Tolstoy’s Petersburg Acquaintances: Grigory Grigoryevich Ge

In December 1904, through A.L. Tolstoy, who was trying to present her plays in the capital’s theatres, the first meeting of Alexei Tolstoy with Grigory Grigorievich Ge took place. At this time, the future writer was still a student, and Grigory Grigorievich was a famous playwright and artist of the St. Petersburg Imperial Alexandrinsky Theatre. According to the author of the article, later Tolstoy, turning to the dramatic genre, renewed his acquaintance with Ge and continued communication with him, which significantly influenced the writer’s work. Having no documentary sources, the author of the article nevertheless bases her version on a detailed analysis of Tolstoy’s statements, which are autobiographical in nature, and on textual studies of his works. In addition, oral testimony from Ge’s relatives, in particular, his eldest son, Hollywood actor Gregory Gaye, the brother of Iya Grigorievna Ge (Lady Abdy), who, according to an earlier version of the author of the article, served as the main prototype for Zoe Monrose in Tolstoy’s science fiction novel The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin, is used as evidence. For the first time, fragments of a letter from Gregory Gaye to his father are published, which give reason to believe that, in addition to other sources, Tolstoy could get information about Lady Abdy from her father, Grigory Grigorievich Ge.