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Writer Tolstoy Alexei Nikolaevich works. Interesting facts from the life of Tolstoy

Writer Tolstoy Alexei Nikolaevich works. Interesting facts from the life of Tolstoy

07.04.2019

Alexei Tolstoy was born on January 10, 1883 in Nikolaevsk (now Pugachevsk) of the Saratov province - a Russian writer; An extremely versatile and prolific writer who wrote in all kinds and genres (two collections of poems, more than forty plays, scripts, adaptations of fairy tales, journalistic and other articles), primarily a prose writer, a master of fascinating narration.

He grew up on the Sosnovka farm near Samara, on the estate of his stepfather, zemstvo employee A. A. Bostrom (the writer's mother, being pregnant, left her husband, Count N. A. Tolstoy, for a loved one). A happy rural childhood determined Tolstoy's love of life, which always remained the only unshakable foundation of his worldview. He studied at the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology, graduated without a diploma (1907). I tried painting. He published poetry from 1905 and prose from 1908. He gained fame as the author of short stories and novellas of the "Trans-Volga" cycle (1909-1911) and the small novels adjoining it "Eccentrics" (originally "Two Lives", 1911), "The Lame Master" (1912 ) - mainly about the landowners of their native Samara province, prone to various eccentricities, about all kinds of extraordinary, sometimes anecdotal incidents. Many of the characters are portrayed in a humorous, light-hearted way. Quite satirically (but without sarcasm) only the nouveau riche Rastegin is described with his claims to a “stylish life” (“Behind the Style”, 1913, later renamed “The Adventures of Rastegin”). Accustomed to serious problems, criticism constantly approved of Tolstoy's talent, condemning his "frivolity".

During the First World War, the writer was a war correspondent. Impressions from what he saw turned him against decadence, which had affected him from a young age with its influence, which was reflected in the unfinished autobiographical novel Yegor Abozov (1915). The writer met the February Revolution with enthusiasm. “Citizen Count A.N. Tolstoy”, then living in Moscow, was appointed “Commissioner for the Registration of the Press” on behalf of the Provisional Government. The diary, journalism and stories of the end of 1917-1918 reflect the anxiety and depression of the apolitical writer about the events that followed October. In July 1918 he and his family went on a literary tour to Ukraine, and in April 1919 he was evacuated from Odessa to Istanbul.

Two émigré years were spent in Paris. In 1921 Tolstoy moved to Berlin, where more intense ties were established with writers who remained in their homeland. But the writer could not take root abroad and get along with the emigrants. During the NEP period, he returned to Russia (1923). However, the years of living abroad were very fruitful. Then appeared, among other works, such remarkable ones as the autobiographical story "Nikita's Childhood" (1920-1922) and the first edition of the novel "Walking Through the Torments" (1921). The novel, covering the time from the pre-war months of 1914 to November 1917, included the events of two revolutions, but was dedicated to the fate of individual - good, although nothing outstanding - people in a catastrophic era; the main characters, sisters Katya and Dasha, were described with a rare persuasiveness among male authors, so that the title “Sisters” given in the Soviet editions of the novel corresponds to the text. In a separate Berlin edition of The Passage (1922), the writer announced that it would be a trilogy. In fact, the anti-Bolshevik content of the novel was "corrected" by a reduction in the text. Tolstoy was always inclined to remake, sometimes many times, his works, changing titles, names of characters, adding or removing entire storylines, sometimes fluctuating between poles in the author's assessments. But in the USSR, this property of him too often began to be determined by the political situation. The writer always remembered the "sin" of his Count-landowner origin and the "mistakes" of emigration, he sought an excuse for himself in the fact that he became popular with the widest readership, which was not like before the revolution.

In 1922-1923, the first Soviet science fiction novel, Aelita, was published in Moscow, in which Gusev, a Red Army soldier, arranges a revolution on Mars, albeit an unsuccessful one. In Tolstoy's second science fiction novel, The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin (1925-1926, later revised more than once) and the story The Union of Five (1925), maniacal power-hungry people try to conquer the whole world and exterminate most people with the help of unprecedented technical means, but also unsuccessfully. The social aspect is everywhere simplified and coarsened in the Soviet way, but Tolstoy predicted space flights, catching voices from space, the "parachute brake", the laser, the fission of the atomic nucleus.

"The Adventures of Nevzorov, or Ibikus" (1924-1925) is a real picaresque novel of the 20th century with a mass of incredible adventures of an adventurer in those places where Tolstoy himself visited before emigration and at its beginning (in Istanbul). Obviously the influence of "Ibicus" on Ilf, Petrova And Bulgakov (although the latter despised Tolstoy). A number of Tolstoy's works have an anti-emigre orientation.

In the stories The Viper (1925) and The Blue Cities (1928), perceived by readers as "anti-NEP", the process of domestication of Soviet society is recorded, which is disastrous for former and current enthusiasts of the Civil War and socialist construction.

With the plays “The Conspiracy of the Empress” and “Azef” (1925, 1926, together with the historian Shchegolev), he “legitimized” the openly tendentious, caricatured depiction of the last pre-revolutionary years and the family of Nicholas II. The novel "The Eighteenth Year" (1927-1928), the second book of "Walking through the torments", Tolstoy oversaturated with tendentiously selected and interpreted historical materials, reduced fictional characters to real-life people).

In 1930, on the direct order of the authorities, he wrote the first work about Stalin - the story "Bread (Defense of Tsaritsyn, 1937 )”, entirely subordinated to the Stalinist myths about the Civil War. It was, as it were, an "addendum" to "The Eighteenth Year", since Tolstoy "overlooked" the outstanding role of Stalin and Voroshilov in the events of that time. Some of the characters in the story migrated to Gloomy Morning (completed in 1941), the last book of the trilogy, the work is still more lively than Bread, but in adventurousness it rivals the second book, and far surpasses it in opportunism. With pathetic speeches by Roshchin, in an unfortunate, as usual with Tolstoy, fabulously happy ending, he indirectly but definitely justified the repressions of 1937. However, the bright characters, fascinating plot, Tolstoy's masterful language made the trilogy one of the most popular works for a long time.

Among the best stories for children in world literature is The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Pinocchio (1935), a very thorough and successful adaptation of the fairy tale by the 19th century Italian writer Collodi "Pinocchio".

After the October Revolution, Tolstoy became interested in historical subjects. On the material of the 17th-18th centuries, the stories and novels "Delusion" (1918), "Peter's Day" (1918), "Count Cagliostro" (1921), "The Tale of Troubled Times" (1922) and others were written. In addition to the story about Peter the Great, who builds Petersburg, showing monstrous cruelty to people and remaining in tragic loneliness, all these works are full of adventures, although in the depiction of the turmoil of the early 17th century one can feel the look of a person who has seen the turmoil of the 20th century. After the play "On the Rack", written in 1928, mainly based on "Peter's Day" and under the influence of the concept of Merezhkovsky, in "Antichrist (Peter and Alexei)" Tolstoy changes his view of the reformer tsar. He felt that, Maybe, in the next decade, the criterion of "class" will be supplanted by "people" and historical progressiveness, and the figure such statesman will evoke positive associations.

In 1930 and 1934, two books of a large narrative about Peter the Great and his era were published. For the sake of contrasting the old and new worlds, Tolstoy exaggerated the backwardness, poverty and lack of culture of pre-Petrine Russia, paid tribute to the vulgar sociological concept of Peter the Great's reforms as "bourgeois" (hence the exaggeration of the role of merchants, entrepreneurs), did not quite proportionally represent different social circles (for example, figures almost no attention was paid to the church), but the objective-historical necessity of the then transformations, as if they were a precedent for socialist transformations, and the means of their implementation showed in general correctly. Russia in the image of the writer is changing, the heroes of the novel “grow up” with it, primarily Peter himself. The first chapter is eventful, covering events from 1682 to 1698, which are often given in the most concise way possible. The second book ends with the initial period of the construction of St. Petersburg, founded in 1703: there are serious transformations that require closer attention. The action of the unfinished third book is measured in months. The writer's attention switches to people, scenes with detailed conversations prevail.

A novel without intrigue, without a coherent fictional plot, without adventurism, at the same time it is extremely exciting and colorful. Descriptions of everyday life and customs, the behavior of a variety of characters (there are a lot of them, but they are not lost in the crowd, which is also depicted more than once), finely stylized colloquial language are the very strengths of the novel, the best in Soviet historical prose.

The terminally ill Tolstoy wrote the third book of Peter the Great in 1943-1944. It breaks off at the episode of the capture of Narva, under which Peter's troops suffered their first heavy defeat at the beginning of the Northern War. This gives the impression of the completeness of an unfinished novel. Peter is already clearly idealized, he even stands up for the common people; the entire tonality of the book was affected by the national-patriotic sentiments of the times of the Great Patriotic War. But the main images of the novel have not faded, the interest of events has not disappeared, although on the whole the third book is weaker than the first two.

During the war, Tolstoy also wrote many journalistic articles, a number of short stories on current topics, including "Russian character" (whose hero was actually a Caucasian) and a dramatic dilogy (little staged and labeled as a story) "Ivan the Terrible" with a Stalinist concept depicted time and hero. There are far fewer artistically perfect moments in the "story" than those hopelessly spoiled by the author's opportunistic position, which in many respects was directly dictated to him. The long-suffering progressive tsar in the fight against the boyars - retrogrades, traitors and poisoners, who, naturally, must be executed, is supported by the people in the person of Vasily Buslaev, who was settled by epics in much earlier times, the Lermontov merchant Kalashnikov (Tolstoy returned his severed head), Vasily Blessed, who collects funds for the money forgreat undertakings of the tsar, and then with his body closes him from the arrow of a medieval terrorist, and others. Frail foreigners in armor are nothing in front of the Russian heroes, the Polish pan faints when Malyuta shakes his finger at him. At the same time, the dilogy is distinguished by bright characters, expressive colloquial speech, conveying historical flavor. For example, to the unrecognized Ivan, who is in love with Anna Vyazemskaya, after his words, Anna’s “mother” says: “You are a shameless person, and you are also dressed cleanly ...”. There are traces of the author’s far from simple thoughts in the “tale”, especially in the scene of Andrei Kurbsky’s farewell to his wife Avdotya: “Take care of your sons more than your soul ... They will force them to renounce me, curse my father, let them curse. This sin will be forgiven them, if only they were alive ... ". Tolstoy gave his second Stalin Prize, received for "Walking Through the Torments", to a tank with the name "Grozny", which, however, burned down. The writer was awarded the third Stalin Prize posthumously for his dramatic dilogy in 1946.

Personality Alexey Tolstoy, like his art,extremely controversial. In the USSR, he was perceived as “writer number two” (after Gorky) and was a symbol of the “reforging” of a gentleman, a count into a Soviet citizen, his works were considered impeccable and artistically and ideologically. At the same time, he was a tireless worker: on an overcrowded steamer that took him to emigration, he did not stop working on a typewriter. He certainly wrote every day. More than once he worked for disgraced and even arrested acquaintances, but he could also evade assistance.

A loving family man, he was married four times; one of his wives, N.V. Krandievskaya, and her sister partly served as prototypes for the heroines of The Path Through the Torments.Tolstoy gave the second Stalin Prize, received for "Walking Through the Torments", to a tank with the name "Grozny", which, however, burned down.

Tolstoy is a very national, Russian writer (a patriot-statesman), but he wrote more than many on foreign material, practically not knowing and not wanting to know foreign languages in the name of a better sense of his native language. He considered it necessary to respond to the questions of the present time, but gained fame as a classic of historical literature. He worked with true facts, recognized only a realistic manner, but was a fantasy inventor (he willingly edited folk tales), and his “realism” turned out to be so elastic that it reached a grossly tendentious normativity.

The soul of any society, he evoked the contemptuous attitude of people like Akhmatova or Bulgakov.In 1932, the poet Osip Mandelstam publicly slapped Alexei Tolstoy. Some time after this, Mandelstam was arrested and exiled. The question of whether there is a causal relationship between these two events is still a matter of debate.Back in the mid-1920s, Svyatopolk-Mirsky gave him an original description: "The most outstanding personality trait of A. N. Tolstoy is an amazing combination of huge talents with a complete lack of brains." Indeed, Tolstoy took part in many ugly official campaigns of the authorities (in 1944 he actively participated in the work of a special commission led by academician Burdenko, which came to the conclusion that the Polish officers in Katyn were shot by the Germans).

- The legacy of Alexei Tolstoy is huge (the "Complete Works" actually covers a small part of what he wrote) and is extremely unequal. He has made a very significant contribution to several genres and thematic layers of literature, he has masterpieces (in one area or another) and works that are beyond all criticism. Strengths and weaknesses are often intertwined within a single work.

Screen versions of works

List of books

SCIENCE FICTION
1. Aelita (with illustrations)
2. Aelita
3. Hyperboloid engineer Garin
4. Hyperboloid engineer Garin (with illustrations)
5. Seven days in which the world was robbed

HISTORICAL PROSE
1. Count Cagliostro
2. Peter's Day
3. Peter the Great
4. Tale of the Time of Troubles

CHILDREN'S LITERATURE
1. Sister fox and wolf
2. Boy with a finger
3. Morozko
4. By pike
5. Tales
6. Princess frog

FAIRY TALE
1. Golden key
2. The golden key, or the adventures of Pinocchio
3. Ivan da Marya
4. Ivan Tsarevich and Alaya-Alitsa
5. Gluttonous shoe
6. Mermaid Tales

CLASSICAL PROSE
1. Experienced person
2. In Paris
3. In the snow
4. Wolf adopted
5. Meeting
6. Viper
7. Tapestry of Marie Antoinette
8. Blue cities
9. Nikita's childhood
10. Ancient way
11. Smoke
12. Testament of Afanasy Ivanovich
13. As if nothing had happened
14. Kikimora
15. Mercy!
16. Mirage
17. Mrs. Breezley
18. Frosty night
19. On the island of Halki
20. Fishing
21. Obsession
22. The extraordinary adventure of Nikita Roshchin
23. Extraordinary adventures on the Volga steamer
24. Underwater
25. Throw fools
26. Adventures of Nevzorov, or Ibicus
27. Simple soul
28. The story of a traveler
29. Stories by Ivan Sudarev
30. Motherland
31. Manuscript found under the bed
32. Case on Basseynaya Street
33. Collected Works (Vol. 1, 2)
34. Roommate
35. Foggy day
36. Assassination of Antoine Rivaud
37. Man in pince-nez
38. Black Friday
39. Emigrants

THE ROAD TO CALVARY:
1. Sisters
2. Eighteenth year
3. Gloomy morning

CHILDREN'S PROSE
1. The story of Captain Hatteras, Mitya Strelnikov, the hooligan Vaska Taburetkin and the evil cat Hama

POETRY
1. Poems

PUBLICITY
1. Publicism
2. I call for hatred (articles)

Count Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy. Born December 29, 1882 (January 10, 1883) in Nikolaevsk, Samara province - died February 23, 1945 in Moscow. Russian and Soviet writer, public figure from the Tolstoy family. Laureate of three Stalin Prizes of the first degree (1941, 1943; 1946 - posthumously).

Alexei Tolstoy was born on December 29, 1882 (January 10, 1883 according to the new style) in Nikolaevsk, Samara province.

Father - Count Nikolai Alexandrovich Tolstoy (1849-1900), a representative of the middle branch of the Tolstoy count family, Samara district marshal of the nobility.

At the same time, a number of researchers believe that the father could be the so-called. unofficial stepfather - Alexei Apollonovich Bostrom (1852-1921). So, Roman Gul in his memoirs cites the version that Alexei Tolstoy was the biological son of A.A. Bostrom, referring in confirmation to the other sons of the count, who, according to the version he cited, had a negative attitude towards him, since he participated in the division of his father's inheritance. At the same time, the historian Aleksey Varlaamov provides very convincing evidence that Gul's testimony is just one of the versions, caused in addition by the memoirist's negative attitude towards A.N. Tolstoy, and in fact Alexey Nikolaevich had the right to a surname, patronymic and title.

Note that Alexey was brought up separately from other children of Nikolai Alexandrovich Tolstoy and until the age of 13 he bore the surname Bostrom.

Mother - Alexandra Leontievna (1854-1906), nee Turgeneva, writer, great-niece of the Decembrist Nikolai Turgenev. By the time Alexei Tolstoy was born, she left her husband for A.A. Bostrom, whom she could not officially marry because of the definition of a spiritual consistory.

Sister - Elizabeth (Lilya; 1874-1940s), in the 1st marriage of Rachmaninov, in the 2nd marriage of Konasevich; in 1898 she published the novel Lida; after the revolution she lived in Belgrade.

Sister - Praskovya (1876-1881).

Brother - Alexander (1878-1918), in 1916-1917. Vilnius governor.

Brother - Mstislav (1880-1949), agronomist, St. Petersburg vice-governor.

Alexei's childhood years were spent in a small farmstead on the estate of A. A. Bostrom on the Sosnovka farm, not far from Samara (at present, the village of Pavlovka in the Krasnoarmeisky district).

In 1897-1898 he lived with his mother in the city of Syzran, where he studied at a real school. In 1898 he moved to Samara.

In the spring of 1905, as a student at the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology, Alexei Tolstoy was sent to work in the Urals, where he lived in Nevyansk for more than a month. Later, in the book “The Best Travels in the Middle Urals: Facts, Legends, Traditions”, Tolstoy devoted his very first story “The Old Tower” to the Nevyansk Leaning Tower.

During the First World War he was a war correspondent. In 1916 he traveled to France and England.

After the October Revolution, Alexei Tolstoy was in exile, where he stayed in 1918-1923. His habitats were Constantinople, Berlin and Paris. He reflected his impressions of emigration in the 1924 satirical story The Adventures of Nevzorov, or Ibikus.

From the pen of Alexei Tolstoy came a number of works that have become classics of Russian literature - even despite the fact that some of them contain an ideological component that reflects the views of his era. But the skill with which he created his works, the depth of images and the original form of presenting the material, his own style - all this introduced Alexei Tolstoy into the pantheon of great Russian writers.

In 1927 he took part in the collective novel "Big Fires", published in the magazine "Spark".

In trilogy "The Road to Calvary"(1922-1941), he was able to present Bolshevism as a phenomenon that has a national and popular soil, and the revolution of 1917 as the highest truth comprehended by the Russian intelligentsia.

Unfinished historical novel "Peter I"(books 1-3, 1929-1945) - perhaps the most famous example of this genre in Soviet literature, contains an apology for a strong and cruel reformist government.

Novels of Tolstoy "Aelita"(1922-1923) and "Hyperboloid engineer Garin"(1925-1927) became classics of Soviet science fiction.

Tale of 1937 "Bread", dedicated to the defense of Tsaritsyn during the years of the civil war, is interesting in that it tells in a fascinating artistic form the vision of the civil war in Russia that existed in the circle and his associates and served as the basis for the creation of the Stalinist cult of personality. At the same time, the story pays detailed attention to the description of the warring parties, the life and psychology of people of that time.

Among other significant works: the story "Russian Character" (1944), drama - "The Conspiracy of the Empress" (1925), about the decay of the tsarist regime; Vyrubova's Diary (1927). Folk legend ascribes to him (albeit without any convincing justification) the authorship of the anonymous pornographic story "Bath".

At the First Congress of Writers (1934) he made a report on dramaturgy. As a member of the Writers' Union in 1936, he took part in the so-called persecution of the writer Leonid Dobychin - which may have led to the latter's suicide.

In the 1930s he regularly traveled abroad (Germany, Italy - 1932, Germany, France, England - 1935, Czechoslovakia - 1935, England - 1937, France, Spain - 1937).

Member of the First (1935) and Second (1937) Congresses of Writers in Defense of Culture.

In August 1933, as part of a group of writers, he visited the open White Sea-Baltic Canal and became one of the authors of the memorable book The White Sea-Baltic Canal named after Stalin (1934). In 1936-1938, after his death, he headed the Writers' Union of the USSR on a temporary basis.

In 1939 he became an academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Since 1937 - Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 1st convocation.

Member of the Commission for the Investigation of the Atrocities of the Fascist Occupiers. He was present at the "Krasnodar process". One of the actual co-authors of Stalin's famous address of 1941, in which the Soviet leader called on the people to turn to the experience of great ancestors: “Let the courageous image of our great ancestors inspire you in this war - Alexander Nevsky, Dimitry Donskoy, Kuzma Minin, Dimitry Pozharsky, Alexander Suvorov, Mikhail Kutuzov! (Stalin's speech at the Red Army parade on November 7, 1941).

During the war years, Alexei Tolstoy wrote about 60 publicistic materials (essays, articles, appeals, sketches about heroes, military operations) - starting from the first days of the war (June 27, 1941 - “What we are defending”) and until his death at the end of winter 1945. The most famous work of Alexei Tolstoy about the war is the essay "Motherland".

Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy died on February 23, 1945, at the age of 63, from lung cancer.

He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery (plot No. 2). In connection with his death, state mourning was declared.

Laureate of three Stalin Prizes:

1941 - Stalin Prize of the first degree for parts 1-2 of the novel "Peter I".

1943 - Stalin Prize of the first degree for the novel "Walking through the torments" (transferred to the Defense Fund for the construction of the Grozny tank).

1946 - Stalin Prize of the first degree for the play "Ivan the Terrible" (posthumously).

In November 1959, in the writer's homeland - in the city of Pugachev, Saratov Region - a monument to A.N. Tolstoy by S.D. Merkurov. This square now also bears the name of Alexei Tolstoy.

In 1965, one of the streets of the city of Pushkin, not far from the luxurious estate of the writer (on Moskovskaya Street / Tserkovnaya Street, 8), where he lived and worked in 1928-1938, was renamed Alexei Tolstoy Boulevard.

Since 1983, the name of A.N. Tolstoy is worn by the Syzran Drama Theatre.

In 2006-2007, the project 588 motor ship Nikolai Gastello received a new name, Alexei Tolstoy, in honor of the writer.

Established in 2001 All-Russian Prize named after A. N. Tolstoy. Status - awarded once every two years to authors of prose, journalistic works for their creative contribution to the development of Russian literature. The founders are the Union of Writers of Russia, the administration of the city of Syzran, the Interregional Literary Center of V. Shukshin. Awarded in the following categories: "Great Prose"; "Small prose (novels and short stories)"; "Publicism". It is awarded in Syzran during a solemn event dedicated to this event, in one of the city's cultural institutions.

Red Count Alexei Tolstoy

Personal life of Alexei Tolstoy:

Was married four times.

First wife- Yulia Vasilievna Rozhanskaya (1881-1943). They were together in the period 1901-1907 (they divorced officially in 1910). She became the prototype of Galya, the heroine of the story "Life". The couple had a son, Yuri, who died in infancy (01/13/1903 - 05/11/1908).

For the first time, Tolstoy saw Yulia Rozhanskaya, the daughter of collegiate adviser Vasily Mikhailovich Rozhansky, at a rehearsal of an amateur drama theater in Samara, where he studied at a local real school. They spent the summer of 1901 together at the Rozhanskys' dacha in the village of Khvolyn, Saratov province. After graduating from a real school, Tolstoy decided to enter the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology and persuaded Yulia to go with him to St. Petersburg. On his advice, in the same year she entered the St. Petersburg Women's Medical Institute.

A marriage proposal soon followed, and on June 3, 1902, a wedding took place in Turgenevo. And already in January 1903, the son Yuri was born, who was sent to Samara, to her parents for care.

During the revolutionary events, Tolstoy decided to go to Germany - to his fellow student at the institute A. Chumakov. There he hoped to continue his studies at the Royal Saxon Higher School of Technology. In Dresden, Tolstoy met the aspiring artist Sofya Isakovna Dymshits. The divorce followed only in 1910, and in the same year Yulia Vasilievna married a wealthy metropolitan merchant Nikolai Ivanovich Smolenkov, who was 16 years older than her and had an adult son. In 1919, she left for Riga with her husband and stepson, where she died in 1943. She was buried at the Pokrovsky cemetery.

Second wife- Sofia (Sarah) Isaakovna Dymshits (1884-1963), artist. Born on April 23, 1884 in St. Petersburg, in a large family of a merchant of the Jewish faith. They met in 1906, Tolstoy was a classmate of her brother. Sophia's parents strongly opposed his visits (the writer was married). But in the spring of 1907, Tolstoy proposes to Sophia. After several years of cohabitation with Tolstoy, she converted to Orthodoxy in order to legally marry him.

The couple had a daughter, Maryana (Marianna) (1911-1988), she was married to E.A. Shilovsky.

Their relationship ended in 1914.

In 1921, Sophia married a German architect, communist Herman Pessati (Guermain Pessati) and gave birth to his son Alexander. In 1925-1935, Dymshits-Tolstaya was in charge of the art department of the magazine "Worker and Peasant Woman".

Sofya Dymshits - the second wife of Alexei Tolstoy

Third wife- Natalya Vasilyevna Krandievskaya (1888-1963), poetess and memoirist. She became the prototype of Katya Roshchina from the novel "Walking through the torments".

Natalya Krandievskaya was born into a literary family. Her mother, Anastasia Romanovna Tarkhova, was a well-known writer at the beginning of the 20th century, close to the Chekhovian direction. Father - Vasily Afanasyevich Krandievsky - was a publisher and journalist who, together with S. A. Skyrmunt, published the publicistic almanac "Bulletins of Literature and Life" (from the beginning of the 1910s until the closing in 1918). She started writing poetry early. Her works were published in magazines, as well as in collections of 1913 and 1919, and received positive reviews from Bunin, Balmont and Blok and Sofia Parnok.

In 1907-1914 she was married to attorney at law Fyodor Akimovich Volkenshtein. Their son is the physical chemist Fedor Fedorovich Volkenstein (1908-1985).

Returning with Alexei Tolstoy from emigration, Krandievsky-Tolstaya completely departed from literature. After parting with Tolstoy, she returned to poetry and did not leave it until the end of her life. Krandievskaya's later poems, including those from the blockade, were published in the 1970s.

They lived in marriage in the period 1914-1935. The couple had sons Nikita and Dmitry.

Son (adoptive, from Krandievsky's first marriage) - Fedor Volkenstein (1908-1985).

Son Nikita (1917-1994), physicist, the story "Nikita's Childhood" is dedicated to him, was married to Natalya Mikhailovna Lozinskaya (daughter of the translator M. Lozinsky), seven children (including Tatyana Tolstaya), fourteen grandchildren (including Artemy Lebedev ).

Son Dmitry (1923-2003), a composer, was married three times, had a child from each marriage, including the famous pancreatic surgeon Professor A. D. Tolstoy.

fourth wife- Lyudmila Ilyinichna Krestinskaya-Barsheva (01/17/1906 - 1982) .. She came to Tolstoy's house in August 1935 as a secretary. Soon they began an affair. In October 1935 they got married and were together until the death of the writer.

Some places near Moscow are associated with the name of A. N. Tolstoy: he visited the House of Creativity of Writers in Maleevka (now the Ruzsky district), in the late 1930s he visited Maxim Gorky at his dacha in Gorki (now the Odintsovo district), together with Gorky visited in 1932 the Bolshevo labor commune (now the territory of the city of Korolev).

For a long time he lived in a dacha in Barvikha (now the Odintsovo district). In 1942, he wrote his military stories there: “Mother and Daughter”, “Katya”, “Stories of Ivan Sudarev”. In the same place, he began the third book of the novel "Walking through the torments", and at the end of 1943 he worked on the third part of the novel "Peter I".

Novels by Alexei Tolstoy:

1912 - Lame master
1923 - Aelita
1924 - The Adventures of Nevzorov, or Ibicus
1927 - Hyperboloid engineer Garin
1931 - Emigrants
The Road to Calvary. Trilogy:
Book 1 "Sisters" (1922);
Book 2 "Year 18" (1928);
Book 3 Gloomy Morning (1941)
Peter the First
Freaks

Novels and stories by Alexei Tolstoy:

Old Tower (1908)
Arkhip (1909)
Cockerel (A Week in Turenev) (1910)
Matchmaking (1910)
Mishuka Nalymov (Zavolzhye) (1910)
Actress (Two Friends) (1910)
Dreamer (Aggey Korovin) (1910)
Wrong Step (A Tale of a Conscientious Peasant) (1911)
Khariton's gold (1911)
The Adventures of Rastegin (1913)
Love (1916)
Fair Lady (1916)
Ordinary Man (1917)
Peter's Day (1918)
Simple Soul (1919)
Four centuries (1920)
In Paris (1921)
Count Cagliostro (1921)
Childhood of Nikita (1922)
Tale of the Time of Troubles (1922)
Seven days in which the world was robbed, also called "Union of Five" (1924)
Vasily Suchkov (1927)
Seasoned Man (1927)
High Society Bandits (1927)
Frosty Night (1928)
Viper (1928)
Bread (Defense of Tsaritsyn) (1937)
Ivan the Terrible (The Eagle and the Eaglet, 1942; Difficult Years, 1943)
Russian character (1944)
Strange Story (1944)
ancient path
Black Friday
On the island of Halki
The manuscript found under the bed
in the snow
Mirage
Murder of Antoine Rivaud
On a fishing trip

Plays by Alexei Tolstoy:

"Journey to the North Pole" (1900)
"On the Hedgehog, or Punished Curiosity" (1900s)
"The Devil's Masquerade, or the Cunning of Apollo" (1900s)
"Fly in Coffee (Gossip That Ends Badly)" (1900s)
"Duel" (1900s)
"Dangerous Path, or Hecate" (1900s)
"Lifebuoy to Aestheticism" (1900s)
"The Sorcerer's Daughter and the Enchanted Prince" (1908)
"Accidental Luck" (1911)
"Day of Ryapolovsky" (1912)
"Rapists" ("Lazy", 1912)
"Young Writer" (1913)
"Cuckoo's Tears" (1913)
"Battle Day" (1914)
"Unclean Power" (1916, 2nd edition 1942)
"Orca" (1916)
"Rocket" (1916)
Obscurantists (1917 - under the title "Bitter Color"
"Love is a golden book" (1918, 2nd edition - 1940)
"The Death of Danton" (1919, adaptation of the play by G. Buchner)
"Riot of the Machines" (1924, adaptation of the play "RUR" by K. Capek)
"Conspiracy of the Empress" (1925, jointly with P. E. Shchegolev)
"Azef" (1925, jointly with P. E. Shchegolev)
"Pauline Goble" (1925, jointly with P. E. Shchegolev)
"Miracles in a sieve..." (1926)
"On the Rack" (1929, later partially revised into the play "Peter I")
“It will be” (1931, jointly with P. S. Sukhotin)
Orango (1932, opera libretto by D. D. Shostakovich, jointly with A. O. Starchakov)
"Patent No. 117" (1933, jointly with A. O. Starchakov)
"Peter I" (reworking of the earlier play "On the Rack")
"Road to Victory" (1938)
The Devil's Bridge (1938; the second act of the play was later reworked into the play The Fuhrer)
"The Golden Key" (arrangements of the story "The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Pinocchio", 1938)
The Fuhrer (1941, based on the second act of the play The Devil's Bridge)
"Ivan the Terrible" - dilogy:
The Eagle and the Eaglet (1942)
"Difficult Years" (1943)

Tales of Alexei Tolstoy:

Mermaid Tales:
Host (1909)
Polevik (1909)
Mermaid (Restless Heart, 1910)
Ivan da Marya (1910)
Witcher (1910)
Water (1910)
Kikimora (1910)
Wild Chicken (1910)
Ivan Tsarevich and Alaya-Alitsa (1910)
Straw Groom (1910)
Wanderer and Serpent (1910)
Cursed Tithing (1910)
Animal King (1910)
Tit (1918)
Forty tales:
Camel (1909)
Pot (Little Feuilleton, 1909)
Magpie (1909)
Painting (1909)
Mouse (1909)
Goat (1909)
Hedgehog (Hedgehog-hero, 1909)
Fox (1910)
Hare (1909)
Cat Vaska (1910)
Owl and Cat (1910)
Sage (1909)
Goose (1910)
Crayfish wedding (1910)
Portochki (1910)
Ant (1910)
Petushki (1910)
Merin (1910)
Chicken God (1910)
Masha and mice (1910)
Lynx, Man and Bear (1910)
Giant (1910)
Bear and goblin (1910)
Bashkiria (1910)
Silver pipe (1910)
Humble Husband (1910)
Bogatyr Sidor (1910)
Fairy tales and stories for children:
Polkan (1909)
Ax (1909)
Sparrow (1911)
Firebird (1911)
Gluttonous Shoe (1911)
Snow House (1911)
Fofka (1918)
Sour Mouth Cat (1924)
As if nothing had happened (1925)
The Story of Captain Hatteras, Mitya Strelnikov, the Hooligan Vaska Taburetkin, and the Evil Cat Ham (1928)
The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Pinocchio (1936)

Screen versions of Alexei Tolstoy:

1915 - Lame master
1920 - Lame master
1924 - Aelita
1928 - Lame master
1937-1938 - Peter the Great
1939 - Golden Key
1957 - Going through the throes: Sisters (1 episode)
1958 - Going through the throes: 1918 (series 2)
1958 - The Adventures of Pinocchio (cartoon)
1959 - Going through the throes: Gloomy morning (series 3)
1965 - Engineer Garin's hyperboloid
1965 - Viper
1971 - Aktorka
1973 - The collapse of engineer Garin
1975 - The Adventures of Pinocchio ("The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Pinocchio")
1977 - Walking through the throes
1980 - Youth of Peter
1980 - At the beginning of glorious deeds
1980 - Aelita (Hungary)
1982 - Adventures of Count Nevzorov
1984 - Formula of Love ("Count Cagliostro")
1986 - Antics in the old spirit
1992 - Nikita's childhood
1992 - Beautiful stranger
1996 - Dear friend of long forgotten years
1997 - The latest adventures of Pinocchio
2002 - Zheltukhin
2017 -

Russian folk tales

Biography of Tolstoy Alexei Nikolaevich

Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on January 10 (December 29), 1883 in the city of Nikolaevsk, Samara province.

Tolstoy's father, Count Nikolai Alexandrovich, was the leader of the Samara district nobility.

Stepfather, Alexey Apollonovich Bostrom, was the chairman of the county zemstvo council.

Tolstoy's mother, Alexandra Leontievna, nee Turgeneva, was the granddaughter of the Decembrist N.I. Turgenev. She was an educated woman, engaged in literature.

The childhood years of the future writer were spent in the village of Sosnovka, which belonged to his stepfather. Here, under the guidance of a visiting teacher, he received his initial education.

1897 - the Tolstoy family moves to Samara, and Alexei enters a real school.

1901 - after graduating from college, Alexei Tolstoy leaves Samara for St. Petersburg, intending to continue his education. He enters the Institute of Technology in the department of mechanics. Then he began to write his first poems.

1905 - production practice at the Baltic Shipyard.

1906 - first publication. The Kazan newspaper "Volzhsky leaf" publishes three poems by Alexei Tolstoy.

February - July of the same year - study in Dresden.

1907 - having completed almost the entire course of study at the institute, Tolstoy leaves him without defending his diploma. He intends to devote himself to literature. This year the first book of poems by Alexei Tolstoy "Lyric" is published. His poems and articles are published in the journals "Luch" and "Education". The writer himself at this time lives in Paris, where he is preparing a second book of poems for publication.

1908 - return to St. Petersburg. A book of poems "Beyond the blue rivers" was published. Tolstoy tries to work with prose and writes Magpie's Tales. It is prose works that will bring him fame.

1909 - Alexei Tolstoy writes the story "A Week in Turenev" (included in the collection "Zavolzhye"), which is published in the Apollo magazine. The publishing house "Shipovnik" publishes the first book of novels and short stories by Alexei Tolstoy.

1910 - 1914 - two novels of the writer, "Eccentrics" and "The Lame Master" are published. Criticism favorably perceives his works, M. Gorky himself praises Tolstoy's works.

1912 - moving to Moscow.

1913 - Alexey Tolstoy begins to cooperate with the newspaper Russkiye Vedomosti, publishes his novels and stories in it.

1914 - the beginning of the First World War. Tolstoy, as a war correspondent from Russkiye Vedomosti, goes to the South-Western Front.

1914 - 1916 - the war allows Tolstoy to visit Europe again, he visits France, England. In addition to journalistic work, he is engaged in his own creativity, writes stories about the war (“Under the Water”, “The Beautiful Lady”, “On the Mountain”), turns to dramaturgy (writes the comedies “Killer Whale” and “Unclean Force”).

The beginning of 1917 - The February Revolution makes Tolstoy think about Russian statehood, he is interested in the Petrine era. The historical theme gradually comes into the writer's work.

Alexei Tolstoy does not accept the October Revolution.

1918 - Tolstoy and his family leave for Odessa, from there he goes to Paris.

1918 - 1923 - emigration. Alexei Tolstoy first lives in Paris, in 1921 he moved to Berlin. Here he is a member of the creative group "On the Eve", consisting of representatives of the Russian émigré intelligentsia. Becoming a member of "On the Eve" automatically meant giving up the fight against Soviet power, and therefore accepting it. Because of this, many friends turn away from Tolstoy, he is expelled from the Union of Russian Writers in Paris. It is possible to maintain relations only with M. Gorky. Later, in his memoirs, the writer will call emigration the most difficult period in his life.

1920 - the story "Nikita's Childhood" was written.

1921 - 1923 - the novel "Aelita", the novels "Black Friday", "The Manuscript Found Under the Bed" were written.

1923 - return to the USSR.

1925 - 1927 - work on the science fiction novel "The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin". In the same period, the story "The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Pinocchio" was written.

1927 - 1928 - Alexei Tolstoy writes the first two parts of the trilogy "Walking through the torments" ("Sisters", "The Eighteenth Year").

1928 - the Tolstoy family moved to Detskoye Selo near Leningrad.

1929 - the beginning of work on the historical novel "Peter I". Tolstoy will write it for 16 years, until the end of his life, but the work will remain unfinished. The finished chapters of the novel are published by the Novy Mir magazine.

1931 - The novel "Black Gold" is written.

1932 - a trip to Italy, a meeting in Sorrento with M. Gorky.

1934 - Tolstoy takes an active part in the preparation and holding of the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers.

1937 - the writer was elected a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

1938 - Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy was awarded the Order of Lenin for the script for the film "Peter I".

1939 - Tolstoy becomes an academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

1940 - 1941 - Alexei Tolstoy writes the third part of "Walking through the torments" "Gloomy Morning".

During the Great Patriotic War, Tolstoy wrote many articles, stories and essays. Creates the dilogy "Ivan the Terrible".

January 10, 1943 - Alexei Tolstoy turns 60 years old. In connection with this event, by the Decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the writer was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

March 19 of the same year - Tolstoy was awarded the Stalin Prize of the first degree (100 thousand rubles) for the novel "Walking Through the Torments". The award was given by the writer for the construction of the Grozny tank.

June 1944 - doctors discover a malignant tumor in the writer's lung.

Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy an amazing and capable writer of rare talent, he created numerous novels, plays and stories, scripts were written, fairy tales for children. Due to the fact that A.N. Tolstoy took the most effective and active part in the creation (at that time) of Soviet literature for children, they could not avoid the close attention of the writer and works of Russian folklore, oral folk art, namely Russian folk tales, which on his behalf have undergone some processing and retelling.

Alexey Nikolaevich sought to reveal to young readers, to show them the enormous ideological, moral and aesthetic wealth that permeated the works of Russian oral folk art. Carefully selecting and sifting hosts of folklore works, in the end, he included in his collection of Russian folk tales 50 fairy tales about animals and about seven fairy tales for children.

According to Alexei Tolstoy recycling folk tales was a long and difficult task. If you believe his words, then from the numerous variations of Russian and folk tale he selected the most interesting fairy tales, enriched with truly folk language turns and amazing plot details that could be useful to children and parents in mastering Russian folk culture and its history.

In children's literature Tolstoy A.N. contributed his book, affectionately called " Forty tales”, which was prepared in 1910. Fairy tales from this book, thanks to diligence and perseverance Tolstoy, were often published in children's anti-corruption magazines of that time, such as "Galchonok", "Path" and many others. The works from his book are also widely used today.

Of course, it is necessary to note the inexhaustible contribution of Tolstoy to Russian children's literature. It was Alexei Nikolaevich who translated, supplemented and wrote a wonderful fairy tale in Russian "". In the future, the text of this wonderful tale was used by him to create a screenplay and a play of the same name for a children's puppet theater. The history of this tale is very interesting, it began shortly before the return of A.N. Tolstoy from emigration, then the initial translation of the novel by the Italian writer (C. Lorenzini) C. Collodi The Adventures of Pinocchio was published in a Berlin magazine, in essence it was the first adaptation of the well-known literary works. From that time on, Tolstoy began a long, painstaking work that lasted more than ten years on a fairy tale story for children, later called The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Pinocchio. Long and thorny work on this wonderful children's work was finally completed by him only in 1936.

Do not evade the attention of the writer (as noted above) and Russian folk tales, Tolstoy made retellings and text processing of the most memorable, beloved folklore works. Already from the first steps in Russian and world literature, Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy set himself the goal of being a passionate supporter of his native folklore, close to him since childhood, Russian folk oral art; the late period of the writer's work is marked by grandiose folklore ideas. Tolstoy's interest in folklore was genuinely wide, but at that time, in literature and pedagogy in general, the following phenomenon was observed, as "a fierce struggle against fairy tale”And probably this may be the forced emigration of A.N. Tolstoy abroad, and at the same time his primordially Russian patriotism. After all, a fairy tale, in those days, when the genre of children's literature was categorically denied, fairy tales were persecuted and destroyed by, for example, the Kharkov Pedagogical School, which even allowed itself to publish and popularize in every possible way a collection of articles called "We are against a fairy tale." The pedagogical and Rappian criticism not only of the Russian fairy tale, but also of folk tales in general, was very strong and was fully supported by numerous corrupt officials, who saw the future of literature completely sterilized from fairy tales, cleansed of the cultural heritage of the past and its historical roots. Even after many decades, we can observe this picture, adherents of this ideology, who continue to persecute and desecrate fairy tales even today. It is easy to find these individuals and read their "works", which are being written (or retold) already today, in our days, for example, on behalf of the journalist Panyushkin and some others.

Aleksei Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on December 29 (January 10 n.s.) in the city of Nikolaevsk (now Pugachev) of the Samara province in the family of a landowner. Childhood years were spent on the Sosnovka farm, which belonged to the writer's stepfather - Alexei Bostrom, who served in the Zemstvo administration of the city of Nikolaevsk - Tolstoy considered this man his father and bore his surname until the age of thirteen.
Little Alyosha almost did not know his own father, Count Nikolai Alexandrovich Tolstoy, an officer of the Life Guards Hussar Regiment and a noble Samara landowner. His mother, Alexandra Leontyevna, contrary to all the laws of that time, left her husband and three children, and, pregnant with her son Alexei, went to her lover. In her nee Turgenev, Alexandra Leontievna herself was no stranger to writing. Her writings - the novel "The Restless Heart", the story "The Outback", as well as books for children, which she published under the pseudonym Alexandra Bostrom - had considerable success and were quite popular at that time. Alexei owed his mother to his sincere love for reading, which she was able to instill in him. Alexandra Leontievna tried to persuade him to write as well.
Alyosha received his initial education at home under the guidance of a visiting teacher. In 1897 the family moved to Samara, where the future writer entered a real school. After graduating in 1901, he went to St. Petersburg to continue his education. Enters the department of mechanics of the Technological Institute. By this time, his first poems, not free from the influence of the work of Nekrasov and Nadson, belong. Tolstoy began with imitation, as evidenced by his first collection of poems, Lyric, published in 1907, of which he was then extremely ashamed - so much so that he tried never to even mention it.
In 1907, shortly before defending his diploma, he left the institute, deciding to devote himself to literary work. Soon he “attacked on his own topic”: “These were the stories of my mother, my relatives about the outgoing and departed world of the ruined nobility. A world of eccentrics, colorful and ridiculous... It was an artistic find.” Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy
After the novels and short stories that later compiled the book Zavolzhye, they began to write a lot about him (A. M. Gorky received an approving review), but Tolstoy himself was dissatisfied with himself: “I decided that I was a writer. But I was an ignoramus and an amateur ... "
While still in St. Petersburg, under the influence of A.M. Remizov, he took up the study of the Russian folk language “from fairy tales, songs, from the records of“ Words and Deeds ”, that is, judicial acts of the 17th century, according to the writings of Avvakum .. Passion for folklore gave the richest material for the "Forty Tales" and the poetic collection "Beyond the Blue Rivers" permeated with fabulous and mythological motifs, after publishing which Tolstoy decided not to write more poetry.
... In those first years, the years of accumulation of skill, which cost Tolstoy incredible efforts, he just did not write stories, fairy tales, poems, novels, and all this in huge quantities! - and where only it was not published. He worked without straightening his back. The novels "Two Lives" ("Eccentrics" - 1911), "The Lame Master" (1912), stories and novels "For Style" (1913), plays that were staged at the Maly Theater and not only in it, and much more - all was the result of relentless sitting at the desk. Even Tolstoy's friends were amazed at his efficiency, because, among other things, he was a frequenter of many literary gatherings, parties, salons, vernissages, anniversaries, theatrical premieres.
After the outbreak of the First World War, he, as a war correspondent from Russkiye Vedomosti, was at the fronts, visited England and France. He wrote a number of essays and stories about the war (the stories "On the Mountain", 1915; "Under Water", "The Beautiful Lady", 1916). During the war years, he turned to drama - the comedy "Unclean Force" and "Killer Whale" (1916).
Tolstoy took the October Revolution with hostility. In July 1918, fleeing the Bolsheviks, Tolstoy and his family moved to Odessa. It seems that the revolutionary events that took place in Russia did not at all affect the story "Count Cagliostro" written in Odessa - a charming fantasy about the revival of an old portrait and other miracles - and the cheerful comedy "Love is a golden book."
From Odessa, the Tolstoy went first to Constantinople, and then to Paris, to emigrate. Alexey Nikolaevich did not stop writing there either: during these years, the nostalgic story "Nikita's Childhood" was published, as well as the novel "Walking Through the Torments" - the first part of the future trilogy. In Paris, Tolstoy was dreary and uncomfortable. He loved not only luxury, but, so to speak, proper comfort. And there was no way to achieve it. In October 1921 he moved again, this time to Berlin. But life in Germany was not the best either: “Life here is approximately the same as in Kharkov under the hetman, the brand is falling, prices are rising, goods are being hidden,” Aleksey Nikolayevich complained in a letter to I.A. Bunin.
Relations with emigration deteriorated. For his collaboration with the Nakanune newspaper, Tolstoy was expelled from the émigré Union of Russian Writers and Journalists: only A.I. Kuprin, I.A. Bunin - abstained ... Thoughts about a possible return to his homeland increasingly took possession of Tolstoy.
In August 1923, Alexei Tolstoy returned to Russia. More precisely, in the USSR. Forever.
“And he immediately harnessed himself to work, without giving himself any respite”: his plays were endlessly staged in theaters; in Soviet Russia, Tolstoy also wrote one of his best stories, The Adventures of Nevzorov, or Ibicus, and completed the fantastic novel Aelita, begun in Berlin, which made a lot of noise. Tolstoy's fiction was viewed with suspicion in writers' circles. "Aelita", as well as the later utopian story "Blue Cities" and the adventure-fiction novel "The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin", written in the spirit of the then popular "red Pinkerton", were not appreciated by either I.A. Bunin, nor V.B. Shklovsky, nor Yu.N. Tynyanov, nor even the friendly K.I. Chukovsky.
And Tolstoy shared it with a smile with his wife, Natalya Krandiyevskaya: “It will end up with the fact that someday I will write a novel with ghosts, with a dungeon, with buried treasures, with all kinds of devilry. Since childhood, this dream has not been satisfied ... As for ghosts - this, of course, is nonsense. But, you know, without fantasy, it’s still boring for an artist, somehow prudent ... An artist by nature is a liar, that’s the point! A.M. turned out to be right. Gorky, who said that "Aelita is written very well and, I am sure, will be a success." And so it happened. Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy
The return of Tolstoy to Russia caused a variety of rumors. The emigrants considered this act a betrayal and poured terrible curses at the address of the "Soviet count". The writer was favored by the Bolsheviks: over time, he became a personal friend of I.V. Stalin, a regular guest at magnificent Kremlin receptions, was awarded numerous orders, prizes, was elected a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, a full member of the Academy of Sciences. But the socialist system did not accept it, rather, it adapted to it, put up with it, and therefore, like many, he often said one thing, thought another, and wrote a completely third thing. The new authorities did not skimp on gifts: Tolstoy had a whole estate in Detskoye Selo (as in Barvikha) with luxuriously furnished rooms, two or three cars with a personal driver. He still wrote a lot and differently: he endlessly finalized and reworked the trilogy "Walking through the torments" and then suddenly took and gave the children the wooden Pinocchio doll they loved so much - he retold in his own way the famous fairy tale Carlo Collodi about the adventures of Pinocchio. In 1937, he composed the "pro-Stalinist" story "Bread", in which he spoke about the outstanding role of the "father of peoples" in the defense of Tsaritsyn during the Civil War. And until the last days he worked on his main book - a large historical novel about the era of Peter the Great, the idea of which arose, perhaps even before the revolution, in any case, already at the end of 1916, and in 1918 such stories appeared as " Delusion", "The First Terrorists" and, finally, "Peter's Day". After reading "Peter the Great", even the gloomy and bilious Bunin, who strictly judged Tolstoy for his understandable human weaknesses, was delighted.
The Great Patriotic War found Alexei Tolstoy already a well-known writer at the age of 58. During this time, he often appeared with articles, essays, stories, the heroes of which were people who showed themselves in the difficult trials of the war. And all this - despite the progressive disease and the truly hellish torment associated with it: in June 1944, doctors discovered a malignant lung tumor in Tolstoy. A serious illness prevented him from surviving until the end of the war. He died on February 23, 1945 in Moscow.

Tolstoy Alexey Nikolaevich; Nikolaevsk, Samara province; 12/29/1882 - 02/23/1945

Tolstoy Alexei Nikolaevich became known as the author of science fiction and psychological works. A fairy tale called "The Adventures of Pinocchio" brought him great popularity. During his life, the author received two Stalin Prizes. Another one in 1946 went to the writer posthumously. Many feature films were made based on Alexei Tolstoy's books. The last film adaptation was the serial film "Walking through the torments" (2017), named after the trilogy of the same name. Today we can read such an author as Alexei Tolstoy as part of the school curriculum.

Biography of Alexei Tolstoy

The popular Soviet writer was born in a small town in the Russian Empire. The boy's father was the leader of the nobility and Count Nikolai Alexandrovich, and his mother was a writer, a distant relative of the famous economic figure N. Turgenev, Alexandra Leontievna. Some critics doubt that Count Tolstoy is actually the writer's own father. The fact is that Alexei's mother left her husband for a certain Alexei Bostrom even before her son was born. And, although there is a record in the register of births that the count is the father of the writer, the question of his origin is still open.

Tolstoy spent his childhood on the estate of his stepfather Bostrom. Even then, relatives tried to instill in him a love of literature. In the future, the writer will remember how, as a child, Alexei Bostrom read him the works of the classics of Russian literature -,. At the age of ten, the boy could independently read all the books that were in the home library. At the age of fifteen, he moved with his mother to the city of Syzran, where he entered the local school.

In 1905 Tolstoy entered the Technological Institute in St. Petersburg. Revolutionary events fell on his years of study. The future writer could not stand aside - he participated in all kinds of gatherings, rallies and demonstrations. Also, his student years were the beginning of his creative career. Life in St. Petersburg gave Tolstoy many interesting acquaintances. He visits theaters, exhibitions, is interested in poetry.

It was with poetry that Tolstoy's creative path began. In 1907, a collection of poems by Alexei Tolstoy called "Lyric" was published. However, the author was not satisfied with the quality of his work. It got to the point that a few years later the poet himself called his poems naive and bad. The second book of poems by Alexei Tolstoy "Beyond the Blue Rivers" turned out much better. In it, the author describes nature, the work of farmers, the transition from one season to another. This was his last collection of poetry.

Since 1910, Alexei has been trying his hand at prose. At the same time, the collection "Tales and Stories" was published. Later, this book began to bear the name "Zavolzhye". In it, the author talks about the landlords, the depreciation of moral values and the decline of people's morals. The writer took ideas for stories from the lips of his mother and from his own impressions after a trip home. It was this work that brought him his first popularity. Since then, Alexei Tolstoy's biography has become more eventful. He tries to write novels. From under his pen comes the work "The Lame Master", which was subsequently filmed several times.

Tolstoy also tried himself as a playwright. On the stage of various theaters, plays based on such works of his as "Rapists" (1913) and "Orca" (1915) were staged. During the First World War, the writer is fond of journalism. He holds a position as a journalist in one of the popular periodicals. Thanks to frequent trips as a correspondent, Alexei was able to gather material about the life of people from all over the country and subsequently publish it in the form of short essays. At the same time, Alexei Tolstoy published stories that condemn decadence (“In the Harbor”, “On the Opening Day”, etc.).

After the October Revolution, the writer was forced to go abroad. There he lived for more than five years, continuing to actively engage in creativity. The 1930s was a period of frequent travel for the writer. During this time he visited Germany, France, England, etc. However, even in this case, Alexei often took part in all kinds of literary congresses and congresses in his homeland. Since 1936, for two years, the writer headed the Writers' Union of the USSR. During World War II he worked as a war correspondent. During this period, many essays, articles and sketches were written.

The writer also became famous for his works for children. Many fairy tales by Alexei Tolstoy are still popular today. One of them is The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Pinocchio (1936). He also managed to process a large number of Russian folk tales, adapting them for young children.

In the last days of his life, Alexei Tolstoy struggled with a serious illness - lung cancer. However, the disease won, and at the end of February 1945 the writer died. Alexei Tolstoy's list of works is quite extensive and includes historical, psychological, science fiction, journalistic and other genres. For a long time the writer worked on the novel "Peter I", but the author did not have time to finish the work. Subsequently, a theater in the city of Syzran and several streets in various parts of the country were named in his honor. And since 2001, there has been a prize named after A. Tolstoy, which is awarded to authors of prose and journalism.

Books by Alexei Tolstoy on the Top Books website

Books by Alexei Tolstoy are popular among both adults and children. Indeed, among the works of the writer there are many both children's fairy tales and quite high-quality works. The writer's works are presented both among and among. Moreover, during the passage of the writer's works in the school curriculum, some of them fall into ours.