On March 20, 1860, he informed his friend, author and translator Boleslav Markevich that he had written and re-written the drama, then read it to critic Vasily Botkin and writer Nikolai Kruze, who gave him their approval.
In the autumn of 1861, while in Moscow, Tolstoy recited the piece to Mikhail Katkov and Ivan Aksakov; their remarks were found to be to the point and some amends were made to the text.
[1] Tolstoy dedicated his Don Juan drama to Mozart and E. T. A. Hoffmann, since the latter was "the first to see in this character not a philanderer but a seeker of high ideal," as he explained in an 1860 letter to Markevich.
[3] As a Romanticist Tolstoy attributed to love the divine meaning, believing it to serve as a link between human soul and higher spheres.
Unlike the Tirso de Molina hero, his Don Juan acts in a fashion of a true romantic, looking for love "that helps us see through this wonderful set of universal laws, things of our world's hidden beginnings."