#sumarokov

Ёкене – perfectly alright in the context

Comedy is to amuse and to point our social flaws/vices

Shift of comedy in a local direction: Dmitry (the tragedy) seems like it could be in any country, but for comedy to be more effective it HAS to be more local, more Russified

Elagin is the first to Russify his translations of comedies

Act 2: devoted to the opposite side (Georgy and Ksenya) and the refusal to go through with the fake marriage.

Act 3: the ideological act.

In Act 1, Dmitry speaks about how he wants Russia bowing down to the Pope

Sumarokov was not deeply religious, why is he playing up antagonism to Catholicism?

Catholicism is a monarchial structure; Orthodoxy is much more conciliar

He underscores the political issues that will emerge in the Third Act

Act 3 asks what gives a ruler the right to be a ruler?

Parmen speaks relatively radically AND justifies Catherine’s usurpation of Peter III’s power: Sumarokov’s ideas have matured since he claimed in 1762 that she was deus ex machine to save Russia from a terrible fate under Peter III.

Georgy believes that autocracy is best for Russia, no one is questioning it: he is merely saying it needs to be tempered by laws and Catherine agrees with this -> she rewrote the Russian law code, after all.

Can you reconcile belief in autocracy with enlightenment ideals?

Georgy claims there are two things which equalize all men:

Love and Death

If you can’t overcome your passion for Ksenya, you are a prisoner too.

Emotion allows him to escape the tyranny of tyranny, because all men must bow to it.

We see the unities that characterized Greek/French tragedies

Of time, of place, of action (which means no subplots)

What is the tension in this play?

1) Will Dmitry succeed in quelling the rebellion?

2) Will Ksenya have to marry him? (This second one we don’t know until the end)

We know that there is no end for Dmitry but demise, and the question is why?

The characters are one dimensional to the point of being caricatures of vice or virtue

Nothing can change Dmitry (it’s built into the genre!) but what’s remarkable is that he doesn’t even try – he only wants to be as evil as can be.

Georgii is the exact opposite of Dmitry

Parmen is the only one who seems at lest a little two-dimensional: we don’t really know what side he’s on until the very end when he saves Ksenya’s life

All of this may make for bad drama, but it’s good poetry and it means that they conceptualized drama as enacted poetry

It was approved by Catherine and she didn’t perceive there to be anything anti-monarchial in it

We are working with an imported genre: not only the form, but a lot of the baggage comes with it: so a big question is how it’s going to be Russified

Sumarokov starts with a historical tale: Meuller, a German working in the Academy as historian and geographer, provided him with the material.

He was also inspired by the use of this theme in Western European literature: Schiller and some Spanish writers had written about Dmitry! In most cases he was presented in a positive light,

Gizel’ Inokentnyi wrote a synopsis of Russian history which may be a source for Dmitry as evil.

Some of the historical liberties which Sumarokov took include:

Ksenya was daughter of Gudonov, not Shiusky, and there was no love.

She establishes a Russian theatre, and Sumarokov is considered the father of Russian theatre

The plays were written in verse, followed the rules of classical tragedy, all actors were males

1756: Russian National Theatre – the first public theatre (there was one in Yaroslavl privately established, so the Empress brought them to Petersburg)

1759: Sumarokov was the first director of the theatre, but he lost his position because was too obnoxious agitating for more funds

Trediakovsky is still stuck in a 13 syllable syllabic world

Sumarokov is writing in iambs

Repeating “села” is creating an effect, an oral effect

Avoids archaisms as much as he can (дружок!); is so very low, very conversational

His archaisms seems ironic

The ethic of it is less fun than the playing with the text: literature is becoming for fun, not just for education

Хвостов: he was ridiculed for his ineptness at the beginning of the 19th century

An “archaist” who stands against Karamzin and it is weird to be archaic in a fable

By 1802 you just can’t write a fable with archaisms, and people laughed at him

Krylov was the master! What gives it that very special character?

His народный flourish! His diminutives: he became enormously famous straight away

Вольный ямб: “free iamb” : you are allowed to make lines shorter or longer as you please

Why is this better for “lower” style? What does it do?

A little less artificial

Also you don’t have to worry about “filler”

It also really frees up your syntax

Where can we find вольность?

Satires; basny; skazki; comedies (think of Woe from Wit as an example)

Metrical irregularities are highly typical: music frees the meter

It will become a much more regularized genre in the 19th century

Level of diction is going down – simple language, no archaisms, more folkisms

Modeled on Russian folk songs! (an antique genre)

Almost total absence of imagery: very straightforward!