Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (September 9, 1828 – November 20, 1910) was a Russian novelist, social reformer, pacifist, moral thinker, and influential member of the Tolstoy family. He is considered one of the pillars of Russian literature in the nineteenth century and some consider him one of the greatest novelists of all time.

His most famous works are War and Peace and Anna Karenina, which are at the pinnacle of realistic literature, as they give a realistic picture of Russian life in that era.

As a moral philosopher, he embraced the ideas of nonviolent peaceful resistance, which crystallized in his book The Kingdom of God Is Within You, a work that influenced twentieth-century celebrities such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King in their struggles that were characterized by a policy of nonviolent peaceful resistance.