2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25
We are all readers. Each of us has read at least one book. And that's great. Because writing has one amazing quality - it is not just a collection of information and information about historical realities or human relationships, it is something more. Reading, we find ourselves in that time, understand and justify many things, remember the relationship between people.
The work affects our inner world, our soul. How often do we understand what is written? For what purpose? What did the author want to say by describing these events? But there are people who raise these acute, often painful, questions: are the assessments of creativity fair, is this or that cultural figure deservedly forgotten or ex alted. Literary historians such as Tolstoy Ivan Nikitich help us answer all questions.
Ivan Nikitich and his family
On January 21, 1958, Tolstoy Ivan Nikitich was born in Leningrad. The family in which he was born is known to everyone. Ivan Nikitich is the paternal grandson of the famous writer A. N. Tolstoy. On the part of the mother, Lozinskaya Natalya Mikhailovna, is the grandson of the poet Lozinsky M. L. Father - Sovietphysicist, professor Tolstoy N. A. Brother Mikhail is also a physicist, sisters Natalia and Tatiana are writers.
In 1975 he graduated from high school and entered the medical institute. He studied there for three years, during which he was kicked out of it twice. As Ivan Nikitich says, when he was expelled for the first time and reinstated, he realized that this would definitely happen again, since he did not want to study there. Looks like "grandfather's" genes affected, he was not interested in medicine. Once his wife told him that if you like philology, you have to be a philologist. So he entered the philological faculty of Leningrad University.
Passion for the history of emigration
Studied by correspondence, because he worked as a guide in Pushkinskiye Gory. Even then, he was worried about the topic of emigration. And somehow he saw in Pushkin's office a volume of Nabokov's "Commentary on the novel "Eugene Onegin", forbidden for issuance," he persuaded his superiors to give these books to him. They were in English, and in return, Ivan Nikitich Tolstoy promised to translate it into Russian for employees.
Translating Nabokov's commentary for a long time, just the time has come to defend the thesis. He told the teacher that he would like to prepare this topic for the diploma. To which he replied that the name of Nabokov should not be pronounced in a Soviet university, it is necessary to look for another topic. I had to postpone my thesis for a while. After graduation, he taught Russian language and literature at a secondary school.
Thaw and first publications
All this time I studied archives, available literatureand wrote articles. I really wanted to be published at the age of 21, Ivan Tolstoy recalls. But knowing about his passion for émigré literature, not a single publication dared to publish his materials. And at the age of 25 he was completely banned from printing. Reassure yourself that this is not forever. And so it happened. In 1986, the ban was lifted, and the attitude towards Nabokov in the country gradually warmed up. And in 1987, Ivan Nikitich had his first publications.
At the same time, he teaches at the Polygraphic and Humanitarian Institutes. In 1994, he taught special courses on Nabokov at the university. He worked as an editor of the Zvezda magazine, a proofreader in the Russian Thought magazine. Specializes in émigré literature and history, Cold War period literature.
Literary creativity
In 1992, Ivan Nikitich Tolstoy became the editor-in-chief of the Toviy Grzhebin publishing house. It publishes books by authors forced to live in exile, as well as works dedicated to emigrants and their life abroad. Since 1994 he has been the editor-in-chief of the journal "Experiments". More than 500 of his reviews, articles and reviews have been published. Author of the books "Italics of the Epoch", "The Laundered Romance of Zhivago".
Workdays of a journalist
Since 1988, Ivan Tolstoy has been working as a journalist (freelancer) at Radio Liberty. At the end of 1994, the company invites him to the staff. Since 1995 he has been living and working in Prague. According to Ivan Nikitich, they work great there. No one imposes anything, does not force you to cover any topics and does not determine which programs to do. He chooses topics himself. Life tells them to the full, says Ivan Tolstoy, whose biography itself can serve as the subject of an interesting and fascinating program about the famous family of Count Tolstoy.
Ivan Nikitich is not only a master of telling stories wonderfully - vividly, figuratively, brightly. But also a great master of finding them. He works a lot with archives, in his words, it is very exciting, sometimes unexpected things emerge that explain a lot from the life of emigration. If you know and imagine the context, then a surprisingly interesting picture emerges against the historical background. This is exactly what a historian should do. Ivan Tolstoy studies the materials of yesterday, which inevitably leads to today.
Travels of Ivan Tolstoy
Ivan Nikitich never invents anything. All his stories are based only on facts. It is simply important to skillfully combine the facts into a single whole - into history. Compare these facts. When compared, an interesting story emerges. The only task, says Ivan Tolstoy, is to make a historical story so captivating that it can be not only listened to. But everyone was able to understand why this happened, what is the connection between this or that event.
A unique researcher, he finds amazingly interesting stories for his readers and listeners. Ivan Nikitich is the host of programs, including Myths and Reputations. Author of a series of programs “Radio Liberty. Half a century on air. Author and presenter of the programs "Historical Journeys of Ivan Tolstoy" and "Guardians of the Inheritance" on the TV channel"Culture".
In his broadcasts, completely unexpected stories about people, works, events open up. A connoisseur of Russian culture, a brilliant storyteller and an incredibly erudite person. He simply fascinates with his travels - in literature, in time.
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