Leo Tolstoy was a Russian writer who served in the Crimean wars. He is regarded as one of the greatest authors in literary history. He received multiple nominations every year from 1902 to 1906 for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He also won the Nobel Peace Prize in the years 1901, 1902, and 1910. He was a Russian aristocrat and is best known for his novels Anna Karenina (1877) and War and Peace (1869). His first literary acclaim was achieved during his twenties through a semi-autobiographical trilogy- “Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth”. This was based on his experiences during the Crimean war. He has written dozens of short stories and novellas in his lifetime. He also dabbled in plays and several philosophical essays. His ideas on non- violent resistance expressed in his works like the Kingdom of God within You had greatly influenced leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi.
