THE TOLSTOYS: Twenty-Four Generations of Russian History, 1353-1983

by Nikolai Tolstoy ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 18, 1983

British historian Tolstoy (Stalin's Secret War) presents portraits of about a dozen of his illustrious/notorious ancestors--in chapters that vary in tone, approach, and readability. First, after brief discussion of the dynasty's 14th-century origin and the 17th-century acquisition of the name Tolstoy (a royal nickname, meaning ""fat""), the author focuses on the early-18th-century triumphs of Ivan and Peter Tolstoy: though Peter the Great hated the Tolstoys' Miloslavsky kinsmen (central to a nasty 1682 coup attempt), he used the brothers as key diplomat/governor/soldier aides--with Peter responsible for the capture and interrogation of the Tsar's rebellious Tsarevich (who cursed the Tolstoy clan while being tortured). Next comes a salute to eccentric military hero General Osterman-Tolstoy, ever-vigorous against Napoleon despite an amputated arm--plus an anecdotal account of wild, gallant, Byronic gambler/duelist Feeder Tolstoy, who was ""incapable of controlling"" the inherited family trait of ""superabundant"" energy. Three other mid-19th-century Tolstoys, however, channeled that energy into art or politics: neo-classical sculptor/painter Feodor Petrovich, whose noble life-and-work is rather blandly celebrated here; Dmitri, an important minister (Education, Interior) to Tsars alexander II and III, whose anti-revolutionary, Russffying efforts are quasi-defended by his descendant (""His integrity appears beyond doubt""); and lyric writer Alexei, whose conservatism and art-for-art's-sake credo brought him criticism from socially committed contemporaries. Then, inevitably, there is supreme novelist Leo: here family-biographer Tolstoy turns to a fairly intense psychobiographical essay--emphasizing Leo's obsession with childhood innocence, which ""transformed itself into a dangerous potential for extremes of jealousy, selfish desire of possession, and psychological imprisonment in situations as painful as any inflicted on the robustly harsh world of the battlefield."" (The great oeuvre, in comparison to the private-life woes, gets short shrift.) And finally there's a spirited, sarcastic attack on Count Alexei Tolstoy, the bourgeois-hating writer who briefly tasted post-Revolution ÉmigrÉ life, then returned to Russia--where, via cunning and ""grovelling,"" he became wealthy under Stalin: ""There was no lie, betrayal or indignity which he would not hasten to commit in order to fill those pockets. . . ."" Sometimes dullish, sometimes dense or demanding, occasionally sprightly: a thick family album unlikely to hold most readers cover to cover, but with browsing rewards for devotees of Russian history, literary biography, and political/family feuds.

Pub Date: Oct. 18, 1983

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Morrow

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1983

Categories: NONFICTION