An outstanding moral philosopher and religious thinker, Lev Tolstoy was also one of the greatest of all novelists. Superlatives are needed to describe him: he was a big, strong man with a formidable intellect, powerful emotions, and extraordinary qualities and defects that ran to extremes. He lived a long life, and left behind written works filling ninety large volumes, the biggest and richest individual contribution to the treasure house of Russian culture that flourished in the nineteenth century.
Tolstoy was born in 1828 into the Russian aristocracy, at Yasnaya Polyana, 130 miles south-west of Moscow. Both of his parents died while he was young, but he grew up happily, cocooned by female relatives. The family moved to Kazan, 500 miles east of Moscow, in 1841, and three years later, at
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Citation: Briggs, A.D.P.. "Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 April 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4413, accessed 24 November 2024.]
