The Production of Nikolay Stavrogin (1913) at the Moscow Art Theater

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Author: Nikolay N. Podosokorsky

Information about the author:

PhD in Philology, Senior Researcher, Research Centre “Dostoevsky and World Culture,” A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya St., 25A, bld. 1, 121069 Moscow, Russia.

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6310-1579

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For citation:

Podosokorsky, N.N. “The Production of Nikolay Stavrogin at the Moscow Art Theatre.” Dostoevsky and World Culture. Philological journal, no. 2 (30), 2025, pp. 344–357. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22455/2619-0311-2025-2-344-357

Received: 09 Mar. 2025

Approved after reviewing: 23 Apr. 2025

Published: 25 June 2025

Issue: 2025 no. 2 (30)

Department: DOSTOEVSKY ON STAGE

Pages: 334-357

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22455/2619-0311-2025-2-344-357

EDN:

https://elibrary.ru/FUJUCS

UDK: 821.161.1.0

BBK: 83.3(2Рос=Рус)

Publication Type: Review

Keywords: F.M. Dostoevsky, V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, Moscow Art Theater, Nikolay Stavrogin (play), Demons, Maxim Gorky.

Abstract: The review examines the 2023 collection “Nikolay Stavrogin” on the Stage of the Art Theater, 1913, in which a research team (E.A. Kesler, O.V. Egoshina, S.V. Vasilyeva) presents the first complete publication of the script for Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko and Vasily Luzhsky’s landmark 1913 production Nikolay Stavrogin. The edition includes extensive critical commentary, an analytical preface and afterword, as well as a selection of contemporary reviews and polemical texts by prominent thinkers (D.S. Merezhkovsky, S.N. Bulgakov, N.A. Berdyaev et al.) concerning both the theatrical adaptation and the broader cultural debate it ignited. Particular attention is given to Maxim Gorky’s polemical open letter More About “Karamazovshchina” (1913), which articulated a fundamental critique of theatrical adaptations of Dostoevsky’s works generally and specifically condemned the Moscow Art Theater’s Nikolay Stavrogin production and Dostoevsky’s novel Demons.

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