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Why did Leo Tolstoy begin keeping a diary in 1847?
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Leo Tolstoy
Russian writer Leo Tolstoy is widely regarded as one of the world's greatest novelists. His masterpieces are War and Peace (1865–69) and Anna Karenina (1875–77).
Leo Tolstoy began keeping a diary in 1847, the same year he left the university without a degree and returned to his family estate, Yasnaya Polyana.
This diary served as a laboratory for his experiments in self-analysis and, eventually, for his fiction. The early entries reflect the lifestyle he was leading at the time, beginning with a candid admission that he may have contracted a venereal disease. Furthermore, the diaries document his intense fascination with rule-making; he frequently composed rules for his social and moral behavior, only to record his repeated failures to follow them, leading to cycles of self-castigation and attempts to formulate new regulations for self-control.1