Leo Tolstoy became the visiting-card of the Russian culture a long ago, but in modern Russia his perception quite often is blear stereotypes going from soviet tradition, - school teaching, desire to match against a Tolstoy-artist a tothinker. Meantime exactly today Thick strikingly actual: idea of non-violent resistance, vegetarianism, дауншифтинг, requirement of abandonment from military service, fight after maintenance of nature, attitude toward love and to the sex appeal - all, that seemed his oddity, becomes a world intellectual mainstream. New short biography of great writer traces the mainlines of his fate and work. Artistic and philosophical heritage of Tolstoy is examined here equally with military experience, peasant labour and domestic tragedy. Such "integrative" approach allows to talk about him out of filling the soreness of the mouth of disserting upon "contradictions" and clearer to detect an unique sequence and wholeness of his course of life. Andrey Зорин is a historian of literature, professor of the Oxford university and МВШСЭН.