Writer Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born into a family of hereditary counts in the small town of Nikolaevsk, in the Samara province on 12/29/1882 (01/10/1983). Even before the birth of her son, Tolstoy's mother, leaving her husband, Count Nikolai Alexandrovich, went to her lover, Alexei Apollonovich Bostrom. In his estate Sosnovka, near Samara, Alexei spent his childhood. Some of Tolstoy's biographers suggest that it was Bostrov, Alexei's unofficial stepfather, who was his biological father.
Studies. Formation
In the estate of his stepfather, a teacher was invited to receive primary education for the boy. Then the family moved to Samara, where Alexei began his studies at a real school. After graduating from it, the young man went to St. Petersburg to enter the Institute of Technology. It was during this period that he began to write poetry, and already in 1906 they were published.
I must say that the mother had a huge influence on the formation of the literary abilities of the future writer. She developed for him the themes of early works (“Lesha's Childhood”, “Logutka”), provided letters and her own compositions for his use, where the very young Tolstoy drew images for his first books about childhood. The mother, as a matter of course, took the news that her son was going to collaborate with the magazine "Young Reader" and began to write "childhood memories."
She asked, without any surprise, in a reply letter how his work on the memoirs was progressing and when she could read them. There was a normal, genetically prepared and consciously nurtured development of the literary talent of Alexei Tolstoy, brought up by the long and persistent efforts of his mother. Alexey did not defend his diploma after completing the entire course of study, but at the very final he left the institute and took up exclusively literature.
The beginning of literary activity
Leaving the institute in 1907, Tolstoy published a book of poems "Lyrics", collaborated in the journals "Luch" and "Education", publishing his articles and poems there. In 1908, his second book of poems, Beyond the Blue Rivers, was published. At the same time, he tried to write prose "Magpie's Tales", and it was as a prose writer that Alexei Tolstoy would later become famous. Already in Moscow, where the writer moved in 1912, he began cooperation with Russkiye Vedomosti, where he published his prose of a small genre. During the period of Tolstoy worked as a war correspondent, visited France and England. In addition to newspaper materials, he had military stories and plays in his work.
Years of emigration
Tolstoy did not accept, so in 1918 he emigrated to Paris, then to Berlin. Until 1923 he lived and worked abroad, like many others from the Russian émigré intelligentsia. As a member of the "On the Eve" group, he did not stop working in the literary field. In 1920, he wrote a story on the subject that still excites him, "Nikita's Childhood", and in the next two years - several more books, including a story called "Black Friday", the fantastic novels "Aelita", "The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin" and best-selling children's fairy tale "The Golden Key" about the adventures of the wooden boy Pinocchio, based on the fairy tale about Pinocchio by the Italian writer Carlo Collodi. In the same place, in exile, Tolstoy began work on his most famous work - the trilogy "Walking through the torments". In this novel, Tolstoy depicted the consequences of the October Revolution, which affected the fate of people from among the Russian intelligentsia. Again in Russia.
Trilogy "Walking through the torments"
In 1923, Alexei Tolstoy returned to his homeland, where he continued to work on the trilogy "Walking Through the Torments". In the novel, he made an attempt to create an image of the time of the revolution and on the example of the fate of individuals. He is not particularly concerned about the dialectic of the characters' characters - he explores the collision of the individual with the new external world order. He sees man as the center of the cosmos. Tolstoy's heroes experience the classic struggle between good and evil, creation and destruction, not within the personality, but in its collision with the decaying external world, alien to man, his spiritual essence. This conflict is destructive for all who are forced to come into contact with this world, it destroys their living souls and destinies.
The historical theme in the work of Al. Tolstoy
In 1929 Tolstoy began work on the historical novel Peter the Great. Tolstoy himself explained his interest in the topic of strong, reformist power by the fact that he wanted to comprehend the era of great changes after 1917 "from the other end." In other words, in the theme of Peter's reforms, he was looking for the key to Russian statehood, the origins of Russia's new historical paths. Tolstoy also raised the historical theme in the play "The Conspiracy of the Empress" - about the decay of the tsarist regime. The novel "Peter the Great" was never completed.
During the years of Stalin's personality cult
In 1937, A. Tolstoy wrote the novel "Bread" (sometimes called a story). Literary critics consider it a creative failure of the writer. He distorted the historical truth, incorrectly depicted the role of Stalin in the events of the era and his personality as a whole. Therefore, artistic truth, aesthetic and moral traditions suffered. Experts also recognized Tolstoy's historical dilogy about Ivan the Terrible as unsuccessful.
Of course, Tolstoy - a citizen and Tolstoy - an artist saw those tragic manifestations that the Stalinist totalitarian regime, gaining murderous power with its cult of personality, gave rise to. He, the minion of fate, was often approached by people with a request to help rescue the innocently arrested and missing.
In response letters, Tolstoy wrote about anything, but did not respond to the request. This fact was preserved in the archive in correspondence with N.V. Krandievsky, who wrote to him many times asking him to help out acquaintances and friends. Sometimes in her letters there were words of gratitude for the help. Using some of the powers of a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Tolstoy wrote personally to Vyshinsky, the country's Prosecutor General, with a request to "understand" or "help." And only a few of these letters had a positive result, but nevertheless, Tolstoy still helped in any way he could.
At the end of Al. Tolstoy's life
In 1940 - 41, Alexei Nikolayevich worked on the third part of the novel "Walking through the torments". In addition, he was a member of the commission that investigated fascist crimes, and was personally present at the trial in Krasnodar. In 1944, the writer was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in the lungs. Medicine did not help, he died on 12/23/1945.
- A. Tolstoy was awarded the Stalin Prize three times - in 1941 for the novel "Peter I", in 1943 for the novel "Walking in Mukm" and in 1946 for the play "Ivan the Terrible".
- He headed the Writers' Union from 1936 to 1938.
Alexey 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.”
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, what 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 Nikolayevich 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 ever.
“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.
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.
1882 (1883)
, December 29 (January 10) - was born in the family of Count Nikolai Alexandrovich Tolstoy (1849-1900). Mother - Alexandra Leontievna (1854-1906), nee Turgeneva - writer, great-niece of the Decembrist Nikolai Turgenev.
Childhood years were spent in the small estate of A. A. Bostrom on the farm Sosnovka, not far from Samara (at present - the village of Pavlovka in the Krasnoarmeisky district).
1897–1898 - lives with his mother in the city of Syzran, where he studies at a real school.
1898 - Moving to Samara. Beginning of studies at the Samara real school.
1901 , May - graduated from the Samara real school and leaves for St. Petersburg, where he enters the Institute of Technology.
1905 - as a student of the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology sent to the Urals for practice, 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 dedicated his very first story “The Old Tower” to the Nevyansk Leaning Tower (published in 1908 in Niva).
1906
, January - three poems by Alexei Tolstoy were published in the Kazan newspaper "Volzhsky leaf".
February - leaves for Dresden, where he lived and studied until July.
1907
, March - a book of poems "Lyric" is published. Poems and articles are published in the journals "Luch" and "Education".
Lives in Paris and works on preparing a book of poems for publication.
1908 - return from Paris to St. Petersburg, where Tolstoy becomes close to the staff of the Apollo magazine.
1909
, autumn - the story "A Week in Turenev" was written; published in the Apollo magazine (with illustrations by V. P. Belkin in 1910, No. 4, January).
The book "Magpie's Tales" was published by the publishing house "Public benefit". The publishing house "Shipovnik" publishes the first volume of his novels and short stories, about which Gorky speaks approvingly.
1911 – in the literary and artistic almanac "Rosehip" (No. 14–15) the novel "Two Lives" ("Eccentrics") was published. Collection of poems "Beyond the blue rivers" published by "Vulture".
1912
, autumn - moves from St. Petersburg to Moscow.
The novel "The Lame Master" was published.
1914 , January - the newspaper "Pravda" positively assesses the creative work of Alexei Tolstoy. August - as a war correspondent for Russkiye Vedomosti, he leaves for the South-Western Front.
1915 , February - travels as a war correspondent to the Caucasus, where the war with Turkey began.
1916
, January - the premiere of the play "Unclean Force" took place.
February-March - as part of a delegation of Russian writers and journalists, he visited England, France, visited the Western Front. Summer - works on the plays "Rocket" and "Killer Whale", on the stories "The Beautiful Lady", "In July".
1917
, September 2 - premiere of the play "Bitter Color".
October - "The story of a traveler" is published in the journal "Narodopravstvo".
November - the newspaper "Ray of Truth" published articles "At the stake", "The power of the three-inch", "Night shift".
1918
, January - premiere of the play "Cuckoo's Tears".
Publication of stories about Peter's time - "Delusion", "First terrorists", working on the story "Peter's Day".
July - leaves Moscow for Odessa.
1919 , April - on the ship "Kavkaz" sails from Odessa to Constantinople, and then to Paris, where he begins to work on the novel "Walking through the torments".
1920 - the first chapters of the novel "Walking through the torments" were published in the journal "The Coming Russia".
1921
- in the journal "Modern notes" the novel "Walking through the torments" is printed in full. The novels "The Lame Master", "Eccentrics" are being republished.
October - moves with his family to Berlin.
1923 , August - returned to the USSR.
1925 , March - the premiere of the play "The Conspiracy of the Empress" took place. Publication of the story "Blue Cities" and the novel "Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin".
1928
, April - the play "Factory of Youth" was published.
Mai moved with his family to Detskoye Selo near Leningrad.
In the July issue of "New World" the publication of the second book of the novel "Walking through the torments" - "The Eighteenth Year" has been completed.
August published the story "Viper".
1929
, February - the beginning of work on the novel "Peter the Great".
July - the magazine "New World" began publishing the novel "Peter the Great".
1932 , March - goes to Gorky in Sorrento.
1937 - Elected Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
1939
, January - elected to the full members of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor.
February - works on the second part of a dramatic play about Ivan the Terrible ("Difficult Years").
1941
- completes work on the trilogy "Walking through the torments".
In the first months of the war, he wrote dozens of journalistic articles. In them, the writer often refers to folklore, to episodes of Russian history.
1942 , February - finished the first part of the dramatic duology "Ivan the Terrible".
1943
, March 19 – Stalin Prize of the first degree was awarded for the novel "Walking through Torment".
March 30 - a report in the newspapers that Alexei Tolstoy is transferring a prize of one hundred thousand rubles awarded to him for the construction of the Grozny tank.
December 31 - in Barvikha begins work on the third part of the novel "Peter the Great".
1944
, May 7 - the story "Russian Character" was published in the "Red Star" (see the story on the website "Literature for schoolchildren").
August - finishes the fifth chapter of the third book of "Peter the Great".
1945 February 23 - died in Moscow. In connection with his death, state mourning was declared.
Addresses in St. Petersburg:
1901 - the profitable house of Nikolai and Elena Brusnitsyn (9 line V.O., 42), here in the summer of 1901, 18-year-old A. Tolstoy settled in the apartment of his mother's sister. After graduating from the Samara real school, he came to the capital to enter the Technological Institute. Having successfully passed the exams, he moved to the 3rd line, 16, where he rented a room;
1907–1910 - profitable house of I. I. Dernov (Tavricheskaya street, 35);
1910–1912 - profitable house of I. I. Kruglov (Nevsky prospect, 147);
1925 - May 1928 - tenement house on the embankment. river Zhdanovka, 3;
May 1928 - May 1930 - Detskoye Selo (Pushkin), Moscow street, 8;
May 1930 - early 1938 - Writers' Creativity House (Children's Village (Pushkin), Proletarskaya (Church) Street, 6).
Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on January 10, 1883 (December 29, 1882 - old style) in the family of Nikolai Alexandrovich Tolstoy and Alexandra Leontievna Turgeneva. True, in all the biographies of Tolstoy it is noted that it was not his own father who raised the boy, but his stepfather, Bostrom Alexei Apollonovich, whom Alexei Tolstoy's mother married. On the Sosnovka farm, which belonged to his stepfather, the childhood of the future writer passed. The boy was educated by a visiting teacher.
In 1897 the family of Alexei Tolstoy moved to Samara. There the young man entered the school, and upon graduation in 1901 he left for St. Petersburg to continue his education at the Institute of Technology.
The beginning of literary activity
In 1907, shortly before defending his diploma, Alexei suddenly decides to leave the institute in order to study literature. The attempt to write in 1905, when Tolstoy published several of his poems in a provincial newspaper, he considered a great success, so the decision to leave the institute was relatively easy for the future writer. In the same 1907, Tolstoy published a collection of poems "Lyrics", and in 1908 the magazine "Neva" also published the prose of the beginning writer Tolstoy - the story "The Old Tower".
In 1908, his second book of poems, Beyond the Blue Rivers, was published. Already in Moscow, where the writer moved in 1912, he began cooperation with Russkiye Vedomosti, where he published his prose of a small genre (mainly stories and essays) on an ongoing basis.
When the First World War began, Tolstoy decided to go to the front as a war correspondent. As a journalist during the war, the writer traveled to England and France.
Years of emigration
The February Revolution aroused in Tolstoy a keen interest in the issues of Russian statehood. This event became a kind of impetus, after which the writer seriously engaged in the study of the Petrine era. He spent a long time studying historical archives, studying the history of Peter the Great and taking a keen interest in the fate of people from his inner circle. But Alexey Nikolaevich took the October Bolshevik coup very negatively.
In 1918, historical motifs appear in his prose. He writes the stories "Peter's Day" and "Obsession". Even in a brief biography of Alexei Nikolayevich Tolstoy, it is worth mentioning that later this passion for the time of Peter the Great, all the knowledge gained about this great era of change, will result in a wonderful historical novel "Peter the Great".
In the next two years, three more books by the author saw the light of day: the fantastic novel Aelita, the story Black Friday and The Manuscript Found Under the Bed. The author also returned to the science fiction genre in the book "The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin".
But the real bestseller was the book "The Golden Key", which told about the exciting adventures of the wooden boy Pinocchio (it is recommended for extracurricular reading for 5th grade students, but the fairy tale is certainly suitable for elementary school). The fairy tale was written based on the book "Pinocchio" by the Italian author Carlo Collodi. While in exile, Tolstoy began to work on the trilogy "Walking through the torments", which would become the most important work in the writer's life.
Return to the USSR
After emigration, old friends turned away from Tolstoy, but in Berlin, in 1922, he made a new friend - Maxim Gorky, whom he met when the latter came to Germany. A year later, in 1923, Alexei Nikolaevich decided to return to his homeland. Here he continued to work on the trilogy "Walking through the torments" ("Sisters", "The Eighteenth Year", "Gloomy Sky"). Thematically, the trilogy adjoins the story "Bread", written in 1937, which is considered the most unsuccessful work. In it, he distorted the historical truth, falsely described the personality of Stalin and the events of the bloody and hungry time. Because of this hypocritical propaganda, historical truth, moral traditions, and the very work of the writer could not but suffer.
Tolstoy as a citizen and Tolstoy as an artist are two different people. Of course, he saw how his acquaintances and friends were dying from Stalinist repressions, but he never provided any help to anyone, although he was close to Stalin and favored by the authorities. He simply ignored requests for help.
Other biography options
- Alexei Tolstoy considered stamp collecting important to himself. He was an avid philatelist.
- The writer was married four times, and all four times he married for great love.
- With the image of Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy, a series of stamps dear to his heart was issued.
- I despised the writer all my life
Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born December 29, 1882 (January 10 NS) 1883 in the city of Nikolaevsk, Samara province, in the family of a landowner. Tolstoy's father - Count N.A. Tolstoy; mother - nee A.L. Turgenev. He was raised by his stepfather A. Bostrom, a liberal and heir to the "sixties", to whom the mother of A. Tolstoy, an educated woman and not alien to writing, left. Childhood years were spent on the Sosnovka farm, which belonged to his stepfather.
He received his primary education at home under the guidance of a visiting teacher. In 1897 the family moves to Samara, where the future writer enters a real school. After graduating from it in 1901, goes to St. Petersburg to continue his education. Enters the department of mechanics of the Technological Institute. By this time, his first poems belong, not free from imitation of Nekrasov and Nadson.
In 1907, shortly before defending his diploma, left the institute, deciding to devote himself to literary work. In 1905 Tolstoy for the first time published in the provincial newspapers several poems in the spirit of civil poetry . In 1907 published a collection of poems "Lyrika", which affected the influence of decadence - the result of the author's rapprochement with the metropolitan literary environment. In 1908 Tolstoy's first story "The Old Tower" is published in the Niva magazine. Following this, the collection "Magpie's Tales" ( 1910 ) and a book of poems "Beyond the blue rivers" ( 1911 ), in which Tolstoy turned to various motifs of folk art.
In 1909-1911 spoke with realistic stories and stories from the life of the ruined local nobility. These works are the “Trans-Volga” cycle, as well as the novels “Eccentrics” (“Two Lives”, 1911 ) and "Lame Master" ( 1912 ) - brought Tolstoy fame. Continuing the traditions of critical realism of the 19th century, the young Tolstoy learned the skill from I.S. Turgenev, L.N. Tolstoy and N.V. Gogol.
The First World War changes Tolstoy's plans. As a war correspondent from Russkiye Vedomosti, he is at the fronts, visited England and France. He wrote a number of essays and stories about the war (the stories "On the Mountain", 1915 ; "Underwater", "Beautiful Lady", 1916 ). During the war years, he turned to dramaturgy - the comedies "Unclean Force" and "Kasatka" ( 1916 ).
The events of the February Revolution aroused his interest in the problems of Russian statehood, which prompted him to study the history of Peter the Great. He devoted a lot of time to working with archives, trying to discover the true reality of that time, the images of Peter 1 and his entourage.
Tolstoy took the October Revolution with hostility. AT 1918 a historical theme appears in his work (the stories "Obsession", "Peter's Day").
Autumn 1918 leaves with his family for Odessa, from there to Paris. Become an immigrant. In 1920 The story "Childhood of Nikita" was written. In 1921“migrated” to Berlin and joined the Smenovekhov group “On the Eve” (the social and political movement of the Russian émigré intelligentsia, who abandoned the fight against Soviet power and switched to its actual recognition). Former friends turned away from A. Tolstoy. AT 1922 M. Gorky arrived in Berlin, with whom friendly relations were established. In the Berlin period were written: the novel "Aelita" ( 1922-1923 ), the story "Black Friday" ( 1924 ) and "Manuscript found under the bed".
In 1923 Tolstoy returns to the USSR. Among the works written after the return, the trilogy “Walking through the torments” (“Sisters”, “The Eighteenth Year”, 1927-1928 ; "Gloomy Morning" 1940-1941 ). The trilogy is thematically adjoined by the story "Bread" ( 1937 ). Interesting, talented people gathered in the open hospitable house of A. Tolstoy - writers, actors, musicians. A significant achievement of A. Tolstoy was his historical novel "Peter I", on which he worked for sixteen years.
During the Patriotic War, he often spoke with articles, essays, stories, the heroes of which were ordinary people who proved themselves in the difficult trials of the war. During the war years, he creates a dramatic dilogy "Ivan the Terrible" ( 1941-1943 ).
