This is Drama | book premiere
Under what value system do mothers send their sons unchallenged to the front counting on compensation if they do not return? How is it possible that Russian wives condone the rape of Ukrainian women by Russian soldiers? Is Russia in a moral crisis and were signs of it already visible before the war?
On 4 May 2023, a Russian court detained playwright Svetlana Petriychuk for two months on charges of incitement to terrorism. The reason for the arrest was the play 'Finist - Bright Miracle - Falcon'. The drama is included in the latest anthology of the Mroszewski Centre, 'This is Drama'. In addition to 'Finist', it includes nine other dramas not yet published anywhere in Polish translation.
In the dramas by various authors, we see the same problems over and over again: the isolated individual in the struggle against a corrupt totalitarian system and the perception of reality through the prism of a false choice between freedom and security. The protagonists of the dramas live in the conviction of the hopelessness of everyday life, have no chance of social advancement and see no point in trying to change the status quo. For them, the only answer to such a life is violence against others and themselves. This is Russia in the eyes of ten playwrights, moments before the full-scale aggression against Ukraine.
The selection of dramas for the anthology was made by Mikhail Durnienkov. As the playwright himself noted in the introduction to the book: "The present anthology was written in a different country and at a different time. The 'miraculous' period of the pandemic was in progress, which today, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, we recall with a slight nostalgia. And, of course, if this anthology were written today, it would look very different. However, the dramas collected in this anthology are still relevant, as are the issues that troubled the authors in 2020. Many of them have even become more relevant." and this is because Russia's problem remains timeless - systemic stifling and malaise in the face of the actions of the state apparatus. This is why this unique collection of dramas, when the carriages familiar from classical Russian prose are replaced by the metro and the language is adapted to today's realities, remains true to the unchanging spirit of Russia and its people once and for all.
We invited you to a conversation around the anthology of Russian dramas 'This is Drama'.
