1724 Pyotr Tolstoy (great-great-great-grandfather) given hereditary title of Count by Tsar Peter the Great
1821 Death of Prince Nikolay Volkonsky, Tolstoy’s grandfather, at Yasnaya Polyana, Tula Province, 130 miles southwest of Moscow
1822 Marriage of Count Nikolay Tolstoy and Princess Marya Volkonskaya
1828 28 August (Old Style). Birth of fourth son, Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, at Yasnaya Polyana
1830 Death of mother
1832 The eldest, Nikolay, informs his brothers that the secret of earthly happiness is inscribed on a green stick, buried at Yasnaya Polyana (Tolstoy later buried there)
1836 Nikolay Gogol’s The Government Inspector
1837 Death of Alexander Pushkin in duel
Death of father
1840 Mikhail Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time
1841 Death of Lermontov in duel
Death of first guardian Alexandra Osten-Saken, an aunt. The Tolstoy children move to Kazan to live with another aunt, Pelageya Yushkova
1842 Gogol’s Dead Souls
1844 Enters Kazan University, reads Oriental languages
1845 Transfers to Law after failing examinations. Dissolute lifestyle: drinking, visits to prostitutes
1846 Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s ‘Poor Folk’
1847 Inherits estate of Yasnaya Polyana. Recovering from gonorrhoea, draws up scheme for self-perfection. Leaves university without completing studies ‘on grounds of ill health and domestic circumstances’
1848–50 In Moscow and St Petersburg, debauchery and gambling, large debts. Studies music
1850 Ivan Turgenev’s A Month in the Country
1851 Travels to the Caucasus with Nikolay, who is serving in the army there. Reads Laurence Sterne: starts translating his Sentimental Journey (not completed). Writes ‘A History of Yesterday’ (unfinished, first evidence of his powers of psychological analysis). Begins writing Childhood
1852 Death of Gogol. Turgenev’s Sketches from a Hunter’s Album
Enters the army as a cadet ( Junker); based mainly in the Cossack station of Starogladkovskaya. Sees action against the Chechens, and narrowly escapes capture
Childhood
1853 Turkey declares war on Russia
‘The Raid’
1854 France and England declare war on Russia. Crimean War starts
Commissioned, serves on Danube front. November: transferred at own request to Sevastopol, then under siege by allied forces
Boyhood
1855 Death of Nicholas I; accession of Alexander II
In action until the fall of Sevastopol in August. Gains celebrity with ‘Sevastopol in December’ and further sketches, ‘Sevastopol in May’, ‘Sevastopol in August 1855’ (1856), ‘Memoirs of a Billiard Marker’, ‘The Woodfelling’
1856 Peace signed between Russia, Turkey, France and England
Turgenev’s Rudin
In St Petersburg, moves in literary circles; associates with Turgenev, Ivan Goncharov, Nikolay Nekrasov, Afanasy Fet and others. Leaves the army. Death of brother Dmitry
‘The Snowstorm’, ‘Two Hussars’, ‘A Landowner’s Morning’
1857 February–August. First trip abroad, to Paris (lasting impression of witnessing an execution by guillotine), Geneva and Baden-Baden
Youth, ‘Lucerne’
1858 Long-term relationship with peasant woman on estate, Aksinya Bazykina, begins
‘Albert’
1859 Goncharov’s Oblomov; Turgenev’s The Home of the Gentry
Founds primary school at Yasnaya Polyana
‘Three Deaths’, Family Happiness
1860 Death of his brother Nikolay from tuberculosis
Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the House of the Dead (1860–61). Turgenev’s On the Eve
1860–61 Emancipation of serfs (1861). Other reforms follow: Elective District Councils (zemstvos) set up (1864); judicial reform (1865). Formation of revolutionary Land and Liberty movement. Commencement of intensive industrialization; spread of railways
Serves as Arbiter of the Peace, dealing with post-Emancipation land settlements. Quarrels with Turgenev and challenges him (no duel). Travels in France, Germany, Italy and England. Loses great deal of money through gambling. Meets Proudhon in Brussels
1862 Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons
Starts a magazine at Yasnaya Polyana on education for the peasants; abandoned after less than a year. Police raid on Yasnaya Polyana. Considers emigrating to England and writes protest to the Tsar. Marries Sofya Andreyevna Behrs (b. 1844)
1863 Polish rebellion
Birth of first child, Sergey (Tolstoy and his wife were to have thirteen children – nine boys and four girls – of whom five died in childhood). Begins work on a novel ‘The Decembrists’, which was later abandoned, but developed into War and Peace
‘Polikushka’, The Cossacks
1865 Nikolay Leskov’s ‘Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk’
First part of War and Peace (titled 1805)
1866 Attempted assassination of Tsar Alexander II
Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment
1867 Turgenev’s Smoke
Visits Borodino in search of material for battle scene in War and Peace
1868 Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot
1869 Publication of War and Peace completed
1870–71 Franco-Prussian War. Municipal Government reform
Dostoyevsky’s Devils
Studies ancient Greek. Illness; convalesces in Samara (Bashkiriya). Begins work on primer for children. First mention of Anna Karenina. Reads Arthur Schopenhauer and other philosophers. Starts work on novel about Peter the Great (later abandoned)
1872 ‘God Sees the Truth But Waits’, ‘A Prisoner of the Caucasus’
1873 Begins Anna Karenina. Raises funds during famine in Bashkiriya, where he has bought an estate. Growing obsession with problems of death and religion; temptation to commit suicide
1874 Much occupied with educational theory
1875 Beginning of active revolutionary movement
1875–7 Instalments of Anna Karenina published
1877 Turgenev’s Virgin Soil
Journal publication of Anna Karenina completed (published in book form in 1878)
1877–8 Russo-Turkish War
1878 Reconciliation with Turgenev, who visits him at Yasnaya Polyana. Works on ‘The Decembrists’ and again abandons it. Works on A Confession (completed 1882, but banned by the religious censor and published in Geneva in 1884)
1879 Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov
1880 Works on A Critique of Dogmatic Theology
1881 Assassination of Tsar Alexander II. With accession of Alexander III, the government returns to reactionary policies
Death of Dostoyevsky
Writes to Tsar Alexander III asking him to pardon his father’s assassins
1882 Student riots in St Petersburg and Kazan Universities.
Jewish pogroms and repressive measures against minorities
Religious works, including new translation of the Gospels. Begins The Death of Ivan Ilyich and What Then Must We Do? Studies Hebrew
1883 Deathbed letter from Turgenev urging Tolstoy not to abandon his art
1884 Family relations strained, first attempt to leave home.
What I Believe banned
Collected works published by his wife
1885–6 Tension with his wife over new beliefs. Works closely with Vladimir Chertkov, with whom (and others) he founds a publishing house, The Intermediary, to produce edifying literature for the common folk. Many popular stories written 1885–6, including ‘What Men Live By’, ‘Where Love Is, God Is’, ‘Strider’
1886 Walks from Moscow to Yasnaya Polyana in five days.
Works on land during the summer. Denounced as a heretic by Archbishop of Kherson
The Death of Ivan Ilyich, ‘How Much Land Does a Man Need?’, What Then Must We Do?
1887 Meets Leskov
‘On Life’
1888 Chekhov’s The Steppe
Renounces meat, alcohol and tobacco. Growing friction between his wife and Chertkov. The Power of Darkness, banned in 1886, performed in Paris
1889 Finishes The Kreutzer Sonata. Begins Resurrection (works on it for ten years)
1890 The Kreutzer Sonata banned, though on appeal by his wife to the Tsar publication was permitted in Collected Works
1891 Convinced that personal profits from writing are immoral, renounces copyright on all works published after 1881 and all future works. His family thus suffers financially, though his wife retains copyright in all the earlier works. Helps to organize famine relief in Ryazah Province. Attacks smoking and alcohol in ‘Why Do Men Stupefy Themselves?’
1892 Organizes famine relief: The Fruits of Enlightenment (published 1891) produced in Maly Theatre, Moscow
1893 Finishes The Kingdom of God Is Within You
1894 Accession of Tsar Nicholas II. Strikes in St Petersburg
Writes preface to Maupassant collection of stories. Criticizes Crime and Punishment
1895 Meets Chekhov. The Power of Darkness produced in Maly Theatre, Moscow
‘Master and Man’
1896 Chekhov’s The Seagull
Sees production of Hamlet and King Lear at Hermitage Theatre, severely critical of Shakespeare
What is Art?
1897 Appeals to authorities on behalf of Dukhobors, a pacifist religious sect, to whom permission is granted to emigrate to Canada
1898 Formation of Social Democratic Party. Dreyfus Affair in France
Works for famine relief
1899 Widespread student riots
Serial publication of Resurrection (in book form in 1900)
1900 Meets Maxim Gorky, whom he calls a ‘real man of the people’
1901 Foundation of Socialist Revolutionary Party
Excommunicated from Orthodox Church for writing works ‘repugnant to Christ and the Church’. Seriously ill, convalesces in Crimea; visitors include Chekhov and Gorky
1902 Finishes What Is Religion? Writes to Tsar Nicholas II on evils of autocracy and ownership of property
1903 Protests against Jewish pogroms in Kishinev
‘After the Ball’
1904 Russo-Japanese War. Russian fleet destroyed in Tsushima Straits. Assassination of V. K. Plehve, Minister of the Interior
Death of Chekhov
Death of second-eldest brother Sergey. Pamphlet on Russo-Japanese war published in England
1905 Attempted revolution in Russia (Tolstoy attacks all sides involved)
Potemkin mutiny. S. Yu. Witte becomes Prime Minister
Anarchical publicist pamphlets
Introduction to Chekhov’s ‘Darling’
1906 Shakespeare and the Drama
1908 Tolstoy’s secretary N. N. Gusev exiled
‘I Cannot Be Silent’, a protest against capital punishment
1909 Increased animosity between his wife and Chertkov, she threatens suicide
1910 Corresponds with Mahatma Gandhi concerning the doctrine of non-violent resistance to evil. His wife threatens suicide; demands all Tolstoy’s diaries for past ten years, but Tolstoy puts them in bank vault. Final breakdown of relationship with her. 28 October: leaves home. 7 November: dies at Astapovo railway station. Buried at Yasnaya Polyana
1911 ‘The Devil’, ‘Father Sergius’, Hadji Murat, ‘The Forged Coupon’