Alexey Tolstoy, whose biography is a classic example of the formation of a Russian poet and writer, was born in 1883. His father is Count Tolstoy Nikolay Alexandrovich, his mother is Alexandra Leontyevna Tolstaya-Turgeneva. The family lived at that time in the city of Nikolaevsk, Saratov province. Alyosha received his primary education at home, studying with visiting teachers. A significant influence on the process of teaching her son was provided by Alexandra Leontyevna, a woman educated and well versed in literature. After the family moved to Samara, when Alyosha grew up, he was assigned to a real school, where the young man studied for four full years.
Student years
After completing a course in school in 1901, matured Alexei Tolstoy, whose biography abounds in sharp turns, moves to St. Petersburg. In the northern capital, he enters the Institute of Technology in the mechanical department. The beginning of his studies coincided with the first literary experiments of Alexei, he gave preference to poetry. He wrote poetry easily, with inspiration. However, studying at the institute did not leave free time, and Tolstoy's poetic attempts could not be regular. In addition, practical classes soon began in the workshops of the Baltic factory, there was absolutely no time left for poetry.
The beginning of literary activity
Nevertheless, in 1906, the first publication of the poems of Alexei Tolstoy took place in the small newspaper Volzhsky Listok, which was published in Kazan, and Alex decided to devote himself to literature. Studying at the institute now went as far as possible, and after a while the future writer quit studying, even though very few remained until the end of the course. In 1907 he published his collection of poems called "Lyric". Then a collection of poems "Beyond the Blue Rivers" was released. In the same year, Alexei Nikolayevich Tolstoy, whose biography was replenished with another new page, tries his hand at prose, he writes "Forty Tales". All his books are successful, quickly sold out and collect good reviews.
The first successes in prose
In 1909, a short biography of Alexei Tolstoy was marked by the writer’s decision to completely switch from poetry to prose in his work. He writes the novel "A Week in Tureniev," which is published in the large bourgeois journal Apollo. Then the Rosehip publishing house publishes the first collection of short stories. With the outbreak of the war of 1914, Alexei Tolstoy became a war correspondent and departed for the front. During the war, he manages to visit France and England. The war years gave the writer rich material, which Tolstoy later used in his works. In early 1917, the February Revolution puzzled the writer and made him think about Russian statehood and its historical significance.
The political aspirations of the writer
Alexei Tolstoy, whose biography is full of pages reflecting the political uncertainty of the writer, rejects the October Revolution. He leaves with his family abroad, lives in Paris, then in Berlin. Long five years of emigration last. During this period, the novel "Aelita" was written. In 1923, Tolstoy returned to the USSR. The years from 1925 to 1927 passed for him under the sign of active literary creativity, a novel was written in the science fiction genre "The Engineer Garin's Hyperboloid" and the wonderful story "The Golden Key" about the adventures of the wooden man Pinocchio. Then Alexey Tolstoy begins work on the novel "Walking through the agony", which will bring the writer the Stalin Prize. Alexey Tolstoy, whose biography does not end there, in the following years he will write a whole series of works, including the novel "Peter the Great".