Poetics of biographical play «Returning to own circuit» by Iona Drutse about Lev Tolstoy

The events of Drutse’s play about Tolstoy leaving his estate, Yasnaya Polyana, rely on documents: Tolstoy’s diaries and letters, memories of close relatives and friends. The dramatist makes clear that Tolstoy’s departure should be treated as a moral heroism that reinforced his ideas about creative freedom, about conscience and truth. Drutse managed to combine the laws of drama play with historical facts, using the compositional principle of parallelism, as well as motivic way in organizing the dramatic action.