Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy was a Russian novelist, short-story writer, and moral thinker. Born into an aristocratic family at the Yasnaya Polyana estate, he moved to Kazan as a youth and enrolled at Kazan University in 1844, studying Oriental languages and then law before leaving in 1847 without a degree. He served as an army artillery officer in the Caucasus and at the siege of Sevastopol, entered the Sovremennik literary circle in St. Petersburg on his return, then settled at Yasnaya Polyana, where he wrote his major novels. His long novels War and Peace (1865–1869) and Anna Karenina (1875–1877) are widely studied works of realist fiction. After a spiritual crisis he turned to religious, ethical, and social writing, advocating nonviolence and a plain reading of the Gospels. He renounced copyright on his later works and died at Astapovo railway station in 1910.