Several years ago, while researching a book about trying to become a serious senior tennis player in my sixties, I happened upon a photograph on the Tumblr feed of The Millions, the online literary ...

The Diary of Sofie Andreyevna, Countess Tolstoy, exclusive of girlhood reminiscences, covers a period of thirty-five years; from 1862, the year of her marriage, to 1897. The entries are ...

For mountain climbers, one imagines that Mt. Everest looms as the ultimate climb to validate one’s ability. For runners, it would be the Boston Marathon, for triathletes the Iron Man? Which meant I ...

Leo Tolstoy stands as one of the most influential authors in history, and his novel War and Peace remains a landmark in ...

The old magician stands before me, alien to all, a solitary traveler through all the deserts of thought, in search of an all-embracing truth which he has not found—I look at him and, although I feel ...

Among the world’s most celebrated novelists, Leo Tolstoy was a man of immense talent, great passions, and boundless curiosity, which drove him to explore every side of life. More than a writer, he was ...

MOSCOW A museum devoted to Leo Tolstoy reopened recently in the village in Chechnya where he spent his formative years as a writer in the 1850s, and where he warned of the pitfalls of Russia’s quest ...

Traditional Christians, however, were left puzzled and the Orthodox Church outraged; after many warnings, the clerics excommunicated him in 1901, reflecting the will of the czar. But in spite of ...

Echoing Laplace, Tolstoy applied an analogous notion to understanding history. “To study the laws of history we must completely change the subject of our observation, must leave aside kings, ministers ...