Lev Tolstoy's diaries and A History of Yesterday. Tolstoy's trilogy of autobiographical novels, its comparison with other noble family chronicles. "Internal" and "external" plots, the protagonist's ethical quest. Treatment of the war theme. Three images of war in Sevastopol Sketches. Lev Tolstoy’s understanding of heroism. Chernyshevsky's "dialectics of the soul". Themes in A Landlord's Morning: peasants' age-long distrust of their master. "Barbarism" of Western civilization in the Lucerne short story. The Cossacks, a short novel: the concept of a "natural man".