Dozens of memoirs have been written about Leo Tolstoy, including those of his closest relatives; the smallest facts of his biography are reflected in hundreds of letters and diary entries of his contemporaries. Nevertheless, his life continues to remain a mystery. How did a “trifling fellow” who did not receive a systematic education turn into a great writer and philosopher? What did his “spiritual revolution” mean? What prompted him to give up his property and literary rights? Why was he excommunicated from the Church? What are the real reasons for his several attempts to leave home? Why did he go to Optina Pustyn before his death? Writer and journalist, winner of the Big Book literary prize, Pavel Basinsky, sums up his many years of searching for the “true Tolstoy” in a book written on the basis of extensive documentary material, from which the reader learns why Tolstoy sold his father’s property home, why in his old age he learned Greek in a month and a half, how he saved dozens of starving people, why he didn’t like Tolstoyans, why he rewrote his will six times... In a word, this is a complete biography of a literary genius in a small format.