Ilya Tolstoy
Encyclopedia
Ilya Lvovich Tolstoy was a Russian writer and the son of Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...

.

Early life

Ilya was born at Yasnaya Polyana
Yasnaya Polyana
Yasnaya Polyana was the home of the writer Leo Tolstoy, where he was born, wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and is buried. Tolstoy called Yasnaya Polyana his "inaccessible literary stronghold". It is located southwest of Tula, Russia and from Moscow.In 1921, the estate formally became his...

 and spent most of his young life there, until the family took a house in Moscow in 1881. He received his early education at home; his mother taught him to read and write, first in Russian, and later in French and English, and his father taught him mathematics, and later Greek and Latin. He and his siblings were also schooled by private tutors.

Leo Tolstoy, in an 1872 letter to his father's cousin Alexandra Andreyevna Tolstaya, described his children; he said the following of his son Ilya:
"Ilya, the third, has never been ill in his life; broad-boned,white and pink, radiant, bad at lessons. Is always thinking about what he is told not to think about. Invents his own games. Hot-tempered and violent, wants to fight at once; but is also tender-hearted and very sensitive. Sensuous; fond of eating and lying still doing nothing. When he eats currant-jelly and buck-wheat kasha his lips itch. Independent-minded in everything. When he cries, is vicious and horrid at the same time; when he laughs every one laughs too. Everything forbidden delights him; he recognizes it at once."


In 1881 Ilya entered a private gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...

 to continue his education. His father had originally planned for him to attend a state school, but had refused to sign a declaration of Ilya's loyalty to the Tsar, which was required for entry.

Career

Ilya left school before graduating, and entered military service in the Sumy
Sumy
* 1897 - 70.53% Ukrainians, 24.1% Russians, 2.6% Jewish, 2.67% others* 1926 - 80.7% Ukrainians, 11.8% Russians, 5.5% Jewish, 2% others* 1959 - 79% Ukrainians, 20% Russians, 1% others...

 Dragoons. In 1888 he married Sofia Filosofova. After his time as an officer, he was a bank employee, and later an agent for an insurance company. He assisted his father in relief efforts during the Russian famine of 1891-2
Russian famine of 1891-2
The Russian famine of 1891-2 began along the Volga River, then spread as far as the Urals and Black Sea. The reawakening of Russian Marxism and populism is often traced to the public's anger at the Tsarist government's handling of the disaster.- Weather :...

. During World War 1 he worked for the Red Cross. He also tried his hand at journalism. In 1915 he founded the newspaper New Russia.

In 1916, Ilya left Russia, and travelled to the United States. In America he married Nadezhda Katulskoy, who later became one of the closest disciples of the spiritual teacher Meher Baba
Meher Baba
Meher Baba , , born Merwan Sheriar Irani, was an Indian mystic and spiritual master who declared publicly in 1954 that he was the Avatar of the age....

. To make a living he lectured on art and on his father. He took part in movie versions of the novels Anna Karenina and Resurrection
Resurrection (1927 film)
Resurrection is a 1927 Hollywood adaptation of the Leo Tolstoy novel Resurrection. Filmmaker Edwin Carewe adapted the book to a feature length silent production starring Dolores del Río and featuring an appearance by Ilya Tolstoy. In 1931, Edwin Carewe directed an all-talking remake of this film...

, which were unsuccessful. He died on December 11, 1933 in New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...

.

He is best known for his book of memoirs about his father Reminiscences of Tolstoy. He also wrote the short novel The Corpse in 1890 (published posthumously), and the story One Bastard Less which was published in the journal Russian Thought in 1905.

English Translations

  • Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Century Company, NY, 1914. from Google Books
  • Tolstoy, My Father; Reminiscences, Cowles Book Company, Chicago, 1971.
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