Fruits of culture

Imagine if your entire village's survival depended on what the dead told the landowner at a seance. That is the crazy scenario in Leo Tolstoy's satirical play 'Fruits of Culture'. Written at a time when Russia's aristocracy was in decline and widespread famine was sowing the seeds of the coming Russian Revolution, it was a clear - and courageous - attack on the injustice meted out by the ruling classes. The peasants are in grave peril when the landowner refuses their request to buy land for farming. But an insider is on the case. Can the maid Tanya pull off a plan to get them their land - and to marry the man she loves, a fellow servant? Other books and plays that focus on the occult and spiritualism include Noel Coward's 'Blithe Spirit', 'The Pale Horse' by Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle's 'The Land of Mist'. Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was a Russian author, a master of realistic fiction and one of the world's greatest novelists. Tolstoy's major works include 'War and Peace' (1865–69) and 'Anna Karenina' (1875–77), two of the greatest novels of all time and pinnacles of realist fiction. Beyond novels, he wrote many short stories and later in life also essays and plays. In the years following the publication of 'War and Peace' Tolstoy - who was born to a Russian aristocratic family - had a spiritual awakening that made him a committed Christian anarchist and pacifist. His philosophy inspired Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.