SOURCE: O'Malley, Lurana Donnels. “From Fat Falstaff to Francophile Fop: Russian Nationalism in Catherine the Great's Merry Wives.” Comparative Drama 33, No. 3 (Fall 1999): 365-89.

[In the essay below, O'Malley demonstrates how Catherine appropriated English comedy to create plays that advanced the cause of Russian nationalism. Focusing on This 'tis to Have Linen and Buck-Baskets, Catherine's adaptation of Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor, O'Malley suggests that by paring down the plot and avoiding Shakespearean-style references to local events and places, Catherine created a more universal comedy that could better serve its didactic function.]

In his anonymously published General Observations Regarding the Present State of the Russian Empire (1787), Sir John Sinclair, English visitor to St. Petersburg, calls Catherine the Great “a hero in petticoats,” who

knows the French Belles Lettres perfectly, and, anno 1786, was reading Shakespeare in the German translation. She also writes comedies herself; and in any part of the world would be accounted, in private life, a most accomplished woman.¹

Over the course of her reign (1762-1796) Catherine wrote over two dozen comedies, historical dramas, and operas, the majority of which, like most Russian drama of the period, was modeled on French neoclassicism. French dramaturgy, however, was not the sole influence on Catherine's writing style. Not only was she reading Shakespeare in 1786 as Sinclair notes, but she also wrote four plays influenced by a Shakespearean aesthetic that same year. Catherine humbly subtitled This 'tis to Have Linen and Buck-Baskets, her version of The Merry Wives of Windsor, as “a free but feeble adaptation.” With this comedy, the first Russian play to credit Shakespeare's influence, Catherine contributed to a growing Russian trend of the 1780s: a lively interest in English fashion, language, and literature to replace the former domination of French culture.² As literary historian Marcus Levitt has noted, “The question to consider is not how eighteenth-century writers misunderstood or corrupted Shakespeare but how they adapted him to meet specific needs of their own.”³ By imitating Shakespeare rather than Moliere or Racine, Catherine probably rejected the French model, an act with both cultural and political connotations. The approbation of Shakespeare had the potential to express simultaneously pro-English and anti-French sentiments, all in the name of Russian nationalism. This article will examine how, despite her conscious attempt to follow a Shakespearean model while satirizing Francophilia, Catherine instead ultimately crafted a neoclassical comedy still strongly influenced by the French mode.

Although Russian imitations of French neoclassical drama were prevalent in the mid-eighteenth century, there was also some Russian interest in Shakespeare. Russian writers were aware of the debates on the merits of Shakespeare's style by Western European theorists such as Voltaire and Lessing. As early as 1748, Aleksandr Sumarokov, the first professional Russian playwright, had written an adaptation of Hamlet. Although he preserved the play's basic plot, he transformed the play into a neoclassical tragedy, complete with confidants, and did not credit Shakespeare's influence. Although English was not a well-known language among Russian courtiers and writers, readers of French had access to summaries of Shakespeare plays in La Place's editions (1746-49).⁴ A German speaker living in Russia could read Shakespeare in German translation from sources such as Wieland's 1762-66 edition of twenty-two plays, or later in Eschenburg's twelve volumes of the complete Shakespeare plays (1775-1782).⁵

In 1772 the first Russian translation of part of Shakespeare's work appeared: a single speech from Romeo and Juliet. It was not until 1783 that a full play, Richard III, was translated. In 1786 Karamzin published a Russian translation of Julius Caesar.⁶ In September of that year, Catherine wrote to her correspondent Friedrich Melchior Grimm that she had “gobbled up” the German translations by Eschenburg.⁷ This rapid consumption seems to have inspired her to depart in varying degrees from the prevailing French neoclassical style in 1786 by writing four Shakespearean scripts.

Although Catherine wrote primarily comedies or light operas, three of her 1786 Shakespearean experiments were serious dramas. The Beginning of Oleg's Reign [Nachal'noe upravlenie Olega] and From the Life of Riurik [Iz zhizni Riurika] were historical plays modeled on the English chronicle play structure and set in ninth-century pre-Christian Russia. Riurik is a drama; Oleg, with its many songs and choruses, is most often classified as an opera. Both scripts bear the same self-conscious inscription: “pоdrazanii Saкispiru … biz sоkraniniy tiatralsnyk оbyкnоvinnyk pravil” “an imitation of Shakespeare … without preservation of the usual theatrical rules”.⁸ Catherine experimented at a time when neoclassicism still dominated Russian stages, and the influences of the growing Romanticism in Western Europe had scarcely been felt. It would not be until decades later that Aleksandr Pushkin would write his sprawling historical epic Boris Gudonov (1825), using Shakespearean temporal and spatial structures, and a wide array of characters from peasants to Tsars. Catherine was characteristically ahead of her time in her admiration for Shakespeare and her disregard for the “usual theatrical rules.” Indeed Oleg anticipates the European Romantic project in the rejection of the genre rigidity of neoclassical tragedy; in the glorification of a medieval historical setting; and in the deliberate championing of Shakespeare as a dramaturgical paradigm.⁹ Later in 1786 Catherine wrote one final Shakespearean exercise, an unfinished adaptation of Timon of Athens called The Wastrel [Rastochite'].

Before writing these three plays, however, Catherine first tried her hand at Shakespearean comedy. The diary of her literary secretary Aleksandr Khrapovitskii indicates that The Basket (Catherine's Russian version of The Merry Wives of Windsor) was complete by 15 June 1786: “Sviryl s pоdlinniкоm коmidiy ‘Kоrzina’ iz Saкispira” “I compared the comedy The Basket with the original of Shakespeare”.¹⁰ The play's later title, This 'tis to have Linen and Buck-Baskets [Vot kakovo imet' korzinu i bel'e] comes from one of Ford's lines in Merry Wives: “This 'tis to be married! This 'tis to have linen and buck-baskets!” (3.5.130-131). Catherine's This 'tis was first published by the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg in 1786 in a single edition, and again in 1787 in volume fourteen of the series Russian Theatre [Rossiiskii featr] edited by Princess Dashkova.¹¹ The play premiered in St. Petersburg, either in the last half of 1786 or the beginning of 1787.¹²

The Merry Wives of Windsor resembles a typical eighteenth-century Russian comedy in many ways, and was therefore a logical choice for adaptation by Catherine. Shakespeare's play features a combination of exaggerated fools and normative lovers. Its central story—the undoing of a rogue paralleled by a marriage plot in which a young girl avoids several inappropriate suitors and marries the man of her dreams in a happy denouement—is also typical of Catherine's own comedies.

Catherine's many alterations, however, make the comedy conform more precisely to a neoclassical aesthetic. She emphasizes the instructive point of the plot, that Polkadov is being punished for his excessive Gallomania and his lustfulness. She also eliminates sub-plots, cultural and locational specificity, and most soliloquies. Such changes led Soviet critic Grigorii Gukovskii to write that “Catherine's play was more like a comedy by Sumarokov rather than anything by Shakespeare.”¹³ While seemingly rejecting French neoclassicism, she remained safely within its boundaries.

French customs, manners, and culture were widespread in Catherine's court. She followed the lead of Peter the Great in championing European (particularly French) cultural and social values; she herself was a devoted enthusiast of pre-revolutionary French Enlightenment philosophy. Yet from the 1763 conclusion of the Seven Years War near the beginning of her reign, Russia's relations with France were strained. Until 1770 French Foreign Minister Duc de Choiseul promoted “an active anti-Russian strategy.”¹⁴ Catherine was also outraged by a book published in Paris in 1768. Voyage en Sibérie fait par ordre du roi en 1761, by Abbé Jean Chappe d'Auteroche, criticized Russian cultural practices. The incensed Catherine zealously defended Russia by writing her Antidote as a reply to Auteroche in 1770. Thus, despite mutual alliances and treaties in the 1770s and 1780s, relations with France were uneasy and competitive. One of Catherine's goals was to further Westernization while at the same time preserving and nourishing Russian culture, language, and traditions. The prevalent Gallomania, particularly among the nobility, was thus troubling to her. As she encouraged a nationalist pride, she had little use for disdainful Francophiles who unfavorably compared the two countries.

Imitating Shakespeare enabled Catherine to battle France on two levels, while still remaining “at peace”: by poking fun at Gallomania within the action of the play itself, and, more significantly, by rejecting the French model of dramaturgy in favor of Shakespeare. Although she accomplished her first goal, her comedy scarcely rejects neoclassicism. She reshaped Shakespeare's comedy to conform to the rules of the age. Catherine may have spoofed the French in the subject matter of her comedy, but she still bowed to the French style.

I

Although character names are Russianized, the plot of Catherine's play closely follows Shakespeare's main story. Briefly, Iakov Vlas'evich' Polkadov (Falstaff) attempts to woo the wives of both Egor Avdeich' Papin (Page) and Fordov (Ford). The wives, Akulina Terent'evna Papina and Fordova (Mistress Page and Mistress Ford), thwart him three times, by hiding him in a linen basket, dressing him as a witch, and masquerading as goblins in the forest. The wives are aided in their scheme by K'ela (Mistress Quickly). In the meantime, Anna Papina (Anne Page) is being courted by three suitors: Kazhu (Doctor Caius), Lialiukin (Slender), and Fintov (Fenton). Other characters include Polkadov's rascally friends Bardolin, Numov, and Pikov (Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol); the inn's Host; the judge Mitrofan Avakumovich' Shalov (Shallow); the matchmaker Vanov (Sir Hugh Evans); and a servant Zin'ka (Peter Simple). Catherine deletes three minor characters altogether: the Pages' son William, the servant John Rugby, and Robin, Falstaff's page.

Most of these Russian characters are quite similar to their originals: Fenton/Fintov is the devoted lover, Ford/Fordov is the comic cuckold, etc. Yet Catherine made deliberate changes to several of Shakespeare's characters to reflect the Russian milieu and to promote her anti-French theme. Falstaff's transformation from Shakespeare's “greasy knight” into Polkadov, a Russian Francophile, is one of the most prominent changes in the adaptation. Catherine was not alone in satirizing Gallomania: the Francophile was a stock character in Russian comedy of the eighteenth century.¹⁵ Ivanushka in Fonvizin's The Brigadier (Brigadir, 1769) epitomizes this type, who speaks in a Franco-Russian jargon, and boasts of his familiarity with the customs and manners in Paris. Catherine herself also included a Russian petit-maître, Firliufiushkov, in the cast of her early comedy Mrs. Grumbler's Name-Day [Imianiny Gospozhi Vorchalkinoi] (1772).

In the very first line of Catherine's This 'tis, Shalov sets the stage for the worldly Polkadov: “Kоtyb dvadцatsy Pоlкadоv byl v Parizi, tо оn MitrоΦana Salоva duracits prava ni imiit” [“Just because Polkadov may have been to Paris twenty times doesn't mean he has the right to make a fool of Mitrofan Shalov”] (5).¹⁶ From his first entrance in 1.3, Polkadov ostentatiously mixes French phrases into his speech, comparing St. Petersburg to Paris:

Vоt isi кaкiy bizdiliцy […] vsyкuy malоsts, des simples tours de jeunesse, za bidu stavyt … sprоsiti u zinsкоgо pоla … кaк y s nimi uctiv byl … Chez nous à Paris taк vоditsy …

[Here are still such idlers […] every trifle, des simples tours de jeunesse, they make into a calamity … ask the female sex … how courteous I was with them … Chez nous à Paris that is the custom …]

(7)

Polkadov also brags about his affection for fine French products such as powder, tobacco, and wine (25), and later complains about the linguistic abilities of his companions Bardolin, Pikov, and Numov: “оni zi ni gоvоryt … ni tоlsко ctо pо … pо Φranцuzsкi, ni zi pо Niminцкi” [“they don't speak … either French or German”] (13). His vain assessment of the Russians' lack of sophistication continues throughout the play, only increasing the humor when he is later duped by the other characters.

Polkadov combines his affection for anything French with a self-perceived worldliness. In 2.11, Fordov, disguised as Bruk, flatters Polkadov by alluding to his reputation:

Я slysal, ctо vy, sudars, izdili vizdi i izdоy prоslaviliss … y davnо zilay s vami оznaкоmitssy … Sкazyvayt … vsi zinsiny оt vas biz uma … biz pamyti.

[I heard that you, sir, have traveled all around and have became famous for your travels … I have wished to meet you for a long time … They say … that all the women are crazy for you … head over heels.]

(26)

Shakespeare's version of the same speech has quite a different beginning: “Sir, I hear you are a scholar” (2.2.170). Catherine's change suggests an additional implication: that Polkadov is a well-known ladies' man. Polkadov is a Francophile, world traveler, and Don Juan.

Catherine also significantly alters the character of Falstaff by trimming his enormous size. In Shakespeare's 2.1, Mistress Ford has a long speech, wholly absent from Catherine's scene, that makes several allusions to Falstaff's “greatness”:

I shall think the worse of fat men as long as I have an eye to make difference of men's liking … What tempest, I trow, threw this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his belly, ashore at Windsor? How shall I be revenged on him? I think the best way were to entertain him with hope till the wicked fire of lust have melted him in his own grease.

(2.1.51-63)

Whereas Mistress Page later replies, “Let's consult together against this greasy knight” (2.1.99-100), Anna Papina's closing line in 2.3 omits the “greasy knight”, saying merely “Pоjdim sоvitоvats, ctо dilats” [“Let's go consult about what to do”] (21). Mistress Page's line “I am glad the fat knight is not here” (4.2.24) becomes Akulina Papina's “Ocins kоrоsо ctо Pоlкadоva zdiss nitu” [“It's very good that Polkadov isn't here”] (41). In one of Falstaff's most picturesque speeches, his description of being dumped into the Thames, he himself refers to his own weight in several ways:

… and you may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking. If the bottom were as deep as hell, I should down. I had been drowned but that the shore was shelvy and shallow—a death that I abhor, for the water swells a man, and what a thing should I have been when I had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy.

(3.5.10-17)

Catherine's Polkadov instead gives an unembellished account of the action: “vynisli miny v коrzкini i кinuli v luzu” [“they carried me out in a basket and threw me in the pond”] (38).¹⁷

Falstaff's enormity is not his only missing physical attribute. Sir Hugh Evans, the Welsh parson, refers to the “peard” of the witch of Brentford (not knowing he is talking about Falstaff):

By yea and no, I think the 'oman is a witch indeed. I like not when a 'oman has a great peard; I spied a great peard under her muffler.

(4.2.178-180)

Catherine retains the incongruity of the image, while omitting the beard: “Tоlsко оna zapоdlinnо na vidsmu pоkоza; кaк muziк v zinsкоm platsi … samay cucila!” [“Only she truly looks like a witch; like a man in a woman's dress … a very scarecrow!”] (44).

Why did Catherine eliminate these attributes? In contrast to Shakespearean comedy, continental neoclassicism emphasized character action over character appearance, and eschewed specifics to focus on universality. Neoclassical comedies in Russia, although highly dependent on exaggerated characters and stereotypes, did not usually satirize characters' physical traits. In Catherine's own comedies, we learn much about the characters' foibles, obsessions, and values, but little about their appearances. Even when Catherine describes the title character of her shaman character in The Siberian Shaman [Shaman Sibirskoi], 1786, she mentions details about his clothing and actions, but nothing about his body or features. The characterization of Catherine's Polkadov is the product of his own behavior and dialogue.

Catherine also omits a perhaps more important Falstaff characteristic: his blustering, bragging verbosity. Again, the effect is to draw attention to character behavior rather than innate personality. In Shakespeare's characterization, Falstaff is not only a “greasy knight,” a drinker, and a chaser of women, but he is also a broadly comic abuser of the English language, with a flair for bawdy metaphor and vivid imagery. In Shakespeare's 5.5, the first time Falstaff appears in his disguise as Herne, his lengthy speech inflates his own egoism. The numerous mythological references heighten the humor, as Falstaff places himself in league with the gods, moments before his undoing at the hands of the false fairies and hobgoblins.

… Now, the hot-blooded gods assist me! Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa. Love set on thy horns. O powerful love, that in some respects makes a beast a man, in some other a man a beast! You were also, Jupiter, a swan for the love of Leda. O omnipotent love, how near the god drew to the complexion of a goose! A fault done first in the form of a beast—O Jove, a beastly fault!—and then another fault in the semblance of a fowl—think on 't, Jove, a foul fault! When gods have hot backs, what shall poor men do?

(5.5.2-12)

Catherine was much less interested in creating linguistic distinctions between her characters. Polkadov does begin the play by weaving French phrases into his speech, but after the second act he loses this habit, and speaks a very simplified, non-distinctive speech. In Catherine's final act, Polkadov, disguised and waiting in the park, speaks simply and concisely: “Я zdiss оdin … v lisu … vsyкоi dirivо кazitsy mni lisim” [“I'm here alone … in the forest … every tree seems to be a wood-goblin to me”] (49).

The merry wives trick Falstaff not only because of his actions but also because of his irrepressibly lusty personality, as revealed through his hyperbolic dialogue. In contrast, because Polkadov's language is simple and direct, his punishment is less a judgment on his inherent character traits than on his actions (the attempted seduction of the women). This shift emphasizes the didactic function of Catherine's version, helping her to achieve one of the principal goals of neoclassical comedy: instruction.

The changes to Mistress Quickly also highlight the anti-French sentiment of Catherine's play. Quickly, housekeeper of Doctor Caius, is transformed into the French merchant woman Madame K'ela. André Lirondelle criticized Catherine's play for losing Mistress Quickly's picturesque nature and “her verbosity of a woman of the people.”¹⁸ Whereas Mistress Quickly's lively ramblings are humorous, Madame K'ela is amusing in a quite different way: her speech is broken and ungrammatical, and her Russian words are spoken with a strong French accent. When the audience first encounters her in 1.14, she is immediately comical as she substitutes “kospodin” for “gospodin” and “shelovek” for “chelovek.”

KЬILа.
Kоspоdin кaк imy?
ZINЬKа.
Ivan аvramоvics Lylyкin.
KЬILа.
Dоbr silоviк оn?
K'ELA.
And your master has what name?
ZIN'KA.
Ivan Avraamovich' Lialiukin.
K'ELA.
Is he a good man?

(17)

K'ela's nationality links her to the Francophile Polkadov and to the French doctor Kazhu. Kazhu's dialogue has an equally comical French accent [“y snaj, stо y snaj”] (17); he is similar to Shakespeare's Doctor Caius who also has a strong accent [By gar, it is a shallenge] (1.4.102). As the audience laughs at K'ela's and Kazhu's adulteration of the Russian language, Catherine not only makes fun of the Francophile character Polkadov, but also shows French nationals as foolish. With transparent nationalism, Catherine implies that ignorance of the Russian language is a shortcoming.

K'ela's dialogue is not wholly comic, however. Late in the play, in 5.6, Madame K'ela delivers her invocation to the witches in sophisticated Russian verse, contrasting with K'ela's earlier dialogue.¹⁹ Several critics consider this disparity a careless error on Catherine's part. But since the verse lines spoken in The Merry Wives, 5.5, by Mistress Quickly as Queen of the Fairies are also inconsistent with her linguistic character in the rest of the play,²⁰ Catherine's seeming inconsistency actually replicates an incongruity from Shakespeare's text.

Catherine changes Sir Hugh Evans from a parson to the matchmaker (svat) Vanov. Although he speaks most of the same lines as Evans, Vanov is Russian and hardly a comic character. The strong Welsh dialect of Shakespeare's Evans is consistently a form of humor: “Be pold, I pray you. Follow me into the pit, and when I give the watch-'ords, do as I pid you” (5.4.2-3). Lirondelle notes that Catherine transfers this ridicule from Evans to K'ela, preserving the humor of errors in language.²¹ Catherine may have felt that isolating three characters as French or Francophile (K'ela, Kazhu, and Polkadov) was sufficient for her purposes, and that satirizing an additional nationality would cloud the issue.²²

Catherine adds her own touch to make her version of Slender a more familar Russian comic type. Lialiukin punctuates most of his dialogue with repetitive laughter:

Ki! ki! ki! u miny byl оtiц, аnna Igоrsivna … ki! ki! ki! … Dydysкa vam sкazit prо nigо sutок mnоgо … ki! ki! ki! … Dydysкa, sкazi аnni Igоrsivni batysкinu sutкu, кaк оn gusij u sоsida sо dvоra typnul … ki! ki! ki!

[Hee! hee! hee! I had a father, Anna Egor'evna … hee! hee! hee! … Uncle will tell you many jokes about him … hee! hee! hee! … Uncle, tell Anna Egor'evna a joke about papa, such as when he grabbed the goose from a neighbor in the courtyard … hee! hee! hee!]

(35)

The frequent repetition of the same phrase—“hee! hee! hee!”—effectively shows his immaturity. Lialiukin characterizes himself as a juvenile: “ki! ki! ki! … tоlsко y nidоrоsls i v sluzbi ni byval … ki! ki! ki!” “hee! hee! hee! … only I am a minor and have not yet been in service … hee! hee! hee!” (35). Denis Fonvizin's The Minor [Nedorosl'] (1781), usually considered to be the “best Russian play of the eighteenth century,”²³ has a title character who is also a nedorosl' or minor. Fonvizin's minor Mitrofan, who has also not yet entered government service, is comical because of his ignorance. Although Lialiukin possesses none of Mitrofan's arrogance, in each play the minor is ridiculously considered to be marriage material for the heroine. In changing these four characters, Catherine transformed Shakespeare's cast into the familiar types of Russian comedy: the Francophile, the foreigner, the minor.

II

In addition to changing character traits, Catherine crafted This 'tis into a very compact version of Merry Wives. When André Lirondelle compared the two scripts in 1908, he harshly criticized Catherine's alterations to and abbreviations of Shakespeare's original: “It seems tha the empress wanted to lead a dramatic action like a war campaign.”²⁴ As a published text, This 'tis is much shorter than Merry Wives, but is similar in length to Catherine's other comedies of the 1770s and 1780s. Her abridgement may therefore have been for the sake of her Russian audience. Catherine focuses her plot on the central storyline of Falstaff's threefold mortification, while also retaining the story of Anne Page's betrothal. Such a dual plot, typical of neoclassical comedy, is frequently found in Catherine's own original comedies. The fate of a young girl's love is usually tied in some way into the main action of the play, and the resolution concludes that action while also allowing the girl to marry her true love. Each play in Catherine's later anti-Masonic trilogy combines a satire on mysticism with just such a marriage plot.

In changing the play to fit this neoclassical aesthetic, Catherine eliminates an entire subplot, that of the thwarted duel between Caius and Evans, and their revenge on the Host of the Garter Inn (stealing his horses). Entire scenes are cut (2.3, 3.1, 4.3). These Merry Wives subplot scenes are deeply Shakespearean in placement and tone; they parallel the main action, and provide an echo of the play's theme of revenge and reconciliation. Their loss does not affect the main thrust of the play, but it does sacrifice one layer of complexity.

Catherine also deletes some on-stage comedy by not putting her simple into a closet to hide. In Shakespeare's 1.4, Simple (Slender's servant) arrives at Doctor Caius's house to discuss Slender's suit for Anne Page. When Caius returns, Quickly shuts Simple in the closet. Caius then finds him, saying “Dere is some simples in my closet, dat I vill not for the varld I shall leave behind” (1.4.58-59). This bit of farcical business is humorous because of the situational irony: the audience knows more than the doctor. In Catherine's abbreviated version, Kazhu merely finds K'ela and Zin'ka (Simple) talking together. Catherine's Russian comedies typically avoid on-stage physical business, preferring instead to discuss off-stage events; in This 'tis, however, later scenes contain such actions as Polkadov being beaten in the linen basket, and a dance of fairies and goblins. Why, then, did Catherine choose to eliminate Simple's closet? Perhaps the wing-and-drop scenery of the Russian public playhouses simply did not allow for a working closet, whereas the Elizabethans could have used an on-stage arras. In any case, because Shakespeare's version foreshadows the later scene with Falstaff hiding in the basket, Catherine's omission loses the parallel.

Another lengthy omission is the complete deletion of Shakespeare's 4.1, in which Evans questions his young pupil William Page. For Shakespeare's audience, the pleasure of the scene must have been the witty wordplay, and perhaps also the sight of the young boy-actor speaking off-color humor:

SIR Hugh Evans.
What is your genitive case plural, William?
WILLIAM Page.
Genitive case!
SIR Hugh Evans.
Ay.
WILLIAM Page.
Genitivo, horum, harum, horum.
MISTRESS Quickly.
Vengeance of Jenny's case! Fie on her! Never name her, child, if she be a whore.

(4.1.52-57)

The scene is reminiscent of a quizzing scene in Fonvizin's The Minor [Nedorosl'] (1781), in which the young Mitrofan is questioned about grammar, history, and geography. Satirizing foreign tutors was an established comic strategy in Russian comedy by Catherine's era,²⁵ so it is surprising that Catherine eliminated the scene and character of William Page altogether. For Catherine's purposes, however, the scene is dispensable on several levels. Coming at the beginning of Act 4, as the tension builds towards Falstaff's second humiliation, the scene slows the action. Witty puns are a hallmark of Shakespearean comedy, but too much would have been lost in the transition from English to German to Russian. Catherine in general also eschews sexual humor. By cutting the scene, Catherine excised yet another small sub-plot, therefore creating a more streamlined neoclassical story.

Catherine also cuts the first scene of Shakespeare's Act 5. In the original, Falstaff has learned of his third opportunity from Mistress Quickly. After she exits, Ford appears once more in the disguise of Master Brook. The audience is treated to the pleasure of hearing Falstaff again insult Ford to his face, without knowing it: “That same knave Ford, her husband, hath the finest mad devil of jealousy in him, Master Brook, that ever governed frenzy” (5.1.15-17). Catherine instead chooses to begin her fifth act with Shakespeare's 5.2: with Papin, Shalov, and Slender in the park hiding from Falstaff. This change lessens Brook's comic potential. Catherine also alters Shakespeare's final line:

MISTRESS Page.
Well, I will muse no further.—Master Fenton,
Heaven give you many, many merry days!
Good husband, let us every one go home,
And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire;
Sir John and all.
FORD.
Let it be so. Sir John,
To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word,
For he tonight shall lie with Mistress Ford.

(5.5.232-239)

In This 'tis, this closing exchange is very simplified:

аKULINа PаPINа.
Ctо dilats? … My dumali sutits, a mizdu tim vysil коniц niоzidaimоj.
ΦORDOV.
Pоjdim, pоjdim uzinats.
AKULINA Papina.
What is there to do? … we thought we were making a joke, but meanwhile came an unexpected ending.
FORDOV.
Let's go, let's go have supper.

(54)

Catherine ignores the inclusiveness of Shakespeare's conclusion, in which the roguish Falstaff is invited to participate in the laughter and merriment that were so recently at his expense. She also once again eliminates the humorous potential of the Ford/Brook double identity. Without the rhyming couplet to punctuate the play's ending, Fordov's invitation to supper is a pale substitution for Shakespeare's original.

Both plays are almost completely in prose. On occasion Merry Wives contains passages in iambic pentameter (for instance, Fenton's speech in 5.5.212-222) or speeches in rhymed couplets (Mistress Page's closing lines in Shakespeare's 5.3.21-22 or the 5.5 invocations to the fairies). Catherine play, in contrast, contains only two sections in verse: Falstaff's letter to Anne Page (20) and K'ela's song to the witches (50). Given Catherine's practice of leaving matters of poetic finesse to her assistants, these sections, particularly the song, were probably composed by Khrapovitskii.²⁶

Besides avoiding verse, Catherine eliminates most language that is fanciful or poetic.²⁷ While Akulina Papina says only that Polkadov “bоitsy lisik” “is scared of wood-goblins” (47), Mistress Page develops a vivid and frightening tale of Herne the hunter, who

Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,
Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns;
And there he blasts the trees, and takes the cattle,
And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain
In a most hideous and dreadful manner

(4.4.27-30).

Her words paint a picture—the “spoken decor” of the Elizabethan stage made language central to the audience's experience.

Catherine also generally omits the sensual details that make Shakespeare's descriptions so vivid. In a climactic passage of the play, Falstaff gives a narrative of his journey in the buck-basket.

Being thus crammed in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his hinds, were called forth by their mistress to carry me in the name of foul clothes to Datchet Lane. They took me on their shoulders, met the jealous knave their master in the door, who asked them once or twice what they had in their basket. I quaked for fear, lest the lunatic knave would have searched it; but Fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold, held his hand. Well, on went he for a search, and away went I for foul clothes.

(3.5.89-98)

Catherine's version in her 3.15 scene is quite similar to this point.

POLKаDOV.
Kliкnuli lydij i vilili vynisti … v dviryk pоcti vstritiliss s rivnivym bisоm … On sprоsil … ctо za коrzina? … Я drоzal, кaк list na оsini … Lydi sкazali, nisut cirnоi bilsi v pоrtоmоjny … i vynisli miny …
POLKADOV.
[They called the servants and ordered them to carry me out … in the doorways we almost met with the jealous demon … He asked, what's that basket? … I trembled like an aspen leaf … The servants said they were carrying dirty linen to the washhouse … and they carried me out …]

(39)

Note the addition of the aspen leaf, a rare evocative metaphor added by Catherine.²⁸ As Polkadov continues, however, he tells of being dumped into the water in a quite abbreviated way: “Pоnisli v sad … i tamо оprокinuli коrzinu v luzu … i na mni pitкa sukay ni оstalass. …” “They carried me into the garden … and there overturned the basket into the pond … and on me not a thread remained dry” (39). In contrast, as Falstaff focuses on the details of that journey, Shakespeare draws his audience into the story, into the very basket itself:

But mark the sequel, Master Brook. I suffered the pangs of three several deaths: first, an intolerable fright to be detected with a jealous rotten bell-wether; next, to be compassed like a good bilbo, in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and then, to be stopped in like a strong distillation with stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease. Think of that, a man of my kidney—think of that—that am as subject to heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw. It was a miracle to 'scape suffocation. And in the height of this bath, when I was more than half stewed in grease, like a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing hot, in that surge, like a horseshoe. Think of that—hissing hot—think of that, Master Brook.

(3.5.99-112)

Shakespeare animates the scene through images of the “hissing hot” Falstaff “half stewed in grease.” The two writers' versions are distinct in taste and characterization. Catherine's speech eschews the frank vulgarity and liveliness of Shakespeare's. Polkadov, who simply mentions that his clothes were wet, is no longer the fat knight Falstaff; he is merely a Francophile fop who has been inconvenienced.

Catherine's text, stripped of the visual and sensual imagery of Shakespeare's, is less expressive and less picturesque. She gives her audience the bare bones of plot and character; perhaps little else seemed necessary for the comedy's didactic purpose, a vestige of the French neoclassical style that still pervades the play.

III

The action of Shakespeare's Merry Wives is set in the environs of Windsor, with each of its five acts divided into several different locations. A change of scene indicates a change of place, from Page's house, to the Garter Inn, to a field, to Windsor Park, etc. Catherine instead uses French scene divisions, so that the entrance or exit of a character generally produces a new scene. An act ends when all characters leave the stage, and location is either not specified or remains the same for an entire act. For instance, all sixteen scenes of Catherine's Act 1 take place at the coaching inn (as compared to Shakespeare's four scenes in three locations), and all ten scenes of her Act 5 take place in the garden.

In Catherine's other neoclassical comedies, it is unusual for a shift in place to occur mid-act; Catherine, however, was unable to fit the lengthy action of Shakespeare's third act into a single location. Her first and second scenes seem to take place on the street, her third scene moves to Fordova's chamber, and scene nine moves the action back to the coaching inn. Despite such variety, Catherine indicates in a note that the action of her entire play takes place in the “county of St. Peter at a coaching inn” (4).

By setting the play in St. Petersburg Catherine could more easily achieve her instructive purpose. A comedy set in Russia and showing recognizably Russian characters would have more of a didactic impact than a play about the foibles of foreigners. For the transfer to Russia, Catherine cuts mention of places or practices specific to England. In many cases, however, she does not replace them with something Russian. The resulting effect is a vague universality typical of neoclassicism. In Shakespeare's play, six of the scenes take place in rooms at the Garter Inn. That designation was probably a punning reference to the occasion of the play's first performance, thought to have been the Garter Feast of 23 April 1597. At these festivities, the Knights of the Order of the Garter were elected, and most scholars agree that the play may have been commissioned specifically for an after-dinner entertainment.²⁹ Catherine neither retains the name of the Garter Inn, nor does she replace it with a Russian name. The play simply takes place “at a coaching inn” in St. Petersburg.

Catherine follows this pattern throughout the play. Rather than substituting a Russian place-name for a more localized flavor, Catherine replaces the English name with a non-specific noun. In Shakespeare's 3.3, Mistress Ford instructs her servants to carry the basket “among the whitsters in Datchet Mead, and there empty it in the muddy ditch close by the Thames side” (3.3.12-13). Many audience members in the public playhouse or at the Garter Feast (which in 1597 took place in Whitehall Palace) would have been familiar with the environs of Windsor Park, and could visualize the servants' path through the meadow to the river. Fordova instead instructs Iona and Roman to “vоzmiti коrzinu na plici, оtnisiti v sad … i оprокinsti ii razоm v luzu, pоsridi lugu …” [take the basket on your shoulders, and carry it away into the garden … and turn it over at one go into the pond, in the middle of the meadow …] (29). Catherine declines to mention the Neva river or any particular St. Petersburg park or meadow. Thus, her version of the play loses the enjoyable sense of familiarity, but gains a more neoclassical sense of universality.

Characters in Merry Wives mention Windsor nineteen times, often using the word in adjectival relationship to a noun: “Windsor stag”; “Windsor bell”; “Windsor wives”; “Windsor chimney.” This repetition of Windsor as a modifier further creates a sense of a particular place, a distinct world. In contrast, Catherine does not ever mention St. Petersburg itself in the dialogue of her play. Mistress Quickly's directive “Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out” (5.5.55) is a metatheatrical allusion to the courtly occasion of the play's first performance. In the case of This 'tis, the author was the monarch, and no further allusions to the crown were necessary.

Shakespeare's text is also full of references and allusions to English cultural practices. Because the play is his only comedy set in England, written on the occasion of a traditional English feast, Shakespeare may have wished to emphasize the Englishness of the setting and major characters. In most cases Catherine eliminates terms or concepts specific to England. For example, Falstaff says, “Let the sky rain potatoes, let it thunder to the tune of ‘Greensleeves,’ hail kissing-comfits, and snow eryngoes; let there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here” (5.5.18-21). There being no Russian equivalent to the song “Greensleeves,” Catherine merely cuts it (as well as the rain of potatoes). Polkadov says much more simply: “nо tipirs kоty grоza grynit … kоty grad pribsit … kоty bury vsi pоstavit virsk dnоm, y nicigо ni оpasayss” [but now although the thunder crashes … although the hail flattens … although the storm places everything upside down, I'm not afraid of anything] (49).

In one instance, Catherine turns an alteration to her advantage. In the original, Falstaff's letter to Mistress Page says “You love sack, and so do I” (2.1.8). Catherine changes Polkadov's line to Akulina Papina into a contrast between the two characters, with a hidden nod to the original English setting of the play: “vy кusaiti aglinsкоi pivо, y sampansкоi vinо” [you feast on English beer, I on champagne] (20).

In some instances, however, Catherine chose to Russianize the dialogue by including cultural indicators, making it clear that the play has been removed from its original English setting to somewhere in St. Petersburg. The character names are one obvious example of Russianization; Ford becomes Fordov, Anne Page is Anna Papina, etc. In accordance with Russian practice, characters use Polkadov's name and patronymic, Iakov Vlas'-vich', when they address him directly. In a few cases Catherine creates new lines with Russian-related material. Catherine adds a new metaphor, comparing Polkadov to a patrician Russian wolfhound,³⁰ with Pikov's line: “Bоrzay sоbaкa, sudars, sкacusay za zajцim, ni navidyvaitsy, gоdоvalоj li rusaк … ii dilо dоbycu dоstats” [A borzoi dog, sir, galloping after a hare, doesn't ask whether the grey hare is a yearling … her business to fetch a catch] (22). The line has no equivalent in Shakespeare's text.

In Catherine's 3.10, Lialiukin comments: “оtsili pоjdu v babкi igrats” [from here I will go play at babki] (36). Babki is the Russian children's game of knuckle-bones. This addition, which has no equivalent in Shakespeare's text, accomplishes two things: it adds a Russian flavor, and also further characterizes Lialiukin as juvenile. Since Gallomania is a key issue of the play, this overall sense of Russianness is necessary, although not emphasized. Thus Catherine balances nationalism with neoclassicism at a turning point in the history of Russian drama.

In another strategic move toward universality, Catherine also carefully excises any references to Christianity or its cosmology. She herself had an ambiguous relationship to the Orthodox Church, of which she was the official head. Her conversion to Orthodoxy from Lutheranism took place in 1744, as a condition for her marriage. Her coup against her husband Peter III was in part successful because he had alienated the Church, and was perceived as a “danger to the Orthodox faith.”³¹ Upon acceding to the throne, however, Catherine pursued a policy of secularization, gaining state control of church lands and in many ways reducing the autonomy of the Church. Catherine's own philosophy was based on Enlightenment principles of wisdom acquired through education and the pursuit of reason. Spirituality seems to have played little part in her own life, although of course everyday court activities and ceremonies were intimately tied into church ritual.

Religious belief and imagery do not play large roles in Catherine's other comedies, although Oh, These Times! [O vremia] (1772) is a significant exception. Because that play's principal character is a Tartuffe-like religious hypocrite, her monologues are filled with references to God, the devil, prayers, and icons. In This 'tis, Catherine omits virtually every reference to Christianity. In some cases, Catherine cuts entire lines, such as in her scene 1.2, where she eliminates Evans' line “It is spoke as Christians ought to speak” (1.1.92), or in her 5.5, where Mistress Ford's line “Heaven forgive our sins” (5.5.30) disappears. Other dialogue is retained, but shortened to eliminate the Christian concepts. Mistress Page's line, “Heaven guide him to thy husband's cudgel, and the devil guide his cudgel afterwards! (4.2.79-80), becomes Akulina Papina's “Pusts igо branit, itо smisnо budit …” [Let him scold him, this will be funny …] (42). Page's speech

The night is dark. Lights and spirits will become it
well. Heaven prosper our sport! No man means evil
but the devil, and we shall know him by his horns.
Let's away: follow me.

(5.2.11-13)

becomes simply Papin's “Timnо оcins, pоjdim sprytatssy” [It's very dark, let's go hide] (48).

Other longer speeches are altered so that the basic sense and flow of the line is preserved despite the removal of the slight religious reference:

SLENDER.
I'll ne'er be drunk whilst I live again but in honest, civil, godly company, for this trick. If I be drunk, I'll be drunk with those that have the fear of God, and not with drunken knaves.

(1.1.164-67)

LЯLYKIN.
Я niкоgda bоlii pits ni stanu … s bizdilsniкami … s psyniцami … s igrокami … a budu tоlsко pits s kоrоsimi … s vizlivymi … s uctivymi … s cistnymi lydsmi … оtnyds ni s inymi …

(9)

LIALIUKIN.
I will never drink anymore … with idlers … with drunks … with gamblers … I will only drink with good men … with polite men … with courteous men … with honest men … not at all with others …

Fenton's speech at the end of Shakespeare's play reveals the inherent Christian ethos of the text:

Th' offence is holy that she hath committed,
And this deceit loses the name of craft,
Of disobedience, or unduteous title,
Since therein she doth evitate and shun
A thousand irreligious cursèd hours
Which forcèd marriage would have brought upon her.

(5.5.217-220)

Fenton casts Anne Page's marriage to him as a holy act, arguing that forced marriage results in “irreligious cursèd hours.” Thus, true love is shown to be tied into morality—a sharp contrast to the adulterous shenanigans of Falstaff in the rest of the comedy. But Catherine's Fintov avoids any mention of religion, by focusing instead on Anne's wishes and their mutual love:

Ona оbrоbila taк, ctо gоvоrits ni mоzit … Vyslusajti, pоzaluj, ctо y vam sкazu … Vy оba kоtili ii vydats prоtivu iy zilaniy … Я ii lybly davnо, taк, кaк i оna miny … tipirs my sоidininy naviк. Vy. Igоr аvdiics, аnnu Igоrsivnu vydavali za Lylyкina; акulina Tirinstivna оtdavala ii za dокtоra Kazu … My vоspоlszоvaliss vasimi priugоtоvliniymi, i tipirs prisli оt vinцa prоsits prоsiniy i vasigо blagоslоviniy.

[She is so timid that she cannot speak … Please hear me out … You both wanted her to marry against her wishes … I have loved her for a long time, so, as she loves me … now we are united forever. You, Egor Avdeich', were giving away Anna Egor'evna to Lialiukin; Akulina Teren'tevna were giving her away to Doctor Kazhu. … We made use of your preparations, and then came from the wedding to ask for your pardon and your blessing.]

(53)

Catherine's fight against mysticism may explain her scrupulous avoidance of religious concepts in the play. Whereas Oh, These Times! was composed in 1772, This 'tis was written the same year Catherine completed her “anti-Masonic” trilogy. This group of plays—The Deceived [Obol'shchennyi], The Deceiver [Obmanshchik], and The Siberian Shaman—form a triple attack on confidence men who draw unsuspecting people into their schemes.³² Because the deceivers of the play are alchemists, free-masons, and shamans, the plays promote the secular virtues of reason and logic. Just as her early comedies castigate the superstitious, the anti-Masonic trilogy criticizes the gullible. Writing This 'tis during the same year, Catherine may not have wanted to address religious belief at all, safely preferring to censure social ills of Gallomania and adultery.

Shakespeare's and Catherine's two texts also differ in performance context and conventions. One key distinction was the presence of boy-actors in English professional troupes in the roles of most female characters. Since actresses were featured on Russian Imperial and estate stages from the 1750s,³³ Russian audiences were accustomed to the correspondence of the actor's gender with the role. In performance, therefore, Catherine's version of Merry Wives was missing a layer of humor from its original production context. The climactic scenes in Shakespeare's comedy draw energy from the fact that Anne Page would have been played by a boy. Amidst the confusion of the fairy songs and the pinching of Falstaff, “enter Caius at one door and exit stealing away a Fairy in green; enter Slender at another door and exit stealing away a Fairy in white; enter Fenton and exit stealing away Anne Page” (5.5.101.1-4). Later, Slender complains about the mistaken identity:

I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page, and she's a great lubberly boy. If it had not been i' th' church, I would have swinged him, or he should have swinged me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir! And 'tis a postmaster's boy.

(5.5.181-86)

Doctor Caius has a similar reaction to the jest: “Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened: I ha' married un garcon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy; it is not Anne Page: by gar, I am cozened” (5.5.200-202). The joke in both cases is that Anne Page is also a boy actor.

Catherine retains the disguised boys in her version, although the laughing Lialiukin seems tickled by his discovery:

Ki! ki! ki! … Я dumal, ctо za ruкu vzyl аnnu Igоrsivnu … ki! ki! ki! … i pоvil, ki! ki! ki! … a vmistо ii … ki! ki! ki! … y ukvatil za ruкu … оtgadajti коgо … ki! ki! ki! … Я, pravо, dumal, ctо аnna Igоrsivna … ki! ki! ki! … a pо tоm uznal, ctо pоvarinок … ki! ki! ki!

[Hee! hee! hee! … I thought that I took the hand of Anna Egor'evna … hee! hee! hee! … and led her, hee! hee! hee! … but instead of her … hee! hee! hee! … I grasped by the hand … guess who … hee! hee! hee! … I truly thought that it was Anna Egor'evna … hee! hee! hee!. … but then I found out that it was a kitchen-boy … hee! hee! hee!]

(52)

Although the humor of the mistaken identity and gender confusion remains, the metatheatrical layer—the boy actor as Anne Page—is lost in this context.

Another common performance practice on the Elizabethan stage was the soliloquy; in Merry Wives, Ford speaks four of them. Neoclassical plays in general avoided the soliloquy as a device, since a character speaking while alone on-stage violates the principle of verisimilitude. Shakespeare was not bound by such concerns, and so used soliloquies often to reveal a character's inner plans, motivations, or emotions.

In Ford's case, each soliloquy gives further evidence of the growing tortures of his jealousy and plans for revenge. Catherine, however, omits most of these instances of self-reflection. At the end of Shakespeare's 2.1, Ford reveals his doubts about his wife, and his plans to disguise himself as Brook. Catherine's scene 2.8 is a simple exchange between Fordov and the Host, planning out the masquerade as Brook. Shakespeare's 2.2 features, like Catherine's scene 2.11, the irony of a Falstaff unwittingly talking to a disguised Ford. At the end of 2.2, Ford is much more incensed, so his second soliloquy is a jealous rampage about “the hell of having a false woman!” (2.2.275). His line “I will rather trust … a thief to walk my ambling gelding, than my wife with herself” makes reference to the play's subplot, that of the false stealing of the Host's horses (2.2.284-88). Catherine cut that plotline as well as the soliloquy, and therefore loses both the imagery of the wife as a horse, as well as the fierceness of Ford's rage at Falstaff.

Ford's next soliloquy in the middle of 3.2 implicates Mistress Page and plans to reveal Page's cause for jealousy. His self-assurance will soon be seen to be ironically humorous, for in the next scene he will be duped by linen and buck-baskets. Catherine retains the exchange between Papina and Fordov, but chooses not to show the workings of Fordov's mind nor his prideful belief in the success of his search. By trimming off each of these speeches, Catherine preserves the basic plot yet leaves Ford's emotional reactions and mental processes to the audience's imagination. Whereas in Shakespeare's comedy Ford's soliloquies make him a more sympathetic fool, Catherine's excision de-emphasizes Ford's centrality as a character.

Catherine does retain part of Ford's final soliloquy, at the end of 3.5. The speech shows Ford determined to avenge the wrongs Falstaff has done him. The speech, which is fourteen lines long, begins:

Hum! Ha! Is this a vision? Is this a dream? Do I sleep? Master Ford, awake; awake, Master Ford! There's a hole made in your best coat, Master Ford. This 'tis to be married; this 'tis to have linen and buck-baskets!

(3.5.127-131)

In Catherine's 3.15, she reduces Fordov's speech to the very brief statement: “Ni znay, vо sni li y, ili na yvu … Vоt кaкоvо imits коrzinu i bilsi … tоlsко tipirs оn u miny ni ujdit” [“I don't know whether I'm dreaming or in reality … This 'tis to have linen and buck-baskets … but now he won't be going to my house”] (39). Perhaps Catherine broke the rules of neoclassicism and retained this quite small soliloquy because it contains the title image of her comedy: “This 'tis to have linen and buck-baskets.”

Why did Catherine change the title from The Merry Wives of Windsor to This 'tis to have Linen and Buck-Baskets? Catherine's version is consistently a lean and plot-oriented version of the script, with little emphasis on language or subtlety of character. Rather than focusing her play on the Merry Wives, she instead concentrates on the play's plot of deception, and therefore on the linen and buck-baskets.

This 'tis reflects a complex historical moment: the intersection of Enlightenment secularization, a new Russian nationalism, and the older French dramatic aesthetic. Whereas Catherine can in one sense be seen as a pioneer in her choice of a Shakespearean model, the alterations examined here show a conservative approach: the transformation of the play into a neoclassical comedy. Catherine the Great's absolute power as a monarch to regulate, support, and influence the arts in her Empire was tempered by the pressure on her as a creative artist to observe accepted standards of taste and correctness in dramatic literature. Catherine's goal throughout her reign at this crystallizing period in Russian history was to forge a Russian national identity, through language, culture, and literature as well as through military action. Ironically this new Russia would be in part accomplished by a German-born princess, standing on the shoulders of an English writer, making fools of the French.

Notes

1. Quoted in A. G. Cross, “A Royal Blue-Stocking: Catherine the Great's Early Reputation in England as an Authoress,” Gorski vijenats [sic]: a Garland of Essays Offered to Professor Elizabeth Mary Hill, edited by R. Auty, L. R. Lewitter and A. P. Vlasto (Cambridge: Modern Humanities Association, 1970), 94.

2. See Ernest J. Simmons, “Catherine the Great and Shakespeare,” PMLA 47 (1932): 792.

3. Marcus Levitt, “Sumarokov's Russianized ‘Hamlet’: Texts and Contexts,” Slavic and East European Journal 38 (1994): 319.

4. Pierre Antoine de La Place, Le theatre anglois, 7 vols. (London, 1746-49).

5. J. J. Eschenburg, William Shakespeare's Schauspiele (Zurich, 1775-82).

6. For information on these early translations, see André Lirondelle, Shakespeare en Russie, 1748-1840 (Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1912), 29; Aleksei Veselovskii, Zapadnoe vliianie v novoi russkoi literature (Moskva: Russkoe T-vo pechatnago i izdatel'skago dela, 1896), 95.

7. Aleksandr Nikolaevich Pypin, Sochineniia Imperatritsy Ekateriny II (St. Petersburg: Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk, 1901-1907), 2: 255. Letter is dated 24 September 1786. Eschenburg's translation of Merry Wives seems to have been Catherine's primary source for her version.

8. Pypin, 2:219. Riurik is in Pypin 2: 219-251; Oleg is in Pypin 2: 259-304.

9. See Lurana D. O'Malley, “Catherine the Great's Operatic Splendor at Court: The Beginning of Oleg's Reign,” Essays in Theatre 17 (1998): 33-51.

10. Nikolai Platonov Barsukov, ed., Dnevnik A.V. Khrapovitskogo (St. Petersburg, 1874), 11.

11. Ekaterina Romanova Dashkova, ed., Rossiiskii featr ili polnoe sobranie vsiekh rossiiskikh teatral'nykh sochinenii (St. Petersburg: Pri Imp. Akademii nauk, 1786-94), 14: 5-10.

12. It also played in Moscow on 7 and 8 April in 1787, and again on 8 November 1788 in St. Petersburg. V. N. Vsevolodskii-Gerngross, Ot istokov do kontsa XVIII veka, Vol. 1 of Istoriia russkogo dramaticheskogo teatra v semi tomakh, (Moskva: Iskusstvo, 1977), 1: 442.

13. Grigorii A. Gukovskii, “The Empress as Writer,” in Catherine the Great: A Profile, ed. Marc Raeff, World Profiles (New York: Hill and Wang, 1972), 86.

14. H.M. Scott, “Russia as a European Great Power,” in Russia in the Age of the Enlightenment: Essays for Isabel de Madariaga, eds. Roger Bartlett and Janet Hartley (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990), 20.

15. David J. Welsh, Russian Comedy, 1765-1823 (The Hague and Paris: Mouton & Co., 1966), 77.

16. All quotations from This 'tis are from Pypin 2: 3-54. Translations are mine.

17. Simmons points out that Catherine adds one reference to Polkadov's size, by indicating he will not be able to fit into the chimney (4.3, p. 41). Simmons notes that this mention “has more point in reference to Falstaff than to Polkadov” (797).

18. André Lirondelle, “Catherine II, élève de Shakespeare,” Revue Germanique 4 (1908): 181.

19. Lirondelle, “Catherine II, élève,” 181; Lebedev, V., “Sheksper' v peredelkakh Ekateriny II,” Russkii Vestnik 134.3 (1878): 19.

20. T.W. Craik, “Introduction,” Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 38-39. All citations of Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor are of this edition.

21. Lirondelle, “Catherine II, élève,” 180.

22. Her play, A Prominent Nobleman's Entrance Hall (Peredniaia znatnago boiarina, 1772), satirizes a Frenchman, a German, and a Turk.

23. Simon Karlinsky, Russian Drama From its Beginnings to the Age of Pushkin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 159.

24. Lirondelle, “Catherine II, élève,” 183.

25. Welsh, 88.

26. Lirondelle, “Catherine II, élève,” 181.

27. As Ernest Simmons points out, some of Catherine's omissions are due to her source: Eschenburg's German translation, which neither retained the blank verse passages nor fully rendered all of Shakespeare's allusions. Simmons, 797n.

28. In 2 Henry IV, however, Mistress Quickly claims to be shaking like an aspen leaf (2.4.106-107). The Oxford Shakespeare, ed. René Weis, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 175.

29. William Green, Shakespeare's “Merry Wives of Windsor” (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1962).

30. A few lines before in Shakespeare's text, Pistol had called hope a “curtal dog” (2.2.102), which may have inspired the dog reference.

31. Isabel de Madariaga, Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great (New Haven: Yale UP, 1981), 30.

32. The first two plays were performed in early 1786, and Shaman seems to have been completed in June 1786. See Barsukov, 11 for the diary entry on 16 June 1786—one day after the entry on The Basket.

33. Catherine A. Schuler, Women in Russian Theatre: The Actress in the Silver Age (London: Routledge, 1996), 3.