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Rating: The year is 1829. None of us were even imaginable. We are in Armenia: a man on horseback crosses paths with a cart carrying a coffin. The man inquires about the name of the deceased, and shortly after learning it, he bursts into tears.
Life is strange; especially when random events seem to bind multiple individuals to a common destiny. The man on horseback is Pushkin, and the body of the deceased is that of Alexander Griboedov (or Griboyedov). The latter was killed in Tehran by a mob of insurgents after being sent to Persia on diplomatic duties.
His premature death deprived the then emerging Russian literature of a brilliant playwright and seems connected to other tragic losses of equally young and promising poets of his compatriots, first among them Pushkin (1799-1837). It will happen to Lermontov (1814-1841) and even to Gogol (1809-1851).
The year of his death will also see the final failure of all those liberal and reformist aspirations and ideologies of which Griboyedov was one of the leaders. The birth of secret societies (1816) and the death of Tsar Alexander I (1825) will not be enough to fulfill the aspirations of young Russian liberals: a constitution, the emancipation of peasants from serfdom, and the distribution of land.
With 1825 begins the autocracy of Nicholas I, who harshly represses the Decembrist movement, an evolution of secret societies, governs with blind nationalism and organizes the secret police with a dense network of spies.
1826 sees the establishment of the "Third Section," a mysterious and feared police that supervises schools and universities and public opinion (where it exists).
In some respects, it was no different from the Soviet Union and today's Russia. An autocracy with paternalistic hues supported by the Orthodox Church that doesn't manipulate, but guillotines information and culture to maintain its rule over a largely poor and ignorant population. Hence, Slave.
A story full of insights that of Alexander Griboedov (1795-1829), diplomat and literate belonging to the Russian jeunesse dorée.
Friend and acquaintance of Pushkin, who appreciated and knew his worth, he came from an ancient noble family of Polish descent. He knew six languages (English, French, Italian, German, Arabic, and Persian), was a gifted musician, and passionate about theater. But he is mainly remembered for "Woe from Wit," a brilliant work rich in aphorisms that were immediately adopted as proverbs for much of the nineteenth century.
"Woe from Wit" (or "Woe to Wit!") recounts the return to Moscow of the young Chatsky after an absence of three years. Here, he reconnects with the girl he has always loved: Sophia, with her father Famusov. And with the unexpected suitor Molchalin.
Backwards and modeled on the "Western" one, Russian theater in the early nineteenth century was in unfavorable conditions. Not that it was of poor quality or made by fools, but it was penalized by the same fossilization of the social class that created it.
In fact, it was mainly, except for a few cases that did not have an easy life, made by nobles for nobles, and the reasons are quickly said: theater was a conventional form of gathering and socialization for high society.
This is another expression of one of the limits born from Russian exceptionalism: the lack of a bourgeois class. Young Gravila, a fisherman from the village of Pereslavl-Zalessky, would never, ever, be able to enter a Moscow theater. The last purpose of the theater was certainly to question the founding values of those who wrote it and those who followed it. Not to mention the difficulties encountered in promoting true criticism in an environment like that of porcelain nobility.
A nobility intent only on living and moving discreetly, as it was always taught by private tutors first, and suggested by eager pragmatism in adulthood later.
It also lacked its own identity: the wealthy classes were totally influenced by the fashions and culture coming from France (gallomania), a subject that was the subject of satire in the 1782 work "The Brigadier" by Denis Ivanovich Fonvizin.
In fact, most of the works that were created and staged from the mid-eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century were inspired by French classicism, highlighting the esteophilia that characterized part of Russian culture.
Some of the most famous authors of this period were: Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin, Denis Ivanovich Fonvizin, Ivan Andreevich Krylov. Aleksandr Petrovich Sumarokov, a representative of Russian neoclassicism, wrote comedies and tragedies using fairy tales or ancient legends on the Racine model.
Fonvizin belonged to the high Russian nobility; he was one of the first intent on elevating the quality of theater by giving a liberal nuance (in fact, in "Onegin" Pushkin calls him a friend of freedom) to his production.
Derzhavin made a career both as a military man and a bureaucrat, also close to the upper echelons, was a classicist playwright and poet who, with Karamzin, gave rise to Russian pre-romanticism. Whereas Krylov, of more modest origins, dedicated himself to works of manners indebted to French comedy, then moved on to the realization of fables.
In general, the structure, in the best cases, was inspired by Racine or Corneille in tragedies, and by Molière, for comedies; the rest were translations from works by minor authors. Made in verse and far from the reality of the world, they were particularly artificial works.
In this context, but not only, "Woe from Wit" immediately appears original, courageous and innovative.
Realized in four acts and written in verses, it is a work strongly autobiographical that challenged the status quo, distancing itself from Russian theatrical tradition while still showing some ties to Voltaire and Molière.
Chatsky goes back and forth openly and spiritedly saying his every thought, without any filter. He criticizes and contests everything that annoys him.
And it is not just a satire of manners because it does not target a vice or misconduct, but criticizes from the inside an entire social class. It saw its final draft in 1824, but it was never performed while the author was alive due to censorship blockage. However, it reached a clandestine circulation of as many as forty thousand copies.
Its importance is widely recognized because it marked the beginning of a new season for Russian literature and especially in the theatrical field.
The figure of Griboyedov is as important as that of Pushkin, his influence concerns a new and fresh way of doing theater and using language. Certainly, "The Government Inspector" would not have been as we know it without "Woe from Wit." The character of Skalozub, a colonel who only talks about parades and fortresses, already contains the seed of Gogolian hyperbolic humor.
Chatsky, on the other hand, is not immune to criticism because he doesn't seem to have the acuteness to not say everything he thinks, and this in a society like that of Russia, Griboyedov seems to want to say, is paid dearly. What will happen to him, how this will evolve, the author does not seem to suggest or even care. However, in compensation, he offers us a rosary of characters, borrowed from reality, who unabashedly showcase defects and backwardness.
And in the end, among idiotic generals, subservient sycophants, and calculating girls, if not even Chatsky is invulnerable, being naive, then who wins? Famusov. Him: the old greedy and slightly sleazy Moscow nobleman is the only one who will manage to survive, he will have the last word.
And history proves him right: because Russia will remain in the hands of individuals like him for a long time.
-The reviewed edition is a 1954 Bur edition, translated by Natascia Baranowski and Paolo Santarone. Unfortunately, it has not been reprinted.
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