Although Alexandre Tairov’s production of Racine’s Phèdre in 1922 in the Chamber

Theater with Alice Koonen as Phaedra became deservedly famous, Greek tragedy per se

was not often performed in the Soviet theatre. Aeschylus’s Oresteia was shown in the

Second Moscow Art Theatre in 1926 (Valentin Smyshliaev directing). Soviet critics

attacked the play for its’ supposed ‘mysticism.’ Thrice did Soviet and Post-Soviet theater

directors turn to Euripides’ Medea: Nikolai Okhlopkov in 1961 in the Mayakovsky

Theatre, and Yuri Liubimov in 1995 in the Taganka theater. Recently, Anatoly Vasiliev

has staged “Euripides’ Medea” with Greek actors as part of the Hellenic Festival 2008 in

Epidauros. In his version, Medea was a symbolic matador engaged in a bullfight with her

enemies.

The best treatments of Greek tragedy in Russian literature are made in the scholarly

essays that accompany the editions of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides in the series

Literaturnye pamiatniki (“monuments of literature”) that accordingly appeared in the

editorial house Nauka (Eskhil 1989, Sofokl 1990 and Evripid 1999). In the English-

speaking scholarship, the reception of Greco-Roman heritage in Russian literature was

thoroughly presented by Zara Torlone (Torlone 2009).

Bibliography:

1
Belina, A., Ewans, M. 2010 ‘Taneyev’s Oresteia’ in Ancient Drama in Music for the

Modern Stage. Ed. Peter Brown and Suzana Ograjensek. Oxford University Press: 258-

284.

Evripid [Euripides]. 1999. Tragedii [Tragoediae]. Trans. Innokentii Annenskii. Ed.

Mikhail Gasparov. Serya “Literaturnye pamiatniki.” Moscow: Nauka.

Eskhil [Aeschylus]. 1989. Tragedii [Tragoediae]. Trans. Viacheslav Ivanov. Ed. N. I.

Balashov, Dim. Viach. Ivanov, M. L. Gasparov, G. Ch. Guseinov, N. V. Kotrelev, and V.

N. Iarkho. Serya “Literaturnye pamiatniki.” Moscow: Nauka.

Gasparov, M. 2001. ‘Evripid Innokentiia Annenskogo’, in Gasparov. M. O Russkoi

poezii. Analizy. Interpretatsii. Kharakteristiki. St Petersburg: Azbuka: 373-88.

Serman, I. 2005. ‘Tsarskaia nemilost’ (sud’ba “Polyxeny” V. Ozerova)’, in Toronto

Slavic Quarterly, No 12, no pagination, URL:

http://www.utoronto.ca/tsq/12/serman12.shtml.

Sofokl [Sophocles].1990. Dramy [Tragoediae]. V perevode F. F. Zelinskogo, O. V.

Smyki i V. N. Yarho, pod red. M. L. Gasparova i V. N. Yarho. Izdanie podgotovili M. L.

Gasparov i V. N. Yarkho. Seriya “Literaturnye pamyatniki.” Moscow: Nauka.

2
Stennik, Y. 1991. ‘Zhanr tragedii v russkoi dramaturgii XVIII veka’, in Stennik, Y. (ed.),

Russkaia Literatura. Vek XVIII. Tragedia. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, vol. 2:

5-24, 29-158, 691-697.

Torlone, Z. 2009. Russia and the Classics: Poetry's Foreign Muse. Classical Diaspora.

London: Duckworth.

Yarkho, V. 1990. ‘F.F. Zelinskii – perevodchik Sofokla’, in Sofokl 1990:509-541.

Recommended:

G. Knabe. 2000. Russkaia antichnost’. Moscow: Russian State University for the

Humanities.

M. Gasparov. 1995. Antichnost’ v russkoi poezii nachala XX veka. Pisa: Istituto di lingua

e letteratura russa.

Contributor biography:

Maria Rybakova is Assistant Professor of Classics and Humanities at San Diego State

University. She is the author of four novels and numerous short stories (in Russian) as

well as essays on the reception of antiquity (in English). Her most recent novel-in-verse,

3
“Gnedich,” (Moscow: Vremya: 2011) tells the tragic story of the 19th century translator of

the Iliad into Russian, Nikolai Gnedich.