Nikolai Tolstoy

This name uses Eastern Slavic naming customs; the patronymic is Dmitrievich and the family name is Tolstoy-Miloslavsky.
Nikolai Dmitrievich Miloslavsky
Count of Tolstoy

Count Tolstoy on Hart Fell Mountain, Scotland, 2015
Chancellor of the IML
Assumed office
1987
Preceded by Kenneth McLennan Hay
Personal details
Born (1935-06-23) 23 June 1935
London, United Kingdom
Nationality British
Political party Conservative Party
(1991–1996)
UK Independence Party
(1996–present)
Spouse(s) Georgina Brown
Children 4 children
Alma mater University of Dublin
Profession Historian, writer
Religion Russian Orthodoxy

Count Nikolai Dmitrievich Tolstoy-Miloslavsky (Russian: Николай Дмитриевич Толстой-Милославский; born 23 June 1935) is an Anglo-Russian author who writes under the name Nikolai Tolstoy. A member of the Tolstoy family, he is a former parliamentary candidate of the UK Independence Party.

Early life

Born in England in 1935, Tolstoy is of part Russian descent and is the stepson of the author Patrick O'Brian. On his upbringing he has written:

Like thousands of Russians in the present century, I was born and brought up in another country and was only able to enter the land of my ancestors as a visitor in later years. It was nevertheless a very Russian upbringing, one which impressed on me the unusual nature of my inheritance. I was baptised in the Russian Orthodox Church and I worshipped in it. I prayed at night the familiar words Oche nash, attended parties where little Russian boys and girls spoke a mixture of languages, and felt myself by manner and temperament to be different than my English friends. I think I was the most affected by those melancholy and evocative Russian homes where my elders, for the most part people of great charm and eccentricity, lived surrounded by the relics – ikons, Easter eggs, portraits of Tsar and Tsaritsa, family photographs, and émigré newspapers – of that mysterious, far-off land of wolves, boyars, and snow-forests of Ivan Bilibin's famous illustrations to Russian fairy-tales. Somewhere there was a real Russian land to which we all belonged, but it was shut away over distant seas and space of years.[1][2]

Tolstoy holds dual British and Russian citizenship. He was educated at Wellington College, Sandhurst and Trinity College, Dublin.

Literary career

Tolstoy has written a number of books about Celtic mythology. In The Quest for Merlin he has explored the character of Merlin, and his Arthurian novel The Coming of the King builds on his research into ancient British history. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1979.

He has also written about World War II and its immediate aftermath. In 1977 he wrote the Victims of Yalta,[3] which criticised the British forced handover of Soviet citizens to Joseph Stalin in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions.[4] In 1986 he wrote The Minister and the Massacres which criticised British repatriation of collaborationist troops to Josip Broz Tito's Yugoslav government, it received much critical praise, as well as criticism by Macmillan's authorised biographer.[5][6]

Controversy

He has written of the forced repatriation of Soviet citizens and others during and after World War II. As a result, he was called by the defence as an expert witness at the trial of John Demjanjuk in Israel. In a letter to the Daily Telegraph (21 April 1988), Tolstoy said the trial and the court's procedures struck "at the most vital principles of natural justice". He condemned the use of especially bussed-in audiences, who were repeatedly permitted by Judge Levin to boo and hiss at appropriate moments. He called Levin's conduct "an appalling travesty of every principle of equity", and said that it was "a show trial in every sense of the word", even being conducted in a theatre. When eventually the United States Justice Department was found to have collaborated with the Soviet authorities in suppressing evidence that he had been falsely identified, the case against Demjanjuk was dismissed.[7]

In 1989, Lord Aldington, previously a British officer (chief-of-staff to Field Marshal Alexander), former Chairman of the Conservative Party, and then Chairman of Sun Alliance insurance company, commenced a libel action over allegations of war crimes made by Tolstoy in a pamphlet distributed by Nigel Watts, a man in dispute with Sun Alliance on an insurance matter.[8] Although Tolstoy was not the initial target of the libel action, he insisted in joining Watts as defendant because, Tolstoy later wrote, Watts was not a historian and so would have been unable to defend himself.[9] Tolstoy lost and was ordered to pay £2 million to Lord Aldington (£1.5 million in damages and £0.5 million in costs). This sum was over three times any previous award for libel.[10] Tolstoy delayed payment by appealing to 15 courts in Britain and Europe, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the size of penalty violated his right to freedom of expression..[11] Documents subsequently obtained from the Ministry of Defence suggested that, under Government instructions, files that could have had a bearing on the defence case might have been withdrawn from the Public Record Office and retained by the Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office throughout the run-up to the trial and the trial itself.[12] Tolstoy sought to appeal on the basis of new evidence which he claimed proved Aldington had perjured himself over the date of his departure from Austria in May 1945. This was ruled inadmissible at a hearing in the High Courts of Justice, from which the press and public were barred, and his application for an appeal was rejected.[13]

In July 1995, the European Court of Human Rights decided unanimously that the British Government had violated Tolstoy's rights in respect of Article 10 of the Convention on Human Rights. This decision referred only to the amount of the damages awarded against him and did not overturn the guilty verdict of the libel action. The Times commented:

"In its judgment yesterday in the case of Count Nikolai Tolstoy, the European Court of Human Rights ruled against Britain in important respects, finding that the award of £1.5 million levelled against the Count by a jury in 1989 amounted to a violation of his freedom of expression. Parliament will find the implications of this decision difficult to ignore."

Tolstoy refused to pay anything in libel damages to Lord Aldington while he was alive; it was not until 9 December 2000, two days after Aldington's death, that Tolstoy paid £57,000 to Aldington's estate.[14]

Political activity

A committed monarchist, Tolstoy is Chancellor of the International Monarchist League. He was also Chairman of the London-based Russian Monarchist League, and chaired their annual dinner on 6 March 1986, when the Guest-of-Honour was the MP John Biggs-Davison. He was also in the chair for their Summer Dinner on 4 June 1987, at the Oxford and Cambridge Club in Pall Mall. Tolstoy was a founding committee member (January 1989) of the now established War and Peace Ball, held annually in London, which raises funds for White Russian charities.

Top table L to R: Christopher Arkell & Lord Nicholas Hervey (standing) Gregory Lauder-Frost (speaking to Arkell), Countess Georgina Tolstoy, Count Nikolai Tolstoy (under painting) unknown man, Lord Sudeley, at the Russian Monarchist League Annual Dinner in 1990

In October 1987, he was presented with the International Freedom Award by the United States Industrial Council Educational Foundation: "for his courageous search for the truth about the victims of totalitarianism and deceit."

In October 1991, Nikolai Tolstoy joined a Conservative Monday Club delegation,[15] under the auspices of the Club's Foreign Affairs Committee, and travelled to observe the war between Serbia and Croatia, the first British political delegation to observe that conflict. Conservative MPs Andrew Hunter, and Roger Knapman, then a junior minister in the Conservative government (and from 2002 to 2006 leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP)), were also part of the delegation which, after going to the front lines in the Sisak region, was entertained by President Franjo Tudjman and the Croatian government in Zagreb. On 13 October the group held a Press Conference at the Hotel Intercontinental in Zagreb, which apart from the media, was also attended by delegates from the French government. A report on the conflict was agreed and handed in to 10 Downing Street by Andrew Hunter.

Tolstoy has stood unsuccessfully for the Eurosceptic and right-wing populist United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) as a parliamentary candidate in four British general elections, having first been asked by UKIP founder Alan Sked in November 1996.[16] Tolstoy was subsequently UKIP's candidate for the Barnsley East by-election in 1996; where he received 2.1% of the vote,[17] and for Wantage in the 1997 (0.8%),[18] 2001 (1.9%)[18] and 2005 general elections (1.5%).[18] Tolstoy stood for UKIP in Witney at the 2010 general election and received 3.5% of the vote.[19]

Family

Tolstoy is the head of the senior branch of the Tolstoy family, being descended from Ivan Andreyevich Tolstoy (1644–1713). His relationship to the famous author Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) is that of a distant cousin, as Leo Tolstoy was descended from Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy (1645–1729), the younger brother of Ivan.

Tolstoy's great-grandfather, Pavel Tolstoy-Miloslavsky, was Chamberlain to the last reigning Tsar, Nicholas II of Russia, who had declared his intention of creating him a Count for his services, but this was deferred due to the growing crisis in Russia during the First World War. When Grand Duke Kiril succeeded to the imperial inheritance and rights, he granted Pavel Tolstoy-Miloslavsky the title, an elevation which was approved by the Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna and by Nicholas II's sisters Xenia and Olga.

Tolstoy's father, Count Dimitri Tolstoy, escaped from Russia in 1920 and settled in England. He entered the legal profession, was called to the bar and was appointed a Queen's Counsel.

Tolstoy himself is married and has four children,

His books

References

  1. ↑ Nikolai Tolstoy, The Tolstoys; Twenty-Four Generations of Russian History 1333–1983, page 8.
  2. ↑ Nikolai Tolstoy, 'Я Англичанин но в глубине души Русский', in N.V. Makarova and O.A. Morgunova (ed.), Русское Присутствие в Британии (Moscow, 2009), ISBN 978-5-8411-0277-9
  3. ↑ http://www.unz.org/Pub/Encounter-1980jun-00089 "Victims of Yalta", by Nikolai Tolstoy, Encounter, June 1980, page 89-92 – Peregrine Worsthorne, in a review, declared that, "More than enough has now emerged about the Russian deportations to stir the national conscience, and the matter cannot be left as it is. If a new war crime on this scale had suddenly come to light in Germany, Britain would be the first to agitate for an inquiry; indeed for much more than that . . . if honour, at this late stage, can never be redeemed, at least dishonour can be squarely faced."
  4. ↑ 'The Application of International Law to Forced Repatriation from Austria in 1945', in Stefan Karner, Erich Reiter, and Gerald Schöpfer (ed.), "Kalter Krieg: Beiträge zur Ost-West-Konfrontation 1945 bis 1990" (Graz, 2002)
  5. ↑ Horne, Alistair (5 February 1990). "The unquiet graves of Yalta.". National Review 42: 27. ISSN 0028-0038.
  6. ↑ Pavlowitch, Stevan K. (January 1989). "The Minister and the Massacres review". The English Historical Review 104 (410): 274–276. doi:10.1093/ehr/civ.ccccx.274.
  7. ↑ Willem A. Wagenaar, "Identifying Ivan: A Case Study in Legal Psychology" ISBN 0-7450-0396-6; Yoram Sheftel, "The Demjanjuk Affair: The Rise and Fall of a Show-Trial" ISBN 0-575-05795-5; Hans Peter Rullmann, "Der Fall Demjanjuk: Unschuldiger oder Massenmörder?" ISBN 3-925848-02-9; Jim McDonald, "John Demjanjuk: The Real Story" ISBN 0-915597-79-9
  8. ↑ Guttenplan, David (2002). The Holocaust on Trial: History, Justice and the David Irving Libel Case. London: Granta. pp. 269–271. ISBN 1-86207-486-0.
  9. ↑ Nikolai Tolstoy "Close Designs and Crooked Purposes: Forced Repatriations of Cossacks and Yugoslav Nationals in 1945", London 2012, p15
  10. ↑ Nigel Nicolson, "The final verdict on Lord Aldington". The Telegraph, 10 December 2000.
  11. ↑ "Lord Aldington". The Guardian (London). 9 December 2000. Retrieved 25 May 2010.
  12. ↑ The Sunday Times, 7 April 1996
  13. ↑ The Guardian, 28 May 1992, p.19, and 8 June 1992, p.4
  14. ↑ Alleyne, Richard (9 December 2000). "Tolstoy pays £57,000 to Aldington's estate". The Telegraph.
  15. ↑ See The Times, 15 November 1996, for a major interview with Tolstoy on p.18
  16. ↑ "Wielding a sabre for the freedom of England." The Times, London, 15 November 1996: pg 18.
  17. ↑ "Guardian Politics - Barnsley East". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
  18. 1 2 3 "Guardian Politics - Wantage". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
  19. ↑ "Guardian Politics - Witney". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
  20. ↑ Richard Eden. "Alexandra Tolstoy, the oligarch Sergei Pugachev and a 'juicy' story" The Telegraph, 26 September 2009. Retrieved 2013-01-01
  21. ↑ Richard Kay "Miss Tolstoy counts her £2bn fortune" Daily Mail 2 November 2011. Retrieved 2013-01-01.
  22. ↑ Tim Walker
  23. ↑ Tim Walker "Jeweller Xenia Tolstoy receives her gem from Lord Buckhurst" The Telegraph, 24 September 2009. Retrieved 2013-01-01.

External links

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