How Much Land Does a Man Need?

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How Much Land Does a Man Need? (Russian: Много ли человеку земли нужно?, Mnogo li cheloveku zemli nuzhno) is an 1886 short story by Leo Tolstoy about a man who, in his lust for land, forfeits everything, including his own life. Late in life, James Joyce praised it as the greatest short story ever written.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

After slowly accumulating more and more property, a greedy Russian peasant visits the Bashkirs, upon hearing that they are practically giving their land away. They offer him as much land as he wants, provided he can walk its perimeter in one day. The peasant agrees and goes out on his trek, but when the sun starts to set, he finds he has walked too far. Running back, the peasant collapses at the starting point just as the sun disappears behind the horizon. The Bashkirs try to congratulate him, only to find that he is dead. In answer to the question posed in the title, the Bashkirs bury him in a hole six feet long by two feet wide.

Anton Chekhov, one of Tolstoy's greatest admirers, retorted: "It is a common saying that a man needs only six feet of earth. But six feet is what a corpse needs, not a man... Man needs not six feet of earth, not a farm, but the whole globe, all of nature, where unhindered he can display all the capacities and peculiarities of his free spirit."