"A moral philosopher. A social reformer. A political critic. A great writer.A self-renouncing mystic. No one fits these descriptions as well as Leo Tolstoy, perhaps the greatest novelist Russia has produced. Tolstoy (1828-1910) wielded the pen not to entertain but to probe the inner soul, not to simply chronicle the great events of his time but to bring a moral passion and a spiritual judgment on those events."