Hamlet translated by Pyotr Gnedich in the history of Russian drama theater

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Abstract

The article examines the activities of Pyotr Petrovich Gnedich (1855–1925) as a translator and popularizer of Shakespeare’s Hamlet on the Russian theater stage. Two translations of Hamlet, completed with a gap of more than twenty years, mark in Gnedich’s life the beginning and completion of his active work to ‘turn’ the Russian theater towards Shakespeare. Based on the material of pre-revolutionary periodicals and other publications at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries, the authors recreate the image of Russian Shakespearean literature in Gnedich’s translations and productions, turning primarily to Hamlet. Gnedich’s translation of Hamlet, which after its publication in 1891 competed with the translations of its predecessors, was not only more accurate, but also served as the basis for two ‘official’ productions in the imperial theaters (Maly in Moscow, Alexandrinsky in St. Petersburg), which set a new trend to the ensemble and integral artistic solution of this play. The extensive researched material of theatrical criticism allows us to draw a conclusion about the important historical and cultural significance of Gnedich’s work on Hamlet – not only as a translator, but also as the author of the idea of an artistic solution, as a director and researcher of the text in interaction with the leading actors of the era of A.I. Yuzhin and V.P. Dalmatov. In the second translation of Hamlet, which did not receive public recognition largely due to its publication in the revolutionary year of 1917, Gnedich’s priority is not scenic quality, but figurative and phonetic accuracy in combination with the principles of equilinearity and equirhythmicity.

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About the authors

D. N. Zhatkin

Penza State Technological University

Author for correspondence.
Email: ivb40@yandex.ru

Doct. Sci. (Philol.), Professor

Russian Federation, 1a-11 Baydukov Pass., Penza, 440039

V. V. Serdechnaya

Kuban State University

Email: rintra@yandex.ru

Doct. Sci. (Philol.), Assistant Professor

Russian Federation, 149 Stavropolskaya Str., Krasnodar, 350040

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2. Fig. 1. Fragment of the translation of Hamlet (from Act IV, Scene 5). Autograph of P.P. Gnedich with the date “August 13, 1922”. RGALI. F. 153. Op. 1. Unit 3. L. 1.

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3. Fig. 2. Title page of the first Russian edition of the translation of Hamlet, carried out by M.P. Vronchenko (1828), with the owner’s autograph of P.P. Gnedich.

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