In January 1987, a seminar was held at the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Calcutta to mark the 150th birth anniversary of Sri Ramakrishna. The seminar was attended by some distinguished Soviet scholars , besides their Indian counterparts. Professor Sergei D. Serebriany of the Institute of International Literature, Academy of Sciences, Moscow, read at the seminar a paper entitled 'Leo Tolstoy and Sri Ramakrishna' which created quite a stir. The paper is here reproduced for the benefit of a larger reading public.