The great Russian writer Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828–1910) loved children very much, and even more he loved talking to them.

He knew many fables, fairy tales, stories and stories that he enthusiastically told to children. Both his own grandchildren and peasant children listened to him with interest.

Opening in Yasnaya Polyana a school for peasant children, Lev Nikolaevich himself taught there.

He wrote a textbook for the little ones and called it "ABC". The author's work, consisting of four volumes, was “beautiful, short, simple and, most importantly, clear” for children to understand.

Lion and mouse

The lion was sleeping. The mouse ran over his body. He woke up and caught her. The mouse began to ask him to let her in; She said:

If you let me in, I will do you good.

The lion laughed that the mouse promised to do good to him, and let it go.

Then the hunters caught the lion and tied it to a tree with a rope. The mouse heard the lion's roar, came running, chewed the rope and said:

Remember, you laughed, you didn’t think that I could do you any good, but now you see, sometimes good comes from a mouse.

How a thunderstorm caught me in the forest

When I was little, I was sent to the forest to pick mushrooms.

I reached the forest, picked mushrooms and wanted to go home. Suddenly it became dark, it began to rain and there was thunder.

I got scared and sat down under a large oak tree. Lightning flashed so bright that it hurt my eyes and I closed my eyes.

Something crackled and rattled above my head; then something hit me in the head.

I fell and lay there until the rain stopped.

When I woke up, trees were dripping all over the forest, birds were singing and the sun was playing. A large oak tree broke and smoke came out of the stump. Oak secrets lay around me.

My dress was all wet and sticking to my body; there was a bump on my head and it hurt a little.

I found my hat, took the mushrooms and ran home.

There was no one at home, I took out some bread from the table and climbed onto the stove.

When I woke up, I saw from the stove that my mushrooms had been fried, put on the table and were already ready to eat.

I shouted: “What are you eating without me?” They say: “Why are you sleeping? Go quickly and eat.”

Sparrow and swallows

Once I stood in the yard and looked at a nest of swallows under the roof. Both swallows flew away in front of me, and the nest was left empty.

While they were away, a sparrow flew from the roof, jumped onto the nest, looked around, flapped its wings and darted into the nest; then he stuck his head out and chirped.

Soon after that, a swallow flew to the nest. She poked her head into the nest, but as soon as she saw the guest, she squeaked, beat her wings in place and flew away.

Sparrow sat and chirped.

Suddenly a herd of swallows flew in: all the swallows flew up to the nest, as if to look at the sparrow, and flew away again.

The sparrow was not shy, he turned his head and chirped.

The swallows again flew up to the nest, did something, and flew away again.

It was not for nothing that the swallows flew up: they each brought dirt in their beaks and little by little covered the hole in the nest.

Again the swallows flew away and came again, and covered the nest more and more, and the hole became tighter and tighter.

At first the sparrow's neck was visible, then only its head, then its nose, and then nothing became visible; The swallows completely covered him in the nest, flew away and began circling around the house whistling.

Two comrades

Two comrades were walking through the forest, and a bear jumped out at them.

One ran, climbed a tree and hid, while the other stayed on the road. He had nothing to do - he fell to the ground and pretended to be dead.

The bear came up to him and began to sniff: he stopped breathing.

The bear sniffed his face, thought he was dead, and walked away.

When the bear left, he climbed down from the tree and laughed.

Well, he says, did the bear speak into your ear?

And he told me that bad people those who run away from their comrades in danger.

Liar

The boy was guarding the sheep and, as if he saw a wolf, began to call:

Help, wolf! Wolf!

The men came running and saw: it’s not true. As he did this two and three times, it happened that a wolf actually came running. The boy began to shout:

Come here, come quickly, wolf!

The men thought that he was deceiving again as always - they did not listen to him. The wolf sees that there is nothing to be afraid of: he has slaughtered the entire herd in the open.

Hunter and Quail

A quail got caught in a hunter's net and began to ask the hunter to let him go.

Just let me go,” he says, “I’ll serve you.” I'll lure you other quails into the net.

Well, the quail,” said the hunter, “wouldn’t have let you in anyway, and now even more so.” I’ll turn my head for wanting to hand over your own people.

Girl and mushrooms

Two girls were walking home with mushrooms.

They had to cross the railway.

They thought the car was far away, so they climbed up the embankment and walked across the rails.

Suddenly a car made noise. The older girl ran back, and the younger girl ran across the road.

The older girl shouted to her sister: “Don’t go back!”

But the car was so close and made such a loud noise that the smaller girl did not hear; she thought that she was being told to run back. She ran back across the rails, tripped, dropped the mushrooms and began to pick them up.

The car was already close, and the driver whistled as hard as he could.

The older girl shouted: “Throw away the mushrooms!”, and the little girl thought that she was being told to pick mushrooms, and crawled along the road.

The driver could not hold the cars. She whistled as hard as she could and ran into the girl.

The older girl screamed and cried. All the passengers looked from the windows of the cars, and the conductor ran to the end of the train to see what had happened to the girl.

When the train passed, everyone saw that the girl was lying head down between the rails and not moving.

Then, when the train had already moved far, the girl raised her head, jumped on her knees, picked mushrooms and ran to her sister.

Old grandfather and grandson

(Fable)

Grandfather became very old. His legs did not walk, his eyes did not see, his ears did not hear, he had no teeth. And when he ate, it flowed backwards from his mouth.

His son and daughter-in-law stopped sitting him at the table and let him dine at the stove. They brought him lunch in a cup. He wanted to move it, but he dropped it and broke it.

The daughter-in-law began to scold the old man for ruining everything in the house and breaking cups, and said that now she would give him dinner in a basin.

The old man just sighed and said nothing.

One day a husband and wife are sitting at home and watching - their son is playing on the floor with planks - he is working on something.

The father asked: “What are you doing this, Misha?” And Misha said: “It’s me, father, who’s making the tub. When you and your mother are too old to feed you from this tub.”

The husband and wife looked at each other and began to cry.

They felt ashamed for having offended the old man so much; and from then on they began to sit him at the table and look after him.

Little mouse

The mouse went out for a walk. She walked around the yard and came back to her mother.

Well, mother, I saw two animals. One is scary and the other is kind.

Mother asked:

Tell me, what kind of animals are these?

The mouse said:

One is scary - his legs are black, his crest is red, his eyes are protruding, and his nose is hooked. When I walked past, he opened his mouth, raised his leg and began screaming so loudly that out of fear I did not know where to go.

This is a rooster, said the old mouse, he does no harm to anyone, don’t be afraid of him. Well, what about the other animal?

The other was lying in the sun and warming himself. His neck was white, his legs were gray and smooth. He was licking his white chest and moving his tail slightly, looking at me.

The old mouse said:

Stupid, you are stupid. After all, it's the cat himself.

Two guys

Two men were driving: one to the city, the other from the city.

They hit each other with the sleigh. One shouts:

Give me the way, I need to get to the city quickly.

And the other one shouts:

Give me the way. I need to go home soon.

And the third man saw and said:

Whoever needs it quickly, put it back.

Poor man and rich man

In one house they lived: upstairs was a rich gentleman, and downstairs was a poor tailor.

The tailor kept singing songs while working and disturbed the master's sleep.

The master gave the tailor a bag of money so that he would not sing.

The tailor became rich and kept his money safe, but he no longer began to sing.

And he became bored. He took the money and brought it back to the master and said:

Take your money back, and let me sing the songs. And then melancholy came over me.

Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich
(09.09.1828 - 20.11.1910).

Born in the Yasnaya Polyana estate. Among the writer's paternal ancestors is an associate of Peter I - P. A. Tolstoy, one of the first in Russia to receive the title of count. Participant Patriotic War 1812 was the father of the writer, Count. N.I. Tolstoy. On his mother's side, Tolstoy belonged to the family of the Bolkonsky princes, related by kinship to the Trubetskoy, Golitsyn, Odoevsky, Lykov and other noble families. On his mother's side, Tolstoy was a relative of A.S. Pushkin.
When Tolstoy was in his ninth year, his father took him to Moscow for the first time, the impressions of his meeting with which were vividly conveyed by the future writer in his children's essay "The Kremlin." Moscow is here called “the greatest and most populous city in Europe,” the walls of which “saw the shame and defeat of Napoleon’s invincible regiments.” The first period of young Tolstoy's Moscow life lasted less than four years. He was orphaned early, losing first his mother and then his father. With his sister and three brothers, young Tolstoy moved to Kazan. One of my father’s sisters lived here and became their guardian.
Living in Kazan, Tolstoy spent two and a half years preparing to enter the university, where he studied from 1844, first at the Oriental Faculty and then at the Faculty of Law. Studied Turkish and Tatar languages from the famous Turkologist Professor Kazembek. In his mature years, the writer was fluent in English, French and German languages; read in Italian, Polish, Czech and Serbian; knew Greek, Latin, Ukrainian, Tatar, Church Slavonic; studied Hebrew, Turkish, Dutch, Bulgarian and other languages.
Classes on government programs and textbooks weighed heavily on Tolstoy the student. He got carried away independent work above historical theme and, leaving the university, left Kazan for Yasnaya Polyana, which he received through the division of his father’s inheritance. Then he went to Moscow, where at the end of 1850 his writing activity began: an unfinished story from gypsy life (the manuscript has not survived) and a description of one day he lived (“The History of Yesterday”). At the same time, the story “Childhood” was begun. Soon Tolstoy decided to go to the Caucasus, where his older brother, Nikolai Nikolaevich, an artillery officer, served in active army. Having entered the army as a cadet, he later passed the exam for junior officer rank. The writer's impressions of the Caucasian War were reflected in the stories "Raid" (1853), "Cutting Wood" (1855), "Demoted" (1856), and in the story "Cossacks" (1852-1863). In the Caucasus, the story “Childhood” was completed, published in 1852 in the magazine “Sovremennik”.

When the Crimean War began, Tolstoy was transferred from the Caucasus to the Danube Army, which was operating against the Turks, and then to Sevastopol, which was besieged by the combined forces of England, France and Turkey. Commanding the battery on the 4th bastion, Tolstoy was awarded the Order of Anna and the medals “For the Defense of Sevastopol” and “In Memory of the War of 1853-1856.” More than once Tolstoy was nominated for the military Cross of St. George, but he never received the “George.” In the army, Tolstoy wrote a number of projects - about the reformation of artillery batteries and the creation of artillery battalions armed with rifled guns, about the reformation of the entire Russian army. Together with a group of officers of the Crimean Army, Tolstoy intended to publish the magazine "Soldier's Bulletin" ("Military Leaflet"), but its publication was not authorized by Emperor Nicholas I.
In the fall of 1856, he retired and soon went on a six-month trip abroad, visiting France, Switzerland, Italy and Germany. In 1859, Tolstoy opened a school for peasant children in Yasnaya Polyana, and then helped open more than 20 schools in the surrounding villages. To direct their activities along the right path, from his point of view, he published the pedagogical magazine Yasnaya Polyana (1862). In order to study the organization of school affairs in foreign countries, the writer went abroad for the second time in 1860.
After the manifesto of 1861, Tolstoy became one of the world mediators of the first call who sought to help peasants resolve their disputes with landowners about land. Soon in Yasnaya Polyana, when Tolstoy was away, the gendarmes carried out a search in search of a secret printing house, which the writer allegedly opened after communicating with A. I. Herzen in London. Tolstoy had to close the school and stop publishing the pedagogical magazine. In total, he wrote eleven articles on school and pedagogy (“On Public Education”, “Upbringing and Education”, “On Social Activities in the Field of Public Education” and others). In them, he described in detail the experience of his work with students (“Yasnaya Polyana school for the months of November and December”, “On methods of teaching literacy”, “Who should learn to write from whom, the peasant children from us or us from the peasant children”). Tolstoy the teacher demanded that school be brought closer to life, sought to put it at the service of the needs of the people, and for this to intensify the processes of teaching and upbringing, to develop Creative skills children.
At the same time, already at the beginning creative path Tolstoy becomes a supervised writer. Some of the writer's first works were the stories "Childhood", "Adolescence" and "Youth", "Youth" (which, however, was not written). According to the author's plan, they were supposed to compose the novel "Four Epochs of Development."
In the early 1860s. For decades, the order of Tolstoy’s life, his way of life, is established. In 1862, he married the daughter of a Moscow doctor, Sofya Andreevna Bers.
The writer is working on the novel "War and Peace" (1863-1869). Having completed War and Peace, Tolstoy spent several years studying materials about Peter I and his time. However, after writing several chapters of Peter’s novel, Tolstoy abandoned his plan. In the early 1870s. The writer was again fascinated by pedagogy. He put a lot of work into the creation of the ABC, and then the New ABC. At the same time, he compiled “Books for Reading”, where he included many of his stories.
In the spring of 1873, Tolstoy began and four years later completed work on a great novel about modernity, calling it by name main character- "Anna Karenina".
The spiritual crisis experienced by Tolstoy at the end of 1870 - beginning. 1880, ended with a turning point in his worldview. In “Confession” (1879-1882), the writer talks about a revolution in his views, the meaning of which he saw in a break with the ideology of the noble class and a transition to the side of the “simple working people.”
At the beginning of the 1880s. Tolstoy moved with his family from Yasnaya Polyana to Moscow, caring about providing an education to his growing children. In 1882, a census of the Moscow population took place, in which the writer took part. He saw closely the inhabitants of the city slums and described them terrible life in the article on the census and in the treatise "So What Should We Do?" (1882-1886). In them, the writer made the main conclusion: “...You can’t live like that, you can’t live like that, you can’t!” "Confession" and "So What Should We Do?" were works in which Tolstoy acted simultaneously as an artist and as a publicist, as a profound psychologist and a courageous sociologist-analyst. Later, this type of work - journalistic in genre, but including artistic scenes and paintings, saturated with elements of imagery - will occupy a large place in his work.
In these and subsequent years, Tolstoy also wrote religious and philosophical works: “Criticism of Dogmatic Theology”, “What is My Faith?”, “Combination, Translation and Study of the Four Gospels”, “The Kingdom of God is Within You”. In them, the writer not only showed a change in his religious and moral views, but also subjected to a critical revision of the main dogmas and principles of the teaching of the official church. In the mid-1880s. Tolstoy and his like-minded people created the Posrednik publishing house in Moscow, which printed books and paintings for the people. The first of Tolstoy's works, published for the "common" people, was the story "How People Live." In it, as in many other works of this cycle, the writer made extensive use not only of folklore plots, but also expressive means oral creativity. Thematically and stylistically related to Tolstoy’s folk stories are his plays for folk theaters and, most of all, the drama “The Power of Darkness” (1886), which depicts the tragedy of a post-reform village, where under the “power of money” the centuries-old patriarchal order collapsed.
In 1880 Tolstoy's stories "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" and "Kholstomer" ("The Story of a Horse"), and "The Kreutzer Sonata" (1887-1889) appeared. In it, as well as in the story “The Devil” (1889-1890) and the story “Father Sergius” (1890-1898), the problems of love and marriage, the purity of family relationships are posed.
Tolstoy’s story “The Master and the Worker” (1895), stylistically connected with the cycle of his folk stories written in the 80s, is based on social and psychological contrast. Five years earlier, Tolstoy wrote the comedy “The Fruits of Enlightenment” for a “home performance.” It also shows the “owners” and “workers”: noble landowners living in the city and peasants who came from a hungry village, deprived of land. The images of the former are given satirically, the author portrays the latter as reasonable and positive people, but in some scenes they are “presented” in an ironic light.
All these works of the writer are united by the idea of ​​the inevitable and close in time “denouement” of social contradictions, of the replacement of an obsolete social “order.” “I don’t know what the outcome will be,” Tolstoy wrote in 1892, “but that things are approaching it and that life cannot continue like this, in such forms, I am sure.” This idea inspired the largest work of all the creativity of the “late” Tolstoy - the novel “Resurrection” (1889-1899).
Less than ten years separate Anna Karenina from War and Peace. "Resurrection" is separated from "Anna Karenina" by two decades. And although the third novel differs in many ways from the previous two, they are united by a truly epic scope in the depiction of life, the ability to “pair” individual human destinies with the fate of the people in the narrative. Tolstoy himself pointed out the unity that existed between his novels: he said that "Resurrection" was written in the "old manner", meaning, first of all, the epic "manner" in which "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina" were written ". "Resurrection" became the last novel in the writer's work.
At the beginning of 1900 The Holy Synod excommunicated Tolstoy from the Orthodox Church.
In the last decade of his life, the writer worked on the story “Hadji Murat” (1896-1904), in which he sought to compare “the two poles of imperious absolutism” - the European, personified by Nicholas I, and the Asian, personified by Shamil. At the same time, Tolstoy created one of his best plays, “The Living Corpse.” Her hero is kindest soul, soft, conscientious Fedya Protasov leaves his family, breaks off relations with his usual environment, falls to the “bottom” and in the courthouse, unable to bear the lies, pretense, pharisaism of “respectable” people, shoots himself with a pistol and takes his own life. The article “I Can’t Be Silent” written in 1908, in which he protested against the repression of participants in the events of 1905–1907, sounded sharply. The writer’s stories “After the Ball”, “For What?” belong to the same period.
Weighed down by the way of life in Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy more than once contemplated and for a long time did not dare to leave it. But he could no longer live according to the principle of “together and apart,” and on the night of October 28 (November 10) he secretly left Yasnaya Polyana. On the way, he fell ill with pneumonia and was forced to stop at the small station of Astapovo (now Leo Tolstoy), where he died. On November 10 (23), 1910, the writer was buried in Yasnaya Polyana, in the forest, on the edge of a ravine, where as a child he and his brother were looking for the “green stick” that held the “secret” of how to make all people happy.

This writer and philosopher is certainly one of the key figures of pre-revolutionary Russian literature. What did Leo Tolstoy write? He left behind a diverse artistic heritage in the form of novels and stories, short stories and journalism. Also occupy a special place in his work philosophical reasoning, expressed in letters and articles, the writer’s diary.

Novels

The most famous works of a wide circle of readers in our country and abroad are the writer’s novels such as “War and Peace”, “Anna Karenina”, “Decembrists”, “Resurrection”, the trilogy “Childhood. Adolescence. Youth". These works have been translated into many languages ​​of the world, are deeply revered by literary scholars in many countries, and are used in university and school curriculum. The epic "War and Peace", written over the course of a decade (1863 -1873), is a kind of cross-section of Russian society of the 19th century. In terms of its globality, it occupies one of the first places in Russian literature.

Novels and stories

Of the most famous stories- “The Morning of a Landowner” (a film was even made based on the work), “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”, “The Kreutzer Sonata”, “Notes of a Madman”, “Hadji Murat”. Tolstoy also wrote shorter forms - stories. The most famous are the cycle “Sevastopol Stories”, “Stories from Village Life” and others, depicting the life of the Russian hinterland and the characters of the peasants. The most famous drama work is “The Living Corpse”.

For children

Leo Tolstoy also wrote for younger children. The stories “Filippok”, “Three Bears”, “ABC” for children are included in the treasury of children's literature and are studied in elementary grades.

Fables and parables, diaries and articles

The writer was translating Aesop's fables into Russian, giving traditional characters a unique flavor: “The Wolf and the Lamb,” “The Wolf and the Fox,” “Dragonfly and Ants,” “Fox and Grapes.” And in philosophical parables (“How people live,” “Three Elders,” “Wolf,” for example) he expressed his philosophical views. In his articles he expressed his socio-political preferences (“I Can’t Be Silent”, “On Socialism”), and in his diaries he openly described his creative and life quests.

Since our youth, we have been analyzing the feelings of Andrei Bolkonsky under the sky of Austerlitz, writing an essay on the topic “ Women's images in the novel War and Peace,” we sigh heavily over the episodes of Pierre Bezukhov’s philosophical reflections and leaf through the French speech. But Leo Tolstoy is not only a boring, drawn-out “War and Peace” and misunderstood in adolescence"Anna Karenina". In his bibliography you can find pearl books of Russian classics and heroes who are transformed before our eyes and find themselves.

Tolstoy is a master of words, a genius of the Russian soul and a literary pillar of both his and our time. Lev Nikolaevich's books are sincere, direct, truthful and firm. They are about Russia, about the pain of the Russian people, about passionate experiences and, most importantly, people. This is exactly the classic you want to read.

Forget about Pierre and Natasha, take any book from our top and then, I assure you, you will completely change your opinion about the work, without exaggeration, of the outstanding L.N. Tolstoy.

"Childhood. Adolescence. Youth"

How would it be fashionable now to call the trilogy “Childhood. Adolescence. Youth" tells us about the growing up of Nikolenka Irtenyev. The first story touches with the poetry of childhood a boy completely immersed in his inner world dreamer. He analyzes himself, keenly notices everything that happens in life, worries about his own loneliness, although he is in the circle of friends and relatives.

The second part is about formation, about internal crisis and spiritual rebirth and the search for truth, truth. And it’s interesting to follow the hero’s growth, because Nikolenka has already become close to us, we love him. “Youth” greets us with certainty, we see that Irtenyev chose his own path, was able to find himself in a world full of worries, and now he can completely devote himself to the desire to walk honestly, without paying attention to anything, his life path.

The stories are largely autobiographical, copied from Tolstoy himself, but, of course, in many ways the author relied on the stories of loved ones in order to recreate that atmosphere of growing up with his family. And it’s very difficult to stop reading, because you are completely immersed in this world of L.N.’s childhood. Tolstoy.

"Resurrection"

A bright, powerful and revealing novel by Tolstoy, in which he talks about the terrible injustice of the judicial system, the peasantry, hypocrisy and poverty. Heavy and harsh, this work was subjected to the strictest censorship, it was cut and published in parts, because against the backdrop of the development of the main storylines, we are shown both the bright, brilliant atmosphere of the dull and skeletal nobility and the truthful life of a simple Russian peasant.

There are two main characters here: Katyusha Maslova, unfairly punished due to a mistake, and the nobleman Nekhlyudov. Together, although in different ways, they go through mental suffering and change internally. Fate links their lives together in a completely random way, and we get a great story that opens our eyes to the lives of people of that time.

"After the ball"

The works of Leo Tolstoy are always about the search for morality. And the story “After the Ball” is no exception. Rather, he emphasizes even more strongly the main leitmotif of the writer’s work.

Ivan Vasilievich, main character, is passionately and deeply in love with the daughter of the colonel, a stately aristocrat with impeccable manners, Varenka.

But one scene destroys everything, tears it apart wonderful feeling, changes Ivan Vasilyevich’s attitude towards both Varenka and the colonel. Because it's moral guidelines, his soul, cannot survive the cruelty that he encountered, which he saw in Varya’s father, in the good-natured Colonel Pyotr Vladislavovich.

"Prisoner of the Caucasus"

Zhilin, a Russian officer, an honest man with self-respect, goes to visit his mother and along the way he meets another officer - Kostylin. They continue their journey together and then they meet mountaineers with clearly bad intentions. Zilina's new acquaintance escapes, abandons his comrade to the mercy of fate, and our brave hero is captured by the Tatars. However, Kostylin faces the same fate. And the two officers meet as prisoners in an old barn.

Leo Tolstoy describes two completely different characters. Zhilin is brave in spirit, honest and self-confident, and Kostylin is cowardly, lacking initiative and weak. The author contrasts the officers with each other and reveals them using the difficult conditions of captivity. And all this against the backdrop of the Caucasian War. It’s interesting to read, because here there is something to think about, because you should never lose heart, no matter how terrible the world around you may seem.

"Family happiness"

Family is a spiritual connection between two people, and Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy speaks about this more than once in his work, because this topic is as important to him as the moral development of a person. In the novel “Family Happiness,” he writes about the importance of family relationships, the intimacy between spouses, and how love transforms and becomes something more than just a union of two people in love.

Masha and her sister Sonya were left orphans. For young Maria, the death of her mother became a great test, because all her hopes were destroyed. It was in this year that she had to move from the village to the city, go out into the world and learn the joy of love and courtship. The girl gives up all her classes and completely surrenders to the blues until their guardian, Sergei Mikhailovich, appears on the threshold of the orphanage. His arrival completely changes Mashenka, she returns to playing music, studies and falls in love with the sedate Sergei Mikhailovich. But the novel does not end there, because our heroes have a long way to go on the path to quiet family happiness.

"Kreutzer Sonata"

Tolstoy’s work “The Kreutzer Sonata,” interesting in its ambiguity, was banned from publication by censorship. And only thanks to Sophia, the writer’s wife, did she see the light of day in the collected works.

Pozdnyshev, the main character, is ambiguous in his moral character; his beliefs, expressed with passion, seem strange and dual. He enters into an argument about love, marriage, having his own own opinion, supported by heavy life drama.

This is a story about burning jealousy, marriage, and, oddly enough, love. After all, in the book the lives of people who make each other unhappy unfold before us. And the most interesting thing is that the author himself expresses his opinion, which can be seen in Pozdnyshev’s words. Tolstoy believes that false generally accepted morality is to blame for everything and speaks about his views on the relationship between a man and a woman, but what will you think after reading “The Kreutzer Sonata”?

"The Death of Ivan Ilyich"

Ivan Ilyich is an ordinary person, even mediocre, there are many like him and there is nothing in him that would make him stand out among the diverse crowd. And only on the verge of death does our hero understand that his life was not lived like that, one might even say lived in vain. He put off too much, endured too much, and didn't do what he really wanted to do.

Tolstoy in his story talks about the mental suffering that a person is able to endure on the verge of death, because it is at this moment that he, a person, realizes and rethinks all his actions, every step he takes. But nothing can be changed. It’s just painful to worry about how aimlessly the days passed, in which there was no joy, no friends and no true unity with the world.

Don’t put off reading Leo Tolstoy’s book “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” because it will help you learn from someone else’s mistake and fully understand the meaning of the phrase “tomorrow may not really come.”

Like Pushkin in poetry, so Tolstoy in prose - our everything! And this despite the fact that Lev Nikolaevich has only five full-fledged novels, only several dozen stories and one trilogy - “Childhood. Adolescence. Youth". Stories, fairy tales, fables, poems, translations, dramatic works - few know them, which these works do not deserve at all. Perhaps, remembering them more often, many would discover a new Tolstoy.

The originality of the writer’s prose, his literary style

What distinguishes the work of Leo Tolstoy is the reflection in it of the originality of the author himself: the coexistence in a single whole of a “spontaneous artist” and a “rational thinker.” This is exactly what researchers of the writer’s work have been trying to decompose into atoms for many years. The works of L.N. Tolstoy are a treasure trove for their delights. Artistic and philosophical beginning, complete immersion in these two polar styles creates delight in the reader when reading, and in writers, critics, and public figures - an incomprehensible thirst for research, reasoning and debate.

Some of them suggest the existence of the author in two forms, radically opposed and fighting with each other. Already in his first work - “Childhood and Adolescence” - the philosophy of images in its best manifestation reveals to readers the amazingly beautiful prose of such a brilliant writer as Leo Tolstoy. The author's stories and all his other works are created in a unique style, which gave him the fame of the greatest Russian writer.

Top 5 works by Leo Tolstoy

Our modernity is moving away from the definition of “The best something” (in our case “ Best books writer"), replacing it with Top 10, Top 100. Let's try to create a Top 10 most readable works Lev Nikolaevich.

Two novels deservedly claim first place - “Anna Karenina” and “War and Peace”. Each of us has our own arguments in favor of one of them, whom we would elevate to the top line. Bringing them is unnecessary, and the dispute may drag on. In our Top Parade we give first place to the two of them, and move on to second.

The novel “Sunday”, the trilogy “Childhood. Adolescence. Youth”, the stories “The Kreutzer Sonata”, “Notes of a Madman”, “The Morning of a Landowner” - all of them are read, loved and are still in demand by filmmakers and theater directors around the world. If it makes more sense to rank the stories as third, and leave the novel and trilogy at second, then the top three already includes seven of Tolstoy’s best works. For the remaining three places in our Top 10, we worthily include the cycle “Sevastopol Stories”, the story “Hadji Murat” and the dramatic work “The Power of Darkness, or the Claw Got Stuck, the Whole Bird is Lost.”

Of course, our top ten in which we mentioned best works L.N. Tolstoy is just reflections on the topic, but it is quite likely that it coincides with the opinion of many readers.

“War and Peace” - about whom and what

Rarely a reader has not wondered what the novel is actually about? About the heroism of the Russian army, about the stoic courage and bravery of our soldiers, about the honor and dignity of the nobility, or is it about human relationships that are tested against the backdrop of difficult events for the state?

A brilliant work, where Leo Tolstoy is the inimitable author - “War and Peace”! The author seems to invite each reader to find the answer to the question: who is interested in war - the presentation of the main battles contains almost completely reliable historical accuracy, who wants to plunge into a wonderful description of the feelings experienced by the heroes - will definitely find what they are looking for in the novel.

In a work unique in its scale, style, and language of presentation, such as the novel “War and Peace,” each line is imbued with the main thing - the happiness of ordinary life, in sorrow and in joy. In it, both go in parallel, step by step, hand in hand through all trials and obstacles. Good, naturally, wins, and evil dies defeated.

Did Anna Karenina's creator sympathize with her?

As in “War and Peace,” in “Anna Karenina” there are two polar loves: sublime, pure, sinless, and its antipode - basely vicious, almost dirty. Tolstoy provokes the reader with an interpretation of the relationship between Anna and Vronsky in the mouth of the “society,” allowing him to decide for himself the degree of sublimity or baseness of their feelings. The author tries not to build concrete walls between these definitions; the transition from one state to another is imperceptible: on one line we meet a complete justification of this love, on the other - its universal condemnation. And like shaky but frequent bridges between these lines - the torment of the main characters, their doubts and the final choice, no matter what.

So what assessment does the author himself give to his character? Does he justify her, sympathize with her, feel sorry for her, support her? Tolstoy here acts as an irreconcilable moralist - in all his works, criminal love is doomed to a tragic end. The author created his heroine in order to kill her demonstratively as an edification to others. An image that evokes sympathy does not cause so much suffering.

“Childhood” as one of Tolstoy’s main works

This story occupies a prominent place in the writer’s creative heritage. Perhaps the first work in which Leo Tolstoy declared himself to be a great author was “Childhood.” Not because the reader is exposed to the problems of a little man, inaccessible to the understanding of adults, who sees the world in which he lives like an adult, feels its unveiled good and evil, sincerity and falsehood. The reader, following Nikolenka, goes through the school of his growing up, analyzes his and other people’s actions, learns to accept the world as he sees it.

The boy’s ability to acutely sense cunning, cunning, his worries about the fact that he sees these unsightly qualities in himself, force the reader to look back at his childhood and rethink his actions. One can learn from Nikolenka to love people, not only those with whom he lives, but also those who are friends with him or have somehow impressed his childish heart. And the story also teaches how not to destroy this love. The ability to read between the lines will give a lot to those who try to understand this work, just like the short prose that Leo Tolstoy wrote - stories.

Themes of Lev Nikolaevich's stories

About wildlife and defenseless animals, about smart children and wise adults. He doesn’t have many stories; there are only four dozen works on this list, most of which, as already mentioned, are unfamiliar to a wide range of readers. A little more fortunate were such types of short prose from Tolstoy’s legacy as “After the Ball”, “The Jump”, “False Coupon”, “The Power of Childhood”, “Conversation with a Passerby”, and, of course, the cycle “Sevastopol Stories”.

A noticeable intensity in writing stories was observed from 1905 to 1909 - the last years in the life of Lev Nikolaevich; he died, as is known, in 1910. A huge period of his life was devoted to other genres of literature in which there was simply no place for stories. Stories for children, which are worth talking about separately, since the world of these works amazes with its depth, the subtle transmission of a child’s impressions about the problems of life, and explain the formation of his personality. This theme is also reflected in such a genre as the fables of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

Stories about children and for children

Prose for children and about themselves occupies a prominent place in the writer’s work. Trilogy “Childhood. Adolescence. Youth" Tolstoy did not limit his attempts to understand in what ways a person’s personality is formed from birth to his entry into life. adult life. The stories “Three Bears”, “How Uncle Semyon told about what happened to him in the forest” and “Cow”, included in the collection “New ABC”, are imbued with love for children and compassion for their little problems. The works of L. N. Tolstoy are rich in thoughts about children.

The story “Philippok” was born after the writer’s careful observation of peasant children and ingenuous communication with them. Lev Nikolaevich always found time for the peasants; he even opened a school for their children on his estate. And one of the first stories that can be classified as children's is a small work about the dog Bulka, her aching devotion to the only close creature - her owner. Until his death, Leo Tolstoy recalled his own childhood and how he wanted to find a “green stick” that would help him make everyone on earth happy.

The place of fables and fairy tales in Tolstoy’s works

Just as we remember the prose of Ivan Andreevich Krylov from childhood and lessons in our native speech, so do the moralizing fables of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, imbued with subtle morality.

• "The Wolf and the Old Man."
• "The Lion and the Dog"
• "The Crane and the Stork."
• "The head and tail of a snake."
• "Ferret".
• "The Dog and Its Shadow."
• "The Monkey and the Pea."
• "The Squirrel and the Wolf."
• "The Lion, the Donkey and the Fox."
• "The Lion and the Mouse."

This is only a small fraction of the famous fables that complement the great works of Leo Tolstoy that we love. Through fables, he ridiculed what he could hardly explain in people, and what was unacceptable to him: deception and cunning, anger and hatred, meanness and betrayal. The opposite traits were shown in his prose as sometimes unprotected, open to attack, and this made them even more endearing. Tolstoy seemed to believe that in works for children, and he wrote his fables more for them, there is no room for justifying base actions, it is necessary to explain in an accessible and simple way what is “good” and what is “bad.” I also always believed that children are quite smart and understand subtle morals much closer to the truth than adults.

The confrontation between love and duty is a distinctive feature of the characters of Tolstoy’s characters

The genius that Leo Tolstoy created during his life - “War and Peace”, “Anna Karenina”, his stories, fables, fairy tales and stories, reflected primarily his own morality. He transferred his religious dogmas, his mental turmoil and doubts, his beliefs onto paper and endowed them with the characters he sympathized with. Some of his works lacked even light humor, and every phrase in them was strictly verified and thoroughly thought out. He often rewrote what had already been published in magazines, creating what he thought was the ideal character.

The image of Konstantin Levin in “Anna Karenina” appears before us as a bright personality, with his painful love for Kitty and a sense of duty towards his convictions. Inimitable and majestic are Pierre Bezukhov from War and Peace, Nikolai Rostov, who assumed his father’s debts and did not take a penny from the dowry of his wife, Princess Bolkonskaya, to pay them off. Many of his characters go through the torment of desires and real actions. The author puts them through psychological tests and makes them even stronger and worthy of respect. This was the writer’s own world, and it was left to us by L.N. Tolstoy. Works for children - stories, fairy tales, fables, for adults - novels, novellas, drama. They make him so near and dear to us.