Aleksei Nikolaevich Tolstoi

He was born in Nikolaevsk in 1883 into an impoverished branch of the Counts Tolstoy. His early short stories, published in the 1910s, were panned by critics for their excessive naturalism and wanton eroticism. He wasn't too shy to write some clandestine porn fiction as well. He left Russia in 1917 during the Bolshevik revolution but changed his political beliefs and returned in 1925.

Aleksei Tolstoi is usually crediting with writing first (and some of the best) science fiction in the Russian language. His novels Aelita (1923), about a journey to the Mars, and Engineer Garin's Death Ray (1927) proved popular with teenager public. The former novel spawned a pioneering sci-fi movie in 1924. He also wrote several books for children, notably Nikita's Childhood and the Soviet version of Pinocchio.

In his later years Tolstoi became a genuine supporter of Stalin and seemed to indulge in immoderate praise of the tyrant. He published two lengthy novels on historical subjects, Peter the First (1929-45), comparing Stalin with the reformist tsar, and The Road to Calvary (1922-41), tracking the Russian civil war over the period from 1914 to 1919. He also produced several bad plays, and received the Stalin Prize for one of them. Tolstoi died in Moscow on February 23, 1945

Works

• Lirika, a poetry collection (1907)
• The Ordeal (1918)
• Nikita's Childhood (1921)
• The Road to Cavalry, a trilogy (1921-40)
• Aelita (1923)
• Death Ray of Garin (1926)
• Peter I (1929-34)
• A Week in Turenevo (1958)
  

  External links

• Aleksei Nikolaevich Tolstoi (1883-1945)