The most striking image I've come across during the week has got to be the one above of Tolstoy's grass mound grave at his Yasnaya Polyana estate (about 120 miles from Moscow) which I came across accidentally while just surfing the internet.
The grave which is set next to an old tree in some woodland ('The Place of the Green Wand') at Yasnaya Polyana seems to have a profound simplicity, and, for me, provides a worthy resting place for one of the greatest writers that has ever lived. Just read that Tolstoy wanted to be buried here as most of the trees were protected and over 100-years-old.
In my late teens and early 20s, I read 'War and Peace'; 'Anna Karenina'; 'The Cossacks'; and 'Resurrection' by Tolstoy (all translated into English, of course). Also read about the Christian Pacifistic Anarchy-type ideology that Tolstoy formulated in his later life.
But all this seems to be a couple of lifetimes away now, as I struggle to remember much of the specific content of each novel I've read, so I guess it may be time to reacquaint myself with the work of this great literary giant (for me, he stands at the very centre of the Western Literary Canon alongside Shakespeare).
Would also love to go to Russia to visit Yasnaya Polyana (as a kind of pilgrimage to Tolstoy) one day.
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