Pyotr Shereshevsky: «We are trying to examine Lermontov’s drama *Masquerade* through today’s lens. Lermontov wrote the drama in the ‘tradition of extreme passions’. A drama that never made it to the stage and was not published during his lifetime. Although he rewrote it many times, trying to overcome the censorship ban. But the main thing in this story he could not compromise on — an extremely gloomy, pessimistic view of human nature.» Arbenin, the main character of this drama, initially perceives the world as a repository of vice. The world is inherently evil and criminal; the pure Nina is an exception to the rule. His love for her is a way of escaping from the world, an act of escapism. And her imagined infidelity puts everything in its place. By killing her, Arbenin takes revenge on the world for its imperfections, for its depravity. This play is a rebellion against society and the universe. That is why the censors were so outraged: in this play, there is nowhere, no basis, to establish morality.
Almost two hundred years after the play was written, we are trying to study the consciousness of the modern person. Our Arbenin is a philologist, a Lermontov scholar. He seems to be forewarned. And he can cheerfully present the misconceptions of that Lermontovian Arbenin in a lecture. But to what extent do our knowledge and the lessons of culture we have absorbed protect us from savagery and passions? A small push is enough to leave a modern person hanging on the edge of an abyss. And there lies black misanthropy, revenge, murder. How well is a cultured person protected by all of humanity’s experience from savagery, from crime?
We have written an original play that reflects on the themes of Lermontov’s *Masquerade*. It preserves a fairly large body of Lermontov’s texts. But we have also used texts and motifs from other literary works that are similar in terms of their subject matter. For example, Schnitzler’s «A Short Story about Dreams» became a second pillar in the study of the dark, hidden aspects of the human soul.
