The First Distiller

Anna Karenina was first published in 1877. It had begun to appear in folio form in the journal Russki Véstnik (The Russian Messenger) between January 1875 and April 1877, but its publication was never completed due to Tolstoy's disagreement with his publisher over the ending of the novel. Therefore, the first complete edition of the text appeared in book form in 1878.

The novel is considered one of the crowning works of realism. For Tolstoy, Anna Karenina was his first real novel. The physical appearance of the title character seems to be inspired by Maria Hartung (1832-1919), the first-born daughter of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.

Family Happiness is a novel written by Leo Tolstoy in 1858 and published in 1859. The work focuses in a special way on true love: not the one that is based only on passion, but on a true couple relationship with a view to the future.

In this story, marital happiness is taken as a life project; it is the most complete and complex relationship that can occur between a man and a woman, based on the free decision to unite in order to be happy. Individual obsessions, responsibility and love for others are key in this work based on the author's own life.

Father Sergius is a short story written in 1890 and first published in 1898.

The story begins with the childhood and idealized youth of Prince Stepan Kasatsky. Apparently, the young Kasatsky is predestined to be a great man. On the eve of his wedding, the prince discovers the affair of his fiancée, Countess Mary Korotkova, with Tsar Nicholas I.

This greatly damages his pride, and he takes refuge in the Russian Orthodox Church and becomes a monk. In these years, Kasatsky will live in humility and, above all, in doubt. Despite having become a hermit by order of the high clergy, people still remember him for his past fame and for the drastic change in the course of his life.

Article on the Census in Moscow, is an essay that Tolstoy wrote in 1882 in which he describes and reflects on his brief experience as an enumerator in the Moscow census. The writer did not move to the Russian capital until 1881, where he encountered the poverty of the city while questioning the lifestyle into which he was born.

It should be kept in mind that censuses and population surveys are research instruments that provide a description of a society. Thus, Tolstoy saw in the census an opportunity to identify those most in need and help them, although this experience also revealed to him the limitations of philanthropy.

If you want to know more about the impressions of this brilliant writer on the function and importance of the census for sociological research, be sure to read this text.

It is well known that Tolstoy was a pacifist who advocated non-violent protest and the importance and necessity of integrating love and tolerance into our lives. Bethink Yourselves is a thought-provoking work, in which Tolstoy states his firm position against wars and the killing of mankind, pointing out that there is no such thing as a just war.

The writer believed that it was possible to free oneself from war by appealing to conscience, that each person should reflect and ask themselves who they are and what they should or should not do. That they should be aware of the insubstantial arguments used by governments to persuade them to support or volunteer for war.

Although this book was written about a specific period in history, most of its teachings can still be applied today.