TOLSTOY, Alexei (Nikolayevich)

(1882-1945)

   Russian writer, sometimes mistakenly thought to have been a distant relative of Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910); he was not in fact a blood relative of the famous Tolstoy, though his mother's second husband was related, and gave AT his surname. Alexei Constantinovich Tolstoy (1817-1875), on the other hand, was part of the wideflung Tolstoy family;his supernatural fiction has been translated as Vampires: Stories of the Supernatural (coll trans Fedor Nikanov 1969 US). AT is best known for 2books whose first versions appeared in the experimental 1920s and both of which were revised in the decade of terror which followed. Aelita (1922; rev 1937; 2nd text trans Lucy Flaxman 1957 USSR; new trans of 2nd text Antonina W. Bouis 1981 US; 1st text trans Leland Fetzer 1985 US) - thefirst version of the book being filmed as AELITA (1924) - was set on MARS, where a Red Army officer foments a rebellion of the native Martians (who are in fact long-ago emigrants from ATLANTIS) against a corrupt oligarchy. Giperboloid inzhenera Garina (1926; rev 1937; 1st text trans B.G. Guerneyas The Death Box 1936 UK; 2nd text trans George Hanna as The Garin Death Ray 1955 USSR; Hanna trans cut vt Engineer Garin and his Death Ray 1987USSR) feverishly describes an attempt on the part of the eponymous inventor - who is treated with some affection as a kind of force of Nature - to use his death ray to conquer the world. He manages to rule adecadently capitalist USA for a short period. At least in their original versions, both books showed a narrative gusto typical of their precarious period, in attractive contrast to AT's later, less ebullient work.

   JC

   See also: RUSSIA; WEAPONS.