Map: The Western Russian Empire in the Reign of Nicholas I

1828

Born at Yasnaya Polyana, Tula Province

1830

Death of Tolstoy's mother

1837

Father dies shortly after family moves to Moscow

1841

The five Tolstoy children move to Kazan

1844

Becomes a student at Kazan University

1847

Starts writing a diary and returns to Yasnaya Polyana without finishing his degree when he comes into his inheritance

1851

Travels to the Caucasus with his brother Nikolay and joins the army

1852

Childhood is published

1854

Receives his commission and transfers to Bucharest, then the Crimea

1855

Sebastopol in December greeted with wide acclaim; arrives in St Petersburg and meets Turgenev and other writers for the first time

1856

Death of brother Dmitry; retires from the army

1857

First visit to Western Europe

1859

Opens school at Yasnaya Polyana for the peasants

1860

Second visit to Western Europe, to study pedagogy; death of brother Nikolay

1861

Appointed Justice of the Peace after serfs are emancipated; opens more schools and founds an educational journal

1862

Yasnaya Polyana raided by the secret police while Tolstoy is in Samara; marries Sofya Bers

1863

Starts writing War and Peace (completed 1869); birth of first child — son Sergey

1871

Buys an estate in Samara province

1872

Publishes ABC book and re-opens Yasnaya Polyana school briefly

1873

Starts writing Anna Karenina (completed 1877) 1875 Publication of the New ABC

1877

Becomes devout — visits Optina Pustyn Monastery

1878

Reconciliation with Turgenev; meetings with sectarians in Samara

1879

Renounces the Orthodox faith

1880

Confession (circulates in samizdat in 1882)

1881

Appeals to Tsar to exercise clemency after the assassination of Alexander II

Union and Translation of the Four Gospels

Family moves to Moscow for the winter months

1882

Investigation of Dogmatic Theology (published in 1891)

What I Believe (circulates in samizdat in 1884)

1883

Meets Vladimir Chertkov; Gospel in Brief published in France

1885

Sonya takes over the publication of Tolstoy's earlier fiction

First English translations of Confession, What I Believe

1886

What Then Must We Do?; The Death of Ivan Ilych; The Powers of Darkness

First English translations of War and Peace and Anna Karenina

1887

On Life (first publication in French in 1889)

1888

The Tolstoys' last child, Ivan, is born

First grandchild is born (to Ilya and his wife Sofya)

1889

The Kreutzer Sonata — circulates immediately in samizdat Tolstoy's sister Masha becomes a nun

1890

Sonya obtains permission to publish The Kreutzer Sonata after an audience with Alexander III; Tolstoy is anathematised

1891

Renounces copyright and divides property among his wife and children. By now vegetarian, teetotal; no longer smokes or hunts

1892

Famine relief in Ryazan province

1893

The Kingdom of God is Within You — immediately published in translation

1894

Death of first Tolstoyan 'martyr'; meets first Dukhobors

1895

Death of Ivan Tolstoy before his seventh birthday; Tolstoy takes up cycling

1896

First Tolstoyan colony established in England

1897

Chertkov exiled to England; founds press to publish Tolstoy's writings

1898

What is Art?

1899

Resurrection - royalties pay for Dukhobors to emigrate to Canada

1901

Excommunicated

1902

Recovers from serious illness in the Crimea 1904 Death of brother Sergey i906 Chertkov allowed to return from exile

1908

'I Cannot Be Silent!'

1910

Death at Astapovo railway station