On this day, the 5th of September 1817, Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy was born.
A writer, a poet, an interpreter, a satirist… He was the one who created Kozma Prutkov – a generalized character of a Russian bureaucrat with his famous utterances. Tolstoy was friends with Alexander II since childhood. When he was a little boy, he visited Goethe and was influenced by his poetry for his whole life. He also was an author of historical novels, ballads and poems. 70 of his poems were musicalized by the great composers – Chaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Rimsky-Korsakov, Cui… Who of the admirers of Russian romance hasn’t heard at least one time ‘Amidst the noisy ball’?