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Kheraskov’s Gonimye : Shakespeare’s Second Appearance in Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Michael Green
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Extract

Some seventeen years ago, P. N. Berkov wrote: “The least-known aspect of the still comparatively unexplored field of Anglo-Russian cultural relations in the eighteenth century is that of the history of the stage and of stage-plays.“ The statement is hardly less true today. Berkov went on to say that a single question—“that of how far the Russian reader and theatergoer was familiar with Shakespeare’s work“—had attracted the lion’s share of scholarly attention. Even in this area, however, work remains to be done, and it will be the aim of the present essay, by demonstrating the relationship between Kheraskov’s drama Gonimye and Shakespeare’s The Tempest, to add a small but necessary link to the chain of our knowledge of Shakespeare in Russia.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , June 1976 , pp. 249 - 257
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1976

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References

1. Berkov, P. N., “English Plays in St. Petersburg in the 1760's and 1770's,” Oxford Slavonic Papers, vol. 8 (Oxford, 1958), p. 90.Google Scholar

2. Notably by Lirondelle, André, Shakespeare en Russie (Paris, 1912)Google Scholar; and Bulgakov, A. S., “Rannee znakomstvo s Shekspirom v Rossii,” Teatral'noe nasledstvo: Sbornik pervyi (Moscow, 1934), pp. 47—1181Google Scholar

3. Sumarokov, A. P., “Otvet na kritiku,” Polnoe sobranie vsekh sochinenii, vol. 10 (Moscow, 1782), p. 117.Google Scholar

4. Svodnyi katalog russkoi knigi XVIII veka 1725-1800, vol. 3 (Moscow, 1966), p. 184.

5. Sumarokov, A. P., Polnoe sobranie vsekh sochinenii, vol. 3 (Moscow, 1781), p. 59.Google Scholar

6. Sumarokov, A. P., Isbrannye proisvedeniia (Leningrad, 1957), pp. 117 and 129.Google Scholar

7. “Lettre de M. Algarotti sur la tragédie de Jules César, ” Ocuvres complètes de Voltaire, vol. 2 (Paris, 1877), p. 313. Although this prefatory letter, which first appeared in the edition of 1736, is attributed to Algarotti, it is most likely from the pen of Voltaire himself. In a “Preface” to the same play, avowedly by the dramatist himself, we find essentially the same view expressed: “Shakespeare ètait un grand gènie, mais il vivait dans un siécle grossier; et Ton retrouve dans ses pieces la grossiéretè de ce temps beaucoup plus que le gènie de l'auteur (ibid., p. 309).

8. Lounsbury, T. R., Shakespeare and Voltaire (New York, 1902), p. 3.Google Scholar

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10. A. Lirondelle, Shakespeare en Russie, p. 34.

11. As Sumarokov wrote in his “Epistola I” (Icbrannye proicvedeniia, p. 121): Svoistvo Komedii—izdevkoi pravit’ nrav; Smeshat’ i pol'zovat'—priamoi ee ustav.

12. In the preface to Dimitrii Samozvancts (A. P. Sumarokov, Polnoe sobranie vsckh sochincnii, vol. 4, p. 62). The outburst was occasioned by the success enjoyed by a Russian version of Beaumarchais's sentimental drama Eugenie in Moscow in 1770.

13. Alekseev, M. P., “D. Didro i russkie pisateli ego vremeni,” XVIII vek, vol. 3 (Moscow-Leningrad, 1958), p. 424.Google Scholar

14. A spate of translations from Diderot's dramas appeared in the course of the 1760s. Each of Diderot's two dramas was translated several times, Le fils naturel by an anonymous hand in 1764 as Poboclniyi syn, and again by S. I. Glebov in 1766; Glebov likewise translated Le père de famille as Chadolmbivyi otets, and both plays were translated by B. E. Elchaninov.

15. Vsevolodskii-Gerngross, V. N., Russkii teatr vtoroi poloviny XVIII vcka (Moscow, 1960), p. 142.Google Scholar

16. The Tempest, act 1, sc. 1.

17. M. M. Kheraskov, Tvoreniia, vol. 6 (Moscow, 1796-1800), p. 58.

18. Ibid., p. 59.

19. The Tempest, act 1, sc. 2.

20. The Tempest, act 5, sc. 1.

21. M. M. Kheraskov, Tvoreniia, vol. 6, p. 112.

22. See the introduction to Shakespeare's The Tempest, ed., F. Kermode (Cambridge, Mass., 1958).

23. Berkov, P. N., ed., Istoriia russkoi literatury XVIII veka: Bibliograficheskii uhazateV (Leningrad, 1968), p. 397.Google Scholar

24. Kheraskov, M. M., “Piligrimy,” Tvoreniia, vol. 3 (Moscow, 1796-1800), p. 171 Google Scholar; “Ody nravouchitel'nyia, ” Tvoreniia, vol. 7, p. 373.

25. Place, P. A. de La, Le Thèâtre Anglois, vol. 4 (London, 1746), p. 297–304.Google Scholar

26. Vsevolodskii-Gerngross, V. N., Russkii teatr ot istokov do serediny XVlll veka (Moscow, 1957), p. 204 Google Scholar.

27. P. A. de La Place, Le Thèâtre Anglois, p. 304.

28. Karamzin, N. M., “Pis'ma russkogo puteshestvennika,” Isbrannye sochineniia, vol. 1 (Moscow-Leningrad, 1964), p. 573.Google Scholar

29. In later sentimental dramas written in the 1790s—when Kotzebue was his model —Kheraskov introduced comic episodes and ignored the unities.

30. M. M. Kheraskov, Tvoreniia, vol. 6, p. 59.

31. Ibid., p. 76. Kheraskov must have been pleased with the success of this effect, since he introduced a similar one in his comic opera Dobrye soldaty (1779): ” … na reke iavliaiutsia suda ubrannyia raznotsvetnymi fonariami i tsvetami. V nikh sidiat Soldaty v zelenykh venkakh, imeiushchie v rukakh vozzhennye fakely” (Dobrye soldaty [Moscow, 1782], p. 62).

32. In 1821 the indefatigable theatrical entrepreneur Prince Shakhovskoi produced, with great success, his own version of The Tempest—Buria—which he described as a “volshebno-romanticheskoe zrelishche (…)s khorami, peniem, mashinami, poletami i velikolepnym spektaklem.” The romantics (Zhukovskii in particular) had made the supernatural fashionable, and it was this aspect of the play, omitted by Kheraskov, that Shakhovskoi chose to exploit for his spectacular extravaganza (for a description of Buria see A. S. Bulgakov, Rannee snakomstvo, pp. 78-81, 91-100).

33. Keldysh, Iu. V., Russkaia muzyka XVIII veka (Moscow, 1965), p. 80.Google Scholar

34. Mooser, R. A., Annates de la musique et des musiciens en Ritssie au XVIIIme Stècle, vol. 2 (Geneva, 1948), p. 92–93.Google Scholar

35. Ibid., p. 154.

36. Dramas and other Poems of the Abbe Pietro Metastasio, translated from the Italian by John Hoole, vol. 2 (London, 1800), p. 393. For a succinct account of Metastasio's popularity in Russia, see Welsh, David J., “Metastasio's Reception in 18th Century Poland and Russia,” Italica, 41, no. 1 (1964): 44–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar. 37. Dramas and other Poems of the Abbe Pietro Metastasio, p. 398.

38. In his comic opera Milana (ca. 1785) and his sentimental drama Isvinitel'naia revnosf (1790s).

39. Kniazhnin's early tragedies Vladimir i Iaropolk and Ol'ga are closely adapted from Racine's Andromaque and Voltaire's Mèrope respectively; his comedy Khvastun is based on de Brueys's L'Important.

40. Voltaire, La Mort de César, act 2, sc. 5 (Oeuvres complètes, vol. 3, p. 340); Kheraskov, Idolopoklonniki, act 4, sc. 3 (Tvoreniia, vol. 4, pp. 401-2).

41. Vechera, 1772, no. 2 (P. N. Berkov, “English Plays in St. Petersburg in the 1760's and 1770's, ” p. 97).