Book Description

This is the first full account of Shakespeare's impact on the whole of Eastern and East Central Europe up to the present day. Starting with the tours of the English Comedians on the Continent during Shakespeare's lifetime and shortly after his death, it traces their routes as far as Poland (Gdansk, Warsaw) and the core of the Habsburg Empire (Prague, Vienna, Graz). Later chapters explore the profound Shakespearean influence on Russian drama, literature, and criticism since the 18th century--Tsarina Catherine II's Russian adaptations of Merry Wives and Timon, Tolstoy's attack on King Lear, Stanislavsky's interpretation of Hamlet and Othello--and Shakespeare's major role in the national revivals in Poland, the Czech lands, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Bulgaria. Chapters on Shakespeare after the Bolshevik revolution and behind the Iron Curtain deal with the appropriation of his plays for political interpretations but also with the ways his humanism became an increasingly inspiring voice of dissent from Stalinist totalitarianism.

This book evaluates the Shakespearean achievements of the film-maker Grigori Kozintsev, the poet and translator Boris Pasternak, the composers Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitry Shostakovich, and the stage designer Josef Svoboda as well as the more controversial contributions of the critic Jan Kott and the playwright and director Bertold Brecht.