Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy (; – 23 February 1945) was a Russian writer whose works span across many genres, but mainly belonged to

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

and

historical fiction Historical fiction is a literary genre in which a fictional plot takes place in the Setting (narrative), setting of particular real past events, historical events. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literatur ...

. Despite having opposed the

Bolshevik Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. It was led by Vladimir L ...

in 1917, he was able to return to Russia six years later and live a privileged life as a highly paid author, reputedly a millionaire, who adapted his writings to conform to the line laid down by the

All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...

Life and career

Parentage

Tolstoy's mother Alexandra Leontievna Turgeneva (1854–1906) was a grand-niece of Nikolay Turgenev, who had been a

Decembrist The Decembrist revolt () was a failed coup d'état led by Liberalism, liberal military and political dissidents against the Russian Empire. It took place in Saint Petersburg on , following the death of Alexander I of Russia, Emperor Alexander ...

, and a relative of the Russian writer

Ivan Turgenev Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev ( ; rus, links=no, Иван Сергеевич ТургеневIn Turgenev's day, his name was written ., p=ɪˈvan sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ tʊrˈɡʲenʲɪf; – ) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, poe ...

. She married Count Nikolay Alexandrovich Tolstoy (1849–1900), a member of the aristocratic

Tolstoy family The House of Tolstoy, or Tolstoi (), is a family of Russian gentry that acceded to the Russian nobility, high aristocracy of the Russian Empire. The name ''Tolstoy'' is itself derived from the Russian adjective ( ). They are the descendants of ...

and a distant relative of

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution re ...

. Aleksey claimed that Count Tolstoy was his biological father, which allowed him to style himself as a Count; since his mother had taken a lover and left her husband before he was born, not all of his contemporaries believed him. The Nobel Prize winning author

Ivan Bunin Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin ( or ; rus, Ива́н Алексе́евич Бу́нин, p=ɪˈvan ɐlʲɪkˈsʲejɪvʲɪdʑ ˈbunʲɪn, a=Ivan Alyeksyeyevich Bunin.ru.vorb.oga; – 8 November 1953)Aldanov said that Alyosha Tolstoy himself told him that he, T., bore the surname Bostrom until the age of 16 and then went to see his imaginary father, Count Nick Tolstoy, and begged to legitimize him." According to author and historian

Nikolai Tolstoy Count Nikolai Dmitrievich Tolstoy-Miloslavsky (; born 23 June 1935), better known as Count Nikolai Tolstoy, is a British historian and writer. He is a former parliamentary candidate of the UK Independence Party and is the current nominal hea ...

, a distant relative:

His father had been a rake-hell
cavalry Historically, cavalry (from the French word ''cavalerie'', itself derived from ''cheval'' meaning "horse") are groups of soldiers or warriors who Horses in warfare, fight mounted on horseback. Until the 20th century, cavalry were the most mob ...
officer, whose rowdy excesses proved too much even for his fellow
hussar A hussar, ; ; ; ; . was a member of a class of light cavalry, originally from the Kingdom of Hungary during the 15th and 16th centuries. The title and distinctive dress of these horsemen were subsequently widely adopted by light cavalry ...
s. He was obliged to leave his regiment and the two capital cities, and retired to an estate in
Samara, Russia Samara, formerly known as Kuybyshev (1935–1991), is the largest city and administrative centre of Samara Oblast in Russia. The city is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Samara rivers, with a population of over 1.14 million resident ...
. There he met and married Alexandra Leontievna Turgenev, a lively girl of good family, but slender means. She bore him two sons, Alexander and Mstislav, and a daughter Elizabeth. But the wild blood of the Tolstoys did not allow him to settle down to an existing domestic harmony. Within a year the retired hussar had been exiled to
Kostroma Kostroma (, ) is a historic city and the administrative center of Kostroma Oblast, Russia. A part of the Golden Ring of Russian cities, it is located at the confluence of the rivers Volga and Kostroma. In the 2021 census, the population is 267, ...
for insulting the Governor of Samara. When strings were eventually pulled to arrange his return, he celebrated it by provoking a fellow-noble to a
duel A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two people with matched weapons. During the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier), duels were mostly single combats fought with swords (the rapier and later the small sword), but beginning in ...
. Alexandra fell in love with Alexei Appollonovich Bostrom. In May 1882, already two months pregnant with her fourth child, she fled into the arms of her lover. The Count threatened Bostrom with a revolver but was exculpated by the courts. The ecclesiastical court, in granting a divorce, ruled that the guilty wife should never be allowed to remarry. In order to keep the expected baby, Alexandra was compelled to assert that it was Bostrom's child.

What is known is that Bostrom brought the boy up as his own child, on his family farm in Samara province, and that he was known in his childhood and in his teens as Aleksey Bostrom. When he was 13, his mother began a lawsuit to have him recognized as the son of Count Tolstoy, which eventually he was on his 17th birthday, after which he was entitled to style himself as Count Tolstoy.

Early life

Tolstoy's adoptive father was a liberal landowner, who had supported the emancipation of Russian serfs in the 1860s. His mother wrote children's stories, using the pseudonym Alexander Bostrom. Due in part to their rejection by both the

Russian nobility The Russian nobility or ''dvoryanstvo'' () arose in the Middle Ages. In 1914, it consisted of approximately 1,900,000 members, out of a total population of 138,200,000. Up until the February Revolution of 1917, the Russian noble estates staffed ...

and the

Church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

, Aleksey grew up in a staunchly

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

ic and anti-monarchist environment, and was encouraged to be creative. He was home taught by his parents, and by a visiting tutor, until the age of 14, when the family moved to Samara, after selling their farm, and he was enrolled in a local school.

St. Petersburg

Count Nikolai Tolstoy died in 1900, leaving a will from which Aleksey received 30,000

rubles The ruble or rouble (; rus, рубль, p=rublʲ) is a currency unit. Currently, currencies named ''ruble'' in circulation include the Russian ruble (RUB, ₽) in Russia and the Belarusian ruble (BYN, Rbl) in Belarus. These currencies are su ...

. This allowed him to move to St Petersburg, where he studied at the Technological Institute St Petersburg in 1901-06. In June 1902 he married a fellow student, Julia Rozhansky, the daughter of a provincial doctor. Their son, Yuri, was born in 1903. According to

, he took part in a student protest on 12 February 1902 along

Nevsky Prospekt Nevsky Prospect ( rus, Не́вский проспе́кт, r=Nevsky Prospekt, p=ˈnʲɛfskʲɪj prɐˈspʲɛkt) is a main street ( high street) located in the federal city of St. Petersburg in Russia. Its name comes from the Alexander Nevs ...

, which was broken up by police and Cossacks, and joined the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Form ...

, but there does not appear to be any corroboration for this account of his student radicalism. He avoided becoming involved in the

1905 Revolution The Russian Revolution of 1905, also known as the First Russian Revolution, was a revolution in the Russian Empire which began on 22 January 1905 and led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under the Russian Constitution of 1906, t ...

, by moving to Dresden in February 1906, to enrol in the Royal Saxon Higher School after the government temporarily closed the Technological Institute. In Dresden, he met Sofia Dymshitz (1889-1963), who had recently married another emigre student named Isaac Rosenfeld (1879-1978). She and Tolstoy became lovers, and returned to rent a shared apartment in St Petersburg, where she took up painting. (Her sister in law, Bella Rosenfeld, married

Marc Chagall Marc Chagall (born Moishe Shagal; – 28 March 1985) was a Russian and French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with the School of Paris, École de Paris, as well as several major art movement, artistic styles and created ...

) Tolstoy's wife agreed to a divorce, which was finalised in 1910, but Rosenfeld always refused to divorce Dymshitz.

Paris

In 1907 Tolstoy broke off his studies to dedicate himself to writing. The couple decided to emigrate in 1907, and arrived in Paris in January 1908, to join a wide network of emigré Russian writers and artists, including

Nikolay Gumilyov Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev (also Gumilyov; , ; – August 26, 1921) was a Russian poet, literary critic, traveler, and military officer. He was a co-founder of the Acmeist poetry, Acmeist movement. He was the husband of Anna Akhmatova and the ...

Valery Bryusov Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov ( rus, Вале́рий Я́ковлевич Брю́сов, p=vɐˈlʲerʲɪj ˈjakəvlʲɪvʲɪdʑ ˈbrʲusəf, a=Valyeriy Yakovlyevich Bryusov.ru.vorb.oga; – 9 October 1924) was a Russian poet, prose writer, drama ...

Konstantin Balmont Konstantin Dmitriyevich Balmont ( rus, Константи́н Дми́триевич Ба́льмо́нт, p=, a=Konstantin Dmitriyevich Bal'mont.ru.vorb.oga; – 23 December 1942) was a Russian symbolist poet and translator who became one of ...

Andrei Bely Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev (, ; – 8 January 1934), better known by the pen name Andrei Bely or Biely, was a Russian novelist, Symbolist poet, theorist and literary critic. He was a committed anthroposophist and follower of Rudolf Steiner. Hi ...

Maximilian Voloshin Maximilian Alexandrovich Kirienko-Voloshin (; May 28, O.S. May 16">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. May 161877 – August 11, 1932), commonly known as Max Voloshin, was a Russian poet. He w ...

. He and Gumilyov launched a periodical that folded after one issue for lack of funds. Tolstoy's first book of poems, ''Lyric'', was published in 1907, at his own expense, but in later life he was embarrassed by it and preferred to forget it. His second poetry collection, ''Beyond the Blue Rivers'' (1908) was his last. In a letter to his adoptive father, he complained that the name 'Tolstoy' meant that people had high expectations of him, though Voloshin suggested to him that it was an advantage. One young poet he met mistook him for

, who had died in 1910 aged 82. In 1908, he learnt from his ex-wife that their son had died from

meningitis Meningitis is acute or chronic inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, collectively called the meninges. The most common symptoms are fever, intense headache, vomiting and neck stiffness and occasion ...

. According to Nikolai Tolstoy,

Sophia claimed in a pious official memoir published in Moscow in 1973 that Alexey, 'took the child's death very much to heart.' One may question this. The father, after all, made no attempt to visit his ailing son before his lonely end, nor did he return for the funeral (though he did make another, business journey to Petersburg from Paris). As subsequent events were to show, he could evince extraordinary callousness toward individual members of the human race, whatever his broadly liberal viewpoint toward the species at large.Tolstoy (1983), p.289

Return to Russia

Aleksey and Sophia returned to St Petersburg in January 1909. By 1910 his success as a writer enabled them to move into a flat along

, but because of her husband's refusal to grant a divorce, when she became pregnant, she returned to Paris in May 1911, where he joined her, so that he could be registered under French law as the father of their daughter, Marianna. They returned to St Petersburg later in the year, but moved to Moscow in 1912. In the summer of 1914 Tolstoy and Dymshitz took a vacation in

Koktebel Koktebel ( Ukrainian and , , in 1945–1992 known as ''Planerskoye'', ) is an urban-type settlement and one of the most popular resort townlets in southeastern Crimea. Koktebel is situated on the shore of the Black Sea about halfway between Feo ...

, Crimea, where he met a 17 year old ballerina named Margarita Kandaurova. Nikolai Tolstoy wrote in 1983 that "The break with Sophia was as abrupt as it had been with Julia. Out on a stroll, Aleksey said significantly, 'I feel that this winter you're going to leave me.' Sophia did not reply, but took the hint and departed for another visit to Paris. The baby Mariana was deposited with an aunt." Tolstoy hoped to marry Kandaurova, but she rejected him, and before the end of the year he had met his third wife, Natalya Volkenstein, née Krandinskaya, by whom he had three children. During

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

Tolstoy worked as a war correspondent, visiting England and France, and wrote several essays and two plays.

Emigré

Tolstoy opposed the

. To escape living under Bolshevik rule, he moved with his family in 1918 to

Odesa Odesa, also spelled Odessa, is the third most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern ...

. Then, as the

White Army The White Army, also known as the White Guard, the White Guardsmen, or simply the Whites, was a common collective name for the armed formations of the White movement and Anti-Sovietism, anti-Bolshevik governments during the Russian Civil War. T ...

was driven out of Crimea, they fled to Constantinople, before once more relocating to Paris. Unhappy at being, as he put it, "cut off from his homeland", in 1920, he wrote the story ''Nikita's Childhood'', about growing up as an exile. Nikita was their oldest child, born in 1917, who was starting to speak with a French accent. While living in France, Aleksey wrote several plays, and began writing a lengthy historical novel entitled, ''

The Road to Calvary ''The Road to Calvary'' (), also translated as ''Ordeal'', is a trilogy of novels by Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy, tracing the fate of the Russian intelligentsia on the eve of, during, and after the revolution of 1917. It consists of the novels ' ...

'', which tracked the period from 1914 to 1919 including the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

, which he had completed by 1921. Reaction to it in Soviet Russia was very hostile. The leading Bolshevik literary critic,

Aleksandr Voronsky Aleksandr Konstantinovich Voronsky (; – 13 August 1937) was a prominent humanist Marxist literary critic, theorist and editor of the 1920s, disfavored and purged in 1937 for his work with the Left Opposition and Leon Trotsky during and af ...

, editor of ''

Krasnaya Nov ''Krasnaya Nov'' () was a Soviet monthly literary magazine. History ''Krasnaya Nov'', the first Soviet "thick" literary magazine, was established in June 1921. In its first 7 years, under editor-in-chief Alexander Voronsky, it reached a circ ...

'' described Tolstoy's depiction of the new regime as a "tendentious lie" full of "improbable banalities" and berated the writer for his "countish hatred, his lordly disdain, his spite, bitterness, fury." By 1921, Tolstoy was bothered by the

Gallicism A Gallicism can be: * a mode of speech peculiar to the French; * a French idiom; * in general, a French mode or custom. * a loanword, word or phrase borrowed from French. See also * Francization * Franglais * Gallic (disambiguation) * Gallican ...

s appearing in his son's spoken

Russian language Russian is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic languages, Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is ...

. Declaring that his son was becoming a foreigner, Aleksey moved the family to

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, which was then one of the main centers of the

Russian diaspora The Russian diaspora is the global community of Ethnicity, ethnic Russians. The Russian-speaking (''Russophone'') diaspora are the people for whom Russian language is the First language, native language, regardless of whether they are ethnic Russ ...

. There, he wrote his science fiction novel, ''Aelita'', and became associated with the 'Changing Landmarks' (''Смена вех'') group whose leading thinker was Nikolai Ustryalov, who were also known National Bolsheviks, because, despite their opposition to communism, they acknowledged that the Bolsheviks had united Russia. While there, he eventually began collaborating with

Maxim Gorky Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (; ), was a Russian and Soviet writer and proponent of socialism. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Before his success as an aut ...

on the Pro-Soviet journal ''Nakanune''.

Ilya Ehrenburg Ilya Grigoryevich Ehrenburg (, ; – August 31, 1967) was a Soviet writer, revolutionary, journalist and historian. Ehrenburg was among the most prolific and notable authors of the Soviet Union; he published around one hundred titles. He becam ...

later recalled:

There was a place in Berlin that reminded one of Noah's Ark, where the clean and unclean met peacefully; it was called the House of Arts and was just a common German café where Russian writers gathered on Fridays. Stories were read aloud by Tolstoy ... Apparently, not all the dice had been cast yet. There were people who called Gorky the 'semi emigre'... Alexey Tolstoy, surrounded by ''Smena Vekh'' (Changing Landmarks) people, alternately praised the Bolsheviks as, 'unifiers of the Russian land,' and indulged in angry abuse. The fog was still swirling.

Soviet dignitary

Tolstoy revisited Russia in May 1923, and decided to return permanently, having decided that "no literature will come out of the emigration". In his farewell editorial printed in ''Nakanune'', he wrote, "I am leaving with my family for the homeland forever. If there are people here abroad close to me, my words are addressed to them. Do I go to happiness? Oh, no: Russia is going through hard times. Once again she is enveloped by a wave of hatred... I am going home to a hard life." Because of his ancestry he was sometimes called "Comrade Count" or "Red Count". Far from experiencing a "hard life" in the Soviet Union, Tolstoy was a highly privileged Soviet citizen, who prospered under the dictator,

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

, when other writers who had chosen to live under Soviet rule throughout the civil war were persecuted. According to a widespread rumour, he was a millionaire with a 'bottomless bank account'. The American journalist

Eugene Lyons Eugene Lyons (July 1, 1898 – January 7, 1985), born Yevgeny Natanovich Privin (Russian: Евгений Натанович Привин), was a Russian-born American journalist and writer. A fellow traveler of Communism in his younger years, Ly ...

noted how "almost alone among Russians, Tolstoy lived in baronial style in a rambling many-roomed mansion stocked with rich antiques ... the whole atmosphere of ripe old-world culture seemed like a throw-back to a nearly forgotten period."

Anna Akhmatova Anna Andreyevna Gorenko rus, А́нна Андре́евна Горе́нко, p=ˈanːə ɐnˈdrʲe(j)ɪvnə ɡɐˈrʲɛnkə, a=Anna Andreyevna Gorenko.ru.oga, links=yes; , . ( – 5 March 1966), better known by the pen name Anna Akhmatova,. ...

paid a back-handed tribute to his ability to live well in a short poem written in the 1920s, which included the lines: ''Ah, where are those islands'' ... ''Where the villain Yagoda'' ''Would not drive people to the wall'' ''and Alyoshka Tolstoy'' ''Would not skim it all.'' If Tolstoy was aware that she had linked his name with that of the reviled head of the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

, he did not bear a grudge. In 1940, he and

Mikhail Sholokhov Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov ( rus, Михаил Александрович Шолохов, p=ˈʂoləxəf; – 21 February 1984) was a Russian novelist and winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is known for writing about life ...

proposed that Akhmatova be awarded a Stalin Prize, which would have been her first official recognition by the Soviet literary establishment, but the proposal was vetoed by Stalin. Soviet critics abruptly changed their view of Tolstoy's work once he had declared his new allegiance to the regime. Instead of being denounced in ''Krasnaya nov'', he had more work published in that magazine during the 1920s than any other author apart from

, starting with ''Aelita''. A critic writing in the same magazine praised ''The Road to Calvary'' as the best novel ever written by an emigre Russian. When

Nadezhda Mandelstam Nadezhda Yakovlevna Mandelstam ( rus, Надежда Яковлевна Мандельштам, p=nɐˈdʲeʐdə ˈjakəvlʲɪvnə mənʲdʲɪlʲˈʂtam; []; 29 December 1980) was a Russian-Jewish writer, translator, educator, linguist, and memoi ...

published her memoirs in the 1960s, she opened with this enigmatic sentence: "After slapping Alexei Tolstoy in the face, M. immediately returned to Moscow." She did not explain why her husband,

Osip Mandelstam Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam (, ; – 27 December 1938) was a Russian and Soviet poet. He was one of the foremost members of the Acmeist school. Osip Mandelstam was arrested during the repressions of the 1930s and sent into internal exile wi ...

struck Tolstoy, but makes it clear that Tolstoy was so well connected with the Soviet authorities that Mandelstam fled Leningrad because he was afraid that he would be arrested. According to other sources, Tolstoy had chaired a writers' 'court of honour' which looked into Mandelstam's complaint against a fellow writer who had slapped his wife, and objected to a verdict which implied fault on both sides. Tolstoy was Chairman of the USSR Writers Union in 1936-38. In January 1937, during the second of the Moscow show trials, at which 17 defendants including former leading Bolsheviks such as

Georgy Pyatakov Georgy Leonidovich Pyatakov (; ; 6 August 1890 – 30 January 1937) was a Ukrainian revolutionary and Soviet politician. He was a leading Bolshevik in Ukraine during and after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Born in Kiev Governorate, Pyatakov wa ...

and

Karl Radek Karl Berngardovich Radek (; 31 October 1885 – 19 May 1939) was a revolutionary and writer active in the Polish and German social democratic movements before World War I and a Communist International leader in the Soviet Union after the Russian ...

were forced to confess to crimes they had not committed, Tolstoy signed a collective letter, with other writers, declaring "We demand merciless punishment for traitors, spies and murderers who sell their homeland." In 1937, he published his novel ''Bread'', which eulogised Stalin's role in the defence of

Tsaritsyn Volgograd,. formerly Tsaritsyn. (1589–1925) and Stalingrad. (1925–1961), is the largest city and the administrative centre of Volgograd Oblast, Russia. The city lies on the western bank of the Volga, covering an area of , with a population ...

(later renamed Stalingrad) during the civil war. This prompted one Soviet reader to write to him anonymously, saying that he had previously admired Tolstoy as Russia's greatest living writer since the death of Maxim Gorky, but on reading ''Bread'': In December 1937 Tolstoy was elected to the

Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union The Supreme Soviet of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (SSUSSR) was the highest body of state authority of the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1936 to 1991. Based on the principle of unified power, it was the only branch of government in the So ...

. He became a full member of the

USSR Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991. It united the country's leading scientists and was subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (u ...

in 1939.

Peter the Great

Tolstoy spent 16 years studying the life of

Peter the Great Peter I (, ; – ), better known as Peter the Great, was the Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Prince of all Russia, Tsar of all Russia from 1682 and the first Emperor of Russia, Emperor of all Russia from 1721 until his death in 1725. He reigned j ...

. His first work on this subject was his 1929 play, ''Na dybe'' ("On the Rack"). In the 1920s, Soviet historiography was dominated by the Bolshevik historian

Mikhail Pokrovsky Mikhail Nikolayevich Pokrovsky (; – April 10, 1932) was a Russian Marxist historian, revolutionary and a Soviet public and political figure. One of the earliest professionally trained historians to join the Russian revolutionary movement, Pokr ...

, who despised "Peter, whom fawning historians have called the great" as a tyrant who provoked war with Sweden and impoverished his subjects. Tolstoy's 1929 play was true to the party line, depicting Peter as a tyrant who "suppressed everyone and everything as if he had been possessed by demons, sowed fear, and put both his son and his country on the rack." Stalin went to see the play, but left before the end, setting off speculation that he did not like it. Critics consequently trashed it, until Stalin sent Tolstoy a note saying "A splendid play. Only it's a pity Peter is not depicted heroically enough", and summoned him to advise him on how to write a novelised version of the life of Peter. In 1935, after Pokrovsky had died and his school of history had been denounced by the party leadership, and the Soviet economy had begun the process of rapid industrialisation through Five Year Plans, Tolstoy wrote a radically different play, ''Peter I'', in which – borrowing a motto from

Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin () was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era.Basker, Michael. Pushkin and Romanticism. In Ferber, Michael, ed., ''A Companion to European Romanticism''. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. He is conside ...

that 'Russia came into Europe like the launching of a ship' – the construction of a ship, with Peter acting as the master builder, is the symbol of the entire play. The first volume of his uncompleted novel, ''Peter the Great'' was published in 1936, and won a Stalin Prize. In 1939, with war looming in Russia, Tolstoy produced a third version of his play, which stressed the importance of the army, and the patriotism of its foot soldiers.

Ivan the Terrible

In December 1940 Tolstoy was commissioned to write a play about the life of

Ivan the Terrible Ivan IV Vasilyevich (; – ), commonly known as Ivan the Terrible,; ; monastic name: Jonah. was Grand Prince of Moscow, Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia from 1533 to 1547, and the first Tsar of all Russia, Tsar and Grand Prince of all R ...

, after the Central Committee had issued an instruction that Ivan's role in history was to be re-evaluated. The instruction was followed by a phone call from Stalin, who told Tolstoy that Ivan had 'one shortcoming', which was that he 'repented of his cruelty.' After the German invasion, Tolstoy moved to Zimenki, a village east of Moscow, where he wrote the first scenes of ''The Eagle and His Mate'', covering the years 1553-59. In November 1941 he was evacuated to

Tashkent Tashkent (), also known as Toshkent, is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uzbekistan, largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of more than 3 million people as of April 1, 2024. I ...

, where he completed it the following February. This original version, which was to have been performed in the Maly Theatre was banned by order of the political director the Red Army, Aleksandr Shcherbakov, who sent Stalin a memo explaining that Tolstoy had failed to portray Ivan as "the outstanding stateman of the 16th century". Despite this official rebuke, Tolstoy was awarded a Stalin Prize in 1943 for ''The Road to Calvary''. In April 1943 Tolstoy completed ''The Difficult Years'', his second play about Ivan, covering the years to 1571. In June he sent the script to Stalin, complaining that Shcherbakov had failed to say whether the play was to be allowed to be performed. Stalin then read both scripts, suggested changes, and final versions were completed in November. Both scripts were published in 1944, and ''The Eagle and His Mate'' received its premiere in the Maly Theatre in October, but the reviews were such that it was taken off, and the next performance opened a week after Tolstoy's death. The premiere of ''The Difficult Years'' was delayed until 1946.

Wartime

In November 1942 Tolstoy was appointed a member of the

Extraordinary State Commission The Extraordinary State Commission for the Establishment and Investigation of the Atrocities of the German Fascist Invaders and Their Accomplices and the Damage They Caused to Citizens, Collective Farms, Public Organizations, State Enterprises and ...

, established to investigate atrocities committed on Soviet territory by the German invaders and their allies. During the

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the Soviet prosecutor

Lev Smirnov Lev Nikolayevich Smirnov (; June 21, 1911 – March 23, 1986) was a Soviet lawyer, Chairman of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union in 1972–1984, Chairman of the Association of Soviet Lawyers, Hero of Socialist Labour. Biography Born in Sai ...

posthumously credited Tolstoy with having led the team that investigated war crimes committed in

Stavropol Stavropol (, ), known as Voroshilovsk from 1935 until 1943, is a city and the administrative centre of Stavropol Krai, in southern Russia. As of the 2021 Census, its population was 547,820, making it one of Russia's fastest growing cities. E ...

, which for the first time ascertained 'without reasonable doubt' that

gas van A gas van or gas wagon (, ; ; ) was a truck re-equipped as a mobile gas chamber. During World War II and the Holocaust, Nazi Germany developed and used gas vans on a large scale to kill inmates of asylums, Poles, Romani people, Jews, and prison ...

s had been used by the Nazis to commit genocide. In December 1943 Tolstoy was one of a contingent of Soviet and foreign journalists who were sent to Kharkov to cover the first war crimes trial, at which three Germans and a Soviet collaborator were sentenced to death. Ilya Ehrenburg, who also covered the trial, later wrote: "I did not go to the square where the accused were to be hanged. Tolstoy said he must be present: he did not feel he had the right to evade it. After the execution, he came back blacker than night." In January 1944 Tolstoy was appointed a member of a special commission that was supposedly charged by the

Politburo A politburo () or political bureau is the highest organ of the central committee in communist parties. The term is also sometimes used to refer to similar organs in socialist and Islamist parties, such as the UK Labour Party's NEC or the Poli ...

with investigating the massacre in Katyn forest of 22,000 Polish officers, who had been taken prisoner when the Soviet Union occupied the eastern part of Poland in 1939-1940 under a

pact Pact, The Pact or PACT may refer to: Entertainment * The Pact (novel), ''The Pact'' (novel), by Jodi Picoult, 1998 * The Pact (2002 film), ''The Pact'' (2002 film), adaptation of Picoult's ''The Pact (novel)#Film adaptation, The Pact'' * The Pac ...

with Nazi Germany. In January 1944 he held a press conference for foreign journalists, in which he and other members of the commission asserted that the officers had been massacred by the Germans in August and September 1941. The special commission's report was submitted by the Soviet prosecution team at the Nuremberg Trials, but was not included in the verdict, and in the 1980s, the Soviets belatedly admitted that Stalin ordered the Katyn massacre. As the leading spokesman at the press conference in January 1944, Tolstoy played a major role in ensuring that the Soviet version of the Katyn massacre – which is now known to be a lie – was widely reported in the USA and Great Britain.

Death

Tolstoy died on 23 February 1945 in Moscow.

Legacy

Tolstoy is credited with having produced some of the earliest works of science fiction in the

. His novels ''

Aelita ''Aelita'' (, ), also known as ''Aelita: Queen of Mars'', is a 1924 Soviet silent science fiction film directed by Yakov Protazanov and produced at the Mezhrabpom-Rus film studio. It was based on Alexei Tolstoy's 1923 novel of the same name ...

'' (1923) about a journey to

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

and '' The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin'' (1927) have gained immense public popularity. The former spawned a pioneering sci-fi movie in 1924. His supernatural short story, ''Count Cagliostro'', reportedly inspired the 1984 film ''

Formula of Love ''Formula of Love'' () is a 1984 Soviet romantic fantasy comedy film directed by Mark Zakharov, from a screenplay by Grigori Gorin. It is loosely based on the story "Count Cagliostro" by Aleksey Tolstoy. Plot In 1780, after a short fraudulen ...

''. He penned several books for children, starting with ''Nikita's Childhood'', a memorable account of his early years (the book is sometimes mistakenly believed to be about his son, Nikita; in truth, however, he only used the name because it was his favorite – and he would later give it to his eldest son). In 1936, he created an adaptation of the famous Italian fairy tale about

Pinocchio Pinocchio ( , ) is a fictional character and the protagonist of the children's novel, ''The Adventures of Pinocchio'' (1883) by Italian writer Carlo Collodi of Florence, Tuscany. Pinocchio was carved by a poor man named Geppetto in a Tuscan vil ...

entitled the ''Adventures of

Buratino Buratino (Russian: Буратино) is the main character of Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy's 1936 fairy tale '' The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Buratino'', which is based on the 1883 Italian novel ''The Adventures of Pinocchio'' by Carlo ...

or The Golden Key'', whose main character, Buratino, quickly became hugely popular among the Soviet populace. The creator of the Moscow Children's Theatre,

Natalya Sats Natalya Ilyinichna Sats (, trans. ''Natáliya Il’yínitchna Sats''; 27 August Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 14 August/small> 1903 – 18 December 1993) was a Russian stage director who ...

spent several months persuading him to write the work, and finally won him over by supplying his wife with foreign fashion magazines. He is also suspected of being the main author of a libelous and partly pornographic literary fraud entitled ''Vyrubova's Diary'' published in 1927, on instruction from the authorities, to discredit the Russian royal family.

Anna Vyrubova Anna Alexandrovna Vyrubova (''née'' Taneyeva; ; 16 July 1884 – 20 July 1964) was a lady-in-waiting in the late Russian Empire, the best friend and confidante of Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna. Early life Anna Alexandrovna Taneeva was born in ...

was the lady-in-waiting to the Empress

Alexandra Alexandra () is a female given name of Greek origin. It is the first attested form of its variants, including Alexander (, ). Etymology, Etymologically, the name is a compound of the Greek verb (; meaning 'to defend') and (; genitive, GEN , ; ...

, consort of

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, about whom there had been scandalous rumours of sexual relations with

Rasputin Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin ( – ) was a Russian mystic and faith healer. He is best known for having befriended the imperial family of Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia, through whom he gained considerable influence in the final ye ...

or with the Tsar or his consort, all of which she denied when under arrest after the revolution. The 'diary' was "a vulgar and dirty forgery". In 1974, a

minor planet According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term ''minor ...

was discovered by Soviet astronomer

Lyudmila Zhuravlyova Lyudmila Vasilyevna Zhuravleva (, ; born 22 May 1946) is a Soviet, Russian and Ukrainian astronomer, who worked at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nauchnij, where she discovered 213 minor planets. She also serves as president of the Cr ...

and named 3771 Alexejtolstoj after the Red Count.

Comments

While Tolstoy enjoyed huge popularity and success in Russia in his lifetime, western assessments of him have been generally negative because of his role as a Stalin apologist. Nikolai Tolstoy's summation of his distant relative was that "His personal character was without question beneath contempt ... in Stalin, he found a worthy master. Few families have produced a higher literary talent than

, but few have sunk to one as degraded as Alexei Nikolaevich. Professor

Gleb Struve Gleb Petrovich Struve (Russian: Глеб Петрович Струве; 1 May 1898 – 4 June 1985) was a Russian poet and literary historian. Biography Gleb Petrovich Struve was born on 1 May 1898. His father was the political theorist Peter Ber ...

, a former

soldier and committed anti-Communist, who became a leading authority on 20th century Russian literature reckoned that:

Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy is, without doubt, one of the most gifted Russian writers of the 20th century … But—and this is the point—this man, endowed with so many extraordinary gifts and sharing the heritage of the great age of Russian literature, lacks one quality which distinguished all of the great Russian poets and writers : a sense of moral and social responsibility. His essence is that of a cynic and opportunist.

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...

branded Tolstoy, along with contemporary Ilya Ehrenburg, as a "literary prostitute" whose freedom of expression was denied by Soviet totalitarianism. But Tolstoy's friend Ilya Ehrenburg reckoned that "like the real artist he was, he was never sure of himself, always dissatisfied, painfully seeking the right form to express what he wanted to say."

Selected works

*''Lirika'', a poetry collection (1907) *''Nikita's Childhood'' (1921) *''

'', a trilogy (1921–40, Stalin Prize in 1943) *''

'' (1923) *'' The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin'' (aka ''The Garin Death Ray'') (1926) *'' The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Buratino'' (1936) *''Peter I'' (1929–34, Stalin Prize in 1941) *''A Week in Turenevo'' (published posthumously, 1958) *"Count Cagliostro" (supernatural short story)

References

Notes Bibliography * Ehrenburg, Ilya (1963). ''Memoirs: 1921–1941''. Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing. *

External links

* * *
A.N. Tolstoy at SovLit.net
*
''The Marie Antoinette Tapestry'', (story), from ''Such a Simple Thing and Other Stories'', FLPH, Moscow, 1959.
*

*
Works of Aleksei Tolstoy
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Tolstoy, Aleksey Nikolayevich 1883 births 1945 deaths People from Pugachyov People from Nikolayevsky Uyezd (Samara Governorate) Aleksey Nikolayevich Counts of the Russian Empire First convocation members of the Soviet of the Union Children's writers from the Russian Empire Science fiction writers from the Russian Empire Russian historical novelists Russian male novelists Russian dramatists and playwrights Russian male dramatists and playwrights White Russian emigrants to France Soviet dramatists and playwrights Soviet novelists Soviet male writers Soviet short story writers 20th-century Russian short story writers Russian male short story writers Emigrants from the Russian Empire to France Saint Petersburg State Institute of Technology alumni Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Recipients of the Stalin Prize Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery