Leo Tolstoy: Life, Works, and Writing Style

Introduction

Born on September 9, 1828, Leo Tolstoy is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of all time (Borrero, 340). Some of his most popular works include Anna Karenina and War and Peace. This paper discusses Tolstoy's life, works, and style of writing.

Early Life and Education

The youngest of five children, Tolstoy was born at his family's estate at Yasnaya Polyana, in Russia's Tula Province. Coming from a wealthy aristocratic family, Tolstoy was a count by title (Borrero, 340). He lost both parents at a young age. At age two he lost his mother, Mariya Nikolayevna. Upon her death, a distant cousin of his father, Tatyana Ergolskaya, took the children under her care for approximately five years, before Alexandra Osten-Saken was appointed their legal guardian following the death of their father. As Orwin points out, Tatyana was Tolstoy's most beloved guardian (7). At the time of his father's death, Tolstoy was only nine years old (Orwin, 7). Upon Alexandra's death, the children were again sent, in 1840, to live with another sister of their father in Kazan, Russia.

Tolstoy was educated at home, which made him fluent in Russian, German, and French (Orwin, 7). In 1843, he enrolled at university and chose to pursue Oriental Languages. Finding the studies too demanding, he switched to law two years after joining Kazan University. His linguistic talents had already begun to show at this point: his professors, in the words of Bloom, "recognized his linguistic talent, becoming proficient in more than a dozen languages" (233).

Tolstoy had not successfully completed his law degree by the time he left university in 1847 (Bloom, 233). Returning to Yasnaya Polyana, he tried his hand at farming but failed due to inexperience in managing the estate's unpaid farmhands. He also attempted to champion social reform among the peasants (Bloom, 234), though much of his time was spent socializing. It was around this period that he began keeping a diary. As Orwin notes, some of Tolstoy's diary entries detail rules he set for himself but frequently failed to follow (8). These diary entries would later serve as an important resource for his literary work.

Military Service and the Start of His Literary Career

In 1848, Tolstoy's elder brother Nikolay, who was serving with the army at the time, visited him at Yasnaya Polyana and invited him to join his regiment. Tolstoy accepted, and it was during his time in the south with Nikolay that he decided to enlist in the military. During his service, Tolstoy was described as brave — though, as Orwin notes, this bravery sometimes bordered on outright recklessness (8). One fellow officer recalled him posing in front of a cannon with its fuse already lit (Orwin, 8).

Tolstoy's first published work was Childhood, an autobiographical piece that appeared in the leading journal Contemporary (Bloom, 234). The editor found Tolstoy's sketch particularly striking, and upon publication it was hailed across Russia as a masterpiece. Almost immediately, Tolstoy began working on another piece, The Cossacks, which sought to document his life at the military outpost. This work was completed in 1862. During his service in southern Ukraine, he also produced the next portion of his autobiography, Youth, along with several tales recounting his experience of war. War and Peace was completed in 1869 (Leburn, 349), and Anna Karenina followed in 1877 (Leburn, 349). Both works created considerable sensation upon their release.

Major Works

Tolstoy's two most widely acclaimed works are War and Peace and Anna Karenina. In broad terms, War and Peace can be regarded as one of Tolstoy's most comprehensive accounts of his own life. He drew nearly every person he had ever met into the plot and described a wide range of events and experiences with considerable detail.

Anna Karenina, on the other hand, revolves around Anna, the beautiful wife of an older government official. When she meets Vronsky, a handsome young man, her life is turned upside down. She falls in love with him — a love affair that proves disastrous. This work brings to the fore the conflict between social reality and unrestrained personal desire. Among Tolstoy's other notable works are The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Childhood, and Youth.