Aleksandr Pushkin, Malen’kie tragedii [Little Tragedies]

A.D.P. Briggs (University of Bristol)

Ed. by Neil Cornwell, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 2.2.1.00: Slavic and Russian Writing and Culture: Old, Medieval and Tsarist, 700-1917.
Vol. editors: Neil Cornwell (University of Bristol), Roman Koropeckyj (University of California, Los Angeles), Andrei Rogatchevski (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1830

Places

Russia (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Play
Tragedy

Resources

Only two years after writing Boris Godunov [see separate entry], Pushkin thought up another scheme for the theatre – a series of short, stageable scenes, which would be intended as what we would now think of as psychological studies. Deformation of character would be the focus of interest; monomaniacal passion would be depicted and condemned. Disaster would attend the crazed individual at the centre of each sketch, which were to see the light only three years later, in 1830, the results of an inspired onrush of writing made possible, perhaps inevitable, by the poet's inability to get away from his eastern estate of Boldino, because of an outbreak of cholera in the vicinity. Four short plays emerged; Skupoi r…

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1627 words

Citation: Briggs, A.D.P.. "Malen’kie tragedii". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 May 2006 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16896, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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