'Vot denezhki! Kopeechki! Voz’mite!': The Liberating Force of Private Capital in Alexander Ostrovsky’s Koz’ma Zakhar’ich Minin, Sukhoruk

• In Event: New Perspectives on Russian Theater and Performing Arts IV: The Aesthetics and Politics of Capitalism: People, Money, and Labor in Russian Theater

Abstract

Alexander Ostrovsky’s 1862 historical drama, Koz’ma Zakhar’ich Minin, Sukhoruk depicts Kuz’ma (Koz’ma) Minin and his fellow Nizhegorodians as they form and fund a militia that endeavors to retake Polish-Lithuanian-occupied Moscow (1611-1612). Ostrovsky’s rendering of Minin remembers a Rus’ besieged by foreign enemies that are repelled by regular people, who unite with the boyars to defend the land that they see as their shared ancestral right. The donations solicited throughout the play posit financial aid as fundamental to the continued existence of a Russian state. In this paper, I examine the role that Minin’s philanthropic work and money play in the wartime effort to argue that Koz’ma Zakhar’ich Minin, Sukhoruk emphasizes the power of capital in acts of patriotic service and, in so doing, reimagines the financial and moral worth of private wealth during times of war.

Author

• Chloe Simone Papadopoulos, U of Southern California