Leo Tolstoy and Sofya Tolstaya had 13 children together.
The couple married in 1862 and remained together until Tolstoy left their home shortly before his death. Their family was large even by the standards of nineteenth-century Russia, and the children were raised mainly at Yasnaya Polyana, the Tolstoy family estate near Tula.
Not all 13 children survived to adulthood. Several died in infancy or childhood, a common tragedy in the era before modern medicine. The surviving children later preserved, edited, and publicized parts of Tolstoy’s literary and personal legacy.
The number is sometimes confused with the number of children Sofya raised to adulthood or with the number of children Tolstoy had outside his marriage. The standard biographical figure refers specifically to the 13 children born to Leo and Sofya Tolstaya during their marriage.