Living inspiration of Tolstoy
 The first batch of the Diploma in Journalism and Communication
Studies at the Sri Lanka Press Council staged their play titled
Deviyange Kumbura based on a parable by the great Russian writer Leo
Tolstoy. The parable named ‘The Grain’ had given impetus to this
creative communication project at class level.
This is just one parable out of the many utilized by Tolstoy to
visualize a wider range of human questions. This was also an attempt to
transfer creative communication theory into practice via group thinking.
Stefan Zwing who collected some of his short stories and parables titled
as ‘The Living Thoughts of Tolstoy’ laid down the questions as follows:
 1. Why am I living?
2. What is the cause for my existence and that everyone else?
3. What purpose has my existence or any other?
4. What does the division which I feel within me into good and evil
signify, and for what purpose is it there?
5. How must I live?
6. What is death – how can I save myself?
As we feel in the process of examining and / or interpreting
Tolstoyan creative work, the sensitive response had been a form of
creative pieces given birth as parables. Though literary scholars denote
a certain creative genre as short stories, they could be reckoned as
wider perspective born out of parables.
I have seen quite a number of Tolstoyan narratives recreated into
short plays, operas, teleplays and free theatrical pieces. The parable
‘The Grain’ had given recreation into radio plays as well as sit plays
or situational theatrical pieces all around the world. While having
watched the attempt on the part of our diploma students at Kamburugamuwa,
Devagiri Vihara premises, most villagers had comments to make. Some of
them expressed their views saying that they had the chance to gauge
themselves in the modern context.
One elderly lady commented that the free theatrical effort paved the
way for her to recall her childhood days when the village was quite calm
and serene. Those were the good old days full of generosity intermixed
with a sense of human recognition which is gradually waning off, she
said in a tone full of retrospective happiness.
The high priest of the temple commented that the play looked like the
utterance of the sages in the distant past, visualizing the impending
changes of the mankind. The performers and students have the chance for
the interchange of ideas. It is observed that though a century has gone
by since the death of Leo Tolstoy, he and his works are not realized
today. Perhaps the attempt on the part of these Diploma students paved
the way to this reassessment locally.
I envisaged the necessity to discuss and / or rediscover the living
creative legacy of Tolstoy. One should at least embark on the translated
works of Tolstoy either from the original Russian or from English
translation. To the best of my knowledge quite a number of parables and
short narratives running over hundred are translated into several short
and long biographies have appeared long time ago. The only long play
written by Tolstoy titled as ‘Power of Darkness’ was translated into
Sinhala by the late S B Senanayake.
Tolstoy’s short narrative Kreutzer Sonata has been translated, one by
K D P Wickramasinghe and the other by S G Samarasinghe. Tolstoy’s best
known work available for the Sinhala reader is his Anna Karenina. The
translation is so popular that at least three writers in three different
years had embarked on the project.
The Sinhala translation of War and Peace, the magnum opus of Tolstoy,
is translated by Cyril C Perera. Quite a long time ago the late scholar
Justin Wijewardhana translated Tolstoy’s celebrated novel ‘The
Resurrection’ in the first instance as a weekly series in a Sinhala
magazine and later as a volume titled as Punarjeevanaya.
Tolstoy’s well known short narratives such as ‘What Men Live By’,
‘Three Deaths’, ‘How Many Acres Does a Man Want?’ and ‘In Exile’ are
well known among Sinhala readers. Most of them have gone into
recreations as teleplays and films. A few years ago Tolstoy’s thought
provoking critical essay ‘What is Art’ was translated into Sinhala by
Professor A V Suraweera.
This literary essay of Tolstoy is an attempt to lay down the great
writer’s living thoughts on creativity and its significance as a vision
remains a source of inspiration for creative writers as well as critics.
It is observed that a certain type of Tolstoyan creative culture has
been laying roots in Sri Lankan soils. Quite a lot of Sinhala radio
plays have been recreated based on short stories of Leo Tolstoy. In many
ways they were adaptations. One good example is the short story titled
in English as ‘In Exile’ where a humble human being is made to be a
victim of circumstances, where he is accused of an assassination.
The short story too had gone into the making of a single episode
Sinhala teleplay called Kadaima. This short story in the first instance
was translated by Dr K G Karunatilake as Pituvahal kara Sitiyadi
included in his collection of Russian short stories titled Bimgei
Sirakaruwa, which was a prescribed text for Sinhala literature. If
examined in depth Tolstoy could be regarded as taken roots in Sri Lankan
culture. I came to know from a film review that appeared in Strait Times
that a film had been made based on the life and works of Tolstoy titled
as ‘The Last Station’. Perhaps it ought to prove a fitting gift for the
great master today.
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