himself passionately to various social entertainments. Having submitted his resignation in the spring of 1847, due to poor health and “domestic circumstances,” Lev Nikolaevich left for Yasnaya Polyana with the intention of studying full course legal sciences and pass an external exam, as well as learn languages, “practical medicine”, history, Agriculture, geographical statistics, study painting, music and write a dissertation.

Years of youth

In the fall of 1847, Tolstoy left for Moscow and then to St. Petersburg in order to pass candidate exams at the university. During this period, his lifestyle often changed: he either studied various subjects all day long, then devoted himself to music, but wanted to start a career as an official, or dreamed of joining a regiment as a cadet. Religious sentiments that reached the point of asceticism alternated with cards, carousing, and trips to the gypsies. The biography of Leo Tolstoy in his youth is colored by the struggle with himself and introspection, reflected in the diary that the writer kept throughout his life. During the same period, interest in literature arose, and the first artistic sketches appeared.

Participation in the war

In 1851, Nikolai, Lev Nikolaevich’s older brother, an officer, persuaded Tolstoy to go to the Caucasus with him. Lev Nikolaevich lived for almost three years on the banks of the Terek, in a Cossack village, traveling to Vladikavkaz, Tiflis, Kizlyar, participating in hostilities (as a volunteer, and then was recruited). The patriarchal simplicity of the life of the Cossacks and the Caucasian nature struck the writer with their contrast with the painful reflection of representatives of educated society and the life of the noble circle, and provided extensive material for the story “Cossacks,” written in the period from 1852 to 1863 on autobiographical material. The stories “Raid” (1853) and “Cutting Wood” (1855) also reflected his Caucasian impressions. They also left a mark in his story “Hadji Murat,” written between 1896 and 1904, published in 1912.

Returning to his homeland, Lev Nikolayevich wrote in his diary that he really fell in love with this wild land, in which “war and freedom,” things so opposite in their essence, are combined. Tolstoy began to create his story “Childhood” in the Caucasus and anonymously sent it to the magazine “Sovremennik”. This work appeared on its pages in 1852 under the initials L.N. and, along with the later “Adolescence” (1852-1854) and “Youth” (1855-1857), formed the famous autobiographical trilogy. His creative debut immediately brought real recognition to Tolstoy.

Crimean campaign

In 1854, the writer went to Bucharest, to the Danube Army, where the work and biography of Leo Tolstoy received further development. However, soon a boring staff life forced him to transfer to besieged Sevastopol, to the Crimean Army, where he was a battery commander, showing courage (awarded with medals and the Order of St. Anne). During this period, Lev Nikolaevich was captured by new literary plans and impressions. He began writing "Sevastopol stories", which were a great success. Some ideas that arose even at that time allow one to guess in the artillery officer Tolstoy the preacher later years: he dreamed of a new “religion of Christ,” purified of mystery and faith, a “practical religion.”

In St. Petersburg and abroad

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy arrived in St. Petersburg in November 1855 and immediately became a member of the Sovremennik circle (which included N. A. Nekrasov, A. N. Ostrovsky, I. S. Turgenev, I. A. Goncharov and others). He took part in the creation of the Literary Fund at that time, and at the same time became involved in conflicts and disputes among writers, but he felt like a stranger in this environment, which he conveyed in “Confession” (1879-1882). Having retired, in the fall of 1856 the writer left for Yasnaya Polyana, and then, at the beginning of the next year, 1857, he went abroad, visiting Italy, France, Switzerland (impressions from visiting this country are described in the story “Lucerne”), and also visited Germany. In the same year in the fall, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy returned first to Moscow and then to Yasnaya Polyana.

Opening of a public school

In 1859, Tolstoy opened a school for peasant children in the village, and also helped establish more than twenty similar educational institutions in the Krasnaya Polyana area. In order to get acquainted with the European experience in this area and apply it in practice, the writer Leo Tolstoy again went abroad, visited London (where he met with A.I. Herzen), Germany, Switzerland, France, and Belgium. However, European schools somewhat disappoint him, and he decides to create his own pedagogical system based on personal freedom, publishes teaching aids and works on pedagogy, applies them in practice.

"War and Peace"

Lev Nikolaevich in September 1862 married Sofya Andreevna Bers, the 18-year-old daughter of a doctor, and immediately after the wedding he left Moscow for Yasnaya Polyana, where he devoted himself entirely to household concerns and family life. However, already in 1863, he was again captured by a literary idea, this time creating a novel about the war, which was supposed to reflect Russian history. Leo Tolstoy was interested in the period of our country's struggle with Napoleon at the beginning of the 19th century.

In 1865, the first part of the work “War and Peace” was published in the Russian Bulletin. The novel immediately evoked many responses. Subsequent parts provoked heated debate, in particular, the fatalistic philosophy of history developed by Tolstoy.

"Anna Karenina"

This work was created in the period from 1873 to 1877. Living in Yasnaya Polyana, continuing to teach peasant children and publish his pedagogical views, Lev Nikolaevich in the 70s worked on a work about the life of his contemporary high society, building his novel on the contrast of two storylines: family drama Anna Karenina and the home idyll of Konstantin Levin, close and psychological drawing, both in convictions and in the way of life of the writer himself.

Tolstoy strove for an externally non-judgmental tone of his work, thereby paving the way for the new style of the 80s, in particular folk stories. The truth of peasant life and the meaning of existence of representatives of the “educated class” - these are the range of questions that interested the writer. “Family thought” (according to Tolstoy, the main one in the novel) is translated into a social channel in his work, and Levin’s self-exposures, numerous and merciless, his thoughts about suicide are an illustration of what he experienced in the 1880s spiritual crisis author, which matured while working on this novel.

1880s

In the 1880s, Leo Tolstoy's work underwent a transformation. The revolution in the writer’s consciousness was reflected in his works, primarily in the experiences of the characters, in the spiritual insight that changes their lives. Such heroes occupy a central place in such works as “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” (years of creation - 1884-1886), “The Kreutzer Sonata” (a story written in 1887-1889), “Father Sergius” (1890-1898), drama "The Living Corpse" (left unfinished, begun in 1900), as well as the story "After the Ball" (1903).

Tolstoy's journalism

Tolstoy's journalism reflects him emotional drama: depicting pictures of the idleness of the intelligentsia and social inequality, Lev Nikolaevich raised questions of faith and life before society and himself, criticized the institutions of the state, going so far as to deny art, science, marriage, court, and the achievements of civilization.

The new worldview is presented in “Confession” (1884), in the articles “So what should we do?”, “On hunger”, “What is art?”, “I cannot remain silent” and others. The ethical ideas of Christianity are understood in these works as the foundation of the brotherhood of man.

As part of a new worldview and a humanistic understanding of the teachings of Christ, Lev Nikolaevich spoke out, in particular, against the dogma of the church and criticized its rapprochement with the state, which led to him being officially excommunicated from the church in 1901. This caused a huge resonance.

Novel "Sunday"

Mine last novel Tolstoy wrote between 1889 and 1899. It embodies the entire range of problems that worried the writer during the years of his spiritual turning point. Dmitry Nekhlyudov, main character, is a person internally close to Tolstoy, who goes through the path of moral purification in the work, ultimately leading him to comprehend the need for active good. The novel is built on a system of evaluative oppositions that reveal the unreasonable structure of society (the deceit of the social world and the beauty of nature, the falsehood of the educated population and the truth of the peasant world).

last years of life

The life of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy in last years was not easy. The spiritual turning point turned into a break with one’s environment and family discord. The refusal to own private property, for example, caused discontent among the writer’s family members, especially his wife. The personal drama experienced by Lev Nikolaevich was reflected in his diary entries.

In the fall of 1910, at night, secretly from everyone, 82-year-old Leo Tolstoy, whose life dates were presented in this article, accompanied only by his attending physician D.P. Makovitsky, left the estate. The journey turned out to be too much for him: on the way, the writer fell ill and was forced to disembark at the Astapovo railway station. Lev Nikolaevich spent the last week of his life in a house that belonged to her boss. The whole country was following reports about his health at that time. Tolstoy was buried in Yasnaya Polyana; his death caused a huge public outcry.

Many contemporaries came to say goodbye to this great Russian writer.

Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on August 28, 1828 on his father's estate Yasnaya Polyana, in the Tula province. Thick - old Russian noble surname; one representative of this family, the head of Peter's secret police Peter Tolstoy, was promoted to count. Tolstoy's mother was born Princess Volkonskaya. His father and mother served as prototypes for Nikolai Rostov and Princess Marya in War and Peace(see summary and analysis of this novel). They belonged to the highest Russian aristocracy, and their family affiliation with the highest stratum ruling class sharply distinguishes Tolstoy from other writers of his time. He never forgot about her (even when this realization of his became completely negative), always remained an aristocrat and kept aloof from the intelligentsia.

Leo Tolstoy's childhood and adolescence passed between Moscow and Yasnaya Polyana, in big family, where there were several brothers. He left unusually vivid memories of his early environment, his relatives and servants, in wonderful autobiographical notes that he wrote for his biographer P. I. Biryukov. His mother died when he was two years old, his father when he was nine years old. His further upbringing was in charge of his aunt, Mademoiselle Ergolskaya, who presumably served as the prototype for Sonya in War and Peace.

Leo Tolstoy in his youth. Photo from 1848

In 1844, Tolstoy entered Kazan University, where he first studied oriental languages ​​and then law, but in 1847 he left the university without receiving a diploma. In 1849, he settled in Yasnaya Polyana, where he tried to become useful to his peasants, but soon realized that his efforts were of no use because he lacked knowledge. IN student years and after leaving the university, he, as was common among young people of his class, led a chaotic life, filled with the pursuit of pleasure - wine, cards, women - somewhat similar to the life that Pushkin led before his exile to the south. But Tolstoy was unable to accept life as it is with a light heart. From the very beginning, his diary (existing since 1847) testifies to an unquenchable thirst for mental and moral justification of life, a thirst that forever remained the guiding force of his thought. This same diary was the first experience in developing that technique psychological analysis, which later became Tolstoy’s main literary weapon. His first attempt to try himself in a more purposeful and creative kind writing dates back to 1851.

The tragedy of Leo Tolstoy. Documentary

In the same year, disgusted with his empty and useless Moscow life, he went to the Caucasus to join the Terek Cossacks, where he joined the garrison artillery as a cadet (junker means a volunteer, a volunteer, but of noble birth). On next year(1852) he finished his first story ( Childhood) and sent it to Nekrasov for publication in Contemporary. Nekrasov immediately accepted it and wrote about it to Tolstoy in very encouraging tones. The story was an immediate success, and Tolstoy immediately rose to prominence in literature.

At the battery, Leo Tolstoy led a rather easy and unburdened life as a cadet with means; the place to stay was also nice. He had a lot of free time most which he spent on hunting. In the few fights in which he had to participate, he performed very well. In 1854 he received an officer's rank and, at his request, was transferred to the army fighting the Turks in Wallachia (see Crimean War), where he took part in the siege of Silistria. In the autumn of the same year he joined the Sevastopol garrison. There Tolstoy saw real war. He took part in the defense of the famous Fourth Bastion and in the Battle of the Black River and ridiculed bad command in a satirical song - the only work of his in verse known to us. In Sevastopol he wrote famous Sevastopol stories that appeared in Contemporary, when the siege of Sevastopol was still ongoing, which greatly increased interest in their author. Soon after leaving Sevastopol, Tolstoy went on vacation to St. Petersburg and Moscow, and the next year he left the army.

Only in these years, after Crimean War, Tolstoy communicated with literary world. The writers of St. Petersburg and Moscow greeted him as an outstanding master and brother. As he later admitted, success greatly flattered his vanity and pride. But he did not get along with the writers. He was too much of an aristocrat for this semi-bohemian intelligentsia to please him. They were too awkward plebeians for him, and they were indignant that he clearly preferred the light to their company. On this occasion, he and Turgenev exchanged caustic epigrams. On the other hand, his very mentality was not to the heart of progressive Westerners. He did not believe in progress or culture. In addition, his dissatisfaction with the literary world intensified due to the fact that his new works disappointed them. Everything he wrote after childhood, did not show any movement towards innovation and development, and Tolstoy's critics failed to understand the experimental value of these imperfect works (see the article Tolstoy's Early Work for more details). All this contributed to his cessation of relations with the literary world. The culmination was a noisy quarrel with Turgenev (1861), whom he challenged to a duel, and then apologized for it. This whole story is very typical, and it revealed the character of Leo Tolstoy, with his hidden embarrassment and sensitivity to insults, with his intolerance for the imaginary superiority of other people. The only writers with whom he maintained friendly relations were the reactionary and “land lord” Fet (in whose house the quarrel with Turgenev broke out) and the Slavophile democrat Strakhov- people who were completely unsympathetic to the main trend of progressive thought of that time.

Tolstoy spent the years 1856–1861 between St. Petersburg, Moscow, Yasnaya Polyana and abroad. He traveled abroad in 1857 (and again in 1860–1861) and learned from there disgust at the selfishness and materialism of European society. bourgeois civilization. In 1859 he opened a school for peasant children in Yasnaya Polyana and in 1862 began publishing a pedagogical magazine Yasnaya Polyana, in which he surprised the progressive world with the assertion that it is not the intellectuals who should teach the peasants, but rather the peasants who should teach the intellectuals. In 1861 he accepted the post of mediator, a post created to oversee the implementation of the emancipation of the peasants. But the unsatisfied thirst for moral strength continued to torment him. He abandoned the revelry of his youth and began to think about marriage. In 1856, he made his first unsuccessful attempt to marry (Arsenyeva). In 1860, he was deeply shocked by the death of his brother Nicholas - this was his first encounter with the inevitable reality of death. Finally, in 1862, after much hesitation (he was convinced that since he was old - thirty-four years old! - and ugly, no woman would love him), Tolstoy proposed to Sofya Andreevna Bers, and it was accepted. They got married in September of that year.

Marriage is one of the two main milestones in Tolstoy's life; the second milestone was his appeal. He was always haunted by one concern - how to justify his life before his conscience and achieve lasting moral well-being. When he was a bachelor, he oscillated between two opposing desires. The first was a passionate and hopeless striving for that integral and unreasoning, “natural” state that he found among the peasants and especially among the Cossacks, in whose village he lived in the Caucasus: this state does not strive for self-justification, for it is free from self-consciousness, this justification demanding. He tried to find such an unquestioning state in conscious submission to animal impulses, in the lives of his friends and (and here he was closest to achieving it) in his favorite pastime - hunting. But he was unable to be satisfied with this forever, and another equally passionate desire - to find a rational justification for life - led him astray every time it seemed to him that he had already achieved contentment with himself. Marriage was his gateway to a more stable and lasting “state of nature.” It was a self-justification of life and a solution to a painful problem. Family life, its unreasoning acceptance and submission to it, henceforth became his religion.

For the first fifteen years of his married life, Tolstoy lived in a blissful state of contented vegetation, with a pacified conscience and a hushed need for higher rational justification. The philosophy of this plant conservatism is expressed with enormous creative force in War and Peace(see summary and analysis of this novel). He was extremely happy in his family life. Sofya Andreevna, almost still a girl when he married her, easily became what he wanted to make her; he explained his new philosophy to her, and she was its indestructible stronghold and unchanging guardian, which ultimately led to the disintegration of the family. The writer's wife turned out to be ideal wife, mother and mistress of the house. In addition, she became a devoted assistant to her husband in literary work - everyone knows that she rewrote seven times War and Peace from the beginning to the end. She gave birth to Tolstoy many sons and daughters. She didn't have personal life: she completely disappeared into family life.

Thanks to Tolstoy's prudent management of estates (Yasnaya Polyana was simply a place of residence; income was generated by a large Trans-Volga estate) and the sale of his works, the family's fortune increased, as did the family itself. But Tolstoy, although absorbed and satisfied with his self-justifying life, although he glorified it with unsurpassed artistic power in his best novel, was still not able to completely dissolve in family life, as his wife dissolved. “Life in Art” also did not absorb him as much as his brothers. The worm of moral thirst, although reduced to a tiny size, never died. Tolstoy was constantly concerned with questions and demands of morality. In 1866 he defended (unsuccessfully) before a military court a soldier accused of striking an officer. In 1873 he published articles about public education, on the basis of which an astute critic Mikhailovsky was able to predict the further development of his ideas.

The name of the writer, educator, Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy is known to every Russian person. During his lifetime, 78 were published works of art, another 96 are preserved in the archives. And in the first half of the 20th century it turned out full meeting works, numbering 90 volumes and including, in addition to novels, novellas, short stories, essays, etc., numerous letters and diary entries of this great man, distinguished by his enormous talent and extraordinary personal qualities. In this article we will recall the most Interesting Facts from the life of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

Selling a house in Yasnaya Polyana

In his youth the count had a reputation a gambling person and liked, unfortunately, not very successfully, to play cards. It so happened that part of the house in Yasnaya Polyana, where the writer spent his childhood, was given away for debts. Subsequently, Tolstoy planted trees in the empty space. Ilya Lvovich, his son, recalled how he once asked his father to show him the room in the house where he was born. And Lev Nikolaevich pointed to the top of one of the larches, adding: “There.” And he described the leather sofa on which this happened in the novel “War and Peace.” These are interesting facts from the life of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy related to the family estate.

As for the house itself, its two two-story wings have been preserved and have grown over time. After marriage and the birth of children, the Tolstoy family grew larger, and at the same time new premises were added.

Thirteen children were born into the Tolstoy family, five of whom died in infancy. The Count never spared time for them, and before the crisis of the 80s he loved to play pranks. For example, if jelly was served during lunch, my father noticed that it was good for them to glue the boxes together. The children immediately brought table paper to the dining room, and the creative process began.

Another example. Someone in the family became sad or even cried. The count, who noticed this, immediately organized the “Numidian Cavalry”. He jumped up from his seat, raised his hand and rushed around the table, and the children rushed after him.

Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich has always been distinguished by his love of literature. He regularly held evening readings in his house. Somehow I picked up a Jules Verne book without pictures. Then he began to illustrate it himself. And although he was not a very good artist, the family was delighted with what they saw.

The children also remembered the humorous poems of Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich. He read them in the wrong German for the same purpose: home. By the way, few people know that the writer’s creative heritage includes several poetic works. For example, “Fool”, “Volga the Hero”. They were mainly written for children and were included in the well-known “ABC”.

Thoughts of suicide

The works of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy became for the writer a way to study human characters in their development. Psychologism in the image often required great emotional effort from the author. So, while working on Anna Karenina, trouble almost happened to the writer. He was in such a difficult situation state of mind, that he was afraid to repeat the fate of his hero Levin and commit suicide. Later, in “Confession,” Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy noted that the thought of this was so persistent that he even took a lace out of the room where he was changing clothes alone and gave up hunting with a gun.

Disappointment in the Church

Nikolaevich’s story is well studied and contains many stories about how he was excommunicated from the church. Meanwhile, the writer always considered himself a believer, and from 1977, for several years, he strictly observed all fasts and visited every church service. However, after visiting Optina Pustyn in 1981, everything changed. Lev Nikolaevich went there with his lackey and school teacher. They walked, as expected, with a knapsack and bast shoes. When we finally found ourselves in the monastery, we discovered terrible dirt and strict discipline.

The arriving pilgrims were accommodated on a general basis, which outraged the footman, who always treated the owner as a gentleman. He turned to one of the monks and said that the old man was Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. The writer’s work was well known, and he was immediately transferred to best number hotels. After returning from Optina Hermitage, the count expressed his dissatisfaction with such veneration, and from that time on he changed his attitude towards church conventions and its employees. It all ended with him taking a cutlet for lunch during one of the posts.

By the way, in the last years of his life the writer became a vegetarian, completely giving up meat. But at the same time, I ate scrambled eggs in different forms every day.

Physical work

In the early 80s - this is reported in the biography of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy - the writer finally came to the conviction that an idle life and luxury do not make a person beautiful. For a long time he was tormented by the question of what to do: sell off all his property and leave his beloved wife and children, unaccustomed to hard work, without funds? Or transfer the entire fortune to Sofya Andreevna? Later, Tolstoy would divide everything between family members. During this difficult time for him - the family had already moved to Moscow - Lev Nikolaevich loved to go to the Sparrow Hills, where he helped the men cut wood. Then he learned the craft of shoemaking and even designed his own boots and summer shoes made of canvas and leather, which he wore all summer. And every year he helped peasant families in which there was no one to plow, sow and harvest grain. Not everyone approved of Lev Nikolaevich’s life. Tolstoy was not understood even in own family. But he remained adamant. And one summer all of Yasnaya Polyana broke up into artels and went out to mow. Among those working was even Sofya Andreevna, raking the grass.

Help for the hungry

Noting interesting facts from the life of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, we can recall the events of 1898. Famine once again broke out in Mtsensk and Chernen districts. The writer, dressed in an old retinue and props, with a knapsack on his shoulders, together with his son, who volunteered to help him, personally toured all the villages and found out where the situation was truly miserable. Within a week, they compiled lists and created approximately twelve canteens in each district, where they fed, first of all, children, the elderly and the sick. Products were brought from Yasnaya Polyana, prepared two hot dishes a day. Tolstoy's initiative caused negativity from the authorities, who established constant control over him, and local landowners. The latter considered that such actions of the count could lead to the fact that they themselves would soon have to plow the fields and milk the cows.

One day a police officer entered one of the dining rooms and started a conversation with the count. He complained that although he approved of the writer’s action, he was a forced person, and therefore did not know what to do - they were talking about permission for such activities from the governor. The writer’s answer turned out to be simple: “Do not serve where you are forced to act against your conscience.” And this was the whole life of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

Serious illness

In 1901, the writer fell ill with a severe fever and, on the advice of doctors, went to Crimea. There, instead of being cured, he also contracted inflammation and there was practically no hope that he would survive. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, whose work contains many works describing death, prepared mentally for it. He was not at all afraid of losing his life. The writer even said goodbye to his loved ones. And although he could only speak in a half-whisper, he gave each of his children valuable advice for the future, as it turned out, nine years before his death. This was very helpful, since nine years later, none of the family members - and almost all of them gathered at the Astapovo station - were not allowed to see the patient.

Writer's funeral

Back in the 90s, Lev Nikolaevich spoke in his diary about how he would like to see his funeral. Ten years later, in “Memoirs,” he tells the story of the famous “green stick,” buried in a ravine next to the oak trees. And already in 1908 he dictated a wish to the stenographer: to bury him in a wooden coffin in the place where the brothers searched for the source of eternal goodness in childhood.

Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich, according to his will, was buried in the Yasnaya Polyana park. The funeral was attended by several thousand people, among whom were not only friends, admirers of creativity, writers, but also local peasants, whom he treated with care and understanding all his life.

History of the will

Interesting facts from the life of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy also concern his expression of will regarding creative heritage. The writer drew up six wills: in 1895 (diary entries), 1904 (letter to Chertkov), 1908 (dictated to Gusev), twice in 1909 and in 1010. According to one of them, all his recordings and works were received in common use. According to others, the right to them was transferred to Chertkov. Ultimately, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy bequeathed his work and all his notes to his daughter Alexandra, who became her father’s assistant at the age of sixteen.

Number 28

According to his relatives, the writer always had an ironic attitude towards prejudice. But he considered the number twenty-eight special for himself and loved it. Was it just a coincidence or fate? Unknown, but many major events The life and first works of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy are connected precisely with it. Here is their list:

• August 28, 1828 is the date of birth of the writer himself.
• On May 28, 1856, censorship gave permission to publish the first book of stories, “Childhood and Adolescence.”
• On June 28, the first child, Sergei, was born.
• On February 28, the wedding of Ilya’s son took place.
• On October 28, the writer left Yasnaya Polyana forever.

Classic 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 noble birth, From childhood, Tolstoy had to learn the bitterness of orphanhood, because the mother of the future writer 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 in the eastern department, then, not finding himself in the study of Arabic and Turkish languages, to the Faculty of Law.

The writer did not show significant interest to study 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.

Military service

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. A young writer takes part in combat operations Russian army, acts among the defenders of the Crimean peninsula, liberates native land from Turkish and Anglo-French troops. Years of service gave Leo Tolstoy invaluable experience and knowledge of life ordinary soldiers and citizens, their characters, heroism, 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 respectful attitude to the serfs in his father’s house, the writer strongly supports the abolition of serfdom, clarifying this question 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 countries Western Europe. Getting acquainted with cultural traditions peoples, the master of words records information in his memory in order to later display the most important points in his creativity.

Actively engaged 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 Europe and Russia. In order to improve educational system, Lev Nikolaevich publishes a pedagogical magazine called “Yasnaya Polyana”, and in the early 70s he compiled several textbooks for junior schoolchildren, including “Arithmetic”, “ABC”, “Books to Read”. 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 literary work husband. 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. Watching the hungry life 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. Last trip the prose writer 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 an outstanding literary and public figure became November 20, 1910.