The Power of Darkness (Tolstoy)

Reading notes

• To I. L. Leontyev, 10 January 1888. Moscow. §9 Davydov called on me ... read ... from Tolstoy's "The Power of Darkness." He ought to play Akim.

  The actor Vladimir Davydov spent a night reading aloud from Tolstoy's 1886 peasant tragedy "The Power of Darkness"; Chekhov suggests Davydov should take the role of Akim, the pious, stammering peasant father -- a casting aside rather than a report of an actual production.

• To M. P. Chekhova, 14 January 1890. Petersburg. §3 Tolstoy's "The Power of Darkness" on the stage

  Lev Tolstoy's peasant tragedy \emph{The Power of Darkness} ("Власть тьмы", 1886), banned from the stage for several years on grounds of its brutal subject matter and only cleared for public performance in early 1890 -- the production Chekhov reports seeing here is among its first public Petersburg stagings.

• To A. I. Sumbatov, 28 January 1890. Petersburg. §10 "The Power of Darkness" at the Priselkovs'

  Tolstoy's peasant tragedy (established) had only just been cleared for public staging in early 1890 after years of censorship (compare, 14 January 1890, reporting an early public Petersburg staging); the performance Chekhov reports here, "at the Priselkovs'" -- a private household (new to this corpus) -- was most likely a private or amateur staging rather than a public one, consistent with the play's still-recent and uneven path to the public stage. Chekhov's one-word verdict, "Good," reads warmer by contrast with the immediately preceding dismissal of the two public productions.

• To K. G. Foti, 3 May 1890. Tyumen. §6 a copy of Leo Tolstoy's \"The Power of Darkness\" with the author's own signature

  Tolstoy's peasant tragedy \emph{Vlast tmy} ("The Power of Darkness," 1886), only cleared for public stage performance in early 1890 after years of censorship on grounds of its brutal subject matter (compare, written the previous month, where Chekhov reports attending one of its first Petersburg performances). Chekhov's ability to obtain and forward a copy bearing Tolstoy's own signature -- rather than a mere printed edition -- reflects both his personal acquaintance in Moscow literary circles and the value he placed on giving the Taganrog library holdings no local reader could otherwise easily reach.