theatre

The single sentence by Mikhail Bulgakov about the final of Nikolay Gogol’s play «Revizor» provokes the author of this work to contemplate the finals of Bulgakov’s plays as well. The researcher suggests that Bulgakov considered the Gogol’s final an excellent example of a grotesque («thunderous», as Bulgakov himself called it) end of action. He proves that such type of an unnatural, unexpected denouement distinguishes many Bulgakov’s works.

The article considers the topic of visualizing theatre elements in the texts of the first Russian plays of the end of the XVIIth and the beginning of the XVIIIth century in its relation to the West-European and Russian book printing culture.