Books of Tolstoy. Childhood, education, flowering of the writer's creativity

Tolstoy's books are known to any educated person in the whole world. Leo Nikolayevich is perhaps the most famous Russian writer and thinker. His eight-volume work "War and Peace" on one horrifies one of its kind, others admire the depth of detail. But this is an unequivocal classic, which rightfully belongs to all world tops of the best works. Even during his lifetime, Tolstoy's books made him a recognized master of Russian literature. His work influenced the development of realism as a trend, as well as European humanism.

Childhood and Education

Leo Tolstoy is a representative of the ancient nobility. They came from the companion of Peter the Great. Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828 in the hereditary estate on the maternal line - Yasnaya Polyana. After the death of his parents, the distant relative of Yergolskaya, and then the sister of Osten-Saken's father, first dealt with the education of the future writer and his brothers. It was at the latter in Kazan that the young Leva first thought about the need for personal self-improvement. All future books of Tolstoy will necessarily reflect this theme. Initially, for the training of Leo Tolstoy, German Roselman was invited. He was good-natured and very fond of the boy. In the story, which later wrote Tolstoy ("Childhood"), he portrayed his former teacher in the image of Karl Ivanovich. After Roselman, the education of the boy was done by the Frenchman Saint-Thomas (Saint-Jerome of the "Adolescence"). Like his three brothers, Tolstoy studied at Kazan University. The first year he was almost not engaged in science and only the second was carried away by the works of Montesquieu.

The first literary delights

In 1847, while on treatment at the hospital, Leo Tolstoy began to keep a diary. He did not stop this occupation until the end of his life. In it, like Benjamin Franklin, he set goals and tasks for self-development, noted successes and failures, analyzed his thoughts and actions. He never returned to the university. A major card loss in Moscow forced Leo to join the military service. After passing the exam, the future writer enrolled as a cadet in the Starogladov Cossack village. From here he first sent to the editorial office of the journal Sovremennik his first work - the autobiographical novel Childhood. If they did not accept it, then, with a high probability, Tolstoy's other books would never have appeared. He participated in many skirmishes with the highlanders, and then in the defense of Sevastopol. In 1965 Tolstoy left military service. He wrote War and Peace, as well as Anna Karenina. Most of all Tolstoy was interested in the development of the personality, the possibility of its moral improvement.

"War and Peace"

Work on the most famous work of the writer was preceded by work on the novel "The Decembrists". He returned to him many times throughout his life, but he did not finish it. Like all Tolstoy's other books, War and Peace is a novel about the moral growth of personality. This is a unique phenomenon in the world literature. It is widely represented all the layers of Russian society, a variety of characters and ages against the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars in 1805-1812. "War and Peace" is the writer's favorite creation, the crown of his work. In this work the genius of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was reflected in its fullness. The first excerpt from a multi-volume novel was published in the journal Russky Vestnik in 1865, which was immediately very warmly received. This large-scale work clearly reflected the philosophy of Tolstoy: "Steep historical turns - this is not the work of one person, but the result of teamwork."

Anna Karenina

Tolstoy more than once described War and Peace as a "book about the past." "Anna Karenina" was originally conceived by the writer as a work about modern life. And here there are no historical events. But the real human soul and its development is shown. In this novel there are no coincidences. Everything ends there, where it began, that is, on the railway. Along the way to Moscow to reconcile with his brother, Anna learns about Alexei Vronsky. Her neighbor in the compartment is his mother. All four meet on the platform and learn that under the wheels of the trip the watchman died. This "bad sign" warned of the imminent destruction of the family. The tragic love of the married Karenina and Vronsky is contrasted with the happy family life of Katya Shcherbatskaya and the close to the people of Konstantin Levin. The novel was first published in 1875 in the Russian Gazette.

Tolstoy's works are well known not only in the post-Soviet countries, but throughout the world. They are reread with love and each time with surprise find something new, one small detail that shifts the accent and gives another meaning. Therefore, Leo Tolstoy is a genius of Russian literature, whose books are relevant at any time.