Tamil filmmaker, Tolstoy descendant to bring Russian great back to life

For Tolstoy fan and documentary filmmaker G Venkatesh Kumar, the Russian novelist’s work is more than just great literature. Rather, it has a close connection with Venkatesh’s own life. As a child, he grew up hearing about his great grandfather’s Tamil translations of Leo Tolstoy’s works.

Venkatesh is now all set to make a documentary on the life and literature of Tolstoy. While many documentaries have been made on the Russian novelist and thinker, the young filmmaker is working to reconstruct Tolstoy’s life —from a student at Kazan University to the time when he started working on his epic novel, War and Peace. This is a period in Tolstoy’s life, Venkatesh believes, that’s not much known to the outside world.

Ancestral connections

There is another thing that sets this film apart—the role of the Russian writer will be played by his great-great-great grandson, Andrei Vladimir Tolstoy, a journalist-actor based in Moscow.

The two-hour long documentary will be made in Russian with subtitles in English.

Andrei Tolstoy sounds excited. “It will be incredible to immerse myself in the atmosphere of the 19^th century. It is a huge honour to play the role of my forebear,” says Andrei, who works with a sports channel in Moscow.

As homework, he has read the diaries maintained by Leo Tolstoy. “I hope this documentary will bring the life and works of Leo Tolstoy to new audiences in India, Russia and across the world,” he adds.

However, for Venkatesh, the access to his own great grandfather’s translation work didn’t come as easy. As a child, he often heard stories about his great grandfather translating Tolstoy’s work  into Tamil. But he couldn’t find a record of it anywhere in his ancestral house. While Venkatesh kept searching for a copy of the book, he finally found one in the Tamil Nadu Archives in 2018.

“My grandfather Rao Sahib K Kothandapani Pillai translated three stories of Tolstoy into Tamil when he worked as deputy collector and controller of emigration during the colonial period in 1932. Titled ‘Kadhaimanikkovai’, the collection also found a place in the list of books approved by the text book committee for schools,” says Venkatesh.

Spark ‘not neglected’

In 2019, Venkatesh wrote to the Tolstoy Museum-estate in Yasnaya Polyana (the birthplace of Tolstoy) in Russia regarding the collection of stories which had been translated into Tamil by his great grandfather.

The director of the museum invited him to participate in the 14^th international seminar on translation of Tolstoy’s works. The visit, however, helped him know more about Tolstoy and his ideology.

“I could see the tables and books that Tolstoy used. It was a great opportunity to watch the handwritten manuscripts of ‘War and Peace’ and other literary works by the novelist. A week’s stay at the Tolstoy Museum-estate eventually brought in the idea of a documentary based on the early life of Tolstoy,” he says.

But Venkatesh didn’t disclose his plan to anyone. Back home, he started writing the script. It was during this time that he happened to attend an international conference on “Tolstoy to Gandhi: A philosophical journey” held in Delhi on November 21, 2019 where he met Ekaterina Tolstaya, director of Tolstoy Museum-estate and wife of Vladimir Tolstoy (great-great-grandson of Tolstoy) and their son, Andrei Vladimir Tolstoy.

Venkatesh sensed the younger Tolstoy’s resemblance in Andrei. “It was not by chance that I asked Andrei to play the role of his forebear in the documentary. Andrei’s face resembles the photographs of Leo Tolstoy during his university days. When I asked him, he said fine,” says Venkatesh.

A couple of weeks later, he got a formal letter from the museum. “The Yasnaya Polyana Museum-estate of Leo Tolstoy approves your work on the documentary project titled “The life of Leo Tolstoy and literature,” it said.

Understanding Tolstoy

But the pandemic brought in stumbling blocks to his plan. “I finished the script. All preliminary works have been done,” says Venkatesh, who has returned from Russia after spending a couple of weeks at Yasnaya Polyana in June 2021.

Since the pandemic related restrictions were on in Russia, Kumar had to travel alone and this in a way helped. He could take a close look at the photographs of Tolstoy taken at different periods displayed at the museum. The burial of Tolstoy, however, was special as the writer wanted it in a natural way surrounded by birch trees.

“The museum taught me a lot about the ideology of Tolstoy. His style of living based on the elements of nature was special. The initiative that he took for opening a school for the children of the peasants in the region was one of the great contributions,” he says.

Many freedom fighters, political leaders and activists had written to Tolstoy seeking his advice on how to achieve freedom for India from the colonial rulers. The records at the writer’s Museum-estate show that Tolstoy had received more than 50,000 letters from people across the world for which he replied only to a few. Tolstoy’s letter to Taraknath Das titled “A letter to a Hindu” (14 December, 1908) got much attention. The communication between Mahatma Gandhi and Tolstoy on various topics thorough letters evoked tremendous response among people. “The records at the museum show that people from Madras started writing to him even in the beginning of the 1990s. In 1901, Tolstoy replied to A Ramaseshan who edited “The Arya”, a monthly magazine published from Madras. In 1907, he replied to D Gopal Chetty, who edited “The New Reformer,” says Venkatesh, quoting the records of the museum.

Leo Tolstoy was born in Yasnaya Polyana in the Tula province of Russia in 1828. He studied law and oriental languages at the University of Kazan. In 1851, he joined an artillery regiment in the Caucasus. In 1862, Tolstoy married Sofya Andreyevna Berg. He started writing ‘War and Peace’ in 1863, which he eventually published between 1865 and 68. ‘Anna Karenina’ (1875-1877) and ‘A Confession’ (1879-82) followed. In ‘A Confession’, one can see a drastic change in the life and works of Tolstoy. He became a rationalist and moralist. He died in 1910.

Venkatesh says he has prepared a detailed plan for the shoot. “I will be using a bilingual interpreter during the shoot, as most members in the crew speak only Russian. But that’s not an issue. I am waiting for the pandemic imposed restrictions to be lifted so that I can start the work,” he says, adding that he is planning to finish the work in a couple of months.