Stetson University’s Dr. Michael Denner, a scholar of War and Peace author Leo Tolstoy and associate professor of Russian Studies, is retracing the author’s long walk in 1886 from his house in Moscow to his ancestral estate, Yasnaya Polyana, outside of Tula.

Denner and fellow Tolstoy scholar Dr. Thomas Newlin, a professor at Oberlin College in Ohio, will start the five-day walk June 3, mimicking as closely as possible a true Tolstoyan journey. They’ll walk along the old M2 route for more than 20 miles a day, passing through small villages. Denner and Newlin had planned to do the walk last year to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Tolstoy’s death, but had to cancel due to wildfires in Russia.

Denner and Newlin, accompanied by a documentarian from New Zealand, will retrace Tolstoy’s walk as faithfully as possible, carrying backpacks with modest food and possibly knocking on doors to ask for a place to sleep.

“Couch-surfing is big in Russia,” said Denner, who edits the Tolstoy Studies Journal and directs Stetson’s Honors Program.

They’ll end up at Yasnaya Polyana by June 8 in time to present at an international conference on the journal Современник (The Contemporary… founded by Pushkin).

Denner hopes the journey will draw attention to Tolstoy and Tolstoy studies.

“Tolstoy was a genius, and anyone who reads his works comes away changed,” he said. “T exhorted enormous influence over Russian history and Soviet history, as well. If you want to understand Russia, you have to understand Tolstoy.”

Follow Denner’s Tolstoy Walk on his blog at http://strollswithtolstoy.blogspot.com/. Follow him during the journey on Twitter at www.twitter.com/strannikudarnik.