The introduction of Tolstoys biography

Let's remember the main thing and designate what you should know about the beginning of the writer’s path. He was born and spent most of his life in the birth estate - Yasnaya Polyana.

The attachment to the house and the estate is of great importance for both the life path and for Tolstoy's work; Distrust of big cities and urban civilization is read in many of its texts. Since the year, the sister of his father, Pelageya Yushkov, was brought up by children, whom Tolstoy recalled warmth. In the year, he entered the prestigious Kazan University, but it did not work out with a formal education: after the first course in the category of eastern literature, he failed exams, switched to legal, but also threw it after two courses.

At home, he, nevertheless, took up self -education and even then became interested in pedagogy. The first school for peasant children in Yasnaya Polyana opened already in the year. At the same time, he takes the first steps in the literary profession and in OM publishes the story “Childhood” in “Contemporary”. In years, he participated in the battles of the Crimean War and continued to write - this is how Sevastopol Stories appeared.

From the war, Tolstoy returned to a rather successful young author, which was well accepted by literary Petersburg. Since that time, we can talk about Tolstoy's literary maturity: it is distanced by a secular career and literary life and is working on the “war and the world”. In diaries, he records every misconduct and ruthlessly judges himself. I am almost an ignoramus.

What I know, I learned that somehow myself, in fragments, without connection, to no avail and so little. I am unchanged, indecisive, unstable, stupidly conceited and dust, like all spaneric people. I'm not brave. I am inaccurate in life and so lazy that idleness has become an almost irresistible habit for me. I am smart, but my mind has never been thoroughly tested for anything.

I have neither the mind of the practical, nor the mind of secular, nor the mind of business. I am honest, i.e. I am so ambitious and so little feeling was satisfied that often, I am afraid, I can choose the first between fame and virtue, if I had to choose from them. Yes, I am indestructible; That's why I am proud in myself, but bashful and timid in the light. ” Tolstoy’s work can be conditionally divided into four large periods.

It is worth remembering that well -known published works are only the peak of the iceberg: behind each of them are mountains of drafts and incomplete projects.