Works by Leo Tolstoy for children. The best works of Tolstoy for children

Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich
(09.09.1828 - 20.11.1910).

Born in the Yasnaya Polyana estate. Among the writer’s paternal ancestors is Peter I’s associate, P. A. Tolstoy, who was one of the first in Russia to receive count's title. Participant Patriotic War 1812 was the father of the writer, Count. N.I. Tolstoy. On his mother's side, Tolstoy belonged to the family of the Bolkonsky princes, related by kinship to the Trubetskoy, Golitsyn, Odoevsky, Lykov and other noble families. On his mother's side, Tolstoy was a relative of A.S. Pushkin.
When Tolstoy was in his ninth year, his father took him to Moscow for the first time, the impressions of his meeting with which were vividly conveyed by the future writer in his children's essay "The Kremlin." Moscow is here called “the greatest and most populous city in Europe,” the walls of which “saw the shame and defeat of Napoleon’s invincible regiments.” The first period of young Tolstoy's Moscow life lasted less than four years. He was orphaned early, losing first his mother and then his father. With his sister and three brothers, young Tolstoy moved to Kazan. One of my father’s sisters lived here and became their guardian.
Living in Kazan, Tolstoy spent two and a half years preparing to enter the university, where he studied from 1844, first at the Oriental Faculty and then at the Faculty of Law. Studied Turkish and Tatar languages from the famous Turkologist Professor Kazembek. In his mature years, the writer was fluent in English, French and German languages; read in Italian, Polish, Czech and Serbian; knew Greek, Latin, Ukrainian, Tatar, Church Slavonic; studied Hebrew, Turkish, Dutch, Bulgarian and other languages.
Classes on government programs and textbooks weighed heavily on Tolstoy the student. He got carried away independent work above historical theme and, leaving the university, left Kazan for Yasnaya Polyana, received by him through the division of his father's inheritance. Then he went to Moscow, where at the end of 1850 his writing began: an unfinished story from gypsy life (the manuscript has not survived) and a description of one day he lived (“The History of Yesterday”). At the same time, the story “Childhood” was begun. Soon Tolstoy decided to go to the Caucasus, where his older brother, Nikolai Nikolaevich, an artillery officer, served in the active army. Having entered the army as a cadet, he later passed the exam for junior officer rank. The writer's impressions of the Caucasian War were reflected in the stories "Raid" (1853), "Cutting Wood" (1855), "Demoted" (1856), and in the story "Cossacks" (1852-1863). In the Caucasus, the story “Childhood” was completed, published in 1852 in the magazine “Sovremennik”.

When the Crimean War began, Tolstoy was transferred from the Caucasus to the Danube Army, which was operating against the Turks, and then to Sevastopol, which was besieged by the combined forces of England, France and Turkey. Commanding the battery on the 4th bastion, Tolstoy was awarded the Order of Anna and the medals “For the Defense of Sevastopol” and “In Memory of the War of 1853-1856.” More than once Tolstoy was nominated for the military Cross of St. George, but he never received the “George.” In the army, Tolstoy wrote a number of projects - about the reformation of artillery batteries and the creation of artillery battalions armed with rifled guns, about the reformation of the entire Russian army. Together with a group of officers of the Crimean Army, Tolstoy intended to publish the magazine "Soldier's Bulletin" ("Military Leaflet"), but its publication was not authorized by Emperor Nicholas I.
In the fall of 1856, he retired and soon went on a six-month trip abroad, visiting France, Switzerland, Italy and Germany. In 1859, Tolstoy opened a school for peasant children in Yasnaya Polyana, and then helped open more than 20 schools in the surrounding villages. To direct their activities along the right path, from his point of view, he published the pedagogical magazine Yasnaya Polyana (1862). In order to study the organization of school affairs in foreign countries, the writer went abroad for the second time in 1860.
After the manifesto of 1861, Tolstoy became one of the world mediators of the first call who sought to help peasants resolve their disputes with landowners about land. Soon in Yasnaya Polyana, when Tolstoy was away, the gendarmes carried out a search in search of a secret printing house, which the writer allegedly opened after communicating with A. I. Herzen in London. Tolstoy had to close the school and stop publishing the pedagogical magazine. In total, he wrote eleven articles on school and pedagogy (“On Public Education”, “Upbringing and Education”, “On Social Activities in the Field of Public Education” and others). In them, he described in detail the experience of his work with students (“Yasnaya Polyana school for the months of November and December”, “On methods of teaching literacy”, “Who should learn to write from whom, the peasant children from us or us from the peasant children”). Tolstoy the teacher demanded that school be brought closer to life, sought to put it at the service of the needs of the people, and for this to intensify the processes of teaching and upbringing, to develop Creative skills children.
At the same time, already at the beginning creative path Tolstoy becomes a supervised writer. Some of the writer's first works were the stories "Childhood", "Adolescence" and "Youth", "Youth" (which, however, was not written). According to the author's plan, they were supposed to compose the novel "Four Epochs of Development."
In the early 1860s. For decades, the order of Tolstoy’s life, his way of life, is established. In 1862, he married the daughter of a Moscow doctor, Sofya Andreevna Bers.
The writer is working on the novel "War and Peace" (1863-1869). Having completed War and Peace, Tolstoy spent several years studying materials about Peter I and his time. However, after writing several chapters of Peter’s novel, Tolstoy abandoned his plan. In the early 1870s. The writer was again fascinated by pedagogy. He put a lot of work into the creation of the ABC, and then the New ABC. At the same time, he compiled “Books for Reading”, where he included many of his stories.
In the spring of 1873, Tolstoy began and four years later completed work on a great novel about modernity, calling it by name main character- "Anna Karenina".
The spiritual crisis experienced by Tolstoy at the end of 1870 - beginning. 1880, ended with a turning point in his worldview. In “Confession” (1879-1882), the writer talks about a revolution in his views, the meaning of which he saw in a break with the ideology of the noble class and a transition to the side of the “simple working people.”
At the beginning of the 1880s. Tolstoy moved with his family from Yasnaya Polyana to Moscow, caring about providing an education to his growing children. In 1882, a census of the Moscow population took place, in which the writer took part. He saw closely the inhabitants of the city slums and described them terrible life in the article on the census and in the treatise "So What Should We Do?" (1882-1886). In them, the writer made the main conclusion: “...You can’t live like that, you can’t live like that, you can’t!” "Confession" and "So What Should We Do?" were works in which Tolstoy acted simultaneously as an artist and as a publicist, as a profound psychologist and a courageous sociologist-analyst. Later, this type of work - in the genre of journalistic, but including artistic scenes and paintings, saturated with elements of imagery - will occupy great place in his work.
In these and subsequent years, Tolstoy also wrote religious and philosophical works: “Criticism of Dogmatic Theology”, “What is My Faith?”, “Connection, Translation and Study of the Four Gospels”, “The Kingdom of God is Within You”. In them, the writer not only showed a change in his religious and moral views, but also subjected to a critical revision of the main dogmas and principles of the teaching of the official church. In the mid-1880s. Tolstoy and his like-minded people created the Posrednik publishing house in Moscow, which printed books and paintings for the people. The first of Tolstoy's works, published for the "common" people, was the story "How People Live." In it, as in many other works of this cycle, the writer made extensive use not only of folklore plots, but also expressive means oral creativity. Tolstoy's folk stories are thematically and stylistically related to his plays for folk theaters and, most of all, the drama “The Power of Darkness” (1886), which captures the tragedy of a post-reform village, where under the “power of money” centuries-old patriarchal orders collapsed.
In 1880 Tolstoy's stories "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" and "Kholstomer" ("The Story of a Horse"), and "The Kreutzer Sonata" (1887-1889) appeared. In it, as well as in the story “The Devil” (1889-1890) and the story “Father Sergius” (1890-1898), the problems of love and marriage, the purity of family relationships are posed.
Tolstoy’s story “The Master and the Worker” (1895), stylistically related to his cycle, is based on social and psychological contrast. folk stories, written in the 80s. Five years earlier, Tolstoy wrote for " home performance"comedy "The Fruits of Enlightenment". It also shows the "owners" and "workers": noble landowners living in the city and peasants who came from a hungry village, deprived of land. The images of the first are given satirically, the author portrays the second as reasonable and positive people, but in some scenes and they are “presented” in an ironic light.
All these works of the writer are united by the idea of ​​an inevitable and close in time “denouement” social contradictions, about replacing an outdated social “order.” “I don’t know what the outcome will be,” Tolstoy wrote in 1892, “but that things are approaching it and that life cannot continue like this, in such forms, I am sure.” This idea inspired largest work of the entire work of the “late” Tolstoy - the novel “Resurrection” (1889-1899).
Less than ten years separate Anna Karenina from War and Peace. "Resurrection" is separated from "Anna Karenina" by two decades. And although much distinguishes the third novel from the two previous ones, they are united by a truly epic scope in depicting life, the ability to “match” individual human destinies with the fate of the people. Tolstoy himself pointed out the unity that existed between his novels: he said that "Resurrection" was written in the "old manner", meaning, first of all, the epic "manner" in which "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina" were written ". "Resurrection" became last novel in the writer's work.
At the beginning of 1900 The Holy Synod excommunicated Tolstoy from the Orthodox Church.
IN last decade During his lifetime, the writer worked on the story “Hadji Murat” (1896-1904), in which he sought to compare “the two poles of imperious absolutism” - the European, personified by Nicholas I, and the Asian, personified by Shamil. At the same time, Tolstoy created one of his best plays, “The Living Corpse.” Her hero is kindest soul, soft, conscientious Fedya Protasov leaves his family, breaks off relations with his usual environment, falls to the “bottom” and in the courthouse, unable to bear the lies, pretense, pharisaism of “respectable” people, shoots himself with a pistol and takes his own life. The article “I Can’t Be Silent” written in 1908, in which he protested against the repression of participants in the events of 1905–1907, sounded poignant. The writer’s stories “After the Ball”, “For What?” belong to the same period.
Weighed down by the way of life in Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy more than once contemplated and for a long time did not dare to leave it. But he could no longer live according to the principle of “together and apart,” and on the night of October 28 (November 10) he secretly left Yasnaya Polyana. On the way, he fell ill with pneumonia and was forced to stop at the small station of Astapovo (now Leo Tolstoy), where he died. On November 10 (23), 1910, the writer was buried in Yasnaya Polyana, in the forest, on the edge of a ravine, where as a child he and his brother were looking for the “green stick” that held the “secret” of how to make all people happy.

Information sheet:

The wonderful, cute fairy tales of Leo Tolstoy make an indelible impression on children. Little readers and listeners make unusual discoveries about living nature, which are given to them in a fairy-tale form. At the same time, they are interesting to read and easy to understand. For better perception, some of the author's previously written fairy tales were later released in processing.

Who is Leo Tolstoy?

He was a famous writer of his time and remains so today. He had an excellent education and knew foreign languages, was keen classical music. Traveled extensively throughout Europe and served in the Caucasus.

His original books were always published in large editions. Great novels and novellas, short stories and fables - the list of published works amazes with the richness of the author's literary talent. He wrote about love, war, heroism and patriotism. Personally participated in military battles. I saw a lot of grief and complete self-denial of soldiers and officers. He often spoke with bitterness not only about the material, but also about the spiritual poverty of the peasantry. And quite unexpected against the backdrop of his epic and social works were his wonderful creations for children.

Why did you start writing for children?

Count Tolstoy did a lot of charity work. On his estate he opened a free school for peasants. The desire to write for children arose when the first few poor children came to study. To open up to them the world, in simple language to teach what is now called natural history, Tolstoy began to write fairy tales.

Why do they love the writer these days?

It turned out so well that even now, children of a completely different generation, enjoy the works of the 19th century count, learning love and kindness towards the world around us and animals. As in all literature, Leo Tolstoy was also talented in fairy tales and is loved by his readers.

Lev Tolstoy is one of the most famous writers and philosophers in the world. His views and beliefs formed the basis of an entire religious and philosophical movement called Tolstoyism. Literary heritage the writer compiled 90 volumes of artistic and journalistic works, diary notes and letters, and he himself was nominated more than once for Nobel Prize in Literature and the Nobel Peace Prize.

“Do everything that you have determined to be done.”

Family tree of Leo Tolstoy. Image: regnum.ru

Silhouette of Maria Tolstoy (nee Volkonskaya), mother of Leo Tolstoy. 1810s. Image: wikipedia.org

Leo Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828 in the Yasnaya Polyana estate in the Tula province. He was the fourth child in a large noble family. Tolstoy was orphaned early. His mother died when he was not yet two years old, and at the age of nine he lost his father. Aunt Alexandra Osten-Saken became the guardian of Tolstoy's five children. The two older children moved to their aunt in Moscow, while the younger ones remained in Yasnaya Polyana. The most important and dear memories are associated with the family estate early childhood Lev Tolstoy.

In 1841, Alexandra Osten-Sacken died, and the Tolstoys moved to their aunt Pelageya Yushkova in Kazan. Three years after moving, Leo Tolstoy decided to enter the prestigious Imperial Kazan University. However, he did not like studying; he considered exams to be a formality, and university professors to be incompetent. Tolstoy did not even try to get a scientific degree; in Kazan he was more attracted to secular entertainment.

In April 1847 student life Leo Tolstoy is over. He inherited his part of the estate, including his beloved Yasnaya Polyana, and immediately went home without receiving higher education. IN family estate Tolstoy tried to improve his life and start writing. He drew up his education plan: study languages, history, medicine, mathematics, geography, law, agriculture, natural sciences. However, he soon came to the conclusion that it is easier to make plans than to implement them.

Tolstoy's asceticism was often replaced by carousing and card games. Wanting to start what he thought was the right life, he created a daily routine. But he didn’t follow it either, and in his diary he again noted his dissatisfaction with himself. All these failures prompted Leo Tolstoy to change his lifestyle. An opportunity presented itself in April 1851: the elder brother Nikolai arrived in Yasnaya Polyana. At that time he served in the Caucasus, where there was a war. Leo Tolstoy decided to join his brother and went with him to a village on the banks of the Terek River.

Leo Tolstoy served on the outskirts of the empire for almost two and a half years. He whiled away his time by hunting, playing cards, and occasionally participating in raids into enemy territory. Tolstoy liked such a solitary and monotonous life. It was in the Caucasus that the story “Childhood” was born. While working on it, the writer found a source of inspiration that remained important to him until the end of his life: he used his own memories and experiences.

In July 1852, Tolstoy sent the manuscript of the story to the Sovremennik magazine and attached a letter: “...I look forward to your verdict. He will either encourage me to continue my favorite activities, or force me to burn everything I started.”. Editor Nikolai Nekrasov liked the work of the new author, and soon “Childhood” was published in the magazine. Inspired by the first success, the writer soon began the continuation of “Childhood”. In 1854, he published a second story, “Adolescence”, in the Sovremennik magazine.

“The main thing is literary works”

Leo Tolstoy in his youth. 1851. Image: school-science.ru

Lev Tolstoy. 1848. Image: regnum.ru

Lev Tolstoy. Image: old.orlovka.org.ru

At the end of 1854, Leo Tolstoy arrived in Sevastopol - the epicenter of military operations. Being in the thick of things, he created the story “Sevastopol in December.” Although Tolstoy was unusually frank in describing battle scenes, the first Sevastopol story was deeply patriotic and glorified the bravery of Russian soldiers. Soon Tolstoy began working on his second story, “Sevastopol in May.” By that time, there was nothing left of his pride in the Russian army. The horror and shock that Tolstoy experienced on the front line and during the siege of the city greatly influenced his work. Now he wrote about the meaninglessness of death and the inhumanity of war.

In 1855, from the ruins of Sevastopol, Tolstoy traveled to sophisticated St. Petersburg. The success of the first Sevastopol story gave him a sense of purpose: “My career is literature - writing and writing! Starting tomorrow, I work all my life or give up everything, rules, religion, decency - everything.”. In the capital, Leo Tolstoy finished “Sevastopol in May” and wrote “Sevastopol in August 1855” - these essays completed the trilogy. And in November 1856, the writer finally left military service.

Thanks to true stories O Crimean War Tolstoy joined the St. Petersburg literary circle of the Sovremennik magazine. During this period, he wrote the story “Blizzard”, the story “Two Hussars”, and finished the trilogy with the story “Youth”. However, after some time, relations with the writers from the circle deteriorated: “These people disgusted me, and I disgusted myself.”. To unwind, at the beginning of 1857 Leo Tolstoy went abroad. He visited Paris, Rome, Berlin, Dresden: he met famous works art, met artists, observed how people live in European cities. The journey did not inspire Tolstoy: he created the story “Lucerne”, in which he described his disappointment.

Leo Tolstoy at work. Image: kartinkinaden.ru

Leo Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana. Image: kartinkinaden.ru

Leo Tolstoy tells a fairy tale to his grandchildren Ilyusha and Sonya. 1909. Krekshino. Photo: Vladimir Chertkov / wikipedia.org

In the summer of 1857, Tolstoy returned to Yasnaya Polyana. At his native estate, he continued to work on the story “Cossacks”, and also wrote the story “Three Deaths” and the novel “Family Happiness”. In his diary, Tolstoy defined his purpose for himself at that time: "Main - literary works, then - family responsibilities, then - farming... And so to live for yourself - according to good deed a day and that's enough".

In 1899, Tolstoy wrote the novel Resurrection. In this work, the writer criticized the judicial system, the army, and the government. The contempt with which Tolstoy described the institution of the church in his novel “Resurrection” provoked a response. In February 1901, in the journal “Church Gazette,” the Holy Synod published a resolution excommunicating Count Leo Tolstoy from the church. This decision only increased Tolstoy's popularity and attracted the public's attention to the writer's ideals and beliefs.

Literary and social activity Tolstoy became known abroad. The writer was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1901, 1902 and 1909 and for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1902–1906. Tolstoy himself did not want to receive the award and even told the Finnish writer Arvid Järnefelt to try to prevent the award from being awarded because, “if this happened... it would be very unpleasant to refuse” “He [Chertkov] took the unfortunate old man into his hands in every possible way, he separated us, he killed the artistic spark in Lev Nikolaevich and kindled condemnation, hatred, denial, which can be felt in Lev Nikolaevich’s articles recent years, which his stupid evil genius egged him on".

Tolstoy himself was burdened by the life of a landowner and family man. He sought to bring his life into line with his beliefs and in early November 1910 secretly left the Yasnaya Polyana estate. The road turned out to be too much for the elderly man: on the way he became seriously ill and was forced to stay in the house of the caretaker of the Astapovo railway station. Here the writer spent last days own life. Leo Tolstoy died on November 20, 1910. The writer was buried in Yasnaya Polyana.

Our ship was anchored off the coast of Africa. It was a beautiful day, a fresh wind was blowing from the sea; but in the evening the weather changed: it became stuffy and, as if from a heated stove, hot air from the Sahara desert was blowing towards us.

Before sunset, the captain came out onto the deck and shouted: “Swim!” - and in one minute the sailors jumped into the water, lowered the sail into the water, tied it and set up a bath in the sail.

There were two boys with us on the ship. The boys were the first to jump into the water, but they were cramped in the sail, and they decided to race against each other in the open sea.

Both, like lizards, stretched out in the water and, with all their strength, swam to the place where there was a barrel above the anchor.

The squirrel jumped from branch to branch and fell straight onto the sleepy wolf. The wolf jumped up and wanted to eat her. The squirrel began to ask:

- Let me in.

Wolf said:

- Okay, I’ll let you in, just tell me why you squirrels are so cheerful. I’m always bored, but I look at you, you’re up there playing and jumping.

One person had big house, and there was a large stove in the house; and this man’s family was small: only himself and his wife.

When winter came, a man began to light the stove and burned all his wood in one month. There was nothing to heat it with, and it was cold.

Then the man began to destroy the yard and drown it with wood from the broken yard. When he burned the entire yard, it became even colder in the house without protection, and there was nothing to heat it with. Then he climbed in, broke the roof and began to drown the roof; the house became even colder, and there was no firewood. Then the man began to dismantle the ceiling from the house in order to heat it with it.

A man was riding a boat and dropped precious pearls into the sea. The man returned to the shore, took a bucket and began to scoop up water and pour it onto the ground. He scooped and poured out for three days without tiring.

On the fourth day a merman came out of the sea and asked:

Why are you scooping?

The man says:

I realize that I dropped the pearl.

The merman asked:

Will you stop soon?

The man says:

When I dry up the sea, then I will stop.

Then the merman returned to the sea, brought those same pearls and gave them to the man.

There were two sisters: Volga and Vazuza. They began to argue about which of them was smarter and who would live better.

Volga said:

Why should we argue - we are both getting older. Let's leave the house tomorrow morning and go our separate ways; then we will see which of the two will go through better and come to the Khvalynsk kingdom sooner.

Vazuza agreed, but deceived Volga. As soon as the Volga fell asleep, Vazuza at night ran straight along the road to the Khvalynsk kingdom.

When Volga got up and saw that her sister had left, she quietly and quickly went her way and caught up with Vazuzu.

The wolf wanted to catch a sheep from the herd and went into the wind so that dust from the herd would blow on him.

The sheepdog saw him and said:

It’s in vain, wolf, that you walk in the dust, your eyes will hurt.

And the wolf says:

That’s the trouble, little dog, that my eyes have been hurting for a long time, but they say that dust from a flock of sheep heals my eyes well.

The wolf choked on a bone and could not breathe out. He called the crane and said:

Come on, you crane, you have a long neck, stick your head down my throat and pull out the bone: I will reward you.

The crane stuck his head in, pulled out a bone and said:

Give me a reward.

The wolf gritted his teeth and said:

Or is it not enough reward for you that I didn’t bite your head off when it was in my teeth?

The wolf wanted to get close to the foal. He approached the herd and said:

Why is your foal limping alone? Or do you not know how to heal? We wolves have such a medicine that there will never be lameness.

The mare is alone and says:

Do you know how to treat?

How can you not know?

So, treat my right hind leg, something in the hoof hurts.

Wolf and goat

The category is made up of Russian life, mainly from village life. Data on natural history and history are given in the simple form of fairy tales and fiction stories. Most stories deal with a moral theme, occupying only a few lines.

Stories and fairy tales, written Lvom Nikolaevich Tolstoy for textbooks, rich and varied in content; they represent a valuable contribution to the domestic and world literature for children. Most of these fairy tales and stories are still in books for reading V primary school. It is reliably known how seriously he took Lev Tolstoy to writing little fairy tales for children, how much he worked on them, remaking the fairy tale many times. But the most important thing is Tolstoy's little stories the fact that their creator is concerned about the moral side and the topic of education. These stories contain hints from which one must be able to draw good, good, moral lessons.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy often used a genre that everyone understood and loved fables, in which, through allegories, he unobtrusively and carefully presented completely different edifications and intricate morals. Stories and fairy tales on proverb topics Lev Tolstoy instill in the child hard work, courage, honesty and kindness. Representing a kind of small lesson - memorable and bright, fable or proverb teaches understanding folk wisdom, teaching figurative languages, the ability to determine the value of human actions in a generalized form.

Like Pushkin in poetry, so Tolstoy in prose - our everything! And this despite the fact that Lev Nikolaevich has only five full-fledged novels, only several dozen stories and one trilogy - “Childhood. Adolescence. Youth". Stories, fairy tales, fables, poems, translations, dramatic works - few know them, which these works do not deserve at all. Perhaps, remembering them more often, many would discover a new Tolstoy.

The originality of the writer’s prose, his literary style

What distinguishes the work of Leo Tolstoy is the reflection in it of the originality of the author himself: the coexistence in a single whole of a “spontaneous artist” and a “rational thinker.” This is exactly what researchers of the writer’s work have been trying to decompose into atoms for many years. The works of L.N. Tolstoy are a treasure trove for their delights. Artistic and philosophical beginnings, full immersion these two polar styles cause delight in the reader when reading, among writers, critics, public figures- an incomprehensible thirst for research, reasoning and debate.

Some of them suggest the existence of the author in two forms, radically opposed and fighting with each other. Already in his first work - “Childhood and Adolescence” - the philosophy of images in its best manifestation reveals to readers the amazingly beautiful prose of such brilliant writer like Leo Tolstoy. The author's stories and all his other works are created in a unique style, which gave him the fame of the greatest Russian writer.

Top 5 works by Leo Tolstoy

Our modernity is moving away from the definition of “The best something” (in our case “ Best books writer"), replacing it with Top 10, Top 100. Let's try to create a Top 10 most readable works Lev Nikolaevich.

Two novels deservedly claim first place - “Anna Karenina” and “War and Peace”. Each of us has our own arguments in favor of one of them, whom we would elevate to the top line. Bringing them is unnecessary, and the dispute may drag on. In our Top Parade we give first place to the two of them, and move on to second.

The novel “Sunday”, the trilogy “Childhood. Adolescence. Youth”, the stories “The Kreutzer Sonata”, “Notes of a Madman”, “The Morning of a Landowner” - all of them are read, loved and are still in demand by filmmakers and theater directors around the world. If it makes more sense to rank the stories as third, and leave the novel and trilogy at second, then the top three already includes seven of Tolstoy’s best works. For the remaining three places in our Top 10, we adequately fit the cycle “ Sevastopol stories", the story "Hadji Murat" and dramatic work“The power of darkness, or the Claw is stuck, the whole bird is lost.”

Of course, our ten, in which we mentioned the best works of L.N. Tolstoy, are just reflections on the topic, but it is quite likely that it coincides with the opinion of many readers.

“War and Peace” - about whom and what

Rarely a reader has not wondered what the novel is actually about? About the heroism of the Russian army, about the stoic courage and bravery of our soldiers, about the honor and dignity of the nobility, or about human relationships that are tested against the backdrop of difficult events for the state?

A brilliant work, where Leo Tolstoy is the inimitable author - “War and Peace”! The author seems to invite each reader to find the answer to the question: who is interested in war - the presentation of the main battles contains almost completely reliable historical accuracy, who wants to plunge into wonderful description feelings experienced by the characters - you will definitely find in the novel what you are looking for.

In a work unique in its scale, style, and language of presentation, such as the novel “War and Peace,” every line is imbued with the main thing - happiness ordinary life, both in sorrow and in joy. In it, both go in parallel, step by step, hand in hand through all trials and obstacles. Good, naturally, wins, and evil dies defeated.

Did Anna Karenina's creator sympathize with her?

So what assessment does the author himself give to his character? Does he justify her, sympathize with her, feel sorry for her, support her? Tolstoy here acts as an irreconcilable moralist - in all his works, criminal love is doomed to a tragic end. The author created his heroine in order to kill her demonstrably as an edification to others. An image that evokes sympathy does not cause so much suffering.

“Childhood” as one of Tolstoy’s main works

Prominent place in creative heritage The writer is interested in this story. Perhaps the first work in which Leo Tolstoy declared himself to be a great author was “Childhood.” Not because the reader is exposed to the problems of a little man, inaccessible to the understanding of adults, who sees the world in which he lives like an adult, feels its unveiled good and evil, sincerity and falsehood. The reader, following Nikolenka, goes through the school of his growing up, analyzes his and other people’s actions, learns to accept the world as he sees it.

The boy’s ability to acutely sense cunning, cunning, his worries about the fact that he sees these unsightly qualities in himself, force the reader to look back at his childhood and rethink his actions. One can learn from Nikolenka to love people, not only those with whom he lives, but also those who are friends with him or have somehow impressed his childish heart. And the story also teaches how not to destroy this love. The ability to read between the lines will give a lot to those who try to understand this work, just like the short prose that Leo Tolstoy wrote - stories.

Themes of Lev Nikolaevich's stories

About wildlife and defenseless animals, about smart children and wise adults. He doesn’t have many stories; there are only four dozen works on this list, most of which, as already mentioned, to a wide circle readers are unfamiliar. These species are a little luckier short prose from Tolstoy’s legacy, such as “After the Ball”, “The Jump”, “False Coupon”, “The Power of Childhood”, “Conversation with a Passerby”, and, of course, the cycle “Sevastopol Stories”.

A noticeable intensity in writing stories was observed from 1905 to 1909 - the last years in the life of Lev Nikolaevich; he died, as is known, in 1910. A huge period of his life was devoted to other genres of literature in which there was simply no place for stories. Stories for children, which are worth talking about separately, since the world of these works amazes with its depth, the subtle transmission of a child’s impressions about the problems of life, and explain the formation of his personality. This theme is also reflected in such a genre as the fables of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

Stories about children and for children

Prose for children and about themselves occupies a prominent place in the writer’s work. Trilogy “Childhood. Adolescence. Youth" Tolstoy did not limit his attempts to understand in what ways a person’s personality is formed from birth to his entry into life. adult life. The stories “Three Bears”, “How Uncle Semyon told about what happened to him in the forest” and “Cow”, included in the collection “ New alphabet", imbued with love for children and compassion for their little problems. The works of L. N. Tolstoy are rich in thoughts about children.

The story “Philippok” was born after the writer’s careful observation of peasant children and ingenuous communication with them. Lev Nikolaevich always found time for the peasants; he even opened a school for their children on his estate. And one of the first stories that can be classified as children's is small piece about the dog Bulka, her aching devotion to the only close creature - her owner. Until his death, Leo Tolstoy recalled his own childhood and how he wanted to find a “green stick” that would help him make everyone on earth happy.

The place of fables and fairy tales in Tolstoy’s works

Just as we remember the prose of Ivan Andreevich Krylov from childhood and lessons in our native speech, so do the moralizing fables of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, imbued with subtle morality.

• "The Wolf and the Old Man."
• "Lion and Dog"
• "The Crane and the Stork."
• "The head and tail of a snake."
• "Ferret".
• "The Dog and Its Shadow."
• "The Monkey and the Pea."
• "The Squirrel and the Wolf."
• "The Lion, the Donkey and the Fox."
• "The Lion and the Mouse."

This is only a small fraction of the famous fables that complement the great works of L.N. Tolstoy that we love. Through fables, he ridiculed what he could hardly explain in people, and what was unacceptable to him: deception and cunning, anger and hatred, meanness and betrayal. The opposite traits were shown in his prose as sometimes unprotected, open to attack, and this made them even more endearing. Tolstoy seemed to believe that in works for children, and he wrote his fables more for them, there is no room for justifying base actions, it is necessary to explain in an accessible and simple way what is “good” and what is “bad.” I also always believed that children are quite smart and understand subtle morals much closer to the truth than adults.

The confrontation between love and duty is a distinctive feature of the characters of Tolstoy

The genius that Leo Tolstoy created during his life - “War and Peace”, “Anna Karenina”, his stories, fables, fairy tales and stories, reflected primarily his own morality. He transferred his religious dogmas, his mental turmoil and doubts, his beliefs onto paper and endowed them with the characters he sympathized with. Some of his works lacked even light humor, and every phrase in them was strictly verified and thoroughly thought out. He often rewrote what had already been published in magazines, creating what he thought was the ideal character.

The image of Konstantin Levin in Anna Karenina with his painful love to Kitty and a sense of duty towards his convictions. Inimitable and majestic are Pierre Bezukhov from War and Peace, Nikolai Rostov, who assumed his father’s debts and did not take a penny from the dowry of his wife, Princess Bolkonskaya, to pay them off. Many of his characters go through the torment of desires and real actions. The author puts them through psychological tests and makes them even stronger and worthy of respect. That was the way it was own world writer, and it was left to us by L.N. Tolstoy. Works for children - stories, fairy tales, fables, for adults - novels, novellas, drama. They make him so near and dear to us.