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In full Lev Nikolayevich, Count Tolstoy Leo Tolstoy was born at Yasnya Polyana, in the Tula Province. His father’s family was new to Russia. The grand duke of Moscow, at the time, gave the name “Tolstoy” to the family. The word “tolstoy ....

Middle of Essay
.... Tolstoy settled in his birthplace of Yasnaja Polyana, where he started a school for peasant children. He investigated during further travels to Europe (1860-61) educational theory and practice, and published magazines and textbooks on the subject. In 1862 he married Sonya Andreyevna Bers (or Behrs). Between the years 1865 and 1869 appeared Tolstoy's major work, War and Peace, an epic tale depicting the story of five families against the background of Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Tolstoy's other masterpiece, Anna Karenina (1873-77), told a tragical story of a married woman, who follows her lover, but finally at a train station throws herself in fr ....