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A contribution to: Rewriting(s)

Edited by Lucy Russell and Eleanor Dobson

MHRA Working Papers in the Humanities 11

Modern Humanities Research Association

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Abstract.  Anna Radlova was one of the first to undertake the translation of Shakespeare into Russian in the Stalinist period, whilst Othello was the most popular of Shakespeare’s plays in the Soviet Union in the 1930s–40s. Radlova’s translation of Othello was used by her director husband, Sergei Radlov in two highly successful productions in 1935, at his studio-theatre in Leningrad, and the Malyi Theatre in Moscow. For Radlova, the translator was first and foremost a communicator, a mouthpiece through which the greats of foreign literature and drama could speak to the Soviet people. She argued the need for new Russian-language versions of Shakespeare, which could be truly understood and appreciated by Soviet audiences. Radlov, meanwhile, contended that as a soldier embodying all the best qualities of the Renaissance period, Othello was the ideal hero for the Soviet stage. This article uses translation theory in order to investigate the ways in which the play was shaped by the boundaries of socialist realism, and explores the tactics adopted by a translator and director in order to ensure that Shakespeare’s play remained on stage under the increasingly repressive political regime.

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