Leo Tolstoy.

A writer, moral philosopher, pacifist, vegetarian, and "Christian anarchist".

Biography

• He was born Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, August 28, 1828 on his father's estate.
• He and his siblings were orphaned early on and subsequently raised by a series of relatives.
• Despite this he still had fond memories of his childhood.
• He served in the Russian military where he got his knowledge and distaste of war first hand.
• Though his family was wealthy, drinking and gambling led him into deep debts.
• His financial stability was restored in his marriage to Sophia.
• They had 13 children, 10 surviving infancy.
• During this period of family life, Tolstoy wrote his greatest novels, War and Peace and Anna Karenina.
• He also wrote many other stories and treaties, many of these on education, art, politics, moral philosophy, non-violence, and religion.
• For much of his life he lacked faith in God, but converted to a specified form of Christianity later in life.
• He rejected many of the more dogmatic teachings and theologies of established religion and was ultimately excommunicated from the church in Russia at the time.
• He sought to live purely after Christ's own teachings as manifested in the gospels, and particularly in the Sermon on the Mount.
• During this time he rejected much of his earlier work.
• At the age of 82 he snuck out of his house to embrace a life of poverty.
• He died a few days later at a train station of pneumonia.

Why Tolstoy?

The short answer is, his profound influence on others and on me.

What is that influence?

On others:

• Dostoevsky thought him the greatest of all living novelists.
• Wittgenstein once wrote a letter to a friend, asking, "Are you acquainted with Tolstoy's The Gospel in Brief? At its time, this book virtually kept me alive...If you are not acquainted with it, then you cannot imagine what an effect it can have on a person."
• Gandhi corresponded with Tolstoy for one year, and like Wittgenstein, wrote a friend about the immense influence Tolstoy had on him.
• Flaubert exclaimed, "What an artist and what a psychologist!"
• Chekhov wrote, "When literature possesses a Tolstoy, it is easy and pleasant to be a writer; even when you know you have achieved nothing yourself and are still achieving nothing, this is not as terrible as it might otherwise be, because Tolstoy achieves for everyone."
• Virginia Woolf declared him the greatest of all novelists.

On me:

• Each time I have engaged in Tolstoy's texts my worldview has been enhanced, expanded, changed.
• This is because Tolstoy writes of life and of himself, which is also to say he writes of contradictions and opposites, i.e., war and peace, familial happiness and familial sorrows, life and death, good faith versus bad faith, sincerity and insincerity, etc.

Major Primary Works

Novels/Short stories
Childhood 1852
Boyhood 1854
War and Peace 1864-69
Anna Karenina 1873-76
The Kreutzer Sonata 1889
The Death of Iyan Illytich 1872

Educational
On Popular Instruction 1874

Ethical and Religious
Confession 1882
What is my Faith? 1884
On Non-Resistance
The Kingdom of God is Within You 1893

Art
What is Art? 1897

Social and Political
The Slavery of our Times 1900
A Great Injusstice (on the land problem) 1905
On the Social Movement in Russia 1905

Major Secondary Works

The Cambridge companion to Tolstoy.

Orwin, Donna, ed. The Cambridge companion to Tolstoy. Cambridge, UK; NY: Cambridge UP, 2002.

The Hedgehog and the Fox: An essay on Tolstoy's view of history

Berlin, Isaiah. "The Hedgehog and the Fox: An essay on Tolstoy's view of history." (1953)

Leo Tolstoy: A critical anthology

Gifford, Henry, ed. Leo Tolstoy: A critical anthology. (1971)

Tolstoy: A biography.

Wilson, A.N. Tolstoy: A Biography. WW Norton, 2001.

Tolstoy or Dostoevsky: An essay in the old criticism.

Steiner, George. Tolstoy or Dostoevsky: An essay in the old criticism. NY: Knopf, 1959.

What I tried.

• Examined Simmons Tolstoy collection.
• Browsed databases in conjunction.
• Familiarized myself with titles, authors, themes, relationships, publishers, etc.
• Tried to notice similarities and differences among databases, for example, if the same author or work kept showing up.
• Was grateful for the introduction to a variety of journals I had not previously been familiar with.
• Read prefaces and introductions to several of Tolstoy's primary works.
• Read several encyclopedia articles, journal articles, and book reviews.
• Paid close attention to authors and works frequently cited.
• Read reader's comments on amazon and similar sites to see what the average reader thought of particular works.
• etc. etc.

What was helpful.

Most Helpful:

• Britannica Online Encyclopedia
• Ebsco Host: MLA International Bibliography
• Literature Online: Criticism and Reference Full Text
• prefaces
• introductions
• browsing

Somewhat Helpful:

• Wikipedia
• JSTOR

I liked:

• Leo Tolstoy Museum-Estate 'Yasnaya Polyana'

Journals

Acta Litteraria Academic Scientiarum Hungaricae
American Benedictine Review
Canadian-American Slavic Studies
Christianity and Literature
The Comparatist: Journal of the Southern Comparative Literature Association
Dissertation Abstracts International
Explicator
Forum for Modern Language Studies
The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticsim
Literature Interpretation Theory
Modern Fiction Studies
Modern Language Review
Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas.
Philosophy and Literature
Queen's Quarterly
Russian Review
Russian Studies in Literature: A Journal of Translations
Salmagundi
Scottish Slavonic Review
The Slavic and East European Journal
The Slavonic and East European Review
South Atlantic Bulletin
Soviet Literature
Studies in Slavic Cultures
Tolstoy Studies Journal