Special Section on Soviet and Post-Soviet Shakespeares in The Shakespearean International Yearbook (2019)

We invite contributions for a special section on Soviet and post-Soviet engagements with Shakespearean drama and Shakespeare as a culturally significant figure. We are particularly interested in ideologically influenced performance, translation, literary adaptation, and scholarship. Papers might focus on how Soviet approaches to Shakespeare were influenced by the evolution of cultural policies from 1917 to 1991, or examine treatments of Shakespeare in post-Soviet states from 1991 until the present. Contributors are also encouraged to consider Soviet and post-Soviet Shakespeare in languages other than Russian.

Recent work produced in the field of Global Shakespeare studies has destabilized the binaries of English/foreign and authentic/derivative. However, Western scholars still tend to perceive Soviet approaches to Shakespeare (with some well-known exceptions, such as Kozintsev’s two films) as peripheral and disappointingly uniform. This special section seeks to explore the impact of changing ideologies on Soviet and post-Soviet interpretations of Shakespeare. One might ask, for example: does reading or performing Shakespearean drama through a lens of socialist realism necessarily detract from the audience’s experience? Might the atmosphere of all-pervasive censorship, with the attendant danger of repercussions, make Shakespearean performance an opportunity for subtle subversion of state-approved ideologies?

Deadline for submitting abstracts (250-350 words): May 1, 2017 / Deadline for submitting essays (8,000 words): March 1, 2018.

Please send submissions to the Guest Editor, Dr. Natalia Khomenko, at khomenko@yorku.ca.

Some potential topics may include (but are not limited to):

- Marxist-Leninist readings of Shakespearean drama: Shakespeare as a poet of the people and prophet of the revolution.

- Shakespeare and censorship, with a focus on rapidly changing Soviet ideologies: from the early rejection of pre-revolutionary culture, to the cult of Shakespeare as the father of socialist realism, post-war “cosmopolitanism” witch-hunts of the late 1940s, and post-Stalinist era.

- Performing Shakespeare ideologically on stage and screen: for example, Mikhail Chekhov's and Nikolai Akimov's Hamlets (1924 and 1932), Alexei Popov's Romeo and Juliet (1935), Grigory Kozintsev’s Hamlet and King Lear (as well as his notes toward a film based on The Tempest), Yuri Lyubimov's Hamlet with the idolized singer Vladimir Vysotsky (the performance that ran through the entire 1970s, until Vysotsky's death), and so on. Contributors are encouraged to focus on less-known productions.

- Appropriations and refashionings of Shakespearean drama in literature and film from 1920s until the present. For example, El’dar Ryazanov’s Beware of the Car (Beregis’ avtomobilya, 1966), which features an amateur performance of Hamlet, and in Dmitry Puchkov’s “funny translation” of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), Gollum performs the final dialogue between Othello and Desdemona.

- Translating Shakespeare ideologically; Shakespeare and Soviet translation debates; some translators to be potentially discussed are Mikhail Lozinsky, Anna Radlova, and Boris Pasternak. Papers could also focus on translators working with Soviet languages other than Russian.

- Early Soviet ideological investment in the idea that Shakespeare did not write Shakespeare's plays, abandoned by 1934 and taken up again after 1991; the problems of cultural appropriation; Soviet and post-Soviet vision of the Renaissance.

- Post-Soviet engagements with Shakespeare; contributors are encouraged to focus on post-Soviet countries performing Shakespeare globally in the course of the recent anniversary celebrations, including Globe to Globe Festival and World Shakespeare Festival.

Deadline for submitting abstracts (250-350 words): May 1, 2017

Deadline for submitting essays (8,000 words): March 1, 2018

Submit to Natalia Khomenko at khomenko@yorku.ca.

We invite contributions on Soviet and post-Soviet engagements with Shakespearean drama and Shakespeare as a culturally significant figure. We are particularly interested in ideologically influenced performance, translation, literary adaptation, and scholarship. Papers might focus on how Soviet approaches to Shakespeare were influenced by the evolution of cultural policies from 1917 to 1991, or examine treatments of Shakespeare in post-Soviet states from 1991 until the present. Contributors are also encouraged to consider Soviet and post-Soviet Shakespeare in languages other than Russian.

Recent work produced in the field of Global Shakespeare studies has destabilized the binaries of English/foreign and authentic/derivative. However, Western scholars still tend to perceive Soviet approaches to Shakespeare (with some well-known exceptions, such as Kozintsev’s two films) as peripheral and disappointingly uniform. This cluster of essays seeks to explore the impact of changing ideologies on Soviet and post-Soviet interpretations of Shakespeare. One might ask, for example: does reading or performing Shakespearean drama through a lens of socialist realism necessarily detract from the audience’s experience? Might the atmosphere of all-pervasive censorship, with the attendant danger of repercussions, make Shakespearean performance an opportunity for subtle subversion of state-approved ideologies?

Some potential topics may include (but are not limited to):

- Marxist-Leninist readings of Shakespearean drama: Shakespeare as a poet of the people and prophet of the revolution.

- Shakespeare and censorship, with a focus on rapidly changing Soviet ideologies: from the early rejection of pre-revolutionary culture, to the cult of Shakespeare as the father of socialist realism, post-war “cosmopolitanism” witch-hunts of the late 1940s, and post-Stalinist era.

- Performing Shakespeare ideologically on stage and screen: for example, Mikhail Chekhov's and Nikolai Akimov's Hamlets (1924 and 1932), Alexei Popov's Romeo and Juliet (1935), Grigory Kozintsev’s Hamlet and King Lear (as well as his notes toward a film based on The Tempest), Yuri Lyubimov's Hamlet with the idolized bard Vladimir Vysotsky (the performance that ran through the entire 1970s, until Vysotsky's death), and so on. Contributors are encouraged to focus on less-known productions.

- Appropriations and refashionings of Shakespearean drama in literature and film from 1920s until the present. For example, El’dar Ryazanov’s Beware of the Car (Beregis’ avtomobilya, 1966), which features an amateur performance of Hamlet, and in Dmitry Puchkov’s “funny translation” of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), Gollum performs the final dialogue between Othello and Desdemona.

- Translating Shakespeare ideologically; Shakespeare and Soviet translation debates; some translators to be potentially discussed are Mikhail Lozinsky, Anna Radlova, and Boris Pasternak. Papers could also focus on translators working with Soviet languages other than Russian.

- Early Soviet ideological investment in the idea that Shakespeare did not write Shakespeare's plays, abandoned by 1934 and taken up again after 1991; the problems of cultural appropriation; Soviet and post-Soviet vision of the Renaissance.

- Post-Soviet engagements with Shakespeare; contributors are encouraged to focus on post-Soviet countries performing Shakespeare globally in the course of the recent anniversary celebrations, including Globe to Globe Festival and World Shakespeare Festival.