Kerava
—  Town  —
Keravan kaupunki
Kerava town centre
Coat of arms
Location of Kerava in Finland
Coordinates: 60°24′N 025°06′E / 60.4°N 25.1°E / 60.4; 25.1Coordinates: 60°24′N 025°06′E / 60.4°N 25.1°E / 60.4; 25.1
Country	Finland
Region	Uusimaa
Sub-region	Helsinki sub-region
Charter	1970
Government
• Town manager	Rolf Paqvalin
Area(2011-01-01)[1]
• Total	30.79 km2 (11.89 sq mi)
• Land	30.62 km2 (11.82 sq mi)
• Water	0.17 km2 (0.07 sq mi)
Area rank	334th largest in Finland
Population (2012-01-31)[2]
• Total	34,540
• Rank	31st largest in Finland
• Density	1,128.02/km2 (2,921.6/sq mi)
Population by native language[3]
• Finnish	94.8% (official)
• Swedish	1.1%
• Others	4.1%
Population by age[4]
• 0 to 14	17.7%
• 15 to 64	70.3%
• 65 or older	12%
Time zone	EET (UTC+2)
• Summer (DST)	EEST (UTC+3)
Municipal tax rate[5]	18.75%
Website	www.kerava.fi

Kerava (Finnish pronunciation: [ˈkerɑʋɑ]; Swedish: Kervo) is a town and municipality in Finland.

It is located in the province of Southern Finland and is part of the Uusimaa region. The town has a population of 34,540 (31 January 2012)^[2] and covers an area of 30.79 square kilometres (11.89 sq mi) of which 0.17 km² (0.066 sq mi) is water.^[1] The population density is 1,128.02 inhabitants per square kilometre (2,921.6 /sq mi). The municipality is unilingually Finnish.

Transport[link]

Kerava railway station is a crossing-point station, with connections from the main track from Helsinki to Riihimäki to the tracks to Lahti, Sköldvik/Porvoo and Vuosaari Harbour.

This Hv3 number 781 stands at the Kerava railway station

Politics[link]

Results of the Finnish parliamentary election, 2011 in Kerava:

• National Coalition Party 25.1%
• Social Democratic Party 23.4%
• True Finns 22.1%
• Green League 9.7%
• Left Alliance 6.9%
• Centre Party 6.4%
• Christian Democrats 3.8%
• Swedish People's Party 0.8%

Notable people from Kerava[link]

• Stone (band) Finnish heavy metal band
• Hanna-Maria Seppälä (b. 1984), Finnish freestyle swimmer
• Eero Hämeenniemi (b. 1951), Finnish composer
• Marco Hietala was born in Tervo, Finland, but currently lives in Kerava.
• Emppu Vuorinen was born in Kitee, Finland, but currently resides in Kerava.
• Pekka Ansio Heino, singer of Leverage and Brother Firetribe
• Tero Kinnunen currently resides in Kerava.
• Samuel Haanpää
• Joona Puhakka
• President Juho Kusti Paasikivi
• Olympic medal winner Volmari Iso-Hollo
• Teddy and The Tigers, Finnish rockabilly band
• Sasha Mäkilä, Finnish orchestra conductor
• Renny Harlin, film director.

Jean Sibelius lived in Kerava for 2 years and composed etc. Finlandia in Kerava.

References[link]

External links[link]

Media related to Kerava at Wikimedia Commons

• Town of Kerava – Official website
• Satellite photo of Kerava

v t e Municipalities of Uusimaa Municipalities Askola Espoo Hanko Helsinki Hyvinkää Ingå Järvenpää Karjalohja Karkkila Kauniainen Kerava Kirkkonummi Lapinjärvi Lohja Loviisa Mäntsälä Myrskylä Nummi-Pusula Nurmijärvi Pornainen Porvoo Pukkila Raseborg Sipoo Siuntio Tuusula Vantaa Vihti Former municipalities Bromarf Degerby Ekenäs Ekenäs landskommun Haaga Huopalahti Hyvinkään maalaiskunta Karis Kulosaari Liljendal Lohjan kunta Nummi Oulunkylä Pernå Pohja Porvoon maalaiskunta Pusula Ruotsinpyhtää Sammatti Snappertuna Tenala Uusimaa Finland

Anna Abreu
Background information
Birth name	Anna Eira Margarida Mourão de Melo e Abreu
Born	(1990-02-07) February 7, 1990 (age 22)
Origin	Vantaa, Finland
Genres	Pop, R&B, Dance
Instruments	Vocal
Years active	2006–present
Labels	RCA
Associated acts	Ari Koivunen, Hanna Pakarinen, Redrama
Website	Official website

Anna Abreu (born Anna Eira Margarida Mourão de Melo e Abreu on 7 February 1990 in Vantaa, Finland) is a Finnish-Portuguese singer who rose to fame as the runner-up of the third series of the Finnish singing talent show Idols in 2007. Her music is primarily pop, though her songs also have R&B, dance and Latin rhythms to them. Since her participation in Idols, Abreu has become one of the best-selling Finnish Idols contestants and one of the most successful Finnish female singers, with certified record sales surpassing 180 000 copies, which places her also among the 100 best-selling music artists of all time in Finland.^[1]

Biography[link]

1990-2005: Early life[link]

Abreu's Portuguese father Paulo lives in Sintra, Portugal, while she and her Finnish mother Liisa live in Vantaa. Abreu has a brother Emil, who is four years older than she is. As a young girl she lived in Portugal and outside music, her other hobbies include reggaeton-dance and playing the violin. Abreu became multi-lingual at a young age, being fluent in Finnish, Portuguese, English, Spanish and a little Swedish.

[edit] 2006-2007: Idols Series 3

In the summer of 2006, the sixteen-year-old Abreu auditioned for the third season of the singing competition Finnish Pop Idol in the Finnish capital, Helsinki. She sang the Alicia Keys hit "Fallin'" and "Jumala" by Finnish rock band Apulanta. The contests four judges were all impressed by the power and conviction of her voice, especially as Abreu was only sixteen years old. She passed through to the theatre rounds of the contest and then the live finals. Abreu's performances attracted heavy public support, however, during the top 5 results show, she shockingly landed in the bottom two contestants alongside Panu Larnos. Abreu survived the elimnation and made it through to the live grand finale at Helsinki Ice Hall with fellow contestant Ari Koivunen, who sang exclusively in the heavy-metal genre. On April 5, 2007, Koivunen won the crown as the third Finnish Idol with 57% of the public vote, with Abreu declared as runner-up.

[edit] Idols Performances

[edit] 2007–2008: Anna Abreu

Following her participation in Idols, Abreu was signed to Sony BMG Finland and her Latino-inspired, debut single "End of Love" was released in July 2007. The song debuted and peaked at number eight on the singles chart^[2] and was accompanied by Abreu's first music video. Her self-titled debut album, Anna Abreu was released a month later on August 22 and was certified platinum within its first week after going straight into the chart at number one and selling 30,000 copies.^[3] To date, its first week sales are among the highest in Finnish music history. The album's second single "Ivory Tower" was released in October 2007, and after initially debuting at number seventeen, the song peaked at number five in its seventh week.^[4] A third single "Are You Ready" was released for promotional purposes only. In March 2008, the debut album Anna Abreu was released and it has sold double-platinum with over 86,000 copies to date.^[1] In the same month at the MTV Europe Music Awards, Abreu was nominated for Best Finnish Act.

[edit] 2008–2009: Now

After a sell-out tour across Finland to promote her debut album, Abreu returned to the recording studio to work on her second album. On July 31, 2008 the lead single "Vinegar" was released. Produced by Patric Sarin and Rauli Eskolin, the dance-orientated song marked a creative step away from the pop and RnB roots of Abreu's debut album. The song hit the number one spot on the Finnish charts and stayed there, not only becoming Abreu's first number one single but also one of the highest-selling singles of 2008. Second single, "Silent Despair" was released in early October, followed by the album Now on 22 October. The album became Abreu's second number one album and was certified platinum, selling over 50,000 copies. It was the highest selling album of 2008 in Finland and spawned two further singles with "Something About U" and "Come Undone", though the songs were used only for promotional purposes. In early 2009, Abreu supported Now with a cross-country tour, which like her first tour, played to sold-out venues.

It was reported that Abreu earned over 145,000 euros in 2008 through a combination of album sales, touring and public appearances, making her one of Finland's highest-earning singers.

[edit] 2009–2010: Just A Pretty Face?

In August 2009, less than a year after the release of Abreu's second album, her record label Sony BMG announced that Abreu would release her third studio album later that year. The lead single "Music Everywhere" received its radio premiere on 5 August and was released five days later. After initially debuting at number four, the single rose to its peak of number two after Abreu's televised performance on the Finnish Children In Need, narrowing missing out on becoming Abrue's second number one single. Like "Vinegar" from her previous album, the single was dance-orientated, with Abreu stating that her new album would be almost completely dance and club based.

In September 2009 it was announced that Abreu and fellow Idols contestant Antti Tuisku would be embarking on a joint tour across Finland named the Pop Royalty Tour in 2010 to support their new albums. Tickets for the dates sold out within a matter of minutes and further tour dates had to be added to accommodate the huge public demand. At the same time, Abreu's record label announced that a remixed version of "Vinegar", the lead single from Abreu's second album, would be released as her debut single in the UK on 22 November. It went on to peak at number 7 on the UK Club Chart. On October 21, almost exactly one year after the release of her second album, Abreu released her third, Just A Pretty Face? in Finland. After only one day, the album was certified gold, having sold 23,000 copies in its first day of release alone. It peaked at number two on the Finnish albums chart and has since become Abreu's third consecutive platinum album. It was the sixth highest-selling album of 2009, despite only being released in October.

On April 11, 2010, Abreu performed her new promotional single "Slam" on the first series of the Finnish X Factor, which had replaced Idols, the show that had given Abreu the platform from which to launch her music career in 2007.

[edit] 2010–present: Rush

In late August 2010, Abreu announced via her official Facebook page that she had begun work on her fourth, Rush. Abreu stated that she hoped to include a collaboration on the new album, and asked fans who they would like to hear her duet with.^[5] The first single, Hysteria, was released 10 January 2011.^[6] Her fourth studio album was released on the 30th March 2011 and debuted at number 1, becoming Abreu's third chart-topping album. The album's second single has been announced to be "Worst Part Is Over", featuring Finnish-Swedish rapper Redrama. They will perform the song on the April 17 results show of the fifth series of Idols.

2012-present: "Greatest Hits" and break from music[link]

In 2011, Abreu announced that she will release a Greatest Hits album ^[7] before taking a break from music. ^[8]

Discography[link]

• Anna Abreu (2007)
• Now (2008)
• Just A Pretty Face? (2009)
• Rush (2011)
• Greatest Hits (2012)

Tours[link]

• Anna Abreu Live Tour (2007)
• Now Tour (2008–2009)
• Just A Pretty Face? Tour (2009–2010)
• Pop Royalty Tour (co-headlining with Antti Tuisku) (2010)
• Walking on Water Tour (2011)

Awards and nominations[link]

Emma Awards[link]

MTV Europe Music Awards[link]

See also[link]

• List of best-selling music artists in Finland

References[link]

External links[link]

• Anna Abreu's Official Website
• Anna Abreu – MySpace.com

Leo Tolstoy
Tolstoy photographed at his Yasnaya Polyana estate in May 1908 by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky. The only known color photograph of the writer.
Born	Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828-09-09)September 9, 1828 Yasnaya Polyana, Russian Empire
Died	November 20, 1910(1910-11-20) (aged 82) Astapovo, Russian Empire
Occupation	Novelist, short story writer, playwright, essayist
Language	Russian, French
Nationality	Russian
Period	1852–1910
Notable work(s)	War and Peace Anna Karenina A Confession
Spouse(s)	Sophia Tolstaya
Children	14
Signature

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Russian: Лев Никола́евич Толсто́й, pronounced [lʲev nʲɪkɐˈlaɪvʲɪtɕ tɐlˈstoj] ( listen); known in the Anglosphere as Leo Tolstoy) (September 9, 1828 – November 20, 1910^[1]) was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist fiction. Many consider Tolstoy to have been one of the world's greatest novelists.^[2][3] Tolstoy is equally known for his complicated and paradoxical persona and for his extreme moralistic and ascetic views, which he adopted after a moral crisis and spiritual awakening in the 1870s, after which he also became noted as a moral thinker and social reformer.

His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi^[4] and Martin Luther King, Jr.^[5]

Biography[link]

Tolstoy at age 20, 1848

Tolstoy was born in Yasnaya Polyana, the family estate in the Tula region of Russia. The Tolstoys were a well-known family of old Russian nobility. He was the fourth of five children of Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy, a veteran of the Patriotic War of 1812, and Countess Mariya Tolstaya (Volkonskaya). Tolstoy's parents died when he was young, so he and his siblings were brought up by relatives. In 1844, he began studying law and oriental languages at Kazan University. His teachers described him as "both unable and unwilling to learn."^[6] Tolstoy left university in the middle of his studies, returned to Yasnaya Polyana and then spent much of his time in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. In 1851, after running up heavy gambling debts, he went with his older brother to the Caucasus and joined the army. It was about this time that he started writing.

His conversion from a dissolute and privileged society author to the non-violent and spiritual anarchist of his latter days was brought about by his experience in the army as well as two trips around Europe in 1857 and 1860–61. Others who followed the same path were Alexander Herzen, Mikhail Bakunin, and Peter Kropotkin. During his 1857 visit, Tolstoy witnessed a public execution in Paris, a traumatic experience that would mark the rest of his life. Writing in a letter to his friend Vasily Botkin: "The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens ... Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere."^[7]

His European trip in 1860–61 shaped both his political and literary transformation when he met Victor Hugo, whose literary talents Tolstoy praised after reading Hugo's newly finished Les Miserables. A comparison of Hugo's novel and Tolstoy's War and Peace shows the influence of the evocation of its battle scenes. Tolstoy's political philosophy was also influenced by a March 1861 visit to French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, then living in exile under an assumed name in Brussels. Apart from reviewing Proudhon's forthcoming publication, La Guerre et la Paix (War and Peace in French), whose title Tolstoy would borrow for his masterpiece, the two men discussed education, as Tolstoy wrote in his educational notebooks: "If I recount this conversation with Proudhon, it is to show that, in my personal experience, he was the only man who understood the significance of education and of the printing press in our time."

Fired by enthusiasm, Tolstoy returned to Yasnaya Polyana and founded thirteen schools for his serfs' children, based on the principles Tolstoy described in his 1862 essay "The School at Yasnaya Polyana".^[8] Tolstoy's educational experiments were short-lived, partly due to harassment by the Tsarist secret police. However, as a direct forerunner to A. S. Neill's Summerhill School, the school at Yasnaya Polyana^[9] can justifiably be claimed to be the first example of a coherent theory of democratic education.

Personal life[link]

Tolstoy's house at Yasnaya Polyana, today a museum.

Tolstoy's wife Sophia and their daughter Alexandra

On September 23, 1862, Tolstoy married Sophia Andreevna Behrs, who was 16 years his junior and the daughter of a court physician. She was called Sonya, the Russian diminutive of Sofya, by her family and friends.^[10] They had thirteen children, five of whom died during childhood.^[11] The marriage was marked from the outset by sexual passion and emotional insensitivity when Tolstoy, on the eve of their marriage, gave her his diaries detailing his extensive sexual past and the fact that one of the serfs on his estate had borne him a son.^[10] Even so, their early married life was ostensibly happy and allowed Tolstoy much freedom to compose War and Peace and Anna Karenina with Sonya acting as his secretary, proof-reader and financial manager.^[10] However, their latter life together has been described by A. N. Wilson as one of the unhappiest in literary history. Tolstoy's relationship with his wife deteriorated as his beliefs became increasingly radical. This saw him seeking to reject his inherited and earned wealth, including the renunciation of the copyrights on his earlier works.

Novels and fictional works[link]

Tolstoy is one of the giants of Russian literature. His most famous works include the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina and novellas such as Hadji Murad and The Death of Ivan Ilyich. His contemporaries paid him lofty tributes. Fyodor Dostoyevsky thought him the greatest of all living novelists. Gustave Flaubert, on reading a translation of War and Peace, exclaimed, "What an artist and what a psychologist!" Anton Chekhov, who often visited Tolstoy at his country estate, wrote, "When literature possesses a Tolstoy, it is easy and pleasant to be a writer; even when you know you have achieved nothing yourself and are still achieving nothing, this is not as terrible as it might otherwise be, because Tolstoy achieves for everyone. What he does serves to justify all the hopes and aspirations invested in literature."

Later critics and novelists continue to bear testament to Tolstoy's art. Virginia Woolf declared him the greatest of all novelists. James Joyce noted that, "He is never dull, never stupid, never tired, never pedantic, never theatrical!". Thomas Mann wrote of Tolstoy's seemingly guileless artistry: "Seldom did art work so much like nature". Such sentiments were shared by the likes of Proust, Faulkner and Nabokov. The latter heaped superlatives upon The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Anna Karenina; he questioned, however, the reputation of War and Peace, and sharply criticized Resurrection and The Kreutzer Sonata.

Tolstoy's earliest works, the autobiographical novels Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth (1852–1856), tell of a rich landowner's son and his slow realization of the chasm between himself and his peasants. Though he later rejected them as sentimental, a great deal of Tolstoy's own life is revealed. They retain their relevance as accounts of the universal story of growing up.

Tolstoy served as a second lieutenant in an artillery regiment during the Crimean War, recounted in his Sevastapol Sketches. His experiences in battle helped stir his subsequent pacifism and gave him material for realistic depiction of the horrors of war in his later work.^[12]

His fiction consistently attempts to convey realistically the Russian society in which he lived.^[13] The Cossacks (1863) describes the Cossack life and people through a story of a Russian aristocrat in love with a Cossack girl. Anna Karenina (1877) tells parallel stories of an adulterous woman trapped by the conventions and falsities of society and of a philosophical landowner (much like Tolstoy), who works alongside the peasants in the fields and seeks to reform their lives. Tolstoy not only drew from his own life experiences but also created characters in his own image, such as Pierre Bezukhov and Prince Andrei in War and Peace, Levin in Anna Karenina and to some extent, Prince Nekhlyudov in Resurrection.

War and Peace is generally thought to be one of the greatest novels ever written, remarkable for its dramatic breadth and unity. Its vast canvas includes 580 characters, many historical with others fictional. The story moves from family life to the headquarters of Napoleon, from the court of Alexander I of Russia to the battlefields of Austerlitz and Borodino. Tolstoy's original idea for the novel was to investigate the causes of the Decembrist revolt, to which it refers only in the last chapters, from which can be deduced that Andrei Bolkonski's son will become one of the Decembrists. The novel explores Tolstoy's theory of history, and in particular the insignificance of individuals such as Napoleon and Alexander. Somewhat surprisingly, Tolstoy did not consider War and Peace to be a novel (nor did he consider many of the great Russian fictions written at that time to be novels). This view becomes less surprising if one considers that Tolstoy was a novelist of the realist school who considered the novel to be a framework for the examination of social and political issues in nineteenth-century life.^[14] War and Peace (which is to Tolstoy really an epic in prose) therefore did not qualify. Tolstoy thought that Anna Karenina was his first true novel.^[15]

After Anna Karenina, Tolstoy concentrated on Christian themes, and his later novels such as The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886) and What Is to Be Done? develop a radical anarcho-pacifist Christian philosophy which led to his excommunication from the Russian Orthodox Church in 1901.^[16] For all the praise showered on Anna Karenina and War and Peace, Tolstoy rejected the two works later in his life as something not as true of reality.^[17]

Tolstoy on Shakespeare[link]

During his life, Tolstoy came to the conclusion that William Shakespeare was a bad dramatist and not a true artist at all. Tolstoy explained his views in a critical essay on Shakespeare written in 1903: "I remember the astonishment I felt when I first read Shakespeare. I expected to receive a powerful aesthetic pleasure, but having read, one after the other, works regarded as his best: "King Lear", "Romeo and Juliet", "Hamlet" and "Macbeth," not only did I feel no delight, but I felt an irresistible repulsion and tedium...". He goes on:

Several times I read the dramas and the comedies and historical plays, and I invariably underwent the same feelings: repulsion, weariness, and bewilderment. At the present time, before writing this preface, being desirous once more to test myself, I have, as an old man of seventy-five, again read the whole of Shakespeare, including the historical plays, the "Henrys," "Troilus and Cressida," the "Tempest," "Cymbeline," and I have felt, with even greater force, the same feelings,—this time, however, not of bewilderment, but of firm, indubitable conviction that the unquestionable glory of a great genius which Shakespeare enjoys, and which compels writers of our time to imitate him and readers and spectators to discover in him non-existent merits,—thereby distorting their aesthetic and ethical understanding,—is a great evil, as is every untruth.^[18]

Understanding that his conclusions contradict popular opinion, Tolstoy supported his opinion by detailed analysis of King Lear. George Orwell wrote a well-known response to this: Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool.

Religious and political beliefs[link]

Tolstoy dressed in peasant clothing by Ilya Repin (1901)

After reading Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation, Tolstoy gradually became converted to the ascetic morality upheld in that work as the proper spiritual path for the upper classes: "Do you know what this summer has meant for me? Constant raptures over Schopenhauer and a whole series of spiritual delights which I've never experienced before. ... no student has ever studied so much on his course, and learned so much, as I have this summer"^[19]

In Chapter VI of A Confession, Tolstoy quoted the final paragraph of Schopenhauer's work. It explained how the nothingness that results from complete denial of self is only a relative nothingness, and is not to be feared. The novelist was struck by the description of Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu ascetic renunciation as being the path to holiness. After reading passages such as the following, which abound in Schopenhauer's ethical chapters, the Russian nobleman chose poverty and formal denial of the will:

But this very necessity of involuntary suffering (by poor people) for eternal salvation is also expressed by that utterance of the Savior (Matthew 19:24): "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." Therefore those who were greatly in earnest about their eternal salvation, chose voluntary poverty when fate had denied this to them and they had been born in wealth. Thus Buddha Sakyamuni was born a prince, but voluntarily took to the mendicant's staff; and Francis of Assisi, the founder of the mendicant orders who, as a youngster at a ball, where the daughters of all the notabilities were sitting together, was asked: "Now Francis, will you not soon make your choice from these beauties?" and who replied: "I have made a far more beautiful choice!" "Whom?" "La poverta (poverty)": whereupon he abandoned every thing shortly afterwards and wandered through the land as a mendicant.^[20]

Tolstoy's Christian beliefs centered on the Sermon on the Mount, particularly the injunction to turn the other cheek, which he saw as a justification for pacifism, nonviolence and nonresistance. Various versions of "Tolstoy's Bible" have been published, indicating the passages Tolstoy most relied on, specifically, the reported words of Jesus himself.^[21] Tolstoy believed being a Christian required him to be a pacifist; the consequences of being a pacifist, and the apparently inevitable waging of war by government, made him a philosophical anarchist.

Tolstoy believed that a true Christian could find lasting happiness by striving for inner self-perfection through following the Great Commandment of loving one's neighbor and God rather than looking outward to the Church or state for guidance.^{[citation needed]} His belief in nonresistance (nonviolence) when faced by conflict is another distinct attribute of his philosophy based on Christ's teachings.^{[citation needed]} By directly influencing Mahatma Gandhi with this idea through his work The Kingdom of God is Within You (full text of English translation available on Wikisource), Tolstoy has had a huge influence on the nonviolent resistance movement to this day. He believed that the aristocracy were a burden on the poor, and that the only solution to how we live together is through anarchism.^{[citation needed]} He also opposed private property^[22] and the institution of marriage and valued the ideals of chastity and sexual abstinence (discussed in Father Sergius and his preface to The Kreutzer Sonata), ideals also held by the young Gandhi. Tolstoy's later work derives a passion and verve from the depth of his austere moral views.^[23] The sequence of the temptation of Sergius in Father Sergius, for example, is among his later triumphs. Gorky relates how Tolstoy once read this passage before himself and Chekhov and that Tolstoy was moved to tears by the end of the reading. Other later passages of rare power include the crises of self faced by the protagonists of The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Master and Man, where the main character in the former or the reader in the latter is made aware of the foolishness of the protagonists' lives.

Ilya Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy's son

Tolstoy had a profound influence on the development of Christian anarchist thought. The Tolstoyans were a small Christian anarchist group formed by Tolstoy's companion, Vladimir Chertkov (1854–1936), to spread Tolstoy's religious teachings. Prince Peter Kropotkin wrote of Tolstoy in the article on anarchism in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica:

Without naming himself an anarchist, Leo Tolstoy, like his predecessors in the popular religious movements of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Chojecki, Denk and many others, took the anarchist position as regards the state and property rights, deducing his conclusions from the general spirit of the teachings of Jesus and from the necessary dictates of reason. With all the might of his talent he made (especially in The Kingdom of God is Within You) a powerful criticism of the church, the state and law altogether, and especially of the present property laws. He describes the state as the domination of the wicked ones, supported by brutal force. Robbers, he says, are far less dangerous than a well-organized government. He makes a searching criticism of the prejudices which are current now concerning the benefits conferred upon men by the church, the state and the existing distribution of property, and from the teachings of Jesus he deduces the rule of non-resistance and the absolute condemnation of all wars. His religious arguments are, however, so well combined with arguments borrowed from a dispassionate observation of the present evils, that the anarchist portions of his works appeal to the religious and the non-religious reader alike.^[24]

Tolstoy and his grandchildren, 1909

During the Boxer Rebellion in China, Tolstoy praised the Boxers. He was harshly critical of the atrocities committed by the Russians, Germans, and other western troops. He accused them of engaging in slaughter when he heard about the lootings, rapes, and murders, in what he saw as Christian brutality. Tolstoy also named the two monarchs most responsible for the atrocities; Nicholas II of Russia and Wilhelm II of Germany.^[25][26] Tolstoy also read the works of Chinese thinker and philosopher, Confucius.^[27][28]

Film footage of Tolstoy's 80th birthday at Yasnaya Polyana. Footage shows his wife Sofya (picking flowers in the garden), daughter Aleksandra (sitting in the carriage in the white blouse), his aide and confidante, V. Chertkov (bald man with the beard and mustache) and students. Filmed by Aleksandr Osipovich Drankov, 1908.

In hundreds of essays over the last twenty years of his life, Tolstoy reiterated the anarchist critique of the state and recommended books by Kropotkin and Proudhon to his readers, whilst rejecting anarchism's espousal of violent revolutionary means. In the 1900 essay, "On Anarchy", he wrote; "The Anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order, and in the assertion that, without Authority, there could not be worse violence than that of Authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that Anarchy can be instituted by a revolution. But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not require the protection of governmental power ... There can be only one permanent revolution—a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man." Despite his misgivings about anarchist violence, Tolstoy took risks to circulate the prohibited publications of anarchist thinkers in Russia, and corrected the proofs of Kropotkin's "Words of a Rebel", illegally published in St Petersburg in 1906.^[29]

In 1908, Tolstoy wrote A Letter to a Hindoo^[30] outlining his belief in non-violence as a means for India to gain independence from British colonial rule. In 1909, a copy of the letter fell into the hands of Mohandas Gandhi who was working as a lawyer in South Africa at the time and in the beginnings of becoming an activist. Tolstoy's letter was significant for Gandhi who wrote to the famous writer seeking proof that he was the real author, leading to further correspondence between them.^[30] Reading Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You also convinced Gandhi to avoid violence and espouse nonviolent resistance, a debt Gandhi acknowledged in his autobiography, calling Tolstoy "the greatest apostle of non-violence that the present age has produced". The correspondence between Tolstoy and Gandhi would only last a year, from October 1909 until Tolstoy's death in November 1910, but led Gandhi to give the name, the Tolstoy Colony, to his second ashram in South Africa.^[31] Besides non-violent resistance, the two men shared a common belief in the merits of vegetarianism, the subject of several of Tolstoy's essays.^[32]

Tolstoy also became a major supporter of the Esperanto movement. Tolstoy was impressed by the pacifist beliefs of the Doukhobors and brought their persecution to the attention of the international community, after they burned their weapons in peaceful protest in 1895. He aided the Doukhobors in migrating to Canada.^[33] In 1904, during the Russo-Japanese War, Tolstoy condemned the war and wrote to the Japanese Buddhist priest Soyen Shaku in a failed attempt to make a joint pacifist statement.

Death[link]

Tolstoy's grave with flowers at Yasnaya Polyana.

Tolstoy died in 1910, at the age of 82. He died of pneumonia^[34] at Astapovo train station, after falling ill when he left home in the middle of winter. His death came only days after gathering the nerve to abandon his family and wealth^[35] and take up the path of a wandering ascetic,^{[citation needed]} a path that he had agonized over pursuing for decades. He had not been at the peak of health before leaving home; his wife and daughters were all actively engaged in caring for him daily. He had been speaking and writing of his own death in the days preceding his departure from home, but fell ill at the station not far from home. The station master took Tolstoy to his apartment, where his personal doctors were called to the scene. He was given injections of morphine and camphor.

The police tried to limit access to his funeral procession, but thousands of peasants lined the streets at his funeral. Still, some peasants were heard to say that, other than knowing that "some nobleman had died," they knew little else about Tolstoy.^[36]

In film[link]

A 2009 film about Tolstoy's final year, The Last Station, based on the novel by Jay Parini, was made by director Michael Hoffman with Christopher Plummer as Tolstoy and Helen Mirren as Sofya Tolstoya. Both performers were nominated for Oscars for their roles. There have been other films about the writer, including Departure of a Grand Old Man, made in 1912 just two years after his death, How Fine, How Fresh the Roses Were (1913), and Leo Tolstoy, directed by and starring Sergei Gerasimov in 1984.

There is also a famous lost film of Tolstoy made a decade before he died. In 1901, the American travel lecturer Burton Holmes visited Yasnaya Polyana with Albert J. Beveridge, the U.S. senator and historian. As the three men conversed, Holmes filmed Tolstoy with his 60-mm movie camera. Afterwards, Beveridge's advisers succeeded in having the film destroyed, fearing that documentary evidence of a meeting with the Russian author might hurt Beveridge's chances of running for the U.S. presidency.^[37]

Gallery[link]

• 

  1854

• 

  Tolstoy in military uniform, by Sergei Lvovich Levitsky, 1856

• 

  Self-portrait of Tolstoy, c1860s

• 

  The novel “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy. Romanian version: “Război şi pace”

• 

  Tolstoy at his desk, 1870

• 

  Sketch based on photograph of Tolstoy taken in 1876

• 

  Tolstoy with his wife and son, photo taken between 1870–90

• 

  Ca. 1897

• 

  Tolstoy with his wife and family, 1887

• 

  Portrait of Tolstoy in 1887, by Ilya Repin

• 

  Tolstoy commemorated on a Soviet stamp issued in 1978

• 

  Tolstoy with fellow contributors to Sovremennik Magazine Tolstoy's first work Childhood was published in Sovremennik.

• 

  Tolstoy with Maxim Gorky in Yasnaya Polyana, 1900

• 

  1908

• 

  Tolstoy and his wife Sophia Tolstaya, taken September 23, 1910, about six weeks before his death

• 

  Tolstoy's bedroom at Yasnaya Polyana

• 

  Tolstoy with a group of children; postcard by Elisabeth Bohm, 1909

• 

  Tolstoy's sons

• 

  Tolstoy's death mask

Bibliography[link]

See also[link]

	Russia portal
	Biography portal
	Politics portal

• Anarchism and religion
• Christian vegetarianism
• Confirmation bias, a psychological phenomenon of which Tolstoy was an early informal observer

References[link]

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

External links[link]

Find more about Leo Tolstoy on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Images and media from Commons
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource

vep:Tolstoi Lev

Sean Paul
Sean Paul at the International Reggae and World Music Awards.
Background information
Birth name	Sean Paul Ryan Francis Henriques
Born	(1973-01-09) January 9, 1973 (age 39) Kingston, Jamaica
Genres	Dancehall, reggae, R&B, ragga
Occupations	Musician, singer-songwriter, producer, actor
Years active	1996–present
Labels	VP, Atlantic
Website	allseanpaul.com

Sean Paul Ryan Francis Henriques^[1] (born January 9, 1973),^[1][2] who performs under stage name Sean Paul, is a Jamaican dancehall and reggae artist.

Life and career[link]

1973–96: Early life[link]

Sean Paul was born in Kingston and spent his early years in Upper Andrew Parish, a few miles north of Kingston.^[2] His parents, Garth and Frances, were both talented athletes, and his mother is a well-known painter.^[3] His paternal grandfather was a Sephardic Jew whose family emigrated from Portugal, and his paternal grandmother was Afro-Caribbean; his mother is of English and Chinese Jamaican descent.^[4][5] Sean Paul was raised as a Catholic.^[6] Many members of his family are swimmers. His grandfather was on the first Jamaican men's national water polo team. His father also played water polo for the team in the 1960s, and competed in long-distance swimming, while Sean Paul's mother was a backstroke swimmer. Sean Paul played for the national water polo team from the age of thirteen to twenty-one, when he gave up the sport in order to launch his musical career. He attended the Wolmers High School for Boys, Belair School, Hillel Academy High School, and the College of Arts, Science, and Technology, now known as the University of Technology, where he was trained in commerce with a view to pursuing an occupation in hotel management.

[edit] 1998–2000: Stage One

Sean Paul's manager and producer Jeremy Harding first heard about the singer when his brother told him about seeing someone at a small open mic event in Kingston who sounded a lot like the popular dancehall DJ and toaster Super Cat.^[7] Harding eventually met the singer when Sean Paul came by his studio to ask for some advice. During the meeting Paul recorded a vocal over Harding's rhythm track and in the process created the song "Baby Girl".^[7] Sean Paul began hanging out at the studio every day, and the pair collaborated on several more tracks. When they recorded "Infiltrate" they decided they had something good enough to get on the radio. As Sean Paul started to attract local attention, Harding began looking after his affairs. He later told HitQuarters that his support of Paul's fledgling career initially led him assuming the roles of "DJ, manager, road manager and security guard."^[7] Sean Paul made a quick cameo appearance in the 1998 film Belly on stage performing. He made a very successful collaboration with DMX & Mr. Vegas (Top Shotter) as a soundtrack of the film. In 2000, Sean Paul released his debut album, Stage One with VP Records.

[edit] 2001–02: Dutty Rock

In 2002, he began working extensively with a team of producers and choreographers from Toronto, namely Jae Blaze and Blaze Entertainment and announced the release of his second album, Dutty Rock. Pushed by the success of the singles "Gimme the Light" and the Billboard Hot 100 topper, "Get Busy", the album was a worldwide success, eventually selling over six million copies. Simultaneously, Sean Paul was heard on Beyoncé's U.S. #1 single "Baby Boy" and Blu Cantrell's "Breathe", a chart hit in Europe. Both helped to push his reputation further still in the United States. He appeared on Punk'd, 106 & Park, Sean Paul Respect, Making the Video ("Get Busy", "Gimme the Light", and "Like Glue") and his music videos have been broadcast on MTV and BET. Paul's biggest hits included "Get Busy", "Like Glue", "Gimme the Light", "Baby Boy", and "I'm Still in Love with You".

[edit] 2003–05: The Trinity

Sean Paul in September 2005.

Sean Paul's third album The Trinity was released in on September 27, 2005. The album produced five big hits, "We Be Burnin'", "Ever Blazin'", "Give It Up to Me", "Never Gonna Be The Same" and the U.S. chart-topping smash hit "Temperature". The video of "Give It Up to Me" (featuring Keyshia Cole) was also featured in the movie Step Up in 2006. He was nominated for four awards at the 2006 Billboard Music Awards, including male artist of the year, rap artist of the year, hot 100 single of the year, and pop single of the year for his hit "Temperature".^[8] He also won an American Music Award for "(When You Gonna) Give It Up To Me" beating Kanye West and Nick Lachey who were also nominated for the award. His song "Send It On" from "The Trinity" featured on the 2005 Vauxhall Corsa advert. Sean Paul often contributes his songs to various Riddim Driven albums (by VP Records). In March 2007, he returned to his native Jamaica to perform at the Cricket World Cup 2007 opening ceremony. Sean Paul appears on the game Def Jam: Fight for NY as part of Snoop Dogg's crew and again in the game's sequel, Def Jam Icon.

[edit] 2006–10: Imperial Blaze

The newest Sean Paul album entitled "Imperial Blaze" was released on August 18, 2009. The lead single, “So Fine”, which was produced by Stephen “Di Genius” McGregor, premiered on Sean Paul's official website on April 26, 2009.^{[9][dead link][10]} Speaking to Pete Lewis of 'Blues & Soul' magazine in August 2009, Sean Paul stated that 'Imperial Blaze' "Actually signifies 'The King's Fire'. It's that thing inside of you that gives you the desire to do whatever you do, and be the best in the world at it."^[11] The new album consists of 20 tracks including "So Fine", "Press it Up", "She Want Me", "Private Party" which are party tracks and also love songs such as "Hold My Hand" (feat Keri Hilson), "Lately", "Now That I've Got Your Love" among others. Producers on the album include Don Corleone, Jeremy Harding, and Sean's brother Jason 'Jigzagula' Henriques.^[11] All the full songs of the album have been added to Sean Paul's Myspace page^[12] on the day of release of the album.

Up until now there have been eight music videos: "Always On My Mind (with Da'Ville)", "Give It To You (with Eve)", "Watch Them Roll", "Back It Up" (with Left Side/Mr. Evil), "(I Wanna See You) Push It Baby" (with Pretty Ricky), "Hit 'Em" (with Fahrenheit and his brother Jason "Jigzagula" Henriques), "Come Over" with Estelle,^[13] and also the video of his first single, "So Fine" from the new album. He has recently been featured in Shaggy's video, "Save A Life", which also includes appearances from Elephant Man and Da'Ville, among others. In an effort to raise money for a children's hospital, Shaggy, Sean Paul and others will be having a benefit concert. All proceeds will go towards getting new equipment and technology 'For Aid to the Bustamante Hospital for Children'. In an interview in 2009 he says he is planning to release a new album in 2011. During the premiere for MNET's Big Brother Africa 5: All-Stars on July 18, 2010, he performed his songs "Temperature", "Hold My Hand", and "So Fine".

[edit] 2011–present: Tomahawk Technique

The first single Got 2 Luv U features vocals from American singer Alexis Jordan. It was released on the July 19, 2011 by Atlantic Records. The song was written by Sean Paul, Ryan Tedder and Stargate, and it was produced by Stargate.^[14][15][16]

She Doesn't Mind is the second single from the album. It was written by Sean Paul, Shellback and Benny Blanco and was produced by Shellback and Benny Blanco. It was released on the September 29, 2011 on NRJ & Skyrock (French radios), and to iTunes on October 31.^[17] Like its proceeder, "Got 2 Luv U", featuring Alexis Jordan, it topped the charts in Switzerland, but it debuted at that spot. Sean appeared on the Never Mind the Buzzcocks episode which aired on November 21, 2011.

Sean Paul is featured in the music video for the Simple Plan song Summer Paradise.

Discography[link]

Studio albums

• Stage One (2000)
• Dutty Rock (2002)
• The Trinity (2005)
• Imperial Blaze (2009)
• Tomahawk Technique (2012)

Mixtapes

• The Odyssey Mixtape (2009)

Filmography[link]