Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828 into a wealthy Russian noble family. He grew up on Yasnaya Polyana, the country estate he would love and quarrel with for the rest of his life. His parents died when he was a boy, so relatives raised him. He tried university and gambled his way into debt, then joined the army and saw war in the Crimea. He had already begun publishing before the war, and the fighting he saw at Sevastopol deepened his refusal to look away from suffering.