Griboedov’s Comedy of Affect: Chaadaev, Chatskii, and the Decembrists

• In Event: Remembering the Decembrists at 200: New Research and Reflections

Abstract

Griboedov’s play Woe from Wit was initially rumored to be a “comedy about Chaadaev” and there are a number of ways in which the protagonist Chatskii can be understood to reference Russia’s “first philosopher” Petr Chaadaev. At the same time, Chatskii has traditionally been received as emblematic of a general social type associated with liberal Decembrist circles and is often understood to be a Decembrist in the making. In this paper I examine how Chaadaev serves as an important prototype for the “Decembrist” Chatskii, primarily in terms of a striking political affect of contempt for authority and society.

Author

• Ingrid Kleespies, U of Florida