"The Beautiful Afar The Beautiful Afar () is a so-called ""winged expression"" aka catchphrase or a phraseme of the Russian language. It was first used by Nikolai Gogol in the novel The ""Dead Souls"" first published in 1842. The expression is used as a joke, sometimes irony indicating the often fictitious place of well-being, where a person who is not burdened with routine, rests, leads a carefree, unladen, and idle lifestyle. The ""Dead Souls"" were written by the author while residing mostly abroad, mainly in Italy and Germany, but also in France, Switzerland, and Austria. In one of the lyrical"
"Nikolai Gogol Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (31 March 1809 – 4 March 1852) was a Russian dramatist of Ukrainian origin. Although Gogol was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in his work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of surrealism and the grotesque (""The Nose"", ""Viy"", ""The Overcoat"", ""Nevsky Prospekt""). His early works, such as ""Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka"", were influenced by his Ukrainian upbringing, Ukrainian culture and folklore. His later writing satirised political corruption in the Russian Empire (""The Government Inspector"","
"had real life prototypes, members of the Petrashevsky and Durov's circles (Rudkovsky as Durov, Slobodin as Fyodor Dostoyevsky). Palm's dramas ""Old Landlord"" (1873) and ""Our Friend Neklyuzhev"" (1879), staged by the Aleksandrinsky and Maly Theaters respectively, proved to be very popular with the public. Contemporary critics dismissed them, but in retrospect Russian literary historians see Palm's plays as superior to his prose and poetry. Alexander Palm Alexander Ivanovich Palm (Александр Иванович Пальм, 2 February [o.s. 21 January] 1822, Krasnoslobodsk, Penza Governorate, Russian Empire, - 22 [o.s. 10] November 1885, Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire) was a Russian poet, novelist and playwright,"
"Konstantin Aksakov Konstantin Sergeyevich Aksakov () (10 April 1817, Novo-Aksakov, Orenburg Governorate – 19 December 1860, Zakynthos, US of the Ionian Islands) was a Russian critic and writer, one of the earliest and most notable Slavophiles. He wrote plays, social criticism, and histories of the ancient Russian social order. His father Sergey Aksakov and his sister Vera Aksakova were writers, and his younger brother, Ivan Aksakov, was a journalist. Konstantin was the first to publish an analysis of Gogol's ""Dead Souls"", comparing the Russian author with Homer (1842). After Tsar Alexander II's accession to the throne, he sent him a"
"theatre festivals since 2006: ASTYS’s repertoire includes plays of foreign (William Shakespeare, Martin McDonagh, Hans Christian Andersen, Aleksey Tolstoy) and domestic playwrights, such as Huseyn Javid, Jafar Jabbarli, Mirza Fatali Akhundzada, Ilyas Afandiyev, Suleyman Rustam, Abdurrahim bey Hagverdiyev, Abdulla Shaig, Nizami Ganjavi, Suleyman Sani Akhundov for both adults and schoolchildren. Classical drama plays of Russian and foreign dramatists, plays of the Soviet writers and dramatists were also staged on the theater, such as ""The Government Inspector"" by Nikolai Gogol, ""Servant of Two Masters"" by William Shakespeare, and ""How the Steel Was Tempered"" by Nikolai Ostrovsky. Managing director of the ASTYS"
"the intervention of the kindly Mourazov but is forced to flee the village. The novel ends mid-sentence with the prince who arranged Chichikov's arrest giving a grand speech that rails against corruption in the Russian government. Mikhail Bulgakov adapted the novel for the stage for a production at the Moscow Art Theatre. The seminal theatre practitioner Constantin Stanislavski directed the play, which opened on 28 November 1932. The extant sections of ""Dead Souls"" formed the basis for an opera in 1976 by Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin. In it Shchedrin captures the different townspeople with whom Chichikov deals in isolated musical"
"Dmitry Averkiyev Dmitry Vasilyevich Averkiyev (, (November 23, 1836, Yekaterinodar, Russian Empire, — January 20, 1905, Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire) was a Russian playwright, theatre critic, novelist, publicist and translator. He is the author of the Russian libretto to ""Rogneda"" by Alexander Serov. Averkiyev's best known plays were ""Frol Skorbeyev"" (Фрол Скорбеев, 1869) and ""Old Times in Kashira"" (Каширская старина, 1872); both continued to be produced into the Soviet times. He was also an acclaimed theatre critic who contributed to ""Epokha"", ""Moskovskiye Vedomosti"", ""Novoye Vremya"" and ""Vsemirnaya Illyustratsiya"" (where he was the head of the literary section, in 1869-1871). Averkiyev's"
"Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy Count Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, often referred to as A. K. Tolstoy () ( – ), was a Russian poet, novelist and playwright, considered to be the most important nineteenth-century Russian historical dramatist, primarily on the strength of his dramatic trilogy ""The Death of Ivan the Terrible"" (1866), ""Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich"" (1868), and ""Tsar Boris"" (1870). He also gained fame for his satirical works, published under his own name (""History of the Russian State from Gostomysl to Timashev"", ""The Dream of Councillor Popov"") and under the collaborational pen name of Kozma Prutkov. His fictional works include the novella"
"Georgy Burdzhalov Georgy Sergeyevich Burdzhalov (, born ""Бурджалян"", Бурджалян; 14 April 1869, Astrakhan, Russian Empire, — 10 December 1924, Moscow, Soviet Union) was an Armenian Russian stage actor and theatre director, associated with Moscow Art Theatre, where he played, in all, 38 parts, including the acclaimed Mikhaylo Golovin (""Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich"", A.K. Tolstoy, 1898), The Wood Demon (""The Sunken Bell"", Gerhart Hauptmann, 1898), Launcelot Gobbo (""The Merchant of Venice"", William Shakespeare, 1898), Kadushkin (""Men Above the Law"", Alexey Pisemsky, 1898), Tatishchev (""The Death of Ivan the Terrible"", A.K. Tolstoy, 1899). Konstantin Stanislavski praised Burdzhalov for his artistic gifts, but, first"
"2003 he joined the United Russia party. Currently he is an art director of the Moscow Theater 'Et Cetera'. Alexander Kalyagin Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Kalyagin (; born 25 May 1942) is a Soviet/Russian actor and director, member of the Public Chamber of Russia, People's Artist of Russia (1983), Laureate of the State Prizes for his works in the theatre and the cinema. He is best known for his roles in the films ""Hello, I'm Your Aunt!"" (1975) and ""Dead Souls"" (1984). In 1965 Kalyagin graduated from the Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute and later worked in Moscow Art Theatre and some other"
"magnum opus ""On Drama"" won him the Pushkin Prize in 1893. Dmitry Averkiyev Dmitry Vasilyevich Averkiyev (, (November 23, 1836, Yekaterinodar, Russian Empire, — January 20, 1905, Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire) was a Russian playwright, theatre critic, novelist, publicist and translator. He is the author of the Russian libretto to ""Rogneda"" by Alexander Serov. Averkiyev's best known plays were ""Frol Skorbeyev"" (Фрол Скорбеев, 1869) and ""Old Times in Kashira"" (Каширская старина, 1872); both continued to be produced into the Soviet times. He was also an acclaimed theatre critic who contributed to ""Epokha"", ""Moskovskiye Vedomosti"", ""Novoye Vremya"" and ""Vsemirnaya Illyustratsiya"" (where"
"Fyodor Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (; ; 11 November 18219 February 1881), sometimes transliterated Dostoyevsky, was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist and philosopher. Dostoevsky's literary works explore human psychology in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century Russia, and engage with a variety of philosophical and religious themes. His most acclaimed works include ""Crime and Punishment"" (1866), ""The Idiot"" (1869), ""Demons"" (1872) and ""The Brothers Karamazov"" (1880). Dostoevsky's oeuvre consists of 11 novels, three novellas, 17 short stories and numerous other works. Many literary critics rate him as one of the greatest psychologists in world"
"Yablochkina, Vera Pashennaya, Aleksandr Yuzhin, Aleksandr Ostuzhev, Vladimir Davydov, Konstantin Zubov, Stepan Kuznetsov, Nikolai Annenkov, Mikhail Tsaryov, Igor Ilyinsky and many other notable Russian actors. She became famous in 1902 after her powerful stage performances as Korobochka in Nikolai Gogol's classic drama ""Dead Souls"". Among her best-known stage roles were such classic parts as the officer's widow in the 1903 staging of ""Revizor"" (""The Government Inspector""), Merchutkina in ""Jubiley"" (1904), based on a play by Anton Chekhov, and Kukushkina in the 1911 staging of ""A Profitable Position"". Over the course of her stage career Massalitinova established herself as one of"
"Mariinsky Theatre, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Boris Godunov (play) Boris Godunov (, Borís Godunóv; variant title: ""Драматическая повесть, Комедия o настоящей беде Московскому государству, o царе Борисе и о Гришке Отрепьеве"", ""A Dramatic Tale, The Comedy of the Distress of the Muscovite State, of Tsar Boris, and of Grishka Otrepyev"") is a closet play by Alexander Pushkin. It was written in 1825, published in 1831, but not approved for performance by the censor until 1866 . Its subject is the Russian ruler Boris Godunov, who reigned as Tsar from 1598 to 1605. It consists of 25 scenes and is written predominantly"
"Konstantin Varlamov Konstantin Alexandrovich Varlamov (, 23 May 1848 – 15 August 1915) was a Russian stage actor associated with the Alexandrinsky Theatre. Konstantin Varlamov was born in Saint Petersburg, Imperial Russia, to the composer Alexander Varlamov. In the course of his thirty-year career with the Alexandrinsky Theatre, he played more than one thousand parts (640 of them leads); among his best-remembered roles were Varravin (""The Case"", by Aleksandr Sukhovo-Kobylin), Yaichnitsa (""The Marriage""), Lyapkin-Tyapkin (""Revizor"") and Chichikov (""Dead Souls""), all by Nikolai Gogol; Bolshov (""Family Affair""), Yusov (""A Profitable Position""), Rusakov (""Stay in Your Own Sled""), Krutitsky (""Enough Stupidity in"
"Bruno Freindlich Bruno Arturovich Freindlich (; 10 October 1909 – 9 July 2002) was a Soviet/Russian actor of German ancestry who became People's Artist of the USSR in 1974. His daughter Alisa Freindlich is also a notable actress. A native of Saint Petersburg, Bruno Freindlich began his career as an actor performing for audiences of children. For two years he worked at the Bolshoi Theatre of Drama. Since 1948, he was a leading actor of the former Alexandrine Theatre. Among his stage works were Khlestakov in ""The Government Inspector"" and Hamlet in Grigori Kozintsev's staging of Shakespeare's play. He played"
"in 1917, aged 68. His son Yuri was an artist whose works appeared in the Tretyakof Gallery. He also had two children out of wedlock, one of whom, Boris Raikov, became a professor of history. Ippolit Shpazhinsky Ippolit Vasilievich Shpazhinsky () () was a Russian playwright and poet. He is best known for his play ""The Enchantress"" (""Чародейка""), which Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky adapted as his opera of the same name. Ippolit Shpazhinsky was born in Voronezh in 1848. He received a military education, and served for some years in an uhlan regiment. He resigned his commission to devote himself to"
"also sought to come to terms with the new industrial age. The works of the Englishman Charles Dickens (including his novels ""Oliver Twist"" and ""A Christmas Carol"") and the Frenchman Victor Hugo (including ""Les Miserables"") remain among the best known and widely influential. The first great Russian novelist was Nikolai Gogol (""Dead Souls""). Then came Ivan Goncharov, Nikolai Leskov and Ivan Turgenev. Leo Tolstoy (""War and Peace"", ""Anna Karenina"") and Fyodor Dostoevsky (""Crime and Punishment"", ""The Idiot"", ""The Brothers Karamazov"") soon became internationally renowned to the point that many scholars such as F. R. Leavis have described one or the"
"Grigory Kugushev Prince Grigory Vasilyevich Kugushev (, 17 March 1824 – 3 October 1871) was a Russian writer, poet and playwright whose comedies, including ""Goluboi Kapot"" (Blue Hood), ""Pari"" (The Bet), ""Priyomysh"" (The Foster) had considerable, if not lasting, success in the Russian Imperial Theatres in 1850s. More substantial and critically acclaimed were Kugushev's works of fiction, notably ""Kornet Otletayev"" (Корнет Отлетаев, a three-part novella, first published by ""Russky Vestnik"" in 1856) and the four-part novel ""Postoronneye Vliyaniye"" (Постороннее влияние, The Outside Influence, 1858—1859). He also wrote the libretto for the epic drama opera ""Mazeppa"" (1859) by Baron Boris Fitinhof-Schell."
"Grigory Kugushev Prince Grigory Vasilyevich Kugushev (, 17 March 1824 – 3 October 1871) was a Russian writer, poet and playwright whose comedies, including ""Goluboi Kapot"" (Blue Hood), ""Pari"" (The Bet), ""Priyomysh"" (The Foster) had considerable, if not lasting, success in the Russian Imperial Theatres in 1850s. More substantial and critically acclaimed were Kugushev's works of fiction, notably ""Kornet Otletayev"" (Корнет Отлетаев, a three-part novella, first published by ""Russky Vestnik"" in 1856) and the four-part novel ""Postoronneye Vliyaniye"" (Постороннее влияние, The Outside Influence, 1858—1859). He also wrote the libretto for the epic drama opera ""Mazeppa"" (1859) by Baron Boris Fitinhof-Schell."
"death of his father. He began writing poems and short stories. He worked in theatre as a set and lighting designer; he became interested in writing plays after being exposed to the work of Harold Pinter. In 1997, Bogayev won the Anti-Booker Prize for ""Русская народная почта"" (""The Russian National Postal Service"") and the award for Best Play at Russia's Golden Mask Festival for that same play. The author of over 30 plays, he is best known for his play ""Русская народная почта"" (""Russkaya Narodnaya Pochta"", variously translated as ""The Russian National Postal Service"", ""The Russian People's Post"", etc.), for"
"Alexander Palm Alexander Ivanovich Palm (Александр Иванович Пальм, 2 February [o.s. 21 January] 1822, Krasnoslobodsk, Penza Governorate, Russian Empire, - 22 [o.s. 10] November 1885, Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire) was a Russian poet, novelist and playwright, who also used the pseudonym P. Alminsky. A member of the Petrashevsky Circle, Palm in 1847 was arrested, spent 8 months in the Petropavlovsk Fortress, had his death sentence changed to deportation and served 7 years in the Russian Army. Among his best known works are ""Alexey Slobodin. The History of One Family"" (1874, novel) and ""Our Friend Neklyuzhev"" (1879, drama). Alexander Ivanovich Palm"
"body of plays and stories. Victor Komissarzhevsky. Moscow: Progress, 1977. 467–542. 140–48. ""Plays of the 1970s"". Moscow: Raduga, n.d., 282–323. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1983. Press, 1994. издательский отдел упрполиграфиздата, 1989) [Bibliographical index covering 1958-1986.] Alexander Vampilov Alexander Valentinovich Vampilov () (19 August 1937, Cheremkhovo, Irkutsk Oblast – 17 August 1972 at Lake Baikal) was a Russian playwright. His play ""Elder Son"" was first performed in 1969, and became a national success two years later. Many of his plays have been filmed or televised in Russia. His four full-length plays were translated into English and ""Duck Hunting"" was performed"
"in Novodevichy Cemetery. Konstantin Varlamov Konstantin Alexandrovich Varlamov (, 23 May 1848 – 15 August 1915) was a Russian stage actor associated with the Alexandrinsky Theatre. Konstantin Varlamov was born in Saint Petersburg, Imperial Russia, to the composer Alexander Varlamov. In the course of his thirty-year career with the Alexandrinsky Theatre, he played more than one thousand parts (640 of them leads); among his best-remembered roles were Varravin (""The Case"", by Aleksandr Sukhovo-Kobylin), Yaichnitsa (""The Marriage""), Lyapkin-Tyapkin (""Revizor"") and Chichikov (""Dead Souls""), all by Nikolai Gogol; Bolshov (""Family Affair""), Yusov (""A Profitable Position""), Rusakov (""Stay in Your Own Sled""), Krutitsky"
"Viktor Dyachenko Viktor Antonovich Dyachenko (, born 1818, — died 1876) was a Russian playwright and theatre critic. Having debuted in 1830 with ""God Gives You a Prayer..."" (За Богом молитва, за Царем служба не пропадает), he authored, in all, 76 plays, the most successful of which was ""Victim for Victim"" (Жертва за жертву), ""God's Punishment"" (Кара Божия, both 1861) and ""The Governor"" (Гувернёр, 1864). At the peak of his success, in 1860—1863, he wrote 23 plays, 21 of which were included into the five-volume ""Drama Works"" collection which came out in Moscow in 1873—1876. Dealing predominantly with family life,"
"Sergey Naydyonov Sergey Alexandrovich Alexeyev (, 26 September 1868, Kazan, Imperial Russia, — 5 December 1922, Yalta, Soviet Russia) was a Russian playwright, better known under his pen name Naydyonov (Найдёнов), another one being Rogozhin (Рогожин). His debut play, the semi-autobiographical ""Vanyushin's Children"" (Deti Vanyushina, Дети Ванюшина, 1901) proved to be his most famous one and is considered part of the classic Russian drama legacy. It earned him the Griboyedov Prize which he shared that year with Maxim Gorky (""The Philistines"") and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko (""In Dreams""). His other notable plays include ""The Life of Avdotya"" (Avdotyina zhizn, Авдотьина жизнь, 1904),"
"Vaso Abashidze Vasil (Vaso) Abashidze (; ) (December 4, 1854 – October 9, 1926) was a Georgian theater actor and a founder of a realistic acting tradition in Georgia. Born in Dusheti, Georgia, then part of Tiflis Governorate, Russian Empire, Abashidze worked as a teacher in Kutaisi and Azerbaijan. At the same time, he played for amateur theatre troupes in Kutaisi. In 1879, he joined the renewed professional Georgian dramatic troupe in Tiflis and featured in comedies by both Georgian and foreign authors. His best roles included Famusov (Griboyedov’s ""Woe from Wit""), Khlestakov (Gogol’s ""The Government Inspector""), Belogubov and Iusov"
"Boris Godunov (play) Boris Godunov (, Borís Godunóv; variant title: ""Драматическая повесть, Комедия o настоящей беде Московскому государству, o царе Борисе и о Гришке Отрепьеве"", ""A Dramatic Tale, The Comedy of the Distress of the Muscovite State, of Tsar Boris, and of Grishka Otrepyev"") is a closet play by Alexander Pushkin. It was written in 1825, published in 1831, but not approved for performance by the censor until 1866 . Its subject is the Russian ruler Boris Godunov, who reigned as Tsar from 1598 to 1605. It consists of 25 scenes and is written predominantly in blank verse. Modest Mussorgsky's"
"Boris Dobronravov Boris Georgiyevich Dobronravov (, 16 April 1896, Moscow, Imperial Russia, — 27 October 1949, Moscow, USSR) was a Russian and Soviet actor, associated with the Moscow Art Theatre. The People's Artist of the USSR (1937), and a recipient of numerous high-profile state awards, including the Order of Lenin (1938) and the Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1837), he is best remembered for his parts in ""An Ardent Heart"" and ""The Storm"" by Alexander Ostrovsky (Narkis, Tikhon respectively), ""The Days of the Turbins"" (Mikhail Bulgakov, Myshlayevsky), ""Dead Souls"" (Nikolai Gogol, Nozdryov), ""The Cherry Orchard"" (Anton Chekhov, Lopakhin)."
"Maxim Gorky Alexei Maximovich Peshkov ( or – 18 June 1936), primarily known as Maxim (Maksim) Gorky (), was a Russian and Soviet writer, a founder of the socialist realism literary method and a political activist. He was also a five-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Around fifteen years before success as a writer, he frequently changed jobs and roamed across the Russian Empire; these experiences would later influence his writing. Gorky's most famous works were ""The Lower Depths"" (1902), ""Twenty-six Men and a Girl"", ""The Song of the Stormy Petrel"", ""My Childhood"","" Mother"", ""Summerfolk"" and ""Children of"
"Alexander Kalyagin Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Kalyagin (; born 25 May 1942) is a Soviet/Russian actor and director, member of the Public Chamber of Russia, People's Artist of Russia (1983), Laureate of the State Prizes for his works in the theatre and the cinema. He is best known for his roles in the films ""Hello, I'm Your Aunt!"" (1975) and ""Dead Souls"" (1984). In 1965 Kalyagin graduated from the Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute and later worked in Moscow Art Theatre and some other Moscow theaters. In 1996 he was elected the Head of the Union of Theatrical Figures of Russia, and in"
"century in Russia than elsewhere in Europe and took a more uncompromising form. Beginning with the plays of Ivan Turgenev (who used ""domestic detail to reveal inner turmoil""), Aleksandr Ostrovsky (who was Russia's first professional playwright), Aleksey Pisemsky (whose ""A Bitter Fate"" (1859) anticipated Naturalism), and Leo Tolstoy (whose ""The Power of Darkness"" (1886) is ""one of the most effective of naturalistic plays""), a tradition of psychological realism in Russia culminated with the establishment of the Moscow Art Theatre by Konstantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. The most important theatrical force in later 19th-century Germany was that of Georg II, Duke"
"praised by Maxim Gorky and ""Walls"" (Steny, Стены, 1907). Sergey Naydyonov Sergey Alexandrovich Alexeyev (, 26 September 1868, Kazan, Imperial Russia, — 5 December 1922, Yalta, Soviet Russia) was a Russian playwright, better known under his pen name Naydyonov (Найдёнов), another one being Rogozhin (Рогожин). His debut play, the semi-autobiographical ""Vanyushin's Children"" (Deti Vanyushina, Дети Ванюшина, 1901) proved to be his most famous one and is considered part of the classic Russian drama legacy. It earned him the Griboyedov Prize which he shared that year with Maxim Gorky (""The Philistines"") and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko (""In Dreams""). His other notable plays include"