Creative writing of Alexey Tolstoy was discussed on public video lecturing of the Presidential Library

The personality of Alexei Tolstoy was the connecting link between the Golden Age and the Silver Age, because it has so rare in pen craft universalism. Chief researcher at the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vladimir Kotelnikov, PhD in Philology, told that at public video lecturing of the Presidential Library entitled “An admirer of the decent muse: on the 200th anniversary of the birth of A. K. Tolstoy.”

“Work on the five-volume edition of Alexei Konstantinovich opened a new Tolstoy for me, — Vladimir Alekseyevich, who is a compiler, but also is the author of the preface to the publication. — Archives’ searches, analysis of texts with his corrections have proved: the writer was not easy on the pen at all; some of his translations have 10—12 variants, leaves with the beautiful lyrical poems are all in blots and strikethroughs, and after all it seemed that everything was dictated to him “from above,” and the poet only was writing it down… No, these were sometimes painful searches for the exact word. The nature of his beloved Krasny Rog (lit. red horn), an estate in the Bryansk Oblast, made his poems musical. Composers were drawn to Tolstoy’s lines, there is no other Russian poet on whose poems 87 romances and historical ballads would be written!”

Being born in St. Petersburg, Aleksey Tolstoy did not have a permanent address here, although he often lived in the best palaces and mansions, for example, in the palace of the Vielgorsky brothers on Mikhailovsky Square, in the mansion of Princess Gagarina on the 18 Kutuzov Embankment, and others. Lead librarian of the St. Petersburg Library named after N. A. Nekrasov (Inter Neighborhood Centralized Library System M. Y. Lermontov) Ksenia Charyeva told the listeners about the St. Petersburg chapters of Count A. K. Tolstoy’s life. In 2012 the “Living Room of Count Alexei Tolstoy” was opened in the library named after N. A. Nekrasov. This is a joint project of the Inter Neighborhood Centralized Library System M. Y. Lermontov and the Bryansk Oblast Scientific Library named after F. I. Tyutchev. The living room contains documents that tell about writer’s life and creative: the books, audio and video recordings. The collection best of all represents the time, creative, and an ambiance of Tolstoy.

In St. Petersburg, Alexei Konstantinovich made his name as a writer, entered the literary circles, and began his friendship with the future sovereign Alexander II. Here, “Among a loud party, out of the blue…” met his only muse and wife, Sophia Andreyevna Miller. Here he collected materials for the creation of the historical novel Prince Serebryany and the dramatic trilogy “The death of Ivan the Terrible,” “Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich,” and “Tsar Boris.” As for composing, he most of all loved to write on his mother’s estate of Pustynka (means, little cozy and quite area) on the Tosna River or in his ancestral estate Krasny Rog.

“So called ‘nine day’s wonder’ always kept Tolstoy away from the capitals, — head of the Philology Center of the Russian Word Publishing House Alexei Fyodorov, PhD in Philology goes on. — In the ranks of his attackers were writers who called the Count a poet-dilettante living in an ivory tower, an anchorite, vegetating in the dense forests of Bryansk. However, he always responded to the main events that were critical for Russia: after the Judicial Reform and the introduction of the jury trial, he writes the clever skeptical ballad “The Potok-Bogatyr”; he responds to the popularization of the teachings of Darwin. And when the time of the Crimean War comes, he recruits his regiment at his own expense, having the rank of major for the tsar's service. Tolstoy writes a really relevant cycle of poetical “Crimean Essays,” where he expresses his political preferences and position on the Crimean issue.”

The amount of electronic compilation of documents and rare books about Alexei Tolstoy, as well as his individual works, are available on the Presidential Library website: The history of Russian statehood. Vol. 1. The main qualities of the ancient Russian state with an epigraph from the poem of A. K. Tolstoy, written by Baron S. A. Korf, Vestnik of Europe. 1905, Vol. 1 (Book 1, January), an electronic copy of a book by V. D. Zakharova A. K. Tolstoy: a chronicle of life and creative, etc.