10 facts from the life of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy. Tolstoy Leo interesting facts. Interesting facts from the life of Tolstoy. Disappointment in the Church

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy is a prominent representative of the authors of classical world literature. His works are studied in schools and universities educational institutions. Based on books written by Tolstoy, feature films are made and theatrical performances are staged. The writer's biography is rich in amazing events.

30 amazing facts from the life and work of Tolstoy

Lev Nikolaevich was born in September 1828.
Tolstoy was a patriot and loved Russia very much. Traveled abroad only 2 times.
The age difference between the wife (Sophie Bers) and the writer is 16 years.
Lev Nikolaevich's texts were corrected by his daughter Agrippina.
The writer was a vegetarian.
Tolstoy was fluent in 3 languages: German, English and French.
The elderly writer did not wear shoes, preferring to walk barefoot.
Lev Nikolaevich had terrible handwriting, so his wife copied almost all his works for him.
Tolstoy did not receive a university education, but he never stopped developing himself.
The writer was very fond of horses and often paid great attention to them in his novels. I even dreamed of breeding a new breed.
Lev Nikolaevich’s favorite horse was called Delir.
The novel “War and Peace” took 6 years to create and was revised 8 times.
The writer and his wife had 13 children, 5 of them died.
Tolstoy wrote not only serious works, but also books for children. For example, “Filipok” and “Sea”.
Lev Nikolaevich’s own creativity caused skepticism. The author called “War and Peace” his least favorite novel.
Tolstoy was a participant in the Caucasian War, fought to defend Sevastopol, and received the order. At the same time, the famous trilogy was written.
The writer lost his parents in childhood. He was the 4th child in the family.
20 years before his death, Tolstoy left his wife and moved to live in Yasnaya Polyana.
The writer's beloved daughter, Maria, died of pneumonia.
Lev Nikolaevich was awarded the Nobel Prize, but he refused the award.
More than 200 films have been filmed based on Tolstoy's works. feature films and TV series.
For peasant children living in Yasnaya Polyana, Lev Nikolaevich opened a school and taught the children himself.
The writer was a member of a circle founded by the Sovremennik magazine, but soon became disillusioned and left the society.
The writer lived in Yasnaya Polyana for more than half a century. In 1921, 11 years after Tolstoy's death, the estate became a museum.
A few days before his death, Lev Nikolaevich secretly left home and became very ill on the road, which became the cause of death.
The complete works of Tolstoy consist of 90 volumes.
The writer was not only the author of books, but also articles.
M. Gorky and A. Chekhov were close friends of Lev Nikolaevich.
Tolstoy sent 839 letters to his wife Sophia during their marriage.
After the writer's death, many unfinished works remained. For example, “Notes of a Madman.”

All significant works (“War and Peace”, “Anna Karenina”, “Resurrection”) were written by Leo Tolstoy after his marriage. That is, until the age of 34 he did not engage in serious writing.

The creative heritage of Lev Nikolaevich amounts to 165 thousand sheets of manuscripts and ten thousand letters. The complete works were published in 90 volumes.

An interesting fact is that in life Tolstoy could not stand it when dogs barked, and also did not like cherries.

Since childhood, he was an incredibly gambling person and gambler. However, like another great writer - F.M. Dostoevsky.

One day, Count Tolstoy lost one of the buildings of his Yasnaya Polyana estate at cards. His partner dismantled the property that had been transferred to him down to the stud and took everything away. The writer himself dreamed of buying this extension back, but never realized it.

Tolstoy had an excellent command of English, French and German. I read in Italian, Polish, Serbian and Czech. He studied Greek and Church Slavonic, Latin, Ukrainian and Tatar, Hebrew and Turkish, Dutch and Bulgarian.

As a child, Anna Akhmatova learned letters using a primer, which L.N. Tolstoy wrote for peasant children.

The novel “War and Peace” was written over the course of 6 years, and then rewritten 8 more times. Tolstoy rewrote individual fragments up to 25 times.

The Count, towards the end of his life, developed several serious principles of his worldview. The main ones boil down to non-resistance to evil through violence, denial of private property and complete disregard for any authority, be it church, state or any other.

Many believe that Tolstoy was excommunicated from the Orthodox Church. In fact, the definition of the Holy Synod sounded verbatim like this: “Therefore, testifying to his (Tolstoy’s) falling away from the Church, we pray together that the Lord will grant him repentance into the mind of truth.” That is, the Synod simply testified that Tolstoy “self-excommunicated” from the Church. In fact, this was the case, if we analyze the writer’s numerous statements addressed to the Church.

Tolstoy’s concept of living in poverty contributed to a serious deterioration in his relationship with his wife. He was going to give up copyrights, which were the family's main source of income. Despite her wealth and large estate, the wife was categorically against such a decision, as she strived for the arrangement of all the children. The wife said about her brilliant husband: “He preaches love for all humanity, but hates his own children,” meaning that he does not think about the well-being of his offspring.

Tolstoy, at the age of about 50, became a vegetarian and hoped that all people would one day give up, as he said, “this cannibalism.”

At the end of his life, the writer, enjoying worldwide fame and recognition, exclaimed: “Yes, if I want, I can create a new religion.”

The thinker used to say about Shakespeare: “You know that I can’t stand Shakespeare.”

Lev Nikolaevich always declared that highest value in society it is a family.

As of 2010, there were about 350 descendants of the writer around the world.

In his old age, Lev Nikolaevich often walked barefoot, emphasizing his closeness to the people.

Based on their beliefs, a quarrel arose between Turgenev and Tolstoy, which almost led them to a duel.

In the early morning of October 31, 1910, Tolstoy secretly ran away from home to live the rest of his life alone. This happened after another breakup with my wife. However, on the way he fell ill with pneumonia and died in the station master's house.

The writer asked to bury his beloved horse Delir not far from his own grave. This was done exactly.

photo from the Internet

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy is an outstanding writer, educator, philosopher, religious thinker and publicist. Tolstoy's works are considered the heritage of Russian literature and are popular all over the world. The famous writer was not only a master of his craft, but also an incredibly interesting person with outstanding human qualities.

Today we will look at interesting facts from the life of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy, which reflect the depth of his soul and unusual worldview. Perhaps some of the writer’s beliefs could become relevant in modern world. Well, let's check it out!

First work

It would be logical to start a review on the topic “Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy: facts of life and creativity” with the first literary successes of the writer. Like many of his colleagues, Tolstoy first put pen to paper in early childhood. The first work of the future writer was a short story called “The Kremlin”. In it, the child shared his impressions of visiting the Moscow Kremlin.

Outlook on life

Tolstoy was an ardent opponent of private property and any authorities, including political and church ones. As a result, the writer was excommunicated from the church for his beliefs and communicating them to the general public.

Being fascinated by the occult, Tolstoy created a personal Christian teaching, which was called “Tolstoyism.” The ideas of this teaching were set out in the writer’s works: “Confession”, “Christian Doctrine”, “What is My Faith” and others. One of the famous followers of Tolstoyism was M. Bulgakov, as illustrated by the novel “The Master and Margarita”.

Followers

The writer had many followers who were called Tolstoyans. They idolized Tolstoy and even created certain communities in which connoisseurs of Lev Nikolaevich’s work could gather and together comprehend the depth of his texts. Considering interesting facts from the life of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy, it is worth noting that he did not like it when people tried to find the truth of life through his works. He believed that everyone should search for her personally, without anyone's help.

Excitement and arrogance

Like Dostoevsky, Tolstoy loved to play cards. One day he was so carried away by a game with his neighbor that he did not notice how he lost the greatest value of his family - the Yasnaya Polyana estate. Since we were not talking about a plot of land, but rather about a house, the neighbor, landowner Gorokhov, had to take the building in disassembled form. He was so pleased with his winnings that he took the trouble to transport parts of the house 35 miles. All for the sake of showing off to friends. Later, Lev Nikolaevich had the opportunity to buy the estate back, but he never did. In fact, Gorokhov had absolutely no use for the estate, but Tolstoy spent his childhood, adolescence and youth there.

Lev Nikolaevich always stood out among writers and representatives of the then elite. He refused any material goods, and the most respected people for Tolstoy were peasants.

"War and Peace"

The writer did not like the work “War and Peace,” which was outstanding in volume and content. He treated him so contemptuously that in one of his correspondences with Fet he called him “verbose rubbish.”

Quarrel with Turgenev

In 1858, Tolstoy, while visiting Fet, quarreled with Turgenev. According to the official version, the conflict occurred because Turgenev told how his daughter’s governess forced the girl to repair clothes for beggars. Tolstoy considered this story ugly and theatrical, for which Turgenev promised to hit him. As a result, Tolstoy challenged Turgenev to a duel. Ultimately, the writers made peace. According to another version, the cause of their conflict was Turgenev’s interest in Lev Nikolaevich’s sister, Maria.

Treatment with kumis

In 1862, the writer diagnosed himself with melancholy and indifference (there was no such diagnosis as depression yet). Following fashion, he decided to treat his melancholy with kumys. The writer liked the method so much that he even bought a house not far from the kumiss clinic and came there every summer with his family and children.

Assistant

One of Tolstoy's daughters, Agrippina, lived and worked on her father's estate. She proofread his works. One day Lev Nikolaevich had a strong quarrel with his daughter. To take revenge on the priest, Agrippina returned all the previously identified typos to the novel “Sunday”. As a result, the first three editions of the work were published with errors.

Hiking from Moscow to Yasnaya Polyana

Tolstoy covered the distance on foot from Moscow to Yasnaya Polyana three times. At the time of his first campaign (1886) he was 58 years old. The distance between these settlements is about two hundred kilometers.

Hard work

Tolstoy always considered the opportunity to work honestly as a person’s main wealth. He himself never missed an opportunity to help his neighbor. One day, at the station, a noble lady with a large luggage approached him, mistaking Lev Nikolaevich for a porter. The writer, not recognized by the lady, carried the luggage to the indicated place, for which he received the payment due to him.

By chance, a year later he was destined to meet this lady again. This time Tolstoy gave a lecture in French, and she sat in the audience. The lady's surprise knew no bounds when she realized how much the respected man had helped her with her luggage. The woman approached Lev Nikolaevich with an apology, and he replied that everything was fine. at its best: he earned it honestly and received payment for it. 10 facts from the life of Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich are already behind us, but many more interesting things await us.

Vegetarianism

When discussing interesting facts from the life of Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, one cannot ignore the fact that he was a convinced vegetarian. He believed that eating animal meat was as ignorant and immoral as cannibalism.

It all started when the famous writer William Frey came to Tolstoy’s estate. He told Lev Nikolaevich about his view on nutrition and that a person definitely cannot be a predator, since his teeth and digestive system not designed for eating meat. This idea impressed the classic so much that he gave up meat and fish for the rest of his days. Tolstoy's daughters, Tatyana and Maria, followed their father's example. Lev Nikolaevich sincerely believed that the time would come when all of humanity would grow to a deep understanding of this issue and give up meat.

Relationships with mother-in-law

The personal life of Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich was very successful, at least until old age. He honored and sincerely respected the mother of his future wife. Often visiting her house, for a long time he could not choose which of his three daughters to marry.

Boots

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, facts from whose life we are considering today, loved to sew boots for gifts. He gave them to relatives, friends and just good acquaintances. Tolstoy’s son-in-law, Mikhail Sukhotin, kept his father-in-law’s boots on the same shelf with the work “War and Peace.”

"ABC"

Tolstoy published his “ABC” especially for peasant children. The writer wanted to help them become more literate. The book turned out so good that it became a reference book in many noble families. For example, Anna Akhmatova studied grammar using Tolstoy’s ABC.

Refusal of shoes

The last years of Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich's life were remembered for the fact that he almost completely abandoned shoes. Why the writer chose to walk barefoot is unknown. Researchers of his life and work believe that this is how the classic wanted to illustrate his closeness to the common people. There is another version, according to which the writer simply wanted to toughen up.

Refusal of the Nobel Prize

When Tolstoy found out that Russian Academy Sciences nominated him as a candidate for the Nobel Prize, the writer appealed to the Finns with a request not to award him the award. According to Lev Nikolaevich, if this did happen, it would be extremely unpleasant for him to refuse. Tolstoy never received the prize, and he was terribly happy about it.

The writer's joy was due to two reasons. Firstly, big money would be a real problem for him. He considered them evil, even though he quite honestly deserved it. Secondly, Tolstoy was pleased by the very fact of his nomination, and he received real pleasure from accepting signs of sympathy for the failure of the prize from unknown but respected people.

St. George's Cross

In 1853, while serving in the Caucasus, Tolstoy gave his St. George Cross to an unknown soldier. This cross gave the owner the right to a lifetime pension in the amount of his salary.

"Lucky" relative

The nephew of Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor, like his uncle, was distinguished by an amazing penchant for gambling. Only his main passion was not cards, but duels. Of course, the reason was not that Fyodor liked to kill, he was just incredibly lucky and liked to tempt fate. In total, the avid duelist killed 11 people. He wrote down their names in his notebook. Fate or coincidence is unknown, but Fyodor’s 11 children died. No matter what he and his wife do, each new baby was born very weak. After the death of another child, Fyodor opened his notebook and wrote a note “Quit” in front of one of the dead.

Escape from home

In October 1910, society was shocked by the news that 82-year-old Count Tolstoy had fled from his own estate. He left his wife a note asking her not to look for him. Desperate, Sofya Andreevna decided to drown herself; fortunately, she was stopped in time. Society began to blame the countess for the fact that the writer left the family. Sofya Andreevna idolized her husband from the age of 17. She devoted her whole life to him and gave birth to thirteen children. It was she who inspired the writer to create the great novels “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina”. Tolstoy's wife even copied his manuscripts into the original form.

The discord in the family began when the classic was excommunicated from the church, began to deny all material wealth and began to think deeply. The wife could not accept her husband’s worldview, but he firmly stood his ground. When Tolstoy was preparing to escape, he was helped by his youngest daughter, who, like no one else, understood and respected her father’s views.

Departure

Our conversation on the topic " Interesting Facts from the life of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy" is coming to its end. All that remains is to find out how the great writer passed away. This happened in November 1910, during the journey of Lev Nikolaevich. The cause of death was acute pneumonia. Perhaps Tolstoy's immunity weakened due to the mental anguish associated with leaving his family. Or, on the contrary, he left home because he began to feel weak and did not want to upset his family. Be that as it may, the writer lived a rich and rather long life for those times. Society will remember for a long time who Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy is. Dates of the writer’s life: September 9, 1828 - November 20, 1910.

In his declining years, Tolstoy bequeathed to be buried without any honors in the deep forest where he played with his brother as a child. His funeral was the first time famous person carried out on their last journey without priests, prayers, candles and other Christian attributes. Subsequently, according to the writer’s will, his horse Delir was buried next to him. The life and work of Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy illustrates that he always tried to find the meaning of life. In adulthood he found it in goodness.

On September 9, 2018, the entire world community celebrates an important literary anniversary - 190 years since the birth of the great Russian writer, outstanding thinker and philosopher Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy. The writer, recognized during his lifetime as the head of Russian literature, author of the famous works “War and Peace”, “Anna” Karenina", "Resurrection" and today continues to be considered one of the best writers in the world.

Maxim Gorky once called Leo Tolstoy “the most humane man.” “Incomparable word! – Stefan Zweig noted in his essay on Tolstoy. “For he was a man like us all, molded from the same fragile clay and awarded with the same earthly shortcomings, but he delved deeper into them, suffered more painfully from them.”

Hundreds of books and articles have been written about the life of Leo Tolstoy, his work, attitude towards religion and family. Lev Nikolaevich is known all over the world, but many facts from his biography still remain unknown. Let's list just a few of them; perhaps there are some you didn't even know about. The life of this brilliant writer is full of mysteries and secrets.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was a distant relative of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. Pushkin's great-grandmother and Leo Tolstoy's mother's great-grandmother are sisters. Thus, Lev Nikolaevich was the fourth nephew of Alexander Sergeevich.

At the age of 18, Tolstoy formulated for himself a “life manifesto” - a carefully compiled set of several dozen life rules, divided into separate groups: rules for the development of “bodily will”, “sensual will”, “reasonable will”, etc. Among them were , for example, such as: “never express your feelings outwardly,” “sleep as little as possible,” “don’t have servants,” “move away from women.” Over the years, he admitted to himself that he had violated most of these rules and came up with new, no less strict ones.

Lev Nikolaevich was fluent in Russian, French, English, German, and read fluently in Greek and Latin, Spanish and Italian, Czech and Polish, Bulgarian and other languages. Leo Tolstoy's home library contained more than 23 thousand books in 39 languages.

The writer was a father of many children - Sofya Andreevna gave birth to 13 children. The difference between the first and youngest sons was a quarter of a century. Some of them died at a young age. If historians are to be believed, Tolstoy was a very loving man, so it is difficult to talk about the number of his illegitimate children - at that time having a child “on the side” was common.

Few men can boast of good relationships with their future parents. Lev Nikolaevich sincerely respected and honored the mother of his future wife Sophia. And, often visiting their house, for a long time I could not decide who to offer my hand and heart to - Sophia or one of her two sisters.

All significant works - “War and Peace”, “Anna Karenina”, “Resurrection” - Leo Tolstoy wrote after his marriage. That is, until the age of 34 he did not engage in serious writing.

An interesting fact is that Sofya Andreevna rewrote almost all of her husband’s works in order to send manuscripts to the publishing house. This was necessary because not a single editor could decipher the handwriting of the great writer. However, shortly before his death, Tolstoy began to keep two diaries: one that his wife read, and the other personal. The elderly Sofya Andreevna was furious that she could not find him, although she searched the whole house.

Sofya Andreevna was terribly jealous of her husband for his friend and like-minded person V.G. Chertkov. She constantly forced Lev to remove the portrait of his comrade from the table. After another quarrel, Sophia burst into her husband’s office and, seeing a photo of her hated “rival” in a frame behind the glass, grabbed a revolver and shot at the image. Then she rushed into the winter yard in her dressing gown and ran through the streets shouting: “I’ll drown myself, I’ll hang myself, I’ll shoot myself.” After such incidents, which were not uncommon, she came, cried, kissed the writer’s hands and asked for forgiveness.

One of Lev Nikolaevich’s daughters, Agrippina, not only lived on his estate, but worked there: she was engaged in proofreading her father’s texts. One day, having quarreled with her father, she decided to take revenge on him and “returned” the typos found in the novel “Resurrection” to their original place. The first three editions came out with all the “blunders”.

The creative heritage of Lev Nikolaevich amounts to 165 thousand sheets of manuscripts and ten thousand letters. The complete works were published in 90 volumes.

The work “War and Peace” is considered the most significant in the work of the great writer, but he himself said the following in a letter to A. Fet: “I am happy that I will never again write verbose rubbish like “War”.” The novel was written over the course of 6 years, and then rewritten 8 more times. Tolstoy rewrote individual fragments up to 25 times.

As a child, Anna Akhmatova learned her letters from a primer that Tolstoy wrote for peasant children.

In 1906, the Russian Academy of Sciences nominated Leo Tolstoy as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was considered by everyone to be the main contender for this significant award. But Lev Nikolaevich immediately wrote a secret letter to his follower and good friend, Finnish translator Arvid Jarnefelt, a letter in which he asked “to try to make sure that I am not awarded this prize... if this happened, it would be very unpleasant for me to refuse.” Järnefelt very delicately conveyed this request, putting the Nobel Committee in a difficult position - now they had to come up with compelling reasons not to give Leo Tolstoy the Nobel Prize. Ultimately, the prize for literature went to the Italian poet Giosué Carducci, whom no one knows now.

Chekhov and Gorky were Tolstoy's good friends. But relations with another classic of Russian literature, Ivan Turgenev, did not work out. And so much so that once, having quarreled, the writers almost challenged each other to a duel.

Interestingly, Count Tolstoy once lost one of the buildings of his Yasnaya Polyana estate at cards. His partner dismantled the property that had been transferred to him down to the stud and took everything away. The writer himself dreamed of buying this extension back, but never realized it.

Tolstoy was a true vegetarian and believed that eating animal meat was as unacceptable and immoral as cannibalism. He dreamed that someday all of humanity would begin to adhere to the same point of view and switch to plant foods.

Why, in his old age, Lev Nikolaevich practically abandoned shoes and walked barefoot remains unclear. Some researchers of the classic’s life and work believe that in this way he wanted to show his closeness to the people. Others believe that the writer tried to harden himself in a similar way.

In his lectures, Vladimir Nabokov used the following technique. He closed all the curtains in the room, achieving complete darkness. “In the firmament of Russian literature, this is Gogol,” and at the end of the hall a lamp flashed. “This is Chekhov,” another star lit up on the ceiling. “This is Dostoevsky,” Nabokov flipped the switch. “But this is Tolstoy!” - the lecturer threw open the drapery of the window, and the room was flooded with blinding sunlight.
He was the first to renounce copyright, was an opponent state system, and for rejecting religious authorities was excommunicated. He refused Nobel Prize, hated money and took the side of the peasants. No one had ever known him like this. His name is Leo Tolstoy.
Lev Nikolaevich left us 165,000 sheets of manuscripts, a complete collection of works in 90 volumes, and wrote 10 thousand letters. Throughout his life he searched for the meaning of life and universal happiness, which he found in in a simple word- good.
Everyone wants to change humanity, but no one thinks about how to change themselves.
Everything comes to those who know how to wait.
All happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Strong people are always simple.
The strength of the government rests on the ignorance of the people, and it knows this and therefore will always fight against enlightenment. It's time for us to understand this.
Here are collected for you the most interesting facts from the life and quotes of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy on the 185th anniversary of his birth.

Tolstoy plays the Russian folk game gorodki

[Gambler]

From his youth, the future genius of Russian literature was quite passionate. Once, in a card game with his neighbor, the landowner Gorokhov, Leo Tolstoy lost the main building of his inherited estate - the Yasnaya Polyana estate. The neighbor dismantled the house and took it 35 miles away as a trophy. It is worth noting that this was not just a building - it was here that the writer was born and spent his childhood years, it was this house that he remembered warmly all his life and even wanted to buy it back, but for one reason or another he did not.

Lev Nikolaevich with his wife Sofya Andreevna

Tolstoy with his family at a tea table in the park

[Big love]

Leo Tolstoy met his future wife Sophia Bers when she was seventeen and he was thirty-four years old. They lived together for 48 years and gave birth to 13 children. Sofya Andreevna was not only a wife, but also a faithful, devoted friend, an assistant in all matters, including literary ones. For the first twenty years they were happy. However, later they often quarreled, mainly because of the beliefs and lifestyle that Tolstoy defined for himself. As of 2010, there were a total of more than 350 descendants of Leo Tolstoy (including both living and deceased), living in 25 countries around the world.

Leo Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi

[Mentor Gandhi]

The great writer Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy had a huge interest in India and Vedic philosophy, much deeper than what was accepted by his contemporaries. Tolstoy’s ideas of non-resistance to evil through violence, set out in the writer’s works, such as “The Kingdom of God is within you,” had a strong influence on the young Mahatma Gandhi, who later led the nationalist movement of India and achieved its peaceful separation from England in 1947.

Lev Nikolaevich at work, Yasnaya Polyana

[War and Peace]

Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace" was initially called "1805", then "All's Well That Ends Well" and "Three Times". According to researchers, the novel was rewritten 8 times, and its individual episodes more than 25 times. At the same time, the author himself was skeptical about the work. In correspondence with the poet Afanasy Fet, the writer spoke about his book in the following way: “How happy I am... that I will never write verbose rubbish like “War” again.”

With grandchildren Sonya and Ilya in Krekshino

[Great Enlightener]

Tolstoy traveled abroad twice, in 1857 and 1860–1861, partly out of curiosity, but also with the aim of studying Western European educational methods. He came to the conclusion that Russian things were fundamentally wrong, especially the education of the peasantry. Tolstoy abandoned literary work and established a school for peasant children in Yasnaya Polyana. I also started publishing pedagogical magazine, where he preached his educational theories, and compiled several textbooks for primary education. Lev Nikolaevich is also known as the author of “ABC”, “New ABC” and “Books for Reading”, from which more than one generation of children learned to read.

Leo Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky and Anton Chekhov

[Tolstoy and other writers]

Tolstoy communicated with Chekhov and Gorky. He also knew Turgenev, but the writers failed to become friends - after a quarrel based on their beliefs, they did not speak for many years, and it almost came to a duel.

Lev Nikolaevich with his wife at the table

[Vegetarian]

In October 1885 L.N. Tolstoy was visited by William Frey, a writer, vegetarian, follower of the teachings of Auguste Comte. While communicating with V. Frey, Tolstoy first learned about the preaching of vegetarianism - the statement that the structure of a person, his teeth and intestines, proves that a person is not a predator. Lev Nikolaevich immediately accepted this teaching and, after realizing the knowledge he had gained, Tolstoy immediately abandoned meat and fish. Soon his daughters, Tatyana and Maria Tolstoy, followed his example.

Lev Nikolaevich in Crimea

[Tolstoyism]

Leo Tolstoy called himself a Christian until the end of his days, although by resolution of the Synod he was excommunicated Orthodox Church. This did not prevent him from becoming seriously interested in the occult in the 70s. Having disagreements with the church, Tolstoy created his own Christian teaching, which was called “Tolstoyism.” The teaching had many associates, one of whom was M. Bulgakov, author of the novel “The Master and Margarita.”

Tolstoy plays chess with M. S. Sukhotin

Quotes from Lev Nikolaevich:

Respect was invented in order to hide the empty place where love should be.

Shame and disgrace! The only thing you're afraid of is meeting Russians abroad.

Digging into our souls, we often unearth things that would lie there unnoticed.

If good has a cause, it is no longer good; if it has a consequence - a reward, it is also not good. Therefore, good is outside the chain of cause and effect.

There are no conditions to which a person cannot get used, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives the same way.

People who cannot do anything should make people, and the rest should contribute to their enlightenment and happiness.

I know only two real misfortunes in life: remorse and illness. And happiness is only the absence of these two evils.

We think how we will be thrown out of our usual path, that everything is lost; and here something new and good is just beginning. As long as there is life, there is happiness.

It’s amazing how complete the illusion that beauty is good can be. Beautiful woman says nonsense, you listen and don’t see the stupidity, but see the smart. She talks, does nasty things, and you see something cute. When she says neither nonsense nor nasty things, but is beautiful, then you are now convinced that she is a miracle, how smart and moral

There is no more or less in love.

Seize moments of happiness, force yourself to love, fall in love yourself! This is the only real thing in the world - the rest is all nonsense.

Simple life in Yasnaya Polyana

Leo Tolstoy with his granddaughter Tatyana Sukhotina

IN last years In his life, L.N. Tolstoy collected the most important thoughts of the greats and systematized them in the form of aphorisms for every day. Quotes from the book “Thoughts for Every Day” are a real treasure of eternal truths and brilliant thoughts.

Death of Leo Tolstoy

[The truth about death]

Tolstoy died during a trip he took after breaking up with his wife at a very old age. During the move, Lev Nikolaevich fell ill with pneumonia, got off at the nearest large station (Astapovo), where he died in the house of the station master on November 7, 1910.
In Russia, this was the first public funeral of a famous person that was not held according to the Orthodox rite (without priests and prayers, without candles and icons)
A few days ago, the “official website” of the writer was opened - it provides scientifically verified information about his life and work and, for the first time, rich stock materials were published. At the moment, 90 volumes of his works are being digitized, some of which can already be downloaded.