The iconic masks of the Italian commedia dell’arte—Harlequin, Pierrot, Colombina, Pulcinella, and others—have been vagabonding the roads of Russian cultural history for more than three centuries. This book explores how these masks, and the artistic principles of the commedia dell’arte that they embody, have profoundly affected the Russian artistic imagination, providing a source of inspiration for leading Russian artists as diverse as nineteenth-century writer Nikolai Gogol, modernist theater director Evgenii Vakhtangov, Vladimir Nabokov, and the empress of Russian popular culture Alla Pugacheva. The author presents a new perspective on this topic, showing how the commedia dell’arte has nourished a rich cultural tradition in Russia.
Price: $109.00
Pages: 294
Publisher: Academic Studies Press
Imprint: Academic Studies Press
Series: Liber Primus
Publication Date:
31 March 2017
Trim Size: 9.21 X 6.14 in
ISBN: 9781618115713
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:
Literary studies: general
"A treasure-trove of a book, Partan’s meticulously researched and thought-provoking exploration of the influence of the Italian commedia dell’arte on the Russian cultural developments in the last three hundred years will be of significant interest not only to scholars of Russian studies and comparative literature but also to specialists in theater and performance studies. Its breadth of thinking and range of reference are truly astonishing. The book offers an entertainingly readable and widely informative account of early harlequinized art forms found in Russia in the eighteenth century; Trediakovsky’s Russified versions of commedia dell’arte’s plays; Gogol’s works; Diaghilev’s ballets; Blok’s plays; and Nabokov’s Look at the Harlequins!; as well as Soviet and post-Soviet engagement with this Italian tradition, including Vakhtangov’s production of Princess Turandot and Alla Pugacheva’s artistic persona. This timely and relevant book is marked by its crisply organized structure and lucid narration. It is also richly supplemented by visual materials that will enable the reader to visualize the many-faceted forms of Russian laughter infused with merry childishness and the flamboyant spirit of the Italian artistic imagination rooted in the Renaissance culture."
— Alexandra Smith, Reader in Russian Studies, University of Edinburgh
Olga Partan is Assistant Professor of Russian at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts. She received her PhD with a dissertation on the commedia dell’arte in Russian culture from Brown University in 2004. She has authored several articles and book chapters on Russian literature and the performing arts, and a Russian-language memoir You were right, Filumena! (Moscow: PROZAiK, 2012).
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
A Note on Transliteration
Introduction
Chapter 1: Early Harlequinized Art
Chapter 2: Anna Ioannovna’s Italian Decade
Chapter 3: Russifying the Commedia dell’Arte: Vasilii Trediakovsky and Aleksandr Sumarokov
Chapter 4: Ramifications of the Italian Decade
Chapter 5: Nikolai Gogol’s The Overcoat: The Italian Ancestry of Akakii Bashmachkin
Chapter 6: The Modernist Revival of the Commedia dell’Arte
Chapter 7: The Commedia dell’Arte in Evgenii Vakhtangov’s Princess Turandot
Chapter 8: Harlequin and His Lath: Vladimir Nabokov’s Last Novel Look at the Harlequins!
Chapter 9: From the Empress Anna Ioannovna to the Empress of Popular Culture, Alla Pugacheva
Epilogue: The Italian Arlecchino on the Post-Soviet Stage
