WATCH: Leo Tolstoy's 80th Birthday Party

Today is the 185th birthday of Leo Tolstoy, author of "War and Peace," "Anna Karenina," and many other uplifting stories! To celebrate, we recommend reading a few of the authors' pearls of wisdom, or perhaps his short and totally manageable essay, "What Is Art?"

Tolstoy chose to celebrate his own birthday a little more lavishly, as evidenced by this video of his family partying it up on his 80th. The vid was captured by Aleksandr Osipovich Drankov in 1908, and includes his wife, daughter, dog (a spaniel-poodle mix) and peasant students.

Check it out, and join us in wishing Tolstoy, "S dniom razhdjenia!" (Happy birthday!):