Tolstoi,
Lev Nikolaevich (1828-1910), writer, was born 9 September 1828 at Yasnaya
Polyana, his family’s estate, 200 km south of Moscow. He was the fourth of five
children born to Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoi (died 1837) and Mariya
Nikolaevna, née Princess Volkonskaya (died 1830). In 1847 Tolstoi received
Yasnaya Polyana in the distribution of his parents’ property. Thereafter,
although occasionally absent (especially in the 1850s) for extended periods, he
maintained the estate as his home. In 1862 he married Sofiya Andreevna Bers
(born 1844), the daughter of a Moscow physician. Thirteen children were born of
the marriage, ten of whom survived infancy. Tolstoi left Yasnaya Polyana for
the last time in November 1910. He contracted pneumonia on his journey and died
of heart failure on 20 November, aged 82, in the stationmaster’s house at
Astapovo (today called “Lev Tolstoi”).
Educated
and cared for by tutors, Tolstoi’s early childhood was typical for his social
class. He showed a gift for languages and a fondness for literature, including
fairy tales, the poems of Pushkin, and the Bible, especially the Old Testament
story of Joseph. After their father’s death the children passed through the
hands of a number of female relatives, finally (1841) being sent to five with
an aunt in the provincial city of Kazan. In 1844 Tolstoi enrolled in the local
university and began a notably unsuccessful career as a student. He did,
however, develop a keen interest in moral philosophy. He steeped himself in the
writings of Rousseau. He later listed Dickens, Schiller, Pushkin, Lermontov, D.
V. Grigorovich, Turgenev’s A Sportsman’s Sketches, and Laurence Sterne,
especially A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, as also having made
a “great impression” on him as a young man.
