In January 1987, the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture in Calcutta hosted a seminar to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Sri Ramakrishna, attended by Soviet and Indian scholars. Professor Sergei D. Serebriany from Moscow presented a highly impactful paper titled "Leo Tolstoy and Sri Ramakrishna," which is reproduced in this publication. Along with a previously published booklet by Dr. A. P. Gnatyuk Danil’chuk ("Tolstoy and Vivekananda"), this work is a crucial addition to Ramakrishna studies.

Although the famous Russian thinker Leo Tolstoy had limited material to study Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, his insights are highly valuable and uniquely important because his perspectives on them were previously unknown.