Leo Tolstoy (1828 – 1910) did much more than just write the mammoth historical epic, War and Peace. Literature involves more than just reading huge and unwieldy tomes that sit gathering dust in the Classics section. Those works we regard as Classics are important, to be sure. Please read War and Peace, if that is your wish. However, literature helps us define our understanding of ourselves. Whom we admire as the ‘great authors’ can teach us about power relations – and how we view the world – in contemporary times.

Why start with Leo Tolstoy? Because he was not only a great novelist and writer, but an intelligent social commentator. Born into a wealthy family and serving as an officer in the Crimean War, Tolstoy articulated a critique of the Russian state and Orthodox Christianity. Retaining respect for the original message of compassion and empathy contained in the sayings of Jesus, he nevertheless rejected supernatural deities, attacking the theology of the Church as crafty superstitions. He remarked that there is no afterlife, and the biblical account of miracles is fictional.

His wide ranging criticisms of the Imperial Russian state and organised religion did not stop there. He stridently defended the Boxer Rebellion in China. That rebellion (1900-01) was a widespread and tumultuous uprising – a modern jacquerie – by the Chinese peasantry against the foreign encroachments and creeping annexation of Chinese territory. Tsarist Russia, one of multiple nations with economic interests in China, sent troops as part of a counter insurgency intervention to suppress that rebellion.

Tolstoy, a former Russian army officer, noted that the Chinese, having suffered decades of violent foreign occupation, responded with peaceful means in the first place. Seeing their magnanimous actions suppressed with horrendous violence by the occupying powers (Britain, France, the US, among others), the Chinese resorted to violent methods as a last resort. Supporting anti-imperialist movements in Asia, Tolstoy reached out to Mahatma Gandhi, lending his voice to the Indian campaign against British colonialism.

Why am I raising this subject? For two main reasons. Firstly, the Russian embassy in Australia, in line with Kremlin policies and objectives, is encouraging the building of statues and busts of Alexander Pushkin, arguably the greatest of the Russian playwrights and authors. Now, there is nothing wrong with promoting Pushkin – reading his works is very commendable. However, the campaign to raise awareness of Pushkin is more than just a literary exercise.

The Moscow government is attempting to weaponise Alexander Pushkin, mobilising Russian nationalist sentiment among the expatriate community. To be sure, all embassies engage in similar activities. Let’s face it, the reason that William Shakespeare, as brilliant as he was, has become the unrivalled bard (bardology) of the English-speaking world is not an altruistic concern for literature, but a deliberate effort by the British empire to solidify cultural ties to the English homeland.

The British empire, in its zeal to strengthen its transnational project of imperial expansion, relied on cultural ties as much as brute force to unite its disparate colonies. However, there is a second reason for discussing this subject. Ta-Nehisi Coates, African American writer and commentator, was answering a question that Saul Bellow raised back in the 1980s – ‘who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus?’

That culture war remark, though later denied by Bellow, did raise awareness of a gap in our conception of literature’s ‘great authors’. We have a very narrow, exclusively white European-oriented view of what makes up the canons of literature. A direct response to Bellow’s question is easy to find; Zulu writers such as Benedict Wallet Vilakazi, Mazisi Kunene, and John Langalibalele Dube can rightly claim Tolstoy’s mantle in sub-Saharan Africa.

Before there was the English philosopher and darling of Western liberalism, John Locke, there was the Ethiopian philosopher and writer Zera Yacob (1599 – 1692). He, along with other African writers, articulated a concept of Enlightenment prior to the British heavyweights. But more than just listing African Tolstoys, there is a wider point to be made. Our curriculum needs to be globalised.

It is commendable to read Shakespeare, Pushkin and the greats. There is no disputing their immense contribution to world literature and culture. The Kremlin is promoting Pushkin worldwide, while in Ukraine Pushkin’s statues are being demolished as part of a widespread programme of de-Russification. The key difference between Moscow’s policies today and those of the Soviet period is that during the Soviet times, non-Russian authors were deliberately cultivated and promoted.

The state promotion of literature – the USSR did openly what the imperialist nations did covertly during the Cold War.

The ex-Soviet republics, such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia, were encouraged by the official authorities to develop a literary culture indigenous to those republics. As long as you were loyal to the Communist project, non-Russian writers, musicians and authors were heavily subsidised by the state and promoted. Chingiz Aitmatov, (1928 – 2008), born in Soviet Kyrgyzstan, produced an impressive literary output during his career. Despite the political problems he faced, he continued his creative literary activities for decades.

The Nobel Prize winning poet and humanist Rabindranath Tagore was not only admired in his native India, but was strongly influenced by his visits to the USSR. This cross cultural fertilisation is what is lacking into today’s western influenced curriculum. Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in literature as a lyricist, and that decision generated a huge controversy. Well before him, Tagore, the Nobel laureate and Bengali literary giant, wrote the lyrics of what became the national anthems of three nations. Perhaps we should be aware of that before attacking Dylan’s status as a Nobel prize recipient.

Expanding and diversifying the literary curriculum does not involve the repudiation or cancellation of the existing repertoire of writers. It consists of elaborating our understanding of non-European cultures and their literary contributions. We should all become familiar with the work of the multiple authors who could qualify as the Tolstoy of the Zulus.