Vagabonding Masks: The Italian Commedia dell'Arte in the Russian Artistic Imagination by Olga Partan
2019; Modern Humanities Research Association; Volume: 114; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/mlr.2019.0064
ISSN2222-4319
Autores Tópico(s)Translation Studies and Practices
Resumo Reviews in contrast, will certainly benefit from the book reviewed here, as it offers a comprehensive account of the variety of approaches to the study of migration-induced contact phenomena. e originality of a themed volume need not always lie with the originality of each chapter but rather in the bringing together of state-of-theart accounts from different subfields and theoretical perspectives. is collection, falling as it does into the latter category, would serve as a useful point of departure for anyone seeking a broad overview of the topic of language in migration across Europe. U F N L Vagabonding Masks: e Italian Commedia dell’Arte in the Russian Artistic Imagination . By O P. Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press. . pp.£.. ISBN ––––. is excellent and innovative book explores how Russian artists from the eighteenth century to the twenty-first have been inspired by the Italian commedia dell’arte (or harlequinade). It challenges existing scholarship in English, which tends to focus on the fascination with the commedia of Russian modernist artists between the two revolutions. Russian ‘harlequinized’ art, literature, or performance is defined as that which makes use in some way of core features of the commedia: the masked characters such as Harlequin and Pulcinella, improvisation based on traditional scenarios, comically grotesque imagery, self-parody, and doubles and mistaken identities (p. ). Harlequinization is analogous to Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the carnivalization of literature as the process of transposing the carnival’s symbolic language into the language of literature (p. ). Bakhtinian theory on carnival and the grotesque is used effectively in the analysis throughout, as is Yuri Lotman’s idea of art as language (pp. –) and the relationship between real-life phenomena and theatrical tradition (pp. –). Olga Partan shows how understanding of the commedia as a synthesis of different arts itself requires an interdisciplinary and intercultural approach. With a range of examples in a series of chronologically arranged chapters, the book explores how different generations interpret and borrow from the commedia. e first two chapters discuss early examples of Harlequinized art in Russia, the hybrid of a Germanized version of the commedia dell’arte mask with the medieval Russian minstrels (skomorokhi), and then the enormous impact in the s in the reign of Anna Ioannovna of the Italian company of Tommaso Ristori. Widely popular scripted comedies based on the improvised scenarios translated the European Baroque into Russian art and literature. Anna’s favourite jester Pedrillo came to Russia as the virtuoso violinist Pietro Miro in , and the genealogy of the Russian Petrushka puppet show can be traced from him. e translation of harlequinades in the eighteenth century by Vasilii Trediakovsky, and the strong influence of commedia on Aleksandr Sumarokov, father of Russian theatre, is then discussed. MLR, ., Sumarokov’s comedies satirize Trediakovsky, his rival, Russian bureaucracy and corruption, the view of everything European as superior to Russian culture (p. ). Sumarokov influenced Nikolai Gogol, and in a superlative analysis of e Overcoat () Partan suggests that Gogol drew on the character of Pulcinella in creating his ‘little man’ civil servant, Akakii Akakievich Bashmachkin. is is supported with convincing detail documenting Gogol’s love of Italy and study of the commedia. Much valuable scholarship has focused on how theatre directors Vsevolod Meyerhold , Nikolai Evreinov, Aleksandr Tairov, and Evgenii Vakhtangov used commedia in productions and in training actors as synthetic performers. Yet in Chapter , on ‘e Modernist Revival of the Commedia dell’arte’, Partan offers creative insights into commedia, which traditionally affirms established social order despite its satirical Bakhtinian ‘world turned upside down’ aspects, and the modernist harlequinades that embraced the tragic theme of Merry Death and its grotesque imagery, and questioned the purpose of human existence in revolutionary times. e final chapters explore Vladimir Nabokov’s last novel Look at the Harlequins, which reflects his nostalgia for the artistic world of his youth in the modernist period and the work of famous pop artist Alla Pugacheva. Cleverly drawing the book together with a parallel between this ‘Empress’ and Russian female court jester (shutikha) of the Soviet estrada and Empress Anna Ioannovna (and there is a delightful parallel with the earlier brief...
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