Leo Tolstoy
1828–1910 · Russian (Yasnaya Polyana) · Imperial Russia
Known for: Author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina—widely considered the greatest novels ever written
Count Leo Tolstoy was a Russian aristocrat who wrote the two greatest novels in any language—War and Peace and Anna Karenina—and then experienced a spiritual crisis in his 50s that led him to reject his own literary achievements, embrace radical Christianity, advocate nonviolent resistance, and attempt to live as a peasant.
He freed his serfs, ran a school, gave away his copyrights—much to his wife Sophia's fury, as they had 13 children to support. He was a soldier, gambler, and libertine in his youth; a moralist and ascetic in old age. He influenced Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. He fled his home at 82 and died in a train station.
Browse all 1,000 figures by category
Enable JavaScript to view the full "if they lived today" Q&A and personality profile.