Resurrection, the Church excommunicated him in 1901. The Church, and the Tsarist establishment, hoped that this would make Tolstoy unpopular and would quash his reputation as a critic of the regime.

As we catch up at the five-day programme, I learn that Daniil is the great-grandson of Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, the Russian literary and cultural icon (referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy), who ...