Author of great works such as Guerra y Paz and Anna Karenina , León Tolstoi was a famous writer especially for his novels and stories that portrayed the life of the Russian people during the time of the Tsars, but also for his essays, in which he positioned himself in relation to the civil and ecclesiastical powers and wanted to highlight the great stakes of civilization. We review below the biography of Leo Tolstoi, as well as his work and his best phrases.
Who was Leon Tolstoi ?: Biography, work and the best phrases
Leo Tolstoy was born on August 28, 1828 in the domain of Yasnaya-Polyana, near Tula (Russia), in an old family belonging to the Russian nobility. He loses his parents very soon and is raised by an aunt. Although his university career was not very good, he became interested in literature. During his adolescence, he discovered the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire that confirmed his passion. His first short story, Infancia, was published in 1852 and was a great success . In this autobiographical line, he writes Adolescence and Youth. Enlisted in the army a few years before and after having lived through the conflicts in the Caucasus, he decided to leave it in 1856 to travel to Europe . When he returned to his hometown, he founded a school where he taught . In 1862 he married Sophie Behrs, a young woman sixteen years his junior with whom he had thirteen children.
León Tolstoi published in 1869 one of the main novels of his work, Guerra y paz, which he dedicated to the Napoleonic conflicts. Its international success will be reinforced by Anna Karenina, who appeared in 1877 . The day after this publication, Tolstoy decided to convert to Christianity. He published new works that bear witness to his latest religious considerations (Resurrection, 1899).
Through his books that combine philosophical and moral reflections, Tolstoy advocates anti-materialism and defends non-violence . A committed writer, he also takes sides against all forms of injustice, denounces religious and social hypocrisy and fights to improve the condition of the servants . Rising against the attitude of the Orthodox Church, which is complacent about war and the death penalty, the writer was excommunicated in 1901 . Leo Tolstoy wrote until 1904 . He died of pneumonia on November 20, 1910 at a train station in Astapovo, Russia.
The books of Leo Tolstoy
After three years of fighting in the Caucasus, Leon Tolstoi, in his twenties, decides to write his childhood memories. In 1852, he published his first novel Childhood . Building on its success, the work was followed by two other books: Adolescence (1854), then Youth (1855) . However, his promising beginnings as a writer did not convince Leo Tolstoy to abandon his military career. In 1854, he participated in the battles of Sevastopol. Particularly painful and murderous, this episode inspired him with the Tales of Sevastopol, a collection of three stories describing his experience of the war. From then on, Tolstoy devoted himself to writing. In 1859, he published Conjugal Happiness, followed by The Cossacks (1863) and, finally, War and Peace (1865-1869), a work that portrays the history of Russia in the time of Napoleon with great realism. His ability to accurately transcribe the life of the Russian people in the time of the Tsars earned him considerable renown.
After this immense success, Tolstoy wrote some short stories, short stories in a simple and popular style intended for primary education. A few years later (1873-1877), he published another great novel, Anna Karenina, which tells the story of adulterous love and the tragic fate of Anna , a young woman from the Russian nobility. Then, at the height of his glory, Tolstoy’s religious and social concerns were heightened. In 1885 he composed The Death of Ivan Iliitch, followed in 1889 by La Sonata a Kreutzer , Amo y Criado (1895) and finally El Diablo published posthumously in 1911. Rich in psychological analysis and moral reflections, his works manage to probe the essence of beings and the things. In 1899 he published Resurrection, a long novel that condenses all his social and philosophical theory . Considered hostile to the Orthodox Church, this book earned him excommunication by decree of the Holy Synod.
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Between 1864 and 1869, Leo Tolstoy published his greatest masterpiece: War and Peace. Published in serial form in The Russian Messenger newspaper , the novel tells the story of the Russian people at the time of the invasion of Russia by Napoleon’s troops in 1812 . With a large number of characters, Tolstoy paints a historical and realistic portrait of all the social classes of the country during this critical period in the national life of the country. Imbued with the many personal and philosophical reflections of the author, the work questions the place of man in history and violence in human life, but it also evokes many themes such as the question of servitude and war. As soon as it appeared, the novel aroused the enthusiasm of the public and critics. Considered one of the main novels of Russian literature both for the richness and realism of its details and for the psychological descriptions of its characters, War and Peace, which was a dazzling success, definitely enshrined the glory of Leo Tolstoy.
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
During the year 1869, and despite the success of his titanic work War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy went through an existential crisis . Inhabited by a feeling of emptiness, the author dreams of living a simpler life and getting closer to people. In the early 1870s, the reading of Alexander Pouchkine’s texts, as well as a tragic news story, stimulated the writer’s imagination. In 1872, a young woman named Anna Stepanovna, disowned by her lover in favor of another lover, commits suicide by throwing herself under the wheels of a freight train. Inspired by this gripping drama, Leo Tolstoy wrote his novel Anna Karenina. Published in 1877, the play tells the story of Anna Karenina, a young woman from St. Petersburg high society married to Alexis Karenin and the mother of a child. In love with Count Vronsky, met by chance, she succumbs to temptation and leaves her husband and son to follow her lover . The tragic ending of the story that deals with the theme of adultery, evokes the destructive role of passion. A true social fresco of Russia at the end of the 19th century, Tolstoy’s work takes a critical look at the Russian nobility of his time, later divided between modernism and tradition. Juxtaposing philosophical considerations with romantic adventures, Tolstoy’s work is praised as soon as it is published. Knowing great success, it also marks the triumphal entry of Russian literature into European culture.
The best phrases of Leo Tolstoy
Tolstoy’s literary work has left us phrases and passages worth remembering, but the author himself also had reflections on life that are worth knowing.
- “Sometimes it happens that it is discussed because it is not possible to understand what our interlocutor tries to demonstrate.”
- “When you love a person you love him as he is, even if it is not as you would like him to be.”
- “Doing something without understanding it was a dishonest action, a falsehood.”
- “All the diversity, the beauty, the charm of life, are made up of lights and shadows.”
- “The opinion of the stupid must be valued: they are in the majority.”
- “Twenty years old those who are now children will read my writings, and that reading will make them laugh, cry and love life, I would dedicate all my time and all my efforts to that task.”
- “Death is nothing more than a change of mission.”
- “To mistreat animals is to show cowardice and ignorance.”
- “True love always supposes the renunciation of one’s own personal comfort.”
- “There is only one way to be happy: to live for others.”
- “The secret of happiness is not always doing what you want, but always wanting what you do.”
