SERGEI DURYLIN AND THE SHAKESPEARES CABINET OF THE RUSSIAN THEATRICAL SOCIETY (ON THE HISTORY OF RUSSIAN THEATRE STUDIES RECEPTION OF SHAKESPEARE IN THE 1930S)
Authors:   Kuban State University, Seredechnaia Vera V. , Zhatkin Dmitry N. ,   Penza State Technological University
Published: December 2024

The article is devoted to the reconstruction of Sergei Durylin’s (1886–1954) theater studies of and his work with the Shakespeares Cabinet of the Russian Theatrical Society. Based on a wide range of archival sources and the press of the 1930s, the authors build the concept of Durylin’s theatrical path, characterize his interests in the field of Russian and Soviet Shakespeare. The relevance of the study is due to the fact that the authors for the first time study the Shakespearean direction of S.N. Durylin’s theatrical work. The novelty of the study is due to the fact that Durylins theatrical activity, as a complex phenomenon, becomes the object of analysis for the first time; the role of S. Durylin in the conceptualization of the Soviet Shakespeare revealed for the first time; also, the novelty is confirmed by the authors; reference to archival and little-known materials. The research methodology is based on textological, contextual, hermeneutic, art criticism, cultural and historical approaches to documents. As a writer, philosopher and ordained priest, Durylin was forced in Soviet times to look for new identities, and one of the most important was the identity of a theater critic. Durylin began theater studies in 1934, immediately after returning from his two exiles; in particular, he became a senior researcher at the Maly Theater Museum. In the postwar years, Durylin became a professor at GITIS, as well as a senior researcher in the theater history sector of the Institute of Art History of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Durylin participated in the communist conceptualization of theatre history. Thus, he wrote that the Soviet stage has given rise to such Hamlets and such Othellos that have never happened before: active heroes fighting for their happiness. He published mostly small articles, often marked by a vulgar sociological approach. Knowing Durylin as a specialist in the stage history of Shakespeare, figures from the Russian Theatrical Society turn to him with requests for lections and writings. He also actively researched Shakespearean roles in the repertoire of great Russian actors; analysis of Shakespeare’s roles has become an essential part of the acting biographies he published. With a high degree of probability, it can be assumed that the publication of Shakespeare’s studies and, in particular, Durylin’s historical and theatrical generalizations was undesirable because of the “wrong” position of the author in one way or another. Having become one of the first historians of Shakespeare’s productions on the Russian stage, Durylin was never able to publish his most important historical and theater works: the academic, historically accurate style, the authors desire for generalization and his interest in the history of pre-revolutionary theater did not meet the challenges of his time. Monographs about the history of Hamlet on the Russian stage and the history of Othello at the Maly Theater were published only in 2022. Each of these voluminous studies represents the first ever analysis of the development of the Russian stage reading of Shakespeare’s plays. They were based on a considerable amount of historical material, and with an emphasis on the most important, iconic performances of the main role, at the same time they concerned both provincial productions and little-known translations of Shakespeare’s tragedies.