was a russian writer of realistic fiction and philosophical essay. His works War and Peace and Anna Karenina represent, in their scope, breadth and vivd depiction of 19th-century Russian life and attitudes, a peak of realist fiction.
Tolstoy was born in Yasnaya Polyana, the family estate in the Tula region of Russia. The tolstoys were a well-known family of old Russian nobility. He was the fourth of five children of Count Nikolai llyich Tolstoy, a veteran of the 1812 french ivasion of Russia. Tolstoy's parents died when he was young, so he and his siblings were brought up by relatives. in 1844, he began studying law and oriental languages at Kazan University.
On september 23, 1862, tolstoy married Sophia Andreevna Bers, who was 16 years his junior and the daughter of a court physician. She was called Sonya, the Russian diminutive of Sofya, by her family and friends.
Tolstoys in one of the giants of Russian literature. His most famous works include the niveks War and Peace and Anna Karenina and novellas such as Hadji Murad and The Death of Ivan lliyich.
During his life, Tolstoy came to the conclusion that William Shakspeare was a bad dramatist and not a true artiste at all.
Tolstoy ecpkained his view in a critical essay on shakespeare written in 1903: "I remember the astonishment i felt when i firste read Shakespeare. I expected to recieve a powerful aesthetic pleasure, but having read, one ater the other, works regarded as his best: "king lear", "Romeo and Juliet", "Hamlet" and "Macbeth", not only did i fell no delight, but i felt an irresistible repulsion and tedium.
