1828-1910

KATIE BROOKS

•Author•Moral thinker•Christian•Social Reformer•Russian

• Born into nobility, but parents died at an early age

• Parents moved the family to Moscow in 1836 so he could go to school

• Fathered a servant's child at age sixteen• Joined the army, war would later inspire

his writing

Early life

"Domestic happiness has swallowed me completely." 

•In 1862 Tolstoy married Sonya Behrs•They had thirteen children, but many died in child birth •Before they were married, he gave her his personal diaries to read so she would know him better•She was his personal secretary; she would copy and edit all of his manuscripts by hand

Marriage

• Wrote War and Peace with the help of his wife, Sonya Behrs• War and Peace was published in 1869• The book details the French invasion of Russia seen through

the views of an aristocratic family• Contains more philosophical writing than actual narrative• Would later become a movie

• Anna Karenina is the book Tolstoy calls his first “novel”• Published in the Russian Messenger in installments from

1873-1877• Tragic love story that received mixed reviews during its

time, but is now regarded as a great work of literature

Writing

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”

•Tolstoy chose to live in poverty which led to conflict with his wife•Did not himself a Christian Anarchist, but supported their main beliefs that God was the one supreme being humans should answer to and that government was a violent force •Believed in a non violent life, influenced Mahatma Gandhi’s thinking•Regarded the government as evil and corrupt, was against war•Supported the Boxers in the Boxer Rebellion and the Esperanto movement•In 1908 he wrote A letter to a Hindoo expaining how a non violent effort could free India from British colonial rule

Religious and Political beliefs