Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy was one of the world-famous figures.He was an author,reformer and moral on two of his novels,"War and Peace"and "Anna" Karenina". there are no readers in the world that do not know his name and his two great novels.

Leo Tolstoy was born into an old aristocratic family on their estate in Russia on 9th September 1828.His birth-place is about 160 kilometers south of Moscow.

Tolstoy's parents died when he was a child.The orphan boy was brought up by a distant cousin.

He had his early education at home taught by private tutors.At the age of 16 he entered the university, but he was diappointed with the formal instruction there.He left the university befor graduating,when was 19, to manage his estate and conduct his own education.At the age of 23 he enlisted in the army.He wrote part of a semiautobiographical tale, "Chilhood", "Boyhood and Youth" while he was serving in the army.

At the age of 34,Tolstoy married the daughter of a Moscow physician and settled down to the life of a gentleman farmer who was an author as well.

Tolstoy wrote many noverls from 1851 to 1862.In 1863 he began to write his masterpiece,"War and Peace", often called the greated novel in world literature. The novel is a panorama of Russian society on the eve of, and during the war against Napoleon. It took him more than six years to complete this very great novel. In 1875-1877 he wrote another great novel, "Anna Karenina". It is a story of adultery and of happiness in an aristocratic setting. The two novels "War and Peace" and "anna Karenina",made Tolstoy's worldwide fame as a writter of fiction" They are considered the greatest ever written.

Tolstoy was mpt ja[[u woth his family life.He tried to lead a simple life,but his wife did not want to share this view.In "Anna Karenina" he wrote,"All happy" unhappy in its own way'> Unable to lead a simple life with the hostile atmosphere within his family,He secretly left home.his wife and children.Ten days later on November 20,1910 he died of pneumonia at a small railway station.

His birthplace and houses he used to stay in have become places of pilgrimage.