Leo Tolstoy kept diaries throughout his entire life

In March 1847, when he was eighteen years old and confined to a hospital bed for treatment of a venereal ailment, Leo Tolstoy wrote his first diary entry. He was already on the verge of being expelled from university due to poor academic performance, so the forced sabbatical at the hospital drove him on a journey of self-exploration, in the dual sense of both examining himself and contemplating the notion of the self, which would stretch and coil across his entire life.

His wife also kept diaries. He used the diaries to reflect on himself and confide in private matters. His conviction that he had contracted a venereal disease was among the first things he wrote about. The journals also resembled an experiment where he made social standards for himself and made an effort to follow them. He did not, however, consistently adhere to them.

These diaries are fascinating because of their parallel existence in the past and the future. Leo Tolstoy coupled autobiographical insights on the micro-scale with moral decisions on the macro character scale. The impression that Tolstoy was a guy of profound intelligence who was perpetually impaled by the compulsive shoulds in which that very intellect was trapped stands out through his diaries.