A fascinating feminist counterpoint to the established area of Russian theatre populated by male artists such as Stanislavsky, Chekov and Meyerhold. Schuler focuses upon the extraordinary lives and work of eight Russian actresses.

Women in Russian Theatre is a fascinating feminist counterpoint to the established area of Russian theatre populated by male artists such as Stanislavsky, Chekov and Meyerhold. With unprecedented access to newly-opened files in Russia, Catherine Schuler brings to light the actresses who had an impact upon Russian modernist theatre. Schuler brings to light the extradordinary lives and work of eight Russian actresses who flourished on the stage between the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

"This collection of essays examines the lives of women across Russia--from wealthy noblewomen in St Petersburg to desperately poor peasants in Siberia--discussing their interaction with the Church and the law, and their rich contribution to music, art, literature and theatre. It shows how women struggled for greater autonomy and, both individually and collectively, developed a dynamic presence in Russia's culture and society"--Publisher's description.

This collection addresses key questions in women's theatre history and retrieves a number of previously "hidden" histories of women performers. The essays range across the past 300 years--topics covered include Susanna Centlivre and the notion of intertheatricality; gender and theatrical space; the repositioning of women performers such as Wagner's Muse, Willhelmina Schröder-Devrient, the Comédie Français' "Mademoiselle Mars," Mme. Arnould-Plessey, and the actresses of the Russian serf theatre.

The 1980s witnessed the ascendency of Russian women in multiple spheres of artistic creation, including literature, film, and painting. This volume may thus be said to engage not only women's artistic production but, indeed, the best and most colourful of recent Russian culture. Treating contemporary Russian women's creativity, it approaches women's texts, films, and canvasses from a range of perspectives, from anti-gendered to feminist. Some of the essays introduce writers not previously well studied, others challenge conventional interpretations and assumptions, while still others yield original viewpoints through novel juxtapositions. In addition to offering insights into the various artists under analysis, the essays map the wide terrain of issues and methodologies proliferating in cultural criticism today, and mirror the diversity that is one of the most appealing features of women's creativity in contemporary Russia.

The image of women in Russian culture has undergone profound changes: from the origins of modern Russian literature in the eighteenth century until the Revolution of 1917, when women were a source of fascination for Russian writers, to the socialist realism period, during which public discussion of the representation of women in literature rapidly declined and the "woman question" was declared to have been "resolved," to a reappraisal of the position of women since the 1980s. This collection of essays by leading western and Russian specialists contains new insights and updates previous research into the role of women in Russian culture in the last two centuries and contributes to two exciting and growing research areas: the feminist critique of work by Russian male authors and the study of Russian women writers. Moreover, whereas most previous studies have concentrated on the aesthetic qualities of works by women writers, this collection includes both close textual analysis and the discussion of biographical, historical, and political questions relating both to the representation of women and women's culture. The aim is not to present aunified manifesto, but rather to bring together a spectrum of approaches and positions within their common focus on the relationship between women and culture in Russia. Contributors: R. Marsh, A. Barker, J. Andrew, D. Greene, I. Kazakova, C. Schuler, S. Graham, K. Hodgson, N. Kolchevska, N. Cornwell, J. Curtis, M. Katz, M. Ledkovsky, P.I. Barta, A. Darmodekhina, D. Gillespie, N. Zhuravkina, B. Lanin, S. Carsten, A. Tait

Every single artistic endeavor in Stanislavsky's life was achieved in close collaboration with female partners. First, it was his own mother, Elizaveta Alekseyeva, who shaped his personality, and encouraged his exploration of theatre. Then it was his artistic mother, Glikeria Fedotova, who guided him through the ten years of his work. Then Maria Lilina, his wife, who became his best student, and later one of the best actresses of the Art Theatre. It would be impossible to understand Stanislavsky's development as an actor and director without his work with Maria Andreyeva, the 'femme fatale' of turn of the century Russian theatre, or Olga Knipper, whom he directed and acted with for forty years. And near the end of his life, when Stanislavsky introduced the method of physical action (metod phizicheskix deistvii), another woman embraced his work, a young actress named Irina Rozanova. Stanislavsky and Female Actors is the exploration of Stanislavsky's artistic and personal relationship with the leading actresses of the Moscow Art Theatre. It seeks to portray their life-long artistic dialogue and offers a new biographical study of the previously unknown spheres of Stanislavsky's life, as well as the lives of the Moscow Art Theatre's principal actresses.