托尔斯泰——俄罗斯作家，被认为是最伟大的作家之一

He looks like a Jedi master.

My family owes its existence to this man. My great-great grandfather and his family were Doukhobors in Russia. They were greatly persecuted by the Russian government. Leo Tolstoy funded their Migration to Canada to escape that persecution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doukhobors

One wonders if *War and Peace* would have been as highly acclaimed as it was if it was published under it's original name *War---What Is It Good For?*

"Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (usually referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy) 9 September 1828 – 20 November 1910 Born to an aristocratic Russian family in 1828, he is best known for the novels War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877), often cited as pinnacles of realist fiction. He first achieved literary acclaim in his twenties with his semi-autobiographical trilogy, Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth (1852–1856), and Sevastopol Sketches (1855), based upon his experiences in the Crimean War. Tolstoy's fiction includes dozens of short stories and several novellas such as The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886), Family Happiness (1859), and Hadji Murad (1912). He also wrote plays and numerous philosophical essays. In the 1870s Tolstoy experienced a profound moral crisis, followed by what he regarded as an equally profound spiritual awakening, as outlined in his non-fiction work A Confession (1882). His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him to become a fervent Christian anarchist and pacifist. Tolstoy's ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You (1894), were to have a profound impact on such pivotal 20th-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Tolstoy also became a dedicated advocate of Georgism, the economic philosophy of Henry George, which he incorporated into his writing, particularly Resurrection (1899). " info via wikipedia

Recently finished reading War and Peace, I absolutely loved it. Now I want to read more of him

This is what he had to say about patriotism and government. That was before two world wars. "Bethink yourselves, people, and, for the sake of your bodily and spiritual good, and for the same good of your brothers and sisters, stop, think, reflect on what you are doing! Bethink yourselves and understand that not the Boers, English, French, Germans, Bohemians, Finns, Russians are your enemies, but that the only enemies are you yourselves, who with your patriotism support the governments, which oppress you and cause your misfortunes. They undertook to defend you against dangers, and have carried this condition of defence to such an extent that you have all become soldiers and slaves, that you are all ruined, that you are being ruined more and more, and may and must expect at any moment the breaking of the strained string and the terrible slaughter of you and your children. No matter how great the slaughter may be and how it may end, the condition will remain the same. Even so and with still greater tension will the governments arm and destroy and corrupt you and your children, and no one will help you to stop it all, if you are not going to help yourselves. There is but one help, and that is to destroy that terrible concatenation of the cone of violence, with which those who succeed in getting to the apex of the cone dominate the whole nation, and dominate the more surely, the more cruel and inhuman they are, as we know from the case of Napoleon, Nicholas Ⅰ., Bismarck, Chamberlain, Rhodes, and our dictators who rule the nation in the name of the Tsar. There is but one means for destroying this concatenation, and that is, to awaken from the hypnosis of patriotism. You must understand that all the evil from which you suffer you are causing yourselves, in that you submit to those suggestions by means of which you are deceived by the emperors, kings, members of parliaments, rulers, military men, capitalists, clergy, authors, artists, — by all those who need this deception of patriotism in order to be able to live by your labours. Whoever you may be, — a Frenchman, Russian, Pole, Englishman, Irishman, German, Bohemian, — you must understand that all our real human interests, whatever they be, — agricultural, industrial, commercial, artistic, or scientific, — all these interests, like all the pleasures and joys, in no way oppose the interests of the other nations and states, and that you are, by means of a mutual interaction, exchange of services, the joy of a broad brotherly communion, of an exchange not only of wares, but also of sentiments, united with the men of the other nations. You must understand that the questions as to who succeeds in seizing Wei\-hai\-wei, Port Arthur, or Cuba — whether it is your government or another — are by no means a matter of indifference to you, but that every seizure made by your government is detrimental to you, because it inevitably brings with it all kinds of influences, which your government will exert against you, in order to compel you to take part in robberies and acts of violence, which are necessary for the seizures and for the retention of what has been seized. You must understand that your life can in no way be improved by this, that Alsace will be German or French, and that Ireland and Poland are free or enslaved: no matter whose they may be, you can live wherever you please; even if you were an Alsatian, an Irishman, or a Pole, — you must understand that every fanning of patriotism will only make your position worse, because the enslavement of your nation has resulted only from the struggle of patriotisms, and that every manifestation of patriotism in one nation increases the reaction against it in another. You must understand that you can save yourselves from all your calamities only when you free yourselves from the obsolete idea of patriotism and from the obedience to the governments which is based upon it, and when you shall boldly enter into the sphere of that higher idea of the brotherly union of the nations, which has long ago entered into life and is calling you to itself from all sides. Let men understand that they are not the sons of any countries or governments, but the sons of God, and that, therefore, they cannot be slaves, nor enemies of other men, and all those senseless, now quite useless, pernicious institutions, bequeathed by antiquity, which are called governments, and all those sufferings, acts of violence, degradations, crimes, which they bring with them, will disappear of their own accord."

Any reading suggestions for an English speaker?

Barrel of laughs that Tolstoy.

I believe he was a Christian Anarchist?

Anna Karenina is one of the most heartfelt attempts at a man trying to understand a woman. Brilliant in its approach.

Wasn't he in Kill Bill?

“Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless like imagination. If you put imagination in a book, it becomes the book”. - Tolstoy Sensei (circa 1908)

He wrote "war, what is it good for"

The man has class. He's doing The Al Bundy on the outside if his pants

#[original]()

Al Bundy was also a football legend.

“Star Wars and Peace”

This will probably get buried, but anyone thinking of tackling War & Peace should check out my absolute favourite subreddit and join in the 2000+ redditors doing the read-along. There's even a daily podcast to go along with the project.

Tolstoy - much like Dovstoyesky - gave us quite a peek into the grim parts of human existence and the mind.

Disney Pixar are making a film about him Tolstoy Story

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I'd recommend to anyone that wants to read Tolstoy, to not start with war and peace and instead start with Anna Karenina.

Leo Tolstoy should play Obi-Wan Kenobi in the individual spin off movie.

What I find human rather amazing is that just by its appearance, you can never assume the person's inner ability. Look at him. If you saw him in the street, you'll merely think he's a cranky looking man with a cane who will curse at you if you bump with him. You'll never guess he's a man with tremendous writing talent with the acumen and intellect to dissect the society for the world. He is the true testament of do not judge a book by its cover.