Count Lyof Nikolayevich Tolstoi aka
Leo Tolstoy
TOLSTOI, Count Lyof Nikolayevich,
usually called Count Leo Tolstoy, the most eminent living
Russian novelist and social reformer, is a descendant of
Count Peter Tolstoy, the friend and comrade of Peter the
Great, and was born ou Aug. 28, 1828, at Yasnaia Poliana,
in the Government of Tula, but was left an orphan at an
early age. He received the usual education of a Russian
noble, first privately and afterwards at the University
of Kazan. He spent the subsequent years in study till
1851; when, at the ago of 23, he entered the army and
accompanied his brother to the Caucasus. On the outbreak
of the Crimean War (1853) he was called to Sebastopol and
saw active service there, taking the command of a
mountain battery and assisting in the defense of the
citadel. Resigning his commission at the close of the war
(1850), he devoted himself to literature. His "War
and Peace" (1800), a talc of the invasion of Russia
by Napoleon in 1812, is regarded by Russians as his
masterpiece; but “Anna Karenina," which
appeared in 1876, is better appreciated abroad. Matthew
Arnold spoke moat enthusiastically in its praise a few
months before his death, and George Meredith says that
Anna, the beautiful but unfaithful wife, who ends her
guilty passion by suicide, is the most perfectly depicted
female character in all fiction. Since the publication of
this last work, Tolstoi has given himself up to the
earnest working out of the problems of life, the
attainment of a higher religious and moral philosophy. He
makes “Return not Evil" the keystone of the
Christian faith, and insists that the literal
interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount is the only
rule of Christian life. His religious views are set forth
in "Christ's Christianity" and "My
Religion" His “Kreutzer Sonata," with its
strange theory of morals, was published in 1890. In Oct.
1892, Count Tolstoy deposited his memoirs and diaries
with the Curator of the Romanoff Museum, on condition
that they should not be published till ten years after
his death. In Nov. he legally made over his whole fortune
to his wife and children. In 1893 he published "The
Kingdom of God Within Us," a work on the social
question; and in 1894, “Patriotism and
Christianity," a criticism of the Franco-Russian
Alliance, which appeared in the Daily Chronicle. Count
Tolstoy is married, and has nine children living.
Men and Women of the Time: A Dictionary of Contemporaries
By Victor Plarr
Published by G. Routledge and Sons, limited, 1895 Page
1086
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