Where is the fat thekla? Biography

The annual Yasnaya Polyana festival “Garden of Geniuses” opened with a pre-premiere screening of two documentaries from the “Fat” series. They were presented to the public by the author, the great-great-granddaughter of the “great Leo” Fyokla Tolstaya.

Parents- Nikita Ilyich and Svetlana Mikhailovna Tolstoy.

Education: Faculty of Philology and Graduate School of Moscow State University, directing department of GITIS.

Worked on radio stations “Echo of Moscow” and “Mayak”. Since 2010, he has been co-hosting the “Mishanina” program on “Silver Rain” with Mikhail Kozyrev.

Worked director, presenter of the programs “Vremechko”, “Night Flight”, “Become a Star”, “People’s Artist”, “All at Once”, “Big Lunch”, “You are what you eat”, the documentary series “Great Dynasties” and etc.

Filming began two and a half years ago at the request of the state TV channel “Culture,” Fekla Nikitichna told viewers. - For me it was especially emotional work, because I had to talk about my family. We have selected the most prominent representatives from the long family history of the Tolstoys from a television point of view.

For example, the hero of one of the films in Tolstoy’s documentary “saga” was an associate of Peter the Great, the first count in the Tolstoy family, Pyotr Andreevich. Another story is dedicated to Fyodor Ilyich Tolstoy, nicknamed “The American,” who traveled around the world with Kruzenshtern. There is also a film about the “red count” Alexei Tolstoy - the author of the trilogy “Walking in Torment”, the novel “Peter the Great”, the fantasy story “Aelita”, etc.

We didn’t make a film about Lev Nikolayevich because we considered it impossible to fit a story about such a great man into 26 minutes. But his personality, his thoughts as the brightest genius of our kind permeate the entire cycle...

Of the eight finished films, two were selected for the festival showing - about women whose fate was most closely connected with Yasnaya Polyana. This is Tolstoy’s youngest daughter Alexandra Lvovna and granddaughter Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya-Yesenina.

Alexandra Lvovna was the closest person to her father; he was the only one who told her about his departure from Yasnaya. In 1914, she went to war as a nurse and returned as a colonel of the medical service with three “Georges”. After five arrests in Moscow, she left for Yasnaya and began creating a museum, which was opened in 1921. She built a boarding school, a hospital, and a pharmacy. In 1929, she emigrated and, with the participation of famous Russian figures (B. Bakhmetyev, S. Rachmaninov, etc.), created the Tolstoy Foundation in the USA. Through him, about 700,000 citizens of the USSR were saved from the horrors of war and political repression.

Sofya Andreevna is the daughter of Andrei Lvovich Tolstoy. In 1925, she married Sergei Yesenin, with whom she lived the last months of his life. Later, she did a lot to preserve the poet’s legacy. In 1941 she became director of the United Tolstoy Museums. Thanks to her, unique documents and things from Yasnaya Polyana were saved during the war...

Thekla drew the audience's attention to her silver signet ring. Decorated with the Tolstoy family coat of arms, it was passed down from generation to generation and witnessed great human destinies.

At the end of the show, Fekla Tolstaya answered questions from journalists.

- What was the most difficult thing for you while filming?

Choose what is interesting and important for the audience. After all, this is all a family story, familiar to me since childhood, so it’s not easy to be objective.

I really wanted the film to be not so much about the Tolstoy family, but about the history of the country, which runs through the history of any Russian family.

He is one of the important participants. When I started working at the State Tolstoy Museum in Moscow, I learned a lot from him.

...It seems to me that people of my profession can be useful for museums right now. Now museums are changing and trying to turn from “dusty collections” (as many perceive them) into spaces where you can not only see something, but also live vivid, emotional impressions. And it is journalists who can help people open these museum spaces and popularize the amazing riches they contain.

- Are there any plans to try yourself in another direction, not documentary?

Now I really like working with documentaries. I enjoyed directing Tolstoy’s films, took part in editing, wrote texts... I always formulate everything I say on camera myself.

- Your colleagues can often be seen in entertainment shows. Don't want to join them?

We are in harmony with entertainment television: I don’t really watch it, and it’s not interested in me.

- What are you looking at?

News, “Culture”, some documentaries on TV and many on the Internet. As a journalist working on the radio (F.T. is the presenter of the “Silver Rain” channel. - Author’s note), I carefully study different points of view. I'm interested.

- The festival is called “Garden of Geniuses”. Could you give your definition of the word “genius”?

I did not have the opportunity to communicate with a large number of geniuses, such as Sofya Andreevna or Alexandra Lvovna. But I have seen several people who are undeniably brilliant. What shocked me is that life with them is incredibly difficult! At the same time, you see that they literally emit light sent from above. It seems to me that all people have a connection with God, and for geniuses this connection is not a thin thread, but a powerful optical fiber with enormous bandwidth!

- There are so many interesting men around you! Is there the best among them?

Are you asking about your personal life? Everything is fine with me: there is a smart, handsome, talented person nearby. By the way, now he is the one calling. If the interview is over, may I answer?

Photo by Andrey Varenkov.

September 9 marks the 190th anniversary of the birth of the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. His novels “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina” are known all over the world, and his descendants still gather together in Yasnaya Polyana. The writer’s great-great-granddaughter, journalist, TV presenter, director Fekla Tolstaya, spoke about the famous family.

– The Tolstoys’ main secret is not only that we have a famous ancestor. Every day I heard from my father (Nikita Tolstoy, the grandson of the writer’s second son - Ilya Lvovich Tolstoy - Note: “Antennas”) very friendly, most often funny stories about my grandfather, whom I did not find, about his sister, my father’s aunt, and people from the Tolstoy family. And the main thing that we managed to take away from them is that family is an important foundation. Of course, to some extent, this is also the legacy of Lev Nikolaevich, who consciously worked to ensure that he had a big, happy family: he took a long time to choose his wife, they gave birth to 13 children, and created a family nest in Yasnaya Polyana. I was less impressed by the portrait of a rather stern old man with a beard than by the fact that this old man looked like my father and grandfather. I remember this feeling that you are not alone, but belong to some branch of a big tree, from childhood.

Fekla against the background of a portrait of her father, Nikita Ilyich Tolstoy. She has a family ring on her finger

Photo by Vadim Shultz

When I filmed the series “Fat” for the TV channel “Culture”, where each of the eight episodes is dedicated to one representative of the genus, I wanted to catch their common features. The phrase of Lev Nikolaevich is well known. After visiting his uncle Fedorov Ivanovich Tolstoy, a bright personality, he wrote that he had a wildness in his character like all Tolstoys. It seems to me that Tolstoys are very emotional, sometimes hot-tempered and “natural”. They don't like to pretend. All people are well-mannered, but what they think is what they say. Still independent and freedom-loving. They are rarely ready to submit to violence and harsh pressure. I know from my loved ones: anything can be done with love, but nothing can be done with force.

A museum with ropes turns into a house

– I came to Yasnaya Polyana at the age of 16 and saw the same portraits that hang in our home. Suddenly the world of the historical past seemed real. Its material shell was preserved, and after 1994, when my second cousin Vladimir Tolstoy became the director of the museum-estate and congresses of descendants began to take place, it was filled with real family relationships. I remember how in 2000 my American, Italian, and French brothers and I played a home performance at the estate. The museum with ropes has turned into a house where the family lives and you can feel at least a little of the atmosphere that was during the life of Lev Nikolaevich.

Lev Tolstoy

Photo by Getty Images

The Tolstoy conventions would have been impossible without the amazing Nikolai Pavlovich Puzin, who lived and worked in Yasnaya Polyana from the 40s of the last century until his death seven years ago.

During the revolution, Tolstoy's children emigrated. Only the eldest son, Sergei Lvovich, remained in Russia. Until this time, all the grandchildren had known each other since childhood and maintained relationships, but then it became more difficult. In the 40s, before his death, Sergei Lvovich Tolstoy bequeathed to the young employee of Yasnaya Polyana Puzin not to lose contact with Tolstoys around the world and to collect information about them. Nikolai Pavlovich spoke amazing Russian, spoke as if in the 19th century, it seemed that he had moved from the time of Lev Nikolaevich to ours and was a living bridge for all generations of Tolstoys.

American Aunties Italian Sister

Since 2000, Tolstoy congresses have been held regularly every two years. This summer there were 150 people. Now the main core is very familiar with each other, and the children are already growing up before our eyes. And some come for the first time, like this year one family from Sweden. We had an exhibition to which everyone brought family heirlooms. This is a great opportunity to remember family history. My Swedish cousin, a professional actress and director, showed her performance based on the letters of Sofia Andreevna and Lev Nikolaevich. I presented the series “Fat”, we discussed it and argued. There was also a ball at the Tula noble meeting, at which descendants danced in beautiful dresses. Although this is rather an exception. Like their ancestors, the Tolstoys gravitate towards a simple life without palaces, balls, and relaxing in nature: taking a walk, swimming in a pond, fishing, mowing the grass.

Victoria Tolstoy is the great-granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy through his son Lev

Photo by Getty Images

It is a great happiness that everyone can gather in the family nest. For example, my favorite American aunties are 100% Russian. Their father, Tolstoy's grandson, married a Russian emigrant from the famous Rodzianko family (Mikhail Rodzianko was the last chairman of the State Duma before the revolution). They lived in Belgrade, France, then moved to America. My aunt Tatyana Tolstaya, despite the fact that she grew up in a Russian environment where they speak Russian, first came to Russia at the age of 60. My Italian sister said wonderfully: “In Moscow we feel like tourists, but in Yasnaya Polyana we are at home.”

Literary gifted family

– Among the descendants there are people of various professions. As far as I know, no one became a writer, but many Tolstoys were literary gifted. Tolstoy's son Lev Lvovich wrote several stories; in encyclopedias he was called Lev Tolstoy Jr. All the children left memories. Sofya Andreevna also wrote stories. For educated people this was par for the course. Among the Tolstoys there are many people involved in language and literature, in particular, one of the most famous philologists were my father, academician Nikita Tolstoy, and my uncle, professor Ilya Tolstoy. Many descendants study the life of their family. Last year and this year we talked a lot with my Italian aunt Marta Albertina. She is writing a book about her mother and grandmother, granddaughter and daughter of Tolstoy, so she came to Moscow. We sat with her in the archives, read old letters, laughed and worried. Now, as a co-curator, I have created the exhibition “Celebrating Cannot Be Banned” at the Tolstoy Museum on Prechistenka. We decided to see how Lev Nikolayevich’s contemporaries, when he was famous and at the same time a controversial figure in society, celebrated his 80th birthday. Thousands of newspapers and magazines from that time have survived. Some said he was a great thinker, while others called not to celebrate the anniversary of a man who was excommunicated and critical of the government. It is very interesting to read also because such articles tell about the society of that time. There are also a huge number of caricatures that were printed for the anniversary of Tolstoy himself and his critics. Contemporaries were in a lively dialogue with Lev Nikolaevich, and we wanted to revive it.

Russian journalist, radio and television presenter.

Fekla Tolstaya. Biography

Fekla Tolstaya(real name - Anna Nikitichna Tolstaya ) was born into a family of professional philologists Nikita Ilyich And Svetlana Mikhailovna Tolstykh. The father called his daughter Fekla or Feklyandiya, and the childhood nickname later became a creative pseudonym.

Thekla studied at a music school, as well as at a school with in-depth teaching of English. At school age she acted in films in supporting roles (“Simply Horror!”, 1982). She graduated from the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University in 1994 with a degree in Slavic philology. Studied in graduate school. She taught at the Russian State University for the Humanities. Speaks Polish, Serbian, English, French and Italian.

In 1995 Fekla Tolstaya entered GITIS to the directing department, where she studied on the course of the famous Mark Zakharov. She graduated from her studies in 2000.

Worked at radio stations Echo of Moscow" And " Lighthouse" From 2010 to 2014, she co-hosted the program “ Mishanina"on "Silver Rain". Since 2014, they have been co-hosting the program “ Fathers and Sons».

While studying, she came to television, where she worked as a director and presenter of the programs “ Vremechko», « Night flight», « Become a star", "National artist ", " All at once», « Big lunch», « You are what you eat", documentary series " Great dynasties», « Observer"on the TV channel "Culture", etc.

Fekla Tolstaya took part in the project

The personal life of journalist and TV presenter Fekla Tolstaya is closed to the public, and she answers all questions regarding this topic evasively and with humor. When in one of her interviews she was asked if there was Fekla Tolstoy's husband, she replied that there was such a thing - a journalist named Vasily, but all this is already in the past. According to some reports, Vasily had another family at the time they met, and now there is another person next to her who shares her views and is ready to lend his shoulder in difficult times.

The charming TV presenter led several projects - “All at once!”, “Become a Star”, “People’s Artist”, “Big Lunch”, “Great Dynasties”, one of the episodes of which is dedicated to the Tolstoy dynasty. Thekla has never advertised her belonging to a famous family, and when she is introduced as a countess, she treats it with humor. Tolstaya is one of the authors of this project, which, like the rest of Fyokla’s own projects, is wise and interesting. She has never worked on entertainment channels, and her favorite channel is “Culture,” with which she has been collaborating for several years.

Tolstaya does not like social events, preferring other entertainment to them. For example, she loves to travel, and very often does it with her friend, or, so to speak, the common-law husband of Fekla Tolstoy. The TV presenter admits that she, like any girl, also dreams of getting married and knows what qualities her future husband should have.

Despite the fact that Fekla is forty-three years old, she is sure that everything must still happen - she must have a family and children, at least one baby. Fekla Tolstaya never talks about her novels, so she is surprised where news appears on the Internet that Fekla Tolstaya’s husband has appeared and is even confirmed by the corresponding photos, but all these are just rumors and unconfirmed gossip.

Thekla's parents were scientists, professionally engaged in philology. Her father called her Thekla, a name that remained with her throughout her life. That’s what all her relatives and friends called her; she kept that pseudonym for herself when she started working on television. The girl's upbringing was mainly carried out by her grandmother, and this upbringing was at home, there was no talk of any kind of kindergarten. At one time, three governesses were involved in grandmother’s upbringing, so her instructions were always comprehensive. Sometimes the grandmother took her granddaughter to Lavrushinsky Lane, where a certain respectable lady looked after the children for a small fee. She sat on a bench, and they played nearby.

When the time came to go to school, Thekla was not at all worried, since her sister Marfa had been studying at the same school for six years, and she was an excellent student. Thekla got straight A's in her studies, but her behavior was always C's. She had a “ruff” character, and more than once teachers compared her with her older sister, surprised at the girl’s behavior. She became the only one in the family who did not have a gold medal.

Among her friends there were mostly boys with whom she loved to play football. In general, the girl grew up extremely independent. In first grade, she rode the subway alone to visit her grandmothers.

While still a schoolgirl, Tolstaya starred in a cameo role in a movie, this is how the creativity inherent in her naturally manifested itself. The film was called “Simply Horror!” In addition to secondary school, the girl also graduated from music school.

After school, Thekla became a student at the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University, following in the footsteps of her parents. She was fluent in Polish, English, French, and Serbian. After graduating from university, she felt dissatisfied with her profession, she wanted something different. For some time the girl worked as a teacher at the Russian State University for the Humanities. At that time, she was friends with Anna Ardova, who advised her to enter GITIS and even helped her prepare. Tolstoy did it and never regretted it. She was lucky enough to study with Mark Zakharov. She graduated from the directing department in 2000.

Fekla Tolstaya on television

The TV presenter also has experience working on the Rossiya channel, where she hosted the programs “People’s Artist” and “Become a Star!” Working on this channel, according to Fyokla, raised her to a new level of independence.

Work on Channel One

Another big project of Channel One is “Great Dynasties”. This is a documentary series about the great families of Russia. The film crew, together with Tolstaya, traveled around the globe, conducting genealogical research, which was then presented to the audience in an interesting, artistic form. Programs were made about the Trubetskoys and Dolgorukys, the Demidovs and Golitsyns, the Sheremetevs, the Pushkins, the Vorontsovs.

Particularly interesting was working on a series of films about Tolstoy. The great-granddaughter of the famous writer knows many relatives firsthand. Working on a series of programs about her family became more emotional for her than programs about other famous families. She explored her roots through seven centuries of Russian history. Another of the channel’s projects gave the TV presenter the opportunity to try herself as an airplane pilot; she flew, doing some aerobatic maneuvers.

On the First, she participated in the show “Dancing on Ice” along with Jerome Blanchard. The girl is not good at sports, but she wanted to overcome herself. She liked the project, which Thekla enjoyed, especially since her partner helped her in everything.

Fyokla Tolstaya today

She is mainly known to the intelligent educated public. Tolstaya does not work on entertainment channels. All her works, as a rule, are subtle, interesting and wise. My favorite channel was and remains the Culture channel. She collaborates with him most often.

Personal life of Thekla Tolstoy

Tolstaya often visits the dacha. He likes to spend several days in a row there. She knows how to make simple wooden furniture with her own hands, fluently wielding a jigsaw and a plane. Chopping wood is not a problem for her either. She taught some of her friends this simple task.

At the dacha there is a huge library, which contains many books written, among other things, by her parents. She and her mother often receive guests; the house is always open to friends and family. Fyokla considers a happy day spent at the dacha to be one when she does not have to go to Moscow.

The girl claims that her famous surname does not always help. Sometimes, it is a serious obstacle, as, for example, in the case of writing articles and books. Fyokla would love to do this, especially since she believes that she is doing well, but she will never write openly with such a surname. Surely critics would begin to examine under a microscope any small article or note written by the great-granddaughter of the great Tolstoy. That is why she prefers to do her favorite thing - directing.

Yasnaya Polyana hosts congresses of the Tolstoy family, which bring together descendants of the famous family from all over the world. The TV presenter’s second cousin is the director of the estate, thanks to which the family has the opportunity to meet there. The family is huge, but everyone treats each other as close people. There are fat people in all countries of the world.

Fyokla says that it’s nice to know that wherever you go, your loved ones are there. Even if you don’t know them, once you get to know them, you immediately feel the unity of characters and kinship of souls. Tolstaya played a journalist interviewing an audience member in the play “In My Own Words,” which was staged at the “School of Modern Play.” Theater education helped her with this.