Almanac of Story Tellers: Leo Tolstoy

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of  September 9th

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    It is the 252nd day of the year, leaving 113 days remaining in 2022.

 

  On this date in 1828, the Russian author Leo Tolstoy was born.

    One of the elite writers of Russian literature, Tolstoy is generally regarded as among the best novelists on the world stage. He told sprawling, detailed stories, mixing fiction with history and philosophy, and sometimes throwing in a bit of autobiography.

    But he also told shorter, tighter tales that explored the social and political issues of his times. His novels and stories have been described as greater that a work of art; they are a part of life.

 

    Born into Russian nobility on an estate some 120 miles south of Moscow, Tolstoy lived and wrote there most of his life. His early novels, including Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth, used autobiographical details to show the alienation between peasants and the wealthy landowners -- such as himself and his family.

    But as he aged and developed his belief in anarchy and the nonviolent resistance to evil, his writings became more worldly and complex.

    Although Tolstoy himself refused to call it a novel, War and Peace is often seen as a classic of the genre, but moreso. It a novel of the Napoleonic wars, told through the biographies of fictional characters, with a discussion of Tolstoy's views of the philosophy of history. Some of the dialogue between characters is written in French. As befitting his ideas of pacifism, its combat scenes show sheer chaos.

    Tolstoy's second great novel, Anna Karenina, is also long and complex. It focuses on themes of desire, love, family, betrayal, and Russian society. Its classic opening line foreshadows its tale: "All happy families resemble each other; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

    His other books are novels, plays, essays, shorter stories and novellas, which include The Death of Ivan Ilyich, about a Russian judge's suffering and death from a terminal illness.

    Tolstoy died in 1910.