| Leo Tolstoy was a Russian writer and
moral philosopher, and one of the world's greatest novelists. He was born on
April 30,1828 and died on Feb. 14, 1910. His writings {{U}}(1)
{{/U}} influenced much of 20th-century literature, and his moral
{{U}}(2) {{/U}} helped shape the thinking of several important
{{U}}(3) {{/U}} and political leaders. Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy was born {{U}}(4) {{/U}} a family of noble landowners at his family {{U}}(5) {{/U}} south of Moscow. His early education came from tutors at home, but after the deaths of his parents in the 1830s, he was {{U}}(6) {{/U}} by relatives. He entered Kazan' University when he was 16 but preferred to educate himself independently, and in 1847 he {{U}}(7) {{/U}} his studies without finishing his degree. His next 15 years were very {{U}}(8) {{/U}}. Tolstoy returned to manage the family estate, with the determination to improve himself {{U}}(9) {{/U}} and physically. Alter less than two years, however, he abandoned rural life {{U}}(10) {{/U}} the pleasures of Moscow. In 1851 Tolstoy traveled to the Caucasus, a region then part of southern Russia, {{U}}(11) {{/U}} his brother was serving in the army. He was {{U}}(12) {{/U}} as a volunteer, serving with distinction in the Crimean War from 1853 to 1856. Tolstoy began his literary career during his army service, and his first work, the semiautobiographical short novel Childhood {{U}}(13) {{/U}} was published in 1852, brought him fame. A series of other stories {{U}}(14) {{/U}} , and when he left the army in 1856 he was acknowledged as a rising new talent in literature. Tolstoy achieved great literary fame during his lifetime, both in Russia and abroad. Thirty-one translations of his works {{U}}(15) {{/U}} in the year 1887 alone. The most significant part of Tolstoy's legacy may be his defense of the individual personality. |