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.