Olga Partan is Assistant Professor of Russian at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts. She received her PhD with a dissertation on the commedia dell’arte in Russian culture from Brown University in 2004. She has authored several articles and book chapters on Russian literature and the performing arts, and a Russian-language memoir You were right, Filumena! (Moscow: PROZAiK, 2012).

• List of Illustrations Acknowledgments A Note on Transliteration Introduction Chapter 1: Early Harlequinized Art Chapter 2: Anna Ioannovna’s Italian Decade Chapter 3: Russifying the Commedia dell’Arte: Vasilii Trediakovsky and Aleksandr Sumarokov Chapter 4: Ramifications of the Italian Decade Chapter 5: Nikolai Gogol’s The Overcoat: The Italian Ancestry of Akakii Bashmachkin Chapter 6: The Modernist Revival of the Commedia dell’Arte Chapter 7: The Commedia dell’Arte in Evgenii Vakhtangov’s Princess Turandot Chapter 8: Harlequin and His Lath: Vladimir Nabokov’s Last Novel Look at the Harlequins! Chapter 9: From the Empress Anna Ioannovna to the Empress of Popular Culture, Alla Pugacheva Epilogue: The Italian Arlecchino on the Post-Soviet Stage

"A treasure-trove of a book, Partan’s meticulously researched and thought-provoking exploration of the influence of the Italian commedia dell’arte on the Russian cultural developments in the last three hundred years will be of significant interest not only to scholars of Russian studies and comparative literature but also to specialists in theater and performance studies. Its breadth of thinking and range of reference are truly astonishing. The book offers an entertainingly readable and widely informative account of early harlequinized art forms found in Russia in the eighteenth century; Trediakovsky’s Russified versions of commedia dell’arte’s plays; Gogol’s works; Diaghilev’s ballets; Blok’s plays; and​ Nabokov’s ​​Look at the Harlequins!; as well as Soviet and post-Soviet engagement with this Italian tradition, including Vakhtangov’s production of ​​Princess Turandot and Alla Pugacheva’s artistic persona. This timely and relevant book is marked by its crisply organi​z​ed structure and lucid narration. It is also richly supplemented by visual materials that w​ill enable the reader to visuali​z​e the many-faceted forms of Russian laughter infused with merry childishness and ​the ​flamboyant spirit of the Italian artistic imagination rooted in the Renaissance culture."

Olga Partan is Assistant Professor of Russian at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts. She received her PhD with a dissertation on the commedia dell’arte in Russian culture from Brown University in 2004. She has authored several articles and book chapters on Russian literature and the performing arts, and a Russian-language memoir You were right, Filumena! (Moscow: PROZAiK, 2012).

• List of Illustrations Acknowledgments A Note on Transliteration Introduction Chapter 1: Early Harlequinized Art Chapter 2: Anna Ioannovna’s Italian Decade Chapter 3: Russifying the Commedia dell’Arte: Vasilii Trediakovsky and Aleksandr Sumarokov Chapter 4: Ramifications of the Italian Decade Chapter 5: Nikolai Gogol’s The Overcoat: The Italian Ancestry of Akakii Bashmachkin Chapter 6: The Modernist Revival of the Commedia dell’Arte Chapter 7: The Commedia dell’Arte in Evgenii Vakhtangov’s Princess Turandot Chapter 8: Harlequin and His Lath: Vladimir Nabokov’s Last Novel Look at the Harlequins! Chapter 9: From the Empress Anna Ioannovna to the Empress of Popular Culture, Alla Pugacheva Epilogue: The Italian Arlecchino on the Post-Soviet Stage

"A treasure-trove of a book, Partan’s meticulously researched and thought-provoking exploration of the influence of the Italian commedia dell’arte on the Russian cultural developments in the last three hundred years will be of significant interest not only to scholars of Russian studies and comparative literature but also to specialists in theater and performance studies. Its breadth of thinking and range of reference are truly astonishing. The book offers an entertainingly readable and widely informative account of early harlequinized art forms found in Russia in the eighteenth century; Trediakovsky’s Russified versions of commedia dell’arte’s plays; Gogol’s works; Diaghilev’s ballets; Blok’s plays; and​ Nabokov’s ​​Look at the Harlequins!; as well as Soviet and post-Soviet engagement with this Italian tradition, including Vakhtangov’s production of ​​Princess Turandot and Alla Pugacheva’s artistic persona. This timely and relevant book is marked by its crisply organi​z​ed structure and lucid narration. It is also richly supplemented by visual materials that w​ill enable the reader to visuali​z​e the many-faceted forms of Russian laughter infused with merry childishness and ​the ​flamboyant spirit of the Italian artistic imagination rooted in the Renaissance culture."

Olga Partan is Assistant Professor of Russian at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts. She received her PhD with a dissertation on the commedia dell’arte in Russian culture from Brown University in 2004. She has authored several articles and book chapters on Russian literature and the performing arts, and a Russian-language memoir You were right, Filumena! (Moscow: PROZAiK, 2012).

• List of Illustrations Acknowledgments A Note on Transliteration Introduction Chapter 1: Early Harlequinized Art Chapter 2: Anna Ioannovna’s Italian Decade Chapter 3: Russifying the Commedia dell’Arte: Vasilii Trediakovsky and Aleksandr Sumarokov Chapter 4: Ramifications of the Italian Decade Chapter 5: Nikolai Gogol’s The Overcoat: The Italian Ancestry of Akakii Bashmachkin Chapter 6: The Modernist Revival of the Commedia dell’Arte Chapter 7: The Commedia dell’Arte in Evgenii Vakhtangov’s Princess Turandot Chapter 8: Harlequin and His Lath: Vladimir Nabokov’s Last Novel Look at the Harlequins! Chapter 9: From the Empress Anna Ioannovna to the Empress of Popular Culture, Alla Pugacheva Epilogue: The Italian Arlecchino on the Post-Soviet Stage

"A treasure-trove of a book, Partan’s meticulously researched and thought-provoking exploration of the influence of the Italian commedia dell’arte on the Russian cultural developments in the last three hundred years will be of significant interest not only to scholars of Russian studies and comparative literature but also to specialists in theater and performance studies. Its breadth of thinking and range of reference are truly astonishing. The book offers an entertainingly readable and widely informative account of early harlequinized art forms found in Russia in the eighteenth century; Trediakovsky’s Russified versions of commedia dell’arte’s plays; Gogol’s works; Diaghilev’s ballets; Blok’s plays; and​ Nabokov’s ​​Look at the Harlequins!; as well as Soviet and post-Soviet engagement with this Italian tradition, including Vakhtangov’s production of ​​Princess Turandot and Alla Pugacheva’s artistic persona. This timely and relevant book is marked by its crisply organi​z​ed structure and lucid narration. It is also richly supplemented by visual materials that w​ill enable the reader to visuali​z​e the many-faceted forms of Russian laughter infused with merry childishness and ​the ​flamboyant spirit of the Italian artistic imagination rooted in the Renaissance culture."