Aleksei Konstantinovitch Tolstoï est un lointain parent du célèbre Lev Nikolaïévitch. Il compte parmi les bons écrivains russes du XIX^e siècle mais son poème dramatique Don Juan restait inconnu du public français. Michel Cadot présente une version fidèle aux principes énoncés par Efim Etkind, le regretté théoricien russe de la traduction poétique.

A.Tostoï’s dramatic poem (1862, unpublished in French) is to add to the collection of dramatic rewritings of Don Juan’s myth. Dona Anna is genuinely loved by Don Juan in this highly original version where, as in Faust, intervene dialogues between Satan and the celestial spirits. Two outcomes were successively imagined by A. Tolstoï. The first is faithful to the history of the rich Sevillan Don Juan de Marana that inspired the myth; Don Juan dies old and repentant. The second supposes he dies from a cardiac arrest when informed of Dona Anna’s death. This version, inspired from Molière, Mozart, history and very little from Pouchkine, will interest all the myth’s amateurs, particularly comparatists.