(This Soviet science-fiction classic involves the adventur...)
This Soviet science-fiction classic involves the adventures of space travelers Los and Gusev, who discover an ancient civilization on Mars, become embroiled in the intrigues of its court and participate in a surprising climax.
(This is a story, originally written in 1927, of an attemp...)
This is a story, originally written in 1927, of an attempt to use a remarkable invention to establish the absolute power of one man throughout the world.
Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a prominent Soviet writer and public figure, who descended from Tolstoy family. He wrote in many genres but mainly specialized in science fiction and historical novels. Tolstoy was an author of socio-psychological, historical and science fiction novels, as well as many short stories and journalistic works. Also, he penned numerous children's stories, including "The Golden Key" or "The Adventures of Buratino".
Background
Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy was born on January 10, 1883, in then Nikolaevsk, Samara Governorate, Russian Empire (present-day Pugachyov, Saratov Oblast', Russian Federation) into the family of a Count Nikolay Alexandrovich Tolstoy and Alexandra Leontievna Turgeneva, a writer, who was a grand-niece of a Decembrist Nikolay Ivanovich Turgenev. By the moment of Aleksey's birth, his mother had left his father for Aleksey Apollonovitch Bostrom and ran off with him to a farm in the Samara Region.
Although Aleksey was officially registered as a son of Count Tolstoy, until the age of thirteen, he lived under the name of Bostrom and never suspected, that Bostrom was not his biological father. However, even after learning the truth, Aleksey continued to consider Aleksey Bostrom his true father and refused to see Count Nikolay Tolstoy or his older siblings.
In 1900, Count Nikolay Tolstoy died, having left his estranged son an inheritance of 30,000 rubles. According to biographers, this itself is a testimony to Nikolay's paternity, as a Russian nobleman of the time would never have left such an inheritance to another man's child.
Education
During the period from 1897 till 1898, together with his mother, Aleksey lived in Syzran, where he attended a Realschule, a type of secondary school. In 1901, after a short period of time of living in Samara, Tolstoy moved to Saint Petersburg and entered the present-day Saint Petersburg State Institute of Technology. Soon, he became involved in Social-Democratic organizations and took part in student demonstrations and strikes. In 1903, Aleksey was almost killed, when he was hit in the chest with a pavement stone, thrown during a demonstration at the Kazan Cathedral.
In 1905, while still a student of Saint Petersburg State Institute of Technology, Tolstoy was sent to the practice in Ural, where he had lived in Nevyansk for more than a month.
The same year, in 1905, Aleksey went to study at the Polytechnic Institute in Dresden, where he wrote some revolutionary and lyric verses. He returned to Samara in 1906, but his mother soon died and Tolstoy left again for Saint Petersburg to continue his studies.
In 1907, while still studying in Saint Petersburg, Tolstoy commenced his literary career with "Liriks", a collection of poems, derivative of the Russian Symbolists. In 1909, Tolstoy produced "Za sinimi rekami", a verse volume, inspired by Russian folklore. The next year, he completed his first short story collection, "Sorochy skazki", and, in 1911, he published his first novel, "Chudaki", which was followed in 1912 by the second novel, "Khromoy barin" (published in English as "The Lame Prince").
Between the years 1914 and 1916, during World War I, Tolstoy worked as a war correspondent for Russkiye Vedomosti, a liberal daily newspaper, and during that time, he published "Na voyne", a collection of tales, inspired by his wartime observations. "Na voyne" marks one of Tolstoy’s first significant achievements as a writer of realism.
When the Russian Revolution commenced, Tolstoy contributed to the anti-Bolshevik White Army cause by producing propaganda, directed against the Bolshevik Red Army and communism. After the communists triumphed in 1917, Tolstoy fled to France. He stayed there for four years, from 1919 to 1923, and at that time, he produced some of his best-known works. For example, in 1920, he published the novel "Detstvo Nikity" (published in English as "Nikita's Childhood"), an episodic, semi-autobiographical account of a child’s life in rural Russia.
In France, Tolstoy also commenced the work on "Khozhdenie po mukam" (best-known in English as "The Road to Calvary"), a three-part novel, detailing the experiences of various individuals in the maelstrom of events, constituting the Russian Revolution and the ensuing civil war. The tale’s most important characters are Daria, who is introduced as a law student, and Telegin, an engineer. When the revolution commences, Telegin enlists. He is soon captured and sentenced to execution. But after a risky escape, he finds his way to Saint Petersburg. Eventually, Telegin and Daria marry. Then, Telegin, despite a lack of intense political conviction, joins the Red Army. Daria, meanwhile, becomes embroiled in political intrigue. "The Road to Calvary" is widely regarded as an important work of its times.
Later, Tolstoy followed the first volume of "The Road to Calvary" with "Aelita", a science-fiction novel about an inventor and his Red Army friend, who travel to Mars, where they encounter a self-destructive civilization, similar in behavior to Westerners, as characterized in communist propaganda. The soldier falls in love with a princess and becomes embroiled in local politics before fleeing back to Earth with his friend.
In 1923, the same year, that "Aelita" appeared, Tolstoy contributed several articles to "Nakanune", a pro-communist paper, published in France. These articles sufficiently endeared Tolstoy to the Soviets to prompt his return home without fear of repercussions from the Bolsheviks he once opposed. Once home, Tolstoy showed little support for the communists. He continued with his interest in science fiction and issued "Giperboloid inzhenera Garina" (published in English as "The Death Box" and as "The Garin Death Ray"), a stridently ideological novel about the enslavement of Europe by an evil scientist, possessing a deadly ray.
Tolstoy followed "The Death Box" with "Golubyye goroda" (published in English as "Azure Cities"), the story of a young communist, Buzheninov, who falls ill during the Russian civil war and fantasizes about the amazing cities he and his communist comrades will construct after triumphing. But years later, after again suffering an illness, the hero returns home and discovers, that the citizenry has scarcely reaped the benefits of the communist victory and have, rather, become more venal and conniving. Profoundly disturbed by town’s stagnation, the foolishly idealistic Buzheninov torches the town.
Although Tolstoy had initially kept his distance from the ruling communists, by the end of the 1920's, he was increasingly in favor of their regime. He published numerous essays, expressing his patriotic fervor for the communist cause. And in his fiction, he stayed true to the tenets of realism so prized by those same communists. Foremost among Tolstoy’s inspiring realist novels from that period was "Pyotr I" (partially published in English as "Peter the Great" and "Imperial Majesty" and eventually published whole as "Peter the First"), a multi-volume epic, that began appearing in 1929, but was left unfinished at Tolstoy’s death sixteen years later. This massive novel recounts the life of the late-eighteenth-century Russian ruler, who managed to turn "the isolated Asiatic empire of Russia into a major European power".
In ensuing publications, Tolstoy would prove less subtle - and, thus, less successful - in his socialist-realist endeavors. In 1937, he completed "Chyornoye zoloto", a novel about the efforts of crude, selfish outsiders to gain control of the Soviet Union’s plentiful oil supplies. Tolstoy followed this tale with "Khleb" (published in English as "Bread"), a simplistic retelling of the Russian civil war. The novel condemns revolutionary leader Leo Trotsky as a traitor to fellow revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, and it champions dictator Josef Stalin as the people’s hero.
Tolstoy followed "Bread" with various works for the stage. In addition, he wrote "Ivan Grozny', an account of Ivan the Terrible, who ruled Russia in the sixteenth century. In this novel, the bloodthirsty Ivan is portrayed as a reformer, keen on enacting political change for the benefit of the common people.
During the period from 1935 till 1936, Aleksey participated in anti-fascist congresses in Paris and London and, in 1936, he took part in the second International Congress of Writers in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War. That same year, in 1936, Tolstoy was elected a Chairman of the Union of Soviet Writers, a post he held till 1938, and, in 1937, he became a Deputy to the Supreme Soviet. Two years later, in 1939, he was elected a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.
By 1945, the year, that Tolstoy died, he had become a famous, relatively prosperous writer in his Soviet homeland. In the ensuing years, some of his works, particularly those, consistent with the tenets of socialist realism, were ignored. But "The Road to Calvary" and "Peter the Great" are still acknowledged as impressive achievements by critics.
During his student years, Tolstoy was involved in Social-Democratic organizations and participated in student demonstrations and strikes. After the Bolshevik Revolution, Aleksey supported the White Army in the Russian Civil War. Later, nicknamed "Comrade Count", he was a supporter of the Communist Party.
After the defeat of Pyotr Wrangel's Army in 1920, Tolstoy settled down in Paris as a White émigré. In his later years, Aleksey moved to Berlin, where he joined a pro-Communist émigré group and became the editor of the Bolshevik newspaper "On the Eve".
Between 1935 and 1936, Tolstoy took part in anti-fascist congresses in Paris and London. During World War II, he was a prolific author of patriotic articles.
Views
Quotations:
"Treating the language carelessly reflects the same kind of thinking: approximate, slovenly, off the mark."
Membership
Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union
,
Soviet Union
1939
Personality
Tolstoy got on well with Soviet authorities. Awarded Stalin's prizes and the prosperous life of the writer, both before the revolution and after, serve as indisputable confirmation of his special position in the USSR. Tolstoy was a good friend of Stalin and even in those financially tough times, he was able to purchase a luxurious country house in Barvikha and a car with a personal driver.
Connections
In June 1902, Aleksey married Julia Rozhansky, a daughter of a provincial doctor, who was also studying in Saint Petersburg. After several years of marriage, Aleksey traveled to Dresden, Germany, where he met Sophia Dymshits, a painter and sister of Leo Dymshits, Aleksey's friend and fellow student. Tolstoy was instantly smitten, but, desiring to protect his sister's reputation, Leo Dymshits immediately fled with her back to Saint Petersburg. Aleksey, however, was not put off. He also returned to Saint Petersburg and began to openly pursue Sophia at her parents' home. Although hopelessly in love, Sophia was well aware, that they were both still married to other people. Therefore, she suggested, that Aleksey take a trip abroad with his wife before coming to a final decision. After a trip to Italy in the summer of 1907, Aleksey left his horrified wife and infant son Yury and entered a common law relationship with Sophia.
Tolstoy’s tribulations in his family life were to continue. On a holiday in the Crimea in the spring of 1914, Aleksey became greatly attracted to a young ballerina, Margarita Kandaurova. The break with Sophia was as abrupt as it had been with Julia. Out on a stroll, he said, that he felt, that Sophia would leave him soon. Sophia did not reply, but took the hint and departed for a visit to Paris. Their infant daughter, Mariana, was deposited with an aunt. The outbreak of war in August caused Sophia to return to Russia, but though his seventeen-year-old ballerina soon left him, Aleksey and Sophia lived separate lives thereafter. Mariana, however, came to live with her father two years later.
By December of 1914, Tolstoy had established himself with another mistress, Natalya Volkenstein, a poetess, who was separated from her husband. They did not marry until after the February Revolution of 1917, with the end of the Imperial Russia, as Natalya was unable to secure a divorce before then. Together, Natalya and Aleksey had two common sons, namely Nikita Tolstoy, a physicist, and Dmitry Tolstoy, a composer. Also, the couple raised Natalya's son from the previous marriage, named Fedor Wolkenstein, a physical chemist.
In 1935, Aleksey married Lyudmila Ilyinichna Tolstaya, a screenwriter.
in 1941, for the first and the second parts of the novel "Peter the Great"; in 1943, for the novel "The Road to Calvary"; in 1946, for the novel "Ivan Grozny", posthumously
in 1941, for the first and the second parts of the novel "Peter the Great"; in 1943, for the novel "The Road to Calvary"; in 1946, for the novel "Ivan Grozny", posthumously