Of a noble family, Tolstoy was born at Yasnaya Polyana, his parents' estate near Tula. Orphaned at nine, he was brought up by his aunts and privately tutored. At 16 he was sent to the Univ. of Kazan, where he studied languages and law. His classes bored him, and he left without a degree. He returned to his estate in 1849 and made several abortive attempts to aid and educate the serfs there. Tolstoy then began a profligate life in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
In 1851 Tolstoy followed his brother into army service in the Caucasus, where he wrote Childhood (1852). This became the first part of an autobiographical trilogy, which includes Boyhood (1854) and Youth (1857). In 1854 he took part in the defense of Sevastopol, descriptions of which were published in Nekrasov's journal The Contemporary, attracting considerable attention for their unvarnished picture of war. He left army service in 1855 and for several years divided his time between his estate and the literary circles of St. Petersburg. His diary of the period reveals his intense dissatisfaction with his libertine existence. He set up a school for peasant children on his estate, emphasizing a spontaneous approach to learning. When his school proved impractical, he visited Western Europe and there began to question the bases of modern civilization.
In 1862 Tolstoy married Sophia Andreyevna Bers, a young, well-educated woman who bore him 13 children. His candor concerning his infidelities and his harsh conception of her wifely duties contributed to the instability of their marriage. During this time he wrote The Cossacks (1863) and his masterpieces War and Peace (1862-69) and Anna Karenina (1873-76). War and Peace is a vast prose epic of the Napoleonic invasion of 1812. It illustrates Tolstoy's view of history as proceeding inexorably to its own ends, a view in which mankind appears as an accidental instrument. This thesis is conveyed by a stream of brilliantly conceived characters and incidents. Anna Karenina, his most popular work, concerns the tragedy of a woman's faith in romantic love.
About 1876 the doubts that had beset Tolstoy since youth, fed by his puritan temperament in conflict with his sensuality, gathered force. The result of his painful self-examination was his conversion to the doctrine of Christian love and acceptance of the principle of nonresistance to evil. The steps in his conversion are set forth in his Confession (1879). For the rest of his life Tolstoy dedicated himself to the practice and propagation of his new faith, which he expounded in a series of works, among them A Short Exposition of the Gospels (1881), What I Believe In (1882), What Then Must We Do? (1886), and The Law of Love and the Law of Violence (1908).
Tolstoy preached nonviolence and a Rousseauistic simplicity of life. He was an anarchist to the extent that he considered wrong all organizations based on the premise of force, including both the government and the church. A Tolstoy cult grew up in Russia and abroad, and his estate became a place of pilgrimage. Because of his prestige the government did not interfere with his activities, although the Russian Church excommunicated him in 1901.
Moral questions are central to Tolstoy's later works, which include the story "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" (1884), the drama The Power of Darkness (1886), and the novel The Kreutzer Sonata (1889). To his last period belongs the essay What Is Art? (1897-98), in which he argued for the moral responsibility of the artist to make his work understandable to most people; he denounced acknowledged masterpieces, including his own earlier works. His last works also include the novels Hadji Murad (1896-1904) and Resurrection (1899-1900) and the drama The Living Corpse (pub. 1911).
Tolstoy's insistence on putting his beliefs into practice and abandoning all earthly goods led to a permanent breach between himself and his wife. His children, with the exception of the youngest daughter, Alexandra, sided with their mother. In 1910, at 83, Tolstoy left home with Alexandra without a specific destination. He caught a chill and died at the railroad stationmaster's house at Astapovo.
Tolstoy's works are available in many English translations. See also the reminiscences of his wife, Sophia (tr. 1928 and 1936); his children Sergei (tr. 1926), Tatiana (tr. 1951), Ilya (tr. 1971), and Alexandra (tr. 1953, repr. 1973); his friends M. Gorky (tr. 1920), A. B. Goldenweizer (tr. 1923, repr. 1969), V. Bulgakov (tr. 1971), and V. G. Chertkov (tr. 1922, repr. 1973); biographies by A. Maude (1931), E. J. Simmons (1946), and H. Troyat (tr. 1967); collections of critical essays, ed. by R. E. Matlaw (1967) and by H. Gifford (1972); I. Berlin, The Hedgehog and the Fox (1953); W. L. Shirer, Love and Hatred: The Troubled Marriage of Leo and Sonya Tolstoy (1994).
See S. B. Drury, The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss (1987).
See his memoirs (1928, tr. 1937); biography by his son, the actor Walter Slezak (1962).
See biography by K. K. Burton (1962); studies by L. P. Wallace (1966) and J. Watzlawik (1966); E. Gilson, ed., The Church Speaks to the Modern World (tr. 1954; con aining nine encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII); E. T. Gargan, ed., Leo XIII and the Modern World (1961).
See biography by N. Z. Davis (2006).
See his Communications of an Advertising Man (1961) and 100 Leo's (1995).
See A. H. Friedlander, Leo Baeck, Teacher of Theresienstadt (1968).
(born Feb. 11, 1898, Budapest, Hung., Austria-Hungary—died May 30, 1964, La Jolla, Calif., U.S.) Hungarian-born U.S. physicist. He taught at the University of Berlin (1922–33), then fled to England (1934–37) and the U.S., where he worked at the University of Chicago from 1942. In 1929 he established the relation between entropy and transfer of information, and in 1934 he helped develop the first method of separating isotopes of artificial radioactive elements. He helped Enrico Fermi conduct the first sustained nuclear chain reaction and construct the first nuclear reactor. In 1939 he was instrumental in establishing the Manhattan Project, in which he helped develop the atomic bomb. After the first use of the bomb, he promoted the peaceful uses of atomic energy and the control of nuclear weapons, founding the Council for a Livable World. In 1959 he received the Atoms for Peace Award.
Learn more about Szilard, Leo with a free trial on Britannica.com.
![]()
Leo XIII, 1878
Learn more about Leo XIII with a free trial on Britannica.com.
(born Dec. 1, 1475, Florence—died Dec. 1, 1521, Rome) Pope (1513–21), one of the most extravagant of the Renaissance pontiffs. The second son of Lorenzo de' Medici, he was educated at his father's court in Florence and at the University of Pisa. He was named a cardinal in 1492, and in 1494 he was exiled from Florence by the revolt of Girolamo Savonarola. He returned in 1500 and soon consolidated Medici control of the city. As pope, he became a patron of the arts, accelerating construction of St. Peter's Basilica. He strengthened the papacy's political power in Europe, but his lavish spending depleted his treasury. He discouraged reforms at the fifth Lateran Council, and he responded inadequately to the Reformation, excommunicating Martin Luther in 1521 and failing to address the need for change, a lapse that signaled the end of the unified Western church.
Learn more about Leo X with a free trial on Britannica.com.
(born 1002, Egisheim, Alsace, Upper Lorraine—died April 19, 1054, Rome; feast day April 19) Pope (1049–54). He was consecrated bishop of Toul in 1027. He was named pope by Emperor Henry III but insisted on election by the clergy and people of Rome. His efforts to strengthen the papacy and eradicate clerical marriage and simony laid the foundation for the Gregorian reform movement. His assertion of papal primacy and his military campaign against the Normans in Sicily (1053) alienated the Eastern church. His representatives excommunicated the patriarch of Constantinople. Though Leo had already died, their act triggered the Schism of 1054.
Learn more about Leo IX, Saint with a free trial on Britannica.com.
(born circa 675, Germanicia, Commagene, Syria—died June 18, 742, Constantinople) Byzantine emperor (717–41), founder of the Isaurian dynasty. A high-ranking military commander, he seized the throne with the help of Arab armies who hoped to subjugate the Byzantine Empire. He then successfully defended Constantinople against the Arabs (717–718). Having crowned his son Constantine V coemperor (720), Leo used his son's marriage to cement an alliance with the Khazars. Victory over the Arabs at Akroïnos (740) was crucial in preventing their conquest of Asia Minor. Leo issued an important legal code, the Ecloga (726). His policy of iconoclasm (730), which banned the use of sacred images in churches, engendered a century of conflict within the empire and further strained relations with the pope in Rome.
Learn more about Leo III with a free trial on Britannica.com.
(born 4th century, Tuscany?—died Nov. 10, 461, Rome; Western feast day November 10, Eastern feast day February 18) Pope (440–461). He was a champion of orthodoxy and a Doctor of the Church. When the monk Eutyches of Constantinople asserted that Jesus Christ had only a single divine nature, Leo wrote the Tome, which established the coexistence of Christ's human and divine natures. Leo's teachings were embraced by the Council of Chalcedon (451), which also accepted his teaching as the “voice of Peter.” Leo dealt capably with the invasions of barbaric tribes, persuading the Huns not to attack Rome (452) and the Vandals not to sack the city (455). Leo was also an exponent of the precept of papal primacy, and his personal example and letters and sermons contributed greatly to the growth of papal authority.
Learn more about Leo I, Saint with a free trial on Britannica.com.
(Latin: “Lion”) In astronomy, the constellation lying between Cancer and Virgo; in astrology, the fifth sign of the zodiac, governing approximately the period July 23–August 22. Its symbol, a lion, has been associated with the Nemean lion slain by Heracles. The Nemean lion was considered invulnerable because its skin was impervious to arrows, but Heracles battered it to death with a club. Zeus put the lion in the sky as a constellation.
Learn more about Leo with a free trial on Britannica.com.
(born Feb. 24, 1831, Berlin-Charlottenburg, Prussia—died Feb. 6, 1899, near Crossen-an-der-Oder, Ger.) German soldier and politician. A distinguished soldier, he served as chief of the admiralty (1883–88). He succeeded Otto von Bismarck as Germany's imperial chancellor (1890–94) and Prussian minister president (1890–92). His achievements included an Anglo-German agreement concerning spheres of influence in Africa, commercial treaties with Austria, Romania, and other states, and the reorganization of the German army.
Learn more about Caprivi, (Georg) Leo, count von with a free trial on Britannica.com.
(born Nov. 14, 1863, Ghent, Belg.—died Feb. 23, 1944, Beacon, N.Y., U.S.) Belgian-born U.S. industrial chemist. A teacher of chemistry in Belgium, he immigrated to the U.S. in 1889. He invented Velox, the first commercially successful photographic paper, which could be developed under artificial light, and sold the rights to George Eastman for $1 million in 1899. His search for a substitute for shellac led to the discovery in 1909 of a method of forming a hard thermosetting plastic, which he named Bakelite, produced from formaldehyde and phenol. His discovery helped found the modern plastics industry.
Learn more about Baekeland, Leo (Hendrik) with a free trial on Britannica.com.
(born May 23, 1873, Lissa, Posen, Prussia—died Nov. 2, 1956, London, Eng.) Prussian-Polish rabbi, spiritual leader of German Jewry during the Nazi period. After earning his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Berlin, he served as a rabbi in Silesia, Düsseldorf, and Berlin, becoming the leading liberal Jewish religious thinker of his time. He synthesized Neo-Kantianism and rabbinic ethics in The Essence of Judaism (1905) and considered the Christian gospels as rabbinic literature in The Gospel as a Document of Jewish Religious History (1938). He negotiated with the Nazis to buy time for the German Jews; finally arrested, he was sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where he wrote and lectured on Plato and Immanuel Kant. Liberated in 1945 on the day before he was to be executed, he settled in England.
Learn more about Baeck, Leo with a free trial on Britannica.com.