Russian Drama Since the 1600’s (Critical Survey of Drama)
Introduction
Russian drama sprang from universal human impulses to imitate, mime, playact, dance, sing, jest, and celebrate nature’s cycles. Like Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Germans, and many other peoples, ancient Slavs had pagan ceremonies to celebrate the death of winter and birth of spring. Later, when Christianized, they dramatized the festivals of Christmas and Easter, or mixed cultural rituals in carnival rites, reminiscent of Greek Dionysian festivals, which featured skomorokhi (“merry men”) who played flutes and gamboled.
By the sixteenth century,...
[The entire page is 7734 words long]
