And the The Welcome to Russian History Retold episode 162 Leo Tolstoy marriage war and peace, and Anna Karenina.

Last time, we covered Leo's time in Sevastopol and his two trips to Europe.

Today, we meet for the second time his soon-to-be wife Sonia Sonia with whom he was to have 14 children.

Some of you may know Leo's wife as Sophia and in some biographies she goes by that name and

in reality it was her given name.

But I'm going to use the name by which many of her friends knew her and is used by Henry Trojot in his biography of Tolstoy and that is Sonia.

To say that the marriage between Leo and Sonia was a miserable one may be my greatest

understatement in this podcast's history.

Having read about it in preparation for today's episode

made me feel bad for the two of them,

as well as their children.

Their misery, though, became our gift. Why this is true, will be revealed in a bit.

One thing that sets this relationship apart from many in world history is that the two of them had extensive diaries that we had been able to look at.

Not only that, we also have correspondence between them and their relatives,

and they did travel in a literary circle whose members also give us insight into

their marriage. It is here that I've come to a philosophical dilemma in writing the

script for today's podcast and that is the age-old question

history of what is the truth?

Leo would have one point of view regarding an incident and Sonia would have another and an outsider like the poet

Fett would have yet another. Trying to reconcile three different perspectives on one point in time is extremely difficult.

Who to believe, who to trust.

Outsiders give a unique perspective,

...