Aleksandr Pushkin, Malen’kie tragedii [Little Tragedies]

A.D.P. Briggs (University of Bristol)
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Only two years after writing

Boris Godunov

[see separate entry], Pushkin thought up another scheme for the theatre – a series of short, stageable scenes, which would be intended as what we would now think of as psychological studies. Deformation of character would be the focus of interest; monomaniacal passion would be depicted and condemned. Disaster would attend the crazed individual at the centre of each sketch, which were to see the light only three years later, in 1830, the results of an inspired onrush of writing made possible, perhaps inevitable, by the poet's inability to get away from his eastern estate of Boldino, because of an outbreak of cholera in the vicinity. Four short plays emerged;

Skupoi rytsar'

[

The Miserly Knight

]

, Motsart i Sal'eri

[

Mozart and Salieri

],

Kamennyi

1627 words

Citation: Briggs, A.D.P.. "Malen’kie tragedii". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 May 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16896, accessed 09 October 2024.]

16896 Malen’kie tragedii 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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