Hamlet and Soviet Humanism

In: Slavic review: interdisciplinary quarterly of Russian, Eurasian and East European studies, Band 30, Heft 4, S. 733-747

Abstract

The "thaw" slips farther back into History. Displaced from our attention by the renewed obscurantism, those heady days are seldom studied any more. This is unfortunate. For, it seems to me, it is particularly now, as a counter to the broadening repression, that we should gather and preserve the achievements of that hopeful decade. It is in this vein that I want to go back to the period and recall a dramatic and brilliant expression of the liberal, "thaw" spirit, as well as a splendid contribution to the rich gallery of Russian Aesopian polemics: Soviet Shakespeare criticism and, especially, the revival of sound and insightful commentaries on Hamlet by Soviet critics and playwrights.