LEO TOLSTOY BIRTHDAY 2024 MessageFR DR M D THOMAS DIRECTOR IHPS NEW DELHI

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#leotolstoy #leotolstoyquotes • Leo Tolstoy Birthday (09 September 2024) Message • by Fr Dr M. D. Thomas, Director, Institute of Harmony and Peace Studies, New Delhi • Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential authors of all time. Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was his name in the original. He was born into an aristocratic family on 09 September 1828 and died on 20 November 1910. • Tolstoy’s notable works include the novels ‘War and Peace’ and ‘Anna Karenina’. They are often cited as pinnacles of realist fiction. They are two of the greatest books of all time. He first achieved literary acclaim in his twenties with his semi-autobiographical trilogy, Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth, and Sevastopol Sketches. • His fiction includes dozens of short stories such as ‘After the Ball’, and several novellas such as ‘The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Family Happiness and Hadji Murat’. He also wrote plays and essays concerning philosophical, moral and religious themes. Tolstoy is considered one of the giants of Russian literature. • His work ‘The Kingdom of God Is Within You’ contains ideas on nonviolent resistance to evil and had profound impact on pivotal 20th-century figures as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr and Ludwig Wittgenstein. He also became a dedicated advocate of Georgism, the economic philosophy of Henry George, which he incorporated into his writing, particularly in his novel ‘Resurrection’. • Tolstoy received praise from countless authors and critics, both during his lifetime and after. Virginia Woolf called Tolstoy ‘the greatest of all novelists’ and Gary Saul Morson referred to War and Peace as the greatest of all novels. Tolstoy never having won a Nobel Prize was a major Nobel Prize controversy, and remains one. • Tolstoy was born at Yasnaya Polyana, a family estate 12 kilometres southwest of Tula, and 200 kilometres south of Moscow. He was the fourth of five children of Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy and Princess Mariya Tolstaya. His mother died when he was two and his father when he was nine. Tolstoy and his siblings were brought up by relatives. • His fiction consistently attempts to convey realistically the Russian society in which he lived. The Cossacks describes the Cossack life and people through a story of a Russian aristocrat in love with a Cossack girl. Tolstoy not only drew from his own life experiences but also created characters in his own image. • Richard Pevear, who translated many of Tolstoy’s works, said of Tolstoy’s signature style, “His works are full of provocation and irony, and written with broad and elaborately developed rhetorical devices.” • War and Peace is generally thought to be one of the greatest novels ever written, remarkable for its dramatic breadth and unity. Its vast canvas includes 580 characters, many historical with others fictional. • Gustave Flaubert, on reading a translation of War and Peace, exclaimed, “What an artist and what a psychologist!” The 19th-century British poet and critic Matthew Arnold opined that “A novel by Tolstoy is not a work of art but a piece of life.” • Nabokov called Tolstoy the “greatest Russian writer of prose fiction”. Critic Harold Bloom called Hadji Murat “my personal touchstone for the sublime in prose fiction, to me the best story in the world.” When William Faulkner was asked to list what he thought were the three greatest novels, he replied: “Anna Karenina, Anna Karenina, and Anna Karenina”. Critic Gary Saul Morson referred to War and Peace as the greatest of all novels. • ‘What I Believe, The Kingdom of God is Within You and Tolstoy’s Bible’ are some of his writings on Christianity. He was highly impressed by the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, especially turning the other cheek when someone slaps on one. This principle of extreme non-violence inspired Mahatma Gandhi, as well. • Tolstoy was an anarchist in his critique of the state and of the church. Tolstoy’s ‘The Kingdom of God Is Within You’ helped convince Gandhi of nonviolent resistance, a debt Gandhi acknowledged in his autobiography, calling Tolstoy ‘the greatest apostle of non-violence that the present age has produced’. • Although Leo Tolstoy was regarded as a Christian anarchist and not a socialist, his ideas and works still influenced socialist thinkers throughout history. • In the 1920s, Tolstoy’s estate, Yasnaya Polyana, was sanctioned by the Soviet state to exist as a commune for Tolstoyans. The government permitted this Christian-oriented community because they felt that religious sects like the Tolstoyans were models for the Russian peasantry. • On occasion of the birthday of Leo Tolstoy 2024, on behalf of Institute of Harmony and Peace Studies, New Delhi, I wish to make a strong appeal to my fellow humans in India and world over, let us draw inspiration from the great novelist Leo Tolstoy and contribute to the literary culture of the humans. Hail the great Russian novelist, Leo Tolstoy! Thank you!

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