In 1852, Tolstoy submitted the sketch to The Contemporary, the most popular journal of the time. In it, he wrote of his fondest childhood memories. Early Worksĭuring quiet periods while Tolstoy was a junker in the Army, he worked on an autobiographical story called Childhood. Following his stint as a junker, Tolstoy transferred to Sevastopol in Ukraine in November 1854, where he fought in the Crimean War through August 1855. Nikolay convinced Tolstoy to join the Army as a junker, south in the Caucasus Mountains, where Nikolay himself was stationed. He did, however, succeed in pouring his energies into keeping a journal - the beginning of a lifelong habit that would inspire much of his fiction.Īs Tolstoy was flailing on the farm, his older brother, Nikolay, came to visit while on military leave. His stab at becoming the perfect farmer soon proved to be a failure. He attempted to lead the serfs, or farmhands, in their work, but he was too often absent on social visits to Tula and Moscow. He returned to his parents' estate, where he made a go at becoming a farmer. Prone to partying in excess, Tolstoy ultimately left the University of Kazan in 1847, without a degree. His low grades forced him to transfer to an easier law program. There, Tolstoy failed to excel as a student. In 1843, he enrolled in an Oriental languages program at the University of Kazan. Tolstoy received his primary education at home, at the hands of French and German tutors.

Although Tolstoy experienced a lot of loss at an early age, he would later idealize his childhood memories in his writing. When the aunt passed away, Tolstoy and his siblings moved in with a second aunt, in Kazan, Russia. When their father, Count Nikolay Tolstoy, died just seven years later, their aunt was appointed their legal guardian. When Tolstoy's mother died in 1830, his father's cousin took over caring for the children. On September 9, 1828, writer Leo Tolstoy was born at his family's estate, Yasnaya Polyana, in the Tula Province of Russia. One of his most successful later works was The Death of Ivan Ilyich. He continued to write fiction throughout the 1880s and 1890s. In 1873, Tolstoy set to work on the second of his best-known novels, Anna Karenina. In the 1860s, Russian author Leo Tolstoy wrote his first great novel, War and Peace.

War & peace leo tolstoy