TESICH AND TOLSTOY
Tesich and Tolstoy

Summary/Abstract: In his interviews, Steve Tesich often referred to Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. This is not surprising because he is of Slavic origin and because, as an undergraduate student in Indiana, and graduate student at Columbia, he studied Russian Literature. The influence of Dostoevsky is obvious in his play On the Open Road, where the second coming of Christ (reference to the Grand Inquisitor chapter in The Brothers Karamazov) is central to both the plot and the overall meaning of the play. This paper will highlight Tesich’s less obvious connection with Tolstoy, and focus on the importance that Tolstoy’s evolving views on war and peace (and the Tolstoy-Gandhi-Martin Luther King connection and tradition) had on the development of Tesich’s own ‘historical sense’ and anti-war art and activism. This paper argues that in his late plays, preoccupied with ethical questions, Tesich was composing his own version of Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God Is Within You, and clarifying his own “New Theory of Life”.

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