Reconfiguring the empire through performance: Petr Fomenko’s 2001 production of Tolstoi’s War and Peace

In his stage adaptation of War and Peace Petr Fomenko was seeking to break out of the creative fetters of the past and produce a version of War and Peace which spoke to the post-Soviet condition. A connection can be identified between Tolstoi’s search for a cohesive vision of the Russian empire, via his novel, in the 1860s and Fomenko’s search, via its adaptation, for a cohesive narrative of continuity at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Because of the canonical status of War and Peace the theatre audience is invited to engage in a dialogue between the innovative performance and their established ideas of Russian history, derived from the novel itself. In Fomenko’s view, therefore, theatre has the power to transform established beliefs. In the case of adaptations he seeks to bridge the gap between source and performed texts, and indeed to lay this process bare: thus, actors periodically read from a copy of War and Peace placed on a table on stage. The optimistic tone of the novel’s ending survives the transposition: Fomenko’s production celebrates the notion of youthful optimism, the vision of family happiness and the resilience of Russians to survive any corruptive influences from the west.