Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy

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Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy : biography

September 5, 1817 – October 10, 1875

Critics noted, though, that history as such was secondary to Tolstoy; he was driven mostly by his own personal views and feelings, tending to judge his 16th century characters using mid-19th century moral values. "The life of today seeps through everywhere," Tolstoy himself admitted, speaking of his ballads. According to the author, historical drama had to be "true" only in a "humanist way". "A poet… has just one responsibility: to his own poetic self… human truth is his one law. Historical truth is something he is not bound to. If it fits into the concept, very good, if not, he can easily do without it," he wrote.Tolstoy, А.К. The Project of theatrical production of the play The Death of Ivan the Terrible. (Recommendations for future theater producers). So on the one hand, Tolstoy’s dramatic trilogy- The Death of Ivan the Terrible, Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich and Tsar Boris– was not historical in the strict sense of the word; on the other hand, it was far from being the brand of "patriotic drama" produced by Nestor Kukolnik or the imitation of the French tragedie des allusions which Pushkin ridiculed. In fact, Pushkin’s attitude was the closest approximation to that of Tolstoy. The latter’s plays had their "second levels", directly corresponding to contemporary political situations, but were driven mostly by the author’s historical views and theories which involved the glorifying of Russian "noble men" (he associated them with the boyarstvo) and the vilification Ivan Grozny whom the boyarstvo had fallen victim to.

Pavel Annenkov considered Ioann and Fyodor as "loosely based upon" characters, being perfectly fine but only in representing their era, not their own historical selves. "They are as loose as King Lear or Hamlet were and, if they do belong more to Russian history than those two belong to English history, that is because no other reality than that of our Old Russia could have inspired [Tolstoy] in such a way, bringing him such colors, such an essence to freely draw from,"…Они столь же свободные создания, как, например, король Лир или Гамлет, и если гораздо более принадлежат русской истории, чем те – английской или датской, то благодаря одному обстоятельству: никакая другая жизнь, кроме старой русской, не могла бы навеять автору подобных образов, ни из какой другой не мог бы он почерпнуть такого содержания и таких красок для своих созданий. – Annenkov’s original text in Russian. the critic wrote. It was the generic closeness of Tolstoy’s plays to the Russia of old, Annenkov argued, that made them historic in the truest sense of the word, for "their significance as living testimony to the spirit those people and their times is beyond doubt". Common to the trilogy was a somewhat morbid look at the history of the Russian monarchy of the previous three centuries, where, as the author saw it, all the efficient rulers happened to be evil, and all the ‘good’ ones proved to be inefficient. The three stories of three different historical figures had similarly didactic finales: "God help you, Tsar Ivan, and God forgive us all! That’s the fate autocracy deserved! Here’s the result of our disintegration!" (Zakharyin’s words over Ivan the Terrible’s dead body), "I am to blame for all of this… Oh God, why did you make me Tsar?!" (Tsar Fyodor), "What Evil spawns is only more evil and nothing else." (Boris Godunov). All three parts of the trilogy, which, according to Nestor Kotlyarevsky, were "united by the idea of tragedy being intrinsic to Tzarist power in Russia,"Kotlyarevsky, Nestor. Ancient Portraits. Saint Petersburg, 1907. P. 354. had serious problems with the censorship. In fact, the trilogy continued to divide opinion in Russia up until 1917. Not long before the Revolution, in Aleksandrinka the public reacted to Tsar Boris in an overtly political fashion. Monarchists applauded Boris Godunov’s words, the left "supported" the boyarin Sitsky, seeing in him a fighter of despotism. All three plays became part of the repertoire of the leading Russian and Soviet theaters, notably the Maly Theatre, with stars like Ivan Moskvin, P. Orlenev, C. Kuznetsov and N. Khmelyov in the leading roles. According to I. Yampolsky, Tolstoy the dramatist, even if not on par with Pushkin, was high above his contemporaries; he created complex, multi-dimensional historical figures. "In the arts, to be wary of showing weaknesses in your favourite characters is to pay them bad service… Thus one can only succeed in creating faceless dummies whom nobody would believe in", Tolstoy wrote.Diaries, Vol.4, 1928, Pp.73-74.

In the mid-19th century Tolstoy was not taken very seriously, but his reputation started to grow after his death in 1875. Vladimir Korolenko, twenty years after the publication of the final part of the drama trilogy, wrote in a diary that he "re-read it and… despite the obvious note of romanticisation of the boyarshina" it made a "very strong and vivid impression" on him.Korolenko, V.G., Diaries. The State Publishing House of Ukraine. 1925, p.194 It was Korolenko who called Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich "a gem of Russian drama", that’s been shining especially bright next to "the totally dismal theater repertoire of the late 19th century".

Tolstoy was highly valued by Aleksander Blok and Valery Bryusov; Ivan Bunin, otherwise harsh in his comments on fellow writers, rated him very high; Velemir Khlebnikov mentioned him among his all-time favourites and, most surprisingly (according to Korney Chukovsky), Vladimir Mayakovsky knew his poetry by heart and often recited it in public. Both Tolstoy’s poetry (the larger part of which has been transformed into classic romance) and his historical drama trilogy are regarded as an intrinsic part of the classic Russian literature of the 19th century.