ABSTRACT

Women in Russian Theatre is a fascinating feminist counterpoint to the established area of Russian theatre populated by male artists such as Stanislavsky, Chekov and Meyerhold. With unprecedented access to newly-opened files in Russia, Catherine Schuler brings to light the actresses who had an impact upon Russian modernist theatre.
Schuler brings to light the extradordinary lives and work of eight Russian actresses who flourished on the stage between the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

chapter 1|18 pages

The Apogee of the Actress

Rhetoric or reality

chapter 2|22 pages

The Nina Zarechnaia Epidemic

Economics and consequences

chapter 3|23 pages

Mariia Savina

Privilege and power in the Imperial theatres

chapter 4|25 pages

An Uneasy Alliance

Glikeriia Fedotova and Mariia Ermolova at the Malyi Theatre

chapter 5|21 pages

Narodnichestvo, Nationalism, and Neurasthenia

Polina Strepetova as populist icon

chapter 6|27 pages

Enter the Actress-Entrepreneur

Anna Brenko and her successors

chapter 7|18 pages

Lidia Iavorskaia

The Silver Age actress as unruly woman

chapter 8|34 pages

Little Girl Lost

The deification of Vera Kommissarzhevskaia