Leo Tolstoy

Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy September1601601828 November1601601910, usually referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time.

Tolstoy was born at Yasnaya Polyana, a family estatekilometres southwest of Tula, Russia and 200 kilometers south of Moscow. The Tolstoys were a wellknown family of old Russian nobility, tracing their ancestry to a mythical Lithuanian noble Indris. He was the fourth of five children of Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy, a veteran of the Patriotic War of 1812, and Countess Mariya Tolstaya . Tolstoys 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. His teachers described him as both unable and unwilling to learn. Tolstoy left the university in the middle of his studies, returned to Yasnaya Polyana and then spent much of his time in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. In 1851, after running up heavy gambling debts, he went with his older brother to the Caucasus and joined the army. It was about this time that he started writing.

Source: Wikipedia