Travels in Europe followed active service in the Crimean War. He then
returned to his family estate of Yasnaya Polyana. He married in 1862
and subsequently wrote his best known novels War and Peace
(1863-9) and Anna Karenina (1873-7). The former is an epic tale of the
Napoleonic invasion and the lives of three aristocratic families; the
latter describes a married woman's passion for a young officer and her
tragic fate.
He devoted much energy to the education of his peasants but in later
life underwent a spiritual crisis, espousing a moral code based on
self-sufficiency, non-resistance to evil, belief in God, love of
humankind. This led him to renounce property, and repudiate government and
organized religion. This provoked The Orthodox Church to excommunicate
him in 1901 and to ban many of his works.
