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Russia's Theatrical Past
Court Entertainment in the Seventeenth Century
by Claudia R. Jensen, Ingrid Maier, Stepan Shamin and Daniel C. Waugh
Published by: Indiana University Press
316 Pages, 14 b&w illus.
- eBook
- 9780253056375
- Published: June 2021
$37.99
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In the 17th century, only Moscow's elite had access to the magical, vibrant world of the theater.
In Russia's Theatrical Past, Claudia Jensen, Ingrid Maier, Stepan Shamin, and Daniel C. Waugh mine Russian and Western archival sources to document the history of these productions as they developed at the court of the Russian tsar. Using such sources as European newspapers, diplomats' reports, foreign travel accounts, witness accounts, and payment records, they also uncover unique aspects of local culture and politics of the time. Focusing on Northern European theatrical traditions, the authors explore the concept of intertheater, which describes transmissions between performing traditions, and reveal how the Muscovite court's interest in theater and other musical entertainment was strongly influenced by diplomatic contacts.
Russia's Theatrical Past, made possible by an international research collaborative, offers fresh insight into how and why Russians went to such great efforts to rapidly develop court theater in the 17th century.
Acknowledgments
A Note on Dates, Transliteration, and Translation
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: The Comedians Come to Pskov
1. Court Music at Home and Abroad
2. The Theater of Diplomacy
3. Introducing Pickleherring: The Origins of the Russian Court Theater
4. The Plays and "Ballets" for the Tsar
5. The Play of Tamerlane
6. From Tamerlane to Tamerlane and Beyond
Bibliography
Index
Claudia Jensen is Affiliate Instructor at the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Washington. She is author of Musical Cultures in Seventeenth-Century Russia and editor (with Miloš Velimirović) of Nikolai Findeizen's History of Music in Russia from Antiquity to 1800, volumes 1 and 2. Ingrid Maier is Professor Emerita of Russian at the Department of Modern Languages, Uppsala University. She has published several monographs on modern and historical Russian linguistics, Russian cultural history, and Russian translations of 17th-century newspapers, including editions of these translations (Vesti-Kuranty). Stepan Shamin is Senior Researcher at the Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is author (in Russian) of Foreign "Pamphlets" and "Curiosities" in Russia from the 16th to the Beginning of the 18th Centuries and Seventeenth-Century Kuranty. Daniel C. Waugh is Professor Emeritus of History, International Studies, and Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Washington. He is author of The Great Turkes Defiance and (in Russian) of History of a Book: Viatka and "Non-modernity" in Russian Culture in the Era of Peter the Great.
"The eccentric characters, amusing anecdotes, and pointed insights draw the reader in, making this an appetizing work."
~Valerie Kivelson, author of Cartographies of Tsardom: The Land and Its Meanings in Seventeenth-Century Russia
"Fascinating and entertaining, Russia's Theatrical Past takes us backstage at Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich's new court theater in the 1670s, tracking how actors, musicians, and theatrical companies from Northern Europe joined in Moscow with other directors, musicians, and amateur actors (many from the 'German Suburb') and staged works from Biblical epics to Tamburlaine. With on-the-ground detail (sets, casts, salaries, scripts), the authors display the world of theater and performance in Muscovy as a dynamic interchange of Northern European, Ukrainian Orthodox, and Muscovite culture."
~Nancy S. Kollmann, Stanford University
"Russia's Theatrical Past: Court Entertainment in the Seventeenth Century presents an exceptional model of what can be achieved through international cooperation. Russia's Theatrical Past convincingly reveals how Russia's importation of musical and theatrical culture began before Peter the Great's reign and presents a strong argument for why Russia should be included on the grand map of Europe's theatrical world even before Peter's "Europeanization" of the country."
~Maria Berlova, Scando-Slavica
"This study makes an important contribution to the question of quality and periodization of West-Eastern cultural exchange. We hope it will be widely received and we look forward to further studies by the four authors."
~Franz Steiner Verlag Journals