Catherine the Great’s Pastoral Comic Opera “Fedul and His Children” as a Cultural Pattern
- Authors: Testova N.R.1
-
Affiliations:
- Maxim Gorky Literature Institute
- Issue: No 2 (2024)
- Pages: 117-127
- Section: The Language of Fiction
- URL: https://journals.rcsi.science/0131-6117/article/view/256112
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.31857/S0131611724020104
- ID: 256112
Open Access
Access granted
Abstract
Despite her status, Catherine II was a typical writer of the Enlightenment. She wrote her plays in order to “govern morals”, and her goal was to create a new cultural pattern for the nobility. The difference between her and ordinary writers was not the quality of her plays, but the power she possessed to reaffirm her classicist ideals using off-stage effects. Her opera Fedul and his Children, for example, was written to address the pressing contemporary problems arising from unequal relationships between noblemen and non-noble women. The other characters were also based on real people, drawn from the Imperial court and from the theatrical world. Fedul and his Children is a typical comic opera in which Catherine uses the rules of the genre to persuade the audience of the correctness of her views. The moral victory of the third estate is confirmed in the play by the fact that, according to the text, precisely its members are the carriers of primordial natural values, which is why interactions with the corrupt world of the nobility pose such a danger to them. Her ability to make use of the specificities of the genre sheds light on Catherine as someone who was familiar with and sensitive to the style of the period. Fedul and his Children has all the characteristic features of a comic opera, including allusive character names, peasant songs, the use of proverbs and the fear inspired by the hostile city in peasants fresh from their pastoral idyll.
Full Text
About the authors
Nika R. Testova
Maxim Gorky Literature Institute
Author for correspondence.
Email: nikaromanovna@yandex.ru
Russian Federation, Moscow
References
- Akimova T. I. Rol’ literaturnogo tvorchestva Ekateriny II v stanovlenii dvoryanskogo samosoznaniya konca 18 — nachala 19 veka [The role of the literary creativity of Catherine II in the formation of the noble identity of the late 18th — early 19th century]. Saransk, N. P. Ogarev Mordovian State Univ. Publ., 2013. 275 p.
- Bahtin M. M. [Forms of time and chronotope in the novel. Essays on historical poetics]. Voprosy literatury i estetiki [Questions of literature and poetics]. Moscow, HudozhestvennayaLiteratura Publ., 1975, pp. 234–407. (In Russ.)
- Berkov P. N. Istoriya russkoi komedii 18 veka [The history of Russian comedy of the 18th century]. Leningrad, Nauka Publ., 1977. 390 p.
- Evans М. English Poetry in the Sixteenth Century. Hutchinson’s university library. London, 1955. 184 p.
- Goodman D. The Republic of Letters. A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment. Ithaca; London, 1994. 338 p.
- Greg W. W. Pastoral Poetry & Pastoral Drama: A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-restoration Stage in England. A. H. Bullen, 1959. 464 p.
- Gukovskii G. A. Problemy izucheniya russkoi literatury 18 veka [Problems of studying Russian literature of the 18th century]. Moscow, Publ.House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1940, pp. 3–24. (In Russ.)
- Kotovich T. V. Hronotop teatral’nogo proizvedeniya [Chronotope of a theatrical work]. Vitebsk, Vitebsk State University named after P. M. Masherov Publ., 2011. 179 p.
- Livanova T. N. Russkaya muzykal’naya kul’tura 18 veka v ee svyazyah s literaturoi, teatrom i bytom: Issledovaniya i materialy [Russian musical culture of the 18th century in its relations with literature, theater and everyday life: Research and materials]. Vol. 2. Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Institute of Art History. Moscow, Muzgiz Publ., 1953, 476 p.
- Lopatin A. A. [Elizaveta Sandunova, Lola Montes, Nastasya Fillipovna — the story of one gesture]. Peterburgskii teatral’nyi zhurnal, 2003, no. 2, pp. 39–41. (In Russ.)
- Lotman Yu. M. [Decembrist in everyday life]. Literaturnoe nasledie dekabristov [The literary legacy of the Decembrists]. Leningrad, 1975, pp. 25–74. (In Russ.)
- Macipulo A. S. [On the problem of convergence of elite (noble) and folk (peasant) cultures in Russia in the second half of the 18th century — the beginning of the 19th century]. Vestnik Moskovskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta kul’tury i iskusstvа, 2015, no. 5 (67), pp. 89–94. (In Russ.)
- Moiseeva G. N. (ed.) Russkaya dramaturgiya 18 veka [Russian drama of the 18th century]. Moscow, Sovremennik Publ., 1986. 542 p.
- Nemirovskaya I. D. [The poetics of the Russian comic opera of the 18th century]. Uchenye zapiski Kazanskogo universiteta. Seriya Gumanitarnye nauki. Kazan, Kazan Federal Univ. Publ. 2008, рр. 38–47. (In Russ.)
- Pavi P. Slovar’ teatra [Dictionary of Theater]. Moscow, Progress Publ., 1991. 504 p.
- Polozova I. V. [The Russian comic opera of the 18th century in its relations with literature and theater (on the example of V. A. Pashkevich’s opera work)]. Izvestiya Saratovskogo universiteta. Saratov, Saratov State Conservatory named after L. V. Sobinov Publ., 2016, pp. 53–59. (In Russ.)
- Proskurina V. Yu. Imperiya pera Ekateriny II: literatura kak politika [The Empire of Catherine II’s Pen: Literature as politics]. Moscow, Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie Publ., 2017. 256 p.
- Sas’kova T. V. Pastoral’ v russkoi literature 18 — pervoi treti 19 veka. Diss. dokt. filol. nauk [Pastoral in Russian literature of the 18th — first third of the 19th century. Dr. philol. sci. diss.]. Moscow, 2000. 384 p.
- Semenova Yu. S. [Catherine II as a librettist: genre features of the Empress’s comic operas]. Vestnik SPbGU, Ser. 15, 2012, Vol. 1, pp. 255–263. (In Russ.)
- Starikova L. M. Teatral’naya zhizn’ starinnoi Moskvy: Epoha. Byt. Nravy [Theatrical life of ancient Moscow: Epoch. Life. Morals]. Moscow, Iskusstvo Publ., 1988. 333 p.
- Shiller F. Sobranie sochinenii v 7 t. T. 6: Teoreticheskie stat’i. Recenzii, predisloviya, kriticheskie zametki [Collected works in 7 vols. Vol. 6. Theoretical articles. Reviews, forewords, critical notes]. Moscow, Goslitizdat Publ., 1957. 790 p.
- Zorin A. L. [A rare thing]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2003, no. 4, pp. 91–110. (In Russ.)
- Zorin A. L. Poyavlenie geroya: iz istorii russkoi emocional’noi kul’tury 18 — nachala 19 veka [Russian Hero Appearance: from the history of Russian emotional culture of the 18th — early 19th century]. Moscow, Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie Publ., 2016. 568 p.
