Leo Tolstoy: Author and Anarchist

Students of military history, as well as many grumbling high school students, know Leo Tolstoy from his voluminous masterpiece, War and Peace, which follows the lives of 580 characters. Although War and Peace established Tolstoy as a legend, he authored around 90 volumes including his second masterpiece, Anna Karenina.

In 1951 Tolstoy volunteered to go to war and became a commissioned officer in 1854. After being commissioned, Tolstoy served in an artillery regiment in the the Crimean War as a second lietenant. As a result of his performance, Tolstoy was nominated for the Cross of St George medal twice but he never received the medals. Tolstoy did not show up to receive the first medal and gave the second to another soldier.

Many of Tolstoy’s novels were inspired by events he witnessed while a soldier. He left the military in 1857 and traveled Europe. The European trips further transformed not only his writing but his political beliefs. In Paris, France, he witnessed a public execution which deeply disturbed him.

Although born into nobility Count Tolstoy always felt a connection to the commoners who surrounded him and was renowned for his generosity to them. Tolstoy returned to his estate in Yasnaya Polyana in 1861 and started a school for the boys of the serfs who served his family.

Since childhood Tolstoy had sought what he felt was the true path to God and the meaning of life. He discovered his new moral system in 1877 while reading Jesus’ sermon in Matthew 5. Tolstoy determined he needed to be a pacifist, nonviolent and nonresistant. He also believed he must become a pauper but his wife did not share this belief. Although he remained a Christian, he rejected all churches and authority.

His deep religious beliefs and nonviolence have been cited as influences by peaceful leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi. Gandhi named his second ashram (retreat) in South Africa Tolstoy Colony in honor of the author.

Tolstoy’s royalties made him an extremely rich man and his estate was divided among his wife and nine living children in 1892.