Irena Makaryk

Joseph G Price

The works of William Shakespeare have long been embraced by communist and socialist governments. One of the central cultural debates of the Soviet period concerned repertoire, including the usefulness and function of pre-revolutionary drama for the New Man and the New Society. Shakespeare survived the byzantine twists and turns of Soviet cultural politics by becoming established early as the Great Realist whose works should be studied, translated, and emulated. This view of Shakespeare as a humanist and realist was transferred to a host of other countries including East Germany, Hungary, Poland, China, and Cuba after the Second World War. Shakespeare in the Worlds of Communism and Socialism traces the reception of Shakespeare from 1917 to 2002 and addresses the relationship of Shakespeare to Marxist and communist ideology. Irena R. Makaryk and Joseph G. Price have brought together an internationally-renowned group of theatre historians, practitioners, and scholars to examine the extraordinary conjunction of Shakespeare and ideology during a fascinating period of twentieth-century history. Roughly historical in their arrangement, the essays in this collection suggest the complicated and convoluted trajectory of Shakespeare's reputation. The general theme that emerges from this study is the deeply ambivalent nature of communist Shakespeare who, like Feste's 'chev'ril glove,' often simultaneously served and subverted the official ideology. Contributors: Alexey Bartoshevitch Laura Raidonis Bates Maria Clara Versiani Galery Lawrence Guntner Werner Habicht Maik Hamburger Martin Hilský Krystyna Kujawinska-Courtney Irena R. Makaryk Zoltán Márkus Sharon O'Dair Arkady Ostrovsky Joseph G. Price Laurence Senelick Shu-hua Wang Robert Weimann Xiao Yang Zhang

Shakespeare in the World of Communism and Socialism

Marissa McHugh

Shakespeare’s works occupy a prismatic and complex position in world culture: they straddle both the high and the low, the national and the foreign, literature and theatre. The Second World War presents a fascinating case study of this phenomenon: most, if not all, of its combatants have laid claim to Shakespeare and have called upon his work to convey their society’s self-image. In wartime, such claims frequently brought to the fore a crisis of cultural identity and of competing ownership of this ‘universal’ author. Despite this, the role of Shakespeare during the Second World War has not yet been examined or documented in any depth. Shakespeare and the Second World War provides the first sustained international, collaborative incursion into this terrain. The essays demonstrate how the wide variety of ways in which Shakespeare has been recycled, reviewed, and reinterpreted from 1939–1945 are both illuminated by and continue to illuminate the War today.

Memory, Culture, Identity

Shakespeare and the Second World War

Virlana Tkacz

The study of modernism has been largely focused on Western cultural centres such as Paris, Vienna, London, and New York. Extravagantly illustrated with over 300 photos and reproductions, Modernism in Kyiv demonstrates that the Ukrainian capital was a major centre of performing and visual arts as well as literary and cultural activity. While arguing that Kyiv's modernist impulse is most prominently displayed in the experimental work of Les Kurbas, one of the masters of the early Soviet stage, the contributors also examine the history of the city and the artistic production of diverse groups including Ukrainians, Russians, Jews, and Poles. Until now a silent presence in Western accounts of the cultural topography of modernism, multicultural Kyiv is here restored to its historical, intellectual, and artistic complexity. Excerpts taken from the works of artists, writers, and critics as well as the numerous illustrations help give life to the exciting creativity of this period. The first book-length examination of this subject, Modernism in Kyiv is a breakthrough accomplishment that will become a standard volume in the field.

Irena Makaryk

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