Personal walk through the agony of the wife of the "red count" Alexei Tolstoy: Brilliant Natalia Krandievskaya

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

He painted with her the image of Katya in his novel "Walking through the agony". Natalia Krandievskaya loved him wholeheartedly and bore him two sons. And the "Red Count" Alexei Tolstoy, after 20 years of marriage, exchanged her for a young secretary, whom he had known for only 2 weeks …

“I asked myself: if the thirst for physical saturation dulls over the years, where is everything else?.. Really everything collapsed, everything was built on sand? I asked in anguish: tell me, where did everything go? He answered wearily and cynically: how do I know? "- recalled Natalya Vasilievna Krandievskaya-Tolstaya, Tusya, when her life with the" red count of the USSR "writer Alexei Tolstoy went wrong.

How it all began

Before the revolution, Natalya Krandievskaya was a real secular lady, the wife of a successful lawyer Fyodor Volkenstein. He was a down-to-earth and down-to-earth person and preferred that his wife take care of their son Fyodor, rather than visit literary salons. That is how, when she was only 15, she was noticed by Sologub and Blok, and Balmont fell in love with her. Bunin described his student as follows:

But the danger awaited, as often happens, from a completely different side.

Their first meeting did not promise any development of relations. Krandievskaya heard Tolstoy reading his poems and quipped that, they say, with such a loud surname God himself ordered to write better. This phrase, of course, was conveyed to Alexei Tolstoy, and he was offended, although he had no special ambitions about himself as a poet. At that time he was already a famous playwright and prose writer. Critics called him "Magpie Tales" "lovely", and after the novels "Freaks" and "Lame Master" and the stories "Trans-Volga" they began to talk about him as a recognized master.

Their next meeting took place only a few years later. Sonya Dymshits, who at that time was Tolstoy's wife, took drawing lessons in the same art class with Krandievskaya. Young writers met more and more often and even became friends.

When the First World War began, Tolstoy, as a correspondent for Russkiye Vedomosti, often went to the front, and Krandievskaya went to work in a hospital as a nurse. Their relationship began to develop in the epistolary genre. True, this correspondence was rather friendly. After parting with his wife, Tolstoy asked Krandievskaya for advice whether he should marry the ballerina Kandaurova. He offered her hands and heart, then the capricious young lady refused him. And he proposed to Natalia.

Both her and he had to go through difficult divorce proceedings, but over time everything worked out. In 1917, their first son Nikita was born (later he would become the father of the writer Tatyana Tolstoy). By that time, the name of Alexei Tolstoy was quite famous in literary circles. He even worked on the preparation of the 10th volume of his own collected works. But a new government came, hard times came, and books were needed only for kindling the "burzhuekas".

Together in exile

In 1918, Alexei Tolstoy with his wife, stepson Fedya and son Nikita went first to Odessa, and then to Paris, then to Berlin. In emigration, life was difficult, especially in Paris: so that the family did not starve, Natalya Vasilievna learned to sew dresses for French women. It was easier in Berlin, where they could study literature. Tolstoy wrote "Aelita", "Childhood of Nikita", "Sisters" (the first novel from "Walking in Torment"). He copied Katya from his Tusya in "Walking Through the Torment".

Some emigrants tried their best to settle down in Europe, others could not stand it and returned to their homeland. Tolstoy also thought more and more often about returning. He made his final decision when Nikita asked with a strong French accent: "Mom, what is a snowy cloud?"

“Just look. He will never know what a snowdrift is,”Tolstoy sighed.

Tolstoy and Krandievskaya arrived in Soviet Russia with their three sons - Mitya was several months old. Tolstoy successfully published novels written in exile, and continued to write continuously. Natalya Vasilievna admired her husband, his talent and efficiency, and tried to help him in everything. She took care of her husband's affairs, family, children, guests. There were legends about dinners in the Tolstoy's house. All this had to be arranged:

There was no time or energy left to write herself. Although she published a children's book "Animal Mail", she wrote a libretto in verse for Shaporin's opera "The Decembrists". And by the way, it was she, Tusya, who invented Pierrot's couplets in The Golden Key.

When the ground is slipping from under your feet …

In 1935, Alexei Tolstoy began to grumble more and more often, to get irritated, to break down at his wife, with whom he had lived for almost twenty years, stopped appreciating her opinion about his work, yelling: “Don't you like it? And I like it in Moscow! And sixty million readers like it!...

The reason for his irritation was called Timosha - this is how the family called Nadezhda Peshkova, Gorky's daughter-in-law, the first beauty of Moscow. In those years, everyone was in love with her, including Stalin himself. Timosha's husband died in 1934, and Tolstoy just jumped out of himself, seeking reciprocity. Timosha refused him, according to rumors, and people from the NKVD explained to the writer that "you can't do that." Yes, and Gorky mockingly advised Alexei Nikolaevich to take care of his own wife.

In the summer, Tolstoy made one last attempt to conquer Timosha and followed her abroad, to the writers' congress. He returned home gloomy and angry. Zhenet complained: “I have one job left. I have no personal life …”This cruelty took my breath away. Natalya Vasilievna did not wait for the denouement - she left herself. And Tolstoy quickly, in two weeks, got along with his secretary Lyudmila. They went on a honeymoon trip …

Natalya Vasilievna wrote a poem to her ex-husband:

Tolstoy replied ruthlessly and indifferently:

».

When the war began, Tusya remained in Leningrad with her youngest son Dmitry. They survived the blockade. There are memories of the dignity and courage with which Tusya behaved at that time. Tolstoy could easily have them evacuated, but Natalya wrote:

Tolstoy died on February 23, 1945. Natalya Vasilievna loved him until the end of her life and dedicated two wonderful cycles of poetry to him.