Q 01/05

What was the name of the family estate where Tolstoy was born and spent most of his life?

A) Tsarskoye Selo

B) Yasnaya Polyana

C) Spasskoye

D) Melikhovo

Answer · why

B) Yasnaya Polyana

Yasnaya Polyana. He asked to be buried in its woods, at the spot where his brother Nikolai said he had buried a green stick inscribed with the secret ...

Q 02/05

What aristocratic title did Tolstoy hold?

A) Duke

B) Prince

C) Count

D) Baron

Answer · why

C) Count

Count. The title first went to his ancestor Pyotr Tolstoy, the diplomat who tracked Peter the Great's runaway son Alexei to Naples and brought him bac...

Q 03/05

Which War and Peace heroine echoes Tolstoy's mother?

A) Natasha Rostova

B) Hélène Kuragina

C) Marya Bolkonskaya

D) Sonya Rostova

Answer · why

C) Marya Bolkonskaya

Marya Bolkonskaya. Tolstoy could not remember his mother, Princess Maria Volkonskaya, and not one portrait of her survived, so he had to imagine her, ...

Q 04/05

Tolstoy left which university without a degree, after poor marks pushed him from Oriental languages into law?

A) Kazan

B) Moscow

C) Kiev

D) Dorpat

Answer · why

A) Kazan

Kazan. He failed the entrance exam at his first try, managed a year of Oriental languages, drifted through law and quit in 1847, saying later that he ...

Q 05/05

Why did Tolstoy leave for the Caucasus in 1851 and join the army?

A) He was conscripted

B) He wanted to write a war novel

C) He had run up heavy gambling debts

D) He was fleeing a duel

Answer · why

C) He had run up heavy gambling debts

He had run up heavy gambling debts. The habit followed him into the army: in 1854 he sold the main house he was born in to cover another loss, and the...