"Alan Yentob takes an epic train ride through Leo Tolstoy's Russia, examining how Russia's great novelist became her great troublemaker. Guided by the writer's confessional diaries, Yentob travels through Tolstoy's Russia looking at the life, work and legacy of the author. It reveals a difficult, restless, ferociously brilliant man with an appetite for causing trouble both for himself, his family and for the world around him due to his fundamentalist...

In Tolstoy's timeless epic of love and loss, a circle of aristocrats finds their glittering world crumbling as war threatens imperial Russia. Set during the years of Napoleon's invasion of Russia, War and Peace follows the changing fortunes of brooding hero Prince Andrej, his bookish friend Pierre, and the spirited but naive Natasha. As Napoleon's armies menace their privileged lives, the horrors of the battlefield reach into the elegant ballrooms...

"On the snowy morning of February 8, 1897, the Petersburg secret police were following Tolstoy's every move. At sixty-nine, Russia's most celebrated writer was being treated like a major criminal. Prominent Russians were always watched, but Tolstoy earned particular scrutiny. Over a decade earlier, when his advocacy on behalf of oppressed minorities angered the Orthodox Church and the Tsar, he was placed under permanent police surveillance. Although...

Tolstoy's portrait of 1880s Russian society life. Anna is discontented in her marriage to the older Karenin. While visiting her brother, she meets the dashing cavalry officer Count Vronsky. While initially uncertain about her feelings, she soon throws caution to the wind and embarks on a passionate affair with Vronsky.