Tolstoy's InfluenceLeo Tolstoy was an author, anarchist, critic, pioneer, visionary, and world changer. He wrote many great novels and various other literary works in his time, but this only scratches the surface of how and what he did to change the world. Leo Tolstoy changed the world by creating schools that allowed peasants to receive an education, influencing leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., and changing the world through his writings. Leo Tolstoy was a Russian author born on September 9, 1828 in Yasnaya Polyana, Russia and died of pneumonia in the winter of 1910. Today, Tolstoy is buried at his estate in Yasnaya Polyana in Russia. Both his parents died when he was just a child and he was raised by relatives. Tolstoy was married to Sophia Tolstaya and had thirteen children with his wife, but only a handful of them survived childhood. Tolstoy got into debt while gambling and joined the army to escape his debts. He began writing soon after. He began writing letters to his family and friends. Tolstoy “became a masterful novelist who, over the next fifteen years, wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina” (Heims, p. 75). He was really inspired to start writing after meeting Victor Hugo and reading his book Les Miserables, written in 1862. Leo Tolstoy borrowed the title of his best and most famous novel War and Peace, published in 1869, from the anarchist French Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Proudhon also influenced Leo Tolstoy to become an anarchist, after Tolstoy read his publication entitled "La Guerre et la Paix", which means war and peace in French. War and Peace was not Tolstoy's only famous work however, he had many others. Tolstoy's second most notable book was Anna Karenina,...... middle of paper ......sant Schools at Yasnaya Polyana By Eric M. Souder." . Vestnik: The Journal of Russian and Asian Studies. , October 18, 2010. Web. May 5, 2014. “The Kingdom of God is within you.” Dover Publications, September 8, 2006. “Tolstoy Biographical Information.” .Weber, Thomas. Tolstoy and Gandhi.” Np, nd Web May 5, 2014. .Wood, Paul. “Tolstoy’s legacy of nonviolence influenced many great leaders.” . Np, January 1, 2009. Web. May 5 2014. .