Do you know there are THREE Tolstoys in Russian literature?

All three are distant relatives and have one common ancestor – Peter Tolstoy, an associate of Peter the Great, whom the tsar granted a noble title of Count.  

1/ The first one is the most well known, it’s LEO Nikolayevich TOLSTOY (1828-1910). He is the author of ‘War and Peace’, ‘Anna Karenina’ and many other novels and short stories. He is famous for his verbosity and long sentences and his legacy consists of 90 books of various formats, including diaries!

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

Bettmann/Getty Images

2/ The second Tolstoy actually should have been ranked in first place. Because he is older and started writing much earlier. It’s ALEKSEY Konstantinovich TOLSTOY (1817-1875). He is famous as a satirist writing under the pen name ‘Kozma Prutkov’. He was also the author of numerous novels, plays and poems based on historical and mythological plots, e.g. the novel 'Prince Serebrenni'. 

Portrait of the author Count Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy

Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images

Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy actually is a second cousin to Leo Tolstoy, as they had a common great-grandfather. So as not to mix up him with the next Tolstoy, who is usually known as Count Alexei Tolstoy. 

3/ The third Tolstoy is ALEKSEY Nikolaevich TOLSTOY (1883-1945), the Soviet writer. He was actually the son of Leo and A. K. Tolstoy’s third cousin. So, their third nephew… was a very distant relative. Aleksey Tolstoy is most famous for his trilogy ‘The Road to Calvary’, in which he talks about Russian intelligentsia before, during and after the 1917 Revolution, as well as the émigré society, which he also belonged to. 

Alexei Nikolayevich Tolstoy

Mikhail Ozersky/Sputnik

However, in the late 1920s, Tolstoy returned to Soviet Russia, finding it very progressive and with perspective. And he ended up becoming one of the most authoritative and important Soviet writers. A. N. Tolstoy is also famous for fantastic novels, such as ‘Aelita’ and a Russian version of ‘Pinocchio’, a tale about ‘Buratino’. 

Read more about Alexei Nikolayevich Tolstoy in our article.

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