Origins of the Russian Puppet Theater: An Alternative Hypothesis

Abstract

The Russian puppet theater (kukol'nyi teatr or Petrushka) is not well known in the West. There are passing references to it in general histories of puppetry and the like, but unfortunately these are more often confusing than enlightening. One learns, for example, that the Old Russian version of the Polish marionette theater, the szopka, was the “bertep [sic] meaning Bethlehem,“ or that the first known description of a Russian puppet show appears in “Adam O'Leary's [sic] Travels in Russia and Persia.” Perhaps even more unfortunate, Petrushka has been neglected by native scholars as well. Their failure to deal seriously with the origins of the Russian puppet theater has been particularly glaring, and they have also largely ignored its early history. Most have, in fact, been content to view the entire period before the 1630s, when Adam Olearius appeared with his famous illustrated description of a performing Russian puppeteer, as terra incognita.