Daisuke Adachi1; 1 Slavic-Eurasian Research Center, Hokkaido University, Japan
Discussion
As is clear from Gogol's 1837 essay, melodrama, as an import from French culture, long remained sounding foreign – not Russian, although it enjoyed great popularity on Russian stage through the nineteenth century. While vaudeville, which was considered as a neighboring genre with the same French origin, produced playwrights who wrote in Russian, melodrama did not experience "Russification" of the similar kind. However paradoxical it may seem, melodramatic elements happened to be utilized to create the image of Russianness in literature and culture, with melodrama’s generic autonomy simultaneously being eliminated. This paper examines significant cases where the complicated relationships of inclusion/exclusion of melodrama are observed in the formation of Russianness in nineteenth century Russian literature and culture.
