Leo Tolstoy: A Free Man

Dozens of memoirs have been written about Leo Tolstoy, including the memories of his closest relatives, and the smallest facts of his biography are reflected in hundreds of letters and diary entries from contemporaries. Nevertheless, his life remains a mystery. How did a "trivial little man" without a systematic education become a great writer and philosopher? What did his "spiritual revolution" mean? What prompted him to renounce property and literary rights? Why was he excommunicated from the Church? What are the true reasons behind several attempts to leave his home? Why did he go to Optina Monastery shortly before his death? Writer and journalist, winner of the Big Book literary award, Pavel Basinsky summarizes his many years of search for the "true Tolstoy" in a book based on extensive documentary material, from which readers will learn why Tolstoy sold his ancestral home, why he learned Greek in a month and a half at an old age, how he saved dozens of starving people, why he disliked the "Tolstoyans," and why he rewrote his will six times... In short, this is a complete biography of a literary genius in a compact format.