Tatyana Nikitichna Tolstaya was born May 3, 1951 in Leningrad in the family of physics professor Nikita Alekseevich Tolstoy. In a family noted for significant literary talents. “Wherever you look, I have only writers in my family,” notes Tolstaya - Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy is his paternal grandfather. Grandmother Natalia Vasilievna Krandievskaya-Tolstaya is a poetess. Their mothers were also writers. Maternal grandfather Mikhail Leonidovich Lozinsky is a translator...” She grew up in the Lensoviet house on the Karpovka River Embankment in a large family where she had six brothers and sisters.
After graduating from school, Tatyana Tolstaya entered Leningrad University in the department of classical philology (with the study of Latin and Greek), from which she graduated in 1974. In the same year she married classical philologist A.V. Lebedeva and, following her husband, moved to Moscow, where she went to work at the Main Editorial Office of Oriental Literature of the Nauka Publishing House. Worked in a publishing house until 1983.
By my own admission, I started writing by accident. The first story, “They sat on the golden porch...”, was published in Aurora magazine ( 1983 . No. 8); it was immediately noticed by both readers and critics, and the author’s debut was recognized as one of the best in the 1980s. The story was a kaleidoscope of childhood impressions that fragmented and multiplied, formed into a mosaic and collapsed again, recreating mysterious characters fairy world. In Tolstoy's prose, critics discovered an unusual combination of high and low, romantic and everyday, fairy-tale and naturalistic, real and fictional for the literature of that time. Pay attention to lexical richness its text, the sophistication of artistic solutions.
Tolstaya publishes stories on the pages of the magazines “October”, “Neva”, “Znamya”, “ New world", takes part in work VIII All-Union Conference of Young Writers, attends G. Baklanov’s seminar. “Date with a Bird” is released sequentially ( 1983 ), "Sonya" ( 1984 ), « Blank sheet» ( 1984 ), “If you love - you don’t love” ( 1984 ), "Okkervil River" ( 1985 ), "Mammoth Hunt" ( 1985 ), "Peters" ( 1986 ), “Sleep well, son” ( 1986 ), "Fire and Dust" ( 1986 ), "Most Favorite" ( 1986 ), "Poet and Muse" ( 1986 ), "Seraphim" ( 1986 ), “The month has emerged from the fog” ( 1987 ), "Night" ( 1987 ), "Flame of Heaven" ( 1987 ), "Somnambulist in the Fog" ( 1988 ).
In 1987 Tolstoy's first collection of short stories, “They Sat on the Golden Porch...”, was published. He was enthusiastically received by critics, who noted the undoubted talent of the young prose writer, who has an established manner, confidence, artistic originality. Tolstoy's works show a strong interest in strange, absurd characters (mainly children, old women, and abnormal people); they are also distinguished by their tough, detached character. author's position. One of the best in the collections was the story “The Okkervil River,” which tells about the strange love of a young man for an imaginary performer of ancient romances. In prose Tolstoy appeared new conflict- strange, invented everyday life with multi-colored pictures of the imagination.
In 1998 Tolstaya was accepted into the USSR SP, and the next year she became a member of the Russian PEN Center. Since that time, Tolstaya has been successfully engaged in journalism.
In 1991 she ran the “Own Bell Tower” column in the weekly Moscow News.
In Tolstaya’s prose, critics discovered the traditions of M. Bulgakov, V. Nabokov, A. Green, German expressionists, Russian prose of the 1920s, Tolstaya emphasizes in an interview the importance of the discoveries of short stories of the 1920s for her work. Tolstoy's prose opened new page Russian prose, which was later dubbed “other literature” (L. Petrushevskaya, S. Kaledin, E. Popov, Ven. Erofeev, V. Narbikova, etc.). Tolstaya strove to demythologize reality, emancipate human fantasy and imagination, and conducted polemics against imaginary people-worship and pseudo-democracy.
From the early 1990s to 2000 Tolstaya lives in America for a long time, teaching the history of literature at various universities. Many of Tolstoy's works have been translated into European languages. Coming to Russia, Tolstaya actively participates in literary and public life countries.
In 2000 Tolstoy's first novel "Kys" appears in print ( 1986-2000 ). It is a complex genre formation, including elements of pamphlet, fantasy, philosophical research and mythology. It depicts Russian life after the Explosion, which can be understood at different semantic levels - revolutionary, post-perestroika, apocalyptic. In this fictional space (the city of Fedor-Kuzmichsk) they live various kinds mutants and a small number of “former” ones who still remember some words from cultural use. The hero of the novel, Benedict, tries to join the old culture by reading (the chapters of the novel are titled with the letters of the Old Church Slavonic alphabet: Az, Buki, Vedi, etc.), but nothing comes of it. Reading it is reminiscent of the pastime of Gogol's Petrushka.
For her novel "Kys" Tolstaya was awarded in 2001 Triumph Prize.
In 2002 the writer appears on television for the first time, in television program"The basic Instinct". In the same year, she became a co-host (together with Avdotya Smirnova) of the TV show “School of Scandal,” aired on the Culture TV channel. The program receives recognition from television critics and in 2003 Tatyana Tolstaya and Avdotya Smirnova received the TEFI award in the Best Talk Show category.
In 2010, co-authored with her niece Olga Prokhorova, released her first children's book. Entitled “The Same ABC of Pinocchio,” the book is interconnected with the work of the writer’s grandfather, the book “The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Pinocchio.” In the ranking best books XXIII Moscow International Book Fair, the book took second place in the “Children's Literature” section.
Tatyana Nikitichna Tolstaya is a writer, TV presenter of the intellectual program “School of Scandal,” author of the novel “Kys.”
Tatyana was born in St. Petersburg (Leningrad) in May 1951. The writer's family is as colorful and unusual as Tatiana. My maternal grandfather is the famous literary translator Mikhail Lozinsky, poet. My paternal grandfather is a famous writer who created the unforgettable “The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Pinocchio” and “The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin.” Tolstoy's wife, Tatiana Nikitichna's grandmother, poetess Natalia Krandievskaya.
Tatyana Tolstoy's father also achieved success, who followed not the literary, but the scientific line and became a professor of physics.
The house in which the future writer was born was always noisy and fun. After all, the Tolstoys had 7 sons and daughters. Later, Tatiana's sister Natalya also became a writer and teacher of the Swedish language. Philology and history of the period cold war Brother Ivan also got carried away, whose statements can be heard on Radio Liberty. Brother Mikhail devoted himself to the natural sciences and, in addition to physics, later turned his attention to political science.
As a child, Tatyana became interested in reading. After graduating from school, the girl went to enter Leningrad University, choosing classical philology. Here Tolstaya studied literature and two languages - Latin and Greek.
After graduating from university in 1974, the future writer and TV presenter moved to the capital with her husband, a classical philologist.
Books and television
In the capital, a writer from St. Petersburg gets a job as a proofreader in the editorial office of the Nauka publishing house. Started here literary biography Tatiana Tolstoy. The writer's debut is critical article“With glue and scissors...”, published in the journal “Questions of Literature” in 1983.
As Tatyana Nikitichna later shared, a banal circumstance forced the girl to take up the pen herself, and not just read and review other people’s works. After the operation on her eyes, Tatyana had to lie with a bandage for a month. Out of idleness, in order to pass the time, Tatyana Nikitichna began to compose texts. This is how the first plots of the future works of the writer Tolstoy were born.
Having removed the bandage, Tatyana Tolstaya immediately began to transfer her fantasies to paper. Thus was born the debut story, published in the popular magazine “Aurora” under the title “They were sitting on the golden porch...”. The story was immediately recognized as the best literary debut of the 1980s. Inspired by success, Tolstaya wrote another two dozen stories that were published from 1984 to 1988 - “Date with a Bird”, “Sonya”, “Blank Slate”, “If you love - you don’t”, “Okkervil River”, "Mammoth Hunt" and others. These works were readily accepted by fashionable “thick” magazines – “New World”, “Znamya” and “October”.
The first collection of stories by the St. Petersburg writer received the same name as the first story. Admirers of Tatyana Nikitichna's talent were able to purchase the book in 1987.
Soon after the publication of the collection, Tatyana Tolstaya was accepted into the USSR Writers' Union. But Soviet criticism reacted rather coldly to the works of the new member of the Writers' Union. The young writer was reproached for his “thick” writing, cleverness and stereotyped works.
However, the number of fans of Tatyana Tolstoy’s work grew rapidly. A young author with a sharp mind and an original point of view, not afraid of harshness and catchy colors, Tolstaya quickly burst into the modern literary community. The writer is known as an intellectual and even a rebel. The heroes of the works are unexpected characters - old-fashioned old women, disabled children, city madmen and homeless people. Philistinism and consumer psychology are especially harshly ridiculed modern society.
In 1989, Tatyana Tolstaya was accepted into the Russian PEN Center. And in next year the writer went to the USA, where she was offered to teach Russian literature and writing at one of the colleges located in Princeton. During this period, Tolstaya collaborated with famous magazines, including The New Yorker and TLS.
Throughout the 1990s, Tatyana Nikitichna regularly visited America, where she gave lectures at various universities. Tolstaya lived in the USA for several months and soon noticed that under the influence environment the language of emigrants is filled with “underwords”, some ugly hybrids of several languages. The witty writer was able to depict this phenomenon in detail in the essay “Hope and Support.”
In the 90s, Tatyana did not forget her homeland, where in the weekly Moscow News the writer was given her own column called “Own Bell Tower.” In the magazine "Capital" Tolstaya served as editor. The writer's articles also appeared in the Russian Telegraph publication. Abroad, Tatyana Tolstaya began creating translations own works, thanks to which it acquired the world literary fame. In 1998, together with her sister Natalya Tolstoy, she published the book “Sisters”.
In Russia, where the writer finally returned in 1999, Tatyana Tolstaya returned to journalism and teaching.
In 2000, Tatyana Tolstaya’s first novel, entitled “Kys,” appeared. The work was met with mixed reactions, but gained many fans. The book was about Russia, which experienced nuclear explosion, after which the intellectual abilities of the population sharply decreased. Primitive instincts replaced human standards of morality and ethics. In a novel created without a single positive character, every line is laced with sarcasm. The novel brought the creator the Triumph Award and soon became a bestseller. The plot has repeatedly become the basis for stage productions, including radio plays.
And the following year, three more books by Tolstoy were published: collections of stories “Day”, “Night” and “Two”, the circulation of which amounted to 200 thousand copies. In the same year, the writer was awarded the XIV Moscow International Book Fair prize in the “Prose” category.
Since 2002, Tatyana Nikitichna Tolstaya has appeared on the screen. First in the program “Basic Instinct”, and then in “School of Scandal”. She hosted her last talk show with. The program became a favorite for many intellectuals and brought the presenters the TEFI award. Later, Tolstaya appeared in another show called “Minute of Fame.”
In the early 2000s, Tatyana Tolstoy’s bibliography was replenished with works “Raisin”, “Circle”, “White Walls”, “Women’s Day”, “Not Kys”, “River”. In 2010, Tolstaya, together with her niece Olga Prokhorova, published the first book for children, which was called “The Same ABC”. There is a connection here with the most famous work grandfather Tatyana Nikitichny “The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Pinocchio.”
In 2010, the writer was awarded a number of international awards. Two years later, the radio station “Echo of Moscow” and the magazine “Ogonyok” placed the writer’s name on the list of “One Hundred Most influential women Russia." In 2014, after the release of the stories “On Low Fire”, “The Invisible Maiden”, “Light Worlds”, Tatyana Tolstaya became a laureate literary prize Belkina. A year later, the writer pleased her fans with the collections “Felt Age” and “Girl in Bloom.”
Another talent of Tatyana Tolstoy is cooking. The writer has a large baggage of recipes for preparing dishes of European and Russian cuisine. The writer posts descriptions of the preparation of pies, salads, and cakes on her own page in “
Tatyana Nikitichna Tolstaya. Born on May 3, 1951 in Leningrad. Russian writer, publicist, literary critic, teacher, journalist and TV presenter.
Comes from the ancient and famous Tolstoy family in Russia.
Paternal grandfather - Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy, writer.
Paternal grandmother - Natalya Vasilievna Krandievskaya-Tolstaya, poetess.
“My ancestor Peter Andreevich Tolstoy was, as it were, the first head of the FSB - under Peter the Great. He is the strangler of Tsarevich Alexei. That is, he did not strangle him himself, he simply stole him and took him out of Italy. The fact is that Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, as you know, he was married twice and Peter was his. only child from his second wife. And Tolstoy Pyotr Andreich was a relative of the tsar through his first wife, they were some kind of cousins,” she said.
By the way, while dying, Tsarevich Alexei cursed Pyotr Andreich Tolstoy and all his descendants up to the twentieth generation. Although what exactly the curse is is unknown.
Famous writer Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy is considered to be “someone like a seventh cousin.” Far away, but also a relative.
My father was a physicist and optician. Professor at Leningrad University. Employee of the Optical Institute GOI, laureate of the Stalin Prize.
Maternal great-grandfather - Boris Mikhailovich Shapirov, military doctor, Red Cross activist, personal physician of Nicholas II, actual privy councilor.
Maternal grandfather - Mikhail Leonidovich Lozinsky, literary translator, poet.
Mother - Natalya Mikhailovna Lozinskaya (Tolstaya).
She grew up in the Lensoviet house on the Karpovka River Embankment in a large family where she had six brothers and sisters.
Sister Natalia Nikitichna Tolstaya is a writer, teacher of Swedish at the Department of Scandinavian Philology, Faculty of Philology and Arts, St. Petersburg State University. Brother Ivan Nikitich Tolstoy is a philologist, historian of emigration, specializing in the Cold War period, columnist for Radio Liberty. Brother Mikhail Nikitich Tolstoy is a physicist, political and public figure.
Tatyana Tolstaya in Posner's program
After graduating from school, Tolstaya entered Leningrad University, the department of classical philology (with the study of Latin and Greek), which she graduated in 1974.
Then she got married and moved to Moscow. There she got a job as a proofreader in the Main Editorial Office of Oriental Literature at the Nauka Publishing House. Having worked in the publishing house until 1983, he published his first literary works and debuts as a literary critic with the article “Glue and Scissors...”.
By her own admission, what made her start writing was the fact that she had undergone eye surgery. “Now, after laser correction, the bandage is removed after a couple of days, but then I had to lie with the bandage for a whole month. And since it was impossible to read, the plots of the first stories began to appear in my head.”, she said.
In 1983, she wrote her first story, entitled “They Sat on the Golden Porch...”, published in Aurora magazine. The story was noted by both the public and critics and was recognized as one of the best literary debuts of the 1980s. Subsequently, Tolstaya published about twenty more stories in periodicals.
Her works are published in Novy Mir and other major magazines.
In 1987, the first collection of stories by the writer was published, entitled similarly to her first story - “They were sitting on the golden porch...”.
After the publication of the collection, Tatyana Tolstaya was accepted as a member of the USSR Writers' Union.
Critics were wary of her literary works. She was reproached for the “density” of the letter, for the fact that “you can’t read a lot in one sitting.” Other critics greeted the writer’s prose with delight, but noted that all her works were written according to the same structured template.
At that time, the main characters in the writer’s works were “urban madmen” - old-regime old women, “brilliant” poets, mentally disabled children with disabilities, etc.
Since 1989 he has been a permanent member of the Russian PEN Center.
In 1990, the writer left for the USA, where she wrote teaching activities. Tolstaya taught Russian literature and creative writing at Skidmore College, located in Saratoga Springs and Princeton, collaborated with the New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, TLS and other magazines, and lectured at other universities.
In 1991 he began his journalistic activities. Writes his own column "Own bell tower" V weekly newspaper"Moscow News", collaborates with the magazine "Capital", where he is a member of the editorial board. Essays, essays and articles by Tolstoy also appear in the Russian Telegraph magazine.
In parallel with journalistic activity she continues to publish books. In 1998, she co-authored the book “Sisters” with her sister Natalia. Translations of her stories appear into English, German, French, Swedish and other languages of the world.
In 1998, she became a member of the editorial board of the American magazine Counterpoint.
In 1999, Tatyana Tolstaya returned to Russia, where she continued to engage in literary, journalistic and teaching activities.
In 2000, the writer published her first novel "Kys". The book received a lot of response and became very popular. Based on the novel, many theaters staged performances, and in 2001, a literary series project was carried out on the air of the state radio station Radio Russia, under the leadership of Olga Khmeleva.
In the same year, three more books were published: “Day”, “Night” and “Two”. She receives the prize of the XIV Moscow International Book Fair in the “Prose” category.
In 2002, Tatyana Tolstaya headed the editorial board of the Konservator newspaper.
In 2002, the writer also appeared on television for the first time, in the television program “Basic Instinct.” In the same year, she became a co-host (together with Avdotya Smirnova) of a television show "School of Scandal", aired on the Culture TV channel. The program receives recognition from television critics and in 2003 Tatyana Tolstaya and Avdotya Smirnova received the TEFI award in the category “Best Talk Show.” The program was published until 2014.
School of slander - Ksenia Sobchak
In 2010, in collaboration with her niece Olga Prokhorova, she published her first children's book. Entitled “The Same ABC of Pinocchio,” the book is interconnected with the work of the writer’s grandfather, the book “The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Pinocchio.” In the ranking of the best books of the XXIII Moscow International Book Fair, the book took second place in the “Children’s Literature” section.
Tatiana Tolstoy's height: 157 centimeters
Personal life Tatiana Tolstoy:
She met her husband, Andrei Lebedev, while studying at Leningrad University. He is the son famous general. He is also a philologist by training.
They got married in 1974 - after Tolstaya graduated from university. Soon they moved from Leningrad to Moscow.
They had two sons. The eldest - and the youngest - Alexey. Now it's pretty famous personalities. Artemy became a famous web designer and layout developer for many sites, and also created his own design studio.
Alexey is a programmer and photographer who lives and works in America.
Bibliography of Tatyana Tolstoy:
1987 - “They sat on the golden porch...”: Stories
1997 - Whether you love it or not: Stories
1998 - Sisters: Essays, sketches, articles, stories
2005 - Okkervil River: Stories
2001 - Two. (co-authored with N. Tolstoy)
2001 - Kys: A Novel
2002 - Raisin
2003 - Circle: Stories
2004 - Don't be a pussy: Stories, articles, essays and interviews by Tatyana Tolstoy
2004 - White Walls: Stories
2004 - Kitchen of the “School of Scandal.” (co-authored with A. Smirnova)
2006 - Women's Day
2007 - Day. Personal
2007 - Night: Stories
2007 - River: Stories and Novels
2009 - Kys. Animal tour. Stories
2011 - The same ABC of Pinocchio. (co-authored with O. Prokhorova)
2014 - Light worlds: Novels, stories, essays
2015 - Girl in Bloom
2015 - Felt Age
03/05/2011
Writer, publicist, TV presenter Tatyana Nikitichna Tolstaya born on May 3, 1951 in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in literary family. She is the granddaughter on one side of the writer Alexey Tolstoy and the poetess Natalia Krandievskaya, according to another - the famous literary translator Mikhail Lozinsky.
After graduating from school, Tatyana Tolstaya entered Leningrad University in the department of classical philology (Latin and Greek), from which she graduated in 1974.
She got married and, following her husband, a Muscovite, moved to Moscow, where she got a job as a proofreader at the “Main Editorial Office of Oriental Literature” at the Nauka publishing house.
In 1983, she wrote her first story, published that same year in Aurora magazine. Later she was published in Novy Mir and other major magazines. In subsequent years, she wrote the stories “Date with a Bird” (1983), “Sonya” (1984), “Clean Slate” (1984), “Okkervil River” (1985), “Mammoth Hunt” (1985), “Peters "(1986), "Sleep well, son" (1986), "Fire and Dust" (1986), "The Most Beloved" (1986), "The Poet and the Muse" (1986), "Seraphim" (1986), "Went Out month from the fog" (1987), "If you love - you don't love" (1984), "Night" (1987), "Heavenly Flame" (1987), "Somnambulist in the Fog" (1988), "Limpopo" (1990), " Plot" (1991), "Yorik" (2000), "Window" (2007).
In 1987, a collection of her stories “They Sat on the Golden Porch...” was published in Moscow, which included thirteen stories by Tolstoy, including: “Dear Shura” (1985), “Fakir” (1986), “Circle” (1987 ) etc. After the publication of the collection, Tatyana Tolstaya was accepted as a member of the Union of Writers of the USSR.
Then she published collections of stories “If you love - you don’t love” (1997), “Sisters” (co-authored with her sister Natalia Tolstoy) (1998), “Okkervil River” (1999), “Day. Personal” (2001), “Night "(2001), "Two" (co-authored with Natalia Tolstaya) (2001), "Raisin" (2002), "Circle" (2003), "White Walls" (2004), "Women's Day" (2006), " Not Kys" (2007), "River" (2007), "Kys. Animal Tour" (2009).
In 2000, Tolstoy's first novel, "Kys", was published, causing many responses and becoming very popular. Based on the novel, many theaters staged performances, and in 2001, a literary series project was carried out on the air of the state radio station Radio Russia.
Tatyana Tolstaya is known not only as a writer, but also as a journalist. Her essays, essays, articles published in 1990-1998. in the newspapers "Moscow News" and "Russian Telegraph", in 1998 they were published in the collection "Sisters".
Tatyana Nikitichna for a long time lived in the USA, where she taught Russian literature and creative writing at Skidmore College (Saratoga Springs) and Princeton, collaborated with the New York review of books, The New-Yorker, TLS and other magazines, and lectured at other universities. Returning in the late 1990s. home, she took up literary, journalistic and teaching activities.
In 2002, Tolstaya took part in the TV show “Basic Instinct.” From the same year she became a permanent presenter (together with Dunya Smirnova) television talk show"School of Scandal" on the NTV channel. In co-authorship with Smirnova, she wrote the book “Kitchen of the School of Scandal.”
Tatyana Nikitichna was a permanent member of the jury of the show “Minute of Fame” (seasons 1-3) on Channel One.
Tatyana Tolstaya - winner of the Triumph Prize for 2001.
In 2003, she was awarded the TEFI television award.
In 2010 she won a prize in the category " New culture new Europe", which she was awarded at the XX International Economic Forum in the Polish city of Krynica-Zdroj (Lesser Poland Voivodeship).
Tatyana Tolstoy has two sons: Artemy Lebedev, designer, artistic director Artemy Lebedev Studios, and Alexey Lebedev, photographer, architect computer programs. Lives in the USA.
Date of Birth: 03.05.1951
Russian writer, publicist and TV presenter. Tolstoy's prose has been translated into English, German, French, Swedish and other languages.
Born in Leningrad, into a large family (7 children) with rich literary traditions.
In 1974 she graduated from the Department of Classical Philology at Leningrad State University.
Having married a Muscovite, she moved to Moscow in the early 1980s and began working at the Nauka publishing house as a proofreader. Later (in 1990) he left for the USA, where he taught Russian literature at Saratoga and Princeton, collaborated with the New York Review of Books, The New-Yorker, TLS and other magazines, and lectured at other universities. Translations of her stories into English, German, French, Swedish and other languages appear. In 1991, he wrote the column “One’s own bell tower” in the weekly “Moscow News” and was a member of the editorial board of the magazine “Capital”. She returns back in the late 90s and is actively involved in politics, becoming known to everyone not only as a wonderful writer, but also as a witty journalist (newspapers "Moscow News", "Russian Telegraph"). Together with Dunya Smirnova, he hosts the TV show “School of Scandal.”
According to her, she started writing late. The first publication, the story “They were sitting on the golden porch...” appeared in Aurora magazine in 1983. She made her debut as a critic in the same year with the article “With Glue and Scissors.” In 1987, the first collection of her stories, “They Sat on the Golden Porch,” was published, after which Tolstoy was accepted as a member of the USSR Writers' Union.
Soviet official criticism was wary of Tolstoy's prose. Some reproached her for the “density” of her writing, for the fact that “you can’t read much in one sitting.” Others, on the contrary, said that they read the book avidly, but that all the works were written according to the same scheme, artificially structured. In intellectual reading circles At that time, Tolstaya enjoyed a reputation as an original, independent writer.
In Tolstoy's prose, according to critics, one can trace the influence of Shklovsky and Tynyanov, on the one hand, and Remizov, on the other. She collides words from different semantic layers of language and, as a rule, looks at her heroes “detachedly”, unfolds the plot like cinematic frames... But if Shklovsky and Tynyanov used “redundant” words in order to give the subject as accurate and comprehensive as possible definition, and Remizov’s appeal to archaic layers of language brought him closer to the original meaning of the word, then Tolstaya, using the methods of paradoxical phrases they developed, demonstrates what Vyach. Kuritsyn called “the predatory cynicism of the eye.” Tolstoy's prose is distinguished by the presence of high and low, romantic and everyday, fairy-tale and naturalistic, real and fictional.
The heroes of her prose are mostly simple “urban weirdos” (old-regime old women, “brilliant” poets, mentally disabled children from childhood...), living and dying in a cruel and stupid bourgeois environment.
Tolstoy's journalism evokes conflicting reviews. The same Boris Paramonov is indignant because of the author’s contempt for the traditional values of American culture; Russian critics, on the contrary, approve of this position and sometimes claim that Tolstoy’s essay is more successful than her prose.
Tolstoy is considered to be part of the “new wave” in literature, called one of the bright names of “artistic prose”, which has its roots in the “game prose” of Bulgakov and Olesha, which brought with it parody, buffoonery, celebration, and the eccentricity of the author’s “I.”
1.1.
The Tolstoy family is rich in outstanding people:
⇒Paternal grandfather - Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy, the great Russian writer and poet.
⇒Paternal grandmother - Natalia Tolstaya-Krandievskaya, poetess.
⇒Maternal grandfather - Mikhail Lozinsky, literary translator, acmeist.
⇒Great-grandfather on the maternal side - Boris Mikhailovich Shapirov, military doctor, Red Cross activist, personal physician of Nicholas II, actual privy councilor.
⇒Father - Nikita Alekseevich Tolstoy, physicist, public and political figure.
⇒Mother - Natalya Mikhailovna Lozinskaya (Tolstaya).
⇒Sister - Natalia Tolstaya, writer.
⇒Brother - Ivan Nikitich Tolstoy, philologist, emigration historian, specializes in the Cold War period. Columnist for Radio Liberty.
⇒Brother - Mikhail Nikitich Tolstoy, famous physicist, public figure.
⇒The eldest son is Artemy Lebedev, designer, artistic director of the Artemy Lebedev Studio.
1.2. He says about himself: “I am interested in people “from the margins,” that is, to whom we are, as a rule, deaf, whom we perceive as ridiculous, unable to hear their speeches, unable to discern their pain. They pass away from life, little that having realized that they often didn’t receive something important, and leaving, they are perplexed like children: the holiday is over, but where are the gifts? But life was a gift, and they themselves were a gift, but no one explained this to them.”
1.3.
Question: How do you feel about this neighborhood - Prigov, Pelevin, Gandlevsky, Kaledin?
TT: B highest degree positively. These are all excellent writers. At tables or on chairs, but all of them, together and separately, refute the fashionable groans that we have no literature.
