In reference to her chosen author and to other authors showcased in the Fall 2025 program—Margaret Atwood, Janet Frame, Elie Wiesel, James Joyce, Leo Tolstoy, and Mark Twain—Sandra E. asks, “Who are we to take on the titans of literature? There is so much to say!”
On Tuesday, November 11th, via Zoom, Sandra shared her research and interest in her literary titan, Leo Tolstoy. Sandra’s biographical overview and focused discussion of Anna Karenina offered listeners an engaging introduction to one of the greatest and most influential writers in any language.
Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was born in 1828 at his family’s estate south of Moscow. He was orphaned as a young boy and raised by relatives. Tolstoy’s semi-autobiographical novels, Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth (1852-1856), brought him early acclaim as a writer. He went on to write numerous novels and novellas, most notably War and Peace (1869), Anna Karenina (1878), and The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886).
In 1862, Tolstoy married Sofia (Sonya) and the couple had thirteen children, eight of whom lived into adulthood. Not only was Sofia a wife and mother, but also the writer’s secretary, editor, and transcriber. Sofia kept a detailed journal describing her troubled family life and her often cruel husband. Sofia’s diaries were published after her death and the life and marriage of the Tolstoys were later portrayed in the film The Last Station and in a BBC Radio series entitled “Mrs. Tolstoy, A simple Life.”
Anna Karenina famously begins with the line, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Sandra explores the novel’s three main families—Stiva and Dolly Oblonsky, Alexei and Anna Karenin, and Konstantin and Kitty Levin—demonstrating how their lives are often passionately and tragically intertwined. The novel highlights late nineteenth-century tensions between urban and rural life, love and duty, and resilience and despair.
Tolstoy fell into a profound moral and existential crisis in the late 1870s. Tolstoy turned to religion and the simple living of the Russian countryside. The character of Levin in Anna Karenina is often believed to share the same philosophy as the writer himself.
Tolstoy was nominated numerous times between 1901 and 1909 for the Nobel Prize in Literature, though he never won. When he learned of the nominations, he was relieved that he did not win as it spared him “the painful necessity of dealing in some way with the money […] generally regarded as very necessary and useful, but which I regard as the source of every kind of evil.”
In answer to Sandra’s question, “Who are we to take on the titans of literature,” the answer is simple: thoughtful, well-read members of the CWLC—including Sandra—who engage with the literary greats with curiosity and appreciation.
The Memorial Park library was closed on November 11th in observance of Remembrance Day.
Posted by Mooréa G.