Nikolai Tolstoy


Count Nikolai Dmitrievich Tolstoy-Miloslavsky is a Russo-British monarchist and author who writes under the name Nikolai Tolstoy. He is a former parliamentary candidate of the UK Independence Party and is the current nominal head of the House of Tolstoy, a Russian noble family.

Early life

Born in England in 1935, Tolstoy is of part Russian descent. The son of Count Dimitri Tolstoy and Mary Wicksteed, he is a member of the noble Tolstoy family. He grew up as the stepson of author Patrick O'Brian, whom his mother married after his parents divorced. On his upbringing he has written:
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, which criticised the British forced handover of Soviet citizens to Joseph Stalin in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions. 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.

Controversy

Tolstoy 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 1986-88 trial of John Demjanjuk in Israel. In a letter to the Daily Telegraph, 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.
In 1989, Lord Aldington, previously a British officer, 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. 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. Tolstoy lost and was ordered to pay £2 million to Lord Aldington. This sum was over three times any previous award for libel.
Tolstoy delayed payment by appealing to fifteen courts in Britain and Europe, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the size of the penalty violated his right to freedom of expression. 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.
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.
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:
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.

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 of the now established War and Peace Ball, held annually in London, which raises funds for White Russian charities. A member of the Royal Stuart Society since 1954, he is presently one of the Vice-Presidents. Gregory Lauder-Frost, Countess Georgina Tolstoy, Count Nikolai Tolstoy 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, Tolstoy joined a Conservative Monday Club delegation, 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, were also part of the delegation which, after going to the front lines in the Sisak region, was entertained by President Franjo Tuđman 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 populist United Kingdom Independence Party as a parliamentary candidate in four British general elections, having first been asked by UKIP founder Alan Sked in November 1996. Tolstoy was subsequently UKIP's candidate for the Barnsley East by-election in 1996; where he received 2.1% of the vote, and for Wantage in the 1997, 2001 and 2005 general elections. Tolstoy stood for UKIP in Witney at the 2010 general election and received 3.5% of the vote.

Family

Tolstoy is the head of the senior branch of the Tolstoy family, being descended from Ivan Andreyevich Tolstoy. His relationship to the famous author Leo Tolstoy is that of a distant cousin, as Leo Tolstoy was descended from Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy, the younger brother of Ivan. Tolstoy's great-grandfather, Pavel Tolstoy-Miloslavsky, was chamberlain to the last reigning Emperor, 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, being granted British nationality in September 1946. He entered the legal profession, was called to the bar, and later appointed a Queen's Counsel.
Tolstoy himself is married and has four children: