KOTLIAROV was born in Moscow April 20, 1937, and graduated from the Moscow State University’s historical faculty, earning a degree in art history. He served in aviation, and in 1958 he barely survived after crashing a nuclear bomber aircraft. The artist, who adopted alias TOLSTY (“Fat”), later recalled that experience when he used X-Ray plates in his work. In the Soviet Union he worked as a radio announcer, electronic engineer, and art renovator. In 1979 Vladimir left the USSR and settled in Paris. At first, he lived in misery and earned a living washing dishes. However, being a radical avantgardist, TOLSTY scorned bourgeois greed, and was not ashamed of his poverty. Quite the opposite, KOTLIAROV sought to underscore his rejection of monetary spirit, and in 1995 he invented a new type of art: he started to destroy money, cutting bills and covering the glued-together shreds with political and philosophical texts and slogans, turning them into works of art. In Paris he created the Russian anarchist group Black Repartition of Land and Liberty and developed its theoretical conception, proposing to augment the classic “Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood” triade with an extra one - “Mutual aid, Education, Honour”. In France, after securing support from emigre rebels - Eduard LIMONOV, Konstantyn K. KUZMINSKY, Alexei KHVOSTENKO, Vagrich BAKHCHANYAN - TOLSTY started publishing almanac magazine Muleta, and later the newspaper Vecherniy Zvon (Evening Bells), in which he often explicitly mocked the rest of emigre “elites”. TOLSTY was actively propagating anarchism in his publications. The entire 4th volume of Muleta [published in 1986] was dedicated to anarchism. Tolsty published two of his own articles in it - “Lessons of the Chinese Anarchism” and “Praising Makhnovtchina” (under pen name Katsapov), and fully reprinted Peter Kropotkin’s brochure “Anarchism”. As an actor, he played in dozens of films, including Un Indien Dans la Ville (1994), La Reine Margot (1994), and Ronin (1998). He died on February 23, 2013 in Paris, France.