His teachers described him as "both unable and unwilling to learn."2 He finally left the university without attaining the degree, and decided to return to the estate they lived in before in Yasnaya Polyana. .
In 1851, Tolstoy went with his older brother to the Caucasus and joined the army. During his service in army, he worked on his very first writings autobiographical story called Childhood. In it, he wrote about his fondest childhood memories. Then it was followed by Boyhood in 1854 and Youth in 1857. Once the war ended, he left the army, returned to Russia and declared himself an anarchist. Upon his returning to Yasnaya Polyana, he set up a school for the village children and settled down to run the estate. On September 23rd in 1862, Tolstoy married Sophia Andreyevna Behrs and for nearly twenty years he lived a settled life on his estate. In June 1863, his wife had the first of their 13 children. These years were considered as golden era for him in which he wrote some of his best known novels such as War and Peace. .
Then suddenly in one of his trips in September 1869, stopping in the village of Arzamas for the night, he experienced an anxiety crisis so violent that he believed he had gone mad. He felt he had met his own death. He described this moment in Memoirs of a Madman: "An explosion inside me caused me unspeakable terror.something inexpressible was shattering my spirit yet not completely: .something tearing me apart without tearing me apart. It was harrowing, painfully sharp, and awful."3 And this was the turning point in his life that caused him spiritual crises for the next ten years of his life. In two years, three of his children died and he become desperate. He lost the will to live and became preoccupied by the idea of suicide. His long essay A Confession (published in 1882) shows the state of despair into which he sank. Fortunately, he had his talent back and started writing Anna Karenina and took seven years of time to complete it.