Alexandra Lvovna Tolstaya was the youngest daughter, secretary, and trusted person of Leo Tolstoy. She founded and headed the museum in Yasnaya Polyana, as well as the Tolstoy Foundation in the USA, which assisted Russian emigrants.

Throughout her life, Alexandra dedicated herself to her father, recording his diary by dictation, mastering shorthand and typing. In 1910, Tolstoy signed a will that made her the custodian of his literary legacy. In family conflicts, she supported her father and was the only one of his relatives whom he trusted with the plan for his departure from Yasnaya Polyana. On the night of October 27 to 28, 1910, she accompanied her father as he left the house, and on October 30, she joined him in Shamordino and stayed with him until the end of his life.

During World War I, Alexandra served as a nurse and was awarded the 4th and 3rd class George's medal, sustaining injuries. After the October Revolution of 1917, she spoke out against violence and was arrested by the Cheka in 1920, sentenced to three years in prison, which she served in the Novospassky Monastery camp. Thanks to the petition of the peasants of Yasnaya Polyana, she was released early in 1921.

Alexandra Lvovna recounted how she founded the Yasnaya Polyana museum-estate by appealing to Lunacharsky, the People's Commissar of Education, for help. He appointed her as the commissioner of Yasnaya Polyana, and she worked there until 1929. However, it was difficult for her to continue her work due to anti-religious propaganda under Stalin, as she was against communism and could not make compromises.

In 1929, Alexandra went to Japan to give lectures, and in 1931, she renounced her Soviet citizenship and moved to the USA, where she lectured about her father at universities. In 1939, she organized and headed the Tolstoy Foundation, which helped Russian refugees, including Vladimir Nabokov, settle in the USA.

In the Soviet Union, her name and image were excluded from photographs, newsreels, notes, and memoirs. On the eve of the 150th anniversary of Leo Tolstoy's birth in 1978, she sent a letter to the Yasnaya Polyana museum, expressing regret that she could not be with them on these important days for her.

Alexandra Lvovna Tolstaya passed away on September 26, 1979, in Wellesley Cottage, New York, at the age of 95 and was buried in the Novodevichy Monastery cemetery near New York.