Ex libris Elena Gremina

"Literary Likbez is my old idea." Playwright, Theater leader.doc finds treasures in classics and primary sources

I read a lot, especially when it is necessary for work - one book pulls another. I love the primary sources very much, I like to restore historical events, to imagine what could be behind it. Now, for one television project, I needed facts about the Russo-Turkish war. As a result, I read the mass of interesting.
1. Recently, the historical composition of Jason Goodwin “The Greatness and Collapse of the Ottoman Empire” was published. I read in parallel with the history of the Cossacks and Gaidamaks, I have such an old book “Umanskaya Bill” in 1862, a collection of documents about the so -called Uman massacre and the uprising of Gaidamaks in the XVIII century. They preceded the fall of the Zaporizhzhya Sich, the destruction of it in 1775 Catherine II. And the reason was that the Turkish empire, which was the most powerful power in Asia, weakened. After the defeat of the Ottomans in the First Russo-Turkish War, the Zaporizhzhya Sich. The Cossacks guarded the Russian Empire in the great field from the raids of the Tatars and the Turks, fugitives were nailed to them all the time. And after the weakening of the Turks, Catherine decided to put the end to this freemen. Incredibly interesting historical drama.

2. I now have a collection of poems by Athanasius Fet "Evening Lights" on the table. I think to write a biographical play about Fet and Apollo Grigoriev. These two different people grew together, were friends, then life divorced them. Fet began with collapse, in his youth it became known that he was an illegitimate son, he took his father’s title and position in the light, and he had to start everything from scratch, but managed, however, to build his life, then achieved a fortune, nobility and married favorably, although he experienced fatal novels. And until old age he wrote wonderful verses. In his views, he was in a great conflict with the progressive public, despite the fact that poems are innovative, absolutely modern. Apollo Grigoryev was exactly the opposite. A richly gifted person, beautiful, bright, everything was open in front of him, but he constantly destroyed his life. He wrote stunning critical work, had a great influence on contemporaries - Ostrovsky, Dostoevsky, handed out his ideas, and from him everything that remains was “two guitars behind the wall ...” alcohol, fatal love, drama, as a result, married a prostitute, trying to save her. And it was an extremely unsuccessful and tragic marriage. Two poets, two different fates, their conversation with each other - it seems to me that on stage it could be very interesting.
3. By order of the Moscow Department of Culture, the project “Classic in Schools” is being prepared - to introduce adolescents to reading. To do this, I read the "Tale of Bygone Years." Theater artists.doc will perform with this in schools, and then we will make a puppet performance together with the Moscow Puppet Theater. Each actor will have his own short story.
4. Recently, I read, as Pushkin said, “The novel is classic, ancient, excellent long, long, long” - Samuel Richardson “Clarissa” . This is a novel in letters, such a soap opera of the XVIII century: few heroes, they endlessly tell each other what happened yesterday and will be today, the course of the novel time is very close to the real one. At the same time, a cool feminist drama, as they would say today. About the sixteen -year -old girl Clarissa Harlo, a very vivid person, who, due to the extraordinary grandfather, bequeathed the condition, which became the beginning of her misfortunes: the relatives were terribly offended and tried to configure her to marry the old man. And then Laylas arose, a hero whose name became a household name, from these handsome grafting marquers, whom the French revolution then dared from the face of the earth. Since they were especially nothing to do in that era, they put their entire drive into women: everything that remained the nobleman, an aristocrat who did not want to engage in intrigues at the court and catch the views of the monarchs. Laylas finds the meaning of life for herself to seduce a girl who can not be seduced - this is the duel of the fatal two individuals, each of which does not want to submit. I had a long -standing idea of ​​a literary likbez, because people stopped reading such “stupid” works. And the story is exciting, and if it is the forces of the theater, there are many treasures.