LEO TOLSTOY (1828-1910), Russian novelist and social reformer, was born on the 9th of September (August 28) 1828, in the home of his fathers - Yasnaya Polyana, near Toula - a large country house (not the present one) built in a severely formal style, with Doric pillars and architraves, standing solitarily in a typical Russian landscape. The Tolstoy family, to whom it had belonged for several generations, was originally of German extraction, and had settled in Russia in the days of Peter th...
