Leo Tolstoy

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Leo Tolstoy formally known as Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian author who is often called the greatest novelist of all times.

Born in 1828 in Yasnaya Polyana, he was tutored privately and then studied Oriental languages and law at the University of Kazan.

He is most well-known for War and Peace (written between 1863-9) and Anna Karenina (1874-8), however is also well known for The Kreutzer Sonata and his short stories.

In 1879 he began turning his attention to religion, distancing himself from his literary excesses. Anna Karenina, for him, was 'an abomination that no longer exists for me'. ^[1] He renounced the copyright of Karenina and his other pre-1880 works to his wife. A Confession reflected his new outlook on life and religion, becoming an extreme rationalist and moralist. Whilst his subsequent religious works gained him many followers and supporters, he was eventually excommunicated by the Russian Holy Synod in 1901.