MELODRAMATIC SCENARIOS AND MODES OF MARGINALITY: THE POETICS OF ANTON CHEKHOV’S EARLY DRAMA AND OF FIN-DE-SIÈCLE RUSSIAN POPULAR DRAMA by Mila B. Shevchenko A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Slavic Languages and Literatures) in The University of Michigan 2008 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Michael Makin, Chair Professor Bogdana Carpenter Associate Professor Alina M. Clej Associate Professor Herbert J. Eagle Mila B. Shevchenko © ——————————— 2008 All Rights Reserved DEDICATION To my mother Stefanka, my sister Maya, and in loving memory of my father, Boris Alekseevich Shevchenko. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have been blessed with an incredible support system: my family, my teachers and mentors, my fellow graduate students and colleagues, my friends. Every one of them supported me and inspired me in his/her own unique way for which I am eternally grateful and indebted. I express my profound gratitude to my dissertation committee: Professor Michael Makin, Professor Bogdana Carpenter, Professor Herbert Eagle, and Professor Alina Clej. Michael Makin stepped in as my thesis advisor and chair at a crucial moment of my graduate tenure. His patience, support, encouragement, and great ideas were invaluable, but more importantly, he believed in me and my project and that was the driving force behind my writing and my success in my debut on the job market. Michael has one of the most generous and kind hearts I know. Herbert Eagle, with all his busy schedule of a Department Chair, was more than generous with his time, comments, insights, and encouragement. Professor Carpenter was that member of committee who was with me from the very inception of my project. She has been my female role model in academia. We share a passion for close reading and theater and her course in Slavic Drama taught me a great deal about analysis of dramatic writing and teaching drama. Alina Clej’s course in Fin-de-Siècle: Representations of Women iii was my great inspiration in my choosing the topic of my dissertation. I was fascinated by her style of teaching– you do not see that often such ease, elegance and sophistication all together. My “second round of applause” goes to the institutions which supported me throughout the years. My home Slavic Department was more than generous with all kind of support: funding, logistics, encouragement. For my summer teaching, the regular trips to conferences, the research trip to Russia and many, many more, I owe thanks to the incredible help of the Department. I feel there at home and hope to stay this way. Horace. H. Rachkam School of Graduate Studies and the Center for Russian and East European Studies also supported immensely my research and my professional development. The Center for the Education of Women’s 2004-2005 CEW Margaret Dow Towsley Scholarship was my main resource to fund my research trip to Moscow – thank you! Here is the place to extend my gratitude to Sheri Sytsema-Geiger, Amanda Apostol, Sara Hallum, and Rachell Grubb for their time, attention and support. A heartfelt thank you to all the amazing teachers and mentors in my life who breathed in me the love and passion for teaching that became my calling. In particular, I owe a debt of gratitude to my teachers, friends and colleagues from the National Lyceum of Ancient Languages and Cultures, Sofia; Bulgaria, my professors from University of Sofia, Bulgaria, and my professors in the Department of Slavic Language sand Literatures, University of Michigan. Let me reiterate that I have been blessed with the most incredible, generous, loving and supportive friends. I was accepted to the program with other four fellow gentlemen who challenged me, stimulated me, listen to me, comforted me: Brad, iv Christopher, Sergei and Vadim – thank you! Christopher has been one of my first readers and his attention, time, help and generosity were amazing. The same thing goes to Brad without whom the last year would be unbearable in every possible way. He helped and supported me intellectually, psychologically, logistically – you name it! Ewa, Rachel, Margarita, Kelly, Minjin, Annie, Elek, and Masha touched me in so many ways – thank you! Svitlana Rogovyk, Ewa Pasek and Sylvia Meloche in countless ways and on numerous occasions were there for me: you helped, helped, helped, and … you listened! With Marina, well, where should I start with: you fed me, took care of me, you challenged me, you supported me, you loved me and I love you too – thank you! Snejana Tempest and Andreas Schönle (my first advisor and with whom this journey started) were the professors who welcomed me to the department, who became my mentors and friends. This is a privilege which I cherish dearly. Adelina and Galin cheered for me in England and not for a moment allowed me to have any hesitations about the final outcome. Their intellectual and academic insights were my guiding light. Daniela and Ivan cheered for me from Sweden – a 39-year friendship, I think it says it all. Maia and Valeri (let he rest in peace) cheered for me in Bulgaria as Albena did. Ani and Asen, Margaret (my best friend and my soul mate), her husband Liubomir and their daughter Ivana (the daughter I never had) loved me unconditionally, supported me immensely and never let me quit. My dear aunt Vesselina, my uncle Liuben and my cousin Liudmila were a precious support and presence. My brother-in- law’s, Nikolay, sense of humor and endless optimism navigated me through tough times. v My mother taught me to love literature, arts and music. Her great passion for Russian literature and culture was my major inspiration. She taught me love, friendship, generosity, grace, and humbleness. My sister is my best friend, my first reader, my alter ego, my everything. My late father, to whom I owe my Russian language, my profession, my theatrical nature and whose last name I proudly hold, taught to me never to quit and that honor and decency are the most important things in life. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION...................................................................................................................ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.............................................................................................iii INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................1 CHAPTER I. Forgotten Estates, Forgotten Virtues: The Familial Narratives of the Popular Drama of the 1880s-1890s...........................................................................................12 Melodrama of Adultery, Melodrama of Narcissism: Luka Antropov’s Wandering Lights.....................................................................................................14 The “Idyllic Myopia” of The Garden of Eden: Ippolit Shpazhinskii’s On a Forgotten Estate..............................................................................................28 The Quest for the “Positive Hero”: Piotr Boborykin’s Doctor Moshkov...........54 The Advent of the “New People”: Aleksandr Sumbatov-Iuzhin’s The Arkazanovs........................................................................................................63 II. Paradigms of Marginality in Chekhov’s Early Drama......................................76 Between ‘Holy Foolishness’ and ‘Jestership’: Platonov.......................................77 Katabasis and Misplacement as Poetic Stratagems: On the High Road...........107 III. The Dialectics of Internal and External Space in Chekhov’s Prose..............125 CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................155 BIBLIOGRAPHY.........................................................................................................159 vii INTRODUCTION It has long been a tradition in the scholarship of Russian drama to refer to the last two decades of the nineteenth century as a “theatrical interregnum”. This term roughly qualifies the period between Aleksandr Ostrovsky and Anton Chekhov. Unquestionably, both playwrights are the ultimate expression of the dramaturgical genius of the time. Nonetheless, during the period marked by Ostrovsky’s late works and Chekhov’s theatrical debut, the Russian stage continued to draw big and appreciative audiences. Ostracized and stigmatized by theoreticians and critics, persistently typecast as artistic pariahs (“dramatic carpenters” /“dramodely”), the popular playwrights of the 1880s and 1890s only recently attracted closer attention. The dramatic output of this period has been discussed only in passing, predominantly as part of the general history of Russian drama. Likewise, Chekhov’s early oeuvre has been considered mainly as a stepping stone to his major plays. This study offers a new reading of the early dramaturgical legacy of Anton Chekhov in light of fin-de-siècle popular (also known as mass) drama, foregrounding their treatment of social and cultural marginality. The dissertation also reconsiders the popular drama as a valuable cultural phenomenon in itself. It analyzes Chekhov’s work and mass dramatists’ production in the context of the institutional and aesthetic changes that took place in fin-de-siècle Russian drama and focuses on the ways melodrama serves in their works as a vehicle for the discussion of socio-cultural marginality. Approaching 1 the material as a cultural representation of the intellectual and spiritual anxieties of Russian society, I examine how the melodramatic mode facilitates the expression of ideological crisis and psychological trauma. The 1880s and 1890s are one of the most complex and controversial eras in the Russian social and intellectual history. As a transitional period, they were marked by a multiplicity of discrepancies in the socio-political and cultural domains. The severe political suppression and the ideological vacuum that followed the assassination of Alexander II in 1881 (this era was known as the period of “timelessness”/bezvremenie) were taking place simultaneously with the country’s industrialization and modernization, which generated social mobility and fluidity of cultural identity. The collapse of populist ideology, the painful quest for “common idea” (obshchaia idea), the overall disappointment and disorientation of society, coupled with repression and harsh censorship (“counter-reforms”), justify to some extent the label of “timelessness”. On the other hand, the abolition of the monopoly of the imperial theaters in 1882 resulted in the rapid development of private entrepreneurship in the theater and the democratization of the audience. These processes transformed the social and cultural profiles of the audience, stimulated the enrichment of theatrical repertoire, and, last but not least, due to the declining authority of the novel as a predominant literary genre, shifted the focus of the literary scene. As a result, numerous private theatres emerged. They had to face the challenges of the restrictions of the censorship and, at the same time, to hold the interest of a much broader theatrical spectatorship, and to customize the topical dramatic vocabulary and aesthetics according to the taste of the new spectatorship. Consequently, 2