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Soviet and Post-Soviet References to Hamlet on Film and Television

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Onscreen Allusions to Shakespeare

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Abstract

Hamlet has a rich, intertextual screen history in Russia in television shows and motion pictures. This chapter analyzes references to that play in Soviet and post-Soviet works, ranging from brief comic citations to what we term Hamletization, a process of appropriation encompassing allusions, appropriation of and references to characters and motifs of Hamlet. Examples include Soviet crime comedy film Beware of the Car (1965), the children’s comedy television show Yeralash, in which an episode (“Poor Yurick”) references Hamlet, and the TV series 33 Square Meters (1999–2000).

The chapter was prepared within the framework of the project “Shakespeare in Contemporary Russian Culture: The National and Global” with support from the Council for Grants of the President of the Russian Federation (MК-1182.2017.6).

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Correspondence to Boris N. Gaydin .

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Gaydin, B.N., Zakharov, N.V. (2022). Soviet and Post-Soviet References to Hamlet on Film and Television. In: Joubin, A.A., Bladen, V. (eds) Onscreen Allusions to Shakespeare. Global Shakespeares. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93783-6_10

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