Tolstoy artık üniversite eğitimini, sonra da askerliği yarım bırakan ve ailesinden miras kalan çiftliğinin başına geçen, toprak sahibi genç bir yazardır. 1857'de ilk Avrupa seyahati sırasında topraklarında reform yapmayı, köylüleri özgürleştirmeyi ve onlara eğitim götürmeyi hayal eder. Öte yandan köy hayatı ve doğa bu arayışlar döneminin merkezindedir. Genç yazarın arayışlarının ve düşüncesinin üzerinde hep Rus tarihinin gölgesi vardır. 1856'da başladığı ve yarım bıraktığı, neredeyse roman ile tarihsel meti

By the time Sevastopol fell in August 1855, Tolstoy was well on the way to literary fame. His fellow writer Ivan Turgenev spoke for many when he told the author: "You have shown sufficient proof of your bravery, but the military life is not for you. Your weapon is the pen, not the sword." For the remainder of his long, incomparable career, Tolstoy used that weapon—forged in the fires of Sevastopol—to speak out for peace. Almost overnight, the aimless and dissolute young soldier had become a towering and hum

Tolstoy's story, "Three Deaths" (1858), has been condescended to by his greatest critics. This is what Bakhtin wrote: "This work, not large in size but nevertheless tri-leveled, is very characteristic of Tolstoy's monologic manner." Three deaths are portrayed in the story – the deaths of a rich noblewoman, a coachman, and a tree. Other story in the book: ‘Two Hussars' is about the impression that a count creates on people in a small town, and how many years later his son comes to the same place, but leave

The Kreutzer Sonata is and was Lev Tolstoy's most controversial work, which is saying a lot. Its protagonist reflects on how he came to kill his wife in a jealous rage, and concludes that sex is evil, there is no such thing as Christian marriage, and that everyone should aspire to be chaste even at the expense of the species. "Let it die out", said Tolstoy in defence of his story. "I am no more sorry for the two legged animal than I am for the ichthyosaurs etc. What I care about is that the true life should

A crucial theme in Leo Tolstoy's works is adultery. In Moscow, Anna Karenina meets the charming Vronsky, and together they indulge in an affair despite her husband Karenin. One might argue that Anna is selfish in her passionate romance, having to choose between Vronsky and her young son. Nevertheless, I can't help but pity her desperate actions as she is trapped in a marriage full of emotionless conventionality. The raw reality of the characters' lives is fascinating. Furthermore, Leo Tolstoy entertainingl

A crucial theme in Leo Tolstoy's works is adultery. In Moscow, Anna Karenina meets the charming Vronsky, and together they indulge in an affair despite her husband Karenin. One might argue that Anna is selfish in her passionate romance, having to choose between Vronsky and her young son. Nevertheless, I can't help but pity her desperate actions as she is trapped in a marriage full of emotionless conventionality. The raw reality of the characters' lives is fascinating. Furthermore, Leo Tolstoy entertainingl

A crucial theme in Leo Tolstoy's works is adultery. In Moscow, Anna Karenina meets the charming Vronsky, and together they indulge in an affair despite her husband Karenin. One might argue that Anna is selfish in her passionate romance, having to choose between Vronsky and her young son. Nevertheless, I can't help but pity her desperate actions as she is trapped in a marriage full of emotionless conventionality. The raw reality of the characters' lives is fascinating. Furthermore, Leo Tolstoy entertainingl

A crucial theme in Leo Tolstoy's works is adultery. In Moscow, Anna Karenina meets the charming Vronsky, and together they indulge in an affair despite her husband Karenin. One might argue that Anna is selfish in her passionate romance, having to choose between Vronsky and her young son. Nevertheless, I can't help but pity her desperate actions as she is trapped in a marriage full of emotionless conventionality. The raw reality of the characters' lives is fascinating. Furthermore, Leo Tolstoy entertainingl

Sweetness and light among shame and confusion. The greatest of all novels is Leo Tolstoy's final novel, Resurrection. Its effect upon a reader is immense and immediate. Even after eight readings of various translations, I continue to feel its spell and admire its complexity. It is the story of a man tormented by the injustices of the world about him, who is at the same time tortured by his own self-indulgence. A reader likes but fears him, since it is possible we may find our own weaknesses depicted in the

The three parts of Tolstoy's first fictional work were written separately and later combined into a single volume by publishers. There is a consistent voice throughout, and these works began to make a name for Tolstoy among other writers and with the Russian public. Resplendent with stories of the author's life in his childhood home of Iasnaia Poliana, these three works provide a good baseline for the philosophical arguments explored by Tolstoy in later works, and also a healthy understanding of his upbring

Hadji Murad was written in the same period and was Tolstoy's last major piece of fiction to be completed. In the year before his death his wife wrote in her diary: "I have done nothing but copy out Hadji Murad. It's so good! I simply couldn't tear myself away from it." It was not published until 1912. - The Guardian

There is no division between Tolstoy's art and his philosophy, just as there is no way to separate the fiction from the discussions about history in War and Peace. As Tolstoy himself famously declared, War and Peace was "not a novel" and "still less a historical chronicle," but "what the author wanted and was able to express, in the form in which it is expressed." Without a unifying theme, without a plot or clear ending, War and Peace was a calculated challenge to the genre of the novel and to narrative in

There is no division between Tolstoy's art and his philosophy, just as there is no way to separate the fiction from the discussions about history in War and Peace. As Tolstoy himself famously declared, War and Peace was "not a novel" and "still less a historical chronicle," but "what the author wanted and was able to express, in the form in which it is expressed." Without a unifying theme, without a plot or clear ending, War and Peace was a calculated challenge to the genre of the novel and to narrative in

There is no division between Tolstoy's art and his philosophy, just as there is no way to separate the fiction from the discussions about history in War and Peace. As Tolstoy himself famously declared, War and Peace was "not a novel" and "still less a historical chronicle," but "what the author wanted and was able to express, in the form in which it is expressed." Without a unifying theme, without a plot or clear ending, War and Peace was a calculated challenge to the genre of the novel and to narrative in

There is no division between Tolstoy's art and his philosophy, just as there is no way to separate the fiction from the discussions about history in War and Peace. As Tolstoy himself famously declared, War and Peace was "not a novel" and "still less a historical chronicle," but "what the author wanted and was able to express, in the form in which it is expressed." Without a unifying theme, without a plot or clear ending, War and Peace was a calculated challenge to the genre of the novel and to narrative in

"'My Confession' is in a very different style and genre of writing: it is a first-person account of Tolstoy's own spiritual journey, from his rejection of religion as a young man, through his rediscovery of the Orthodox church in middle age, to his final rejection of the myths and falsehoods of the established church (from the Trinity to the Eucharist) while embracing the simplest moral teachings of Jesus himself." -The New Yorker

The Death of Ivan Ilyich is probably his best-known work after War and Peace – and with good reason. It is one of the most lacerating works of literature ever written, a hard, pitiless stare into the abyss, not just of death, but of human nature. It is one of those works that's essential: not because reading it means you can tick off a cultural milestone (much in the way that people imagine that one day, perhaps in retirement, they can tick off War and Peace), but because without it you're missing part of t

"When winter starts to bite the story I think of is Tolstoy's "Master and Man" (1895). Winter cold is integral to this sophisticated parable on a concrete and spiritual level. It is an evocative tour de force: snow and biting winds gust from its pages. Its climactic event, the transferral of heat from one body to another, has a primal resonance."

Büyük Rus yazarı Leo Tolstoy, başyapıt niteliğindeki romanlarından başka çeşitli insanlık durumlarını başarıyla anlattığı uzun hikâyeler de kaleme almıştır. Mal tutkusu, ihtiras ve bencillik gibi psikolojik zaaflar, hayatta öngörülemez yıkımlara yol açan bazı insanlık durumlarının temel sebebidir. Tüccar Vasili Andreevich'i soğuk ve tipili bir gecede uşağı Nikita'yla yolculuğa sevk eden alışveriş tutkusu da, akıl, mantık ve gerçekçi davranabilme yetisini zayıflatarak insanı önünü göremez bir hale getiren bu