Evgeny Shvarts

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Evgeny L'vovich Shvarts (Russian: ) (October 21, 1896, Kazan – January 15, 1958, Leningrad; [[Russian:]] Евгений Львович Шварц) was a soviet writer and dramatist, an author of 25 plays, and also scenarios for 3 films.

Shvarts was born in 1896 in Kazan in a family of a doctor. In the end of 1910s he learned in the Faculty of Law of MSU, but then he decided to devote his life to dramatic art and literature. Since 1924 he lived in Leningrad, worked in Gosizdat under the guide of Samuil Ya. Marshak, in that time he also became close with members of literature union OBERIU.

Since 1929 Shvarts began writing plays, the most known of them are the fairy-tales «Golyj korol» (Naked king) (1934), «Krasnaya Shapochka» (Little Red Hat) (1936), «Snezhnaya Koroleva» (Snow Queen) (1938), «Tjen» (The Shadow) (1940), «Drakon» (The Dragon) (1944) and «Obyknovennoye Chudo» (? Ordinary Marvel) (1956).

Screenings of many of his plays were shot.

Plays

The Dragon

This play, the most "adult" of Shvarts' plays, is aimed against totalitarianism. The plot is based on the attempt of the hero — Lancelot — to liberate people in a land from the Dragon's severe rule. But his efforts were in vain, since most of the people have adopted the Dragon and considered his methods though being brutal to be the only possible. As the Dragon said to the hero,

My dear man, I crippled them myself. Crippled them exactly as required. You see, the human soul is very resilient. Cut the body in half — and the man croaks. But tear the soul apart — and it only becomes more pliable, that's all. No, really, you couldn't pick a finer assortment of souls anywhere. Only in my town. Souls with no hands. Souls with no legs. Mute souls, deaf souls, chained souls, snitch souls, damned souls.

Killing the Dragon neither freed the people nor sufficiently changed their lives, resulting mostly in the change of their ruler. When Lancelot returned in the town the next year, he realized: This is going to be a very meticulous job... We have to kill the dragon in each one of them.

External links

Read [The Dragon] (or [here]). Also to be noted is the movie "To kill the Dragon" (the filming of the play which was shot in 1988).
() [Biography]

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