Evolution of Alexander Pushkin’s Image in Russian Drama through the biographical myth

The image of Alexander Pushkin in Russian literature is an independent and relevant research topic. This article traces its evolution across one hundred years of Russian drama (1899–1999) through the biographical myth and its mythologemes. The comparative historical method made it possible to assess the contributions made by different playwrights to Pushkin’s biographical myth. The image of Pushkin acquired different interpretations in different epochs, from the mythological sacralization through the Soviet drama and to demythologization. While using the same mythologemes, the playwrights selected different biographical facts and adapted them to the schemes established in the contemporary mass consciousness. The Pushkin myth in drama revealed some chronological invariants. The Soviet and Perestroika plays focused on the topic of heritage and descendants. Over the course of a century, the image of Pushkin turned from an archetypal poet-demiurge and victim of the crowd to a fighter for the freedom of speech, only to be stereotyped and desacralized in the late 20th century.

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