A Myth of the People in Leo Tolstoy’s Drama “The Power of Darkness”

The myth of the people is one of the main axiological myths in Russian literature. In the works of D. V. Grigorovich, I. S. Turgenev, N. A. Nekrasov, F. M. Dostoevsky, L. N. Tolstoy, and narodnik writers, the Russian peasants are portrayed as the best part of the nation. In Leo Tolstoy’s play, the plot creates the illusion of this myth’s destruction (the power of money, adultery, and child murder). But Tolstoy is not interested in the crime itself, rather, he is concerned with the reasons that led to it. Nikita is cut off from the peasant world. Life outside the family, life in the cooperative contributed to the hero’s initial moral decline. This is the socio-economic truth. However, further on the author leads the reader and viewer from this socio-economic truth, the truth of gender, to the truth of God’s judgment. Akim, who exhibits traits of Russian sanctity (asceticism and foolishness for Christ), becomes the bearer of this truth. Both Nikita’s repentance and the peasants’ silence is also presented in the context of the myth of the people. Repentance is the first step toward the renewal and purification of the sinner. Thus, in his drama “The Power of Darkness,” Tolstoy does not destroy the myth of the people; he integrates it into the new socio-economic reality of the Russian Empire.