“In the Name of Socialism”: Russian Theme in the Plays by Tony Kushner

Issue:

№3 2017
УДК / UDK: 821.111(73)-2
DOI:

10.22455/2541-7894-2017-3-417-429
Author: Elena G. Dotsenko
About the author:

Elena G. Dotsenko (Doctor Hab. in Philology, Professor; Ural State Pedagogical University, Yekaterinburg, Russia)

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Abstract:

The paper deals with Tony Kushner’s plays Perestroika and Slavs!, which consider the questions of Russian history. Perestroika is Part II of Kushner’s Angels in America, and the play is not actually devoted to the ‘Russian theme’, but forms parallels between ‘national themes’ in the USA of 1980–1990s and Russian Perestroika of the same period. Slavs! is a play about the 1980–1990s as well, but it is often called “a chronicle of a Russian Revolution” (J. Fisher). T. Kusher is interested in Revolution as a longstanding problem. The playwright investigates the impact of several ideological systems on the history of Russia.
Keywords: Tony Kushner, American drama, political theatre, Vladimir Lenin, Angels in America, Slavs!, Revolution, Perestroika, socialism, Nikolay Chernyshevsky.
References:

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