“He saw them in such an undeniably concrete way, that it would have seemed to him falsehood not to mention them…”Tolstoy's characters seem to come alive so much, George Steiner argues, because they have their own internal lives, hidden even from the author. Of course, it was the author who made it so, but Tolstoy's treatment of his characters as autonomous individuals may not have been an entirely conscious decision...As part of the celebrations of the 10th anniversary of the founding of Pushkin House, Dr Steiner of Cambridge gave this lecture, originally entitled 'Tolstoy and the Human Person', at the Pushkin Club in Ladbroke Grove, on 24th January, 1964. Steiner, who died in February 2020, was the author of numerous works on linguistics and comparative literature, and was hugely respected as a cultural critic and essayist.This podcast episode was edited and produced for Pushkin House by Rafy Hay.