What a Journey!

What should a young teen do, parents deceased, living arrangements all jumbled, life turned upside down.  There are lots of options, but the story of one 13 year old boy stands out.

Leo Tolstoy started preparations for the entrance examinations to Kazan University, wanting to enter the faculty of Oriental languages. He studied Arabic, Turkish, Latin, German, English, and French, and geography, history, and religion. He also began in earnest studying the literary works of English, Russian and French authors including Charles Dickens,Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, Mikhail Lermontov, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Laurence Sterne, Friedrich Schiller, and Francois-Marie Arouet Voltaire.

In 1844, at the age of sixteen and the end of what Tolstoy says was his childhood, and the beginning of his youth, he entered the University of Kazan to study Turco-Arabic literature. While he did not graduate, or even get beyond the second year (he would later attempt to study law) this period of his life also corresponded with his coming out into society. 


He and his brothers moved out of their uncle’s home and secured their own rooms. No longer the provincial, there were balls and galas to attend and other such manly pursuits under the general heading of "dissolute". Tolstoy did not have much success as a student, but he would become a polyglot with at least some working knowledge of a dozen languages. He did not "respond to the universities’ conventional system of learning" as he phrased it,  and left in 1847 without obtaining his degree.


The greatest writer of Russia would live up to his noble heritage, and then renounce his wealth to help the poor.  The writer of "War and Peace" would become a profound influence on Ghandi.  His estate would become a haven for homeless serfs.


All the advantages of life, by which we often mean financial resources, fade when we are motivated by faith and purpose.  Tolstoy became fascinated with Jesus, and dedicated to His teachings.  As he renounced nobility, he became a saint to the Russian peasant and a powerful influence around the world.


What marvelous things God does with a life given to Him!