i love fights
Leo Tolstoy, famed as a leading figure in the count branch of the Tolstoy family, was a cousin of Fedor Ivanovich. Contemporary accounts describe him in childhood as robust, physically strong, enduring, confident, and stubborn in character.
“Tolstoy was an eccentric person. He possessed a unique temperament that stood apart from ordinary life, favoring extremes in everything he cherished. He amplified what others did by tenfold. Youth carried a certain fashion, and Tolstoy’s vigor sometimes overwhelmed his peers,” recalled the writer Faddey Bulgarin.
After finishing naval studies in December 1797, Tolstoy, aided by influential relatives, joined the elite Preobrazhensky Regiment with the rank of lieutenant. In March 1799, for service reasons, he was demobilized to the garrison regiment of the Peter and Paul Fortress before returning to guard duties. On September 27 of that year, he earned a promotion to lieutenant.
According to an 1898 publication in Russkiy Arkhiv, recounting stories from GV Grudev, in 1803 Colonel Yegor Drizen chided Tolstoy for tardiness and reportedly spat in the commander’s face. Tolstoy allegedly injured Drizen in a subsequent duel.
“The American Count Tolstoy disregarded Colonel Drizen. A duel followed, and Tolstoy was demoted. He then set out on a world tour under Kruzenshtern’s command,” notes the magazine.
In the book “The Duel. Weapons, Masters, Facts” in the section on the American Alexander Kulinsky, it is stated that Tolstoy is reliably known to have killed two rivals during the Swedish War — Chief of Staff Brunov and Lieutenant Alexander Naryshkin. Maria Kamenskaya, Tolstoy’s cousin, writes that eleven people were killed by her uncle. She notes that Tolstoy kept a list of the fallen and would mark names with the word “kvit” beside each entry as he counted his losses. When his eleventh child, a bright young girl, died, he crossed out the final name and whispered that his curly-haired gypsy baby would stay alive at least.”
went on a world tour
To escape punishment for injuring Drizen, Tolstoy chose to sail around the world aboard the Nadezhda, with the famed cousin Fyodor Petrovich Tolstoy nominally replaced as captain by Ivan Krusenstern. The fleet in the first Russian world cruise consisted of the ships Nadezhda and Nova under Krusenstern’s command.
During a stop on a Pacific island, Tolstoy acquired a pet orangutan that quickly won the crew’s affection. When the animal was brought into Krusenstern’s cabin to witness ink being laid on paper, Tolstoy would leave the orangutan alone, and the captain believed the inkwell had toppled in a storm. Tolstoy offered his own version of events.
This was not Tolstoy’s only mischief aboard the ship. His niece Kamenskaya recalled that he regularly played unorthodox jokes and clashed with officers and sailors.
“The old ship’s priest could get tipsy. Fyodor Ivanovich watered him down until the robes nearly fell, and when the priest lay exhausted on the deck, he sealed his beard with wax, using a government seal stolen from Kruzenshtern. I secured it, and I sat on it; the priest woke up when he attempted to rise, and Fyodor Ivanovich commanded, ‘Look down, don’t rise—behold a state seal!’ I had to trim my beard to the chin,” Kamenskaya remembered.
Ultimately, Kruzenshtern could not endure Tolstoy’s antics and ordered his deportation to Kamchatka. Some accounts suggest the count continued his independent journey from the American islands.
He became an authority among the Aleutians
After disembarking from the Nadezhda, Tolstoy reached an unfamiliar island, possibly one of the Aleutians or Sitka. There, he encountered and earned respect from the native communities. His self-confidence, along with the tattoos he bore from other Pacific stops, elevated his status among islanders who viewed body art as a sign of noble origin. Tolstoy himself claimed that the islanders invited him to become their leader.
Shortly after, in Alaska, the count boarded a Russian merchant ship and sailed by land toward St. Petersburg. He reached Petropavlovsk and then St. Petersburg, earning a reputation as someone who could be called American through his travels.
participated in wars
Back in St. Petersburg, Tolstoy was arrested, placed in a police station, and barred from entering the capital. He spent time at Neishlot Castle in the Vyborg province until 1808, forming a friendship with Prince Mikhail Dolgorukov. During the Russo-Swedish War of 1808–1809, he served as Dolgorukov’s adjutant. In the battle of Idensalmi, Dolgorukov fell, and Tolstoy narrowly survived the clash.
While leading a reconnaissance detachment along the Baltic coast, Tolstoy’s unit helped the army of Mikhail Barclay de Tolly cross the Kvarken Strait on an improvised ice bridge and push into Umeå. Yet his tempestuous temper continued to haunt him; he again quarreled with a colleague, wounded him in a duel, and went into exile in Kaluga. In 1812 he volunteered to defend Moscow, took part in the Battle of Borodino, sustained a serious leg injury, and earned the rank of colonel by war’s end.
favorite gambling
After travel and combat, Tolstoy’s third passion was gambling. He gained a reputation as a skilled yet frequently dishonest player. He openly admitted that cunning could pay off, saying a student of luck should not rely on luck alone. Bulgarin notes that Tolstoy favored quintich, galbe-zvelve, and rollercoaster styles that allowed card acquisition. He matched his opponents with a sharp eye, sometimes reading their character as easily as cards laid on the table.
Bulgarin recalls Tolstoy’s uncanny ability to sense others’ hands and strategies, often winning large sums and separating himself from debt. There were moments when bankruptcy threatened him, and his partner in life, the dancer Avdotya Maksimovna Tolstaya, helped him ride out those storms by lending support and paying off some obligations.
Friends with authors
Settling in Moscow, Tolstoy befriended Prince Peter Vyazemsky, Alexander Pushkin, Vasily Zhukovsky, Konstantin Batyushkov, and other literary figures. Vyazemsky spoke warmly of him in letters to Turgenev, describing Tolstoy as an endlessly curious, fascinating personality. He published many anecdotes about Tolstoy in his Old Notebook and even dedicated poems to him.
Vyazemsky once penned lines praising a friendship that spanned their era. He called Tolstoy a companion who thrived in both daring and intellect, portraying him as a lively, rebellious force in the literary world.
Several authors who shaped Russian literature used Tolstoy as a reference point. Among them were Lensky’s foil Zaretsky in Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, Count Turbin in Leo Tolstoy’s Two Horsemen, and Dolokhov in War and Peace. In a quip from Griboyedov’s Woe from Wit, Tolstoy’s reputation is referenced with a mix of humor and truth. The line about a man who is a duelist and an exile to Kamchatka hints at the complex blend of bravado and consequence that surrounded him.
The overall portrait shows Tolstoy as a magnetic, sometimes controversial figure whose life fused travel, warfare, gambling, and wit into a vibrant, if controversial, legend.
engaged Pushkin
Alexei Wolf, a close Pushkin ally, wrote that in 1826 Tolstoy may have teased the poet in a card game. Alexander Shakhovsky, who contributed to rumor networks, spread words that may have damaged Pushkin’s trust. It remains unclear what Tolstoy specifically said. Pushkin later went to exile in the south and exchanged sharp lines with Tolstoy through witty maxims describing him as a “serf,” “card thief,” and other quips. A duel was rumored but never occurred.
Gradually, with efforts from friends, especially Sergei Sobolevsky, the rivals reconciled. Tolstoy eventually found a place among Pushkin’s circle. In 1829 Pushkin asked Tolstoy to assist with Natalya Goncharova, though the offer faced some resistance due to the girl’s youth, and the arrangement did not come to fruition immediately, but the two maintained a lasting friendship.