Комедия Михаила Зощенко «Преступление и наказание» на советском экране: вымысел и реальность

Abstract

The paper analyses the topical content of M.M. Zoshchenko’s one act play Crime and Punishment (1933), as well as the historical reality which is implied by the explicitly “Dostoevsky’s” title of the play. The appeal to this problem and the novelty of the author’s concept are due to, among other things, the lack of research on the declared topic. The author refers to the archival documents and legal acts that explain the real reasons for the emotional sufferings of the central character of the play, who in the slang of the time was called “nesoon” (“the one who carries away”), that is a “plunderer of people’s property”. He was afraid to be condemned to capital punishment and confiscation of his property. The notions of “crime” and “punishment” in Zoshchenko’s play acquire new and, indeed, topical meanings, so that the title of the play ceases to be just an allusion to Dostoevsky. Two screen versions of the play under the same title present different interpretations of the literary original. Having performed a consistent analysis of the films, including the correlation of the social context and the artistic text, the author comes to the following conclusions about their comedic leitmotivs. The short screen version produced in 1940 by the film director Pavel Kolomoytsev, was obviously associated with the political reality of the time: in 1932, the Central Committee of the Communist Party had issued a Decree concerning the protection of state enterprise property, the crimes of its plunderers and the ensuing punishments. The specific comical effect of this screen version may be defined as laughter through (in spite of) fear. It is clear why the film was banned by the censorship and was not shown for half a century: “the thief is depicted as the one who suffers”. The screen version by Leonid Gaidai produced in 1975 (as part of the film in three stories by Zoshchenko, under the title Ne Mozhet Byt! (It Can’t Be!)) had nothing to do with the above mentioned Decree (which had been annulled by that time). The events in this version are placed in the year 1927, before the Decree, so the plunderers did not need to be afraid of capital punishment. The characters in this screen version of the comedy just feign fear of punishment, just make a pretence of suffering. The comic effect of Gaidai’s version may be defined as laughter through (in spite of) roaring.