Leo Tolstoy then spent much of his time in Moscow, Tula and Saint Petersburg, leading a lax and leisurely lifestyle. He began writing during this period, including his first novel "Childhood", a fictitious account of his own youth, which was published in 1852. In 1851, after running up heavy gambling debts, he went with his older brother to the Caucasus and joined the army. Tolstoy served as a young artillery officer during the Crimean War and was in Sevastopol during the 11-month-long siege of Sevastopol in 1854–55, including the Battle of the Chernaya. During the war he was recognised for his bravery
War and Peace that Tolstoy's works have now been translated into Danish, Goncharov again stressed the immense importance of "War and Peace". "Count Tolstoy really mounts over everybody else here [in Russia]", he remarked. Fyodor Dostoyevsky (in a May 30, 1871 letter to Strakhov) described "War and Peace" as "the last word of the landlord's literature and the brilliant one at that". In a draft version of "The Raw Youth" he described Tolstoy as "a historiograph of the , or rather, its cultural elite". "The objectivity and realism impart wonderful charm to all scenes, and alongside people of talent, honour and duty he