Count Tolstoy-Miloslavsky is head of the senior branch of the Tolstoy and Miloslavsky families (Maria Ilinichna Miloslavskaya married the Tsar Alexei Mihailovich in 1648). His father escaped from Russia in 1920, and came to England where Nikolai was born near Maidstone, Kent. He was educated at Wellington College and Trinity College Dublin, where he graduated with Honours BA and MA in Modern History and Political Theory.An account of his immediate family background may be found in the last chapter of his family history THE TOLSTOYS. He holds dual British and Russian citizenship. The development of his concern with post war forced repatriation is set out in the prefaces to VICTIMS OF YALTA and THE MINISTER AND THE MASSACRES, and his long standing fascination with the Arthurian legend and Celtic studies in THE QUEST FOR MERLIN.
Nikolai and his wife Georgina have four children: Alexandra, Anastasia, Dmitri, and Xenia. They live in a 17th century house overlooking the Berkshire Downs, near Oxford.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Adjunct Professor at Utah Valley State College. 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 January 1993 he was appointed by Ataman G.G. Krutov of the Moscow Cossack Krug to the rank of Essaul (Captain) in the Cossack Host. In June 1996 at a military ceremony commemorating the Nazi invasion of Russia he was presented with a ceremonial sabre by the All-Russian Cossack Ataman Alexander Gavrilovich Martynov, and appointed an honorary Terek Cossack. He holds Russian and British citizenship.
He has written the following books:
THE FOUNDING OF EVIL HOLD SCHOOL (1968): a Gothic fantasy for children.
NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES (1972): the story of Hitler’s Blood Purge of 1934.
VICTIMS OF YALTA (1978): the history of the forced repatriation of Soviet citizens in 1944 47. In consequence of the public outcry following the revelations in this book, a committee drawn from members of all parties in both Houses of Parliament arranged the erection of a memorial to the victims in central London. A translation was recently published by the Russian Defence Ministry as part of the official history of the Great Patriotic War, and the book is required reading at the Russian Staff College.
THE HALF MAD LORD (1978): a biography of Thomas Pitt, 2nd Baron Camelford (1775 1804), an eccentric prize fighting peer who attempted to assassinate Napoleon with a specially invented repeating pistol.
STALIN’S SECRET WAR (1981): an analysis of Stalin’s security preoccupations at home and abroad, which his daughter Svetlana described as ‘the best biography of my father ever written’.
THE TOLSTOYS: TWENTY FOUR GENERATIONS OF RUSSIAN HISTORY (1983): a history of Nikolai’s family from 1353 to the present day.
THE QUEST FOR MERLIN (1985): an investigation into the Celtic, shamanistic, and psychic origins of the Merlin legend.
THE MINISTER AND THE MASSACRES (1986): an exposé of the responsibility of Harold Macmillan for the forced repatriation of Cossacks and Yugoslav citizens from British occupied Austria in 1945. This book was censored in England, and removed from the Bodleian and other research libraries. It is understood to be the first book suppressed on political grounds for exactly two centuries, the last being Thomas Paine’s THE RIGHTS OF MAN, prohibited in 1791.
‘Russian National Character’, in Michael Hurst (ed.), STATES, COUNTRIES, PROVINCES (1986).
THE COMING OF THE KING: THE FIRST BOOK OF MERLIN (1988): an historical novel set in sixth century Britain and Europe, published also in the United States, Russia, Germany, and Italy.
‘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).
PATRICK O’BRIAN: THE MAKING OF THE NOVELIST (2004): the first volume of a biography of his late stepfather, whose novel Master and Commander was made into a major feature film by 20th Century Fox, starring Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany.
‘Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Merlin Legend’, in Arthurian Literature XXV (Cambridge, 2008).
‘The Mysterious Fate of the Cossack Atamans’, in Harald Stadler, Rolf Steininger, and Karl C. Berger (ed.), Die Kosaken im Ersten und Zweiten Weltkrieg (Innsbruck, 2008).
This year the Edwin Mellen Press published his book THE OLDEST BRITISH PROSE LITERATURE: THE COMPILATION OF THE FOUR BRANCHES OF THE MABINOGI. It was awarded the Adele Mellen Prize.
Tolstoy’s books have been published in English, Croatian, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
In addition he has published articles on Celtic studies in learned journals, numerous articles and reviews on political and historical topics, appears regularly on television and radio programmes, and delivers lectures at universities, international academic conferences, and other venues around the globe from Canada and USA to Korea, Australia, and Chile.
His preferred amusements are haunting second hand and academic bookshops, walking, tennis, and drinking in inns. He is a member of Britain’s second oldest (1735) dining society, the Sublime Society of Beef Steaks (motto ‘Beef and Liberty’) and the Cavalry and Guards Club.
He is Chancellor of the Monarchist League, President of the Association of Bankrupts, a Patron of the United Kingdom Independence Party, a Distinguished Patron of the Orchestra of the World, Patron of CountyWatch, and a life member of the Royal Stuart Society, the Royal Martyr Church Union, and the Forty Five Association. He is a member of the Association of Russian Nobility, the Society of Descendants of Veterans of the War of 1812, the Association for the Memory of the Russian Imperial Guards, the Russian Heraldry Society, the Society of Authors, the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, the Countryside Alliance, the Supporters of the Old Berks Hunt, and the International Arthurian Society.
