Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828 into Russian nobility.  His start as a writer came in 1851, when he accompanied his brother to the Caucasus and spent four years in the army. His conduct on the battlefield was outstanding and in an 1851 letter (the same letter in which he first mentions Hadji Murad) he vowed to "assist with the aid of a cannon in destroying the predatory and turbulent Asiatics."  He lived most of his life on the family estate he inherited, Yasnaya Polyana, south of Moscow, but at age eighty-two, he denounced his wealth and set out on the road as a poor wanderer.