How many fat and what they wrote. About one of the three great Tolstoys

There are doubts as to whether Alexei Tolstoy is a count and whether he is related to the famous Tolstoy family. In his memoirs, Roman Gul claims that Alexei Tolstoy was not the biological son of Nikolai Tolstoy. However, the biography of the writer, written by Alexei Varlamov, published in 2006, casts doubt on this point of view.

According to the author of the biography, Gul had a negative attitude towards Alexei Tolstoy and could deliberately distort the facts. At the same time, Varlamov claims that Alexandra Leontievna, Alexei's mother, swore in confession that the name of her child's real father is Bostrom. However, later Alexandra Leontievna realized that it was much more profitable for her son to bear the name of Tolstoy. Thus began a long-term litigation, the purpose of which was to receive Alexei the title, patronymic and surname of Count Tolstoy. The lawsuit was successfully completed only in 1901.

Maybe, future writer really had nothing to do with the Tolstoy family. According to eyewitnesses, at the time of his birth, Alexei's mother already lived separately from her lawful spouse, but she turned to the tsar with a written request to assign her son the title, surname and patronymic of Nikolai Tolstoy.

Alexei Tolstoy was born in 1882 (according to other sources - in 1883). Officially, Count Nikolai Aleksandrovich Tolstoy is still considered the writer's father. Alexandra Leontievna Tolstaya (nee Turgeneva) was a writer and was related to the Decembrist Nikolai Turgenev. Alexei's parents broke up before he was born. Alexandra Leontievna went to A. A. Bostrom. That is why the origin of Alexei Nikolaevich is often questioned by many researchers. Until the age of 17, the future writer bore the surname of his unofficial stepfather (possibly father). Bostrom and Alexandra Leontievna were never able to enter into an official marriage.

Alexei's childhood passed on the Bostrom estate. In the late 1890s, the future writer moved with his mother. Alexei graduated from the real school in Syzran. Then there was a move to Samara. In 1905, the young man was sent to the Urals to the city of Nevyansk for practice. At that time he studied at the Petersburg Institute of Technology. The trip brought young man many new experiences, which he later described in his book " Best travel in the Middle Urals: facts, legends, legends.

During the First World War, Alexei Tolstoy worked as a war correspondent. The future writer happened to make working trips to England and France. After October revolution Tolstoy was forced to emigrate, going first to Constantinople, then to Berlin, and then to Paris. In 1923 he was able to return to his homeland. In the early 1930s, Tolstoy, along with several other writers, visited the famous White Sea-Baltic Canal. Alexey Nikolaevich became one of the authors of the book about this channel in 1934. For two years, from 1936 to 1938, Tolstoy headed the Writers' Union of the USSR, taking the place of the deceased Maxim Gorky. Shortly before the start of World War II, the writer became an academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Alexei Tolstoy was one of the authors of the Molotov-Stalin appeal. Leaders in circulation Soviet Union urged to remember the experience of valiant ancestors: Minin, Pozharsky, Nevsky, Suvorov, Kutuzov. Subsequently, the writer becomes a member of the Commission for the Investigation of the Atrocities of the Fascist Occupiers. Tolstoy was present at the famous Krasnodar trial.

Alexei Nikolaevich was not destined to live to see victory. He died at the end of February 1945. In connection with the death of the great writer, state mourning was declared.

Tolstoy was so popular that he was credited with the authorship of the most famous pornographic story of the early twentieth century - "The Bathhouse". There is also a version that the story was written by Leo Tolstoy. It is possible that The Bathhouse was written after the revolution as a reaction to the ban on the coverage of sexual life in Soviet literature.

Creativity Tolstoy

Despite the fact that the writer had to live abroad for some time, Tolstoy never intended to leave his homeland forever. After his return, he wrote a satirical story in which he reflected all his experiences associated with being forced to stay in a foreign land. Alexei Nikolaevich becomes one of the co-authors of the novel "Big Fires". The work was published in the magazine "Spark".

The writer expressed his attitude to the revolution in his trilogy "Walking Through the Torments", the writing of which stretched almost until the end of his life: from 1922 to 1941. Tolstoy believed that the revolution and Bolshevism was the best thing that could happen to the Russian people, since it was the Bolsheviks who helped common man understand what he is really capable of. The new ideology, according to the author, not only led to an improvement in the quality of life of ordinary workers and peasants, but made the oppressed feel like full-fledged citizens of their country.

The history of the Russian people has always attracted the attention of the great Soviet writer. From 1929 to 1945 Tolstoy worked on the novel "Peter I", which remained unfinished. In the novel, the author reproaches the most unusual tsar in the history of Russia. Peter's reforms were too harsh. The tsar Europeanized the nobility, leaving the peasants as ordinary Russian people. As a result, there was a division of society: the owners and gentlemen ceased to understand each other.

The author dedicated the little-known story "Bread" to the defense of Tsaritsyn (Volgograd) in the difficult years of the civil war. In his work, Tolstoy tried to look at civil war through the eyes of Stalin's comrades-in-arms. It was during this period, the author believes, that the emergence of the personality cult of the great leader began. Particular attention in the story is given to the warring parties.

Alexei Tolstoy was good not only at describing history. More than one generation of Soviet children read with interest "The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin" and "Aelita". Target science fiction Tolstoy is not to take a person away from reality, but to make him believe that the world around him is much wider than it seems at first glance. What is fantasy today will become reality tomorrow. Some of the writer's works, including the "Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin", were seriously revised.

War years - last period creativity of Tolstoy. During these few years of his life, the writer created a huge number of articles, essays and sketches about the heroes of the Great Patriotic War. One of the most famous works of the period is the essay "Motherland".

A characteristic feature of the works written during the war years is an appeal to Russian tradition and folklore. Tolstoy recalls The Tale of Igor's Campaign. Hitler is very wittily compared to a wolf. Often the writer turns to the history of Russia, recalling Kutuzov and Nevsky, glorious victories over Mamai. The writer notes that, despite some recklessness, the Russian people are able to forget about many things in difficult days for the country, leave personal worries and serve the Motherland. Russkaya Smetka helps residents of one of the most big countries on the planet it is worthy to get out of any difficult situation. Tolstoy is sure that Hitler must certainly be defeated. It is simply impossible to win against such a smart people who show “perseverance in a fight”. The writer completely disagrees with those who consider the Russian people backward in spiritual terms. Tolstoy believes that Russians are constantly striving for "moral perfection".

It has always been believed that there are three such writers. At least known and become classics of Russian literature. This is, of course, Lev Nikolaevich, famous for novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina. This is Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy, born 11 years earlier, who has come down to us as the author of the historical novel Prince Serebryany, although he also wrote dramas and poems. And this is the youngest of the Tolstoy - Alexei Nikolaevich, who was born in 1883 and worked under Soviet power. He is known to us as one of the first science fiction writers who came up with the image of Aelita, the princess of Mars, as the author of the Russian adaptation of the adventures of the wooden man - Pinocchio, and as the author of the trilogy The Path of Torment. Less well known is the fourth Tolstoy - Sergei Nikolaevich, who died in 1977, the author of the epic Condemned to Live.

There are three such writers. Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828-1910), wrote the masterpiece War and Peace. Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy (1817-1873). The author of historical books, one of which is Prince Serebryany, the creator of the image of Kozma Prutkov. Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1882-1945). He did not accept the revolution, he emigrated abroad. Author of the Sisters trilogy, 18th year, Gloomy Morning. The author of fairy tales, one of which is the Golden Key or the adventures of Pinocchio.

Perhaps the most famous in the world is a lump, a seasoned human being (named so by Ulyanov (Lenin)) Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy. Outside the Russian-speaking population, they only know him.

A narrow circle of foreigners knows Alexei Tolstoy, of whom there are also two, differing in patronymics. Alexei Konstantinovich (Prince Silver) and Alexei Nikolaevich (Pinocchio and Peter the Great).

The rest of the workers of the pen with the surname Tolstoy from the evil one, did not mark anything good in literature, except as they were carriers of a well-known surname.

In Russian literature, there are several writers with the surname Tolstoy (Tolstaya) - this is, of course, the writer Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, known to all of us at school, his son, playwright and prose writer Lev Lvovich Tolstoy, and the grandson of Lev Nikolayevich, Sergey Sergeevich Tolstoy. And there are also Russian writers with the surname Tolstoy - these are Sergei Nikolaevich Tolstoy, Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy, Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy, Sarra Fedorovna Tolstaya, Maria Fedorovna Kamenskaya (her maiden name Tolstaya), Natalia Nikitichna Tolstaya, Tatyana Vladimirovna Tolstaya, Tatyana Nikitichna Tolstaya.

If we take real writers who have become cult, each in their own period of time and creativity on this planet, then I know only three:

There are also less well-known, but in the end, it is not clear who can be considered a writer and who is not, I think even in our time, there are people with the surname Tolstoy who write on the Internet, therefore full list basically impossible to make.

In addition to three famous writers named Tolstoy, there are also contemporary writer Tatyana Nikitichna Tolstaya. Known e novel Kys, collections of short stories. Tatyana vedt television program School of slander. She is known to young people primarily as the mother of designer and blogger Artemy Lebedev.

The surname Tolstoy is quite noble. Many generals, famous doctors, governors, artists and people of other professions bear or bore this surname. There were especially many Tolstoy writers. In particular:

• two Alexei Tolstykhs (one has a patronymic Konstantinovich, the other has Nikolaevich);
• Vladimir Tolstoy (alive to this day);
• Dmitry Tolstoy;
• Ilya (this is the son of that Tolstoy whom everyone knows - Leo, the author of War and Peace);
• Leo Tolstoy (the same);
• the other is Leo Tolstoy (patronymic Lvovich).

There are also many writers with the surname Tolstaya.

There are several writers and poets with the surname Tolstoy or Tolstaya in Russian literature. Here is a list (possibly incomplete):

1) Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy(1828 - 1910) - a well-known Russian writer, whose works are read all over the world. Each schoolchild gets acquainted with his greatest work War and Peace.

2) Lev Lvovich Tolstoy is the son of Leo Tolstoy. The years of his life from 1869 to 1945. By occupation, he was a playwright, prose writer. You can read his works such as:

3) Sergei Nikolaevich Tolstoy(1908 - 1977) - also a Russian writer, playwright, prose writer and poet. His works are collected in the book Collected Works of S.N. Tolstoy, which is published in five volumes. The book contains such works: Condemned to live, Pushkin in Odessa, About the most important thing, translations from foreign literature other.

4) Sergei Sergeevich Tolstoy(1897 - 1974) - grandson of Lev Nikolaevich. Known as the author of a memoir called How I Remember Lev Nikolaevich, and What He Taught Me (Memories of a Grandson).

5) Alexey Konstantinovich Tolstoy- playwright, poet Lived from 1817 to 1875. He is the author of the following works:

6) Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy(1883 - 1945) is also a Russian writer. Wrote in the genre of science fiction, is the author historical novels as well as numerous short stories and short stories. Some of them: Aelita, Pain, Engineer Garin's Hyperboloid, Old Tower, Golden Key, or Pinocchio's Adventures and others.

7) Sarah Fdorovna Tolstaya although she died so early at the age of 17 due to consumption, she managed to declare herself as a writer in foreign languages.

8) Maria Fdorovna Kamenskaya(maiden name Tolstaya) - writer of poems and plays: Starina, Liza Fomina, Nepety, etc. Born in 1817, died in 1898.

9) Natalia Nikitichna Tolstaya(1943 - 2010) writer in Russian. Author and co-author of the following works:

10) Tatyana Vladimirovna Tolstaya(better known under the pseudonym Tatyana Vechorka). Years of life 1892 - 1965. She is a Russian poetess, author of the poem Pravovedy.

11) Tatyana Nikitichna Tolstaya- Russian writer, prose writer. Born in 1951. Her most famous works are the novel Kis, Love you do not love, Day, Night, Raisins and others. Her works have also been translated into other languages.

However, it is understandable to anyone who has not passed by his "John of Damascus": in order to write about a brilliant poet and not be disgraced, you yourself must be, if not equal in size, then, in any case, real. Tolstoy does not sag anywhere, does not stray into a tongue twister - he holds a poetic breath to match his hero.

Tolstoy's poetic power was not inferior to his physical strength. With his fingers he turned the teeth of the fork into a screw, unbent the horseshoes, bent the pokers and pressed the nails into the walls with his fingers. No wonder that he was so drawn to the heroic, epic times. In general, he was surprisingly generously gifted: not only strong, smart, educated, good-looking, endowed with an exceptional memory (he could reproduce the page of the text he had just read by heart), but also rich, and happy in love, and welcome at court. At the same time - no deals with conscience and impeccable reputation. An amazing biography for a Russian writer: in our literature there are few happy people and many martyrs. And so that happiness is combined with a sound mind, a strong psyche, human decency and remarkable talent - you can still find a second one like that (maybe Korolenko?).

And he disposed of all this wealth as it should be: he did not waste it, did not bury it, but increased it, as in the parable about talents. But at the same time - several times in his poems there is an image of a hero who bears grief. But this is probably normal. It would be abnormal, probably, on the contrary: to live in this place and time and not experience any grief.

Alyosha and the greats

By birth, Alexei Tolstoy belonged to two aristocratic families. His father, Konstantin Tolstoy, was a descendant of the Petrine nobleman Peter Tolstoy, brother famous painter Fyodor Tolstoy - the one with the "miraculous brush". Konstantin Tolstoy himself, a retired colonel, was an unremarkable person. Mother, Anna Alekseevna Perovskaya, was the illegitimate daughter of Prince Alexei Kirillovich Razumovsky and the bourgeois Maria Sobolevskaya. The father procured all the children from this union the nobility, gave education and wealth; The Perovsky family clan gave Russia scientists, writers, statesmen.

The family life of the parents did not work out, the mother left her father very soon and took her six-week-old son with her. Relatives considered that the family union was doomed from the very beginning: the husband drank, the wife was too smart, independent and with “quirks”, which she recalled younger sister. Instead of a father, the brother of his mother, Alexei Alekseevich Perovsky, the writer Anthony Pogorelsky, began to raise and educate the little count. The mother and child lived with him for a long time in Pogoreltsy. When Razumovsky died, Perovsky inherited his Krasny Rog estate (in the current Bryansk region), and Anna Alekseevna settled there with her young son.

“My childhood was very happy and left only bright memories in me,” wrote Alexei Tolstoy. - The only son who had no playmates and endowed with a very vivid imagination, I very early got used to daydreaming, which soon turned into a pronounced penchant for poetry. Nature, in the midst of which I lived, contributed much to this; the air and the view of our large forests, passionately loved by me, made a deep impression on me, which left an imprint on my character and on my whole life and remained in me to this day. His mother loved and spoiled him. His uncle was attentive and sensitive to his upbringing, wrote serious letters to him, very small, composed fairy tales for him (he became famous for one of them, the Black Hen), hired the best teachers. At the age of 6, Alyosha spoke and wrote German, English and French, and composed poetry in Russian. Unfortunately, they didn't survive. In 1826, Anna Alekseevna moved to Moscow, she was made a lady of state, and Alyosha Tolstoy was among the comrades of the heir to the throne, the future Tsar Alexander II. In Moscow, Pushkin came to visit Alexei Perovsky; Alyosha Tolstoy was already quite a grown up and well-read child to realize the significance of the guest.

The following year, Perovsky took his sister and nephew to Germany - both to be treated himself, and to treat Alyosha, who was often ill. In Germany they visited Goethe. It is known that the great poet put a Russian boy on his knees, and then presented him with a piece of mammoth tusk, on which he himself depicted a frigate. Tolstoy recalled: “From this visit, the majestic features of Goethe's face remained in my memory ... for whom I instinctively was imbued with the deepest respect, for I heard everyone around him talking about him.”

From the age of 12, Tolstoy lived in St. Petersburg with his mother and uncle. On weekends he was taken to play with the heir. The maid of honor Alexandra Rosset (married), having once seen the heir fussing with friends, wrote down that little Tolstoy was distinguished by “fabulous strength” - he even offered to measure his strength to Nicholas I and seriously tried to overcome him.

For thirteen years, Alyosha was taken to Italy; by this time he already spoke Italian. Italy completely fascinated him - with its history, decaying luxury, romantic robbers. This Italy will appear, captivating and terrible, in his "Ghoul" - and will beckon to itself all his life. In Italy, he met Bryullov; a few years later, Bryullov stayed with the family of Perovsky and Tolstoy and painted a portrait of Alyosha Tolstoy - a white-faced and ruddy blond with the figure of a wrestler ... Alexei continued to write poetry, his uncle even arranged for him to publish his first publication, but - so that his nephew would not become proud - a critical spacing. Some poems have survived to this day, but, like any young lyrics, - with rare exceptions - they do not shine with special advantages. However, oral evidence has been preserved that the first poetic experiments of the young poet were praised by Pushkin and Zhukovsky.

Service, rank, uniform

I had to decide on a career. He entered the service of the Moscow Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs - to disassemble old documents and began to prepare for university exams at the Faculty of Literature "for the right of officials of the first category." Passed the exams successfully. However, instead of making a career, he took his sick uncle to Europe for treatment. Alexey Perovsky felt worse and soon died, leaving his nephew everything he had. Alexey, having come to his senses after the funeral, appeared at the service, where he had not been for a long time. From the department of economic and accounting affairs, he was transferred to the department of foreign affairs, and from there he was sent to the mission in Frankfurt am Main. An intelligent official did not come out of him, no matter how they tried to set him on the path public service Uncle Perovsky: he was much more interested in literature and travel.

Shortly after the death of his uncle, Alexey fell in love for the first time - with Princess Elena Meshcherskaya. The mother opposed this love, and the obedient son refused it. Another of his loves is the girl Peppina, whom he met on Lake Como during his second Italian trip; we meet this Peppina in his first major publication - the story "Ghoul". "Ghoul" was published in 1841, signed with the pseudonym "Krasnorogsky", and immediately attracted the attention of Belinsky, who noticed in him "all the signs of a still young, but nevertheless remarkable talent."

"Ghoul" and others scary stories Tolstoy - "The Family of the Ghoul", "Meeting in Three Hundred Years" (these two were originally written in French) - are still read with rapture today. This is a classic of Russian "horror", remarkable for the ingenuity of the plot and the gloomy atmosphere; what is only one creepy, goosebumps, chivalrous ballad from "Ghoul" - "let the grandmother suck the blood of the granddaughter" ...

Acquaintance with Gogol, the blessing of great contemporaries, a promising literary debut in the spirit of Gogol-Hoffmann romance - it seemed that all this opened up excellent prospects for the young count. But instead of literature, he was engaged in service under the supervision of his uncle, Vasily and Lev Perovsky, and ascended through their efforts to career ladder which didn't interest him at all. He lived on the estate for a long time, hunted, learned to draw, read, did little housekeeping: the management of the estate was entirely taken over by his mother. His mother is his despot, though dearly beloved; she kept a vigilant eye on his career and frustrated any of his romances. He did not show his loving relatives how much this prosperous life, created by them, was beyond his measure. He was a good, delicate, well-mannered man - generally a gentleman, as the literary historian Svyatopolk-Mirsky called him. He did not like, could not and did not want to serve, the service did not allow him to engage in literature. In one of his letters, he shared the cherished: “But how to work for art when you hear words from all sides: service, rank, uniform, bosses and the like? I cannot admire the uniform, and I am forbidden to be an artist; What am I supposed to do if I can't sleep? It is true that one should not fall asleep and that one should look for another circle of activity, more useful, more obviously useful, than art; but this transfer of activity is more difficult for a person who was born an artist than for another ... "

He is convinced that he is an artist, but the family demands service from him. He works at his desk, writes at night. During the day - service, court duties. Readers never saw what he wrote during those nights – he later destroyed many of the poems of this time himself, doubting his poetic power. Although in this decade, in the 40s, several wonderful ballads were written, including the textbook "Vasily Shibanov". And irreproachable in form, dazzlingly happy poem “Where the vines bend over the pool”: you feel warmth with your skin, you see “turquoise backs, and the wings are like glass.” And "My bells, flowers of the steppe." And the poems “You know the land where everything breathes in abundance”, full of the most vivid colors and acute longing for Ukraine, beloved since childhood. He is drawn to space, to nature, alone with which he is equal to himself, to freedom. But life flows in the other direction - so against his will that sometimes he is ready to beat his head against the wall in despair.

... burst out French revolution 1848, and after it began a rapid tightening of the screws in Russia - the well-known "dark seven years", the time of censorship, exile and deadly bureaucracy. Tolstoy nevertheless found an outlet for himself in this realm of stagnant air. Together with the Zhemchuzhnikov brothers - a large, noisy family of cousins, children of his maternal aunt - he came up with Kozma Prutkov, a character in Russian literature unsurpassed. For the first time, Prutkov appeared around the first half of the 1850s - and soon began to live his own life, acquired a biography and relatives. Alexei Tolstoy and his cousins ​​were, perhaps, the first absurdists in Russian literature (well, except for some passages in Gogol). By the way, it was at this time that Tolstoy became very friendly with Gogol; Gogol came from abroad to work on the second volume of Dead Souls, Tolstoy spent a lot of time with him and, according to some accounts, read to him one of the first editions of his Prince of Silver. Perhaps under the influence of Gogol's religiosity, while on duty in Kaluga, Tolstoy walked several times to Optina Pustyn.

History was also a kind of outlet for Tolstoy: where to go to hard times as not in the history of even more difficult times. With all the sympathy for the fabulous antiquity, for the heroic times Kievan Rus Tolstoy was most interested in painful, difficult, turning times: the kingdom of Ivan the Terrible, the kingdom of Godunov, the Troubles ... - times strong characters and sharp plots that allow you to talk about the most important things about the country, its history, its people and power.

Kohl love, so without reason

In 1851, at a masquerade ball, Tolstoy met an unfamiliar lady. I talked to her and was completely fascinated: the lady turned out to be an intelligent and attentive interlocutor. But she did not take off her mask - she only took his card. “In the midst of a noisy ball, by chance” is about her, about a vague love that has barely been born and promises both happiness and pain. A mysterious stranger invited him to visit a few days later - and this began a love story for life. Sofya Andreevna Miller, nee Bakhmetyeva, was the wife of a horse guards captain, lived separately from her husband, although not divorced. She knew 14 languages, sang beautifully, was well versed in music and literature, and although she was not good-looking - small eyes, a duck nose, a hard chin - she was unusually charming. In the first letters, the enamored Tolstoy told her everything about himself. He shared doubts about his service and his mediocrity, devoted to plans to engage in literature. She supported and approved. The mother, having heard that her son had fallen in love with someone else's wife, hurried to take action: dissuaded, generously shared gossip, which made him rush headlong to Sofya Andreevna in the estate of her brothers and explain himself. Now the beloved was telling him her not very happy life: mistakes of youth, unsuccessful marriage ... He felt sorry for her and out of pity, it seems, he loved her even more.

Love seemed to make him, frozen in desperate indecision, move and fight. Over the next few years, he persuaded his mother to accept his choice. And Sofya Andreevna tried to get a divorce from her husband.

Right now, when, like Ilya Muromets, who had sat on the stove for many years, he got up and moved, when he began to write, when, in fact, he began to live in full force and breathe deeply, he wrote his famous poem:

If you love, so without reason,
If you threaten, it's not a joke,

If you scold, so rashly,
If you chop, it's so sloppy!
If you argue, it's so bold
Kohl to punish, so for the cause,
Kohl forgive, so with all my heart.
If there is a feast, then a feast is a mountain!

Everything from the heart, everything by and large, honestly, openly and in full force. And in literature, and in life, Tolstoy was like that. He interceded before Tsar Nicholas I for Taras Shevchenko, begged the arrested Turgenev for the right to live in St. Petersburg; later he tried to intercede with Alexander II for the exiled Chernyshevsky, but only achieved a quarrel; but for Shevchenko, he was not without success. This is Pushkin's tradition of "calling mercy to the fallen", the same good morals of Russian literature for all times, in which, as in life in general, Tolstoy behaved impeccably.

Prince Meshchersky, the brother of his first lover, wrote about him: “Such a clear and bright soul, such a responsive and tender heart, such an eternally inherent in a person moral ideal, I have never seen in my life. Contemporaries unanimously tell the same thing about Tolstoy: a modest, calm, surprisingly sweet person, next to whom it is good and joyful.

Two camps are not a fighter

In 1855, the war with the British began. Tolstoy, angered by the enemy's pinpoint landings in the Baltic, first tried to buy and equip his own ship and hire a crew of sailors to counter them. Then, with the beginning Crimean War, began to collect a rifle regiment. He was well organized and well armed, Tolstoy received the rank of major. The regiment arrived in Odessa, but did not have time to enter into hostilities: a typhus epidemic began. Tolstoy himself also became infected, dangling between life and death for a long time. The new emperor, Alexander II, was informed by telegraphic dispatches about the condition of his childhood friend. Sofia Andreevna went to Odessa to look after her beloved. Then he recovered for a long time. They lived in Odessa, traveled around the Crimea, quarreled, reconciled and yearned for the impossibility of truly being together. The poems that were written then in the south are full of love, longing and a sense of wonder:

…Tell me, what is your sorrow about?
Isn't that thought you're tormented by,
What happiness is like the distance from the sea,
Runs from us elusively?
No, we can't catch up with him,
But there are still joys in life;
Is it not for you on the rocks
Waterfalls run and splash?
Is it not for you in the shadow of the night
Were the flowers fragrant yesterday?
From blue waves isn't it for you
Are the sunny days coming up?

This short-lived stolen happiness ended when Tolstoy was summoned by his mother. She told another gossip about Sofya Andreevna. New king demanded Tolstoy to the court, he was waiting for the post of adjutant wing. Tolstoy, in horror, tried to fight her off - he talked about his impracticality, inability to serve, and asked to be released. “Serve, Tolstoy, serve,” the emperor replied ...

Kozma Prutkov was eagerly printed by Nekrasov's Sovremennik. But now it has changed, and not writers, but critics began to set the tone in it - primarily Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. To Tolstoy, in love with beauty, their utilitarianism was disgusting.

The air was heating up, the expectation of reforms was in it. Literature split into pragmatists and adherents pure art; The Westernizers fought the Slavophiles, the Democrats fought the conservative monarchists. Tolstoy maneuvered between camps without joining either: his own independence was dearer to him than any ideology.

Two camps are not a fighter, but only a random guest,
For the truth I would be glad to raise my good sword,

But the dispute with both hitherto is my secret lot,
And no one could draw me to the oath;
There will be no complete union between us -
Not bought by anyone, under whose banner I have become,
The partial jealousy of friends is not able to bear,
I would defend the banner of the enemy honor!

Over time, it will become tougher and more caustic, and everyone will get it from him.

"Slavophiles and nihilists are coming, both have unclean nails." "For there is nothing more drooling and more shabby than Russian atheism and Orthodoxy." He is always on the sidelines, always above the fray, because a sense of proportion and justice always pulls him to object to both. Maybe that's why one of his best heroes was Potok the Bogatyr, who slept for several centuries and was extremely amazed by what he saw in the 19th century:

And the Stream thought: “Oh, Lord of the harrow,

Did I wake up too early?
After all, yesterday, lying on their belly, they
They adored the Moscow Khan,
And today they tell the man to adore!
It seems to me, such a need to lie
Now before that, then before that on the belly
The spirit is based on yesterday!”

The Democrats did not forgive him for Potok - they wrote him down as a retrograde and for a long time commemorated the authorship of the outrageous poem. Although he threw plenty of stones into another garden: what are only the "Dream of Popov" and Prutkov's "Project: on the introduction of unanimity in Russia" worth. Kamenyev Tolstoy did not spare both camps - where did his meekness go in such cases.

Oh, let me go, caliph!

1858 changed a lot in his life. One uncle, Lev Perovsky, died. Then the mother died. Her death reconciled Tolstoy with his father, by this time a quiet and God-fearing old man: he had not known him before, so as not to upset his mother. Following his mother, the second uncle, Vasily Perovsky, died. Tolstoy inherited the estates and fortunes of all three. But he could not reunite with his beloved, whose case for divorce from her husband, already Colonel Miller, was never completed, nor could he refuse duties at court.

It is this burden of court service that John of Damascus is trying to throw off himself, passionately and convincingly persuading the king to let him go:

“... I was born simple to be a singer,
Praise God with a free verb!
In the crowd of nobles is always alone,
I am full of torment and boredom,
Among the feasts, at the head of the squads,
I hear other sounds.
Their irresistible call
It draws me more and more -
Oh, let me go, caliph,
Let me breathe and sing in the wild!”

Damaskin was created to sing praises to the Lord and comfort people. Neither the caliph can stop him, nor the monk-mentor who forbade him to compose poetry: the Mother of God stands up for the poet - and a jubilant song spreads around the world:

Resound, my Sunday song!
As the sun rise above the earth!
Dissolve the murderous dream of being
And, the radiant light is everywhere,
Destroy what is created by darkness!

In the end, Tolstoy applied to the tsar for an indefinite leave, and he was forced to let the poet go. The tsarina sighed: this Tolstoy leaves the tsar just when he needs honest people!

... The abolition of slavery was inexorably approaching.

In 1861, Tolstoy rushed from England to personally read the tsar's manifesto to his peasants. The peasants did not understand him. The owner of Tolstoy did not work out: he could not manage the estates, had no inclination to do so, no one followed his orders, the managers openly robbed him. An indefinite leave turned out to be a half-way solution to the problem, Tolstoy was constantly called to the service of the court, promising high posts. Finally, he decided on a desperate step and wrote the king not even a petition, but a personal letter: “Sir, the service, whatever it may be, is deeply contrary to my nature. I realize that everyone, to the best of his ability, should benefit his fatherland, but there is different ways be useful. The method shown to me by Providence is my literary talent, and any other path is impossible for me. I will always be a bad military man, a bad official, but it seems to me that without self-delusion I can say that I good writer. This calling is not new to me; I would have given myself to him completely long ago if for a long time (up to forty years) I had not raped myself out of a sense of duty and respect for my relatives, who did not share my views on this matter. I hoped then to defeat my nature - the artist, but experience has shown that I struggled with it in vain. Service and art are incompatible. One harms the other, and one of the two must be chosen." And he promised the king to faithfully serve in the main thing: always tell the truth. “And to speak the truth to the kings with a smile,” he was a faithful heir of Pushkin, with whom he was in constant dialogue - he argued with his understanding of Godunov, taking up a topic with which, it seemed, there was nothing to do after Pushkin. He objected in a friendly way in hilarious inscriptions on Pushkin’s poems: to “why are you, formidable aquilon ...” he answered: “And how did you not get bored of all of you empty asking the storm? Everyone came: why, why? Then, something is in my nature!”

The king, having received a petition, gave him his resignation. Tolstoy got his freedom. He graduated from the "Prince of Silver", over which he suffered for twelve years. Wrote "Death of Ivan the Terrible". Sofya Andreevna got a divorce, and they finally got married - in Dresden in 1863, twelve years after meeting at the masquerade. But by the time this freedom arrived in time, Tolstoy began to get very sick: asthma appeared, his stomach ached; heart hurt; headaches began, which eventually brought him to the grave. Then they went to resorts for treatment; Carlsbad seemed to be helping him. All the following years were spent traveling between Karlsbad, the Pustynka estate, where he lived with his wife, and European capitals, where there was a social circle, friends, business, where he was prepared theatrical performances. He began to write "Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich" - a striking drama with a completely unheard-of royal character. Tolstovsky Fedor Ioannovich is weak in spirit to the point of insanity, but at the same time - like Tolstoy's heroes, like Prince Serebryany, like Tolstoy himself - he is so simple and resistant to all evil that he is almost holy. The tragedy was censored.

Such a writer's fate: best play did not see the scene, the best satires, "Popov's Dream" and "History of the Russian State from Gostomysl to Timashev" were not published during the author's lifetime. The first collection of poems came out when the poet was already 50 - despite the fact that he wrote poetry from the age of 6! And for this collection, he carefully sorted through all his work and threw out everything that seemed superfluous to him. And Karolina Pavlova, the translator of his plays into German, preached the same strict exactingness and said that he threw out not only whole pages, but also whole notebooks from the play ...

He finished Tsar Boris, the third part of the historical trilogy, but Posadnik, his last play, never completed.

He was out of breath and suffered from unbearable headaches; in memories of recent years his life, contemporaries speak of the terrible crimson color of his face. In fits of pain, he lay on the floor with ice on his head; nothing helped. Finally, someone suggested morphine to him. The drug gave relief, but caused immediate addiction. In the fall of 1875, Tolstoy mistakenly injected himself with too much morphine, fell asleep and did not wake up. There is some sad irony in the fact that the most virtuous Russian classic died of an overdose, like an unlucky rocker of the 20th century.

Probably in everything XIX century one cannot find a more authentic Russian writer than the Westernizer and polyglot Tolstoy. It is through his eyes that we see pre-Petrine Rus', completely internally reliable - as through the eyes of Dumas we see the time of the musketeers. With amazing tact and taste, nowhere falling into a raspberry, he brought the reader the best of what he himself found in folk songs and epics. It is his mocking mind that helps for the first time to understand and master the logically incomprehensible Russian history - just like the Russian bureaucracy and graphomania - to master and not be afraid, that's what is important. It helps to get immunity forever from the azure colonels and a too serious attitude to all sorts of ideological battles, where they do not agree in the theory of probability, but converge in untidiness. Well, in itself, the experience of such a generous, happy, accepting and loving attitude to life, to nature, to a beloved woman and to one's country is not superfluous for anyone: this is exactly the vitamin that is always lacking.

There are several writers and poets with the surname Tolstoy or Tolstaya in Russian literature. Here is a list (possibly incomplete):

1) Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy(1828 - 1910) - a well-known Russian writer, whose works are read all over the world. Each schoolchild gets acquainted with his greatest work "War and Peace".

2) Lev Lvovich Tolstoy is the son of Leo Tolstoy. The years of his life from 1869 to 1945. By occupation, he was a playwright, prose writer. You can read his works such as:

3) Sergei Nikolaevich Tolstoy(1908 - 1977) - also a Russian writer, playwright, prose writer and poet. His works are collected in the book "Collected Works of S.N. Tolstoy", which is published in five volumes. The book contains such works: “Condemned to live”, “Pushkin in Odessa”, “About the most important thing”, other translations from foreign literature.

4) Sergei Sergeevich Tolstoy(1897 - 1974) - the grandson of Lev Nikolaevich. Known as the author of a memoir called "How I Remember Lev Nikolaevich, and What He Taught Me (Memories of a Grandson)".

5) Alexey Konstantinovich Tolstoy- playwright, poet Lived from 1817 to 1875. He is the author of the following works:

6) Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy(1883 - 1945) is also a Russian writer. He wrote in the genre of science fiction, is the author of historical novels, as well as numerous short stories and novels. Some of them: "Aelita", "Going through the torments", "Engineer Garin's Hyperboloid", "Old Tower", "Golden Key, or the Adventures of Pinocchio" and others.

7) Sarra Fedorovna Tolstaya although she died so early at the age of 17 due to consumption, she managed to declare herself as a writer in foreign languages.

8) Maria Fedorovna Kamenskaya(maiden name Tolstaya) - writer of poems and plays: "Old Man", "Liza Fomina", "Unsung", etc. Born in 1817, died in 1898.

9) Natalia Nikitichna Tolstaya(1943 - 2010) writer in Russian. Author and co-author of the following works:

10) Tatyana Vladimirovna Tolstaya(better known under the pseudonym Tatyana Vechorka). Years of life 1892 - 1965. Is a Russian poetess, author of the poem "Jurists".

11) Tatyana Nikitichna Tolstaya- Russian writer, prose writer. Born in 1951. Her most famous works are the novel "Kys", "Love - do not love", "Day", "Night", "Raisins" and others. Her works have also been translated into other languages.

Count Leo Tolstoy, a classic of Russian and world literature, is called a master of psychologism, the creator of the epic novel genre, an original thinker and teacher of life. The works of the brilliant writer are the greatest asset of Russia.

In August 1828, a classic was born on the Yasnaya Polyana estate in the Tula province. Russian literature. The future author of "War and Peace" became the fourth child in a family of eminent nobles. On the paternal side, he belonged to the ancient family of Counts Tolstoy, who served and. On the maternal side, Lev Nikolaevich is a descendant of Ruriks. It is noteworthy that Leo Tolstoy and common ancestor- Admiral Ivan Mikhailovich Golovin.

Lev Nikolayevich's mother, nee Princess Volkonskaya, died of childbed fever after the birth of her daughter. At that time, Leo was not even two years old. Seven years later, the head of the family, Count Nikolai Tolstoy, died.

Childcare fell on the shoulders of the writer's aunt, T. A. Ergolskaya. Later, the second aunt, Countess A. M. Osten-Saken, became the guardian of the orphaned children. After her death in 1840, the children moved to Kazan, to a new guardian - the father's sister P. I. Yushkova. The aunt influenced his nephew, and the writer called his childhood in her house, which was considered the most cheerful and hospitable in the city, happy. Later, Leo Tolstoy described his impressions of life in the Yushkov estate in the story "Childhood".

Primary education the classic received houses from German and French teachers. In 1843, Leo Tolstoy entered Kazan University, choosing the faculty of Oriental languages. Soon, due to low academic performance, he moved to another faculty - law. But even here he did not succeed: two years later he left the university without receiving a degree.

Lev Nikolaevich returned to Yasnaya Polyana, wanting to establish relations with the peasants in a new way. The idea failed, but the young man regularly kept a diary, loved secular entertainment and became interested in music. Tolstoy listened for hours, and.

Disillusioned with the life of the landowner after spending the summer in the countryside, 20-year-old Leo Tolstoy left the estate and moved to Moscow, and from there to St. Petersburg. The young man rushed between preparing for the candidate's exams at the university, music lessons, carousing with cards and gypsies, and dreams of becoming either an official or a cadet of a horse guard regiment. Relatives called Leo "the most trifling fellow", and it took years to distribute the debts he had incurred.

Literature

In 1851, the writer's brother, officer Nikolai Tolstoy, persuaded Leo to go to the Caucasus. For three years Lev Nikolaevich lived in a village on the banks of the Terek. The nature of the Caucasus and the patriarchal life of the Cossack village were later reflected in the stories "Cossacks" and "Hadji Murad", the stories "Raid" and "Cutting the Forest".

In the Caucasus, Leo Tolstoy composed the story "Childhood", which he published in the journal "Sovremennik" under the initials L. N. Soon he wrote the sequels "Adolescence" and "Youth", combining the stories into a trilogy. Literary debut turned out to be brilliant and brought Lev Nikolaevich the first recognition.

The creative biography of Leo Tolstoy is developing rapidly: the appointment to Bucharest, the transfer to the besieged Sevastopol, the command of the battery enriched the writer with impressions. From the pen of Lev Nikolaevich came the cycle “ Sevastopol stories". The writings of the young writer struck critics with a bold psychological analysis. Nikolai Chernyshevsky found in them "the dialectic of the soul", and the emperor read the essay "Sevastopol in the month of December" and expressed admiration for Tolstoy's talent.

In the winter of 1855, 28-year-old Leo Tolstoy arrived in St. Petersburg and entered the Sovremennik circle, where he was warmly welcomed, calling him "the great hope of Russian literature." But in a year, the writer's environment with its disputes and conflicts, readings and literary dinners got tired. Later, in Confession, Tolstoy confessed:

“These people disgusted me, and I disgusted myself.”

In the autumn of 1856, the young writer went to the Yasnaya Polyana estate, and in January 1857 he went abroad. For six months, Leo Tolstoy traveled around Europe. Traveled to Germany, Italy, France and Switzerland. He returned to Moscow, and from there to Yasnaya Polyana. AT family estate engaged in the arrangement of schools for peasant children. In the vicinity of Yasnaya Polyana, with his participation, twenty educational institutions. In 1860, the writer traveled a lot: in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, he studied pedagogical systems European countries to apply what he saw in Russia.

A special niche in the work of Leo Tolstoy is occupied by fairy tales and compositions for children and adolescents. The writer created hundreds of works for young readers, including good and instructive tales"Kitten", "Two Brothers", "Hedgehog and Hare", "Lion and Dog".

Leo Tolstoy wrote the ABC school manual to teach children to write, read and do arithmetic. Literary and pedagogical work consists of four books. The writer included cautionary tales, epics, fables, as well as methodological advice to teachers. The third book included the story " Prisoner of the Caucasus».

In 1870, Leo Tolstoy, continuing to teach peasant children, wrote the novel Anna Karenina, in which he contrasted two storylines: family drama Karenin and the homely idyll of the young landowner Levin, with whom he identified himself. The novel only at first glance seemed to be a love story: the classic raised the problem of the meaning of the existence of the “educated class”, opposing it with the truth of the peasant life. "Anna Karenina" highly appreciated.

The turning point in the mind of the writer was reflected in the works written in the 1880s. Life-changing spiritual insight is central to stories and novels. “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”, “Kreutzer Sonata”, “Father Sergius” and the story “After the Ball” appear. The classic of Russian literature draws pictures social inequality, scourging the idleness of the nobles.

In search of an answer to the question about the meaning of life, Leo Tolstoy turned to the Russian Orthodox Church, but even there he did not find satisfaction. The writer came to the conclusion that Christian church corrupt, and under the guise of religion, the priests promote false doctrine. In 1883, Lev Nikolaevich founded the publication Posrednik, where he set out his spiritual convictions with criticism of the Russian Orthodox Church. For this, Tolstoy was excommunicated from the church, the secret police watched the writer.

In 1898, Leo Tolstoy wrote the novel Resurrection, which received critical acclaim. But the success of the work was inferior to "Anna Karenina" and "War and Peace".

For the last 30 years of his life, Leo Tolstoy, with his doctrine of non-violent resistance to evil, has been recognized as the spiritual and religious leader of Russia.

"War and Peace"

Leo Tolstoy did not like his novel "War and Peace", calling the epic " verbose rubbish". The classic wrote the work in the 1860s, while living with his family in Yasnaya Polyana. The first two chapters, called "1805", were published by "Russian Messenger" in 1865. Three years later, Leo Tolstoy wrote three more chapters and completed the novel, which caused heated debate among critics.

The features of the heroes of the work, written in the years of family happiness and spiritual uplift, the novelist took from life. In Princess Marya Bolkonskaya, the features of Lev Nikolayevich's mother, her penchant for reflection, brilliant education and love for art are recognizable. The traits of his father - mockery, love of reading and hunting - the writer awarded Nikolai Rostov.

When writing the novel, Leo Tolstoy worked in the archives, studied the correspondence of Tolstoy and Volkonsky, Masonic manuscripts, and visited the Borodino field. The young wife helped him, copying the drafts cleanly.

The novel was read avidly, striking readers with the breadth of the epic canvas and subtle psychological analysis. Leo Tolstoy characterized the work as an attempt to "write the history of the people".

According to the estimates of the literary critic Lev Anninsky, by the end of the 1970s, the works of the Russian classic were filmed 40 times abroad alone. Until 1980, the epic War and Peace was filmed four times. Directors from Europe, America and Russia made 16 films based on the novel "Anna Karenina", "Resurrection" was filmed 22 times.

For the first time, "War and Peace" was filmed by director Pyotr Chardynin in 1913. The most famous film was made by a Soviet director in 1965.

Personal life

Leo Tolstoy married 18-year-old Leo Tolstoy in 1862, when he was 34 years old. The count lived with his wife for 48 years, but the life of the couple can hardly be called cloudless.

Sofya Bers is the second of three daughters of Andrey Bers, a doctor at the Moscow Palace Office. The family lived in the capital, but in the summer they rested in the Tula estate near Yasnaya Polyana. For the first time Leo Tolstoy saw future wife child. Sophia received home education, read a lot, understood art and graduated from Moscow University. The diary kept by Bers-Tolstaya is recognized as a model of the memoir genre.

At the beginning of his married life, Leo Tolstoy, wishing that there were no secrets between him and his wife, gave Sophia a diary to read. The shocked wife found out about her husband's turbulent youth, passion gambling, wild life and the peasant girl Aksinya, who was expecting a child from Lev Nikolayevich.

The first-born Sergey was born in 1863. In the early 1860s, Tolstoy took up writing the novel War and Peace. Sofya Andreevna helped her husband, despite the pregnancy. The woman taught and raised all the children at home. Five out of 13 children died in infancy or early childhood. childhood.

Problems in the family began after the completion of Leo Tolstoy's work on Anna Karenina. The writer plunged into depression, expressed dissatisfaction with the life that she so diligently arranged in family nest Sofia Andreevna. The moral throwing of the count led to the fact that Lev Nikolayevich demanded that his relatives give up meat, alcohol and smoking. Tolstoy forced his wife and children to dress in peasant clothes, which he himself made, and wished to give the acquired property to the peasants.

Sofya Andreevna made considerable efforts to dissuade her husband from the idea of ​​distributing good. But the resulting quarrel split the family: Leo Tolstoy left home. Returning, the writer assigned the duty of rewriting drafts to his daughters.

Death last child- seven-year-old Vanya - briefly brought the spouses together. But soon mutual insults and misunderstanding alienated them completely. Sofya Andreevna found solace in music. In Moscow, a woman took lessons from a teacher, to whom romantic feelings arose. Their relationship remained friendly, but the count did not forgive his wife for "half-treason".

The fatal quarrel of the spouses happened at the end of October 1910. Leo Tolstoy left home, leaving Sophia Farewell letter. He wrote that he loved her, but he could not do otherwise.

Death

82-year-old Leo Tolstoy, accompanied by his personal doctor D.P. Makovitsky, left Yasnaya Polyana. On the way, the writer fell ill and got off the train at the Astapovo railway station. Lev Nikolaevich spent the last 7 days of his life in a house stationmaster. The whole country followed the news about Tolstoy's state of health.

The children and wife arrived at the Astapovo station, but Leo Tolstoy did not want to see anyone. The classic died on November 7, 1910: he died of pneumonia. His wife survived him by 9 years. Tolstoy was buried in Yasnaya Polyana.

Quotes by Leo Tolstoy

• Everyone wants to change humanity, but no one thinks about how to change themselves.
• Everything comes to those who know how to wait.
• Everybody happy families similar to each other, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
• Let everyone sweep in front of his door. If everyone does this, the whole street will be clean.
• Life is easier without love. But without it there is no point.
• I don't have everything I love. But I love everything I have.
• The world moves forward thanks to those who suffer.
• The greatest truths are the simplest.
• Everyone is making plans, and no one knows if he will live until the evening.

Bibliography

• 1869 - "War and Peace"
• 1877 - "Anna Karenina"
• 1899 - "Resurrection"
• 1852-1857 - "Childhood". "Adolescence". "Youth"
• 1856 - "Two Hussars"
• 1856 - "Morning of the landowner"
• 1863 - "Cossacks"
• 1886 - "Death of Ivan Ilyich"
• 1903 - Notes of a Madman
• 1889 - "Kreutzer Sonata"
• 1898 - "Father Sergius"
• 1904 - "Hadji Murad"