He was too sentimental, so, touched easily by any event. He took everything seriously and studied minutely. Once, he was sitting on the roof of his house, he saw the birds flying. He overwhelmed by it. In his emotion, he found himself a bird and jumped from there flapping his both hands. But he fell on the rose bush that prevented his life.
Such a sentimental and overwhelming fellow was Leo Tolstoy - one of the greatest novelists of the world. He is best known for his realistic novel. He was born on September 9, 1828 in Yasnaya Pollyanna, Russia. The Tolstoys are a well-known family of Old Russian Nobility, and he was connected to the grandest families fo Russian aristocracy. His parents died when he was young, and he and his siblings were raised by relatives. In 1844, he began studying law and Oriental languages at Kazan University, where teachers described him as both "unable and unwilling to learn." He left university in the middle of his studies, returned to Yasnaya Polyana, and spent much of his time in Moscow and St. peters burg. In 1851, after contracting heavy gambling debts, he accompanied his elder brother to the Caucasus and joined the Russian army. He began writing literature around this time.
But, during his 1857 visit, when Tolstoy witnessed a public execution in Paris, it turned him to the non-violent and spiritual anarchist. His European trip in 1860-61 shaped both his political and literary transformation when he met victor Hugo, whose literary talents inspired him and he widely praised as well. Tolstoy's political philosophy was also influenced by a March 1861 visit to French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, then living in exile under an assumed name in Brussels.
Tolstoy served as a second lieutenant in an artillery regiment during the Crimean War, recounted in his Sevastopol Sketches. His experiences in battle helped to develop his pacifism, and gave him material for realistic depiction of the horrors of war in his later work. his fiction consistently attempts to convey realistically the Russian society in which he lived. War and Peace and The Cossack are some examples of it. But he not only drew the theme and characters from his experience of life but also created in his own image.
Tolstoy was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer's spiritual thought and morality. So, after reading passages of Schopenhauer ethical chapters, Tolstoy, the Russian nobleman, chose poverty and denial fo the will. Tolstoy's Christian beliefs were also based on the Sermon on the Mount, and particularly on the phrase about turn the other cheek, which he saw as a justification for pacifism, nonviolence and nonresistance. He believed that a true Christian could find lasting happiness by striving for inner self-perfection through following the Great Commandment of loving one's neighbor and God rather than looking outward to the Church or state for guidance and meaning. His belief in nonresistance (nonviolence) is another distinct attribute of his philosophy based on Christ's teachings. By directly influencing Mahatma Gandhi with this idea through his work The Kingdom of God is Within You, Tolstoy has had a huge influence on the nonviolent resistance movement to this day. He believed that the aristocracy was a burden on the poor, and that the only solution to how we live together is through anarchism.
Tolstoy a letter wrote in 1908 to an Indian newspaper entitled "Letter to a Hindu". "The Kingdom of God is within You" had convinced Gandhi to abandon violence and espouse nonviolent resistance. But the correspondence between Tolstoy and Gandhi would only last a year. Besides non-violent resistance, the two men shared a common belief in the merits of vegetarianism, too. In 1904, during the Russo-Japanese War, Tolstoy condemned the war and wrote to the Japanese Buddhist priest Soyen Shaku in a failed attempt to make a joint pacifist statement.
Tolstoy was a wealthy member of the Russian nobility. He came to believe that he was undeserving of his inherited wealth, and was renowned among the peasantry for his generosity. He would frequently return to his country estate with vagrants whom he felt needed a helping hand, and would often dispense large sums of money to street beggars while on trips to the city. But such a generous figure died by pneumonia at Apostasy station in 1910. The millions of people attended his funerals. the police tried to limit access to his funeral procession, but thousands of peasants lined the streets at his funeral.
Tolstoy was one of the giants of 19th century Russian literature. His most famous works include the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and many shorter works, including the novellas The Death of lvan Ilyich and Hadji Murad. His contemporaries paid him lofty tributes. Dostoevsky thought him the greatest of all living novelists while Gustavus Flaubert gushed: "What an artist and wht a psychologist!". Similarly, Virginia Woolf went on to declare him "Greatest of all novelists!", and James Joyce noted: "He is never dull, never stupid, never tried, never pedantic, never theatrical!". Thomas Mann wrote: "Seldom did art work so much like nature".
Tolstoy's further talents as essayist, dramatist, and educational reformer made him the most influential member of the aristocratic Tolstoy family. His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures and Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
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