FARCE THEATRE IN RUSSIAN: SARDOU'S SEQUELER, N.A. LUKHMANOVA

Nadezhda Lukhmanova (1841-1907) was an important figure in the history of Russian farce theatre. She gained notoriety as a translator with the audience-winning comedy A Hero of the First Empire (1894, based on the play by Victorien Sardou and emile Moreau Madame Sans-Gene, 1893). Lukhmanova made a lot of changes to the play: it was not a translation but a retelling of the story, quite far from the original version. Her free translation and her creation of a sequel to the Madame Sans-Gene story (the play Napoleon 1, 1895) raised a wave of negative critical reviews. Critics regarded Lukhmanova as a predatory translator who spoiled original works and stole good ideas. Later she translated a large number of farces that were successful with audiences, and wrote several original plays. However, her work as a translator of farcical plays influenced public perceptions of her fiction and journalism. Readers and critics questioned why a writer and publicist, known for moralizing lectures and articles, should translate farces? The truth is that work in the farcical genre helped Lukhmanova to rethink the story of her personal life, demonstrating the absurdity of marriage conventions -and to play this out in front of an audience. (c) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Nadezhda Lukhmanova played an important role in Russian farce theatre as a translator. Her translation of the comedy "A Hero of the First Empire" brought her notoriety, but also criticism for her changes to the original play. Despite the negative reviews, she went on to translate and write numerous successful farces.