Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy
Aleksei Nikolaevich Tolstoi (Russian: Алексей Николаевич Толстой) (January 10, 1883 (December 29, 1882 (O.S.)) - February 23, 1945), nicknamed the Comrade Count, was a Soviet Russian writer who wrote in many genres but specialized in science fiction and historical novels.
He was born in Nikolaevsk (now Pugachyov, Saratov Oblast) in 1883 into an impoverished branch of the Counts Tolstoi. His father was a retired hussar and landowner, Count Nikolay Alexandrovich Tolstoi, and his mother was a children's writer Alexandra Leonievna Bostrom (born Turgeneva, also known as Alexandra Tolstoi). Aleksei was the fourth child in the Tolstoi's family. When his mother was two months pregnant, she fled the family with her lover, Aleksei Apollonovich Bostrom. In accordance with the divorce law of the time, the guilty party (Alexandra) was forbidden to remarry, and the only way for her to keep her newborn son was to register him as a son of Bostrom. Thus, until the age of thirteen, Aleksei had lived under the name of Aleksei Bostrom and had not suspected that Aleksei Bostrom Sr. was not his biological parent. In 1896 both Tolstoi and Bostrom families went into bureaucratic pains to re-register Aleksei as count Tolstoi. Still, he considered Aleksei Bostrom his true father and had hardly ever seen Nikolai Tolstoi and his older siblings.
In 1900 Nikolai Tolstoi died, having left Aleksei with 30,000 rubles and a famous family name. Later, he assumed a rather humorous attitude towards the Tolstoi's heritage. He was known for filling the walls of his apartment with darkened portraits and telling newcomers tales about his Tolstoi's ancestors; then he would explain to his friends that all the portraits were purchased at random from a nearby secondhand store and that the stories were complete fiction.
Tolstoi's early short stories were panned by Alexander Blok and other leading critics of the time for their excessive naturalism, wanton eroticism, and general lack of taste in the manner of Mikhail Artsybashev. Some pornographic stories published under Tolstoy's name in the early 1900s were purportedly penned by him; however, most critics remain sceptical as to whether Tolstoi is the real author.
Aleksei Tolstoi left Russia in 1917 during the Bolshevik October Revolution and emigrated first to Germany and later to France. In 1923, he repatriated and accepted the Soviet regime, having become one of its most popular writers. He became a staunch supporter of the Communist Party to the end, writing stories eulogizing Stalin and collaborating with Maxim Gorky on the infamous account of their trip to the White Sea-Baltic Canal.
He has published two lengthy historical novels, Peter the First (1929-45), in which he sought to liken Peter's policies to those of Stalin, and The Road to Calvary (1922-41) tracking the period from 1914 to 1919 including the Russian Civil War. He has also written several plays.
Aleksei Tolstoi is usually credited with having produced some of the earliest (and best) science fiction in the Russian language. His novels Aelita (1923) about a journey to Mars and Engineer Garin's Hyperboloid (1927) have gained immense public popularity, the former having spawned an pioneering sci-fi movie in 1924. Besides Aelita (1924), several other movies released in the USSR are based on Tolstoi's novels.
Tolstoi has also penned several books for children, starting with Nikita's Childhood, a memorable account of his son's early years. Most notably, in 1936, he created an adaptation of the famous Italian fairy tale about Pinocchio entitled the Adventures of Buratino or The Golden Key, whose main character, Buratino, quickly became hugely popular among the Soviet populace.
Tolstoi became a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1939. Writer Tatyana Tolstaya is his granddaughter.
Works
- Lirika, a poetry collection (1907)
- The Ordeal (1918)
- Nikita's Childhood (1921)
- The Road to Calvary, a trilogy (1921-40, Stalin Prize in 1943)
- Aelita (1923)
- The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin (aka The Garin Death Ray) (1926)
- Peter I (1929-34, Stalin Prize in 1941)
- A Week in Turenevo (1958)
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Tolstoy, Nikolai (1983). The Tolstoys. Twenty-four generations of Russian history. Hamish Hamilton. ISBN 0-241-10979-5.
External links
- (English) Aleksei Nikolaevich Tolstoi (1883-1945)
- (Russian) Biography
- (Russian) Works of Aleksei Tolstoy
- Aleksei N. Tolstoy at the Internet Movie Database
- Find-A-Grave biography
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